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KAROL SIKORA: It’s illogical and simply invites ridicule and disobedience from an increasingly skeptical and tired audience.
Expert Advisors have deep and very specific areas of expertise, but can only offer a selective view of the facts, in this case a recent and modest increase in coronavirus infections in young people, to ministers.
The final decision, based on a balanced assessment of competing opinions, has to be a political one that convinces the public.
And I’m afraid that the slogan ‘Hands, Face, Space’, crowned with the Rule of Six, a ban on gatherings of more than six people indoors or outdoors, will fail miserably in that regard.
Of course, it is much safer for 20 people to meet, socially distanced, in a park than to have six people meet in a crowded living room, but the new restriction does not provide for this.
It is illogical and simply invites ridicule and disobedience from an increasingly skeptical and weary public that is confused and disillusioned by repeated stop-and-go initiatives, whether testing or quarantine or return to the workplace, for the past six years. months.
And certainly the latest tricks do nothing to address the fear factor that has so many in its power.
Yet what an opportunity Boris Johnson had to change the mood of the nation Wednesday night when he addressed us from the lectern in Downing Street.
First, I could have congratulated the school teachers for coming together to end the social isolation of millions of children and reactivate their education again.
What an opportunity Boris Johnson had to change the mood of the nation Wednesday night when he addressed us from the lectern in Downing Street.
This is a crucial step towards safeguarding the mental health of children whose short lives have been disrupted in 2020.
Next, he should have urged college and university students to start the new period with optimism.
Then he should have recognized that spike in infections (unsurprisingly when people start mixing again) in healthy young people who are largely invulnerable to the coronavirus, while also emphasizing another critical statistic: last week, ten times more. people died in England of flu and pneumonia from Covid.
Fourth, and I speak as a cancer specialist, I would have loved to hear the Prime Minister acknowledge the tens of thousands of people who, due to the impact of Covid-19 on routine NHS screening programs and the restrictions under which many family doctors surgeries are operating, they do not seek a diagnosis or treatment for worrisome symptoms.
Have no doubts, this is the next wave of collateral damage from Covid-19.
I wish Johnson had told the nation to coax or intimidate our loved ones into demanding to be seen by their GP, via Zoom if necessary, because that will truly save lives.
I doubt that the Rule of Six makes a substantial difference in the rate of reinfection, but one thing is absolutely certain. Thousands more people will die in the coming months and years from undiagnosed cancers, heart disorders, and other treatable conditions that will directly succumb to Covid-19.
And the lack of urgency – recognition – around this growing crisis really makes me desperate.
The rationale for the initial lockdown was ‘Protect the NHS’. Well, the NHS coped well, essentially shutting down everyone but Covid admissions, A&E, and maternity care.
But we ignore the cost to human health of this, and it will be very high indeed.
The basic model predicts at least 30,000 additional cancer deaths as a result of the limitations of UK diagnostic services. Take the case of prostate cancer: As the Mail reported this week, referrals have been cut in half since the lockdown began.
When it comes to routine operations, it will take years for the NHS to recover, if ever. Wait times for knee and hip replacements are the longest in 12 years, with 2.15 million patients on the charts.
People eating at tables set up outside on Old Compton St in Soho, London, August 31
The trends are even scarier in cardiac care. The figures suggest a nearly 50 percent drop in the number of heart attacks in the UK in the first three months of the shutdown.
This would be a staggering figure if it were true, but unfortunately it is not. What it really means is that thousands of people who suffered heart attack symptoms on the milder end of the spectrum were too scared to go to the hospital for treatment.
If you do not receive treatment for a mild heart attack, you can convince yourself that you have recovered, but your heart muscles will have weakened. You are much more likely to experience gradual heart failure and sudden death in the next few years.
Psychologically, the fundamental problem with the Rule of Six is that it turns the tide toward a return to normalcy that we as a nation have to desperately cling to. Worst of all, it undermines any effort to get people back to work, especially via public transportation. Any sensible person may wonder how it can be safe to ride a bus or train with heavy traffic if it is considered dangerous to gather your extended family in your own home.
And as for the ‘moonshot’ mass population testing plan, well, I wish I could get excited about it.
Here is an obvious problem. Even if it can be done, testing at this level will yield hundreds of thousands of false positive results, requiring those people, plus all of their contacts, to self-quarantine. This is not practical and will not happen.
I am concerned that Boris and his ministers and advisers have wasted so much political capital with policy changes, U-turns, nonsensical slogans, and gimmicks that the nation, and especially the young, are beginning to dismiss everything they hear.
People will even stop obeying sensible rules like washing hands, wearing a mask in public, and keeping their distance. I am currently on holiday in North Wales and realized when I went out for curries last night that an unlikely number of people had registered under Smith’s name in the restaurant’s test and trace book.
This open defiance, I suspect, will become the norm, and the plan to employ Covid Marshals to enforce the restrictions, I fear, will lead the authorities to ridicule.
This government has been very successful in the business of spreading fear about Covid, but not much else.
What people desperately need now is to believe that things can, and will return, to a state they recognize. Above all, they crave the most human emotion: a sense of hope.
Karol Sikora is Professor of Medicine at Buckingham University School of Medicine and Medical Director of Rutherford Health.
