Laura Spinney offers a defence for the worst public health disaster in a hundred years, saying that “scientists were in the dark” (Covid lawsuits and inquiries are looming – but blame won’t prevent future pandemics, 29 September).
In fact, a section of the UK public health community had embraced the deeply flawed approach of herd immunity, and, along with the government, flatly ignored the evidence coming from abroad that the virus could be suppressed.
On 28 February 2020, the World Health Organization published detailed guidance on how to do this based on the results of the WHO-China joint mission. This was ignored here despite the urgent pleas of experts such as Richard Horton in the Lancet. The countries that paid attention and intervened decisively with public health measures were able to protect their populations – as in New Zealand and Singapore, with around just a hundred deaths in total between them. In England, a laissez-faire government was happy to adopt a failed theory to justify a continually failing policy. And in this there is a great deal of blame to be allocated.
Dr Greg Philo
Glasgow
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