Lessons From the Pandemic

We’re publishing a new piece today by Dr. Simon M. Fox, a Consultant in Infectious Diseases and Internal Medicine in an NHS Hospital. Yesterday he wrote for us on his decision not to be vaccinated despite the threat to his career. Today he sets out the lessons the country needs to learn from the debacle of the last two years. Here’s an excerpt, from the section titled “Our institutions have fallen”.

Parliament sang with one voice, Conservative, Labour and the also-rans. Precious few voices questioned the narrative. Perhaps most dangerously, the media was craven in its daily standing ovation and baying for encore or worse, demanding stricter constraints. Homage to the mythical R number and the ghoulish daily death toll became a sacrament – proof against all argument and blasphemy to question. The few lone voices of individuality and independent thought were crushed in the stampede to applaud the dear leaders. The Hall of Shame for once respected media figures that ceased any pretence at scrutiny is now a long one. Most disgracefully some journalists even called for punishment and persecution of those who questioned or refused to comply. You will forever be held in contempt by those who recognise your dereliction of duty. On the whole, the legacy media institutions were an abject failure.

Police forces adopted their new role as arm of the authoritarian government with far too much relish. Harassment of non-threatening and easily subdued members of the public attempting to go about their daily lives was money for old rope. At the same time, they were all too eager to sink to one knee when faced with a baying mob and criminal damage. All the politically correct training designed by activists came to fruition and prevented the police realising that they are citizens in uniform and not an instrument of repression. The judiciary had little to say on civil liberties; all was justified by the pandemic.

Disturbingly, the medical profession for the most part demonstrated quite how willing it was to nod along with the dominant narrative. Our public health leaders, perhaps in exchange for a sense of importance for the first time ever, were willing to say things they could not know while denying things they knew to be the case. They continued to sell doomsday projections from defunct models without making the case that there were alternative opinions.

While there was some excellent scientific work carried out in haste, we catastrophically failed as a profession to uphold the principles of scientific scrutiny of the products of that work. Those that tried, like Sunetra Gupta and the signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration, were vilified. In a tunnel vision focus on the wretched R number, SAGE members sought above all to avoid any damage to their own professional reputations. They are beginning to discover that in doing so they have written their names in infamy for posterity. The failure to acknowledge the gathering evidence on the futility of mask mandates, lockdowns and other restrictions will weigh heavy in the final examination.

Committees and decision-making bodies filled with pole-climbers can pass unnoticed in normal times. But when the tide went out…

Our society depends on functioning and healthy institutions. We are going to have to walk back each and every step of the ideological long march through our institutions. That road will be long and hard, but few endeavours could be more important.

Worth reading in full.