Has the government made a terrible mistake with Covid-19? Is Covid-19 nowhere near as dangerous as we have been told?

This article was first published April 7th 2020 in the BFD here

In January when stories of a new virus were emerging from China global politicians barely reacted. Fast forward just two months and the world has seen the most rapid erosion of civil liberties in history. We have gone from liberal democracies with full freedom of movement and association to economy shattering lock downs unimaginable just weeks before.

The science we were (and are) being told was clear: lock down now or millions will die.

Except that the science and particularly the data is far from clear. There is a growing list of eminent scientists and researchers around the word now questioning whether our leaders, egged on by irrational panic by among their citizenry, have in fact completely over reacted to Covid-19 with devastating consequences. 

Articles in the New York Times,https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/opinion/coronavirus-pandemic-social-distancing.html, The Spectator https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/The-evidence-on-Covid-19-is-not-as-clear-as-we-think, the Financial Times https://www.ft.com/content/5ff6469a-6dd8-11ea-89df-41bea055720b and the Telegraph https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/28/neil-ferguson-scientist-convinced-boris-johnson-uk-coronavirus-lockdown-criticised/ to name just a few are now asking the obvious question: are we sure that Covid-19 is as bad as we feared?

This question is of paramount importance given that in our desperate attempts to stop or stall Covid-19 governments have overnight completely suspended centuries of basic liberties and in the process decimated huge sections of our economy, actions that we will be paying for over many decades to come.

There is insufficient room in this article to cover all the many valid counter opinions against the current narrative that Covid-19 is an existential threat to our society (there is an entire blog by a Swiss based non-profit detailing hundreds of articles and studies that have already emerged that question this https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/#latest) but three here will suffice:

Professor Sucharit Bhakdi, a world renowned expert in medical microbiology, says blaming the new coronavirus alone for deaths is "wrong" and "dangerously misleading" as there are other more important factors at play, notably pre-existing health conditions and poor air quality in Chinese and Northern Italian cities. He describes the currently imposed measures as "useless“, "self-destructive" and a "collective suicide" that will paradoxically shorten the lifespan of the elderly and should not be accepted by society. https://swprs.org/open-letter-from-professor-sucharit-bhakdi-to-german-chancellor-dr-angela-merkel/

A model from Imperial College London predicted between 250,000 and 500,000 deaths in the UK "from" Covid-19, but the study's authors have now conceded that many of these deaths would not be in addition to, but rather part of the normal annual mortality rate, which in the UK is about 600,000 people per year. In other words, excess mortality would remain low. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51979654

The UK government itself has now *removed* Covid19 from the official list of High Consequence Infectious Diseases (HCID), stating that mortality rates are "low overall". https://www.gov.uk/guidance/high-consequence-infectious-diseases-hcid#status-of-covid-19

Yes there is dramatic footage from Italian hospitals and body bags in halls in New York which make for terrifying television but - and this is key point - this is not science and it is not what we should be using to make decisions that are crippling the lives of literally billions of people. This is a time for cool heads and considered decisions not hyperbole. 

There is also the question of whether the draconian actions taken to forestall the disease will actually wreak more havoc than the disease itself. The increase in rates of depression, suicide and domestic violence due to the lock down, the avoidable loss of life as medical procedures are curtailed due to the radical re-orientation of health care systems and the total destruction of our economy (forecasts of unemployment in the United States now run as high as 30% - higher than the Great Depression) - these are all the consequences of the unprecedented actions now being taken by governments on perilously thin data and analysis.

If as the data is beginning to suggest the Covid-19 is nowhere near as bad as we have been told, the issue for governments globally is how do we get out of this mess? Politicians have a terrible track record of admitting they have made mistakes, let alone potential mistakes of this magnitude.

To be clear this is not calling for a pre-emptive lifting of Covid-19 restrictions. Instead the government needs to urgently abandon their pre-determined narrative and talking points and rapidly examine all the science around Covid-19, not just the hysteria inducing headlines. If the threat is real then they will be congratulated for having saved lives. If on the other hand the threat is not as serious as feared they need to urgently lift the restrictions and get our economy back on its feet before irreaparable damage is done. This examination needs to be conducted in public so we, the citizens, their ultimate masters (and those that bear the consequences of their decisions) can have confidence in the analysis and the result.

What they absolutely cannot do is ignore the many voices and data beginning to call into question the mass hysteria and panic Covid-19 has caused. This is the most serious crisis our society has faced since World War Two - cool heads must prevail. The stakes are literally life and death.

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Both the NZ Herald and Stuff originally indicated they would publish my Covid-19 articles but then pulled the pin at the last moment, I suspect (with good reason) under political pressure.