Professor & Chair of Global Public Health, Edinburgh Uni. Director of @GlobalHealthGP. Visiting faculty, Univ of Miami. Level 3 Personal Trainer. Views own.
Particularly bumpy workweek. I know people are angry about Covid (on all different fronts) but don’t want to be a punching bag anymore. I didn’t cause Covid. I’m not even in charge of much. I’m just an academic trying to explain simply what’s happening. That’s all.
We will be stuck in an endless cycle of lockdown/release for next 18 months, if we do not start mass testing, tracing, & isolating those who are carriers of the virus while pursuing rapid research for antiviral treatment or vaccine. This is the message the public needs to hear.
When people start attacking you as a person with petty insults, instead of engaging with your research & arguments, then you know you’re doing something right.
Prof Devi Sridhar - "It's too early to be lifting the self isolation rules... when we still have over 200 deaths a day to Covid... this is clearly been done to distract from the problems Boris Johnson is facing over breaking lockdown rules.."
#KayBurley
Herd immunity didn’t develop to cholera, yellow fever, smallpox, measles, TB, malaria, or plague -> public health measures were used to control them until vaccines or elimination strategies were developed.
As a global public health expert, I don’t accept that US & UK poor responses were due to capacity. Poorer countries did much better. It’s down to absent leadership, incompetence & a deliberate decision to treat COVID-19 like flu for weeks in Feb & March & just ‘let it go’.
From everything I can gather, the UK situation with this new variant is not good. Please avoid seeing other households indoors, wear face coverings, avoid crowded places and be extra cautious for the coming days. Ignore those who say it’s not a big deal & play it down.
Same people- who go on holiday abroad/mixed freely over Christmas period- complaining about: schools in online learning, restrictions in place, and NHS wait-times for A&E.
How to communicate that we're all connected? Your decisions affect me. My decisions affect you.
The real question about Christmas-> do you want to expose the people you love to this virus? Do you want to be responsible for the virus spreading at your home, or as a guest in someone else's? If you don't, be cautious. Don't need govt to tell you that. It's common sense.