Those on my Twitter channel (@adrianhayes) will have read regular comments and posts on sustainability, population, society and leadership amongst others, but I have refrained from posting anything on my website on Coronavirus until today.
Throughout the pandemic, I have suggested that society needed to take a calm, rational and logical, rather than emotional, response to Covid19. And, like many are now admitting, I remain convinced that the consequences of other untreated illnesses, mental health (particularly the young), jobs and entire livelihoods from draconian lockdowns will be far worse than the virus itself.
Somehow, the distorted reality – in pretty much everything these days – of social media; a largely ‘bad news sells’ mainstream media; a totally risk-averse scientific community and, in certain countries, weak leadership have created an unwarranted worry, panic or, at times, hysteria amongst a ‘safety-first’ society that now prevails.
The facts remain that, even in the high death toll in the UK, overall mortality is no worse than three recent flu outbreaks of the past twenty years, and far better than the Hong Kong Flu outbreak of the late 60s. Yet in none of these years was there anything like the response the world has taken for Covid-19.
Aside from offering sincerest condolences to those killed or deeply affected, in my humble opinion it’s time for leaders and scientists, so far caught up in their own propaganda, to finally give the facts, truth, risk comparison and re-assurances missing to date. That is to admit that, aside from a tiny percentage of the most vulnerable, this virus is not going to kill you. Indeed, the statistical risks of dying from C19 in the UK remain so tiny that even being killed by lightning or by a shark is higher.
Meanwhile, cancer kills 465 people in the UK every day of every year and will hit 1 in 4 of us in our lifetime. And even if 1/10th of the money spent on the virus was spent on cancer, we would likely save more lives than have succumbed to this virus.
There are consequences of every action we take as humans and, whilst Coronavirus needed some sort of lockdown and management, the effects of long lasting or severe lockdowns will be utterly catastrophic. It is my opinion – critically based on statistics and data, not just an opinion – that society needs to learn to live with mortality and risk with far greater awareness than it has for this crisis. And show some of the backbone, resilience and stoicism prevalent in every generation prior to social media’s onslaught onto the world…
