To clarify: I am only posting now on BlueSky. Do consider coming over there and stop using this hellsite!
Writing this to pin to my profile to make it crystal clear.
THREAD: I keep being asked when we can go "back to normal" or "like it was before". My personal thoughts:
We've added a new disease to our population, more infectious and more severe than flu.
The world pre 2020 no longer exists - we may want it to, but it just doesn't. 1/13
Also "learning to live with covid" would actually involve some learning. For instance creating safer environments through mass investment in clean air.
Pretending covid is not a problem is not the same thing.
SHORT THREAD: Was just on @BBCNews responding to the comments made by Sunak & backed by Truss saying scientists had too much power, lockdowns were a mistake etc
1. They are rewriting what happened - the situation pre vaccine was very very scary with 150K dying pre wide vax. 1/7
Fundamentally, world is different now. Acting as if it isn't, which UK seems determined to do, may feel good in short term but will result in a new normal worse than the old one.
I prefer for us to build a new normal that's *better* than frequent sickness & disruption. 13/13
We *can't* go back - but we *can* go forward *if* we accept we need some adaptations - driven by what we have *learned*.
Learning:
1. Outdoors is pretty safe - so let's invest research and funding into making indoor air as much like the outdoors as possible 4/13
Prof @Kevin_Fong giving the most devastating and moving testimony to the Covid Inquiry of visiting hospital intensive care units at the height of the second wave in late Dec 2020.
The unimaginable scale of death, the trauma, the loss of hope.
Please watch this 2min clip.
It's *not* easy, but it *is* possible - we did it with clean water, electricity infrastructure, CFCs, telephone and broadband...
The best thing about cleaner indoor air is it works against *any* airborne disease and also reduces e.g. allergies. 5/13
Admitting the parts of the NHS will be overwhelmed, that NHS on war footing, heart attack patients being advised to get a lift & not rely on ambulance... This is not living with it.
expecting 1000s of teachers and 10,000s of students to get sick is not living with it.
LONG COVID THREAD:
The people running the BBC Horizon "Great British Intelligence Test" challenge on over 80,000 people took the opportunity to see if they could detect any differences by whether people had had covid or not...