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1/18 This is dangerously irresponsible. I'm not questioning @GrahamMedley academic qualifications, but I am seriously questioning his judgement, because he has strayed into all sorts or areas well beyond his area of expertise. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-herd-immunity-lockdown-boris-johnson-graham-medley-a9447021.html
2/18 What Professor Medley is arguing is based on his own personal ideology and not science or his area of personal expertise. In particular I note this with some unfortunately high profile climate professionals who put the economy before everything else.
3/18 Not everything a scientist does or says is scientific. For example there are professors of life science who are creationists and basic unifying paradigm which allows the discipline of biology to exist is Darwinian evolution.
4/18 My point in 3, is that through compartmentalization, scientists can have personal beliefs that are contrary to the scientific work they do. So if a creationist biologist argues for creation, this is not as a scientist, or derived from their scientific knowledge.
5/18 Likewise, if a professor of infectious disease modelling advances arguments based on economic imperatives, they are not basing their arguments on their area of expertise, but their own personal ideology.
6/18 I say this is dangerous because there are many still arguing that we should ignore the potential deaths from COVID-19, in favour of preserving the economic status quo. As Trump puts it, "we can't have the cure be worse than the problem".
7/18 The elephant in the room that those arguing for this policy are not addressing is the massive cost in human lives. What they are tacitly arguing but not overtly admitting is that hundreds of thousands could unnecessarily die.
8/18 I would also argue for reasons too complex to deal with here that these arguments are entirely mistaken. That if you let this virus sweep through our societies as essentially argued here, that it will not work like they think it would i.e. the economy be preserved.
9/18 On a very simple level, when people saw what was happening, there'd likely be a public panic, a massive backlash and politicians would be forced into a sudden U-turn as Boris Johnson already has been.
10/18 Professor Medley claims the lockdown "isn’t necessarily evidence-based". His own ideas are certainly not evidence based. There is no historical precedent for doing something which I say is absolutely monstrous i.e. sacrificing potentially hundreds of thousands of lives.
11/18 Pro Medley doesn't seem to have learned from experience. That if this mad "herd immunity" nonsense is entertained, that it would likely cause another U-turn, meaning you have the worst of 2 worlds, another lockdown causing the damage he was trying to avoid, and more deaths.
12/18 There is empirical evidence from South Korea, China, Hong Kong and Singapore that the further spread of this virus can be contained and that there is no need to sacrifice millions of lives at the alter of preserving the neoliberal growth economy.
13/18 It is what Prof Medley is not acknowledging which is the problem. He is dressing up his ideas in euphemisms to hide the fact that he is suggesting letting huge numbers of people suffer horrific deaths to preserve an economic system that needs to reformed anyway.
14/18 The climate and ecological emergency is ultimate far more serious than COVID-19 and could if unaddressed result in the starvation of billions of people. Governments have been putting of action to preserve the economic model that Prof Medley is so desperate to preserve.
15/18 What I say is evidence based. The problem becomes when you are so focused on preserving the economic status quo, that it blinds you to terrible consequences of this thinking. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/06/human-society-under-urgent-threat-loss-earth-natural-life-un-report
16/18 I'm aware that Prof Medley is probably not a supporter of Trump or Bolsonaro etc, but his arguments are essentially very similar to their arguments. He is advancing arguments which will be seized on by right wing populists. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8186507/PMs-virus-adviser-warns-Britain-need-adopt-herd-immunity.html
17/18 Bizarrely, Prof Medley justifies his arguments by talking about protecting the futures of the young. I suggest he asks informed young people such as @GretaThunberg #FridaysForFuture if their futures are being protected by the economic model he is so desperate to preserve.
18/18 I don't like to focus such heavy criticism on a person. But when the consequences are so serious and they've attempted to support their specious arguments using their academic and official position, and haven't properly acknowledged the consequences, I've no other choice.
