Top UK epidemiologist/government adviser Mark Woolhouse: lockdown was a ‘monumental mistake’ and must not happen again https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1320428/Coronavirus-news-lockdown-mistake-second-wave-Boris-Johnson

Woolhouse: "Lockdown was a panic measure and I believe history will say trying to control Covid-19 through lockdown was a monumental mistake on a global scale, the cure was worse than the disease."

“I never want to see national lockdown again. It was always a temporary measure that simply delayed the stage of the epidemic we see now."

"It was never going to change anything fundamentally, however low we drove down the number of cases, and now we know more about the virus and how to track it we should not be in this position again."

"We absolutely should never return to a position where children cannot play or go to school."

“I believe the harm lockdown is doing to our education, health care access, and broader aspects of our economy and society will turn out to be at least as great as the harm done by Covid-19.”

"I suspect right now more people are being harmed by the collateral effects of lockdown than by Covid-19."

"This is why we need a broader range of people on the government advisory board Sage with equal input from economists to assess the damage to incomes, jobs and livelihoods, educationalists to assess the damage to children...

... and mental health specialists to assess levels of depression and anxiety especially among younger adults, as well as psychologists to assess the effects of not being able to go to the theatre or a football match.”

"At the time I agreed with lockdown as a short term emergency response because we couldn’t think of anything better to do, but it was always clear that the moment we started to relax enough measures we were likely to see infection rates rise again either nationally or locally."

“I would not dignify waiting for a vaccine with the term ‘strategy’. That’s a hope not a strategy. But we do need to get on with providing an alternative to lockdown.”

"Closing schools was not an epidemiologically sensible thing to do. Evidence shows that children very rarely transmit to adults and there is not a single documented example of a child transmitting to a teacher in school."

"we have been very bad at communicating the actual risk of infection to individuals. Instead of concentrating on schools we should have been concentrating on care homes. We were not really thinking about where the risk lies, just on suppressing the virus."

"As we lift restrictions, the most important thing is to make sure that people who need protection are protected – particularly those over 70 or with underlying health conditions. This is not a one size fits all."