1. I never thought I’d have to worry about bias during a pandemic, but here we are. Take this lead story, an exclusive no less, from the Daily Mail. The headline tries to make it look as though more people will die from lockdown than from #COVID19

2. The time pressured or inattentive will look at the two numbers and assume lockdown is bad. If it was being honest, the Mail would also draw attention to the fact the same model that forecasts 75,000 lockdown deaths over 5 years, also forecast 400,000 deaths from the virus.

3. That fact is buried deep within the article. Information is a matter of life and death during a pandemic. It informs public and government response. Lives will quite literally be lost if people don’t take their community obligations seriously.

4. We wonder why public adherence is low? Why we have a large anti-lockdown, covid skeptic movement?

@dgurdasani1 and @HZiauddeen have written about the fringe academics who have done so much harm to the UK’s pandemic response. https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1309466543990943744

5. And @NafeezAhmed has delved into the murky network that amplifies their message. https://twitter.com/trishgreenhalgh/status/1308795563236823040

6. Countries that have beaten #COVID19 don’t have wizards. They don’t have access to magic that’s unavailable to us. They have engaged in simple public health measures and worked with their citizens to ensure everyone understands how and why their actions are important.

7. This is the wizardry that’s worked in other countries. https://twitter.com/adamhamdy/status/1308673804839931904

8. We all have a part to play. Government needs to get better. Media needs to be more responsible and citizens need to take their obligations seriously. It’s hard to imagine how my wearing a mask might save someone else’s life in 6-weeks, but it’s true.

9. Our partisan political system encourages adversarial debate. Useful in normal times (perhaps?) but dangerous during a pandemic. The #COVID19 crisis is being presented as a battle between the forces of lockdown vs freedom, which is nonsense.

10. Lockdown is an emergency measure implemented to buy time to put proper systems and processes in place. Having to lockdown twice is a sign the systems and processes have failed.

11. Long-term, the question shouldn’t be whether to lockdown or not lockdown. We should be asking why we can’t be like Vietnam, New Zealand or any of the other countries that can now function close to normal.

12. We should be on a voyage of discovery to find out how we can be like them. How we too can get our economy, schools and universities open safely.