“Science works best when everything is examined critically, not when there is unquestioning acceptance of just one narrative. When that happens, a particular paradigm has captured a field, and that usually results in errors and slow progress.” https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/09/25/the-making-of-britains-covid-catastrophe/

“It is natural for academics to believe in their work, and for them to often over-emphasise its significance. As I have noted elsewhere, academics often have extremely complicated and impressively detailed ways of getting things completely wrong.”

“Scientists focus on narrow topics, often almost to the exclusion of everything else. Perspective is rarely a strong point. The more their subject is in the public eye, preferably centre stage, the better it is from a career point of view.”

“We do not, in a normal year, base public policy on ‘worst-case scenarios’. Think about the Cold War, or terrorism. Or think about the possibility of a large meteorite strike–on a 50million-year timescale the biggest killer of all, and in fact virtually certain to happen again.”

“And in the end, will the government’s Covid control strategy work? I don’t think it will. The history of trying to find a coronavirus vaccine is one of failure.”

“The correct course, visible for months, is to let people go about their lives normally in their own way, while advising the elderly and infirm of the risks, but letting them make their own decisions about what makes life worth living for them. “

“Our institutional response to this crisis is deeply dysfunctional. It is not, surely, a role of government to tell us who we can hug.”

“We will have to learn to live with this virus. We may in fact already be quite close to collective immunity, and anyway that is where we are going to end up whatever we do.”

“In this crisis boldness will require breaking the spell, and will consist in letting normal life resume, not in increasing restrictions.

Dr John Lee is a former professor of pathology and NHS consultant pathologist.”