Let us be clear on ten reasons why the Barrington group letter to...er... the Daily Express is profoundly wrong. https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1427568/Lockdown-latest-face-masks-social-distancing-scientists

1. They state confidently "the vaccine programme will almost totally eliminate deaths and hospitalisations from Covid-19". Yet half the UK have not yet been vaccinated, we don't know how long immunity lasts, +Brazil and India show COVID can surge again in 'immune populations'.

2. This didn't age well did it....

3. They also told us the same thing a year ago when they claimed 80% had been infected, we were therefore immune,and there would be no second surge.

4. Everyone agrees eradication is impossible so why raise it? Elimination is possible - the suppression of a virus in a population. Polio and measles are not eradicated but public health always aims to eliminate them from our population. Why not a dangerous virus like Covid?

5. Look at deaths per million in countries who 'eliminated': Vietnam 0.4, Taiwan 0.5, Thailand 2, China 3, NZ 5, Singapore 5, Hong Kong 28 + S Korea 35. The UK (1869), USA (1762), Italy (1971), France (1571), Spain(1659)+ Sweden (1372) 'took it on the chin'.

6. Elimination/suppression is the best way to stop the creation of dangerous variants and to stop further lockdowns. NONE of the Asian states that suppressed the virus has had any national lockdown. (The UK has had THREE.) None has exported variants.

7. Their Express ideas are the quickest way back to lockdown. Why no mention of trace and isolation? Read evidence from Taiwan. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33821922/  Masks +SD cut the R value by half; tracing contacts + isolation cut transmission the same. Together they suppressed Covid.

8. They say the virus will become “demonstrably less fatal than seasonal influenza viruses.” Here are the figures for influenza test positive deaths in the UK from ONS. Most 'flu deaths' aren't caused by influenza virus.

9. This nonsense gets picked up by BBC journalists like Nick Triggle who say we can manage  'endemic Covid19' with 30,000 deaths per year, like a bad flu season. Covid19 is 15-20  times more lethal than flu, to say nothing of  a million people with Long Covid, including children

10. They confuse masks+ soc distancing with lockdowns. Is there evidence that masks + SD causes  “damage to mental health, education of children and young people, to people with disabilities, new entrants to the workforce and to the spontaneous personal connections" ?

In summary, the Barrington-plus in the Daily Express is not evidence-based. Their plan unnecessarily risks driving us back to a lockdown and another surge.  Hopefully vaccine coverage will lead us to elimination but why take these risks?