Mark Woolhouse is professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, a SAGE adviser, and the author of ‘The Year the World Went Mad’, an insider’s view of tackling the covid crisis. Woolhouse argues that Whitehall and the devolved UK governments made a total mess of dealing with covid-19. He claims this has left us with a legacy of unsustainable debt, bankrupt businesses and civil liberties undermined. He says:
“I did not expect that elementary principles of epidemiology would be misunderstood and ignored, that tried-and-trusted approaches to public health would be pushed aside, that so many scientists would abandon their objectivity, or that plain common sense will be a casualty of the crisis. Yet – as I’ve explained – these things did happen, and we have all seen the result. I didn’t expect the world to go mad. But it did.”
Woolhouse says that there was no analysis whatsoever of the harms lockdowns would cause:
“There was never at any stage, even by the following year, any form of analysis of the harms caused by lockdowns. Were they even considered? I haven’t seen any evidence that they were and that is very, very troubling.”
Nuance, Woolhouse argues, was notable by its absence wherever lockdown was discussed. He claims that supporting it was seen to be virtuous with dissenters being lumped in with Q-Anon fanatics and flat-earthers.
The Year the World Went Mad: A Scientific Memoir by Mark Woolhouse is out on Thursday.