Scepticism About The Sceptics, by Les May

I AM responding to the piece by Will Jones taken from the ‘Lockdown Sceptics’ website.

Let us start with a few statements which I think are sufficiently well established that we can call them facts.

1. The cause of the disease known as Covid 19 is a virus.

2. The virus has the ability to infect humans.

3. The virus can be transmitted between humans.

4. The virus can enter the body via our eyes, our nose and our mouth.

5. Infected people carry virus particles in their upper respiratory tract.

6. Speaking, singing, coughing, sneezing and breathing cause infected people to shed into the air virus particles in droplets and aerosols which do not settle immediately, but may do so after a time depending on their size.

7. Virus particles can be inhaled as droplets or aerosol.

8. Droplets settle out of air more rapidly than aerosols.

9. People who are infected may shed the virus without showing clinical symptoms.

10. Virus particles settling on surfaces remain capable of causing infection for variable amounts of time depending on the nature of the surface.

11. Virus particles can be transferred to our hands by touching a contaminated surface.

So what do these tell us about how we can reduce the spread of infections?

Point 4 suggests we should so far as possible avoid touching our eyes, nose or mouth.

Points 10 and 11 suggest we should take steps to decontaminate surfaces regularly or if this is not possible place anything entering our house in quarantine for a period.

Points 4, 10 and 11 suggest we should wash our hands regularly.

Points 3, 5. 6, 7 and 9 suggest we should try to encounter as few people as possible.

Point 7 suggests that if we do encounter people we should attempt to keep as far away from them as possible and that a physical barrier such as a mask, worn by them and us, may help to protect us from inhaling droplets, but unless produced to n95 specifications will not fully protect us from aerosols.

All the above methods of reducing the spread of infections are ‘non pharmaceutical’ methods. Taken alone, none will guarantee that we will remain free of infection, but each incrementally reduces the likelihood of picking up the infection. That’s why hospitals implement similar, but more stringent methods. In other words, contrary to what Will Jones claims, non pharmaceutical methods do work.

Will Jones may not like what the government is doing, but however flawed their methods are they are simply an attempt to use what we know about the virus and how it spreads, to reduce the number of infections.

The restrictions which have been implemented will cause economic damage, and they will restrict children’s education, but not making any attempt to halt the number of infections also has its costs.

Is he suggesting that in order to allow hospitals to continue functioning as they did before the pandemic they should effectively close their doors to Covid 19 patients? Is he suggesting that it is acceptable to expect nurses and doctors to treat a continuing stream of Covid 19 patients when any one of them may be the cause of their death? Is he suggesting that an increase of more than a million (1,013,190) new infections in the three week period 19 December to 9 January will not have economic and social costs? Is he able to assure us that the behaviour of himself and his lockdown sceptical friends has not resulted the death from Covid 19 of anyone who had the misfortune to encounter them?

He claims that it would be ‘inhumane to expect the vulnerable to shut themselves away’. These are fine words. I am one of the ‘vulnerable’ as is my wife and most of our friends. Since last March the only time I have been more than 200m from my house taking exercise, is a visit to the doctors for a flu jab. And one reason for that is because I don’t know when I am going to meet someone who does not take the guidelines on distancing and the other non pharmaceutical interventions seriously, in other words a ‘Lockdown Sceptic’. One could say their ‘freedom’ is my ‘prison’.

In his autobiographical account of the development of British radar during WW2 Robert Watson-Watt says that when under pressure to improve the equipment he always accepted the 3rd best solution. His reasoning was that the 2nd best would be too late and the best would never arrive. Lockdowns may be a third rate solution to controlling infections, but they may also be the best we are ever going to get until, people like Will Jones recognise that their behaviour may be contributing to prolonging the pandemic.

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