Sage member agrees: We must learn to live with Covid
Posted at 11.15am UK time
Will advisers to the Government on Covid ever catch on to the damage caused by lockdowns (it’s only been 14 months…)? Thankfully, some already have.
'Lockdowns are awful. They are a mark that you haven’t been able to control the virus in other ways. They have very profound consequences on mental health, on education, on job opportunities particularly affecting people on lower incomes.’
Not my words, but those of Sage member and Director of the Wellcome Trust Sir Jeremy Farrar.
Sir Jeremy has been fairly on the money for some time, warning in June last year that while lockdowns may help in ‘buying time’, they could not remain for 'any length of time’ because the 'damage to younger generations, the damage to education and to society is too profound’.
Too right. Let’s just hope that, given plummeting (yet still exaggerated) Covid death rates and the tremendous success of the vaccine rollout (over 50 per cent of UK adults are now fully vaccinated against Covid), Sir Jeremy’s warnings are listened to by his colleagues.
