Epidemiologist wars

Epidemiologist wars

I still believe it’s far ‘too soon’ in the coronavirus journey to prepare end-of-year accounts’, and as far as I’m concerned the fat lady hasn’t even opened the score yet.

Since Boris’s current strategy relies on 100% cooperation, near as dammit, I’m still in favour of giving Lockdown a chance.  I wouldn’t go as far as to invite Nick Hornby to cross-post this BBC-related article: "BBC should be 'untouchable' after coronavirus"   but hey, a balanced view is better value than an echo-chamber. 

A wide debate on the pros and cons of the way the government has handled Coronavirus, as well as the media coverage of it, is just what the doctor ordered.

I‘ve listened to the Swedish strategy, (which is not nearly as far removed from ours as it’s cracked up to be) and I’ve listened to Neil Ferguson and professor Johan Giesecke and their detractors and heard Boris’s plea to hang on in there.  Neil Ferguson is not a personality you’d immediately warm to. He does a funny thing with his jaw. He’s been wrong before - but haven’t we all? The Swedish death toll is rising.  Freddie Sayers thrashes it all out here in Unheard. 

“Are you more Giesecke or Ferguson? The expert that most resonates is unlikely to be entirely down to your assessment of the science — more likely a complex combination of your politics, your own life experience, your attitude to risk and mortality and your relationship to authority. Perhaps each of us have elements of both instinct within us — but what do they really represent?”

Cocked Hat

You’ll probably have already watched this fascinating video from Unherd (featured on Guido Fawkes.) It's Freddie Sayers’s interview of Swedish expert Prof. Johan Giesecke

Fawkes’s bullet-pointed extrapolations from the film hold good, but I would take away a few extra ones as well. 

The Swedish strategy turns out to be much less dissimilar to the UK’s than meets the eye, and Freddie Sayers’s questioning is pertinent and of a kind that the BBC repeatedly fails to put “on our behalf.”  His questions are ones that viewers themselves would actually wish to put, should they have the opportunity to do so.

For example, I spy a political underbelly here. For me, the clue lies in the professor’s fear that a strict Lockdown strategy is an inevitable route to totalitarianism and dictatorship. A very Swedish attitude.

Sayers asks if Prof. Giesecke is taking “A slightly cold-hearted approach” (and that was something that immediately struck me.)

Again, one of the most significant remarks that stood out for me (It would, wouldn’t it?) was:

“Let’s discuss this a year from now”.

If you’ve been following previous threads on this blog you’ll know what I mean.

The proliferation of this kind of direct reporting, (think also of Steven Egerton of The Sun) consistently knocks the BBC's efforts into a cocked hat.