Daily Express

THE POSITIVE PROFESSOR

- PROFESSOR KAROL SIKORA CMO of Rutherford Cancer Centres and Former Director of WHO Cancer Programme

SOCIAL media’s voice of calm Karol Sikora has been signed up by the Daily Express. Readers can now enjoy his soothing advice in these troubled times that have won him hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter. If you need reassuring everything’s going to be all right read Professor Positivity.

IT’S so frustratin­g for some people to talk about lockdowns like it’s a switch you can turn on and off again with no consequenc­es whatsoever.

Let me be clear. I fully supported the first lockdown, it was an unknown virus and we were fighting blind.

Totally restrictin­g movement and activity to buy time to better understand the virus and its effects was necessary.

Whether that time was used effectivel­y to prepare is another question and getting into that debate now doesn’t achieve much.

Our current situation couldn’t be more different. There is still a lot we don’t know, but we know far more than we did in March. We know what slows the spread, we know who is worst affected and we know the damage that lockdowns can cause. Politician­s need to pause and reflect on the consequenc­es of their decisions more.

Locking down again will be a disaster. We are still reeling from the last one and even then the full ramificati­ons of that won’t be known for years. History will judge us all very unkindly if we act for the sake of acting.

What is the Government’s aim? Total suppressio­n of the virus? Sadly, that just isn’t possible alongside a functionin­g economy. Should we hide away, waiting for a vaccine that may never come?

Politician­s should stop threatenin­g us with further restrictio­ns and focus on getting the testing system working properly ( taking into account the false positive issue).

We desperatel­y need a world- beating system to protect those who are most vulnerable to this virus, and we do now know who that is.

Even a two- week lockdown wouldn’t work, we all know it wouldn’t be just two weeks.

In my opinion, it’s time for a fundamenta­l rethink about our overall strategy.

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 ??  ?? Quiet... Leicester during local lockdown
Quiet... Leicester during local lockdown

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