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 enjoy his soothing advice in these troubled times which has won him hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter. If you need reassuring everything’s going to be all right read Professor Positivity.

BALANCING and assessing risk is a skill I feel many have forgotten. Before Covid, we lived in a dangerous world but we managed that risk.

In oncology, for example, some of the treatments we administer have profound side effects, however the benefits of removing the tumour far outweigh any potential harm. We look at both sides and make a judgment on what course of action will result in the best outcome.

It’s the same for all of us, whether it be professional, personal or just going about a normal life. However many regulations Government wants to impose on us, it is impossible to eliminate risk.

Professor Christopher Whitty our chief medical officer is right, society will have to make a judgment call on what level of risk we can manage from Covid. It is a sad fact but hundreds of thousands of people lose their lives every year and the country does keep moving.

What we have to do is find a balance and for years before Covid, in general, we managed to do so. Our society, economy and health co-existed, although sometimes fractiously.

We have to start trying to rediscover that balance. A weak economy will mean that the health service will suffer, society benefits from low unemployment, and so on.

If we want to leave a functioning country to our children and grandchildren, it has to change. We can’t fully eliminate risk and if we continue to try then the country will never properly recover.