THE POSITIVE PROFESSOR

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 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.

THIS pandemic has been politicised from all angles and it makes deciphering what’s actually happening almost impossible. Politicians, commentators and others will twist and contort any statistic to suit their own argument.

In the age of 280-character tweets, any nuance gets lost. People are forced to pick sides and that adversarial format means opinions get entrenched and compromise is seen as a dirty word.

It is possible to believe that the Government is handling parts of this crisis well and other parts not so well. Despite what many would have us believe, dealing with a once-in-ageneration pandemic is not easy. I certainly don’t envy the Prime Minister and the responsibility he has shouldered, especially following an intensive care stay and becoming a father once again.

For what it’s worth, the Government’s current approach to Covid-19 is the right one in my view. Have a laser-focus on getting the booster to those who need it and try to facilitate as normal a life as possible for everyone, relying on people’s common sense and the astonishing levels of immunity in the population.

At the start of the pandemic there was a spirit of togetherness. It evaporated almost overnight when the UK overtook Italy in the European death toll. But international comparisons prove nothing. Not then, and they still don’t. Just look at the struggles of mainland Europe now.

Unlocking in July was a difficult decision and Boris made the right call. Time will tell and caution is required from us all, especially with the emergence of this concerning new variant, but we’re in a far better place than this time last year.