THE POSITIVE PROFESSOR

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

OUR freedom date has been pushed back. There will be millions of bitterly disappointed people in the country today, many of whom will be fearing for their businesses or livelihoods.

There is little that can be said to ease those fears and I am genuinely sorry. It must be an extremely difficult time.

Not too long ago, myself and a group of scientists wrote to the Prime Minister to try to ensure that June 21 went ahead. Clearly those calls fell on deaf ears.

I am sure that this was not an easy decision to take. Official government advisers and scientists, who have been briefing the media for weeks that it would be reckless and irresponsible, did not make the process any simpler.

We all have our opinion on how this should play out. I disagree with using their official positions to secure media slots and harness that platform to push their own view.

So where do we go from here? Honestly, I have no idea. I fear the appetite for risk in government, fuelled by their overly cautious scientific advisers, is close to zero.

Fully reopening society is a risk and it always will be. Sadly we have to accept there will be deaths from Covid like we accept there are thousands of deaths from the flu every year.

We’re told that we have to learn to live with this virus and I completely agree. The vaccines mean this is possible, but at some stage we are going to have to trust the vaccines. Will that time come as soon as government has told us? I’m sceptical.

It is impossible to eliminate all risk from life. If we continue to try, the trail of destruction is going to be even further and deeper than it already is.