‘Future policy must factor in harm caused by lockdowns’

FUTURE modelling on the pandemic must take into account harms caused by lockdowns, a scientific adviser to the Government says.

Drthomas House, who sits of the Government’s Spi-m modelling team, said the emergence of the Delta variant meant a delay of “another week or two” to the June 21 date could be justified.

But he said he was alarmed that lockdown had become the “default” option for dealing with outbreaks.

Dr House, of the University of Manchester, speaking in a personal capacity, said: “Sage has one main remit, which is to look at Covid, but it does not have a remit to look more

‘Whole livelihoods

will disappear’

broadly at wider harms.the worry is small businesses and people’s whole livelihoods will disappear – the things that people have been working for their whole lives will have gone.

“It is very difficult to know how to trade these things off. It worries me that this has become a long-term rather than a short-term response to a problem, which was to prevent the hospitals being overwhelmed.

“Lockdown is what you go to if you absolutely can’t think of anything else. It should not be a default thing.

“We are coming to a point where people should be aware and manage their own risks. People should make choices, and coercive measures are not the right way in public health.”

He added: “At Spi-m we have not been asked to look at harms in most of our research. If we are to lockdown again I would rather we had the harm calculated and explicitly shown to us.”