If one spends too long on twitter you can start to believe that an ordinary view is an extreme one, & an extreme view is an ordinary one. Children going to school is a clear example. This is the default position. Closing schools is the extreme measure.
Time for Twitter break! 🧘♀️
The discrimination and disapproval
#novakdjokovic
faced feels increasingly misplaced and overblown.
How and why did Western societies so quickly abandon bodily autonomy? 🤔
With every passing day, it’s becoming more & more apparent that much of our response to Covid in the past 18 months has been irrational.
Thankfully, the vast majority have now come to their senses.
My 4 year old is so excited to start school he keeps getting up at 6am to get his uniform on. 🥰
Meanwhile, every week in my GP surgery, I see more teenagers who refuse to go to school or even leave their bedrooms.
What on earth did we do to this generation?
It was wrong. 😔
As a GP, I am unclear on what purpose test and trace now serves.
(Also unsure on previous track record of effectiveness).
These billions, and counting, are not inconsequential.
The health service is crumbling, and those funds could be many times better invested elsewhere. 🙏
Imagine if our government had kept the under 50s in work, children in schools, & hadn’t closed the economy down?
How many hundreds of billions of debt might we have avoided? How much better would the economic situation be now?
Was it so unthinkable to shield the vulnerable?🤔
I wear a mask. I wear a visor at work. But I confess once we have vaccinated vulnerable groups, I am unconvinced we should continue with these measures.
Call me a heretic. 🤷♀️
I think seeing the human face has a deeper value to society than can be established by research papers.
Booster jabs are overwhelmingly more important for over 50s & the clinically vulnerable.
If an unstoppable ‘tidal wave’ is indeed coming, we should surely focus on those who most need protecting?
Cancelling routine medical care to boost an 18y old is disproportionate & harmful.
When we (eventually) get to the Covid response post-mortem, we must have the capacity to admit that mistakes were made. Ones that should never be repeated. 🤔
I am (very) aware I will get flak for doing this interview. 🙈
However, I passionately believe we need to restore normality for children & stop mass asymptomatic testing: unclear benefits, but traumatising & leading to repeated isolation & other harms.
The time has come for me to leave twitter.
For the record:
- children should stay in schools
- young people should lead normal lives
- education & healthcare better FTF
- nhs is failing, needs redesign
- pragmatic, living with Covid needed, w end to hysteria (it’s harmful).
👋
As Covid becomes less relevant in our everyday lives, the anguished screams of those scientists and medics who have become obsessed by it, will get louder. They can be safely ignored.
Life is for living. The NHS needs fixing. People need to be connected. ☺️
Lots of medics on Twitter saying how petrified they were of Covid and showered/ laundered clothes before entering their house etc.
For balance, am I allowed to say that I looked pragmatically at the risks & decided I wasn’t unduly concerned? 😬
School is so essential to children’s wellbeing. They face almost no risk from Covid. Domestic violence, neglect, sexual abuse, poor nutrition, anxiety all ⬆️... Far better for the over 70s to shield awaiting vaccine than locking children in their (often cramped) homes again. 😥🙏
Enjoy your freedoms now.
You know a country is in trouble when it is politically easier to remove people’s fundamental freedoms (eg right to family life, freedom of assembly); than it is to fix our broken NHS.
Never mind the damage to health, economy, mental states, children.🤷♀️
If the NHS cannot cope with the numbers presently in hospital with Covid, it is, I am afraid, totally unfit for service.
Country cannot remain permanently shutdown, held hostage by a failing healthcare system. Fix the problem- not Covid- but the design &capacity of the system.
The NHS is struggling. Managing Covid-19 is certainly not helping.
But, do you want to live in a society where you cannot participate unless you have agreed to a certain vaccination/ treatment?
Who says what you need? Who decides what you can/ can’t do? And where does this end?
I’m not sure that repeatedly testing the whole population for a virus which is receding & impact limited by vaccines, is a good idea.
Not convinced there would be high compliance, & when would we stop testing the population (if not now?).
What happened to living with the virus?
Today I will take my children to the beach & do home schooling in the afternoon.
Thousands of children will be in cold, cramped flats watching TV all day. When middle classes call for school closures, it’s home baking & country walks.
This is not reality.
#inequality
#usforthem
Why are DoE insisting that every pupil should be tested for Covid-19 before restarting secondary school? When adults can go to a pub, restaurant, GP surgery, supermarket without tests?
What is the strategy? Just test and isolate children? Anyone see discrimination in action? 🤷♀️
It should go without saying that I will always give equal care to unvaccinated patients as to those who are vaccinated.
As medics we do not discriminate, but provide equal care to all.
I’ve had the jab, but it is the choice of my patients, & I respect that.
#equality
#autonomy
Govt is frustrated their vaccination statistics are falling behind. They don’t want to have to dispose of unused vaccines. They want to be ‘seen to be doing something’ in schools. Never mind what the
#JCVI
advise.
Vaccination programmes should be apolitical. First do no harm? 🤷♀️
I believe that children paid an unecessarily high price during the pandemic, and I intend to keep talking about this until I am confident that the same actions will never be repeated.
We should never have locked away our children. 😔
Much of the mental distress during lockdowns will never be recorded. Many do not see a GP, or access treatment. I know so many personally who have suffered.
A quiet epidemic of despair.
Just because it isn’t statistically recorded, it doesn’t lessen / invalidate the suffering.
I will not stop talking about this, until the harms are acknowledged, & the underlying issues resolved.
We need to urgently find a way to open schools, baby groups, and other clubs for children. Letting the months slip by IMV is simply unforgivable. 😰
My children’s school has sent out NHS letter to recommend Covid vaccines for over 5s.
Letter states
#longcovid
affects over 8% of children.
Surely this is
#misinformation
?
Quite honestly, I don’t understand how this is remotely acceptable.🤷♀️
#informedconsent
#ethics
#trust
They said ‘herd immunity’ was a barbaric policy. They said lockdown was the only answer. They closed schools for months. The economy was trashed. There’s no money left for the NHS.
Would it really have been so awful to focus on shielding the vulnerable?🤔
Do risks outweigh the benefits if a child has already had Covid? (vast majority of this age group).
Clear information & transparency desperately needed before administering (still in trial) vaccines.
I have never seen anything like this in my career. 😰
“Sweden operated a largely voluntary system & refused to lock down. Pandemic-related measures cost 60 billion kronor in 2020 and 2021 …about £460 a head, less than a TENTH of the UK figure. Yet their results… cases & deaths were a lot better than ours.”😳
My 4 year old went to bed tonight with a nasty cough and fever.
Of course, this requires neither masking nor Covid testing.
Just cuddles and calpol. ☺️
6 children have died in the past 2 months of scarlet fever - the same number as healthy children who died from Covid in the first year of the pandemic.
Close the schools! Saw the bottom off all the classroom doors!🤔
Back at school for four days & all three of my children have come down with suspected
#norovirus
. Worst vomiting bug they’ve ever had.
I wonder what we have stored up for our kids? We do not know the longer term health impacts of social isolation in children. 🧐
#covid19schools
I think it’s important to remember - and reflect on - the actions that were taken in the name of public health. Many of our fundamental liberties, relationships, & bodily autonomy, were significantly compromised.
It wasn’t right, was it?
This is the moment a 73-year-old woman was arrested after taking her mum, 97, from a care home to look after her.
She said she wanted to care for her mother, who has dementia, at home.
Read more:
I admitted a previously well individual to hospital who needed sectioning, due to a psychosis bought on by fear of catching & spreading Covid. This, in Devon, before we had even seen any cases of the virus.
The Behavioural Insights Team has an awful lot to answer for. 🤔
Delighted to see the end of facemasks in classrooms. 🙌
Hopefully our children can burn them, and never have to wear them again.
I hope there will be grinning & laughing, & general defiance. About time this generation had a bit more fun! 🥳
As a GP, I am hearing: disadvantaged children left behind their peers, emerging mental health disorders in the young, children lost to social services. The risk ⬆️ with every day that passes & schools closed. Even 2 days a week would help. 🙏
@ShabaNabi
@Dr_Ellie
@allisonpearson
I’ve been to Australia 5 times over my lifetime (due to family links). The contrast now to the U.K. in the quality of infrastructure, communal spaces, public loos, & general environment is really remarkable.
What are they doing, that we aren’t? No wonder so many emigrate!
And here we have: the new normal.
Did you protest against picnics or sitting on benches being banned? Did you question not being permitted to drive twenty miles to go for a walk, or visit a friend?
If you abandon your rights and freedoms, you will miss them once they have gone.
You are not a conspiracy theorist if you believe children should remain in schools, that it is too early to vaccinate them against a virus which poses them little danger, that families should be allowed to see each other, & care home residents allowed freedom.
This is human.🙂
From metabolic health, alcohol use, mental health, social connectedness, child development & abuse, frailty, cancer, to worsening inequalities- serial lockdowns were a health disaster which should NEVER be repeated.
Don’t let any misguided fool tell you otherwise.
Happy 2022!🥳
I remain appalled by the levels of
#coercion
and the disrespect for
#autonomy
that was shown by govts & medics across the world over the past 2 yrs.
UK’s Covid inquiry must examine how & why this happened, also how & why we should avoid it in future.
It matters.
#medicalethics
Listening to Patrick Vallance on climate change on
@BBCr4today
makes me wonder when he was democratically elected?
The issue is not whether I agree with him (& we are all entitled to our view) but why he is given a prime time platform on a matter he is unqualified to discuss. 🤨
It is likely at some point the greatest threat that Covid poses to the U.K. will be people having an irrational fear of catching the virus despite being vaccinated or intrinsically at minimal risk.
As a GP I continue to see pts without sig comorbidities choosing to shield themselves. Healthy men & women who have shut themselves away. Where wider relationships have fallen by the wayside.
What will happen to this group? Why did isolation become a goal? When does this end? 😩
The UK Covid inquiry should conclude that much of our response was a neurotic overreaction/ global mass-hysteria, to a respiratory virus that targeted very specific groups, & that lockdowns resulted in immeasurable harms to society/ economy, esp the younger generation.
It won’t.
It is NOT extreme to say we should drop nearly every restriction now.
Just like it was not extreme to call for schools to stay open, or for society to reopen last July.
A crowd (on Twitter) might bay.
…But they can still be wrong. 🙏
I feel very passionately about schools remaining open in January.
I have written, in a bit more detail than twitter allows, why.
If you have not read the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, you should. 🙏
#usforthem
#keepschoolsopen
I just told my 7 yr old that lockdowns, quarantining &school closures were an extremely strange thing that have never happened before, & should never happen again in her lifetime.
I then thought of Twitter-land & how many on here might be disapproving of that viewpoint. 🤷♀️😳😩
Next year when the studies come out showing that closing toddler groups has had an enormous impact on the development of babies & toddlers, I’d like to say I warned of this.
Why aren’t groups reopening? Who agrees it’s harmful? 🤔
@Dr_Ellie
@sunilbhop
@apsmunro
@RCPCHPresident
The longer this goes on, the more apparent it is how many are mentally unwell as a result of fear of Covid.
My heart breaks every time I speak to an older person who has not left their home in 2 yrs.
Some of my medical colleagues have an awful lot to answer for.
Please stop.😔
I am watching with interest as
#zerocovid
advocates quietly distance themselves from this ideal. They slowly realise it is impossible & the harms are too enormous. They steadily walk over to the side of the room where the pragmatists & realists have been all along. 🙏
#vaccinate
Do you remember your first taste of freedom as a teenager?
Feeling fearless & invincible? Wanting to explore the world? Taking risks, staying up late, being irresponsible?
Young people must be given their freedoms back soon. Life isn’t a dress rehearsal. They only get one go...
Idolising the NHS- while ignoring ongoing poor performance, bullying, avoidable neonatal deaths, delayed ambulances, surgery waits, the indignity of elderly in hospitals- is IMO unforgivable.
What if the system can no longer deliver acceptably safe care to our pop? What then? 😰
Getting
#booster
today.
I’m 37, in good health, had Covid 2m ago. I had first 2 jabs.
Only getting the booster as I have a holiday booked to France.
What is the risk (to me/others)? Why am I not allowed to make an informed choice? 😰
#coervicemedicine
#diminishestrust
#ethics
Just took the kids out to the park in the pouring rain - because sometimes they just need some fresh air & exercise.
Got me thinking about lockdown & how ridiculous & damaging it was that children’s play areas were closed.
@lensiseethrough
@PayPalUK
@UsforThemUK
@toadmeister
Don’t stay quiet, Molly. Many good people value what you have done highly. You have spoken up for children, when their rights were tossed aside. History will be the judge. But in the meantime, I agree, you should fight back. 👍🙏
Are we shortly to emerge from an episode of global mass hysteria?
(Indeed, would we recognise it as such if we were?).
Have any governments in the world acknowledged - at any point, in any aspect at all - that they have over-reacted to the threat from Covid-19?🤔
The media still insists UK should have locked down earlier & harder. Ofc they do, as the instigators of much of the hysteria.
2 yrs on, isn’t it abundantly clear we should have focussed on shielding the vulnerable?
So much collateral, unthinkable damage. Will go on for decades.
Meanwhile, in the real world, many/ most have gone back to fairly normal levels of social interaction. We’ve had 2 children’s parties this weekend, visited a friend, & I’ve been swimming and gardening. 🥳
A small subset of people on Twitter remain obsessed by a virus. 🤷♀️😬
Remember when the Scottish parliament seriously discussed spending hundreds of thousands on sawing the bottom off doors in classrooms, to improve ventilation, to reduce exposure to a virus that everyone got anyway?
This was Feb 2022.😳
The world went mad.
Have elicited some outrage (esp medical colleagues) by encouraging normal life. My serious Q is what is the aim of mitigation now? (Masks, ventilation..)
(A) Flatten the curve (until when)?
(B) Stop Covid in its tracks & prevent some from ever being exposed in their lifetimes?🤔
Even once the link between Covid cases & hospitalisation/ deaths has been sig ⬇️, many will remain fixated on this virus . Such has been the impact of fear-led messaging.
Govt needs to start positive messaging, to help the public move on. There are some who will never recover.😔
Young people are struggling mentally, so get them to use a digital well-being platform…
No. No. No. 🤯
Get them off their screens, outside, exercising, interacting and talking to people.
Can’t anyone see our brave new world is badly damaging them? 😰
It’s a bit windy today, so they’ve closed my kids’ school.
Seems like an overreaction. Can’t help wondering if closing schools has been normalised, & what the longer term implications may be.
Is British society becoming too risk averse, not appreciating the unintended harms? 🤔
It seems politically correct to say in public that you support restrictions, but talking to people, most seem cynical about the necessity of further lockdown.
The public mood is shifting, I wonder if the U.K. government has noticed?
Thank goodness for democracy.
On the beach today a friend’s 9 yr old had a panic attack about a minor issue. Not suffered with anxiety prior to this yr.
Don’t tell me children haven’t been affected by the restrictions during Covid. They have & they continue to be.
Time to put them first.
#stopisolatingkids
I, personally, have benefitted hugely from pandemic (new job, ⬆️equity in house, other opportunities), but I see patients daily who have suffered (& continue to suffer) enormously.
I can’t reconcile the benefits I’ve had with the harms playing out. Doesn’t seem right or fair. 😔
I simply believe that people have a right to determine what goes into their bodies. I just do. I can’t move on from this fundamental point; no matter how much you mix it up & say that my freedom affects yours etc.
We must always have a right to say no to medical interventions.🙏
If everyone says "no" to it now all over the world, the whole thing crumbles. It disintegrates. The crisis has rekindled and reunited us all over freedom. Canada we are with you all the way. Never again let this get out of control. Take it back and hold on to it for good.
If you haven’t started socialising, having friends over for dinner, or going out again - I’d urge you to...
It is frankly impossible to take four 7 year old girls to the cinema then bring them home for pizza, & not feel cheerful.
Really looking forward to moving on now. 🥳😊😘
I don’t claim to know anything about finance or the markets, but I do worry that we might soon reach a place where no govt is able to make unpopular decisions, without being overthrown by the media.
Not likely to be a good way to run a democracy (whatever party you support).🤔
Just remembering how my life aged 18 was a whirlwind of new experiences and excitement.
Then I think of how, during the pandemic, students were locked in their bedrooms, banned even from socialising within halls.
They’ll never get that time back. Was it proportionate? 🤔
Working in the NHS sees you internalise messages, such as: ‘I am not good enough, I cannot work hard enough.’
Frequently have to remind myself that I am/ was academically highly gifted, extremely motivated & ambitious, and loved by friends & family.
It’s not ok. Not justified. It is reaching into all our lives and telling us we need a medical intervention, without a free choice. Making a small number of people obscenely rich, without the grounds it significantly prevents transmission. We should all be worried about this. 🤨
Austria 🇦🇹
Lockdown for the unvaccinated
UK 🇬🇧
Sack unvaccinated healthcare staff
California 🇺🇸
No jab, no school
Australia 🇦🇺
Quarantine camps
Italy 🇮🇹
No jab, no job
And still there are some people who either think that this is ok or are continuing to ignore this.
We have always had infectious respiratory viruses which posed a threat to vulnerable groups. We have never previously attempted to test for, and trace, common colds across society.
Mass testing is an unhelpful diversion- public funds must be spent wisely, & kept in proportion.🤔
On school run today I bumped into a mum in the village who is homeschooling. She told me: “He’s had enough, refused to do any work yesterday.”
So unfair that keyworker children get to be in school, & others don’t. I am so cross for those children who are missing out.
#openschools
Stressed professionals tend not to scream or shout.
They find they are working later, missing lunch, sleeping badly, drinking more, ruminating or feeling low. Then one day they decide they’ve had enough and walk away.
#teamGP
Today’s thoughts:
-Most children should have remained in schools.
-They shouldn’t wear masks.
-It’s OK if they are exposed to Covid (vaccines protect the vulnerable).
-Students should have lectures in person.
-Sports clubs should fully reopen.
Time to put young people first.🙏
How terrible if public health campaigns have frightened the public so much that millions are left with mental health illness, crippling health anxiety, & social phobia.
What if the health service cannot cope with the demand? Everyone suffers?
Where are the positive messages?🙏
If I wanted to create the perfect conditions for prolonged post-viral fatigue, I would:
- tell patients repeatedly they are at high risk of suffering from the condition.
- restrict them to their homes for a week or more, limiting exercise & activity. 🤷♀️
#covid19
#isolationharms
In my work, I have seen countless children and young people who have suffered harms over the past 18 months.
Children must be allowed to lead normal lives again.
It’s time we put them first.
Controversial opinion alert:
I’m not fully convinced by the mass medicalisation of the menopause.
Often, nature is best; as drugs are not a risk-free panacea (also, there are profits being made by telling women we need them). 🤔
Perhaps I’m in the wrong career! 😱
The wisdom of my 8 yr old (talking about missing her swimming lessons waiting for a Covid test):
“I thought it was all coming to an end. But now I think it will go on forever.”
😢
Why was this child not being cared for in school? His teachers would have noticed his starving, neglected body.
The most awful thing is, he was right. Who loved him & put him first? Our society let him down.
Not in my name. Not in the UK. Never again.🙏
Some harms of mass testing healthy children:
- distressing
- phobias of nasal treatments
- excessive isolation
- uncertainty➡️anxiety
- labelling well children ‘sick’
- false negatives (many don’t swab properly➡️symptomatic go to school)
- screening test w/o early treatment
🤔
Did Covid reveal which leaders/ political parties might support & protect our liberties; and for which, fundamental freedoms were an inconvenience, readily brushed aside?
We mustn’t forget how easily our society was locked down: with schools & businesses closed, & travel banned.
Another pragmatic and balanced view from
@AllysonPollock
I couldn’t agree more. Repeatedly testing healthy children & telling them they are sick is harmful, & increasingly disproportionate.
#covidharms
#letkidsbekids
I have always thought the cure (lockdowns) were likely to be worse than the disease, and the ends would not justify the means.
My piece today for
@Telegraph
explains why I firmly believe that our humanity should always come before infection control.
Schools Unions have written to The Secretary of State outlining an urgent need for a summer action plan to prevent a winter of disruption due to
#COVID19
in schools. Measures they are calling for are; 🧵
Past 18m I have tried to protect the mental health of my children - this has been Really Hard - when all around them is madness.
Providing positivity, carefreeness & excitement has sometimes felt exhausting. It should not be so hard for parents to keep their children healthy. 🤔
Do you know what is more dangerous than Covid?
Tyrannical leaders.
Canada’s current situation is unthinkable in a modern democracy. How on earth has it come to this?
#trudeau
#silenceprotests
#freezingbankaccounts
Mark my words.
There will be a significant fall in U.K. life expectancy over the coming years, as the NHS fails.
(Will remain below previous levels, and will be worse than comparable developed countries).
The NHS is failing, and our population will suffer from the fallout.
😰
Having an innocent & carefree childhood is one of the most valuable tools in building mental resilience to deal with difficulties later in life.
We should fight for a carefree childhood for our children. This is important. Their routines, relationships, & opportunities matter.🙏
Saying you weren’t afraid of catching Covid in 2020 is clearly still heretical to many.
I wasn’t, particularly! 🤷♀️
But then I still breathe the unfiltered air of other human beings… Always have! Always will.
(Any other take on breathing communal air is, IMHO, rather odd). 🤔
It feels to me a bit like the boy who cried wolf - I simply don’t believe this man’s predictions anymore.
There’s also the business of being a blatant hypocrite… 🤨
Remember: it is not in the realm of a paranoid conspiracy theorist to object to locking children in their homes behind computer screens & banning their wider social interaction.
These are not normal instructions, these children are not at risk.
This cannot be an extreme view.🤔
I want facts, impartial reporting, the opportunity to draw my own conclusions. I want positivity, decency, honesty, transparency. I want truth, fairness & justice.
I don’t want to be ‘nudged’.
No good has ever come from population control (of which this is an insidious form).🤔