Professor Karol Sikora is a British Oncologist / Immunologist. He has taken a vocal stand on the topic of Covid-19. The UK’s backlog in cancer services due to Covid lockdown has been described as an unfolding disaster which will see many thousands of deaths for years to come. Delayed diagnosis and delayed or disrupted treatments can massively impact cancer prognosis, with a few weeks being the difference between cure and death. I have not looked to see if similar issues are occurring in the Australian health system but I suspect it is likely?
Like others who have been adding voices of calm and reason to the single disease focused hysteria our media are galvanising, Sikora has been accused of being unqualified to speak (on a topic for which he holds a PhD), and nutty. However, I feel a groundswell happening in favour of a much more public health oriented approach which will see people like Sikora and Michael Levitt of Stanford University emerge as guiding lights. These guys bring to mind the adage “first they ignore you, then they ridicule you… then they build monuments to you“.
After listening to Professor Sikora interviewed at UnHerd tonight, titled Fear is more deadly than the virus, I started following him on Twitter where he shared this graph a few hours ago, published by the UK Office of National Statistics (ONS), with the comment “…. it’s important for people to know how much the situation has improved” (specific to the UK who are predictably following Farr’s Law, as Sikora discusses every country will). Meanwhile England’s twitter feed is a-chatter with enforced mask wearing, talk of adding protective eyewear to our “going out” wardrobes, health care workers now required to don Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) before performing CPR on anyone (the time delay will also cost lives), and transitioning education to a system where all children do not need to be in school all the time.
alicespringstomind 