Professor Karol Sikora

Friday

Professor Karol Sikora

Are we ready for Britain’s looming cancer crisis?

From our UK edition

Cancer, cardiac and countless other patients are crying out for help – but are ministers listening?  Over the last year, politicians have been adopting untried and untested policies, the consequences of which none of us can yet fully grasp. The main aim, of course, of these extraordinary lockdown measures has been to suppress Covid-19 in order to reduce pressure on our hospitals. That has been the metric on which Government approval has been judged. Whether or not you agree with every restriction, it is clear that this focus has sucked the oxygen away from other pressing health issues. Covid-19 required a response unlike anything we have seen in modern times.

Monday

Professor Karol Sikora

Covid-19 kills – but so does lockdown

From our UK edition

Just over six months ago Boris Johnson gave the British people one very clear instruction: ‘you must stay at home.’ It was impossible for anybody to anticipate the unintended consequences of those five words and quite how much pain and anguish they would unleash. Through a mixture of emotional coercion and relentless scaremongering millions of people in need of medical help followed the PM’s order to the letter. They stayed, many in intense pain, at home and didn’t seek the care they needed. Every Tuesday morning the Office for National Statistics release their weekly information on deaths. For months it has told the same story. Significant, sustained levels of excess deaths are happening in the home every week.

Wednesday

Professor Karol Sikora

How to find a safe way out of the coronavirus lockdown

From our UK edition

We are in a big mess, there is no doubt. We’re battling a deadly virus, the Prime Minister is in hospital and the country is in lockdown. A less optimistic person could argue that all is lost. The constant howling from our media does little to help – portraying death and destruction nightly on our screens is just too harrowing for many to watch. Reporting daily numbers is necessary, but there should be a much greater focus on trends as any schoolboy mathematician will tell you. New infections are levelling off. It is clear that we are at the plateau phase of incidence with the numbers bouncing around a bit. A lot of the day-to-day variation just reflects delays in getting the numbers together for presentation.