What lockdown sceptics get wrong

One of the more peculiar features of Covid is just how cleanly the crisis has split us down political lines. As a serving Tory councillor, you may assume that my views on masks, lockdown and the virus are predictable. But I’m also a microbiologist and I’m dismayed by the attitudes of some fellow travellers. 

Pandemics, particularly ones involving dangerous viruses like this one, are not merely a question of personal freedom but also of collective responsibility. Of course I desperately want a return to normal life. To be frank, however, I do not think that’s going to happen any time soon. Why? Because the virus is simply too dangerous to be left unchecked. I don’t believe a vaccine is imminent (more on that later) — which means, for the foreseeable, we’re going to have to ‘learn to live with this virus’, as the dreary phrase goes. So the question is: how can we best do that? 

One suggestion is that we let the virus work its way through the nation’s respiratory tracts so that we reach levels of herd immunity.