Professor Carl Heneghan:

It was a clear and fair point. It is important that everyone understand what the risks are by age and certain conditions. Unlike the flu, there is a stark difference in the risk for young people. For example, the risk for under 50s in England is minimal. It is slightly higher for over 50s because there seem to be some issues about ethnicity, but there are also higher rates of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and, in particular, obesity. That is one strategy which should be pursued.

The main threat now of Covid is the emerging threat of focusing unified on this single problem of Covid. There are many people who do not have experience in healthcare who have overnight become experts in respiratory pathogens in this outbreak. It has been astounding where they have all come from. They tend not to use an evidence-based approach but cherry-pick evidence to suit the argument. In the UK right now, we are looking at 200 excess non-Covid deaths. The current messaging means that 50% of people with a worsening health condition are not coming forward for healthcare and presenting as an emergency and that is leading to substantial problems with strokes and cardiovascular disease. For the past seven weeks in a row, we have had approaching 700 excess deaths in private homes that are not related to Covid whereas we have drastically reduced the excess deaths in care homes and hospitals. Overall, we are tending under, but we have got this huge burgeon now appearing that the public does not get where its risk is. If one examines the risk and looks at one's strategy and one takes an evidence-based approach to when one does things and what the evidence allows one to understand, one might get a more measured approach going forward.