What have we learned?
It is now two and a half years since the first lockdown and eighteen months since HART published its paper COVID-19: an overview of the evidence. Over the last few months, we asked all the original authors to go back and review their articles and update with relevant publications, revising their conclusions as appropriate. These chapters spelled out either evidence of harms from the pandemic policies or theoretical concerns.
A year later the evidence is coming in and it is damning. This ‘updates’ series will hopefully form part of HART’s evidence to the Independent Review.
Without an introspective ability to learn from its collective mistakes, societies run the risk of causing irreparable damage to themselves. HART came together as a grass-roots organisation in late 2020 to challenge what we thought were a series of incorrect prevailing narratives, specifically the alleged efficacy of novel interventions (both of the pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical varieties) and a lack of careful consideration of their collateral harms. Why did Parliament not ask these questions before meekly surrendering power to HM Government for a two-year period back during the early panic in March 2020? How did age-old disease management principles get tossed to one side in favour of hocus-pocus measures based on ‘science’ that was anything but settled?
We do not claim to have got everything right and we have continued to probe and challenge our own thinking. HART remains a broad church and we encourage debate and discussion from a wide range of disciplines — how else will we learn?
But we will not stand by while those in authority — and their cheerleaders — censor and stifle this debate, brush aside some of the occurrences of the last few years with a breezy “never mind” while at the same time rushing to impose the next set of half-baked, inappropriate, economically damaging or downright harmful measures that got dreamed up in a think tank or focus group. It must be possible to do better than this. Our children’s futures depend on it.
We invite you to read the updated chapters of our initial evidence review:
- Variants of SARS-CoV-2 and the Futility of Border Closures
- Natural vs vaccine immunity: which is safer or more protective?
- Zero Covid – an impossible dream
- Living with Covid: What does this mean for those in adult social care?
- Masks do more harm than good
- Ethical considerations of the COVID-19 response updated
- Lockdowns: the evidence revisited
- COVID-19 vaccination in children – major ethical concerns remain
- The ONS Infection Survey: a re-evaluation of the data
- Vaccine Certification – a trojan horse for digital ID?
- Why are so many treatment options still being ignored?
- What has changed regarding asymptomatic spread?
- Covid policies and harms to children updated
- The Psychological Impact of the Government’s Communication Style and Restrictive Measures