Professor Devi Sridhar, the Chair of Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh and a member of the Scottish Government Covid Advisory Group, said two months ago (in a tweet that has since been deleted) that the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine does not work against the South African variant. She now claims that the vaccine does work against variants, and that “we have to move away from harsh restrictions and lockdowns”. “Steerpike” has the details on this U-turn in the Spectator.
Eight weeks ago… the good professor was spreading inaccurate information about the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca jab against new variants after she tweeted on March 26th: “Huge risk: watching a slow-moving car crash as U.K. Government stays open to France and other European countries, which have a South African variant our main vaccine (AZ) doesn’t work against. The red list approach doesn’t work. We need blanket international quarantine to avoid future lockdowns.”
Two months later, such a blanket international quarantine has not been introduced. Case numbers continue to fall in Scotland with just 313 cases reported yesterday and zero new reported deaths of those who tested positive. The red list approach is still in place and AstraZeneca is still being administered daily to thousands across the U.K.. You might have thought an academic who had been so outspoken on this might be somewhat embarrassed by this extremely positive data.
Apparently not, given Sridhar’s recent tweets. The professor has now done a complete 180 and switched to being bullish about the resilience of Britain’s vaccines (including the much-maligned AstraZeneca). She tweeted on May 23rd: “My take on current situation: variants will continue to cause issues but our vaccines (both doses!) are effective as an additional layer of protection. We have to move away from harsh restrictions and lockdowns to data-driven, precise outbreak management using science and logistics.” Quite the turn around.
Of course, you cannot point this volte-face out to Sridhar as she has a disconcerting habit of blocking her critics online. Her tweet of March 26th has now been deleted – not surprising given how inaccurate her AstraZeneca claims proved to be. Other claims are harder for Sridhar to remove, such as her apocalyptic warning on Sky News at the end of February that “there is a huge risk of bringing back all kids at the same time and then having to shut schools again” – another prediction that failed to transpire.
Sridhar herself has shown no qualms about demanding greater accountability and transparency for others, writing online that “secrecy goes against public good esp in crisis when decisions have implications for 66 million people”. Mr S wonders whether Sridhar’s preference for expunging her inaccurate predictions is conducive to good policymaking.
Worth reading in full.
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