Treat Covid Like the Common Cold, Says the Wellcome Trust – As Leading Israeli Immunologist Blasts Lockdown Consensus: “It’s Time to Admit Failure”
The Wellcome Trust – Britain’s biggest independent funder of medical research, set up by the man whose pharmaceutical firm became GlaxoSmithKline – has called for coronavirus to be “treated like the common cold”. The Telegraph has the story.
Nick Moakes, the charity’s Chief Investment Officer, said restrictions were no longer economically justified and it was time to “live with” coronavirus.
“I don’t think it can mean going back into regular lockdowns because it is just not economically viable. We don’t do that for the flu, we don’t do that for the common cold,” he said.
“The best case end game is where it is treated like the common cold, like flu. And on an annual basis, those that are vulnerable get a jab against it – and the rest of us have built up a degree of immunity that protects us sufficiently. And we do live with it.”
His comments are at odds with those of the WHO Senior Emergency Officer Dr. Catherine Smallwood, who said on Tuesday that we are “nowhere near” treating Covid as an endemic virus.
However, they are in line with those of Professor David Heymann of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), who has suggested in a Chatham House online briefing that the U.K. is seeing the virus become endemic. According to the Telegraph:
