You mentioned scientific truth,
we have to talk about the most recent scientific controversy of
the age, which is the COVID era. It feels like we are now just
emerging from it. And finally, some sort of perspective is
beginning to be put in place. It feels to me like the authority
and trust in science was enormously damaged during the
COVID years by what I would call overreach, over-claiming by
scientific authorities, and the concomitant backlash that came
alongside it. So there are now millions, many millions of
people who intuitively distrust whatever they are told by
scientific authorities, I suspect many more millions than
would there just three years ago. What's your overall sense
of the COVID era before we delve into specific points around it?
Do you think it was a moment of scientific glory? Or do you
think it was something that was a little bit problematic? I think glory in that with
unprecedented speed. vaccines were developed. And that was a
tribute to molecular biology, where the fact that it was
possible, almost instantly to sequence the genome of the
virus. And the genome was transmitted over the airwaves,
directly to labs all over the world. And labs in America and
Britain and elsewhere are immediately set to work
developing vaccines with, as I said, unprecedented speed. That
is magnificent, and is a tribute to science and was a glory of
science. As for whether humans mistrust or trust science,
that's their business. And I just haven't done the
sociological research. But the vaccines, since you
mentioned them, they were enormously over-promised in
terms of what their effects would be. They were originally
sold to the public as 95% effective in the sense of not
getting infected with the virus, if you take it. That was then
endlessly revised downwards and in the end, we were told, it
didn't stop transmission. They only improved outcomes for
vulnerable patients, which was very different to what was said,
originally. And meanwhile, there was this enormously heavy-handed
policing of whether people should take them, including in
many places, mandates or near mandates. And that was very
uncomfortable to watch. Do you do you think that... The speed with which things were
happening means that it's very difficult for people entrusted
with authority to give advice. And normally, there's much more
time in order to examine all the evidence and give balanced, wise
advice. When you're required to give advice almost instantly,
there inevitably are going to be mistakes. I'm so surprised that you're not
more critical of that era as someone who champions robust
debate and champions learning from errors, admitting when
things weren't exactly what you thought they were, it feels like
it was a real classic example of just the politicisation we're
talking about, where authorities were way over the top. Okay, well, probably then what
they should have done and with hindsight, they should have
said, 'well, actually, we don't know, we're uncertain'. 'Best
advice we can give is...' so and so. But imagine what would have
happened if they'd said that. 'We don't know, we just don't
know'. It's a very difficult situation to be. Lucky for me, I
wasn't in that situation but I sympathise with people who are
expected to give unequivocal yes-no advice. Politician will
say, 'give us the facts, is it a yes or no?' And you're expected
to answer that and if the true answer is 'we don't know', then
that gives rise to yet more It feels like the damage to
scientific authority would have uncertainty and confusion. So, I
sympathise with people if been much less if they had been
more modest in claims and allow they're required to give a yes
or no answer when they actually people to make decisions for
themselves instead of mandating don't have the information at hand. things that latterly proved not
to be correct. Yes but when you have to worry
about whether the right policy is to do what Sweden did or to
do what what we did. It is a very difficult decision. It's a
political decision, politicians need advice from scientists,
scientists have to decide how to advise politicians, I think we
need to be a bit more sympathetic. And I I haven't
noticed a great upwelling of mistrust in scientists as a
result of it. For me that the triumph of the speed of the
vaccination is what I take away from it. Let's put a couple of tweets
that you did during the pandemic on the screen. You said, "Some
faith heads have a ritual of handling snakes, believing faith
will protect them. When they're bitten, they deserve it, they
alone suffer. Vaccine refusal is different. Others are
endangered. It's as though their faith told them to release
rattlesnakes in supermarkets." This was April 6th 2021. That
kind of tone, which was very common among people of
influence, such as you, which was really vilifying people who
were hesitant about taking the vaccine, in retrospect seems too
much, doesn't it? Because maybe they were more right than we
realise. Do you take that back? Well, I had become aware that
the conventional wisdom about vaccination, which is that it's
a matter of altruism, because it's not simply a matter of
saying, 'this is my private business, whether I'm vaccinated
or not'. And in the case of the measles vaccine, for example, it
really is a matter of altruism becaus if you don't get
vaccinated, then then you are part of the problem if there's a
measles epidemic. And I thought that that would be the case with
COVID. And it's now not entirely clear that that was right. And
so to that extent, I would take that back. Yes. Do you now have a view on
lockdowns, since we're doing a little tour of the COVID era? No. I don't have a view. I'm not- I should say, as a half-Swedish
person, we've had a lot of attention to it. And you talk
about double-blind trials and scientific process. The fact
that Sweden has emerged from the longer period with the lowest
excess death count of all of the European countries, seems to be
quite an important scientific point of evidence that possibly
lockdowns were not necessary That could be true. And as John
Maynard Keynes is said to have said, 'when the facts change, I
change my mind, what do you do, sir?' And so yes, there was a
need for rapid decisions. The evidence was not yet in and
mistakes may have been made.
