Frogs, Punks and Exceptionalism

Lessons Learned Five Years After Lockdown

This time, 5 years ago, we were collectively reeling from the shock of being simply told to “stay at home”, which was far from simple, and exposed some of the deepest flaws of our society. In a moment, deserving of a scene in Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em’, we were led by a disastrous Prime Minister, that showed that our leadership has not learnt from the past mistakes of colonialism and the class system. It is not always gold that floats to the top of the bowl.

Photograph: Justin Tallis/AP

The Press took the opportunity to reflect too, and we saw quite clearly, with the benefit of ‘retrospectascopes’ (great term Prof Stephen Griffin!) that we haven’t understood the lessons. McKie, in The Guardian, demonstrated this brilliantly with an extra large pair of retrospectascopes; by going full anti-lockdown, keep schools open, the kids (but not grandma or your highly at risk of long covid mum) will be alright rhetoric.

What could have been a blitz spirit moment of collective cohesion, led by our own Spenceresque Churchill, was desecrated by errant British entitlement and ended up as our Gallipoli. Populism and individualism floated to the top and, underpinned by a broken system wrecked by austerity and dismantled public services, they won. A point of time viscerally captured by one car trip to Barnard’s Castle.

Event at UCL: Communicating in a Crisis: Lessons Learned Five Years After Covid

To see what the upper echelons of our science communications experts had to say about lessons learned, a member of our team went to this discussion held by UCL. Taking the stage were Prof Jon Van Tam, Prof Susan Michie, Prof Jack Stilgoe, Prof Alice Roberts, Dr Catherine Haddon and Dr Phillip Ball.

There are two initial things to note. Firstly, is that the title can be read in two ways. What lessons were learned about how to communicate in a crisis? And, what lessons were learned from Covid? Placing Covid in the past tense is never a good idea, but we will give them the benefit of the doubt, inferring it’s five years after Covid began.

The second initial impression was that our team member was only one of two of the 200 people present wearing a mask.

This leads to two themes that need to be addressed - the unspoken and exceptionalism.

The Good, the Bad and the Unspoken

Van Tam started proceedings, and the event took the course of the first interpretation. Lessons learned about how to communicate. Key factors included creating empathy, sameness, and making a connection. All valid and vital tools. The talk in itself made excellent points about the efficacy and importance of science communication in the time of crisis.

But as any decent teacher will tell you, answering the question is key to top marks, and if ‘Lessons Learned Five Years After Covid’ is in the title, it is a good idea to address it. Let’s investigate some of these silent lessons.

The unspoken and catastrophic lesson not learned is that Covid is airborne. From this stance, a disaster has unfolded, like a malignant seed crystal, endlessly metastasising into every corner of our lives. That Van Tam acceded to the flawed IPC guidance that changed the transmission route to droplet from airborne, is something contemporary and future commentators will continue to highlight and question. (There was a question and answer session, but our questions didn’t get selected.)

Politics and Science

Why was this? The position of Van Tam in the pandemic brought to vivid light other unspoken factors that are usually more subtle. That science, and what is determined to be ‘true’, acts in the arenas of politics and society. It’s a prime tenet in History of Science too, but often dismissed in the hard sciences where faith in objectivity, rationality and the scientific method are trusted to deliver the correct outcome.

But humans, money and class are unfortunately more messy than that. If there isn’t a position on SAGE for a historian of science, now might be the time to put a job vacancy notice out. It is said that church and state can be a deadly mix - the same can be true of politics and science.

Van Tam’s and Whitty’s interactions with the Conservative Party, demonstrated the tightrope of how scientific agency interacts with political, democratic authority. With primacy ultimately given to political figures because they were democratically elected and therefore ‘spoke for the people’.

Plato had a rough time deciding on how best a society should be led, coming to the conclusion that those reluctant to be in power are the prime choice. It’s a position that must have been hell for Van Tam, Whitty and Vallance and there is a whole spectrum of opinion about how well they did this. Did Van Tam take the part of Van Cleef in the Good, the Bad and the Ugly instead of Clint riding to the rescue? But it sure would have helped if one of them modelled a high-quality respirator mask. Instead, we saw we haven’t moved on from the 18th Century where we are led by posh idiots hellbent on their own will for power.

Exceptionalism

Prof Susan Michie was a star and raised the issue of the airborne transmission of Covid. This isn’t an area of doubt, or both-sides-ism, however much those in authority would like us to think this. Prof Cath Noakes, Prof Trish Greenslade and Prof Clive Beggs and more, have gone to great lengths through scientific and public testimony, including Beggs and Noakes in the Covid Inquiry, to demonstrate this. If you need more persuading, please see The Wellcome Open Research Review and Cat’s mega thread of evidence.

Michie raised the critical point that we need to learn from evidence from the rest of the world, that we lost many lives because we didn’t want to take lessons from Asia. It was this British exceptionalism (err racism), harking back to Empire, that propelled us to think we knew best, and yet were utterly unprepared. It was Asia’s experience of SARS 1 and MERS that meant they were in a better position to react to Covid. But it was also their established cultural acceptance of high-quality masks and emphasis on collectivism. Epitomised by the Japanese concept of Wa, harmony of the group over personal interests, that we failed to learn from.

Government Lies?

Then came the question from Prof Alice Roberts: do we need to have a conversation about whether and when it is ever OK for governments to lie to us for the perceived greater good? Yes, the risk of panic and riot is an issue, but so is the vast loss of life and disability caused by not revealing key risks.

The airborne nature of Covid is something that the Government is still evasive about and it is only the brave, bold and beautiful that are actively speaking about this. But it isn’t the risk of catastrophic panic, or the greater good, that is causing this ‘misrepresentation’: it is the inordinate amount of effort and money that it would take to acknowledge and act on this to make society safe. It is this political and ultimately corporate (if we peek behind the throne) pressure that science is being twisted by, as a way to avoid responsibility. The greater good of the few and not the many is the vital distinction.

Long Covid in Children

Another key example of an untruth that continues is that children aren’t vulnerable to Covid. We had an opportunity to talk to Alice after the event and raised this issue. Her response was that exceptional claims require exceptional evidence. And we certainly did not have that evidence when Jennie Harris declared a child was more likely to be hit by a bus than get Covid. The same goes for the goose that laid the putrid egg – herd immunity. We now have evidence that over a hundred thousand young lives are devastated by Long Covid. Yet, that evidence is not seen as exceptional enough to do anything about.

Punk Forever?

Let’s move on to the other unspoken - masks. So, who stands up against corporate and political interests that aren’t for the good of society? Punks for one and it does take a dedicated punky spirit of defiance to continue to mask in the front of an ever-growing social pressure not to.

Photo by Nick Fewings

It’s also important to remember this pressure is cultural and particularly plays into some of the worst aspects of the British character, exceptionalism and individualism. An opportunity to learn from Asia and make masks socially acceptable was lost, and this was one of the tragedies of the pandemic. We have family in South-East Asia and no one bats an eye at a small child in a mask at school. It’s no big deal. As a society, we could have learnt how to mask intelligently. In Asia, it is a massive faux-pas to not mask if you are ill, as you are causing someone else to potentially suffer. The Wa is broken.

There is a great moment in ‘Radical Love’ by Neil Blackmore where Ned, an abolitionist (also not a hugely popular stance at one time), states:

Englishmen, he said, have managed the trick of doing absolutely the worst things but denying their evil afterwards when evidence of it is all around. Eject the Jews but keep the name. Enslave Africans and tell them it was to convert them to Christianity and save their souls. Conquer India, close its factories and strip it of its wealth and say it was to end sati. Never to steal money and land. Never that.

Yet, we have also forgotten our history of Radicalism, of Wollstonecraft, Byron and Bentham and our capacity to go against social dictates that harm the many and give the finger to centralised authority.

One of the main reactions to masking is ‘but we can’t mask forever!!’ But this is the problem, and it demonstrates one of the lessons not learnt. The few of us that do mask only have to because others won’t. It runs on similar lines to vaccination. The more people mask intelligently the less we actually have to long-term because we would contain and massively reduce the rates of Covid. Yet, because there are no layers of mitigations, those who mask are locked into a forever situation in an ever-growing hostile society. So much for individuals being free to decide and mitigate their own risk.

Frogs

Walking into an event, or anywhere in society, with a mask on, is amphibious in nature. We cross two incompatible worlds that have different rules and conventions.

Photo by Jack Hamilton

Many of us who do mask, do so from a personal or family experience. We have experiential knowledge of the devastation that can come from a Covid infection. It is heartbreaking to risk another exposure. Yet, we are often looked upon as frogs.

The other world, that does not have a foot in the Kingdom of the Sick, has other conventions. Masking is perceived to have no personal benefit, is uncomfortable and lessons social connectivity. Why would one choose this?

It is these two competing views of what is ‘reasonable’ that are dividing us. What we have to ask is: are we thinking for ourselves or are we being driven by political forces that tap into our need for social conformity and prefer to divide and rule? Do we need to punk up or not?

Yet, if we look to fairy stories for some insight we see that in ‘The Frog Prince’ those that do kiss the frog end up with a Prince.

‘Reasonableness’

Masking is a growing conflict in society and within the Long Covid and Covid online community - and it is something we have to talk about. It is dividing and traumatic for everyone. But it is worth remembering that it is being driven because we are being failed at a systemic level. Lessons were not learned. That is now playing out between individuals, family and groups with awful stakes.

Let’s get one thing clear: it is unreasonable to ask anyone to risk disability and death. Masking is a critical layer of mitigation to prevent this. Yet, we totally get why someone uninformed or lacking the a priori knowledge of the utter shitness of Covid would see it as ‘unreasonable’ to continue to mask. Humans’ great strength - social conformity - is also a great weakness, and one where we have been played in the context of mitigations.

In the UK, there has been a clear and decisive policy to politicise masks. To encourage society to feel they are not socially acceptable. This was driven by right-wing thinking and talk of freedom by the Conservative Party and beyond. People were free to basically not be ‘restricted’ by rules that benefited others, and also conveniently so were the Government.

So, it plays out, as the world has gone back to ‘normal’ between individuals. It was played out in this event, where only two people were masked, and the whole subject went into the unspoken borderlands along with Long Covid.

It is heartbreaking. The problem is that no civilised normal can exclude the margins, the vulnerable. We do so at everyone’s detriment. The crux is how do we find a way to bridge the divide without alienation and trauma?

We were let down by those in authority, not modelling masks at any point in the pandemic. We were let down by not having clear public health messaging about airborne transmission. We were let down so many times.

How do we keep Long Covid in the conversation?

Let’s get back to Long Covid. We asked key members of the panel how do we keep Long Covid in the conversation? Van Tam gave a concise and impressively blunt answer that he didn’t know, as did Michie and Roberts. We would hasten to add that mentioning it would be a good start, especially as the event was timed during Long Covid Awareness week. No one has to have ‘The Solutions’, but we can’t continue to have it as the unmentionable cousin. Although we do thank the ladies for agreeing to photos with our campaign postcards to raise awareness. (Yes, there’s still time to send your postcards! It’s running all of March).

Prof. Alice Roberts

It was quite a watch to see the biggest mass disabling event in modern times, possibly ever, not be seen as a key lesson to learn. Either as a motivational reason for social compliance in layered mitigations; the continued risk that everyone still has of developing Long Covid after every infection; and the fact that it was totally not mentioned in the science comms of the emergency phase of the pandemic or considered as a risk factor in the planning.

We hope that our presence, as honorary elephants in the room, that Long Covid deserves to be spoken about and that through our modelling, a reminder that masking is still a powerful tool for protection. To be honest, we are always going to mask, it’s not just ideological for us. We have a daughter who has been devastated by each repeated Covid infection. We’re going to do everything in our power to protect her. Especially as the support and understanding from schools and the medical profession has been non-existent and traumatic.

Hopefully, in the future, those speaking will use their platforms and influence to address what is not a fringe crisis. The latest estimates are that one in ten experience Long Covid.

Prof. Susan Michie

Social Justice

The lessons that need to be learned from the pandemic crosses into social justice and especially austerity. We saw that unpreparedness for the pandemic through social cuts in the UK meant that we had to lockdown hard and late:

It’s worth remembering lockdown is the most extreme measure you can do. The reason we had to do it was because of years of health infrastructure being underfunded and pandemic planning hadn’t been done well. Prof Stephen Griffin

The majority of people who died of Covid, 6 out of 10, had a disability. Yet, the Labour government is hell-bent on continuing punitive and disastrous disability and social cuts, showing this lesson hasn’t been learned either.

This deserves an article on its own right, so do subscribe to be informed when it drops.

Final Words

So, what lessons need to be learnt for the present and future pandemics? Have we evolved to meet societal need in a time of crisis? Here are our top 10. Please note this isn’t an exhaustive list. If you have other key points, add them to the comments. We’re interested!

Ten Lessons to Learn

1. Equitable social and health infrastructure investment

2. Acknowledgement that Covid is airborne & action to prevent airborne transmission

3. Strong scientific agency and independence from political error

4. Messaging, decision-making and mitigations include post-acute viral disease

5. Narrative building for social responsibility and cohesion

6. Establishment of a Southeast Asian pandemic playbook

7. Strengthening of work and employment protections

8. Robust public sector test, track, trace and PPE system

9. Strong digital and remote options for education

10. Universal Basic Income

Yet, from these lessons, can we see them being developed in our society? Is a more resiliant network being created by our politicians in a time of global instability, be it pandemics, climate crisis or war? If we look around us the answer is no. A recent survey showed that 4 in 10 Britons think Lockdown was unnecessary.

As time has gone by there’s been a tendency towards a kind of collective amnesia and complacency as we try and move on from that period, but let’s not forget the terror of that period. A new, highly contagious virus to which we had no immunity and daily evidence that even state-of-the-art intensive care medicine in the finest hospitals often seemed unable to save people. Prof Danny Altmann

But we can see from history that times of instability often create a rise in right-wing, isolationist and scapegoat politics. We can see that now, in the UK, where the disabled are being targeted to balance the books, instead of fairly taxing the wealthy. And well, just one word, Trump. It is clear that we need a radical change to ensure that the lessons of the pandemic are learned.

Allyship

We also need an honest and heartfelt conversation and investigation into Allyship, especially in regards to masking. What that means? And how we can evolve this to compassionate, fierce solidarity that is mature and inclusive. Yet, that is a whole other discussion that will take place in part two. It might be a rocky ride so do subscribe if you don’t want to miss it.