Main description:

Professor Ashton has lifelong hands-on experience and a deep scholarly understanding of the science of public health, a discipline invented in Britain. In this scathing critique he notes that nothing that the UK government has done to deal with COVID-19 is recognisable against two centuries of knowledge. Instead, it is designing untested methods at exceptional expense that have created a public-health and economic crisis never seen before. The government should urgently return to the science as set out in Blinded by Corona. From February, Professor Ashton has applied its precepts to Bahrain, where he was appointed special COVID-19 adviser, and the country topped the WHO league in August. It also suffered the least disruption of the economy and social life and did not have a general lockdown.

Contents:

Blinded by Corona

1 Plagues in History
2 Straws in the Wind
3 A Disaster Waiting to Happen
4 Rising Tide in Wuhan, China
5 The Virus Arrives in the UK
6 News from Bahrain
7 A Wasted Month and an Absentee Prime Minister
8 A Floating Petri Dish
9 Where There Is No Vision, the People Perish
10 SAGE
11 Left to Die, 'Herd Immunity'
12 Chickens Coming Home to Roost
13 The Last Stop
14 Politically-Led Science and the Numbers Game
15 Lockdown
16 The Forgotten
17 Dying Matters
18 Independent SAGE to the Rescue?
19 Cummingsgate and After

Afterword

Acknowledgements
Glossary
Select Bibliography