I was asked to speak at an event organised by the Zero-Covid Coalition last night. This group takes the epidemiologically logical approach that the only way to beat Covid is to eliminate it. Tolerating it clearly does not work. Letting it rip through the population is very clearly a recipe for harm, whether to individuals or to society at large as well as to our public services. As a consequence, this group reject both current government policy and that promoted by libertarians. I agree with them. The fact that some of the best thinkers in epidemiology do so as well encourages me to think that way.

The argument that I presented was quite straightforward. Current government policy is that we should get back to 'normal'. 'Normal' would appear to be defined as the laissez-faire days of pre-2008. The object is to cut the state and let unregulated finance run riot again. In practice there is no way that this can happen, and nor is it desirable. Worse, the attempt is crippling any effective response to Covid, which was declared over last July whilst leaving public services, including the NHS, denuded of resources. The burden of tackling Covid has been passed to the public and the 'sound judgement of business' who are unqualified to make any form of judgement on this issue. Government denial of responsibility is the order of the day.

My suggestion was that an entirely different approach was possible. First, we could go for mass ventilation. There is compelling evidence that HEPA ventilators get rid of well over 99% of Covid in the air, and since Covid is an airborne disease (all that hand washing was of no consequence) this is crucial. I recognised the environmental conflict within this, but said that we have to make a choice. If we want to live well we will have to find something else to give up so that we can enjoy clean air, just as clean water also has a price, but is fundamental to life. Nothing is more important than rolling out these ventilators now if we are to have a chance of returning to normal social lives, which is a priority much higher than the re-establishment of unregulated capitalism.

Second, I argued that vaccines should be made available on a royalty-free basis to developing countries.

Third, just that we should embrace the changes that have taken place in our society as a consequence of Covid, not all of which are bad. So for example, flexible ways of working should become normal and there should be support for those who cannot work because of long Covid, for example. You need to recognise this change.

Fourth, we have to also recognise the fact that we have underfunded the NHS for a long time. It is absurdly short of intensive care beds, and the shortage of those available for intensive care for children will become the focus of attention very soon. There is, quite simply, no spare capacity left in the health service, and it cannot operate on this basis for a lot longer. It is time that we recognised that the peculiar nature of this crisis in the UK is not the result of an accident, but the consequence of sustained austerity.

As I argued, there are tax opportunities to address this issue, but as importantly there is also QE available for this purpose. We should consider the latter. This is an investment to create a viable economy: QE is entirely suitable for use for investment purposes. The argument that there is no money available to beat Covid is simply wrong, not least because of the benefits that would accrue include no more lockdowns, no supply chain crises, and so no inflation risk. Instead we have all of these, and all because we have refused to go for a zero Covid policy.

At some time in the future we will change our approach to Covid, but I do not see it happening as yet. It seems that we have not suffered enough.

The video was made of the meeting but it cannot be embedded here. I spoke for about 48 minutes in. The rest is worth watching. The presentation by Deepti Gurdasami is particularly impressive.