Evidence is accumulating that there is a significant link between low levels of the vitamin and higher mortality rates — although most agree it is too early to categorically say one way or the other and more work is needed. One piece of this evidence was very suggestive data from Italy showing extreme Vitamin D deficiency in most of those in a set of Covid-19 post-mortems.

Speaking on BBC Question Time on 26 March 2020, Richard Horton, the editor-in-chief of the Lancet medical journal, described the government’s response to the Coronavirus pandemic as “a national scandal”. A look through the key moments in the crisis explains why.

Models have been bandied about in the UK which have cost lives, in recent weeks. Reliance on models always carries with it that kind of — deadly — risk.

It is because of pressure from experts and citizens, and because of citizens moving way ahead of Government in implementing physical-distancing measures from the bottom up, that the Johnson Government has finally moved, and that Covid-19 might be starting to be brought under control in the UK. This article explores these vital points, as we move into a three-week ‘lockdown’ period.

It is hard for humans to imagine things radically outside their own experience.

As there has never been a major worldwide pandemic in this age of globalisation, contemplating that tens — or possibly even hundreds — of millions of people may be about to die is simply not within the realms of things most of us are willing to consider.

Executive summary

• There has never been a major global pandemic in our age of globalised hyper-mobility. This unprecedentedness of our situation is a powerful reason for powerfully employing the Precautionary Principle to reduce our collective exposure to this coronavirus: an exposure which is grave.
• Applying a precautionary approach to COVID-19, so as to stay ahead of the virus, requires much stronger protective measures than have thus far been used, most importantly:
• Pre-emptively reducing physical hyper-connectivity, by way of arresting most air travel (and cruise travel, and some long-distance rail and road travel), and encouraging not just individuals but also geographic communities to self-protect and where necessary self-isolate, pre-emptively and not only reactively.
• There is much chatter in the media about whether we are ‘over-reacting’ to the coronavirus outbreak. This briefing document proposes that in fact we are still under-reacting.