You and your team made predictions that could have fucked this country for billions of pounds, and cost thousands of jobs, only to have your most pessimistic ballshit. I hope you are held to account for what you have done and if there weren't some people in the government with a brain, you wouldn't have done it.
How would you like to receive this? As a senior scientist advising the government on Covid, I get this sort of email a lot. Someone calling himself Mr Roberts is a regular offenders. The email was not sent to me, but to a junior member of my team. Isn't it awful?
This email from Roberts is not typical of the genre. Roberts's spelling is generally good and his sentences are a bit long, but the grammar is sound. The majority of letter-writers don't have a very good grasp of the English language. The spelling is shocking. Sometimes it makes me wonder if the sender is a human or if they are from the UK at all. It's comforting to think that some of them might have been created by a clever bit of computer code.
I have learned that if you mention vaccination in the media, there is likely to be a reaction. If the Daily Mail picks up one's comments, then this will happen. The letter-writers use the same phrases, like the phrase "tick tock" or the Nuremberg trials, as well as Bill Gates, who must get this stuff by the bucketload every day. Sometimes I believe that there is a coordinated campaign, or at least that these ideas are circulating somewhere and they cut and paste them into their letters to my colleagues and I.
It isn't all bad. Sometimes you get a person who is confused or concerned. I always reply to these letters. I feel I have done my job if I can help explain the risks so that they come to a more informed decision.
There are more outre examples. There is an artist who occasionally sends me a picture of a misty landscape or a still life, and the musician who dubbed one of my Radio 4 interviews over his song. It worked, but it was crazy.
Maybe that is the lesson. There are some people who might need help, some rude and threatening types who need to look at themselves, some confused souls who need advice, and some magical, fanciful types who just need to carry on doing what they do. Help those who need it, block out the idiots, and concentrate on the wonderful, the wacky, and the profound. Happy new year!
John is a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and is a member of the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies.
