500 ACADEMICS TELL U.K.’S JOHNSON OFFICIAL DATA “EXAGGERATING” COVID RISK

 An open letter signed by 500 academics in the U.K. told Prime Minister Boris Johnson that his government’s response to the coronavirus second wave has become “disproportionate” and raised questions about widespread testing.
“We urge policymakers to remember that this pandemic, like all pandemics, will eventually pass but the social and psychological damage that it is causing risks becoming permanent,” the letter read. “After the initial, justifiable response to COVID-19, the evidence base now shows a different picture,” the letter said, according to the Daily Mail website.
Johnson’s new lockdown restrictions, announced last week, will continue until 2 December. The restrictions impact bars and restaurants, which can only provide takeout, and it limits the reasons citizens can leave their homes.
The letter also questioned the widespread testing and the “problem of functional false positive rates,” and that these false positives are “likely to exceed true positives substantially and moreover correlate poorly with the person being infectious.” (See our article in this issue, “‘GOLD STANDARD’ COVID TEST INTRINSICALLY FLAWED.”)