[1andrew1]

From Channel 4 News, a great clip from Chris Whitty tackling the question if we are prioritising Covid over treating other conditions like cancer. Short answer no, that's an inversion of reality. Watch the video here.

Dean Russell, MP: One of the other comments that I've heard is that people are concerned we're prioritising Covid over other things especially with the Omicron variant. You know, Covid over cancer, Covid over other serious issues. What would you say to that?

Professor Chris Whitty: Yeah, I think this is sometimes said by people who have no understanding of health at all, but I don't think it's said by anyone's who's serious, if I'm honest. And when they say that, it's usually because they want to make a political point.

The reality is if you ask any doctor, working in any part of the system, they will say this: that what is threatening our ability to do cancer, what is threatening our ability to do all of these things, is the fact that so much of the NHS effort, so many of the beds, are having to be put over to Covid, and that we're having to work in a less efficient way because Covid is there.

Finding a way to manage Covid in a way that it minimises the impact on everything else is absolutely central to what we're trying to do. And you know, in a sense, I completely agree there are multiple other things in addition to Covid. But if we don't crack Covid at the points when we've got big waves as we have now, we do huge damage elsewhere.

And the idea that lockdowns cause the problem with things like cancer is a complete inversion of reality. If we had not had the lockdowns, the whole system would have been in deep, deep trouble and the impact on things like heart attacks and strokes and all the other things people must still come forward for when they had them would have been worse than it was.

So I do want to through all of you to make absolutely clear that it's an inversion of reality.

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