‘No’ to Covid amnesty

Alarmingly, and seemingly unironically, I believe she subtly calls for censorship of doctors spreading misinformation on page seven of her submission.

Yet on this basis she herself ought to be censored as the submission is frequently factually incorrect. She condemns as misinformation true ideas like the failure of masks; it is necessary and inevitable for everyone to get Covid; herd immunity from mass infection is a good idea; Covid will evolve to be milder; and children are sicker this year because of immunity debt.

Let's compare her position to that of cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra. His conversion occurred after his father, also a cardiologist, died from a vaccine-induced heart attack. Like Phelps, Malhotra had been an advocate of vaccination, but he has completely jumped ship. While Phelps tries to keep everyone happy Malhotra has gone full-Pauline, risking personal crucifixion by his profession.

While he primarily talks and tweets on vaccines, he has also paid the idea of mask mandates some attention. His proselytization is ferocious and continuous, not a few curated titbits released to mainstream media outlets, and the only way he will be put in charge of health policy is if there is a complete upending of the status quo as he attacks both Tory and Labour politicians.

Nick Coatsworth might be as close as we've seen in Australia to a Malhotra.

Which leaves open the question of what to do. I have to admit to no clear answers at the moment. There are many who should not be let near a health crisis again, including some institutions like Grattan and Doherty.

While some are calling for a Royal Commission, the commissioning of one is unlikely to be forthcoming from a Parliament stuffed with the guilty, so the work could fall to a civil society project.

The quality of debt is assessed by private ratings agencies. Why not apply the same principles to areas of public policy, assigning ratings to public health professionals in a publicly available database?

What we have seen with Covid is symptomatic of so many areas of public policy, and there is a convergence of views of the Covid obsessives in a lot of areas, such as climate, energy, and economics. Failure in one area should trigger alarm in others.

There should be no more failing upwards, Dr Phelps.