Ross Clark is a journalist who writes in the Telegraph and the Daily Mail. He argues that "attempting to stop everyone getting the virus is futile," but has also pushed the idea that herd immunity is reached after around 20% of people have been infected. He wrote about the virus "burning itself out" in Autumn 2020.
His columns moved through three phases:
He has argued, regarding Covid, that we should, "control it rather than try to stop it, relying on herd immunity eventually to frustrate it". He has frequently suggested a vaccine might be "decades" away or never arrive. Even after successful tests he continued to argue in November 2020 that it vaccines might not eliminate the disease.
He argued for the Swedish approach and criticised the approach taken by New Zealand as a "horrendously expensive zero tolerance policy". He opposed tiered and local lockdown measures, and accusing the government of "conspiring to trash the northern economy". However, he also criticised national measures: "we are going to close down restaurants in Cornwall to try to fight an epidemic in Manchester."
He argued there was insufficient evidence to justify mandating mask use and stressed the risks of mask use. He argued mask requirements were "dystopian". He criticised the use of travel quarantines in summer 2020.
"How much easier it is to blame the general public for flouting the rules than to admit that lockdown is a failed experiment in suppressing an infectious disease."
"Enough of this Governmental scapegoating of the public for Covid transmission", Telegraph, 11 January 2021
Until 4pm on December 23, 47,750 people had died of Covid-19 in English hospitals, but fewer than 2,000 of these had no pre-existing medical condition... Among those who died, 26 per cent were already suffering from diabetes, 17 per cent had dementia, 16 per cent chronic pulmonary disease, 16 per cent chronic kidney disease and 14 per cent heart disease. Moreover, not all 'Covid' deaths were really caused by the disease... there is no need to get carried away. Covid is no plague."
"Some of the startling facts about the pandemic that you WON'T hear from ministers shutting Britain down again", Daily Mail, 29 December 2020
"From Neil Ferguson’s 500,000 deaths, to Patrick Vallance’s dodgy 4,000 deaths-a-day graph to Chris Whitty’s new variant that is 70 per cent more transmissible than the old variant, when he [the Prime Minister] finds himself in a roomful of boffins determined to change his mind, change it he eventually will. Moreover, to judge by past experience he will have agreed to Tier 4 without asking the tough questions about the 70 per cent claim that he should have asked."
"The PM's reluctant Christmas climbdown is a disaster for his personal credibility", Telegraph, 20 December 2020
"this is the first time an entire sector of the economy has been thrown to the wolves on the strength of something an academic scribbled on an envelope."
"The government is throwing the hospitality sector under the bus on the strength of a back-of-an-envelope calculation" Telegraph, 26 November 2020
"rates began falling before Liverpool became the first place to be put in Tier 3 in October. It looks more a case of the epidemic burning itself out the virus struggled to find sociable people to infect – just as happened in London in the spring."
"The Government's tin-eared, patronising Covid lecturing is growing more irritating by the day", Telegraph, 27 November 2020
"the seven day average for deaths never passed 437 and is now falling... it took a leaked document from NHS Secondary Uses Services to reveal the true picture in hospitals. It revealed that at the time there were 13,000 free hospital beds in England and that 18 percent of critical care beds were then unoccupied. Overall occupancy, revealed the report, was no higher than normal for the time of year."
"The Government is wrong to suggest that only lockdown has saved us from an overflowing NHS", Telegraph, 30 November 2020
"We’ve seen plenty of modelling and dodgy graphs seeking to justify lockdown... And if the vaccine doesn’t quite eliminate the disease? There is no strategy for that."
"This isn't the end of lockdown. It's the next phase of a ruinous cycle of illogical restrictions", Telegraph, 22 November 2020
"the second peak seems to have passed – over the past week there has been an average of 22,287 new infections a day, down from 24,430 the week before. In mid-September, Sir Patrick made the terrifying claim that the UK could see 50,000 new coronavirus cases a day by mid-October unless more draconian restrictions were introduced. Yet we have never got near that figure."
"What they DON'T tell you about Covid: Fewer beds taken up than last year, deaths a fraction of the grim forecasts, 95% of fatalities had underlying causes... and how the facts can be twisted to strike fear in our hearts." Daily Mail, 20 November 2020
"two weeks in it is already clear that lockdown mark two will quickly be replaced by lockdown mark three – a rebranded set of restrictions which goes under the name of a "regional tiered structure"... The Government’s fetish for incarcerating its own citizens is growing stronger by the day. Britain has become a giant Guantanamo Bay of Covid control, maintained by invisible fences of call centres and fines."
"Don't expect December's lockdown to be any better than this one", Telegraph, 18 November 2020
"attempting to stop everyone getting the virus is futile. It simply drags the whole thing out far longer. We are not stopping deaths by entering this strange twilight world of semi-imprisonment and economic depression; we are merely delaying them... True, the death toll to date would almost certainly have been higher. But we are going to have those deaths anyway, as will every country that has tried to suppress the virus."