We look at scientific evidence with cold, hard objectivity, putting our own biases to one side.

But this idea has been debated for many years.

Scientists spent huge amounts of time considering the question of subjectivity when interpreting evidence.

In normal times, it's a cornerstone of how science is appraised.

But in these abnormal times it's that same questioning still happening.

So how healthy is our scientific debate been?

Has acknowledged what we just don't know.

And has it given full weight not just to covert, but to the consequences of co vid.

Throughout the pandemic, I have spoken to coalitions, academics and public health doctors who cannot speak because their employers won't allow it.

I've spoken to others who have been disciplined for speaking publicly on.

Yet there are others who have genuine expertise but are reluctant to share their thoughts because they're too scared.

The majority of us are conducting 40 to 60 consultations every day.

This is Professor Claire Gerada, former elected leader of the country's GPS, felt hot.

I took my temperature and it was about 101 102.

Talking about her own experience of co vid back in March.

She waas happy to publicly discuss aspects of covert then, but is now very reluctant, she say's because the debate has become far too toxic.

It's very difficult to discuss Cove it.

I mean, clearly everybody's discussing Kobe, but it's difficult to discuss the nuances of the approach to Kobe.

What you actually have to do is to discuss debate, look at options, weigh up the evidence on then for our politicians to come to the right decision for the right, for the right number of people.

But even saying that one gets accused of wanting to kill people off, not wanting to save lives, which is nonsense, Doctor Sunil Bhopal is a pediatrician.

So I started in March 2020 thinking Okay, we're going into this really severe period where we need to throw everything we have.

It covered 19, which would needed to be done.

It was absolutely right thing to do at the time.

But when Dr Bhopal argued back in April that Children were at very low risk from covert itself but risked significant harm from co vered restrictions, he faced a furious backlash from some accusations have been thrown at me online, which don't know how much attention I need to pay to them, but my number one priority throughout has Bean about health and well being.

The debate around, locked down and shielding has been high profile and toxic, but it goes well beyond that.

There's been significant disagreements about issues such as how the virus passes between us, how many of us are immune, the wisdom of mass testing, how well masks work, whether we can eliminate the virus.

On that question about the closure of schools to stop the spread.

Professor Sam Everington has been a GP in the deprived Bromley by Bow Area of East London for over 30 years.

I think polarization is partly because nobody knows exact answer.

You know what I mean?

And it's really important to say that way need to be able to say in In science, you know where you are now.

You know what the evidence is now, but we learn and you need Thio.

You need to change.

Your approach is you go through so there's always a level of uncertainty, and some people think that we have the answers to people's disease and one of the important things I say to the patient quite often.

This eyes, I don't know.

Some commentators argue that the debate has been dominated by those who have allowed least room for uncertainty.

A footnote in a recent medical journal editorial provoked quite a storm in academic circles recently.

Why?

Because on the question of conflicts of interest, it said, the authors declare that all three authors have been wrong about co vid 19 in an article about how little we really know about co vid.

Their point was very deliberate.

Professor George Davey Smith was one of the authors during the pandemic.

I think the acknowledgement of uncertainty in communication of what is essentially scientific evidence, scientific knowledge has been inadequate.

There's some commentators who say have been saying exactly the same thing right from the beginning, carrying on, saying that now, whatever side of the debate they're on, they're not the people that I would be able to listen to to get useful evidence.

But if the evidence is so uncertain, then why do many commentators seem so certain?

Remember, scientists are always human on, they will still, I do think take a position that will not just depend on the evidence they have in the paper.

They've just written off the other.

Their values will come into it well.

And we can see that through other obvious that that's coming to the fore, not just the data.

Perhaps it was no surprise that something as enormous as co vid was communicated to people in broad strokes has normal scientific nuance been lost on the problem with the way that we've communicated this partly because it's politicizes.

We've tried to come up with simplistic certainties which have proved to be far too simplistic.

And we've divided the entire scientific community in tow.

Particular simplistic camps where they're absolutely definite.

That one course of action is right and science just doesn't work like that.

The honest answer is we really do not know how this is going to turn out talkto hospital doctors, and many will tell you how concerned they are about the impact of co vid on the NHS.

Andi.

Its ability to cope those warnings cannot be ignored.

But do we risk not paying enough attention toe other impacts?

Sage have in fact, model the impact of the other harms on in official press conferences.

They have had some attention, idea weaken do this without causing harm is an illusion.

But it is case rates, hospitalizations and deaths that get primary billing.

Although it is easy in a sense, to count the deaths from covert encounter hospitalizations, we should be always trying to measure the what else is going on in society in terms of mental health in terms of, you know, again, life satisfaction in terms of abuse, family break up and so on.

The first of the World Health Organization's guiding principles, say's health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, Recent figures from the Office for National Statistics suggested.

In Britain, things are not looking good.

This graph shows how people respond When asked how satisfied they currently are with their life, the blue dotted line is just pre pandemic.

We can see that the latest restrictions have coincided with a massive fall in life satisfaction.

It's now at its lowest ever level.

Daisy Fan Court is also looking at the impact of the pandemic.

She leads the cove in 19 social study on ongoing study of over 70,000 adults.

Future Ah, lot of people are starting to find the mental health toll of this building up again.

Now, as we're starting to go back into more restrictions, we found that mental health improved over the summer, but it started to take a downwards trajectory over the last few weeks.

I think it's critical that we do talk about how people are experiencing this more broadly so things like whether people are finding it difficult, their mental health, particularly talking more about the inequalities of this pandemic psychologically and socially, as well as in terms of the transmission of the virus.

With governments everywhere having finite money, it is common practice to evaluate what spending brings maximum health benefits.

Not doing so means things that should get funding could miss out, Department of Health guidelines say.

For every 20 to £30,000 spent on medical treatments, it should bring at least one year's worth of good health.

Other government departments, such as the Department for Transport, take a different approach.

They calculate that safety interventions could broadly be valued at something in the region of £2 million for the saving of a life.

But we aren't necessarily doing the same for Cove it the trade offs that we are making.

It needs to be made more explicit so that we can so that we can have informed conversations that are not polarized between pro and anti lock down.

That doesn't that's not helpful.

There's a moral case for examining how we use our public resources to best effect.

We're moving, perhaps from a period off emergency response to it, to a more on ongoing a chronic situation of living with Cut the covert virus on.

That, I think, brings in health economics more clearly in terms off the need to evaluate the costs and benefits of different causes of action.

Professor Sam EV ringtones Experience in Tower Hamlets has led him to worry about an imbalance in our debate.

It's always about co vid covert deaths, covert cases, but actually, my biggest warriors a GP is ALS patients not coming forward with early cancer heart disease.

So one of the problems when you focus just on death and co vid numbers alone time is you creating mass fear, actually, rather than actually taking the approaches of about treating people's adults for a start but also making sure it's balanced despite there being a range of experts from across science who were consulted by the government scientific advisory group for emergencies.

Some believe the focus has been too much on medicine and not enough on broader society.

There hasn't been much diversity afford that.

The reason for that was that when this began, you have relatively small committee's interested in a particular thing who normally don't get much attention interested in viruses onder the spread of those the group who are not included the people who study society as a whole on what actually matters to most people's lives in the round so often with science, it's complex, nuanced, uncertain dangling of apparent certainty appeals because it helps make sense of what is happening.

But how well is the media been able to grasp uncertainty?

And if they haven't, how has this impacted on science?

I think it must be quite a shock for the general public to see scientists disagreeing so vehemently with each other, because the traditional view of science, which I think is misguided, is that it's a sort of monolithic body of agreed fact, E s and the media is responsible for this to a large extent by saying scientists say, and ridiculous statements like that.

But those of us you know within their within science know that scientific communities air at each other, hammer and tongues.

What we're finding is that the fact that it's the most negatively associated with mental health is following the news on covert.

I think a lot of the media headlines have focused on covert itself, but I think that might be Part of the challenge for some people is if they're not feeling particularly scared about the virus itself anymore.

Perhaps they're more concerned about the wider consequences the viruses having for their lives.

Then it could be that the headlines, they're not speaking to people in the way they were the start of this pandemic.

More families are going to lose loved ones before their time.

It's now over eight months since the start of a pandemic that has changed everything, including for science, but with increasing evidence that our response to Cove it has so many other impacts are we allowing needs to be captured and aired?

I'm not quite clear where the balance lies between 19 and aspect of the 19 response, and I think that's a great uncertainty So what?

Those of us in the scientific community and the pediatric and health community I think need to do is feel that we are able to raise thes concerns raised.

These issues be taken seriously each day.

The science around Cove it is becoming clearer.

But perhaps the biggest certainty of all is how much we still don't know.

Yeah.