Pam Groenewald, an officer of the SAMRC ( @PamRenaud @MRCza) continues to misrepresent @PanData19's views, summarising them as "to try and minimise the suffering and mortality due to the Covid epidemic". This is disingenuous in the extreme. Here is my response. 1/7

Pam, you continue to trivialise and refuse to answer PANDA's central objections to the catastrophic global policy response to COVID, including its renunciation of all pre-COVID science. You and the SAMRC have not raised a voice against any of the numerous travesties. 2/7

We objected to lockdowns as being unsubstantiated by evidence. This observation has been confirmed in numerous studies. We pointed out the numerous issues with PCR, which have belatedly been echoed by two advisories of the WHO. 3/7

We objected to models advancing high fatality rates, universal susceptibility, pronounced lockdown benefits and long durations to peak, all vindicated by emerging evidence. We showed how the modellers hid information from government that spoke to more moderate forecasts. 4/7

We pointed out that economy-mediated impacts on mortality & morbidity were being ignored. To date we have yet to see any cost-benefit assessment conducted by government—ours or any other. The SAMRC should have made some effort in this regard, instead of inflaming the problem. 5/7

We have pointed out that asymptomatic transmission as an epidemic driver was a theory unsupported by evidence, and that much policy response rested on it. It is now a concept that exists only in models, not in the real world, as accidentally confirmed by the WHO in June. 6/7

We have pointed to the conflicts of interest that afflict government scientists, in particular their funding sources, & the suppression of dissident voices. Your cleaving to a straw man misrepresentation of our perspectives supports this & is no way for a scientist to behave. 7/7

I've been reminded to say that we've also raised the issue that restricting the non-vulnerable shifts disease burden onto the vulnerable, making a mockery of all general restrictions, including lockdown and mask mandates, and to extend our regular invitation to debate. 8/7

More generally, we stand against censorship, authoritarian approaches to science, centralization of decision-making and de facto monopoly control of media and health institutions. 9/7