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I’m An NHS Doctor. Coronavirus Conspiracy Theories Are Making Our Job Harder

Through the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, I worked in acute adult medicine at the hospital front door and on the wards just like colleagues around the country who put their own health, and in some cases lives, on the line to keep the show on the road. In my 31 years as an NHS doctor, I have never witnessed anything as challenging and unaccustomed, as frightening for staff, or as distressing for their families.

We are professionals and looking after the sick is our job. We did it willingly and will do so again, mindful that key workers do remain safely employed unlike many across Britain. We were often embarrassed by all the clapping and food parcels – after all, we’d prefer adequate resources, staffing, access to Covid-19 testing, PPE and respectful treatment by the government than gestures.

We’d also prefer it if there weren’t people spreading hostile misinformation alleging that Covid-19 is a ‘scamdemic’ or global hoax that doesn’t make people sick or kill them.

When we’ve seen serial failings in the government’s pandemic communications and poor news management has made journalists’ jobs harder, it’s not surprising we find ourselves in an environment where rumours, conspiracy theories and misinformation about coronavirus have taken hold.

But shopfloor NHS staff and managers see and hear this stuff every day, and much of it is insulting, demoralising and inaccurate. If we try to correct it or argue back, we find ourselves being accused (by people with no clinical training or experience) of lying, and find our own jobs and experience being explained to us. The recent #pandemicisoverUK hashtag is the latest of many examples.

Clapping for us has been replaced by crapping on our reputations, professionalism and integrity.

Conspiracy theories seem to have replaced the clapping, and NHS staff like me are left wondering of the social media keyboard warriors, libertarian commentators writers and radio shock jocks: why? Why are you doing...

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