Helen Ward (scientist)

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ward became concerned that mixed messages from the UK government had confused the public about how to avoid catching the disease.[19] She described Boris Johnson's proposed herd immunity as "worrying, and a distraction from the important vital goal of flattening the peak of the epidemic".[20]

Ward worked with the Imperial College London Patient Experience Research Centre and YouGov to understand public sentiment surrounding SARS-CoV-2.[21] She reported that 77% of the public were worried about the outbreak in the UK, and that 88% would isolate if recommended to by a health professional.[21] She worked with the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics (J-IDEA) to create an online course that helped to explain the science of SARS-CoV-2.[22][23] The course, which is hosted on Coursera, covers basic epidemiology, economics and communication.[22] It was updated as more information about the virus became available.[22]

In April 2020, Ward wrote an op-ed for The Guardian that criticised the United Kingdom government's handling of the coronavirus outbreak.[24] Despite mounting evidence from the World Health Organization and researchers in Wuhan, the UK did not monitor community cases, contact trace or immediately enforce a stringent lockdown. On 13 April 2020, Ward tweeted, "It's very sad that so many people have died, and so many more are desperately ill because politicians refused to listen to advice".[25] In The Guardian Ward wrote, "Scientists like us said lock down earlier; we said test, trace, isolate. But they decided they knew better".[24] She believes that the strict social distancing should have been enforced ten days earlier.[25] Ward has called for case isolation, increased testing and tracking and the suppression of transmissions in hospitals through the appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE). In particular, Ward called for an investigation into the health disparities experienced by black and minority ethnic patients.[24] When asked about why the outbreak worse in the United Kingdom than Germany, Ward remarked, "There was a lack of testing, lack of PPE, lack of ventilators and the lack of hospital beds and NHS capacity, a result of 10-year cuts,".[25]

Ward has linked her professional commentary to her personal political opinions, tweeting "'professional academic me' – doctor, professor – is inseparable from the me that cares about justice, equality and health. And that means kicking out the Tories, stopping Brexit, supporting Labour, opposing racism".[26]