Hello, are we back…can you hear me?

Pubs, restaurants, hair salons and many other businesses have been given the all-clear to reopen from July 4 in England; as far as we’re concerned – that means us!

Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the latest easing of lockdown measures with a new “one metre plus mask” social distancing rule, just as this issue went to press.

As Rebecca Smith says in another special report from our In Practice “academy” of practitioners (p52) , she’s had to keep explaining to clients that as far as the UK government is concerned, “We are lumped in with hairdressers and nail salons and will presumably be allowed back when they are”.

And it’s still “presumably”, as we wait, as we have been for months, for any sign of encouragement or leadership from our professional associations. What have we been paying them for? (Shout out here to Jayney Goddard of the Complementary Medicine Association, who at least broached the subject with a free webinar last month). So we’ve taken the lead in this issue (see Learning Zone, p32) with a four-point “back to practice” guide – and there’ll be more to follow next month.

Other highlights from this issue:

It’s embarrassment for Public Health England as TWO urgent COVID-angled reviews of vitamin D get off the ground (p8). PHE still doesn’t believe it has anything to do with immunity or infection.

And remember, when they do all finally get the message about vitamin D – we’re going to start all over again and tell them about magnesium! (In the UK, 80% of older people (65+), a high-risk group for severe COVID-19 infection, are deficient in magnesium, which is required for vitamin D to be metabolised). Then it will be zinc. And vitamin C.

“Public health” – as perceived by the idiots-in-charge, is becoming a joke.

And alongside the stunning news that the average Brit is now fatter than the average pig (p7), and that most people have put on around 7lb during lockdown, the certain knowledge that obesity is the major risk factor for severe COVID-19 has provoked an editorial in the British Medical Journal claiming that the food industry “must share the blame” for the severity of COVID-19 (p5).

The great British public was already awash in obesity, diabetes and cancer before the “rona” appeared. I guess the food industry is to blame for that, as well? Let’s leave the public health issues to those who make careers out of it.

Grab your haircut and vino and prepare to throw open your deep-cleaned, bio-hazard-contained clinics. Let’s focus on giving our clients the encouragement and support they need to survive the next few months. Gut health, weight loss, immunity, health and lifestyle coaching …our businesses could soon be booming.

Welcome back. I think.

Simon Martin
Editor