UK paediatrician: Response to covid killed more children than covid

On 8 October 2025, consultant paediatrician Professor Steven Turner told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry that by April 2020, more children had died as a result of the response to covid than had been reported as having died with covid.

“When we started, we thought this [covid] could be really nasty and there were three categories into which people of all ages were placed in terms of risk. But very, very, very, very quickly, our patients and their parents told us that if … children who have gone through heroic surgery, have life-threatening problems, are ventilated at night, when they get covid and the rest of the family gets covid, it was the parents and the carers who were [sick].

“Children who had kidney transplants, whose immune system was suppressed - we were really worried about them. But the virus bounced off them. So, we knew very, very quickly that this virus, for whatever reason, was not doing harm for the vast majority of children in whom we thought it would,” he said.

Sources and resources:
- Original video https://freedompodcast.substack.com/p/covid-response-killed-more-children
- UK Covid-19 Inquiry 8 October 2025 https://youtu.be/eVqKN9kL0VM