Dr Fiona Godlee is editor of The BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal), one of the world\u2019s most respected news outlets for clinicians, with a monthly print circulation of almost 125,000 and an online reach of nearly three million. Graduating in medicine from Cambridge and initially training as a general physician, she then moved into research. She is also a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. Fiona started writing for the BMJ in 1990 on a range of topics including public health, and has been editor-in-chief since 2005. In this in-depth interview, she argues that the COVID-19 pandemic is even more serious than recognised, refutes the \u201cguided by the science\u201d defence and puts the government\u2019s response down to political judgement and scarcity of resources, and blames the lack of \u201copenness and [\u2026] courage\u201d in communicating the true gravity of the health crisis, warning that a second wave is \u201csadly inevitable\u201d.