G-7 leaders enjoyed parties and plenty of backslapping – privileges denied to nearby British citizens whose lives continue semi-paralyzed by pervasive government restrictions. Brits were told that their lockdown misery would end on June 21, which became known as “Freedom Day.” But British politicians have invoked the fear of new variants to justify extending the lockdown at least another month and possibly far longer. Prime Minister Boris Johnson declared on Monday, “Now is the time to ease off the accelerator,” regardless of how many individual rights become roadkill. Spiked editor Brendan O’Neil declared that “this further suspension of liberty, is only possible in a society that has thoroughly devalued freedom” and derided the “creeping embrace of the lockdown lifestyle among significant sections of the Smart Set.”
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In the Covid era, destroying freedom is a negligible loss, akin to a government agency misplacing a few hundred filing cabinets. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti faced minimal criticism last December when he banned all unnecessary “travel, including, without limitation, travel on foot, bicycle, scooter, motorcycle, automobile, or public transit.” The mayor offered no evidence to justify placing four million residents under house arrest. Similar restrictions hit residents of Michigan, New York, Oregon, and other states. Federal judge William Stickman IV aptly declared last September, “Broad population-wide lockdowns are such a dramatic inversion of the concept of liberty in a free society as to be nearly presumptively unconstitutional.” But the scant controversy over lockdowns is a sign that many media outlets are happy to see liberty “inverted” into unquestioning obedience to any command issued by any government official.
Van Morrison understandably calls Neil Ferguson a “pseudo-scientist.”
Professor Susan Michie, a member of the Communist Party of Britain and SAGE scientist who openly endorses a “zero Covid” strategy, revealed on Channel 5 News that she believes social distancing, including mask wearing, should continue not only into the long-term but forever.
It is terrifying and depressing in equal measure to think that such extreme views may be reflected in the Government’s current strategy. Now, as we face an indefinite delay to the Government’s roadmap out of lockdown, it appears as if all cost-benefit analyses on restrictions have been thrown out in favour of a strategy to avoid Covid deaths at all costs, without even a pretence of parliamentary scrutiny.
More worrying for the culture of this country, is that it’s not just public health enthusiasts and risk averse bureaucrats who seem to adhere to this way of thinking. A YouGov snap poll yesterday found that 71 per cent of English people support the delay, with 41 per cent saying they “strongly” support it. According to the survey, only 24 per cent of those living in England oppose the delay, with 14 per cent saying they “strongly” oppose the decision.
Even if we allow for a large margin of error, it’s clear that most people in this country remain on board with the Government’s lockdown experiment – even 15 months after we were told “three weeks to flatten the curve”. But is this that surprising considering the UK government and Public Health England spent nearly £300 million last year on ad campaigns to frighten the public into submission?
Desmond Swayne speaks out passionately in the House of Commons against the Covidocracy’s continuing tyranny:
This [advice from the columnist] is misleading. (Arguably, it constitutes misinformation.) Whether or not teenagers are at “greater risk” than previously thought—and keep in mind, U.S. coronavirus deaths in the under-18 age group total about 300, vs. 600,000 overall—is irrelevant to the mother’s question. Her kid is vaccinated, and vaccinated teenagers are at no statistical risk whatsoever. The vaccines are extremely effective at preventing severe illness, eliminate the chance of death almost entirely, and make transmission very unlikely.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis continues to fight the Covidocracy…. As do some state legislatures.
“Following the science” connotes a degree of objectivity that simply doesn’t exist. For one thing, when it comes to how to respond to the pandemic there is no such thing as “the science”. Scientists such as Professor Susan Michie of University College London and a member of the advisory committee to the UK government have argued that people should wear masks and socially distance “forever, to some extent”.
Other scientists such as Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University have described the reaction of governments around the world to the virus as “the single biggest public health mistake in history”.
In any case, “science” doesn’t tell you what to do, only how to do it. Science can tell you how to build an atom bomb, but it can’t tell you what to do with it.
