Home Page Opinion; Hysteria, Hatred – Division

February 10, 2021.

When the mask law was introduced, we predicted on the pages of KJM Today that it would lead not to salvation in terms of helping cope with coronaviruses, SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, but only to division. And with that, further hysteria and the inevitable slide into hatred that comes with it.

Sadly, we and many others have been proved right. The government’s shambolic response to COVID-19, the confusing mixed messages, the constant changes of mind and the undeniably one-track thinking of ‘The Science’, has led to societies around the world that now, where once freedom and liberty were the norm, are gaining insights into what it is like to live under a one-party oppressive dictatorship.

We in the UK may well feel we are hard done by (and by our standards of liberty, we are) but other countries are following similar paths. The only difference is that some countries’ governments have behaved in an even more dictatorial fashion. It is not only the United Kingdom that has careered, seemingly uncontrollably, along the road of do-as-you-are-told, mask up, shut down and lock down.

This is despite the World Health Organisation saying that continual lockdowns are not the right solution. Despite experts (other than those currently used by the UK government) consistently saying the same. Despite a growing consensus among ordinary people who now believe likewise. And still again despite that consensus, significant numbers of people still obey without thought or question – except to those they perceive as holding a different view.

This is where the division and hatred come in. Professor Sunetra Gupta is an Oxford epidemiologist who freely concedes that she holds, in her words, ‘deeply held political ideals – ones that I would describe as inherently left wing’. She is also one of three co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration (the other two are Professor Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, of Stanford University and Professor Martin Kulldorff, PhD, a professor of medicine at Harvard). And as a result she, an acknowledged expert in her field, has suffered an onslaught of insults, personal criticism, intimidation and threats, some from those on the left. She is just one who has been on the end of this. Others of similar expertise have also, and the same has been suffered by many ordinary people who have medical exemptions to covering their faces.

And it is so unnecessary. It is uncalled for and does nothing to help handle the challenges posed by COVID-19. Prime Minister Boris Johnson may have done reasonably well with Brexit – again as we have said before, the current agreement with the EU is far from perfect and its flaws were rather brutally exposed by the EU’s actions over Northern Ireland recently. But the agreement does at least, point in the right direction.

However, regardless of what other countries may be doing, it is not the British way to oppress its people. Prime Minister Johnson has a difficult task ahead to repair the damage he and his government have done to the United Kingdom.

© KJM Today