Tip - If you are using a phone, set the "Desktop Site" option in your browser   

2021-01-22

It was the Brexit campaign that brought the term "Project Fear" into common currency, but some may well feel that Brexit was only a warm-up exercise for the "Great Covid Fear" that now stalks the news media, and by extension the nation, and indeed seemingly the whole world.

The "We are All Going to Die!" hyperbole might normally be regarded as a hysterical over-reaction to a coronavirus with a well documented survival rate well above 99% for the vast majority of those exposed to it, but it seems to have inexplicably been taken at face value by governments and pharmaceutical industry alike in their headlong rush to panic the entire populace into accepting, nay demanding, vaccines which a leading expert has described as experimental.

Indeed, compared with a normal vaccine development schedule measured in years, one measured in months surely requires more justification than the bland assurances currently on offer. The blithe acceptance of these jabs by the elderly speaks of either a herculean confidence in our government's "expert advisers" or a blind acceptance of perceived authority. I'm not convinced that this is going to end well for anybody.

It's worth bearing in mind that we purportedly have democracy precisely in order to change our authorities when we lose confidence in them - hardly blind acceptance?

But there is more . . .

Anyone hoping that having the jab might also protect them from lock-down-itis is now being assailed by a new variant narrative - the virus is mutating and we don't know whether the vaccine will protect against the new variant, so lock-downs will have to continue (presumably until the virus stops mutating? Hmmm).

Scientists have an expression for this type of argument: "reductio ad absurdum".

Usually associated with another well known expression: "quod erat demonstrandum".

Those wishing to undertake further reading may like this article from Brexit Watch, which explores the topic is more depth.

"The latest and arguably most authoritative of all was published this month by a world-class team led by Professor John Ioannidis of Stanford University, one of the world’s most respected epidemiologists. Its conclusions are unambiguous: harsh measures like lockdowns do not reduce the spread of infections at all, anywhere"

"Our lockdown was supposed to last three weeks. It went on for months and the restrictions never fully disappeared. None of the promised benefits were realised"

"Who would argue for another in the face of facts like these? It turns out that the Government’s own advisers would, led by figures like Susan Michie, a lifelong campaigner for hardline Soviet-style communism whose specialism is not medicine, but behavioural science (making people conform)"

Maybe that's a clue?