A year into the lockdown crisis, we should be seeing clear light at the end of the tunnel. Vaccines are being rolled out, the spread of the virus is being contained, and, most importantly, very few people are hospitalised or dying from Covid-19. We should be getting our freedoms back. But far from it. Instead, we are inundated with doomsday prophecies of new variants and endless waves of spikes in cases and we’re being conditioned to accept significant restrictions on our freedoms, seemingly indefinitely. What is going on? Here are seven big questions about lockdowns, masks, and vaccines.
Do lockdowns really work? At first glance, it seems reasonable to assume that reducing social interaction would have an impact on the ability of a contagious disease, such as Covid-19, to spread among the population. But there is mounting evidence that asymptomatic spread is highly unlikely, meaning those who are not sick would not contribute significantly to the spread of the disease, regardless of social interaction. Lockdowns were always a disproportionate, expensive and authoritarian reaction to Covid – but it may even be that they have made little difference.
If masks do not work, why do we have to wear them? Early in the pandemic, everyone from the WHO to Dr Fauci and Chris Whitty were telling us that wearing a mask made no difference to whether you were likely to spread or contract the virus. But just a few short months later, just about every country had enacted mask laws, prescribing them in most indoor public settings and even asking school children to wear masks in class. Some countries, like Spain, demand you wear them all the time, even when at the beach. But what they told us initially remains true: there is little hard evidence that masks work.
Was there a Plan B if we did not have the vaccines? It appears that there was no alternative plan to exit from lockdown, except for a comprehensive vaccine rollout. In other words, if it wasn’t for the vaccines, we would apparently have found ourselves in perpetual lockdown, totally decimating our economies and trampling on our liberties. But it appears we got lucky with the vaccines.
If the vulnerable have been vaccinated, why are we still in lockdown? In the UK, as of 15 April, more than 32 million people have had at least one dose of the vaccine, including all the nine “high risk” groups of especially vulnerable. And, perhaps partially as a result of the successful vaccine rollout, Britain has seen a dramatic fall in both Covid cases and, more importantly, hospitalisations and deaths. Some even think we have reached herd immunity and, if the vaccines are indeed as effective as we are told, in any event, with the vulnerable vaccinated, cases of serious illness should be very rare going forward. But we are still in lockdown – and not only that, we are told that masks, social distancing, and travel restrictions are here to stay for the foreseeable future. There seems to an extremely low risk tolerance for this particular disease, to the detriment of the economy and other social and health metrics.
Why do the young have to be vaccinated? There is a long tradition in medical practice to limit vaccination to those who are susceptible to a disease. The flu vaccine is offered at taxpayer expense to those over 50 in the UK, but young people are not expected to take it – and that makes sense, because while young people may catch the flu, they are unlikely to become gravely ill. It’s different with Covid though: everyone is encouraged to get jabbed, even those who are not at any material risk of getting ill from it. And this despite the vaccines being both experimental and lacking the sort of thorough testing normally required before medical treatments are released for wide use. It is also now highly likely that the UK and many other countries will introduce some sort of vaccine passports, both for international travel and for some domestic activities. The very concept introduces all sorts of civil liberties concerns and have uncomfortable connotations of a Chinese style social credit system, where governments reward desired behaviours with certain benefits. But undoubtedly, they are also intended as a nudge to those who are sceptical about getting vaccinated to go ahead and get the jab anyway: it’s the only way you’ll be allowed at the pub. This strays very close to coercion, which is otherwise broadly regarded as unethical and clearly against what UN member states have all signed up to: the right for their citizens to be free from non-consensual medical treatment.
Why is scientific debate being suppressed? Since the start of the pandemic, there has been a concerted effort to silence dissenting voices. Whether it be lockdown, masks, or vaccines, sceptics have found it hard to be heard over the establishment narrative. In particular, those who have raised concerns about the vaccines have been systematically silenced – and once again, just as they intervened in the US election to silence President Trump and his attempt to discredit the election, the big social media companies have been at the heart of the effort: YouTube and Facebook have removed vaccine sceptic materials and Twitter provide a health warning and links to the “right” information. All have removed account of the most vociferous opponents, such as Dr Mike Yeadon. Far from information, it seems like what we are told is propaganda. It is unprecedented in modern history for Western societies to silence debate in this way, and given how this is undoubtedly the biggest event in most of our lifetimes, the fact that we are being prevented from vigorously debating how to deal with it is downright chilling.
Why is all this happening? The big question, of course, is: if they have ulterior motives, what are they? Why would they lie and who benefits? None of this is clear. Some of it may simply be political convenience. Proponents of the WEF’s Great Reset and the UN Agenda 2030 see the pandemic as an opportunity to “build back better” and remodel society as a post-capitalist technocracy, and much of the population controls that have been part of the global Covid response fit well into this agenda. Undoubtedly, many of these measures will remain as a dystopian legacy of the lockdowns – whether by design or not. It’s getting more and more difficult to dismiss the idea that the danger of Covid is being deliberately exaggerated for political gain, but we may have to wait a while yet before we fully understand what has happened to us and why. For now, all we can do it fight back as best we can, because regardless of why this is all playing out as it is, it is very unlikely that any good will come of it.