Three years since the “perceived level of threat” was increased
It is hard to believe it is really three whole years since many of us were listening to the Prime Minister, adopting his most Churchillian tones, and telling the entire nation that we must stay in our homes, for all but food shopping, one item of exercise and essential travel to work: the announcement made only four days after SARS-CoV-2 had been downgraded as a High Consequence Infectious Disease.
Perhaps even harder to believe is that the vast majority of the population quietly did as we were told, although with increasing dismay as the rules became more and more erratic. Were you really not meant to hug your sister, who had been depressed, or your cousin, recently bereaved? Were you really not allowed to visit your wife of 50 years in her care home or hold the hand of your father dying alone in hospital? Were you really not allowed to enjoy a walk in the rolling Derbyshire hills because it was more than 5 miles from your home, or carry a take-away coffee in case it could be misinterpreted?
And even more importantly, were GPs really instructed to close their surgery doors and give telephone advice to the sick? Where did ‘duty of care’ go? And as for churches being closed to the lonely and fearful, those in need of spiritual support — I found myself asking ‘where is faith?’
All these measures were introduced despite there already being plenty of data in the public domain — not just in the hands of officials — that lockdowns would not work and the epidemic was abating.
Over the next few weeks, as things got even madder, schools and nurseries failed to reopen and masks started appearing even for parents at toddler groups, serious concerns about long term psychological harms began to crystallise and with it the emergence of campaign groups like UsForThem. By October, the Great Barrington Declaration was gaining thousands of signatures, as its authors were being systematically smeared for even suggesting that naturally acquired immunity could be relevant!
Set this against the briefing paper produced by SPI-B for the SAGE meeting on 23rd March 2020, recommending that ‘the perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging’, and the full force of the Psyops becomes clear. The Twitter Files have illustrated the depth of the media control and Big Brother Watch has shone a light on the Counter Disinformation Unit which has been merrily amassing data on anyone who dares to question the narrative. And to add insult to injury, Matt Hancock’s WhatsApp messages, published by the Telegraph as the Lockdown Files, show what most of the readers of this article already realised, that none of this was based on ‘Science’, merely on petty politics and power games.
