As the Covid Story unfolds... more thoughts...

You know what, I'm all for adjusting, moving forward and making the best of what ever happens... but right now, at this moment in time I am taking to my blog once more to register a few thoughts from 'NOW'... 

I have to be honest, recent events have dismayed me. Back in February 2020 people were walking around, working hard, but enjoying a lifestyle that had remained unchanged pretty much for decades with the odd blip here and there. Restaurants, pubs, full sports and arts programmes...  and then the unthinkable... a deadly virus killing by the millions we were told was upon us... Lockdown!! ... for the first time ever, healthy people were being placed on a kind of "house arrest" for fear they would spread / catch a virus.

Now, I don't want to die. I don't want my family and friends to die either, nor do I want to contribute to anyone else's death. To my knowledge I have succeeded in this endeavour. I am also fortunately (so I believe) healthy, I take care over what I eat, drink, I do plenty of exercise and like to think that by taking responsibility for my own health this has served me well. This I believe has kept me on my feet and able to continue enjoying the lifestyle to which I have grown accustomed.

When it comes to interaction with the general public at large I have respected their desires (where indicated) to maintain social distancing. I have also acknowledged those wearing masks and their willingness to take this measure to protect themselves and offer protection to others. I understand all of this and if you listen to the news, media, scientists (providing evidence to support the dangers) and see the majority of people following guidelines then you will of course run the risk of being incredibly fearful. This is exacerbated 10 fold plus if you have existing underlying health conditions.

You may call me a reckless idiot, a person with no concern for others and totally selfish, if so, be my guest, but I never followed any of the guidelines. I don't think I stayed at home for a single day without going out, either for a cycle, visit family, friends or go to the shops. 

Why?

Because I did my own risk assessments. I felt well... I've felt well not just for two weeks but for years, and I still feel well. Perhaps I am a carrier of millions of virus's (I probably am, like us all) and I've never self isolated before. So why now?

Well now is different isn't it? ... and yet really it isn't that different at all. In every year of my life people have died. Sometimes they are people that I have known. This year I've heard about deaths of course, but fortunately none that are close to me or that I have known personally.

Yet, there is mass hysteria. I'm a bit of a numbers man myself. I like numbers, I always have, there is a certainty about numbers, you know where you are... but if anything has changed, it is this... you can no longer rely on numbers... this I find very worrying.

The numbers of people infected, recovering and dying is so unreliable as to be unusable data. Questions over efficacy of tests, who is being tested, who died with some elements of pathogens linked to the coronovirus family in them, and who died because of Covid-19. How countries report the progress of the virus differently? How many people had the illness and recovered without even knowing or was that something different or nothing at all? ... how the hell do we know? ... the answer is we don't... Who (not the organisation) is verifying the statistics that we are using as a basis for the media reports we watch? ... and more importantly who are their paymasters?

Yet the media and news machinery keeps rolling out statistics like a virus all on its own, infecting the psychology of everyone into believing we are in the most serious end game of our species... without a global mandatory vaccine of course (untested of course, why make it different?)... How did it come to this?

Let me tell you about statistics... statistics can be manipulated to prove pretty much anything or disprove anything... here's one for you... "If you take statins consistently over a 30 year period (Yes you read it right 30 years) you can expect to half your chances of having a cardio vascular event" ... sounds fabulous... sign me up! ... until you realise the actual numbers.... going from 2% to 1% ... yep... I'll take my chances without the statins thanks!!

Where we are now?

So here we are in July. The actual number of people 'reported' (remember those questionable statistics) to have died, up around 60,000 or so in the UK... This is a horrific number of course, no one is arguing about that. For anyone who has fallen ill and become a victim of this disease experiencing life threatening symptoms my heart goes out to you... but is this why we have shut down our country?

Millions of people have had their lives ruined. Families have built business for years only to see that work and those dreams of a successful future dashed against the rocks, and for what?  Fear? 

Retail was on its knees before all this started, in truth a sector which was about to see huge recession anyway... but this has happened at a pace no one could have predicted... we are probably only at the beginning of the traumas that await 100's of thousands here... 

I hear you retort... what price on a life? ... Business and money is nothing if we are saving lives!! ... I would agree with you... life is the most precious thing... but to buy into this statement first you must believe the statistics and numbers. Here is the rub... I don't buy the statistics. There are too many conflicting stories and if you're life depended on their accuracy would you vote for them? 

Fear has got the majority of us and it just got worse

I can imagine in the era of the Bubonic plague that houses marked with a cross (infected people within) were frequent and numerous. A tangible confirmation of the seriousness of the Black Death. People who had the 'plague' kept away in their homes to protect others. I shouldn't wonder if many healthy folks also chose to stay at home by themselves too (self isolate) in order to avoid catching this disease, as it was almost certain death in those days.

But we are not experiencing the plague, nothing like it. Now we are being prepared for a 'September' second wave (much worse than the first) and the possibility in January 2021 of a third. Ahead of this now from the 24th July we have been informed that wearing masks in shops will become mandatory. I ask myself, why now? ... why if this disease required a lockdown towards the end of March have we waited until deaths are a fraction of what they were (allegedly because we just don't know) until end of July, a full 4 months later to impose this? ... we could always blame the incompetence of the Prime Minister... I don't see a queue for his job right now though...

Are we being herded?

And so here we go again... right now when I go into shops (I try and avoid as much as I can... it's the queuing don't you see) there is approximately 10-20% of folk wearing masks. Perhaps even less on the street. 

After July 24th this will be 100% or you get fined £100 ... just a side note are supermarket staff issuing these fines, the store managers, or are the shops to have police constables monitoring folk going in, or maybe it will it be recorded (CCTV) and sent for processing with names taken for offenders? ... I suppose all will be made clear in the weekly Covid News updates (that I neither watch nor see).

So imagine it... all you see now in the shops are hundreds of mask wearers that remind us of how terrible and prolific this virus is... and yet... is it... maybe... check out the stats. are they proven, are they real, can they be trusted? ... I see stacks of scientific evidence on both sides... who's right?  ... depends on who is funding it of course!

But the psychological impact of seeing all these masks, at a habitual event (shopping) that we do weekly (or more often) is being etched into our brains through this regularity and then, re-enforced each day on the TV, in the media, news and papers... it's a heck of a thing to resist or fight against... slowly we might be forgiven for acquiescing as our resistance is slowly stripped away from us.

Where does it lead to... a visible condemnation of people

Worse still is ahead... as mask wearing becomes a normalised accessory, then of course it is worn in other places too... why just the shops? ... of course I need to protect my own life and the lives of others at all times.

However the most insidious and vile part of this mask wearing is not that those wearing them are bad people, of course they are not. They are doing the right thing, looking out for the lives of others, it's the compassionate and kind thing to do. Oh no... it is that we have been heinously deceived. 

Normal, healthy people are now behaving like sick people. Healthy people are being shut away, not like in the plague era when it was the sick. Healthy people are being told that they are just in a "pre-sick" state and that they "might" be contagious and yet to feel unwell.  Or that they are fortunate carriers who just dish out the disease without being ill themselves... What on earth are we doing???

Basically if you are a non Mask wearing person you are self identifying as a selfish "rebel" who is not conforming, and an abhorrent individual to be quite rightly publicly shamed. To avoid all this 'nastiness' and what might become very unsavoury, we could just bung on a mask couldn't we?  Well we could...  but to do that would, mentally at least be saying, we buy into this idea, we are protecting ourselves and others from something we don't really believe in. Whether these masks serve any real useful purpose or not doesn't matter a jot... it's an enormous pickle.

Plus if you don't accept this "new normal" bollox (excuse my french) then you are a typical selfish, racist, white supremacist, bigoted, xenophobic, uncaring, people hating, mass murderer... 

I do not have any real idea how many people have died thus far BECAUSE of this virus, obtaining this information is like looking for a £1 coin in the £60+ trillion global debt mountain... however I can envision (I look at trends) how many people will suffer a slow painful collapse of their lives, families and businesses over the coming months...  and the terrible legacy that will be left on the psychological health of millions and millions of people as we start to get to grips with the fallout of what could be easily considered a type of world war 3.

Conclusion... some final words

I'll probably go to the shops less after the 24th July. I don't like masks, and their enforced use I can't imagine for a moment will tangibly effect the health of the nation in a positive way, and.... I don't believe in the reason or rationale for their deployment with this virus frenzy...

But I will wear a mask only to avoid £100 fines... I'm going to pimp mine up with Link4Growth stickers... I'm going to add some DoTERRA "On-Guard" blend or possibly "Eucalyptus oil" to ensure that while wearing the mask I am benefiting in other ways... and also wear a T-Shirt with a message for how we can perhaps turn this all around... turn a negative into a positive I say!! ... 

And let us take solace in that as this society degenerates further still, it makes the task of co-creating a future that works for the majority much easier.