It has been clear for a while this government is not going to admit any mistakes with this COVID pandemic, probably out of hubris. Few governments have managed this crisis well so that is not the issue. What is important is objective review and lessons learned. Instead we have a government backed up bypolicymakers who actively decry sceptics and lump them with deniers.
There are plenty mistakes to learn from: how soon should the first lockdown have taken place, masks were ignored early on, and too much emphasis placed on washing hands that the science does not back up. Yet if measures are not debated and challenged at a political level then bad decisions can be made and become the truth.
Being a sceptic is not the same as a denier yet the Anti-Virus website does. Sceptics have had COVID, isolated, and supported vulnerable people. I have volunteered at testing centres to promote mass testing. There are measures that are necessary – I am not going to risk the lives of others. Brendan O’Neill asks in Don’t you dare call us COVID deniers on Spiked.com argues that the questions about locking down a whole nation should be debated, when parts of the populationcould have been galvanised to both keep society going and assist in shielding the vulnerable. Underemployed people could have been used to have had track and trace effective much earlier on. Why are primary children not in eduation when the risks are low?
Scepticism as a form of critical debate should be at the heart of politics, and not be lumped with a minority of deniers, and be seen as danagerous.
