Letters / Fear and control
“There is no evidence to support members of the public wearing protective face masks. The global evidence is masks in the general population don’t work.”
These are the words of Prof Jason Leitch, the Scottish Government’s national clinical director in a BBC News report from 3 April.
He is not alone. Matt Hancock, secretary of state for health and social care, Sir Chris Whitty, chief medical adviser to the UK Government, Sir Patrick Vallance, chief scientific adviser to the UK Government and plenty of others controlling the narrative of the pandemic, have made similar statements.
So what has changed? Is it the science? I don’t think so.
A report published in April titled Masks Don’t Work: A review of science relevant to COVID-19 social policy which analysed relevant medical and scientific studies concluded “there is no known benefit arising from wearing a mask in a viral respiratory illness epidemic”
In fact they showed that they can restrict oxygen flow leading to under-oxygenation (hypoxia), which in turns leads to fatigue, weakness and a lower immunity. With a lower immunity comes more susceptibility to disease.
I emailed Nicola Sturgeon requesting information on the scientific studies which have led to the decision to make mask wearing mandatory in shops. My email was acknowledged but I have yet to receive an answer to my question.
So why now, when the virus is almost a spent force with hospitalisations and fatalities dwindling away to zero are we having more rules applied to make our lives even more fearful?
The answer I suspect is control. Fear has been used throughout history to control populations. We were told at the start of the lockdown that the imposition of rules was about controlling the virus but with each passing day it becomes more obvious that it is now about controlling the people.
It is also becoming more obvious that our leaders are not in control but are being led by some higher power. You only need to look at the ridiculous spectacle last weekend of Boris Johnson wearing a bright blue face mask (why when he has already been infected and recovered and can no longer infect or be infected) and Donald Trump wearing a mask when he has vowed many times never to do so. I suspect they were only following orders.
We are no longer living in a country governed by the rule of laws passed by parliament but by rules enforced by despots. The only fear that I have is that if we are not already living in a tyranny we soon will be. I hope to be proved wrong.
Ian Thomson
Lerwick
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