Whilst I see what you’re saying, you are dead wrong to suggest that the science and civil liberties were completely independent. The most fundamental human right is to life, closely followed by health. We were faced with a highly infectious and deadly pathogen, with the NHS already overwhelmed by the time Boris acted. Until the science became clearer, lockdown was the only way to get on top of the situation. I live in NW England. The Cheetham Hill area of Salford is largely of Asian origin. Their culture places more emphasis on close family ties. When the lockdown order was issued, it was widely disregarded, and people were dying en masse. In other areas, like where I live, the lockdown was respected, and there were very low figures. Clearly, the Asian population felt that their freedom to pop round for a chat was more important than their neighbours’ right to life, and many died because of it.

I work for a company that writes software for the NHS. We work closely with the people who were fighting this head on, and unlike many news stories, this was not blown out of all proportion. Much of our software needed to be rewritten in order to facilitate more flexible ways of arranging clinics etc., with greater emphasis on telephone and video consultations. We needed time to implement these changes, and until then, the NHS was completely swamped. Were it not for lockdown, which bought time until the vaccines were developed, apart from the vastly greater number of deaths that would have directly resulted, due to there being no capacity to treat the increased numbers, we would have had major problems even now, because of the number of people with other conditions who would have been unable to get a diagnosis or treatment.

Of course, once the science became clearer, more informed decisions could be made. The real problem was Boris Johnson’s initial slowness to act. This meant that by the time he did, the disease was already rampant and lockdown was more of a firefighting exercise. Had he taken the decision to impose lockdown at the earliest opportunity, it needn’t have been as draconian, nor long lasting. The NHS would not have been overwhelmed, so more locally tuned lockdowns could have been instigated much earlier.

My employers did react swiftly, and took the bold decision that we would all work from home. This kept the business working when the rest of the country was like a rabbit in headlights. Some of us inevitably caught the virus, mostly after the vaccinations had started, but had we been in the offices, the entire business would have been in complete chaos. We may well have lost some of our older staff, which includes myself, and we probably wouldn’t have been able to deliver the changes that the NHS desperately needed. This decision was informed by science, and I’m deeply grateful for it.

The bottom line is that I am probably alive today because we didn’t wait for Boris but relied on science to make the call. My temporary lack of liberty was a small price to pay for this. Science and civil liberties are not at all independent. Both should be weighed, but when science says that many thousands of people will die, or be seriously ill, if their advice is not heeded, I will side with science every time. I’m a Libertarian, and I value civil liberties greatly, but I’m also a pragmatist. Dogma is invariably bad, whether it’s religious fundamentalism, or Libertarianism. I want liberty, but not the liberty to put the lives of my friends and neighbours in jeopardy, or for them to endanger mine.

I’d be prepared to put forward an analogy where the T cells were society – and the memory is held crucially by the mass media, and also the WEF, WHO, and some of those in government. The antibody (non-remembering) response would be from the people.

For what it’s worth if I challenge the sense and accountability and health outcomes of these health policies, there is often no argument back other than the fact that I’m disguising the fact that I’m only interested in my civil liberties. The opposing individuals are wedded to trust of public health authorities – no scrutiny, no accountability, and they write off those who want to scrutinise.

That’s the argument – that once you trust certain people and their instructions 100% in certain situations, clearly liberty is irrelevant. To them it’s like going in for a major operation and being put under anaesthetic. And that’s right and appropriate, if that trust is decided upon. Which, in fact, I think points to all issues being about the quality of the science. If they were to have doubts about the hygiene of the hospital for such an operation, and were to see rats in the anaethetising room, they might not surrender their liberty and consciousness.

Whilst nothing as obvious as ‘rats’ sullied the social distancing or mask mandates, the authorities’ own lies or changed minds about purposes like flattening curves rather than reducing deaths, their refusals to put deaths in context, and disclarity about what constitutes an emergency; refusal to engage with infection fatality rates, refusals to have an open exit strategy, etc, etc., are things that quickly smlled like rats.

Is it not the case however that that by not engaging with the veracity of the scientific advice, we ignore the possibility that bad and illogical and unjustified scientific advice is being used as a tool to directly and deliberately harm civil liberties?

(In effect in the UK panic and political cynicism, ideology and neuroticism within ‘the science’ outweighed such cynical utility for only about six weeks from lockdown 23 March. After that it was fully consciously the tool, even if the other motives/psychoses remained)