Letters / Only the vulnerable needed quarantine
I was very comforted to read Ian Thomson of Lerwick’s letter (Orwellian Alice in Wonderland world; SN, 15 June 2020).
It meant a lot to know that I’m not the only one who thinks the lockdown of the healthy population because of Covid was completely unnecessary, and deeply unsettling. I have been saying what Ian says in his letter right from the start.
What has had me deeply worried is the ease with which all our civil liberties were taken in a heartbeat, and we were put under house arrest, with the police on the lookout for transgressors of the lockdown rules, with powers to fine people for doing what we were free to do all our lives.
Even more disturbing has been the energy, and glee, of people willing to report others to the police – even taking photographs – to prove their allegations that people were ‘breaking the lockdown law’.
Not to mention the ‘thought police’ who abuse you at every turn, on Facebook for example, for giving the opinion that lockdown is unnecessary. “Wait until somebody you love dies of it!” they cry, pushing the guilt button, or “Thousands are dying every day of it” or “You’re just a moron” and, by the way, these are not the worst of some of the things said to me for giving my opinion.
Most people have totally believed and accepted the narrative that this is a dangerous illness, and we need to avoid it all costs. In fact it is not a serious illness and only the vulnerable needed quarantine, not the whole healthy population. Now we are being treated like children, told where we can go, who we can meet, where we can stand in a shop etc.
My heart bleeds for all the children kept out of school and not being able to play with their pals, the pupils not able to sit their exams, the students now not able to go to university in September. Young lives blighted by this ridiculous situation; thousands upon thousands of people’s plans for 2020 gone out the window, and many older people living alone, now living a life of loneliness.
I know the effects of the lockdown will be worse than the virus ever would have been, in economic terms, for mental health, and for our children, who have been thrown under the bus. I am angry and sad in equal measures.
Dorothy O’Brien
Brae
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