Letters / ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ of coronavirus
I saw the Facebook response to my letter last week regarding the subject of only the vulnerable needed to be quarantined because of Covid-19, rather than the healthy population having to be put in lockdown.
I saw that my opinions were rubbished, as were the very well researched figures and thoughts in the letter by Ian Thomson of Lerwick – Orwellian Alice in Wonderland World.
It truly does feel to me as if we’re living in a fantasy or fairy tale world at the moment, in a kind of ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ story. In spite of the fact that Covid cases are a very small number relative to population, everyone seems to believe it is a very dangerous infection.
And they believe this because the government has said so, even although the figures don’t say so. The latest worldwide figures are that there have been seven million cases of Covid. Most of these have survived. The population of the world is 7.5 billion, and Covid cases have been less than one in a thousand according to these official figures and most did not die of it.
It seems to me that people have meekly accepted the narrative by those in power (ie the emperor) that we are all somehow in danger from this virus in spite of the fact we are not – like everyone ‘seeing’ the Emperor wearing new clothes in spite of the fact he was actually naked.
There were vested interests in causing the worldwide panic that news of Covid generated, and guess what – they will make billions from cures and vaccines. In the meantime, us helpless folk have been imprisoned for months believing we were saving ourselves and others from a deadly disease.
I’m personally outraged that my usual life of going out to places, and meeting friends and family, social gatherings, freedom of movement and travel have been forbidden, and that these basic rights were quickly and very easily removed, to be replaced by demeaning social distancing rules and threats of fines from the police, and refusal for travel unless for ‘essential reasons’.
I don’t understand why everyone isn’t angry about this, and about the children and young people whose lives have been devastated by the abrupt and sudden dead stop to their daily lives and future plans.
Instead, we have people being very defensive about what they believe, including being abusive towards anyone who expresses the opinion that lockdown wasn’t necessary.
All of which makes me wonder if, deep down, they know that they’ve been fooled and that the emperor really isn’t wearing any clothes.
Dorothy O’Brian
Brae
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