Covid has taught us all a few lessons, but one that’s stuck with many is that the constant exposure to the loss of life acts as emotional immunisation against death. It is taking a lot more to scare people these days.
There used to be a time when the mere sight of Chris Whitty or Patrick Valance at the podium with their graphs of doom was enough to make everyone panic. Oh my God! We’re all gonna die!
When those graphs eventually lost their effect, we were then dealt the scientific certainty of figures. Numbers of deaths. Numbers of cases. Numbers succumbing in specific age brackets. Numbers of days before lockdown ended (or was extended yet again). Numbers of vaccinations. Then numerical numbness developed.
Frontline workers, care home residents, members of ethnic minorities and those with pre-existing medical conditions comprise a vastly disproportionate number of the 130,000 victims to have succumbed to coronavirus in the UK, but so relentlessly upwards was the official figure at the height of the pandemic that somewhere along the way it lost its power to shock.
Earlier this year, the UK was nudging nearly 2,000 deaths of people with Covid per day. That’s the population of a large village. If that daily figure held up over a week, it would be more than the entire average home gate at a Bolton Wanderers football match.
Shocking at the time, but the impact of such stark figures soon wore off.
So when the government began to hit something of a wall recently over the take-up of Covid vaccines, with pretty much anyone who really wanted one already immunised, it became evident that simply announcing the daily death tolls, or the number of new coronavirus cases, or the progress in achieving vaccination targets, was not enough to convince the reluctant of the necessity of a jab.
People needed to feel the fear once again, if they were to voluntarily vaccinate. So right on cue, courtesy of the ever pliant mainstream media, along have come the stories of young, fit and previously healthy people who had refused the jab only to become infected with Covid, fall seriously ill and die, but not before expressing regret at their hesitancy as they lay dying.
Michael Freedy, a 39-year-old Las Vegas father of five, died just a couple days after being admitted to hospital with pneumonia in both lungs. His fiancee, Jessica DuPreez, said one of Freedy’s last texts to her read, “I should have gotten the damn vaccine.” That would make a great campaign poster.
In the UK, fitness-mad mountain climbing John Eyers, 42, who also refused the vaccine, died of Covid. His twin sister took to Twitter, saying, “My Mum wants people to know about John. For his story to save someone’s life. For pain & loss to drive people to get a vaccine.”
No need for government campaigns when you can call on such pain and loss, and emotional grief. And scary MSM headlines like: ‘LAST REGRET Fit and healthy dad, 42, who rejected Covid jab dies ‘wishing he’d listened’ says heartbroken twin sister’.
There’s more. In Australia, soccer-playing, non-smoking, non-drinking Aude Alaskar, 27, who fled his native Iraq and managed to be granted refugee status in migrant-hesitant Oz, only to die from Covid following a sudden deterioration just months after getting married.
Last month in Scotland, meanwhile, an unnamed man in his thirties with no previous health concerns was reported to have died from coronavirus, charting a rare fatality in his age group.
The news stories of young, perfectly healthy – unvaccinated – people dying are relentless, while those recording the deaths of people who have died after being vaccinated are ignored.
It has taken some doing, and not everyone was on board initially, thanks largely to some unexpected reactions with the AstraZeneca jab, but public health officials across the globe, with the help of the mainstream media, have now stoked up Project Fear in an effort scare people into complying with vaccine demands.
Of course, there are already overreaching businesses using the threat of ‘No jab, no job’, but this is something different.
As far back as March last year, the UK Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) considered a paper looking at ways to make people stick to social distancing rules that suggested: “The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging. To be effective this must also empower people by making clear the actions they can take to reduce the threat.”
It’s clear which way the vote went on that when it came to “All those in favour?” because hard-hitting emotional messaging has been the weapon of choice throughout the pandemic. From social distancing, to hugging your granny, to refusing the vaccine, public health officials have wielded the fear factor in each instance and it’s worked… until now.
Because the end is in sight and so a vast majority of those who remain unvaccinated are thinking, ‘Well, I’ve made it this far’ and are sticking to their guns. And frankly, it’s hard to disagree.
Unless the government legislates that vaccination is mandatory (which would be a draconian step too far even for it), then it’s difficult to imagine how to stoke up the fear to such an extent that everyone finally falls into line. Or should that even be the plan?
After all, in the UK at least, democracy and personal freedom are the names of the game, and if you don’t feel like following the official Covid advice, then you don’t have to. Of course, there might be serious consequences to flying solo, but that’s up to each individual. Their body, their choice.
Losing that liberty is what we should really fear. Not some damn virus, as Michael Freedy might have put it.
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