Neil Mackay: Emerging lunacies put fight against Covid in danger

The Government seems to be bowing to the anti-science and "I’m alright, Jack" brigade. Hosting the Euros in Glasgow seems deeply unfair and utterly foolish when the city has only just moved from level three to level two restrictions. People are forbidden from meeting in groups of more than six from a maximum of three households. Yet we’re going to have 6,000 football supporters at Glasgow Green and 12,000 at Hampden.

We’re now facing a possible third wave. Last Friday, there were 860 new cases declared in Scotland alone – the highest since February 17. Across Britain, cases surged by 76 per cent last week. There’s resistance to perfectly sensible suggestions that Covid "passports" could be used for those who’ve been vaccinated so they can travel, or visit venues which have opted to become "vaccine-only". There’s outrage over children being vaccinated, even though kids carry the virus and can get very sick themselves.

Read more: What's the future for Scotland in coronavirus catastrophe?

The people who don’t want restrictions, don’t want solutions either. So what do they want? Death?

In Scotland, there’s anger that teachers have been asked to watch out for anti-vaxx and Covid-denial among pupils. Why be angry? Do people want children disappearing into conspiracy theory rabbit holes and endangering themselves and others?

Other conspiracy types think governments north and south of the Border are plotting to steal our civil liberties and using propaganda and psychological warfare against us to reduce us to a state of subservient fear.

How many times do people have to be told: THIS IS A PANDEMIC. Millions have died.

It’s always curious that so many of these "take back control" types are the ones who bang on about "Blitz spirit" and "community". Yet, here they are demanding the world revolve around them. They don’t like lockdown and restrictions, so to hell with everyone else. It’s selfishness bordering on the murderous.

Of course, if you disagree with this lot you’re a "libtard" or one of the "sheeple" or you’re weak and like government controlling you. When you hear comments like that, run. The person you’re talking to has vacated reason.

I hesitate to call these people "rebels", it provides too much undeserved glamour. Perhaps "ruiners", "whiners", "underminers". They love claiming they’ve been cancelled. Funny how newspapers, TV and radio are filled with their endless, dangerous voices.

In England, Tory MPs are foaming at the mouth over any moves to defer "Freedom Day". We aren’t being liberated from the Soviet Union. This is biology we’re dealing with – a virus doesn’t care about a random date selected by government ministers. The pandemic will be over when the pandemic is over, the idea that we determine that date is intellectually absurd.

Many folk have had bad lockdowns. I noticed some friends who live life "extremely online" starting to get a little weird around six months ago, as Christmas approached. Everything suddenly became a conspiracy. I understand that times have been tough. I get that life has been a bit scary. But there’s something distinctly wicked about anyone undermining the efforts of the rest of us.

American academic and author Dr Naomi Wolf

Some years back I met the American academic and author Dr Naomi Wolf, the writer behind the third-wave feminist classic The Beauty Myth. She was an interesting, clever woman. At the weekend, she got herself kicked off Twitter after disappearing down the Covid conspiracy rabbit hole. In one tweet she said vaccines were a “software platform that can receive uploads”.

Removing her from social media isn’t an attack on free speech. She’s every right to say what she wants but she’s no right to have others broadcast it for her for free. Social media has been responsible for much of the spread of disinformation – pulling the plug on one vocal and influential voice is, in truth, too little too late.

In most big cities, conspiracy theory graffiti and stickers are going up all over the place. Near where I live in Glasgow, there’s anti-vaxx banners tied to railings, and in the park spray paint claiming the pandemic is a conspiracy by the New World Order (also run a mile if you ever hear anyone talk of the NWO, as they’re probably certifiable).

There’s plenty to be concerned about when it comes to the Scottish and UK governments and Covid, but it’s not issues of public safety. If anything, measures should have been firmer, faster and lasted longer in many cases. We know the list of government failures north and south – chiefly those early PPE problems, the horror of care homes, and the disgrace of track and trace. There’s also the Covid gravy train at Westminster and lack of oversight in Scotland around pandemic-related contracts.

More than half a billion pounds has been paid out by Scottish public bodies during the coronavirus crisis without any scrutiny.

Go for the throats of government by all means – I’m certainly no defender of either Holyrood or Westminster. But go for them for the right reasons.

Read more: What to do if you’ve got a coronavirus conspiracy theorist in the family

The issue isn’t that governments have done too much when it comes to protecting citizens, they’ve done too little. But that’s not the narrative we’re now hearing, living as we do in the topsy-turvy age of digital disinformation, where black is white and good is bad.

We were meant to be in this together, remember? Hold your nerve, hang on in there, avoid the crazies. We’ll get out the other side of this pandemic soon if we just stay on target.

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