WHAT HAS OUR SOCIETY BECOME?

How the lunacy of Covid and the inability to think has infected us more than the virus

By Lauren Michaels

MY triple jabbed Italian-born hairdresser told me last weekend that he had tested positive for Covid. He was furious. 

He would have been in Italy, he groaned, but couldn’t go now because of the positive test, although he had not noticed a single symptom. 

He then started to rant about “the unvaccinated” being to blame.

“But the jabs don’t work, do they?” I said, trying to look as harmless as possible (being one of the so-called rogue, pariah unvaccinated myself, although not directly admitting it just in case, given that my hairdresser, brandishing his scissors, was quite agitated). 

“Uhghh?” He snipped the air several times, then stopped, holding the scissors motionless, at arm’s length. His face darkened, a peculiar twisted grin appeared and his eyes took on a deep and bitter expression. “No, the vaccines don’t work,” he admitted.

I added: “So then, it doesn't matter whether a person is vaccinated or unvaccinated, does it? It’s all the same. These jabs just don't seem to work.”

“No, they don’t work,” he repeated, darkly.

“So, when are you going to go to Italy? A bit later? I’m not sure the tests are always accurate either.”

He shook his head, sadly. “No, that’s right, I can’t go now, I can't risk it. My mother is elderly. I can’t risk passing it to her.”

No, of course not. Who would want to risk passing a potentially deadly illness to a parent, even if the chances were miniscule?

But wait a minute... this hairdresser was triple vaccinated and he had absolutely no sign of any illness. He was at work, styling my hair and other clients’ hair, (young, middle aged and elderly), yet he did not feel able to go to Italy to visit his mother, even if he waited several weeks and although he clearly wanted to quite badly.

Besides this, he blamed his entire predicament on “the unvaccinated”. They were the “evil enemy”, the pernicious, vile cause of him testing positive for the ghastly virus, preventing him from visiting his mother in Italy.

But, I was sitting there, unvaccinated and perfectly healthy, having had no positive tests, while he was triple vaccinated and testing positive, although, unquestionably, showing no signs of any illness.

I didn’t want to confront my hairdresser with facts, opinions or statistics that he might find dull and boring and I was supposed to be relaxing with a cup of coffee, but I couldn’t help reflecting that several studies had indicated that vaccination did not have a significant impact on transmission of SARS-CoV-2, while others showed a small improvement, largely on the basis that if a person was less likely to be infected, then they were obviously less likely to pass the disease to someone else. 

However, any small impact of vaccination on transmission decreases over time. The duration of high-level protection against Omicron, for example, is unknown, but likely to last at least two to three months, according to the UK Government. Two or three months is not a very long time.

Given the glaringly obvious and well-funded official push in favour of vaccination, these results do not suggest that there is much difference between the vaccinated and unvaccinated in terms of potential transmission, certainly not enough to justify the vilification of those who make the choice NOT to have an injection.

Nobody in the salon was wearing a mask, despite the prominent and redundant “Wear A Mask" signs on all the mirrors.

Perhaps I should have warned my hairdresser that I was what he regarded as a dangerous unvaccinated person. Then again, maybe I should have been seriously worried that someone who had so recently “tested positive” for a deadly infectious virus was standing so close, for half an hour or more? Perhaps I should have bluntly pointed out that some of his clients were as elderly as his mother, or older?

This otherwise unremarkable little event on a Saturday afternoon in London was horribly symptomatic of a global phenomenon that has crept into life more and more since 2020, unnoticed by the majority of people: a tendency not to think.

Perhaps worse, independent thinking is being discouraged by the authorities, by the media, on social networks. It is even possible that it will come to the point where thinking for oneself is outlawed altogether?

Already, having an insight, a carefully considered conclusion of one’s own, that doesn’t harmonise with the “official" version of “truth" can get you into trouble and make life difficult. It can simply mean that you go unheard, or it can have an even more detrimental effect. People are “cancelled", removed from social networks, even lose their jobs, while “undesirable" media channels that dare to present an alternative perspective are banned.

Expressing a thought that is not officially approved has become quite dangerous. For example, you can find yourself in a tricky situation if you mention to your doctor or employer, or even to a friend that you are not 100 per cent certain that the “Covid” jabs, with their emergency approval, are safe, or that you doubt whether they are the best possible choice for yourself, children, or close ones. 

Or, if you disclose that you are not yet convinced by the officially backed theory about the reasons for climate change and you have some questions, given the weather patterns over the past few thousand or million years, you become aware that any comments you make on this subject might have negative repercussions for you. 

And right now, the news is full of a particular version of what's going on in Ukraine. A segment of humanity jumps to show its “virtuous stance” in trumpeting its unconditional support for the country, as well as its approval of the West’s economic war on Russia and its provision of Kiev with fighters and arms.

And yet, if questioned about even the most rudimentary aspects of the events leading to the current crisis, or about the history and culture of Ukraine and Russia and their relationship with one another, it becomes evident that many of these people and businesses, proudly sporting yellow and blue on their social media accounts, on their logos, clothing, homes or yacht flags, know next to nothing about Ukraine, its people, its history. Do they even really care?

Whether it be about Covid, climate, or Ukraine, or many other matters, medical and scientific experts, historians, academics, political leaders, musicians, artists, performers are censored and denigrated, if they express their well-weighed honest thoughts and conclusions, their individual creativity, or if they just happen to be in the firing line of the self-appointed judges of what it is permissible to think, express or be. 

Careers and lives are often ruined for those that fail to fall into line.

What sort of society is this?

All right, for the time being, a mere thought in itself is unlikely to land you in jail. The most severe consequences only come about if you express that thought, or worse, if you act on the basis of an “unapproved thought”.

There is no question, though, that life is much easier for those who simply go along with the officially approved thoughts and ideas, or those who hide what or who they really are and keep their heads below the parapet.

Reason, investigation, debate or questioning are discouraged while people are rewarded for “compliance” and a tendency to pass responsibility for important matters to others, to let “authorities” or “experts” who are chosen by the powerful, to draw conclusions and make decisions on their behalf. 

As a result, hugely significant decisions, affecting almost all aspects of people’s lives, are made not by individuals themselves but by those few people, organisations and enterprises, who hold the most power and control over information outlets, education, government, health services, the arts and so on.

This just might be acceptable if those individuals and entities were exceptionally insightful, trustworthy, honest, well-informed, ingenious, intelligent, creative, inspiring and ethical... but are they?

Take one topical example, the record of the multinational pharmaceutical company Pfizer, which has faced thousands of lawsuits for medical injuries and, in 2009, paid the largest healthcare fraud settlement in history, $2.3billion for illegal marketing of medicines.

Or there is Johnson & Johnson, another UK-approved vaccine provider, found guilty of concealing adverse effects of its medications, and forced to pay around $2.2bn over allegations of illegal marketing.

There is also the fact that in the UK, the law was changed in 2020 to give the vaccine manufacturers protection from being sued by patients should any problems arise from the “totally safe” vaccines.

Has society always been like this? Perhaps, to some degree. If so, it demonstrates the need for people with the courage to fight for a better possible future. Fortunately, there always have been such people and they are certainly needed now.