Say No to Face Masks
Just over a year ago, on 4th March 2020, the BBC ran an article Coronavirus: Face mask ads banned for ‘misleading’ claims. It stated:
“The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled the claims by Easy Shopping 4 Home Ltd and Novads OU were in breach of its code.
“The adverts were “misleading, irresponsible and likely to cause fear without justifiable reason,” it said.
“One of the Oxybreath Pro adverts stated: “One of the best ways to protect yourself is to get a high-quality face mask that can protect you from: viruses, bacteria, and other air pollutants.”
“Prof Stephen Powis, NHS medical director, said: “Callous firms looking to maximise profits by pushing products that fly in the face of official advice is outright dangerous and has rightly been banned.”
How things have changed.
A year on, the official advice now requires that businesses and schools must enforce face coverings. Presumably to not enforce them would now be considered “outright dangerous.” And although they are still “likely to cause fear,” it is now presumably “with justifiable reason.”
It is now a requirement for all secondary school children to wear face coverings all day whilst at school. Although primary school children are not required to wear masks, there are several situations that require parents and teachers to wear them, like pick-up and drop-off. How far we have come: if a simple advert for adults is “likely to cause fear,” what is the likely impact on children when all their friends, teachers and parents are routinely covering their faces, like gangsters or “deadly disease vectors”? Does anyone care? Where is the data that measures these impacts, and how do we judge that the measures are justifiable? (There isn’t any data, and no one has ever made any justification). In the words of the government, from the footnote of every statutory instrument related to coronavirus and rushed through parliament: “No impact assessment has been prepared for these Regulations.” Children be damned.
Yesterday, a new government report, co-authored by the infamous Neil Ferguson, has announced:
“Whilst the impact of Test Trace Isolate (TTI), mask wearing, hand hygiene, and COVID security on R is difficult to quantify, it will be vital to emphasise the importance of normalising and ensuring adherence to all measures even after “full lifting” is achieved.”
In other words, even though there is no significant evidence that measures like face coverings are effective, we must make sure they are normalised and made permanent. This, apparently, is “following the science.” Consequently, the UK government has announced that schools must continue enforcing face coverings after Easter, despite all the data coming in more positive than the government had predicted. So much for “data, not dates.”
So what did cause the original change in policy on face coverings?
There is no new evidence on the effectiveness of mask wearing that could have led to this change. There is no correlation between individual countries’ face covering policies and subsequent numbers of deaths. I cannot find any reasonable justification for the change.
On 22nd March, 2020, the SAGE subgroup SPI-B (Independent Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours) produced a report: Options for increasing adherence to social distancing measures. In this deeply disturbing document, the group recommended:
“The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging.”
The clear implication of this report was that it was the task of the state to scare us into compliance. And how well they have achieved that compliance! It is my strong conviction that masks have been a vital and massively effective part of this fearmongering — a point made so well by Peter Hitchens in his article Democracy Muzzled. Please read it. Please think about the implications:
“… the forced wearing of face coverings which publicly signal both surrender to the state and acceptance of the utopian, unscientific policy which guides that state.
“I remain amazed that so many either cannot see, or pretend not to see the enormous symbolism of a population compelled by fear of the state to sacrifice much of their individuality, and to adopt a form of dress which is associated with submission
“The Covid Muzzle demands an extraordinary act of personal self-cancellation. And the constant sight — on streets, in stations, in shops and on TV — of thousands of others, likewise suppressed, maintains the fear, alarm and panic which the government must now preserve for the foreseeable future.”
Hitchens ends the article:
“If I hadn’t despaired long ago, I would be despairing now.”
Following the government’s announcement that face covering enforcement would be extended beyond easter for school students, the general secretary of the NASUWT teachers’ union said:
“Relaxing the rules in schools would send a message to pupils and parents that the threat of Covid has passed.”
Yes, face coverings are about messaging and generating fear, not health. Never mind the collateral damage to our children, and schools!
Back in November when I wrote about the need to Say No to the Lockdown, I was still hopeful that most people would eventually become fed up with or at least more enlightened about the lies, corruption and subsequent deadly restrictions. But I was wrong. I am now convinced that many of the restrictions will be normalised and become permanent — some I suspect have already become normalised, such as mask-wearing.
I have never bought a Covid mask. I will not cover my face except under severe duress. I will never put masks on my children, unless I think it will protect them or others from a genuine harm. I will teach them that coercion, fearmongering, and accepting the tyranny of governments and their so-called experts and/or corporate sponsors are all great wrongs. And that individual, critical thinking and having the courage to stand out and take action against tyranny are real virtues. Our home is covid-hysteria free, and we don’t participate in any anti-social distancing or covid-theatre, except when forced by the law. That is how we will continue to live; perhaps it will rub off on some others?
We only begin to take back our many lost freedoms by having the courage to stand up and not comply. Please, say “No!” to face masks.
