Why I Became a “Covid Denier”

There have been a wide selection of articles published here over the last year on Covid-19 and lockdowns. Since March, the thinking of many of us has evolved which has been reflected within the articles as time has gone on.

Back in April and May, the focus was on the science, the presentation and interpretation of the scientific data, the evidence for or against the measures. Now, as the evidence and new data has emerged and has been analysed the conversation has moved on more to the agendas and the big picture behind lockdowns.

In the middle of last year, I noticed a big increase in reader comments here which has been maintained. But I’ve noted recently, below the line, perhaps an influx of more new readers, expressing grave doubts about the official narrative. I think more and more people are again starting to ask the basic questions, doubting the daily diet of mainstream propaganda.

Yet quite understandably they have questions and some objections towards the vastly differing narratives here.

Therefore, I thought to put something together, setting out the main competing narratives, explaining my journey and how I gradually grappled with understanding the unfolding crisis.

At first glance this might not seem correctly pitched to the high level of Covid-19 understanding here. But it might help us all put our thinking into order and better structure. In fact, I used it as a structure to comprehensively explain it all to my old mum.

Over many months when watching TV news, and Piers Morgan, she kept asking me why I questioned each and every Covid-19 narrative at a given point. So, I finally decided to unburden myself and burden her with the whole story and went through it step by step in 15 minutes.

Perhaps she still doesn’t fully believe me but now she seems to appreciate where I’m coming from, which is a start.

Broadly I would say there are three main Covid-19 and lockdown narratives, as listed below, some of which overlap and have evolved somewhat over time. There are other narratives about 5G, the origin of the virus, whether it exists and around the vaccine.

In my view, the evidence around these is not firmly rooted for now. Nevertheless, there are some elements around these points to cause added concern which I’ll comment on also.

The main narratives:

1. The government and mainstream media narrative

Broadly this is that Covid-19 is a grave danger to public health and the government is following the science. The government has our best interests at heart and has reacted proportionately to the threat.

The people who accept this broad narrative might have some criticisms of the handling of aspects of the crisis and perhaps some of the measures. These people are often fed up with Piers Morgan and his ridiculous diversions from the debate we should be having. But by and large they accept the general narrative.

2. The Government have not followed the right science and have acted disproportionally.

This is what I call the Peter Hitchens’ ‘cock-up’ narrative, which he argued from the very start of this and as far as I know he still subscribes to. This narrative is that the government have panicked and based their decision-making about lockdowns on guesswork rather than evidence. The government are trying to find a face-saving exit strategy.

This viewpoint has developed over time as the science is better understood and many, many scientists have published research studies showing lockdowns and masks don’t work or have negligible benefits.

A big plank of this argument from the start was that largely regardless of the scientific arguments the lockdown measures were completely disproportionate to the risk and mortality rate of the virus. And the government decision-making was based on stupidity, panic and groupthink.

This narrative was one I supported in the first few months and I still accept the premise that the scientific interpretation relied upon was incorrect and incomplete. But now I disagree on the basis that deliberate design, not unscientific stupidity is behind the decision-making.