Dan Wootton: We are being told to ignore science and embrace fear

For a government and group of experts who told us slavishly to follow the science at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s infuriating that, when it comes to Omicron, we are being told to actively ignore the scientific evidence and instead embrace the fear.

The new doomsday duo of Whitty and Boris are telling us that the real world data showing the scariant is far milder should be dismissed.

Ignore the fact that there has been 23 per cent fewer hospitalisations in South Africa - a country where only a quarter of the population is vaccinated.

Ignore that hospitalisations here in the U.K. fell from 800 to 774, the lowest figure in a week, even though Omicron has been circulating for at least three weeks.

Well I refuse to put the evidence to one side.

But regardless of how severe Omicron may be, it’s intellectually dishonest for those in power trying to scare us all into locking down by stealth by pretending we’re in the same position as Christmas 2020.

There is no reason to be afraid anymore.

The vulnerable - largely those elderly and sick - are not just double jabbed, but boosted now too, with at least 80 per cent choosing to have three vaccinations.

That was always meant to be our ticket out of the perpetual lockdowns: Give the vulnerable the opportunity to protect themselves from serious illness if they choose to and allow the rest of us to return to normal life, weighing up the risk that comes from being a human being.

Just as we always have when it comes to getting the flu or even jumping in a car.

But as folk like me always warned, if you give those in power - the blob, the public health scientists, the power crazed politicians like Gove and Hancock - control over how we live our lives, they never want to hand it back.

That’s proven to be true.

We’re creating a communist dream.

No wonder former London Mayor and Labour Party stalwart Ken Livingstone is propagating a perpetual series of never ending lockdowns.

He might sound mad. But Mark Drakeford in Wales and Nicola Sturgeon in Scotland don’t give a damn about destroying the economy by telling everyone to work from home and stop socialising - it plays into their political game plan.

Full credit to Joy Morrissey, the MP for Beaconsfield and a parliamentary aide to the justice secretary, Dominic Raab, who tweeted...

"Perhaps the covid unelected public health spokesperson should defer to what our ELECTED members of parliament and the prime minister have decided.

"I know it’s difficult to remember but this is not how democracy works. This is not a public health socialist state.”

She was later forced to delete the post, even though she's completely right.

As Allister Heath writes in the Daily Telegraph today…

“Technocrats – the very same ones who panicked about the cost of Brexit – are staggeringly complacent about the impact of recurring lockdowns and restrictions, and of the borrowing, tax increases and money-printing deployed to pay for them.”

What’s depressing is that the Westminster approach has become the opposite of conservative, which is why Boris was this week put on notice by his party.

But the panic stations approach is doing the trick.

The Queen has been forced to cancel her Christmas party.

France has banned Brits with some glee.

And the hospitality industry is cratering, with turnover in December - by far the most important month of the year for the industry - down 40 per cent.

Meanwhile, who cares about the cost of living crisis?

Inflation has hit 5.1 per cent - the worst position we’ve been in since the 2008 financial crisis.

Lockdown by stealth or any further formal legal restrictions will make our economic situation even more perilous.

So it’s time to start educating the public about why we are in a much better position to handle Omicron - and the next variant - without sending the country down another black hole.