We’ve had enough and are rebelling against lockdown

The lockdown consensus is cracking. Until recently, to criticise anti-covid restrictions was to be cast out from polite society. Those questioning conventional wisdom were “nutters” or “Trumpian” – selfish libertarians only out for themselves.

When lockdown was first imposed in March, we worked from home and clapped for the NHS on our doorsteps – it was “only for a couple weeks”. Then restrictions were extended… but the weather was good, we saved money on train fares and so many were able to treat it as “family time”.

The contrast with today’s lockdown is stark. The rule of six, and now this wildly incoherent three-tiered regional clampdown, is fuelling simmering discontent. The public is getting angry at what the political class is doing to them, and also with mainstream broadcasters who seem asleep on the job.

Lockdown One (March to June) seemed broadly coherent. Deaths “from Covid” were rising, peaking at over one thousand a day. No one knew how deadly this virus might be. The economy was suffering, yes, but the furlough scheme was generous, our public finances in reasonable shape – and it made sense to “flatten the curve”.

Lockdown Two (from September onwards) could hardly be more different. Daily coronavirus “cases” are four times higher than in April, but testing is up more than ten-fold. We now know the overwhelming majority of Covid fatalities are among the elderly with other life-threatening conditions – deaths “from” and “with” Covid aren’t the same. And almost everyone neither elderly nor otherwise vulnerable is either asymptomatic, or recovers fast after minor symptoms.

And yet here we are, compounding the steepest economic nosedive in 300 years with more self-imposed damage. We’re banning events, hospitality, curtailing the arts, sport and countless other activities, crushing the untold numbers of firms that clung on through Lockdown One but are now throwing in the towel.

But the trashed economy and decimated tax base is just the start of it. Because deep downturns – spiralling unemployment, related depression, despair and domestic abuse – cost lives. The ongoing go-slow of non-covid NHS treatments – 1.2 million missed breast cancer scans, countless other life-saving operations delayed – costs lives.

And what of children and students, almost entirely unaffected by the virus – the precious education and youth of millions cruelly upended?

And why this mind-numbing application of rules? Planet Normal listeners have wept at the plight of 83-year old Robert and Josephine, teenage sweethearts turned lifelong companions, she now with dementia in a care home, he forbidden to hug or even touch her.

Then there’s the dying mother in Wales, “unable to choose” which of her four children should be her “sole permitted visitor” in her final days, so felt her only option was to opt to see none of them. What have we become?

Back in September, government scientists warned of 50,000 new Covid cases daily by mid-october. The outcome was well under half that, despite much higher testing capacity – a fact broadcasters have barely reported. Total fatalities this month have been in line with the average over the past five years, before Covid – again, I’ve yet to hear that on the TV news.

The occupancy of intensive care unit beds is just a fraction of what it was in early April, the peak of this pandemic – and that’s before we crank up now well-rehearsed emergency measures. ICU usage across the country is at 60 per cent, well below average, suggesting no danger that the NHS can’t cope.

As the economic and human costs of lockdown escalate, the public is increasingly sceptical of “second wave” warnings. A lockdown imposed by well-heeled politicians and state-paid advisers is hitting poorer households hardest, not least those in cramped homes.

In March, as the start of this Covid pandemic began, over 90 per cent of us backed lockdown. Now four in 10 say the rules do more harm than good – and that’s against a backdrop of Government fearmongering, with many reluctant to speak their minds.

Growing numbers of scientists now want age-specific shielding, with society helping the elderly and vulnerable take precautions if they want to, while the rest of us build immunity by getting on with our lives. Yet, amid scant evidence that Covid causes any excess deaths, we have regional restrictions so divisive there will soon be another national lockdown by default.

Eighty-two-year-old Maureen Eames from Barnsley – who captured what many people were feeling when she said she “didn’t give a sod” about coronavirus rules, complained that Britain was supposed to be “a free country” and added that “life must go on” – is now a media sensation. Countless millions agree with her and must now find their collective voice.

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