John Scrivener, Main Arm
In his critique of my take on the global lockdown, Damian Byers (Letters, 6 May) misrepresented my opinion by implying that I said the pandemic wasn’t real.
The virus and the response to it are two different things. I clearly referred to the response as a fraudulent and manufactured crisis, a deliberate deception that wrecks the world economy to benefit big pharma, and finance giants like Black Rock. The virus is of a strain associated with the common cold and causes few or no symptoms in many cases. The most vulnerable are the elderly and those with pre-existing respiratory illnesses.
The statistical analysis required to ascertain the infection mortality rate needs numbers that are still unavailable, such as the total number of infections. Without this data, fixating on fudged numbers of deaths and reported cases is worse than meaningless, and cannot tell us how the infection compares to other flu-like illnesses. Studies of its lethality are still inconclusive, and there have been no independent cost-benefit analyses of the lockdown policies.
But none of that matters to the scaremongering panic-merchants responsible for the media-induced hysteria and social panic that precipitated economic paralysis.
This provided the pretext for preplanned measures designed by unelected, unaccountable ‘guardians’ of public safety, and enthusiastically imposed by lockdown loonies.
Considering the social, psychological and economic impacts of the lockdown, the loss of jobs, the destruction of small businesses, the depression due to isolation, the violation of basic freedoms, it’s obvious the response to the virus has done more harm to the social fabric and economy of the world than a flu-like virus ever could, and it’s concerning that more people don’t realise that.
It seems we’re content to let the nanny state micromanage our social lives, despite the apocalyptic consequences.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
