BUTTERFIELD
Covid conspiracy? Anti-vaxxers are giving politicians too much credit
I’M getting completely sick and tired of conspiracy theorists trying to peddle their absurd nonsense to everyone in the wake of the discovery of the Omicron variant. get it, we’re all fed up with restrictions, but every day, seemingly every time I open social media pages, there’s a new meme, or a ridiculous statement, from someone suggesting this is all some sort of government plot, and that they saw it all coming.
“You all dismissed this as a conspiracy theory”, they splutter. “But now you know we were right”, is the sort of pathetic outburst I often see.
On the rare occasion I’m in a good enough mood to brush aside my anger at their sheer ignorance, I often can’t help but marvel at the faith they seem to have in our government. In their minds, our politicians have not only managed to oversee the concoction of a deadly virus, but they’ve also quietly helped to engineer its transmission across the world. And then they’ve commissioned a vaccine that, they insist, gives them some sort of power over our thoughts. Or something.
And we’re told they can manipulate the media into publishing frequent stories about how dangerous this virus, which they often suggest is “just the flu”, has become, just to ensure more people roll up their sleeves and take the mind-altering jab.
To carry out such an elaborate plot would take a phenomenal government. It would require close relationships being forged with every other international ruling body, and every civil servant in just about every governmental department in the world would have to be in on it.
Yet this is a government that failed to take the virus seriously in the first place. This is a government that can’t even organise a proper A-level grading system. This is a government run by a prime minister that once spoke out in public over his torment at the theft of his beloved “Bikey”.
Seriously, how clever and devious do conspiracy theorists think our elected representatives are? And do they not think someone would have exposed them by now? They couldn’t keep their dodgy expenses claims under wraps, yet they can somehow get away with controlling the entire population through the hysteria of a made-up disease. Give me a break.
Of course, their theories all stem from a lack of scientific understanding. Had they realised that mutations of a virus are par for the course, and that Omicron is not the first new variant and might not be the last, then they might not go around telling people it’s just a way of locking us down in time for Christmas.
Had they bothered to listen at school they might have even a basic understanding of how a vaccine works, why a mask is important, and why being told to wash our hands regularly is not a loss of our freedom or human rights.
And in the meantime, people are reading and absorbing all this nonsense on social media, accepting it’s true because it’s the happier conclusion, and then boycotting the rules. Since the mask restrictions in shops came into force a week ago, I’ve been staggered at the number of people who just don’t bother.
I don’t like wearing a mask either, and I’ve had all my jabs so I don’t think I’m in danger. But I wear a mask in shops because it’s the rules, and, more importantly, because it makes people around me feel uncomfortable if I don’t.
And I do it because I’ve taken the time to properly understand what the virus is capable of and why it’s important and responsible to protect others. Conspiracy theorists call me a “sheep”. But, at the end of the day, they’re the ones blindly falling for an ignorant rhetoric from a completely unqualified source. I’m following the advice of people who have years of knowledge behind them, and more qualifications than the average conspiracy theorist’s IQ score.
So, really, who is the sheep?