This strategy of terror has petrified the public
As we welcome the end of lockdown, dare we hope to see the banishment of its companion communication strategy, a deliberate strategy of terror that has been mercilessly executed by the Government and its scientific advisers in pursuit of maximum compliance with the restrictions?
This messaging, designed to create the greatest level of fear and anxiety about the virus, has ruthlessly stripped away the coping mechanisms of those with an existing mental health condition or those vulnerable to developing one. As a consequence, we now have children who are too frightened to go outdoors lest they kill their parents, adolescents isolated at home suffering from anxiety, eating disorders and self harm, parents battling with depression, desperation and suicidal thoughts, and many old people fading away from loneliness.
It is a strategy that has created a deep well of anxiety. This anxiety will be visible at the school gate, in the classroom, in our workplaces, in our homes, on our streets, in our police stations and then it will end up in the NHS for months and years to come.
No doubt those in government and Sage will say that driving down cases of the virus justifies the cost – whether in jobs lost, businesses ruined, the educational harm, or the effect on the nation’s long-term mental health and well-being. But there is one question to which one day I will need an answer. Before this deliberate terror was unleashed on our airwaves, did any of these people ask: is what we are doing ethical? Did the Secretary of State ask: is this ethical? Did the Chief Medical Office ask: is this ethical? Did anyone in Sage ask: is this ethical? Did they ask if it was ethical to create a level of fear that would push many people to the very edge of what they could bear, or even over that edge? Did they ask if it was ethical to embark on a strategy that would leave many of our fellow citizens debilitated with fear, anxiety and worse for years to come, or perhaps a lifetime?
Suffering in one’s head matters. Knowingly creating that suffering strikes at the heart of the state’s own morality and our morality as lawmakers. It should be to our lasting shame that some of those struggling have taken their own life and many others have been severely damaged in ways that will shorten their lives.
If “parity of esteem” between physical and mental health is to be anything more than just a jumble of words, the Government, Sage and all of its outriders need to be held to account for what, to many, seems a deliberate act of cruelty.
It is time for the Secretary of State, the Chief Medical Officer and the members of Sage to look directly at the damaged and the anguished – not over them, not through them – directly at them. Because it’s time these people were seen. It’s time their health mattered. And it’s time they counted.