Our moronic response to the Omicron threat

I WONDER why hardly anyone has pointed out that the anagram of ‘Omicron’ is ‘Moronic’. It is quite easy to work out, and I suspect that the reason is the sort of hushed reverence everyone has now for everything to do with Covid.

Any sort of mockery or criticism of the authoritarian state we are building on the basis of virus-fighting is now treated as a wicked heresy. Voice such doubts and you will be falsely accused, at top volume, of desiring the deaths of the vulnerable and of wanting to let the virus rip, or of being a crazed ‘anti-vaxxer’. But there is something idiotic, if not actually moronic, about the response of this country to the new variant. We simply do not know enough to justify this level of alarm.

As even the pro-panic semi-official newspaper The Times explained on Friday: ‘There is so little data that everything is informed conjecture – back of the envelope calculations with uncertainties so large that the same figures can be used to give succour or presage doom.’

You should know that when The Times says ‘informed conjecture’, it is trying to avoid saying ‘guesswork’.

We have already seen, as I predicted long ago, the ghastly long-term damage done to such things as cancer treatment by the subjection of the whole state machine to Covid priorities.

I mourn for the businesses, small and large, struggling to stay above water through repeated restrictions, and for the children and students whose education has been ripped apart by the same thing.

Not to mention the sinking of this country and Europe into unbelievable and increasingly permanent restrictions on our personal freedom.

I must ask again, have we really got this in proportion? I know many people were, to begin with, completely overcome by the fear of the unknown. But I sense a growing number of doubters, no longer persuaded that the measures work or that they are worth it. Or both.

Make your voices heard, reasonably and patiently, please. It may not save Christmas but it might save Easter.