The Narrative

It’s interesting how the narrative has changed. Two years ago, the media – including the Daily Mail – was unanimous in supporting draconian measures to tackle what turned out to be a bad cold or mild dose of flu. Anyone who dared to challenge this narrative was labelled a covidiot. Remember that? Well, now the DM is siding with those who criticised those measures and thinks that we will have forgotten.

But the real silent heroes were a handful of brave Covid scientists who publicly challenged the consensus at the time — that Omicron could trigger thousands of deaths every day without more miserable restrictions.

And were roundly criticised for it by the likes of the Daily Mail.

As the scientific community at large began to call for fresh curbs to halt the new, extremely infectious variant — which we now know to be mild — Professor Paul Hunter saw no reason to hit the panic button.

Which many of us saw from the very beginning. He was only brave because of the hysteria being whipped up by the media trying to claim that this was the second coming of the black death, drowning out any reasonable voices with screeching and accusations of granny killing.

Relying on his 40 years’ worth of experience thwarting pandemic threats across the planet, the level-headed grandfather insisted the time had come for Boris Johnson‘s Government to change tack.

He, like his colleagues, had watched Omicron race through South Africa just weeks earlier, where it caused record case numbers but, crucially, did not overwhelm hospitals or kill on a large scale.

Unlike his contemporaries, however, Professor Hunter came to the conclusion Britons did not need to scurry back into their homes and hide from the new strain now that we had vaccines on our side.

South Africa did not lock down and yet it was supposed to be more vulnerable than the UK, with only a fraction of the population double-vaccinated and an even tinier number booster-dosed.

But Professor Hunter’s reward?

Hunter was correct, of course. The quiet, calm voices in the centre of the storm invariably are, because they have taken a considered, logical assessment of the situation while everyone else is panicking. His reward, of course was the same given to the signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration. Ridicule and censorship.

Relentless trolling and offensive slurs from lockdown zealots, who are still publicly lobbying for the return of the extortionate free lateral flow scheme and face coverings.

At the same time, the 66-year-old Covid centrist has also endured a torrent of abuse from hard-left scientists for apparently ‘peddling actual fear’ during the darkest days of the pandemic.

When they have no argument, this is the only weapon they have at hand, so they use it. See also, climate emergency, Brexit, trans rights et al. The pattern is always the same – vicious personal abuse and insults.

Professor Hunter, from the University of East Anglia, told MailOnline: ‘I’ve had hate mail from Covid sceptics and trolling from people suffering from zero Covid delusion.

‘I figure I must be doing something right.’

Quite right. That said, I disagree with his stance on vaccines as they have been shown to be ineffective. But, no one is right about everything all of the time, so I’ll give him a pass on that.

At the time, he himself was a zero Covid advocate, believing the virus could be nearly totally eradicated ‘if it was properly managed’

Okay, so when new evidence came to light, he changed his mind. Indeed, he had done so by the time it reached this country. That’s how science is supposed to work.