WELL, if we thought that Brexit was a decisive topic, it seems to be small fry compared to the subject of Covid-19, lockdowns, masks et al.

When I wrote last month about how I refuse to wear a mask, not only did my own editor feel the need to print a disclaimer stating that my view on masks was not shared by the County Press, but many people wrote in to say how irresponsible I am.

On the flip side, when my article was published on the CP website, a number of Islanders took to the comments section to state that they agreed with me. How is it that we all differ so much in our views on such things?

As regular readers of my writings will know, I have a strong belief that the lockdown was unnecessary and that herd immunity is inevitably unavoidable, but why is it that not everyone sees what I see?

I guess the answer to that question is that the vast majority of people trust in the government, even if they don’t realise they do. If our government had adopted the same approach to Covid-19 as Sweden’s government did, ie an open approach to herd immunity without any lockdowns, would the masses have accepted and trusted the government? Yes, of course they would.

Ironically, I actually believe that our government is working towards herd immunity, and always have been, and that they have played a very clever game of smoke and mirrors. Have you even stopped to ask yourself why masks are mandatory in shops and yet aren’t required in pubs and restaurants where people are far less likely to be observing social distancing?

Isle of Wight County Press:

Why should you have to wear a mask in a shop, but not in a pub or the House of Commons?

It appears to me that our government are trying to build up herd immunity at a slow pace, which actually makes sense. They don’t want everyone throwing off their masks all at once, but now that the kids are back in school, we should see case numbers rise, although we shouldn’t really refer to them as ‘cases’, as most children who test positive won’t even have any symptoms, let alone require hospital treatment.

To make sure the masses keep their masks on, the government and media have moved away from announcing the daily death totals (which are very small) to instead announcing case numbers — a sceptic might think this is being done on purpose, to keep us frightened...and I am that sceptic.

The only important numbers as far as I’m concerned, is hospital admissions and deaths, neither of which are on the increase at the time of writing.

To bring the whole thing back to a local level, the Isle of Wight was absolutely inundated with holiday-makers in August, including thousands of scooterists who packed the pubs of Ryde, and yet despite all these thousands of potentially diseased people invading us, we remain pretty much Covid free, and St Mary’s hasn’t been over-run.

It makes you think — or at least, it makes me think — it’s up to you if you want to think about these things, or just accept what you are told by the government.

One final point — do you not find it strange that MPs don’t wear masks in the House of Commons? Hmmm...