Spread a Little Scepticism

There follows a guest post by Daily Sceptic reader Veronica Richards, about her encounter with a vaccination clinic and a dentist and her efforts to spread a little scepticism.

Yesterday, having arrived early at the town twelve miles away where my dentist surgery is, I was wandering up the High Street filling in time when, to my disappointment (since I thought this kind of thing had wound down), I came across a large sign on the pavement declaring “Get Your Vaccine Here”, and a few yards from it a white wagon where the injecting took place, and a short distance from that, a tent where people presumably either waited or sat to recover (hopefully fully) from their Covid jab. However, apart from the uniformed team working on this project, there were no punters awaiting their services.

A man in a white coat stood in the doorway of the wagon. I approached him. “Have you seen the Yellow Card listings following these vaccines?” I asked in a rather stony voice.

“If I want, I can access them,” he replied, without much vigour.

Actually, I think he was probably a pleasant, sensitive man and he didn’t look at all well. His face was pale, there was red all around his eyes and he had a strained look, but I wasn’t about to give up. “Do you believe in ‘do no harm’?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you know about the pathologist who has done autopsies on a largish number of people who died within two weeks of being vaccinated? He said many of the deaths were caused by the vaccine and he wanted to organise more autopsies, but has now suddenly gone strangely quiet?”

“There have been over 50,000 people vaccinated,” stated the red-rimmed eyed man, as if that were an answer.

“Yes – and there are an increasing number of people around with badly compromised immune systems!” No reply came, and so with that I made off, wishing I’d remembered to say about the rising number of those with coronary problems.

Fifteen minutes later I passed the white wagon again. This time I was on the opposite pavement and the white-coated man was on the phone. I liked to think he was ringing his boss to say, “I can’t do this anymore”. Although it also occurred to me he might be ringing a nearby police car to say “there she is, the one in the red jumper” and any moment I might feel the heavy hand of the law upon my shoulder.

But that’s just my imagination and I wasn’t really too concerned. Why should anyone worry for simply pointing out something for which there is more than enough appalling evidence? But I don’t like being confrontational, and I didn’t improve that medic’s day and he already looked depressed before I started. I hope I’m not the first passerby to have said something. I have the feeling I wasn’t, and maybe as a consequence, just maybe, he’ll jump ship. Or even better, question his role himself and start speaking up within the NHS. I’m touching wood and whistling. I think basically he’s a decent bloke.

The time had come for my dental appointment, the preliminary inspection during which I knew I’d be informed that my broken front tooth needed dental bonding, something I’d been waiting 20 days to hear from professional lips. And that after paying, I would then be given another appointment, weeks ahead, for the actual bonding to be done. In Bulgaria, you can ring a dentist and say, I need this or that doing, and when you arrive for your appointment three or four days later, the dentist gets on with the job, then and there, and charges nothing like as much. I’d book a plane ticket today if I hadn’t a succession of dogs coming to stay over the summer. No wonder there isn’t the great snarling up of appointments in Bulgaria that there is here, and getting worse.

But I was wrong about knowing what the dentist would say. “I’m sorry,” said the receptionist, “the dentist didn’t feel well and had to go home. We tried to ring you this morning [when I got home there was no message on my landline], can you put on your mask please.”

“I thought that mask nonsense was over with,” I responded. “You do realise that in order to see a virus they have to use an electron microscope? A virus could go straight through that mask you’re wearing, apart from the fact there are big gaps either side.” However, the poor woman was starting to look uncomfortable and so I relented and began to fish around in my bag in the hope my homemade mask might still be lurking. It was. “Okay, I’ll put on this silly made up thing,” I said, “but you know very well it’s a masquerade, and I know very well it’s a masquerade.”

There were now three receptionists behind the desk gazing at me silently. The phone went and one picked it up. I continued, “My previous appointment to be fitted for a pair of dentures [which I’m giving up getting this year since I’ve already been semi-toothless for seven months] was cancelled because my usual dentist is as you know is sadly very poorly and it seems is probably going to retire. When can I make another appointment to be told I need dental bonding on this front tooth?”

“Sorry, I didn’t quite hear what you said?” said one of the receptionists, holding a hand over an ear to shield it from her colleague talking loudly on the phone.

I removed my mask and didn’t put it back on again, nor was asked to. “See – nobody can hear each other through these ridiculous things!” And I repeated my question, and two receptionists searched intently on their computer for a slot for me, and apparently did me a favour by squashing me in first thing in the morning in a couple of weeks’ time.

But the nice thing is this, after I left the building, one of the receptionists knocked on the window and gave me a very jolly wave. I waved back. Obviously there are those within the system who like it when we kick up.

If any other readers have stories of their efforts to spread a little scepticism, why not email us here.