Daily Sceptic reader Jill Evans said we were right to encourage sceptics to respond to the Covid Inquiry, saying we need “thousands of sceptical submissions”. She has sent us hers to encourage others to write similarly.
Before Covid I was part of a small choir which I had helped to form. I helped out at a ‘Repair Café’, serving the tea and cake to a busy crowd. I was part of a group of eight friends we called the ‘philosophy club’. We gathered monthly to explore a topic in depth and then eat, drink and talk together about life, the universe and everything. I met one-to-one with close women friends and my sister. My small family gathered regularly from three points along the Sussex coast. I swam three to four times a week at a local health spa, visited gardens and our local nature reserves often. I walked both along the coast and in the South Downs. I went to Qi Gong class once a week and had shiatsu massage regularly. I used the local library. My partner and I shared companionable meals, games and conversation frequently with two local friends. Other friends came to stay with us and we with them. The last friends we had to stay were from Norway. My partner was part of the local history society, went to a local jazz club and was a regular at premier league football matches.
The last collective thing I did before we were locked down on March 23rd 2020 was to participate in a large one day singing workshop. I was an optimistic, cheerful person with a satisfying and generally happy life, while I had many concerns about the troubled state of human society and the natural planet.
Overnight in March 2020 all my opportunities for coming together in person – in community and one-to-one – were gone. Overnight I could no longer swim or walk in nature in beautiful gardens or listen to bird song in the reserves. From a life where I had a rich mixture of connections with other people in person, enriching time spent in nature and healthy exercise, suddenly I had a life with a loving male partner, three cats and what connections could be made by email and telephone. We walked each day on the local beach, read books, watched TV and sat in the garden. I wrote a journal and took to making mosaics. I know I was fortunate in my personal situation compared to so many people and yet this locked-down life without a variety of activities, intimacies and community gradually sapped my strength, weakened my spirit, emptied my life of joy and rendered me hopeless.
The elements that felt most oppressive to me were:
- social distancing and all the signage and strange behaviours that went with it
- face masks
- plastic screens
- fear inducing propaganda
- weird and changing rules about what you could do or not with who or how many, inside or outside
- The lack of any real discussion or debate about what we were living through
I was living in a dystopian nightmare imposed by a Government from which there was no escape. Once I learnt about how Sweden was doing it differently without lockdowns and face mask mandates, I longed to live in Sweden!
I was also deeply concerned for children and young people. I think that the wellbeing of a whole young generation was ignored, and that they were oppressed and abused by lockdowns, social distancing, endless testing and perhaps most of all mask-wearing in schools. I believe that schools and universities should never have been closed and masks were a form of abuse.
I was deeply concerned for anyone living alone in lockdown, people imprisoned in care homes, people in dysfunctional and violent relationships, people without garden space, women forced to give birth alone and miscarry alone, people left to die alone, people left to grieve alone and bereaved people forced to be socially distant and masked at funerals. How could the system be so cruel?
By August 2020 I was more miserable and hopeless than ever in my life before. I would wake up every day awash with anxiety, anger and grief. Fortunately, some good friends turned out to be resolutely rebellious and I was empowered to break the rules with others of my loved ones who were willing. Illegal hugs became particularly special. Some of my close friendships were restored to physical and emotional intimacy by Autumn of 2020.
But the nightmare continued on and on for more than two years. I went willingly and without too much thought for three lots of Covid jabs. I stupidly assumed that when everyone most vulnerable had been offered vaccination the world would open up and life would return to pre-Covid normal. I stupidly assumed that vaccines would prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2 – isn’t that what a vaccine does? Now I know differently. Almost everyone I know has had Covid at least once and they had all been vaccinated. We were told these vaccinations were safe and effective – I believe we were lied to. My own experience of Covid was brief and unremarkable apart from the nasty metallic taste in the mouth. I have had much worse experiences of flu and other respiratory viruses.
I want this enquiry to answer the big questions
- How could lockdowns be justified? Where was the evidence?
- How could face covering mandates be justified? Where was the evidence?
- How could all the fear-mongering propaganda be justified?
- How could all the weird and ever changing rules be Justified? Where was the evidence?
- How much harm was done to health, both physical and mental, by the non-pharmaceutical measures taken in response to Covid?
- Why was no cost benefit analysis done before lockdowns?
- Why weren’t we told the truth about the vaccines, that they do not stop a person getting Covid or passing onto others?
- Why were we nudged, pressurised and manipulated using behavioural psychology techniques?
- Why were alternative approaches from many highly qualified experts censored, ridiculed and silenced?
Personally I am recovering now. There is some joy back in life. I still feel weakened, lacking in resilience, courage and hope, and unable to find inner peace. I do not trust mainstream media, especially the BBC, I have little confidence in the NHS, and there is no political party that I want to vote for. So much was lost and needs to be rediscovered, reclaimed and restored for living a good healthy life.
I hope that the Inquiry will recommend that a U.K. Government never embark on such oppressive treatment of citizens ever again. There was always an alternative approach: to focus protection on the most vulnerable and let life go on for everyone else. Sweden got it mostly right. Most of the rest of the world made the same horrible mistakes as in the U.K. and we will be living with the consequences for a long time to come.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Well done Jill Evans!
Good questions indeed.
Could add plenty more:
1-Why the change in MCCD in March 2020?
2-Why no debate about the PCR tests and why no proof they work?
3-Where was SARS ‘II’ isolated, why no proof of its existence?
4-What happened to 30K dead between March and May 2020? If the virus was present in Fall 2019 why a March 2020 lockdown?
5-Why did Hancock roll out 2 mn doses of midazolam starting in March 2020?
6-Why did the death rate not change overall and why did other categories of death suffer a decline (eg cancer, dementia, respiratory), were these not moved to Rona?
7-Why did the scamdemic suddenly end when Vlad the Invader got busy, and why did the ‘cases’ fall to zero when the free fake PCR testing was stopped?
8-What happened to all the money – how much fraud, graft, theft etc. and when will there be an audit eg. track n trace and £34 bn wasted.
etc
A very vividly described personal account.
But why would you ask questions of anyone who isn’t engaging in good faith?
The purpose of the enquiry isn’t to find out what should have been done. We all know that and don’t need an enquiry.
The purpose is at best to clear politicians and bureaucrats of the crimes they have committed and at worst to establish all the crazy covid measures as rhe appropriate precedent for future “pandemics”, except faster and more forcefully.
I doubt very much questions from the public will change that.
The only letter worth sending to these cronies is one that says “The government’s covid measures were draconian and ineffective and if they try them again I will not comply.”
Indeed. Another purpose is to cement the Big Lie that “covid” was exceptional. If you have a £114M+ inquiry lasting years, surely the subject of the inquiry must be exceptional, mustn’t it? You would not do that for a bad flu season.
Gathering comments from the public is a box-ticking exercise designed to confer legitimacy. Of course they are mainly looking for things along the lines of “covid was terrible, thanks for saving me” or “covid was terrible, why didn’t you do more” but comments like “lockdowns were very isolating” will be twisted into “next time we will provide more support for lonely people” etc etc.
Thank you Jill Evans. If the inquiry had any backbone it would use your submission as a template.
But it has already set off in the wrong direction.
Hear hear for Jill Evans. Think you should substitute ‘wrong’ for ‘opposite’.
Jill, you should write a follow-up piece for the DS explaining when you discovered the DS, when you began to understand you’d been had.
I suggest this because I suspect there are many reading this wondering what your decision making was like that having had 2 jabs prompted you to get a 3rd?
It’s very rare to hear from someone who went along with it for so long to repent in the way you have done. I know lots of people in your position but none of them are prepared to discuss it, it remains a closed book. It may be a lack of empathy on my part but I find it impossible to put myself in your shoes & rationalise the decisions you made and am genuinely interested to look behind the curtain.
I had three jabs but it isn’t a question of repentance that I now refuse them. The first Covid-related death was that of the truth, so it was just a question of guessing and trying to weigh benefit vs harm, and not knowing whether one was right or not. As for discussing this, it is hard to see the point. I take the view of the Manchester shopkeeper: “In God we trust. Everyone else pays cash.”
Fair effort however a pointless waste of time I’m afraid..
The conclusion to this farce of an inquiry has already been made..
You’ll be getting more of the same in 2025…
I can only agree.
Well assembled and it covers a lot of ground. W.r.t. “Why weren’t we told the truth about the vaccines, that they do not stop a person getting Covid or passing onto others?” they might say that they didn’t actually say that – in the promotional leaflets issue to me in March ‘21, it said, in effect, that they just don’t know yet – but use it anyway. I did not use it at all. I might have had a (somewhat benign) Covid-19 infection, or not. No real evidence either way, except that the dentist I use required an online survey about symptoms in a given timeframe. About 10 items, and if I completed it less than 4 weeks earlier, they probably wouldn’t want me in. Anyway, whatever it was I’d recovered and said no to all of them.
In addition to the matters you listed, there is the outbreak if opportunism, e.g. the use of “track and trace” gadgets, which have cost an awful lot of public finance. They just don’t know what the financial outcome will be; they will try to deny it and blame something else, like a war somewhere, or whatever.
Why couldn’t you listen to bird song in reserves?
When they blocked the entrance to Wakerley Woods with logs I just parked on the road. When they taped-off the entrance to Launde Park Wood and tied the gate shut with rope I ducked under the tape and unknotted the rope. When they locked the gates at East Carlton Country Park I again parked on the road and jumped over the short wall.
“Why weren’t we told the truth about the vaccines, that they do not stop a person getting Covid or passing onto others?”. You were, you, amongst millions of others, chose not to listen. My brother was typical “I don’t care, I just want my life back”. He was one of the lucky ones; his jabs didn’t kill him.
Whereas my Mum has life-altering heart damage.
She cried when I first refused the vaccine (added to the fact I’d become so depressed that I didn’t eat or drink for four days – I don’t recommend that!) Firstly because she was afraid I’d catch a variant of the virus and die and secondly because she was afraid I’d be arrested and either sent to an internment camp or held down and forcibly jabbed. Now she acknowledges I did the right thing. I wish I could say it was entirely due to bravery, but a lot of it was that the sight of people in masks is a major phobia for me and I refused to go near any testing kits. I’m one of the few who has never had a test and never covered his face. The idea of standing in a queue for hours surrounded by people in masks was anathema to me, apart from the contempt I’d developed for my fellow man by then. To this day, I’ll never forget running into family friends on the way to my local Tesco’s and realising, with shock, that they were standing two metres from me. I didn’t think the UK public would obey. I still remain shocked that the desire for liberty seems to have been bred out of our people!
Ditto never masked or tested, ( and obviously never jabbed ), and yes, I remember how awful/sickening/revolting it felt seeing my sister wearing a mask, and her expression when taking it off in an “approved” location; sheepish/secretly ashamed/embarrassed … … … she knew at some level, but could not/was unable to “disobey the establishment”. Also the sitting two metres away. And she is supposedly a scientist ( scientific advisor ) too.
Well said Jill!
A lot of what you’ve said accounts for me too. The difference for me was that I’d only just left London and hadn’t made any solid friendships back home. So I have no friends, I live with poorly, elderly parents, one of whom – my Mum – now has serious heart trouble following the third Pfizer jab and the other – my Dad, in his mid-80s – who has gone blind in one eye due to his eye operations being cancelled and/or delayed for almost a year and is deeply depressed, bitter and afraid. He lived through the Germans bombing our home town as a child in the 1940s, one time even being thrown to the ground by his Dad and his Dad covering him with his body, because a stray German plane decided to to strafe Torquay seafront. He felt lockdown was like Nazi German had won.
I used to be a freelancer buzzing around London. When I first moved out, I would happily scoot back up to London for two or three days at a time to work for companies and bunk with friends nearby who were more than happy to have me stay (they had a big house and I’m an excellent cook!) My friends have now moved to Poland. I was working for a local firm and had started to build some friendships here. The friendships fizzled, because they do if you don’t see each other regularly, and the firm liquidated after 35 years of operation. I now work from home.
I’ve been left distrusting of everyone, I know very few sceptics – none locally – and I’m cautious about getting involved with the friends I know who are pro-lockdown, because I’d rather remember our friendships as they were than fall out with them over this. I know I have to snap out of this mindset, but it’s not easy. I still go berserk if Matt Hancock appears on screen!! My language is unrepeatable!
I feel, more than anything, that the lockdown era has been used as an excuse to clamp down on liberty and freedom of speech on the grounds of ‘vaccine disinformation’, but spreading wider into every sphere of life. In a society where denial of objective reality – biological sex being one example – is mainstream, speaking the truth can get you into trouble.
Where I was keen to get involved in my local area when I moved back in 2019, I’m now thinking about how, in the long term, I can move out on to the moors and live in more or less isolation away from people and urban areas, living my life out in solitude.
Very good piece, Jill. I would like to hear the criminals explain this particular topic, along with the mass purchasing of midazolam;
”Unfortunately, the medical establishment did not limit itself to assaulting and isolating vulnerable patients in hospitals and care facilities. It also systematically withdrew normal care, and attacked physicians who refused to do so.
In virtually the entire Western World, antibiotic prescriptions were cut and maintained low by approximately 50% of the pre-COVID rates.”
Anyone who has had the experience of making a complaint about, or even a suggestion for improvement in, some service or policy offered or imposed by some organisation within the public sector will have found out the hard way what the real purpose of an “inquiry”, “investigation”, “public inquiry” or “statutory complain procedure” is. That purpose is: to ensure the continuation of the existence of that organisation, to maintain a positive image in the eyes of the public, to enhance the “official” reputation of the head of that organisation, and to assist other such organisations in their own similar endeavours. The tactics used include: procedural delay, denial of involvement, scapegoating, lawfare (bankrupting challengers), cover-ups, super-injunctions, censorship, bullying of and sanctions against whistle-blowers and “Endless Pressure, Endlessly Applied”. Doubtless financial incentives, propaganda, publicity agents, public relations consultancies and media manipulation our involved in the shadows.
This happens at all levels of public sector investigations; just the number of people and the amount of money increases as you move up from commenting on a mistake made by an NHS GP, via inquests, to having Royal Commissions or other public inquiries.
The usual format of any sort of “official” inquiry is to arrange to have the wrong people asking the wrong questions of more wrong people and coming up, years later, with the wrong answer. It’s all so obvious if you’ve been through the system from either side. I speculate that this Covid Inquiry will be no different, and the total collapse of investigative journalism is not helping to resolve the matter.
The irony of all this in relation to the three current contentious topics (Climate, Covid, Gender) is that the perpetrators all say they are “following the Science” or “moving to a consensus”, when in reality they are doing the opposite. Science, done properly, involves devising and conducting experiments which challenge the consensus of “the world about us”. Even engineering, which relies heavily on models of reality created by science, progresses by making mistakes. Better models then arise from an investigation of wreckage of the power plant, bridge or vehicle and how the probability of a similar negative outcome may be averted in the future. This Covid Inquiry, by itself, doesn’t seem to have set off with that objective in mind.
“Never hold an inquiry unless you know what its outcomes will be”.
Almost certainly true, unfortunately. Not just a matter for the Gov or Civil Service. It happens in many professional institutions following adverse events that undermine their reputation. It is a defensive mechanism, that may or may not be beneficial to the general public, but in any case their is a profit to be made by some of them along the way.
And this is particularly relevant. We now have all of the data, after all. Their crummy lies will fall on deaf ears if only we had the right people in there presenting all the evidence which directly contradicts their pathetic claptrap.
”Here are my conclusions from our detailed studies of all-cause mortality in the Covid 19 period, in combination with socio-economic and vaccine roll-out data;
if there had been no pandemic propaganda and coercion, and governments and the medical establishment had simply gone on with business as usual then there would not have been any excess mortality.
There was no pandemic causing excess mortality. Measures caused excess mortality. Covid 19 vaccination caused excess mortality.
Regarding the vaccines we quantified many instances of which a rapid rollout of a dose in the imposed vaccine schedule was synchronous with an otherwise unexpected peak in all-cause mortality, at times in the seasonal cycle and at magnitudes that have not previously been seen in the historic record of mortality.”
https://denisrancourt.ca/entries.php?id=130&name=2023_06_22_there_was_no_pandemic_essay
Perhaps a summary question is “why was the UK Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy 2011 ” completely ignored, especially regarding masks (1.10: proportionate, 3.19 (“open, transparent and inclusive way [of decision-making]”) 4.15: masks useless for the general population ). Strangely, the 2014 update even removes references to masks, and advances the reliance on vaccination, following Exercise Cygnus!
Pointless – the oucome has already been decided by the WHO.
Not pointless. She did it for her own self-respect. At least she said something to those in authority, which is more than a lot of us have (I haven’t!) I told my MP in an email that I wouldn’t vote for him if he continued to support the restrictions. He did, so I won’t!
PS I didn’t downvote you!
I agree.
Sort-of. Nevertheless, I congratulate the lady for writing this. I could never do this myself, at least not in a way people would actually listen to. All we little people can do is talk. And so, talk we must.
Talking is important
We also acted – variously declined to be “vaccinated”, broke social distancing and lockdown rules, declined to wear a face covering, declined to take a “Covid test”, donated money to DS, various legal cases, went on marches, stood in the park.
A brilliant letter, showing the effect government’s interventions had on quality of life for each and every one of us.
i suggest we all write (I did).
It may not change the direction of the inquiry, but it serves several purposes. Writing it down helps processing and there will now be a historical record.
I would agree with every word, except that – although I live alone, I never went along with and rules. I almost immediately set up a social support system seeing people regularly and getting as much outdoor exercise as I could. No masks and shopping in the evening so I never queued.
Your point about a lasting distrust of the MSM and in particular the BBC is the same for me and has changed me from the person I was. I was never someone who questioned authority, but now I regularly read the DS and people like Mark Steyn and see the truth for what it is. My politics changed overnight.
The Inquiry has been rigged from the start to decide that lockdowns were justified and, although mistakes were made, the restrictions were necessary and successful.
But “lessons will be learned” for the future ones, which the WHO (safely above democratic accountability) will impose.
I’m afraid I can’t write to the Inquiry detailing the distress the lockdowns caused me ….. because I largely ignored the lunacy and, as much as possible, I lived my life fairly normally breaking the guidance and quite often the “rules” since I read the Statutory Instrument and understood that it was extremely badly drafted and probably unenforceable.
The authorities were relying on people being scared into compliance. I’m not easily scared.
i wonder if a lot of us who never got the jab, saw through it all from the start, are mainly not easily scared. i think that is it!
Thank you, Jill. You have cogently expressed my views and feelings exactly, My immediate family were of the same opinion and we managed to meet up, sneaking about like characters from a dystopian novel, feeling ridiculous and nervous, especially as I hold a position of trust in the community. One of the significant aspects of lockdown for me was seeing intelligent, caring friends and family taking all the pronouncements without question and wondering whether I should risk losing the relationship by challenging them. I did, sometimes, and I fear the relationship is not what was.
Well said Jill. Very eloquent. Mine was more of a rant! What you have done very well is put across how it felt and continues to feel. I share these feelings precisely. One of my problems is that, apart from my wife who feels the same, our friends did not and do not. We have no one to share our anger and feelings of betrayal with. The Sceptic and Mike Graham et al are our props. Thanks for sharing your submission. Phil
The last question: “Why were alternative approaches from many highly qualified experts censored, ridiculed and silenced?” is the big one of course. That many of the world’s top experts in pulmonary/respiratory disease treatment, including in ICUs, we’re totally ignored and attacked, who proved use of cheap, off-label medicines such as HCQ & Ivermectin as an early treatment, is a question that we must keep asking again and again until we get a satisfactory answer.