We’re publishing a guest post today by Dr. Gary Sidley, a retired clinical psychologist with over 30 years’ experience working for the NHS. He sets out all the reasons why mask mandates shouldn’t be reimposed and urges people to join the Smile Free Campaign, which advocates against masking.
On the July 19th 2021, England removed almost all its legal mandates that required healthy people to wear face coverings in community settings. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, however, opted to retain their mask mandates, as did London on its public transport system. Ominously, the Government’s Covid strategy for this winter includes the prospect of a ‘Plan B’ that could see the return of compulsory face masks in indoor settings in England. After a few months of bare-faced normality, how will the general public react to future directives to muzzle up?
Smile Free – a campaign group seeking the permanent removal of all mask mandates – urges each person to consider the responses to the following six questions before deciding whether to hide your face again.
Q1. Do masks help reduce viral spread?
Although some studies claim otherwise, the real-world evidence strongly suggests that masking the healthy does not significantly reduce the spread of respiratory viruses for neither the wearer nor others. Key reasons for this lack of efficacy are likely to include the improper use and storage of masks in the real world and the growing recognition that SARS-CoV-2 (the virus responsible for COVID-19) is spread via microscopic aerosol particles that are far too small to be kept at bay by face coverings.
Q2. Will wearing a mask cause me any physical harm?
If worn only for short periods, significant physical harms from wearing a mask are unlikely. However, there is evidence that long term use can lead to a number of negative consequences, including: headaches, skin irritation, fatigue and dehydration, reduced heart and lung efficiency and eye irritation. In addition, face coverings may put elderly people at more risk of injury from falls.
Q3. Do masks cause any social or psychological harms?
The social and psychological consequences of hiding our faces from other people are profound. Humans are social animals. We need to interact with others and communicate to sustain our wellbeing. Face coverings are dehumanising, inhibiting all forms of emotional expression and social interaction. Individuality minimised, identity hidden, the masked population appear broadly the same as they trudge along in their social vacuums. The impact of a masked population on children is even more problematic, denying them access to facial expressions that are so crucial for their emotional development.
Q4. Will wearing a mask help to reassure others who are anxious?
Most definitely not. Acting as a crude, highly visible reminder that danger is all around, face coverings are fueling widespread anxiety. Fear is underpinned by a perception of threat and being masked is a blatant indicator that we are all bio-hazards. Furthermore, continuing to wear masks while we gradually try to return to normality will act to keep fear going, as the wearer may attribute their survival to the mask rather than conclude that it is now safe to return to everyday activities. To recommend face coverings as a source of reassurance is akin to insisting people wear a garlic clove around their necks to reduce their fear of vampires.
Q5. Under the law, do I have a ‘reasonable excuse’ not to wear a mask?
In general terms, if wearing a mask is likely to cause you ‘severe distress’, or put you ‘at risk of harm or injury’, you are legally exempt. Mental health problems (such as anxiety, depression, and paranoia) and physical health problems (such as asthma and other respiratory difficulties) are sufficient and lawful reasons not to wear a face covering. Furthermore, you are not obliged to disclose your specific reason for exemption to anybody other than an official enforcement officer (usually a police officer); any other person who challenges you about not wearing a face covering is likely to be acting unlawfully and thereby risking prosecution. Indeed, a service provider has been fined £7000 under the Discrimination Disability Act for denying access to a woman without a mask.
Q6. Do I risk being fined if I don’t wear a mask?
While it is possible that a fine could be imposed for not complying with a mask mandate, such an event seems rare. Thus, in the four-month period June-to-September 2020, only 89 fines were issued (61 on public transport, 28 in retail settings) across the whole of England and Wales. Furthermore, if you are unfortunate enough to receive a fine and decide to contest it in Court, it is highly likely you will succeed; according to figures produced by the Crown Prosecution Service, all charges under the Coronavirus Act have either been withdrawn in Court or quashed after innocent people were wrongfully indicted.
In conclusion, mandating masks for healthy people in their communities is irrational, counterproductive, unethical and ultimately unenforceable. To help continue the fight against legal requirements to wear face coverings, please consider joining our Smile Free campaign.
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I don’t want or need an apology from Sunak. I want the truth, and for him to spend the rest of his political career trying to undo the damage – as Bridgen has tried to do.
I want him and his billionaire wife to take up their USA Green Cards they’ve been keeping all this time.
Yeah he won’t be missed.
Didn’t he only apologise for losing the election not his calamitous premiership? It was a meaningless apology unless it was directed at those Tory MPs who lost their seats.
Yeah he probably thinks he was a great PM. Even the usually reasonably sane Desmond Swayne is still bleating about Liz Truss and her “mistakes”
Sunak and the entire Convict-Pharma-ment bar a few can issue their meas culpas from prison, just before they meet a guillotine.
A proper apology would be to admit that Covid was a globally-coordinated “plandemic” aimed at trying to shackle the people into digital straitjackets (vaccine passports which would morph into dystopian digital ids), with a dose of global depopulation thrown in for good measure. Don’t forget that Sunak made his fortune by investing in start-up Moderna (insider dealing?). Reiner Fuellmich and his team of experts sussed out the nature of the Covid plandemic over two years ago in their Covid-19 Crimes Against Humanity mock trial: https://metatron.substack.com/p/reiner-fuellmichs-grand-jury-court.
A further proper apology would be to admit that the so-called consensus on “climate change” is a hoax which was hatched decades ago for the purpose of bringing about the collapse of Western industrialised civilisations. My debunking of the climate change hoax is here: https://metatron.substack.com/p/debunking-the-climate-change-hoax.
Thanks for posting. Brilliant work.
I wonder what these down-tickers are thinking? One of them was inadvertently myself when I looked to see if it clicking the symbol would give a list of user ids (it doesn’t) and now I can’t cancel it!
Are they happy that the economy was wrecked by the Covid plandemic and that the collective health of the nation has been perhaps irretrievably degraded by the untested, experimental jabs, all for a condition that was no worse than ordinary flu?
Are they happy that Net Zero based on false pseudo-science will wreck our energy infrastructure, further deindustrialise the economy and drive millions into poverty? The fact that the Lab/Con/Lib Uniparty all back pointless unilateral NZ when the rest of the world is not taking a blind bit of notice is the easiest giveaway that it is more than just a hoax, it is an assault on the people (as with Covid).
I’d like to see these down-tickers try to refute the evidence presented in the two linked papers. They won’t, though, just as my complicit parliamentary representatives never responded to my emails.
Excellent, ‘nail on head’ stuff, Douglas. I used to enjoy reading your letters posted by Joel Smalley.
As for the ‘Shadow Lurkers’, I’ve seen bigger balls on a Ken doll so you’ve not got a hope in hell where they’re concerned. In my opinion, any excuse for an insertion of our ‘Novax’ here and how he deals with the haters. A lot of time for the respectful peeps but to the hostile ‘scroteless wonders’, ”You guys can’t touch me.” Never stop dropping those truth bombs.
https://x.com/AvonandsomerRob/status/1810581134947897466
Hit the Up Arrow to cancel the Down Arrow.
Then repeat, if you want to add to the Up Arrow count.
“There is now a general scientific consensus…”
Consensus isn’t scientific, it’s religious.
Science isn’t a democracy, it is supported by evidence not show of hands.
That should have been in this article as Sushi’s apologia.
Why don’t PPE graduates point this out?
It should have been covered in their one year of Philosophy.
Or he could have said:
Sorry not to have done a ten minute Google in March 2020 to find out that SARS CoV 2 was a novel common cold coronavirus.
Sorry not to have supported Jesse Norman in cabinet when he asked for a cost benefit analysis regarding lockdowns.
Sorry not to have spoken to Anthony Watts and briefed myself on why climate change is not caused by CO2.
Sorry not to have placed defence of the realm, particularly borders, as my (and the treasury’s) number one priority
I will now campaign for proportional representation.
I’ll get my coat.
Nah. Damn they’ve changed the locks.
Rory Stewart, at the end of his recent conversation on Triggernometry, on YT, said that what ‘we weren’t talking about’ was excess information, especially at higher management levels, that leads to any basic, agreed, facts of the case, so mistakes are made.
I would expect this to be true when there’s an absence of experience in the discipline, especially when there’s no foundational education, say, to A Level standard. If all his friends are from the Arts, Humanities and Social Science bubble, he doesn’t have a chance.
How can a History graduate, with no interest in STEM subjects, or business experience, understand that NET Zero policies are a Trojan Horse, even if he understands the metaphor.
“preoccupied with the vain promise of “defeating covid” instead of acting with wisdom”
Or Eurasia fighting Eastasia!
No, it’s Oceania and always has been. Keep up
Nothing will convince me that the leadership thought they were “defeating covid” or that they thought there was anything much to “defeat”.
Brilliant summation of what Sunak should have said. Will the sheeple listen? Sadly no,they couldn’t care less.
Unfortunately, the hallmark of “something must be done”, without a proper understanding of whatever it is, applies to the relevant Departments across the board, regardless of which political appointments are in power. Wise politicians should try to influence it, or manage it, in some way, if they learn how to do it in due course.
This also applies to many professional institutions, especially if their reputation looks bleak on account of something.
Can we please not have any more photos or speeches of the Hindu Billionaire Utter Loser on here? It’s a national embarrassment that his Imbecile Constituents didn’t give him the boot.
Surely once he resigns as leader he will quit as an MP so he can take up a post with the UN, WEF, WHO, NATO, IMF, World Bank, Blair Foundation or whatever
Well, that’s an excellent point, though Klingons like him have a nasty predilection for clinging on, just like that new African Leader of Wales who has already shown his contempt for democracy by refusing to stand down, even after losing a clear vote of No Confidence in his leadership because of his corruption scandal…
I would have thought he’d find the life of a backbench constituency MP in a pathetic rump of an opposition far too humdrum.
He can’t be a Klingon – they were an honourable warrior race.
What Fishy should have said:
To the country I would like to say first and foremost I am sorry.
I was manoeuvred into this job by my good friends at Davos and was given one simple goal – to bring this once great country to its knees, physically, spiritually, financially and psychologically. Although I gave the job my best shot and some of my targets have been partially met I reluctantly confess that I am just not up to the enormity of the task and for this I apologise. To my backers.
On the financial front I have largely succeeded principally by borrowing and printing money on such a scale that the country can never pay it back. I have managed to set inflation off like a runaway train and combined with wage stagnation – public services excepted – and soaring fuel costs I am confident that within a couple of years the country will be utterly bankrupt. My background in the banking world has finally been put to good use.
Physically, the destruction of national infrastructure is proceeding ‘at pace’ (Civil Service phraseology
) with roads particularly falling to near terminal collapse. Hospitals are melting at the seems and there is no money for schools given that the bill for our new and permanent invitees (hate the word) is growing exponentially.
Spiritually the eradication of the Church of England has moved on apace and for this I must offer special thanks to my good friend and WEF colleague Justin Welby. Justin has just announced one of the bravest and kindest gestures ever by the Church of England and has agreed to the laundering of hundreds of millions of pounds of parishioners funds across the third world to those countries that lost out when we violently ended their slave trading enterprises.
My greatest failure has been on the psychological front. Despite marshalling some of the most corrupt and anti-human psychos on the planet in to our mind games programmes – SPI B, SPI M and the rest and spending billions on vicious and cruel advertising campaigns designed to soil even the pants of our SAS there is still a sizeable residual population of patriotic diehards who refuse to accept our narrative.
These hangouts have developed their own enclaves at places like Together, Us for Them, HART, The White Rose, Urban Scoop, The New Conservative and The Conservative Woman and not forgetting challenger News Channels such as UK Column News.
Without doubt one of their strongest redoubts is The Daily Sceptic which has been a thorn in our side since the beginning of our reset program. I am confident that Sir Kneel will attend to these recalcitrants at his earliest convenience.
Sadly, I must offer my goodbyes. I want to leave office having been completely open and honest with you and I want to help a future Government avoid making the same mistakes over this final destructive period that I made over the initial period.
Farewell.
Sunak, Johnson, May, Bliar, Browne, should all be jailed for their dire performance and implementation of awful anti British, anti freedom policies and open door immigration.
All party manifesto items should be on the ballot paper. And, as well as putting a cross against a candisate, we should then put a cross against all the policies we agree with, and a ‘no’ against those we don’t. And if they get elected, a party must then only develop those policies that the electorate have supported. This way we would have more control over the political animals and we, the people, would rule more directly.
“The Government was preoccupied with the need to be seen to be doing something”——————–This is the problem with all government. My old dad used to say “When in doubt do NOTHING”. Governments today always intent on justifying their existence do EVERYTHING. It was never clearer that during covid and is clear as day with the Political Class doing “EVERYTHING” they can to pretend to save the planet to such an extent they are prepared to destroy the Industrial base, lower living standards and pursue ideological dreams rather than practical solutions. But if we thought the Tories were dumb in this regard then we “ain’t seen nuthin yet”——–This Labour Government with Miliband onboard will set about destroying prosperity with zeal never seen before.
“Sorry I did a great many things you didn’t want ….. and I didn’t do a great many things you did want. But my Controllers wouldn’t let me, even if I wanted to. And I didn’t.”