Opinion with Christine Tongue: It is not all a conspiracy

Christine Tongue

Has anyone else been hearing this: “I don’t believe in the virus. It’s a spamdemic.”

Have you seen that film of a woman walking round an apparently empty hospital at night claiming covid must be a myth because the hospitals are empty? (She got arrested, good). Do you really believe that?

Way back in the early days of the first lockdown someone I was skirting round at a good distance said “You don’t need to do that for me. It’s just a government control thing!”

Does anyone still think that? Maybe you do? Are you someone who thinks each vaccination jab puts a chip in your arm so you can be tracked by the powers that control our destiny – whoever that is? And do you have a mobile phone and a computer and access to the internet – which must be where you get your fancy view of the universe? So you’re carrying a tracking device already…..

Covid restrictions

Are you one of those people who puts that question on facebook – “Do you know anyone who has had covid or died of it?” What are you expecting people to answer? No? So it doesn’t exist? Or upset themselves horribly by saying yes and remembering all the people who have had it and died? What are you trying to prove?

Are you happy wearing a mask? Probably not. I expect you say:

“Masks are dangerous. Wearing a mask restricts oxygen intake and so is bad for you.”

Who actually told you that? Some glamorous celeb on Youtube?

You say it’s just like the flu… and I don’t wear one if I get flu. Well, they do in Japan and they live longer than us.

Apparently when a shop worker in Ramsgate asked someone to put on a mask the customer shouted: ‘There’s a study in Germany that proves wearing face masks has increased deaths by bacterial lung infections so don’t tell me to put my life at risk.” Was this you?

You say “they’re” taking away our freedoms. You told me the same about the EU but now it seems to be the government that took us out of the EU is to blame!

A friend found a couple of leaflets in the laundry room of her flats claiming that “HM Government now has rights over your body with the coronavirus 2020 act”.

And something called The Light, a Truth newspaper, with a headline “Even Surgeons Don’t Need Masks”. Who’s distributing this stuff? And why do they think that people who live in cramped blocks of flats with low paid jobs might want to take it seriously?

Even if you believe the virus is really making people ill – and who can avoid it with the numbers rising every day and horrific hospital stories on TV news – you might think closing down the country isn’t the way to solve it.

The argument goes: “The first lockdown didn’t get rid of the virus so why can’t I go to work, go shopping, see my family, go on holiday etc etc? I’m all right, just let the vulnerable isolate and protect themselves.” My friend with MS would like to know why she has to go on isolating when you can rush around spreading infection – which might eventually reach her.

People mistrust the government! What a surprise – after all the PM has been so sensible and clear sighted on all this – well, apart from being so careless he caught the bug himself, trusting test and trace to a mate’s wife, not minding when a crucial adviser broke all the rules and lied about it, promising Christmas socialising so we all rushed to the shops and ordered massive turkeys, and then delaying the new lockdown until the infection rates were so high it looked as if the NHS was going to crumble.

It’s not surprising you think you have to make up your own mind on what to do.

If you haven’t had someone close to you who had covid, or died of it, you’ve been lucky.

But stay away from me!

Christine Tongue is a Broadstairs resident and former Labour Party member. She now does not belong to a political party but does represent disability campaign group Access Thanet

29 Comments

  1. Well said Christine. How many cannot tell a Fact from an Opinion? How many listen to daft trolls on social media. Listen to the experts. Check it out on fullfact.org., BBC Reality Check. Don’t be dumb and die.

  2. A former Labour Party member . Say it all really . Just take a pop at people trying to do a hard job …..part of the problem is , as you rightly say , people telling us there is no pandemic. The other problem is the likes of people like YOU Christine Tongue , taking cheap shots at those trying to contain a difficult situation . I would like the likes of you to stay away from me.

    • The “cheap shots ” you refer to are just a small selection of the enormous catalogue of disastrous decisions, inaction, belated action and “u” turns that what currently passes for government.

    • The potty mothed Mr Payne, a man who regularly takes potshots at nurses and other front line workers, using the most vulgar terms imaginable, attempting to school someone in how to comment on those ‘doing a difficult job’.
      I have read enough of your work,sir, to know that your opinion counts for nothing.

  3. I’m certainly not happy wearing a mask but I don’t spend much time shopping so I put up with it for those few forays a week. But-there’s a big difference between not liking to wear face-coverings and being a conspiracy-theorist and coronavirus sceptic.

    People who don’t think coronavirus is a seriously lethal pandemic- people who think it’s a government plot aimed at demoralizing the population so that instead of democracy, dictatorship/totalitarian/ Martian lizards can be slipped into its place without us noticing – these people have got to be rigorously countered with all the scientific facts that the rest of us have at our disposal.

    They won’t believe the facts but never mind that. Just keep hammering away with them (the facts, that is). They’ll get rude and stroppy and with a bit of luck they’ll tell you they’re bored and go away.There’s a lot of stuff about the kind of people who like conspiracy theories. Psychologists have done studies and surveys. Rather pleasingly, their conclusions are very similar to the ones my husband and I both came to.

  4. They’re not perfect, but I tend to trust the government more than I trust people I don’t know on social media (even though the closest I come to using social media these days is this site).

  5. I love the way certain people shout the words ‘conspiracy theorist’ or ‘tin foil hat nut job’ whilst simultaneously listening to the government and so called experts on SAGE (over whom half are doctors in psychology) and follow their every command without even doing any research themselves whatsoever. Has nobody heard of The Barrington Declaration? No,of course not because the government just want obedient little sheep to follow the orders and not question the narrative.
    Roll up,roll up,come and get your yellow star here!!

  6. And so the sheep attack the shepherd!
    Rockefella Lockstep,Agenda 21 and Agenda 30 doesn’t seem like a conspiracy theory now,does it folks?
    Don’t forget to stop hugging your kids and grandkids and treat everyone you meet like they have the black death.
    Ta ta

  7. Met the thanet covid deniers jogging group yesterday morning on our lovely promenade.
    Why this very unfit group of unsocial distanced puffing & panting joggers decided to stop and surround me in a circle, expelling their very visible warm water laden plumes of ucky breath into the frosty air.
    They will remember me for being polite but robust in my comments, all snapped.

  8. Conspiracy theorists. Tim Foil hat wearing morons who are so unbelievably thick that, typically, their “research” involves watching endless You Tube videos of other tin foil hat wearing morons spouting rubbish.

    See also “Flat earthers”

      • I did read about the psychology of it once. It appears because most conspiracy theorists are incapable of understanding scientific findings, laws of physics, historical events etc they make up their own version as it puts them back into a position of power where they can then encourage others to then disprove their wild, crazy beliefs. It’s all quite sad really and there are, unfortunately, countless forums like You Tube available for them to spout rubbish to gullible people.

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