Dan Wootton: Chris Whitty has been proven wrong, but because he’s gone missing there’s been no opportunity to ask why he put us through this

It’s been 36 long days since Professor Chris Whitty – unbelievably now a Sir – has been seen in public or given any sort of press conference.

England’s Chief Medical Officer, who had been predicting imminent doom throughout December, has gone missing.

You probably remember Professor Whitty wanted us locked down again.

He wanted Christmas cancelled.

Omicron was all bad, he assured us.

Forget the scientists and doctors from South Africa telling us the complete opposite, we should stay home and shut down our economy again.

Full-fledged panic!

Mr Whitty has been proven categorically wrong.

But because he’s gone missing, there’s been no opportunity to ask him why he put us through all of this, why he relied on dodgy modelling predicting thousands of deaths a day, and why he thought the health system was going to be overwhelmed.

Whitty wasn’t the only one of course.

SAGE, Independent SAGE, the Labour Party, and even Cabinet Ministers Michael Gove and Sajid Javid all got Omicron spectacularly wrong.

But thank God – inspired by Lord Frost and the brave Tory rebels – Boris Johnson stared them down.

Today, it allowed him this triumphant moment in the House of Commons, where he revealed the end is in sight.

All Covid restrictions in England will go THIS MONTH.

Yes, our national nightmare of freedom-destroying and largely unnecessary Covid regulations is nearly over.

Of course, the BBC’s headline on their 6pm news tonight asked: “Is this happening too soon?”

Will they ever stop and admit defeat?

This mess must never be repeated.

And that’s why folk like Whitty must front up.

If we had locked down, the cases would have dropped, as they have anyway, and Whitty and co would have hailed lockdowns as the reason why, as they’ve done time and again.

But as bombshell John Hopkins University research showed last week, lockdowns haven’t actually worked, reducing deaths just 0.2 per cent, while causing a host of other problems, including inflation and an overwhelmed NHS for years to come.

So while I will celebrate to some extent today that England is leading the world out of Covid hysteria and the fact that folk like me who railed against these restrictions from March 2020 have been proven right, it’s only just the beginning.

Because if they can inflict this much state control over a virus with a low death rate, imagine what they can do in a more serious health crisis.

And I will not forget – and will continue to campaign against – Covid tyranny around the world, including right here in the UK, especially in Scotland and Wales whose citizens sadly remain muzzled.

But in England at least, the individual’s right to make sensible decisions about their own health with bodily autonomy is coming.

So well done Boris, but we must never lose those rights again.