Mark Dolan: There is now an industry based around Covid-19 terror

Amid the doom and gloom of energy shortages, panic buying at petrol stations and empty supermarket shelves, there is something positive that seems to have slipped through the gap of the news agenda.

There is something positive to focus on.

For too long now, in the course of the pandemic, bad news travels fast and we've had 18 months of abject pessimism, propped up by questionable modelling, around which those damaging Covid measures were based.

Well have I got news for you.

Covid infections have plummeted despite fears that the new school term would fuel an autumn surge.

One in 90 people in England had the virus last week, with around 620,100 infected in total, testing by the Office for National Statistics revealed.

This is down 18 per cent from a fortnight earlier, when one in 70 tested positive and estimated total infections stood at 754,000.

The weekly ONS survey, based on random swab testing of 150,000 people, is seen by the Government as the most reliable measure of the epidemic.

This after Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert, one of the creators of the Oxford Astra Zeneca vaccine has said it’s unlikely a deadly new variant of Covid will emerge at this point and in time the virus will become like the common cold.

She’s also said boosters are just required for the clinically vulnerable.

Mean while, long Covid is “overblown” and many people who think they have it are actually suffering from something else, according Professor Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine at Oxford University, who said that long Covid was “more complicated than people assume” and that “the incidence is much, much lower than people had anticipated”.

His comments follow data from the ONS which suggests that half of people suffering from long Covid may not have it.

There is now an industry based around Covid terror.

Media outlets, politicians and corporations are happy to perpetuate pessimistic pandemic porn, Sage advisers and their sectarian wing, independent Sage, seem so invested in talking up the threat and the Government are still selling fear, in order to keep us compliant, and roll out the needles policies of vaccine passports and jabbing kids.

But as the case for Covid measures like face coverings and lockdowns crumble by the day, and with the vaccine, though welcome, proving to be a game changer predominantly for the vulnerable, it's pretty clear that the old normal beckons, in spite of the vested interests so keen to pursue a new one.

The virus has seemingly gone up and down irrespective of non-pharmaceutical interventions - look at the graphs of countries that locked down hard and those that didn't.

You’d need the eyesight of an owl to spot the difference.

Lockdown loving California has fared worse than freedom loving Florida, as one example.

The Government and most of the media seem to think that every day, is a good day to very good news.

But the reality is that freedom day has changed the whole story.

When the prime minister lifted restrictions in England on the 19th of July, he was called reckless by the opposition.

Similarly reopening schools was expected by some to provoke a horrific new wave of infections.

None of it came to pass.

In my view to link lockdowns with falling cases has been one of the great myths of this pandemic.

Don’t take my word for it: Professor Simon Wood from the University of Edinburgh published a peer-reviewed study, suggesting cases were falling before each of the three national lockdowns.

You could argue there is now a clear link between lifting restrictions and the virus falling away.

And many argue, including World renowned virology asked professor Sinatra Gupta – that it's ok or even good for young healthy people to get Covid.

A recent study from Israel has demonstrated it provides immunity well beyond that of the vaccine itself. Covid will sadly of course be with us forever.

But it seems the worst is behind us.

Which is why the government must now relinquish their instruments of control, ditch vaccine passports and the needless jabbing of 12-year-olds and instead deal with the 12 million long NHS waiting list, get the economy going again to pay for all of this, and send a clear message to the British people that from now on it's time to stop existing and actually start living.

The leaves will fall this autumn, but hope continues to rise.