NEVER AGAIN MASK TRUTH
AFTER they callously “scared the pants off” me with mask and jab mandates, I needed support from the Welsh NHS to help me deal with deep despair which could have led to suicide as fear and suspicion ramped up dangerously and any kind of social engagement disappeared completely.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-63119146
What I got was sweet Fanny Adams, by and large, from a hopelessly disconnected analogue based ancient monopoly totally incapable of caring for me properly obsessed suddenly with protecting its own staff from me (the very antithesis of care and treatment) and physically barring me from access with inhumane, callous tactics including offering me consultations in the car park if I dared to refuse to wear a mask.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55333756
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-54540764
Vaccine passports, a ban on attending funerals, even visiting cemeteries or elderly relatives in their homes or in care homes wreaked misery in the lives of families with many still carrying scars and harbouring resentment and bitterness towards the caring sector and politicians like Matt Hancock and Mark Drakeford, who took obscene liberties with one breaking his own rules to enjoy “non-essential” sexual activity denied under health and safety emergency powers to us. Senedd politicians including Labour’s Alun Davies were caught drinking alcohol on the estate when others were barred under zealous rules to ban social drinking by shutting pubs.
The Welsh response differed from the English one most markedly in mask mandates for schoolchildren, much more vicious and totalitarian bans on social drinking and hospitality which unfairly targeted the younger, fitter least at risk (who, by and large, were treated abysmally) and the introduction of COVID-19 passports not needed in England. Consequently a separate inquiry into a separate Welsh approach is essential in a truly democratic country.
BARMY: Face masks were no longer needed in England’s schools from May, 2021 but they were in Wales until September 2021. WHY?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/57787815
BARMY: Nightclubs and pubs opened in England on Freedom Day July 19, 2021 but they were still shut in Wales until January 2022, forcing many people to travel for a night out. WHY?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-57867865
https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/57787815
BARMY: COVID-19 passports or passes were needed to enter cinemas, nightclubs, theatres and concert halls in Wales but the UK government decided not to go ahead with vaccine passports in England. WHY?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-58600373
BARMY: Non-essential goods were barred from sale in Wales but no such rules were in place in England. WHY?
BARMY: Welsh Labour processed into power in a Senedd election in May 2021 at which candidates were controlled in door-to-door leafleting and canvassing and council offices were closed but in England rules were different. This made a Welsh Labour win easier as it disadvantaged the smaller parties struggling to cope with a perception of Labour protection and prevention. WHY?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56217215
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-55895712
Now, having moved surgeries three times in the hope of getting solutions, I remain totally in the dark about my real risk of illness or death from COVID-19 at any stage, whether or not I have had it or just think I have, how strong my natural immunity is, the efficacy of the vaccines I took in one arm with the other tied behind my back and, crucially, any negative or deleterious side-effects of the emergency medication I was forced to take or face refusal to pass through borders and even enter some public spaces with COVID passports in Wales, health insurance wrangles and outrageous stigma and aggressive victimisation from fearful rule takers who might abuse me on buses.
What I DO know is that health professionals were not and still are not engaging with me (the anti-social effects mentally of a lockdown were more dangerous to me and the wearing of a mask was a massive problem which they never backed me on) but instead with a political process specifically designed for me to comply with arbitrary often baseless draconian top down rules or face fines or jail. A vaccine rollout has now replaced care and treatment and converted leisure centres with jab generals has replaced the surgery.
Crucially, comparisons cannot be made between different approaches to controlling the virus because we chose to follow one path and never tried any others, eagerly dismissing herd and natural immunity and more proportionate and humane responses based on voluntary responsible behaviour such as those in Sweden, where death tolls were lower than in most European countries, so our governments can state that they prevented deaths by rolling out vaccines whatever anyone says and we have no way of knowing if another approach might have saved more lives or caused less needless social misery and damage to business, education and mental health.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_government_response_to_the_COVID-19_pandemic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Tegnell
Also, British passport holders for the first time in my lifetime were restricted by devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland from moving freely within a union they are active citizens with full voting rights and representation at Westminster and can normally expect equal treatment in wherever they happen to be. The consequences of that are still affecting our relationships with our most able and well resourced nearest neighbour and during the crisis it caused massive needless tension and confusion among schoolchildren, business and transport in eastern Wales exactly where it meets western England who ordinarily and naturally process in and out of the two freely and without being monitored or having to have permission.
Boris Johnson told us in March 2020 that this was the worst public health crisis for a generation and many more families would lose loved ones then Councillor Jane Mudd, leader of Newport City Council and Judith Pagett, then chief executive of Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, jointly wrote a letter delivered to my door telling me of a “glimmer of hope” (yes, I kid you not) in the shape of vaccines.
“The situation in Wales is very serious at the moment. Cases of the virus are very high and there is a new, very transmissable strain of coronavirus in the UK, circulating in all parts of Wales. We are all staying at home again to stay safe, save lives and protect the NHS,” the duo wrote.
What I want to know is who, exactly, wrote that letter. One thing you can be certain of is that it was not Mudd and Pagett. That letter scandalously containing the term “glimmer of hope” was very carefully constructed to frighten and co-erce.
The total number of mentally unwell and in crisis grew after even children at school were brutally targeted by a combination of health and safety zealotry and alarmist responses from teaching unions, forcing pupils to mask and observe inhumane distancing rules when our schools finally re-opened to them after long periods closed, denying them a basic education and stacking up problems for families forced to hide indoors in cramped conditions naturally suspicious and fearful of others.
Others, like me, watched in horror as residents in their streets in one of the lowest points in modern history in March 2020 only ventured out on doorsteps to clap the NHS, having been whipped up by a colluding mainstream media broadcasting government propaganda to venerate our “key workers” while trotting out daily death tolls as if other illnesses no longer existed and people were dropping down dead all over the place due to the pandemic. I knew nobody who had nor even anyone who actually had it.
The Imperial College modelling carried out by epidemiologist Neil Ferguson said that it could affect up to 60% of the UK’s population, in the worst-case scenario, and “the unfolding epidemic may be comparable to the major influenza pandemics of the twentieth century”. In other words, get set for Armageddon, folks.
That combination of woeful doomsday modelling based on paranoia, political seizure of science and medicine on highly dubious grounds which actively barred open and fearless debate and discussion, warring factions politically in the UK battling each other for expediency and advancement in shabby manoeuvres most visible in the historical tension between devolved and Westminster governments in constant war, a trades union over-reaction, a menacingly aggressive compliance culture whipped up by mainstream media depending on the cruel illusion that staying at home saved lives or protected our NHS (a fundamental lie we bought into which has facilitated today’s position of no longer being able to see a doctor and being actively encouraged to avoid hospitals altogether) all combined to make life nearly unbearable for me.
I wasn’t being cared for and treated but uncared for and mistreated.
It began when a doctor called me on my mobile phone at my home in February, 2021 to ask me if I could come to the surgery early to get my first jab. I wondered why I was suddenly getting calls from a GP when they refused to take my calls and never engage online via e-mail but complied with the request and cycled off to find the surgery empty and my doctor kitted out in scrubs to inject me in a spooky episode which was to foretell a dystopian future.
In letters I wrote to the doctor, I attempted to establish my real risk and the appropriateness of the jabs as well as the rules surrounding freedom and liberty then and in the future for me if I opted out but I concluded that the British Medical Association had, by and large, tied doctors hands by banning them from backing me on masks and batting away any robust inquiry on vaccines to instead facilitate and manage a compliance or die or infect others culture.
A nurse at the surgery gave me the second jab in June that year after another doctor again called me at home on my mobile phone to ask me if I could come in early to have it. Where doctors, who no longer saw patients, giving me preferential treatment as a favour to me or for other reasons, I wondered.
My cynicism at this point was energetically assisted by numerous people including many business operatives (central heating engineers worked for two days in my home without masks with my permission as, indeed, did huge numbers of small business people and builders elsewhere), who told me repeatedly that doctors they visited were not wearing masks in their own homes and shunning distance rules and seemed quite relaxed about the real risk of death. The anecdotal evidence stacked up for me, including from armchair conspiracists who told me that the vaccine was Bill Gates’s revenge on me for accessing anything online about conspiracies and for asking confrontational questions (I really must stop doing that). Others were more certain that the jabs themselves would lead to my premature death and not the virus with one even saying I might have been lucky and just got a placebo.
I then fully grasped that surgeries and care and treatment were completely closed to me, ably reinforced by staff who took a totalitarian approach. Telephones were not being answered, buildings like the civic centre were shut, preventing access to electoral rolls and key information and even door-to-door canvassing for the 2021 May Welsh government elections was banned with candidates risking police action if they knocked my door.
The distressing episodes of conflict with staff like nurses who scolded me for not wearing a mask or for showing any resistance to rules all behind massive posters warning me that aggressive behaviour will NOT be tolerated has left me bruised and battered and now avoidant, fearing being scolded, chided or given detention again. An icily authoritarian and infantilising tone in staff entered early on and lingers.
After first disproportionately magnifying the real risk with woeful modelling and a compromised scientific and medical elite in the pay of government, they then carried out public health research with supposedly “independent” members of the public who invested blindly in the increasingly menacing moves to clamp down on free movement and liberty and played a very active part in their answers to clearly manipulative questionnaires in ramping up consent for increasingly bizarre and baseless moves we now know were motivated more by political expediency and advancement than by science and medicine.
Public Health Wales’s weekly reports stated with apparent certainty that the public were unanimously in favour of harsher and stricter rules on free movement and liberty and they persistently moved further and further in a pro-Welsh Labour authoritarian direction to scandalously impose physical borders with England, close exercise facilities, some stores, pubs and just about anywhere where you might meet other human beings. But just who were these people (all, of course, anonymous) and how were the questions being framed and on what background authority? An independent inquiry has been ruled out in Wales so we will now never know but we will know to be sceptical about public health research if they ever try it again.
At a crucial stage in October 2021, I needed to see a doctor, desperately needing some mental health support and was told, rather brusquely by a “care navigator” at that surgery that a doctor would call me in two weeks’ time as face-to-face appointments were banned.
I waited for the call and it came nearly an hour late after I had rung the surgery to check that a call would come so I demanded to be referred to the local mental health team mainly by adopting a threatening telephone manner. I wrote to the health board to complain and they told me that I could switch surgeries but did not do anything positive to rectify the situation nor to fix me up with a new one which might meet my needs better.
The mental health team first gave me sedatives – a go-to response at times of crisis mainly because people cannot sleep – and tried but failed to meet my needs with poor resources and overstretched staff struggling to cope. What was most obvious to me was the hopeless records system relying on physical rather than digital storage and hampered severely by poor internal networks and people working in silos.
Finding a new surgery is not a positive process like choosing your favourite dish on a mouthwatering menu with multiple choices, rather it is taking a punt blindly with no reliable information to guide you as the NHS is not selling or marketing its services to me with surgeries fighting each other to get my business and a change can often be nothing more than jumping out of a frying pan into a roaring fire.
I blindly jumped into another roaring fire thinking that a change might be as good as a rest but they forced me to wear a mask and adopted a broadly infantilising tone which led to one nurse prompting the practice manager to threaten removal for “confrontational” behaviour and me having to be defensive just to get in the building.
My blood pressure soared and well-being suffered terribly as I struggled to adapt to a new hostile environment of authoritarian bus drivers, store security and checkout operators behind transparent plastic walls to protect them from me, manically managed socially distanced queues snaking endlessly outside stores with bizarre rules inside them and many items taped off by “scene of crime” type tape and all reinforced by a very obvious separation of people into legitimate “key workers” and the feral and potentially dangerous with politicians and media (seeming to be enjoying more free movement than us with accreditation and passes) united in common purpose suspiciously and scandalously. I was also barred from using gyms and swimming pools or even venturing out onto a golf course in the height of summer and at the outset got used to seeing police cars speeding past or parking up to deter walkers often alone in beauty spots doing absolutely no harm but risking heavy fines.
I changed to a third surgery in 2022 after a pharmacist tipped me off that they might meet my needs better. I then discovered that 56-day prescriptions are being offered by the Welsh government but the second surgery could only offer 28-days and the process of sending out drivers to pick up paper scripts then return them to the pharmacy often meant that I couldn’t even get these on time, leaving me too frequently hanging around waiting for one to talk to the other. I got the 56-day scripts at the new surgery but I am starting to notice that staff sickness levels at pharmacies are often at crisis level so demand is not always being met on time.
These are some of the questions I want independently assessed as an emergency in a robust inquiry in Wales:
MASKS
1, The scientific mantra on wearing masks was flawed at best. How could key figures like Jenny Harries https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8676535/Jenny-Harries-says-face-coverings-evidence-not-strong.html first cast doubt on them then later observe stricter rules which appeared to mandate them for everyone?
2, Why were people who obviously suffered severe negative consequences of wearing masks, like me, not supported by the BMA and doctors and why did some have to wear sunflower lanyards which stigmatised them and broke their confidentiality, revealing that they had other health issues for no good reason, breaking protections under the 2000 Equality Act?
3, Why were authority figures in customer service and security roles given powers to enforce mask rules and why did some of them embrace these powers so enthusiastically?
4, Why did the government or the NHS not issue accredited and official surgical masks as was the case with gas masks during World War Two if this really was as serious as they said it was and if masks were entirely effective? Instead, shops were cashing in by selling masks and gels with dubious credentials for profit.
5, Why were people who put up “NO MASK NO ENTRY” posters on doors not reminded of the protection given under the Equality Act 2000 to prevent discrimination and advised that such messages were offensive and unpractical?
VACCINES
1, Why did governments appear to abandon the normal periods of time before vaccines could be genuinely properly tested and verified to be safe and effective?
2, Why was natural immunity never properly tested in individuals?
3, Why did doctors simply inject rather than individually assess patients and why was cost benefit analysis not carried out either in relation to the jab or to the draconian lockdown rules to properly establish if either was always entirely appropriate and needed?
4, Why have patients not been assessed properly to see if there are any negative side-effects of the medication for them?
5, Why was responsibility for administering the jabs moved from surgeries to health boards (essentially compromising the doctor patient relationship) and from doctors to converted leisure centre jab generals who may not be specialists?
MEDIA
1, Why was BBC Wales and other mainstream media repeatedly giving daily death tolls from COVID-19 without mentioning deaths from other causes like suicide, cancer, heart disease and strokes and who was establishing the true causes of death on death certificates?
2, Why did mainstream media journalists adopt a broadly supportive tone and suspend rigorous and assertive inquiry and discussion and robust, fearless debate?
3, Why were presenters on radio emphasising the need for jabs without any robust debate or discussion, effectively amplifying official lines?
4, Why did journalists never question either the appropriateness or efficacy of some of the more bizarre lockdown rules nor properly assess if the rule makers were themselves observing them at all times? The media was reduced to “We can bring our own pencils” to polling booths for the 2021 election.
5, Why were politicians allowed to stage manage and curate press conferences so obviously, choosing which media representatives to ask questions and why was a broadly collusive and collaborative tone and mien established so early on in these public access forums?
COVID-19
1, Why have stories about a lab leak from Wuhan as the original source of the virus been discredited and those who spread them vilified, marginalised and accused of spreading disinformation and misinformation?
2, Why was risk from the emergence of “new variants” of it so blatantly disproportionately magnified to “scare the pants” off us and was risk from these new variants always properly assessed?
3, Where death certificates always entirely accurate in relation to COVID-19 and how robustly were they scrutinised?
4, Who decided when booster jabs were needed to maintain our defence against COVID-19 and on what basis were they/are they still making those decisions?
5, Why were respected scientists who cast doubt on COVID-19 orthodoxy and suggested different interpretations and approaches for governments to take undermined, traduced and demonised as if they were dangerous subversives or enemies of the state just for having alternative views?
WELSH GOVERNMENT
1, Did Welsh Labour cabinet members use WhatsApp software to send encrypted messages to each other?
2, Alert levels going up to level four and down to the ludicrous alert level zero (which means not being alert at all. Are we at alert level minus zero now?) were imposed but for what reason and on what basis where they arrived at?
3, Travel to and from England was outlawed under emergency health and safety powers, as was travel within Wales unless people gave documentary evidence that journeys were essential and public transport was severely limited. The UK government called it “disappointing” and the Police Federation called it “unenforceable”. Do you seriously believe that these arbitrary measures were appropriate, proportionate and enforceable and what evidence can you offer to convince us that it was?
4, The 2021 Senedd elections were held at a time when decisions were being taken by a ruling group without reference to the chamber or subject to scrutiny by politicians in a democratic way and when candidates were barred from door-to-door canvassing by law. Was this democracy or something else?
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/new-rules-2021-elections-today-20534927 https://www.gov.wales/first-minister-sets-out-plans-hold-covid-secure-2021-senedd-elections https://nation.cymru/news/no-door-to-door-canvassing-allowed-in-senedd-campaign-under-new-covid-rules/
5, How much did groupthink and unchallenged authority among Welsh Labour senior politicians enjoying power in a one-party state since 1999 affect the decision making process and why were senior politicians from other parties not invited into inner circles to debate and discuss the COVID-19 measures?
6, Were the chief medical officer for Wales Dr Frank Atherton and the chief scientific officer for health in Wales Dr Rob Orford completely separate from colleagues in England during COVID-19 and if they were, were they under pressure to give ministers in Wales different advice and guidance about how best to control spread of it? Where they in any way compromised and dependent upon Welsh Labour?
https://www.gov.wales/chief-medical-officer-wales-sets-out-lessons-learnt-covid-19-pandemic
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-60120200
7, How certain can we be that Public Health Wales research at the time reflected the true views of the questionnaire participants and why, when I made enquiries to establish who some of these participants were and how questionnaires were designed and on what basis, appearing to change from week to week, did I meet silence? Surely, the public need to know who is asking the questions and on what basis and who is answering them to have confidence in the process if we rely on public health research conducted on our behalf ever again to shape and guide public policy?
WELSH NHS
1, The public health ombudsman, who rules on complaints about service to the public, is an appointment made by Welsh government. How certain can we be that the appointment process is totally independent and is completely without political influence?
2, How certain can we be that rulings made by the public health ombudsman are always without political influence? I think of the treatment of Tory councillor Joan Watkins, suspended from Newport City Council and removed as a public representative on Aneurin Bevan Health Board by a Labour-led ruling cadre.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58960040
3, Were field hospitals costing £166 million to cope with COVID-19 ever used and do you think it was a proportionate and sensible solution to build and fund them? How were they staffed?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55316432
4, How much time, effort and resources were spent on accurately assessing the adverse mental health implications of draconian and inhumane measures to control the spread of COVID-19 on patients and how much on the treatment of sufferers experiencing distress and depression?
5, What is now being done within the Welsh NHS to restore the doctor patient relationship so badly damaged by many of the measures which denied contact between the two for many months?
SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES
1, Why were school pupils forced to wear masks in Wales for longer than their counterparts in England even after some teachers and parents complained about them?
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education/masks-schools-wales-rules-guidance-20054958
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education/mask-rules-wales-schools-teachers-19334369
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/scrapping-masks-welsh-secondary-schools-20568856
2, Pupils in Monmouth attending schools in the Forest of Dean were not wearing masks while pupils from England attending Monmouth schools were. How was this policed and implemented and what effect did it have on education in Wales?
3, How strongly were decisions made about the closure of schools, mask wearing and jabs in Wales affected and dependent upon agreement between teaching unions and the Welsh government and isn’t that relationship compromised by the fact that the unions are affiliated to Labour?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58861598
4, What does “remote learning” mean and how much was actually offered to pupils and students to learn via laptop? Also, how often did school, college and university staff actually check-in with individual pupils and students to establish how they were doing and what help was needed?
SHOPS AND PUBS
1, Why were products in shops divided into “essential” and “non-essential”, who made the decisions on the ground and why was it considered sensible to restrict some items but make others freely available and on what basis were these decisions made and enforced in stores?
2, How was the “rule of six” arrived at? Was it simply an adoption of earlier rules set out by Boris Johnson or unique to Wales? Did the number six have some meaning? Was there genuine scientific validity in this?
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/we-demand-answers-pubs-restaurants-22548966
3, Why were mask rules removed in shops in March 2022 but not in the NHS? These inconsistent and conflicting rules were baffling to even the most placid rule takers.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-60863358
4, Laura Anne Jones, Conservative Senedd member for South Wales East, called on Welsh government to publish the scientific evidence “in the interest of transparency” behind the rules which appeared to punish the hospitality sector with some hotels, restaurants and pubs going out of business due to crippling measures with many still struggling. Has this evidence ever been circulated and can we see it now?
5, Why was Mark Drakeford using threats of extending punishing vaccine passport requirements in the hospitality sector as a stick to beat people with and so clearly trying to manipulate and coerce the young and fit, who were, by and large, more enthusiastically targeted when they had the least level of risk?
FUNERALS AND CEMETERIES
1, Some public cemeteries were closed to the public, preventing people from paying their respects to family and friends. Was this always necessary and proportionate particularly bearing in mind that they were open air facilities with plenty of space?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-52402292
2, Was counselling and emotional support offered to those barred from visiting cemeteries or funeral parlours?
3, Before May 2020, only five people were allowed to attend funerals in Gwent. Were the rules on numbers entirely scientifically sound or more arbitrary?
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/funerals-rules-lockdown-wales-coronavirus-18380584
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/our-mortuary-almost-full-people-19781905
4, A study found that decomposed bodies left to die at home increased by 70% when we went into lockdown. Were statistics gathered in Wales?
5, Temporary mortuaries were built as hospital mortuaries filled up at the height of the pandemic. What special measures did Welsh government take to cope with this?
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/170-bodies-being-kept-temporary-19600071
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/temporary-mortuary-opens-business-park-19622303
GARRY W GIBBS 