The reply

 OK, I know you're itching to know if my email to my MP provoked a response. I mean, have they got time to respond to all their incoming emails, or do they just get someone else to do it for them. Perhaps they have pre written scripts to pick out the relevant bits, and cobble something together. I have emailed Andrew before and a reply has always come back within a few hours. This time I sent it just after 9pm, and the reply appeared at just after 1am, so maybe he works through the night, or maybe he doesn't. I copy his email here, unedited. Note the language used. A few cranks on the internet. A few nutters on the internet. Utter balderdash. These types of whack jobs. 

Andy Percy	Jan 8, 2023, 1:08 AM (12 days ago)
to me

Many thanks for the email. 

I have to say though, absolutely not when it comes to vaccines. The evidence for the efficacy and safety of the vaccines is now stronger than ever. Few vaccines, if any, have ever been delivered to as many people as safely as the Covid ones. 

The anti-vaccine misinformation which continues to infect certain elements of the internet is not only ignorant, anti-science and plain wrong, it is dangerous. 

You are incorrect on this nonsense around deaths and injuries from vaccines and clearly those pushing this rubbish do not understand the system for recording those and nor do they appear to appreciate the damage anti-vaxers have done to those systems. Nor have  they appreciated how the recording of deaths actually works. 

It is funny how many people seem prepared to believe nonsense written and misrepresented by a few cranks on the internet over the overwhelming majority of scientific and medical opinion across the entire planet. Properly evidenced and peer reviewed studies and trials from the most reputable medical and scientific institutions and bodies on the planet are rubbished by a few nutters on the internet who misrepresemt information deliberalty and present it out of context to mislead the reader. It is sinister. 

If we listened to these types of whack jobs we would never have eradicated diseases, thanks to vaccines, which used to regularly kill thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of our citizens every year. Human beings have never had such advanced medical treatments and medical care than we have today and that is because we have, as with Covid, developed vaccines and trusted and relied up on the established and robust systems we have in place globally to develop treatments, drugs and vaccines. 

I'd suggest some time getting information from reputable sources who are so easily able to disprove the nonsense spouted on line. 

 - https://fullfact.org/health/expose-false-total-vaccine-deaths/

I am not a scientist or a medical expert and therefore I will continue to follow the overwhelming majority of those that are. 

As to the broader issues of lockdowns and masks, those will be debated for many years to come. It is pointless and patently ridiculous to apply what is known now and then say that a different course of action should have been followed in March 2020. Facing the same data and same lack of knowledge about the virus and the course the pandemic would take, then there is no doubt countries would take the same action again. 

The reason we were able to push back and repeal and indeed vote against the continuation of these measures as many such as I did from the end of 2021 onwards was because vaccines and other treatments provided us with a way out. 

Had we not locked down when we did we could have seen many more deaths and many more hospitalisations than we did, all of which we would have had no effective treatment or vaccine to counter, save for oxygen therapy. 

There are of course legitimate questions to be asked about the modelling of those predicted figures on deaths and hospitalisations and those must be asked and will be asked via the inquiry that will take place. 

As politicians, we have to act on the available dates and advice at that time and faced with the same data and same advice and same lack of knowledge about the virus as we had then, I would have voted the same way again. 

As for masks, that is a hot topic which scientists themselves seem to have quite a debate on. For me, I was less interested at that time in the science of whether they effectively prevented transmission or not, but in their behaviour science impact in encouraging people to limit interactions, remember to wash hands and take care of feeling they had symptoms etc. All with the intention of, through behaviour, limiting spread as much as possible until treatments or a vaccine becAme available. 

Once we had those vaccines delivered, I voted against re-introducing mask mandates and restrictions from late 2021 onwards as I felt we had probably got to a position, thanks to vaccines and treatments and the weakening of the virus via Omicron, which was at the point which was the best we could get to. In other words, we had gone from pandemic to an endemic virus that had to be lived with. 

So in short, I have absolutely no truck at all with the anti-vaccine misinformation spread online and elsewhere. 

In terms of restrictions and lockdowns, those should be legitimately challenged and there are proper questions to be asked about those and whether we would do the same again. Those must be asked without applying hindsight to March 2020. At that time we were facing the world's first serious pandemic in generations from a dynamic virus which was little understood and the decisions taken then reflect the situation then. It is so easy after an event to come along and say, 'oh well maybe knowing what we know now, then we didn't need to do x,y or z for as long as we did or at all'. 

As to this WEF, oh for heaven sake, thats the stuff of online conspiracy theorists. Next you will be telling me David Ike has figured it all out or that chemtrails are a real thing! 

Sadly we've seen conspiracy theorist use the pandemic to further all sorts of conspiracy theories from 'its the Jews what created Covid' to 'the WHO or the WEF are trying to create a world government'. It's all utter utter balderdash! 

Global institutions exist in many forms to promote global cooperation and engagement and that is nothing but good. It's not some secret plan to create a new world order or whatever the cranks are calling it this week. 

Dear me! 

Regards,

Andrew 

I haven't replied to this, I can't be bothered. He is turning a blind eye and following the official narrative.

 Thanks for popping in. A sunny start to the day, dog walk later. Toodle pip.   ilona