Denzil McDaniel: Stand up to the bullies who say we cannot disagree with what they tell us about Covid

Which is just as well because anyone having genuine doubts about a new drug being injected into their system will be made to feel like a self-centred leper running round infecting the rest of society.

And in addition to the moral blackmail, some are advocating that if you want to keep your job or even travel, you won’t be able to do so unless you can prove you’ve had the vaccine.

If you have reservations about a vaccine, then tough – you’re a pariah now, no? Your doubts could be genuine, from a fear of needles to not being totally convinced about the longer-term effects. But you’ll still be labelled an anti-vaxxer by some.

It’s just one sign of the way that an atmosphere of fear has engulfed us, where we’ve been bullied as a society into accepting one narrative and dissent has become a dirty word.

That’s no way to govern, surely? It breeds mistrust, people don’t know what to believe and start to look elsewhere for information to cling to.

Look, as I’ve said before, we are where we are and such is the pressure on our health service that we all need to take personal responsibility to follow safety guidelines, and there’s an acceptance, mostly, of the need for restrictions.

We should all think of one another, and we should also remember that behind all the statistics are people who have been severely affected; including far too many lives lost.

But comparing last Spring with now, and looking at the traffic thundering past when I’m out for a walk and wondering where everyone is going, it doesn’t feel like everyone is observing a strict lockdown. That’s irresponsible.

Patience is wearing a bit thin, not least because of the problems we are storing up for society in terms of surgery for other illnesses being dangerously delayed and our mental health being further damaged. There are many problems, including loneliness.

Someone I respect inside the health service told me privately this week that decisions were being taken by “a small cabal of scientists and unaccountable civil servants” adding that “massive damage is being done to our society, but the narrative is so controlled that dissenting voices are quickly shamed".

Worrying questions remain about how this pandemic has been mismanaged to get us to this point, and I would question the role of some in the media who have acquiesced almost to the point of acting as spokespersons for the Department of Health.

Indeed, some reporting is without the context that our NHS has been mismanaged for years; it’s as if suddenly Covid has caused all the problems.

When we get through this, we must remember how wonderful our Health Service has been, and support the staff and the system with proper resource and organisation.

It’s not unreasonable to ask questions about the way the crisis has been handled, while at the same time encouraging people to be careful as we fight this pandemic.

The Minister of Health, Mr. Robin Swann has received many plaudits and appreciation for his conduct in a situation which nobody could have foreseen, and which has presented serious difficulty. He certainly seems a decent sort, and at times he wasn’t helped by the party political wrangling of some Executive colleagues.

This was the man, though, who early on warned of a death toll of “Biblical proportions”, maybe 15,000, and my perception is that his advisers set the tone which has resulted in constant and full lockdown as the only solution. This week, we get the Chief Medical Officer, Michael McBride now warning that significant pressures will continue on hospitals up until March.

And one journalist tweeted that “tougher restrictions on society may be needed” if a different variant of Covid spread here. Crikey, tougher restrictions? What might those be, and if people are suffering lockdown fatigue now, will they stick to them?

Is this the best we can do? Never-ending lockdown, tougher restrictions, even as the vaccination programme gathers pace. And this is reinforced by scare tactics, rather than being open and transparent.

This government needs to be honest with people. And that means much more than simply churning out the grim statistics of cases. Why can’t we, for example, have more of the data and information which is informing the decision makers?

This week it was reported that the health authorities are under pressure to release data on where people are contracting Covid during lockdown. And Colm Gildernew, chair of the Assembly health committee said they had repeatedly raised the data issue with officials. The Health Committee has been well led by Mr. Gildernew and is actually a good example of the way Assembly members from across parties engage in scrutinising a Department.

And, boy, does the Department of Health need scrutinising.

So, we get our childen’s lives in particular badly hit, with schools closed and kids not even allowed to take part in sport in a very controlled environment.

In Bradford in England this week, a consultant reported the deep impact on children whose lives have been turned upside down; they are anxious, isolated and bored, are suffering mental health problems with one child as young as ten coming to A and E having self-harmed.

Elsewhere, many sports clubs could help people by providing an outlet, again in a controlled environment. And what other areas could we see some form of a more nuanced policy than simply saying bang, close them down.

All this means that the responsible people following the rules are punished with restrictions, while the people who behave irresponsibly are allowed to get away with it.

The problem with not being open is that it erodes the trust of the public, the very people they’re supposed to be serving. The esteem in which our politicians is held has been pretty low, and now we’re expected to just trust them to get on with things without being questioned.

It’s not being overly-dramatic to say that we are being asked to give up some very basic freedoms, and yet this Executive won’t trust people with information around their decisions.

And rather than the Department engaging in a defensive propaganda assault, why can we not have an open debate about Covid and the way it is being managed?

Instead, when expert voices such as Professor Scally raise concerns and make suggestions, we are made to feel like he is an irresponsible irritant who shouldn’t be heard. Quite the reverse actually, he’s been courageous, challenging and saying all the right things in my opinion.

It was nauseating to hear Boris Johnson recently say that his Government had done everything they could. And here in Northern Ireland we’ve been at times too late to impose restrictions, too early to come out, and the foolhardy hokey-cokey of in and out coming up to Christmas is now coming back to bite us.

Why have we closed down schools and businesses and left the airports open to bring in visitors from infected areas? Have politics north and south stopped us from having a sensible all-island approach?

The tenure of Education Minister, Peter Weir has been a disaster.

And at what point will the decision makers be held to account for the scandal of the high numbers of deaths in our care homes, particularly the policy of how older people were transferred from hospitals to those homes.

Or will anybody ever be held accountable; accountability in all areas of public life in Northern Ireland is very poor indeed.

I repeat, we are at a stage now where we must all take personal responsibility to follow safe guidelines, and we must keep supporting each other and have the strength to get through this. Which we will.

But we are also entitled to ask questions, to demand more openness, to express our opinions on how things could be handled better and to dissent from the single narrative that is being pushed at us.

A Government that sneers at dissent and bullies people into accepting one narrative is not serving the public well.