VfF and masks

I continue to monitor the emails sent out by the Voices for Freedom crowd. My reaction is usually a combination of disbelief and despair. My impression is that they're struggling to remain relevant. Now that the vaccine mandates have disappeared, they seem to be concentrating on all manner of whacky stances.

Some examples:

• They're concerned about a scheme being tried in primary schools in Wales where children are consuming alternative proteins based on insects. This seems like a good idea - meat production is a major source of Greenhouse Gas emissions, so finding alternate sources of protein is a good idea.
• They're concerned that vasectomies are becoming popular with younger men - in their 20s. Again, this seems like a good idea. If people make the definite decision to not have children, then this is a responsible thing to do.
• And they're perennially concerned about the UN and its supposed policies around world population control.

It seems they're wanting to provide a whole raft of ideas that you can pick and choose from to maintain the maximum engagement with their audience.

And, this past week they've been inhabiting Tauranga, where they're pinning their hopes on Sue Grey making it into parliament. That seems pretty unlikely, given the conservative nature of the city, and that National's candidate is leading in the polls, somewhere around 56% of the vote.

Their big focus, though, seems to be the obsession with being anti-mask. They claim that masks are useless and they're being used by the government to control people - that wearing a mask means you're submitting to government control and being a good “sheep”.

They claim to “rely on expert scientific evidence from around the world”, which is laughable. I think they're more likely cherry picking outlier voices in the medical community who support their narrative. When I look on their website for this supposed evidence, it's in the form of Bitchute and Rumble videos, and links to websites dedicated to opposing public health measures aimed at handling the pandemic response. (One of which is the HART group, based in the UK, which seems very similar in purpose to the discredited Plan B group here.)

They also claim that:

“Masks are being used to psychologically manipulate people, to create fear & compliance, and as an identifier of the compliant and non-compliant, or “good” and “bad” citizens.”

They're now focused on using loopholes to claim exemptions from wearing masks. They've put together a “kit” of resources to fight against wearing masks, including a template for a letter to school principals or boards of trustees. Interestingly, it contains this rather scary looking disclaimer:

It seems to me they're a little worried about being held liable for the actions of their members.

This is all nonsense though. Masks work to lower the risk of transmission of Covid - an airborne virus. They don't guarantee you won't catch Covid, but they're a sensible approach to protecting yourself and others.

The government has defined some sensible exemptions to wearing masks, but the VfF people seem to want to provide bogus exemptions and excuses not to wear them.

The end goal is to carve out a subset of the population that are defiant, and who use not wearing a mask as a sign that they're not compliant, and that they're independent “free thinkers”. In reality, they're the sheep they claim not to be, following a bunch of ill-informed, zealous, anti-establishment conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers who, if they had their way, would have had us in a much worse state than we are.

As a final reminder, Covid isn't over. It's still running rampant, and resulting in the deaths of around 14 people a day in this country. And, of those that contract Covid, it's estimated that around 20% of people will suffer from “long Covid” - which will likely be a strain on those lives, and our health system for many years to come.