Stephen Reicher is an insufferable prick. Indulge me here, please. I’ve had to listen to him and his goon mates lying through their bastard teeth for the better part of two years now.
Reicher himself is never off the telly. Throughout 2020 and 2021 he pushed hard for a Chinese style zero covid strategy. He complained often, that people weren’t obeying the (arbitrary and senseless) covid rules. He moaned that folks weren’t scared enough.
He’s a crank. He’s also a member of Independent SAGE. Its boffins wanted a full UK lockdown last Christmas to protect us all from Omicron. Reicher lectures in psychology at St. Andrews university.
He Tweeted earlier, comparing Covid to child abuse. According to The Mail Online:
Professor Stephen Reicher, a member of an influential SAGE sub-group, compared society’s former indifference to parents beating their children to the supposed lack of concern about the virus’s long-term harms.
The psychologist, from the University of St Andrews, tweeted: ‘Years ago, we used to hear “my parents beat me and it didn’t do me any harm”.
‘We don’t hear that any more.
‘Nowadays many say “I’ve had Covid and it didn’t do me any harm”. As the evidence mounts, they might not be saying that in the future.’
His comments came in response to a major Cambridge University study that found being hospitalised with Covid can drastically age the brain.
Severely ill patients can suffer problems with their thinking and memory that is only comparable to ageing 20 years, the research claimed.
Reicher sits on the SAGE subcommittee SPI-B, which provides Covid-related behavioural science advice to No10.
It previously warned against ditching self-isolation, masks and mass-testing, warning it could create ‘anxiety’ and disproportionately affect poor people.
Professor Reicher is also a member of Independent SAGE, a pressure group that only recently stopped calling for a Chinese Communist Party-style ‘Zero Covid’ policy.
Indy SAGE called for a full nation-wide lockdown over Christmas in response to Omicron but quietly softened its stance when that wave proved to be mild.
In response to his (Reicher’s) tweet, Dr Sunil Bhopal, a paediatrician from Newcastle University, noted that being hospitalised with Covid at the start of the pandemic was ‘very bad for you’.
But he said extrapolating the figures in ‘2022, post-vaccine’ was a reason why Independent SAGE ‘can’t be trusted’.
Dr Mike Casey, a GP in east London, accused the group of lobbying to make sure ‘my kid’s school was kept closed’.
Andy Doyle, a search and rescue helicopter pilot, tweeted: ‘I know people who are literally too scared to leave the house. So sad.
‘For scientists and psychologists to twist and misrepresent data is unforgivable.’
It’s beyond unforgiveable. I would argue that it is criminal. In a just world, charlatans and creeps like Reicher would be hiding out in Mexico.
Remember all of those scary TV ads showing people gasping for breath in hospitals, captioned with phrases like, “Tell her you’re following the rules?” Remember all that “Don’t kill Granny” garbage?
Sickos like Reicher dreamt it up.
You’d think he’d be laying low this week in light of the revelations contained in the Pfizer vaccine trial data, wouldn’t you?
No, he’s still out there peddling his fear and junk science.
For shame.
