As a local North Yorkshire ‘stand in the park group’ we appreciate Stephen Lewis’s coverage in the York Press on last Saturday’s ‘Northern Uprising’ protest.


Unlike most of the mainstream press and many in the public who glibly throw out the label anti-vaxxer, Stephen clearly understood our message and concerns, not least the introduction of Covid passports. 


Since the initial three week ‘flatten the curve’ to protect the NHS, the Government has subjected us to intermittent arbitrary lockdowns, face masks, and track and trace surveillance apps. 


The government is using Covid NHS certification to restrict the unvaccinated from travel to other countries. 


Isolation and fear are known psychological techniques used to manipulate behaviour and nudge citizens toward a collective compliance.


If anyone had suggested in 2019 that our Government would introduce such draconian measures due to a virus that while potentially fatal for the elderly and vulnerable has minimal impact on the young and healthy, they would have been labelled as a ‘conspiracy theorist’. 


Yet almost two years later, health professionals, including many nurses and care workers are soon to lose their jobs unless they are vaccinated. 


Far from protecting the NHS this mandate is likely to increase staff shortages with a serious impact on the quality of its care.


Having any vaccine should be a choice. 


Coercion of people by threatening loss of their job, restricting free movement, is not only disproportionate, it tramples on fundamental human rights and comes dangerously close to mirroring the behaviour of totalitarian police states in other parts of the world.


Rollout of this vaccine, offered first to the elderly, already vulnerable to respiratory illnesses, didn’t arouse much criticism, but it hasn’t stopped there. 


The current Government coercion applied to the adult population to accept a series of injections has now focused on children. 


No long term study of the safety and efficacy of mRNA vaccines has yet been undertaken for the general population, let alone for children. 


So why involve children for whom Covid prevents minimal risk? 


To force an experimental procedure that carries a risk of harm on whole populations, especially children, is - in my view - both reckless and illegal. The exploitation of children to protect adults, abhorrent in any civilised society, is the precautionary principle turned on its head.


The vaccine doesn’t stop people from getting Covid and it doesn’t stop them passing it on. At best it might lessen symptoms.


People who are fully vaccinated against Covid yet catch the virus are just as infectious to others in their household as infected unvaccinated people, research suggests.


Covid certification only remains valid for a limited period as more shots will be required. 


Israel and other countries with a high ‘vaccination’ uptake have seen an increase in infection rates over the past few months.


Governments have no entitlement to mandate medical procedures. 


Our York Uprising was in solidarity and recognition of the mass protest movements around the world. 


We stand with them to send a shared message that we do not consent. 


We do not consent to transferring what were once countries of free liberal democracy into totalitarian police states. 


Heather Stroud,
Helmsley ‘Stand in the Park’