The protest has been labelled a “slap in the face to all NHS staff”
More than 30 maskless conspiracy theorists descended on a Tesco in Chelmsford at the weekend. Walking around chanting “don’t believe the propaganda on TV” and singing about indoctrination camps and the “vaccine scam”, the group entered the store before going about their shopping.
The group refused to wear masks when asked to do so by members of staff, and on leaving the store one woman shouted “come on warriors.”
Face masks and social distancing measures have been in place in shops and supermarkets since last summer, but for some the idea of saving someone’s life by putting a bit of cloth over your mouth is just too much to grasp.
NHS Million, the campaign run by NHS staff to highlight gratitude of the health service, branded the protest as a “slap in the face to all NHS staff who have worked themselves into the ground and risked their own lives to keep people safe.”
This is a slap in the face to all NHS staff who have worked themselves into the ground and risked their own lives to keep people save. Organising a maskless shopping trip is not big, not clever but it is illegal.
Can anyone help identify the supermarket?pic.twitter.com/AR0ZcxkOWa
— NHS Million (@NHSMillion) March 29, 2021
Chelmsford City Council have condemned the scenes, with a spokesperson saying that the council is “extremely disappointed” and that the actions “risked the health of many others: both those who were in the shop at the time and others with whom those people have come into contact since.”
The council are now working with the police and the supermarket to establish exactly how the mass flouting of rules was allowed to happen.
Videos like this, even after a year and 150,000 deaths, remind us why maybe it’s not so surprising that we have coped so terribly with this pandemic as a nation.
The fact that at the end of the day, some people would rather risk their own safety and that of others just because they want to see people’s mouths. Because wearing a piece of cloth over their face is such an affront of their ‘civil liberties’ that they would rather see people die than follow rules and become part of the dreaded ‘sheeple’. Because they have such a selfish and self-centred view of the world that anything that they may have to do to help others is an insult to them, and must be fought back against.
Sadly there’s no vaccine for stupidity.
