Recently leaked text messages from former British Health Secretary Matt Hancock, among others, have revealed a disturbing glimpse into the minds of the pandemic managers during the height of COVID policy operations. At the very least, it appears that Hancock—the man whose policies would affect, sometimes profoundly, every last one of England’s 55 million citizens—used and amplified COVID hysteria as an opportunity to advance his own political career. Much worse is the possibility that, by his actions, he helped to fabricate a massive illusion, propped up only by perpetual fear.

The Telegraph has posted dozens of articles under a series named “The Lockdown Files,” which analyzes key exchanges from over 100,000 text messages between Hancock and other officials. One of the themes that has emerged is the conscious use of fear by officials to manage public resistance toward England’s draconian lockdowns and other pandemic mandates.

A Dec. 13, 2021 exchange between Hancock and his media advisor, Damon Poole, is especially illustrative. Fearing that London’s Mayor Sadiq Kahn might lead a charge of resistance against a continued lockdown for the capital during Christmas, Poole advised, “Rather than doing too much forward signalling [about the intention to remain locked down], we can roll pitch with the new strain,” to which Hancock responded, “We frighten the pants of[f] everyone with the new strain.” Poole followed with, “Yep that’s what will get proper bahviour [sic] change.”

The two went on to talk about when they should ramp up the narrative on “the new variant,” weighing the pros and cons of the timing.

A month later, with Britain in the midst of its third lockdown, Hancock and Cabinet Secretary Simon Case discussed what stronger measures of control they could employ to get greater cooperation. Case suggested even more stringent mask-wearing but then doubted the efficacy of beating that tired horse. “Basically, we need to get compliance up,” he lamented. Hancock agreed but advised against hammering away at “small things.” Case caught his drift and texted back, “Ramping up messaging—the fear/guilt factor vital.”

There is a wealth of other revelations among the many Telegraph articles, but the foregoing exchanges with Poole and Case are indicative of an unmistakably cavalier regard for the impact of their decisions on regular people. The fate of millions was in the hands of a few social conditioners who were carefully crafting a fear-based narrative designed for maximum compliance.

It was the same across the Atlantic, in the United States. Anthony Fauci, for instance, knew that face masks were ineffective at protecting against infection, and he said so early on in the panic. But when the CDC started beefing up its face mask guidelines in April 2020, Fauci changed his tune and even recommended double masks for extra protection.

Fauci also knew that the insane attempt to subject every man, woman, and child—asymptomatic or not—to COVID testing was a farce and that it would produce countless millions of false-positive diagnoses. In a July 2020 podcast “This Week in Virology,” Fauci indirectly admitted that the standards used in most tests were worthless for identifying viral matter. The standards he referred to were the same as those used in the COVID tests that were pressed upon the masses.

The public COVID statistics derived from these faulty tests were almost entirely composed of false positives, and helped the CDC keep fear at a fever pitch for as long as possible. The effects of this scare campaign are still visible today, as many still wear masks in public places, peering warily at one another across social distancing.

In a March 6 opinion piece for Newsweek, Stanford medical doctor Scott Atlas, who briefly served in the Trump administration, made it clear that the pandemic response was based on lies. He’s right, of course. The question is how many others have noticed.

—Michael Larson