How two people from opposite sides of the pandemic became friends, and realised that division is tyranny’s greatest weapon. By Melinda Richards.

Had I met Louise at the height of the Covid pandemic, we would not have got on. That is putting it mildly.

Throughout 2020 and 2021, she was fully signed up to the Covid panic, reacting obediently to every piece of government propaganda being broadcast by the mainstream media.

Each week early in 2020, when Louise went shopping, she put a large sheet in the back of her car, drove to the supermarket, put on latex gloves, a mask, glasses and a baseball cap and walked the isles shooing anyone away that came within two metres of her.

Her four young children were not allowed to join her because she wouldn’t let them leave the house. She carried sanitisers to wipe down the trolley and once her shopping was completed, she placed her items in the back of the car on the sheet, drove home, placed the sheet on the floor of the garage, and anything that was packaged she then sprayed with Glen-20 antiseptic spray.

As if this were not enough, she would also wash all her fruit and vegetables before cooking or eating them, even after they had been freshly chopped. She recalls, with some amusement, that she used to wash slices of watermelon under the tap.

She loudly advocated shutting down schools and closing the border of her state (Queensland), even after her mum had crossed the border to visit her own dying mother and was unable to return for six months.

“I didn’t travel any further than 5km for about eight or nine months,” she now recalls.

She rolled up her sleeve four times to receive the experimental gene therapy “vaccine”, and boasted online that she was now “safe” from the virus. She finally invited her best friend over to visit, saying: “You can come in now - I’m vaccinated”.

While Louise was doing all this, I was heading in exactly the opposite direction. I refused to wear a mask, ignored social-distance rules, travelled as far as I could without being arrested and stood firm against the “vaccine” mandates.

Louise and I could not have been more different if we tried.

So how did we become friends when we met (through work) in the middle of last year?

The timing was fortunate. When we met, “the science” behind the pandemic and everything else was starting to fall apart, so Louise was beginning to see the light. I do, however, like to think that I hastened her awakening.

We have discussed it, and I can fully understand how Louise fell for the propaganda.

The pressure to conform was not only coming from mainstream media and her friends, but also her family, who went into complete panic mode.

“I grew up in a household where I wasn’t allowed to have my own opinion. We were never taught to critically think for ourselves. I always looked to my father for answers my whole life. He controlled my life. I didn’t realise that until later, so when he went into a state of panic in March 2020, I did too.”

Louise truly believed Covid was deadly, had a long lifespan, and could survive on any surface. Like most people, she imagined it lurking everywhere, just waiting for her to drop her guard long enough to infect and kill her.

She also thought that anybody who didn’t agree with her was disgustingly selfish.

But as “the science” collapsed, Louise began to realise she had been misled.

On New Years Eve 2021, Louise tested positive for Covid, and she became very sick. She caught it again after her fourth shot, which proved they were not effective.

Furthermore, when people who were “unvaccinated” were being punished for merely not following the rules, the realisation it had nothing to do with “health and science” really hit home.

“If I was protected with the vaccine, then what did it matter that other people didn’t get it? I was supposed to be protected. Apart from the fact I had contracted the disease even though vaccinated, how the unvaccinated were treated overall also started to wake me up.”

There is a legacy to Louise’s gullibility. At the height of the panic she suffered a common back injury but was too scared to go to hospital to have it diagnosed. She suffers complications that could have been prevented but are now permanent – a constant reminder of her life as a servant of the Covid hysteria.

Louise’s story made me speechless.

She was a member of a cult that delighted in anger. Like her father, she believed she was better than other people, and, being good and righteous, had never done anything wrong. She followed the government’s orders and signalled her virtue online. She now realises it was all a pantomime.

The tyrants who imposed all this upon us exploited the instinct we all have to be good, and want to be seen to be good.

Worse, they divided us.

Louise and I are now close friends. If the government had its way, we would still be hating each other.

Melinda Richards is the author of You Can’t Say That: The Demise of Free Thought in Australia