Friday, December 25, 2020

Covid-19 Narrative

 ABC News provides us with reasons why the vaccine will not end shutdowns and the need to wear masks. Which leads me to wonder why we had all the hype about the vaccine, and to ask why anyone should accept the risks of taking a relatively untested vaccine if it isn’t going to change our lives for the better.

It's another step in an insane progression. The shutdown was initially to be for five weeks in order to “flatten the curve,” and then lasted for more than ten months “until a vaccine is developed.” Now that the vaccine is developed they have moved the goalposts yet again.

1. “Vaccination does not provide instant immunity.” Okay, that’s fair enough, but they do not say that you need to wear your mask and “observe precautions” for two weeks, or four weeks. They say you need to just keep doing it until they tell you to stop, which we know will never happen.

2. “Vaccination trials did not track whether participants wore masks.” There’s a long explanation about this, but it boils down to the vaccine not being adequately tested and that we don’t know whether or not it works. So why are we distributing it with so much hyperbole about it, and why should anyone be willing to take it?

3. “The real world does not mimic a controlled clinical trial.” Another long nonsensical explanation follows, which boils down to “we don’t know if the vaccine works.” See my questions at reason number two.

4. “The herd immunity threshold for COVID-19 is unknown.” This is just unadulterated babble. If the vaccine is worth the time and effort to distribute it, that is if it makes individuals immune, then “herd immunity” is irrelevant. If an individual is immune and can neither catch or spread the disease, then that individual wearing a mask and “taking precautions” has nothing whatever to do with “herd immunity.”

5. “The duration of vaccine immunity is unknown.” Another argument that boils down to “we haven’t adequately tested the vaccine and we don’t know if it works.” So one more time with a sensible question of, why are we distributing it with so much hyperbole about it, and why should anyone be willing to take it?

6. “It is unclear whether vaccines prevent transmission of COVID-19.” This one is simply stunning in its level of stupidity. It means the vaccine was actually not tested at all for the primary purpose of a vaccine, which is to prevent the spread of a disease. Here we are rolling out a vaccine with great fanfare, breaking our collective arm patting ourselves on the back for our “success” and hailing the producers as heroes on the level of those who walked on the Moon, and we don’t even claim to know whether or not it serves the primary purpose of a vaccine, which is to prevent the spread of the disease.

And this garbage was written by an internist, a “Doctor of Internal Medicine” who is, to boot, an instructor at  the University of Illinois School of Public Health and is a physician in private practice. The dishonesty and stupidity of the narrative surrounding this virus is simply astounding.