At the time of this writing, about one half of all US citizens are fully vaccinated from the nefarious covid 19 virus. Yeah! Huzzah! And hearty congratulations all around. Those good with fractions will have noticed this leaves the other half unvaccinated. This half is made up of younger Americans whose turn to be vaccinated had not yet come, and those who have refused to take the vaccination. A portion of this remnant rejects the vaccine because they believe there is an X-files plot afoot involving worldwide population control, manufacturing armies of rage zombies, or turning their upper arm into a 5G mobile hotspot. I heard a theory the other day that there will be a covid 21 virus next year, which, along with being able to legally drink, will target those who have the spike proteins provided by the covid 19 vaccination.
The larger portion of these outlaw holdouts, and I number myself among this merry band, are abstaining for rational reasons, reasons which they have arrived at with eyes wide open. These reasons include patiently waiting for more expansive and rigorous evidence of the vaccines efficacy and side effects, which in previous times was called informed consent, or liking the odds their own immune system has against the virus, or actually having antibodies from going a few rounds with the bug. But also included among these reasons for hesitancy is the recognition of misinformation, political maneuvering, freedom encroachment, and oscillating scientific certainty when we see it. The loudest bulldozers pushing the vaccine also happen to be the same folks exhibiting these last perpetrations.
For some reason the two groups, the X-files group and the thoughtful ones, keep getting lumped in together, almost as though it were convenient to do so, while the enlightened vax pushers start to pluck the chickens and warm up the tar.
In an effort to get some of the holdouts vaccinated, businesses, municipalities and workplaces have offered incentives for taking the jab, like a free greasy burger, tickets to concerts, and even a lottery where you can win a million buckaroos – your chances of winning being slightly less than dying from the disease in the first place. The built in assumption here is that these troglodytes are beasts acting on base desires and any conviction can be easily bypassed with a proverbial, or literal, carrot.
Still other have resorted to mockery and strong arming. A text from President Biden stated, “After a year of hard work and so much sacrifice here is the deal: get vaccinated or wear a mask until you do.” Fauci said a couple days ago for holdouts to just “get over it.” Some workplaces and universities have required the vaccination before employees or students may return. Talking heads on legacy media outlets decry those who are not getting vaccinated are literally serial killers. The assumption here still being that they are beasts which, not taking the carrot, need a stick to the haunches.
Either action, the stick or the carrot, the holdouts are thought of as creatures of the stomach, led by base desires and not reasonable humans capable of assessing personal risk.
For those less given to hyperbole, there remains a snooty attitude with which vaccine peddlers point to the hesitancy of those who want to wait as unjustifiably anti-science and unreasonable, and behaving like fitful toddlers. But those of us on the sane side have noticed the strange irony in the demand for reason, rationality and scientific credulity from those who just spent the last 18 months losing their minds. The low freak-out threshold makes some of us dubious of their ability to assess risk. Being told to think rationally by people who drive around alone, with two masks, gloves and a condom on (just to be consistent), is like recommending we purchase house insurance from the local Chicken Little Insurance agent.
You can spy a reasonable person by their proclivity to ask reasonable questions. When they do this the best course of action is to answer them reasonably. If those answers are not available, it is a reasonable response to wait until they are. The worst thing that can be done is to force the reasonable into a choice which is unreasonable. Then they will use their reasonableness to become suspicious of the unreasonable actions.
For a medical institution which is increasingly requiring evidence based approaches to treatment, we have a lack of conclusive evidence about the risks, adverse reactions and efficacy of the vaccinations. How long do the antibodies from the vaccination last? Will we need boosters? Does it extend to the other strains? We don’t know yet, the vaccine has only been in widespread use for eight months making answering these questions premature – and that’s fine. That is to be expected with experimental drugs.
But there is a reason the average drug takes years for FDA approval. It is important to perform long term studies to see if or when sequelae from drugs may occur. That the fast tracking of these vaccinations was allowed by the government doesn’t negate the fact that rigorous, long term studies have yet to be completed. When the vaccinations were given emergency approval by the FDA, tracking adverse events was not required, and self reporting was the sole method used to identify possible adverse events – a method which captures about 1% of all adverse events. Whether because tracking those adverse reactions would have been impossible in the whirlwind of the vaccine rollout, or if an increasing number of those reactions might have dampened vaccination efforts is unclear. The CDC recently added to the warning label the risk of certain cardiomyopathies for young people. It appears to be rare, but the point is the results are just now beginning to come in. Since these reactions were not tracked from the beginning, only time and patient observation will tell.
The covid 19 vaccinations truly were a feat of incredible cooperation and scientific ingenuity which makes the lunar landing look like a seventh grade science fair project. But every solution brings new problems along for the ride, and it is the voice of wisdom, not ignorance, which asks what new issues may present given a potential solution? If we can make vaccines so quickly, what is the threshold for making another? There are concerns the Delta variant may not be covered by the vaccine. The Israeli PM released stats which shows the Pfizer vaccine is only 64% effective in preventing symptomatic transmission due to the this pesky Delta strain. Now there is a new fangled Lambda strain in Peru and next will be the Phi Kappa Delta strain which gets drunk and dances on tables during rush week. Will each of those require vaccinations? If so, will there be a massive world wide roll out for those as well? Will this happen with every other novel virus, of which there will be many?
For the majority of the population, the covid 19 virus was not a threat. If we made a vaccine for a virus with an average survival rate of 99.8%, what is the benchmark for making others? There is a lot of leg room beneath that number. Will any virus which boasts a mortality rate of greater than 0.2% require manufacturing another vax? Maybe vaccines can be like the seasonal rollouts in the fashion industry, and every Fall and Spring AstraZeneca can release their collection of viral variants.
Most people are not against getting vaccinations for illnesses they think they need protection from. I worked in Los Angeles during the last Ebola virus scare and it was scare-ee. Nurses in full PPE contracted the virus, and that one boasts a death rate of between 50-90%. So if that bug got off the ground you can bet your sweet bippy I would take that jab. I received the bacterial meningitis shot because its mortality and morbidity rates are slightly less than Ebola, and the fact that I saw it kill young people in hours before my eyes. I had covid back in March of 2020, before it was cool, and personally I’ve had wet farts that caused me more trouble. I’m not saying covid isn’t deadly, and more deadly for some. But I ought to be able to make a decision based on my own risk assessment which is different than an 84 year old man with lung disease.
The funk of all this is that those of us who are choosing not to get the vaccination are being castigated and hen-pecked by those who openly and admittedly lied. In defending his initial statement that Americans did not need to wear masks, Fauci said he didn’t want to cause a panic and a run on PPE, which needed to be reserved for healthcare workers. Soooo, you told a falsehood to control the behaviors of the public? Any good reason to believe that wouldn’t happen again? How many times does someone need to lie before you are justified in suspicion? A noble lie is still a lie.
If a group of people are lost in a dark forest and their leader confidently states they need to head due north to find civilization, then after miles of drudgery, several direction changes, and the shushing of other reasonable suggestions, decides equally as confidently they actually need to be going south, and he is for sure-certain-100% this time, to doubt his credibility is not unreasonable. Being wary of those requiring trust which they have not earned is called being smart. It is called being wise
Further trust in the “experts” of the scientific community was undermined when treatments such as hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin and zinc were poo-pooed, even going as far as to ban and block posts which were sharing information on its success. Licensed medical doctors were silenced while desperately trying to offer a successful treatment for a novel virus, at a time when there was no known effective treatment. It was vehemently rejected as archaic and dangerous as exsanguination, though hydroxychloroquine is an extremely safe drug having been used decades. Come to find out a study showed those treated in the intensive care units with this particular cocktail have over 200% survival rate. The only serves to justify the hesitant.
Presiding over all of this wackiness was the idea that only methods and treatments arrived at by our government were legitimate. Other reasonable and scientific voices were silenced and our response became a monolithic tribute to sheep-think. I often ask people if they remember the purpose of face masks in the first place. Do you? Yup, it was not overwhelm the healthcare system. I remember because I was there. That was the specific stated goal. After it was clear this swamping was by and large not happening, and after it became evident that outdoor dining, numbers restrictions and outside gatherings were not spreading the virus – those lockdown restrictions which were strangling the economy and any quality of life – was there any announcement that we could commence with these activities?
What was a novel viral contagion, which, yes, did have a hefty death toll in certain populations, became an over plussed emergency, a well orchestrated haunted house, an existential threat packaged and post dated and sent to the American public. A natural phenomena became overtly political with those in the driver’s seat making decisions based on what will hurt the other political party, not what would be a reasonable approach to make sure the cure was not worse than the disease. All of this was allowed by us, permitted by us, begged for by us, from a deepening certainty of our own mortality, and our willingness to sell any amount of dignity and common sense to avoid such unpleasant notions.
Now there is talk of sending out vaccine volunteers to go door to door, two by two, carrying the good news of the salvific effects of the vaccine like a couple of Mormons on mission. At this points, those holding out are not doing so from a lack of pressure or effective advertising. But no amount of solicitation will replace good ol’ fashioned observation and data collection – you know, those parts of the scientific process where we wait to analyze the data of our experiments before we can confirm the hypothesis.
So those who have little risk of serious illness from covid, who are weighing the evidence trickling in, who have memories that stretch back farther than one year, and who have no confidence in duplicitous and feckless leadership who have removed their brains, replaced it with squirrels crossing busy side streets, and are asking us to do likewise, are justified in their hesitancy. Denigrating this hesitation is to act in a way which is coercive and disregards reasonable people asking reasonable questions, and standing by their right and responsibility as humans who have agency to make educated decisions for themselves and their families without fear of retribution.
Thought Butter 