Covid 19 is a Serious Threat
I was one of the earliest in the state of Florida to get Covid-19. In March of 2020, we were having work done in our house and the dust that kicked up caused me to get bronchitis. I went to Urgent Care because of increased difficulty in breathing and at that time both the NIH and CDC were advising AGAINST wearing masks. So I walked into a waiting room filled with people coughing and got Covid 19. As of this writing, I’m classified by my doctors as a “long covid” patient because the lovely pneumonia I got from covid damaged my right lung wall. I’m still dealing with the fallout from that day almost 2 years later.
Fast forward to March of 2021 and I got a medical release to get the Covid-19 vaccine before it became available to the general public. I was excited because it seemed like an answer to prayer. In a Discord group for long covid patients I’m a part of, some had seen the vaccine take away symptoms. I was excited about that potential. While the vaccine did not do for me what it did for some, it relieved the fear I had of damaging my lung even further.
With all that backstory you may be surprised that I’m still having people call me an anti-vaxxer? Huh?
Transitory Conflation
“If you are anti-mandate you are absolutely anti-vax, I don’t care what your personal vaccination status is…if you support…anybody who argues against the vaccine, you are an anti-vaxxer, absolutely…” Michael Gunner, Australia’s NT Chief Minister
Now that we’re almost 2 years into the pandemic we are finally beginning to see patterns in how Covid works its way through the population. And most of the theories we held as gospel do not seem to be backed up by the data anymore. Covid does not seem to follow any type of seasonal patterns as we originally thought. And while masks, the vaccine, lockdowns of the most vulnerable, and social distancing measures do offer some preventative benefits they do not stop the transmission of Covid 19 through a population - as we’re seeing in Europe right now. Instead, Covid seems to be on a 2-month pattern of increases in cases, plateau, and drastic drop before the cycle picks up again.
And that brings us to the mandates. As currently being argued, they don’t make sense? Let’s look at the vaccine mandates which as of right now are the primary mitigation strategy for most countries. We are told that the unvaccinated are the reason for the spike cycles we’re seeing of Covid. The argument goes that if more people were vaccinated then we’d either skip or have smaller spikes yearly of Covid. However, data is starting to show that vaccine compliance is mostly unrelated to spikes in new covid cases (here). The CDC even reported between January to May of 2021 that severe hospitalization and death among the vaccinated increased from 0.01 to 9% and 0 to 15.1% (here). Those numbers are still much better than those who are not vaccinated (which is why the vaccines are a GOOD strategy to fight covid). However, the numbers suggest an about-face and perhaps a more humble approach to our current strategy (see here) and lends credence to a study that concluded:
The sole reliance on vaccination as a primary strategy to mitigate COVID-19 and its adverse consequences needs to be re-examined, especially considering the Delta (B.1.617.2) variant and the likelihood of future variants. Other pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions may need to be put in place alongside increasing vaccination rates. Such course correction, especially with regards to the policy narrative, becomes paramount with emerging scientific evidence on the real-world effectiveness of the vaccines.
If the data is beginning to show all of this then why are most of our public figures not communicating it? Why are they doubling down on one strategy instead of advocating a public policy that embraces both pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions? Why are they and their followers instantly labeling anyone who opposes them or even asks questions anti-vaxxers? Why are they conflating the two which leads to family, friends, and local officials as well?
Authoritarian Excuse
The blind allegiance is never a good policy. The current conflation of being anti-mandate making one anti-vaccine could lead us to frightening places. Worse yet, we’re seeing more and more people accept the diminishing of individual liberty for security and breaking relationships with anyone who does not accept what ends up being a totalitarian approach to the pandemic.
The mandates that are currently being advocated for do not make sense if the goal is to curb Covid 19. So what is driving our public officials to advocate for something that does not work on its own? I think Bret in the picture above is correct, we don’t want to wait around to find out.