You heard it here first: In ten years, not only will masks be regarded as an intermittent and not even very interesting public health intervention; vaccinations will be regarded as an intermittent and not even very interesting public intervention. This will not be because our standards of freedom have deteriorated. It will be because all but the few insane people, similar to the previous anti-vaxxers, subluxation, chelation, Reiki, and vegan Gaian believers will have accepted, whether slowly or only moderately slowly, that all the objections were mostly crap. There will be a few side effects of the vaccines, even some serious but rare, that will bear out, as is always the case.
Many folks will deny that they ever had doubts, only "concerns," about timing, or the wisdom of mandates, or whatever. But I and others will know.
Once you realise that the mask skeptics were fevered, pretending that "they" had tried to demand masking as anything but an auxiliary, partial strategy, you have stepped back far enough to be able to ask the next question "What if people's objections to vaccines were only the same thing, a nervous, cowardly, slightly paranoid response that they just didn't like because they wished we could go back to 2019, not a reasoned, measure response based on real information?" You have studies showing that masks may not have helped much. Why in the world would you think that has the least importance?
When you take just one step back, the others become easier. Vaccinations are boring, and you will be seeing more of them.
Update: If this seems harsh, remember that I partially subscribed to it myself not so long ago.
I sure hope you're right!
ReplyDeleteThough so many people have "outed" themselves as, at best not clear thinkers, I have a much better idea who to pay attention to now.
ReplyDelete--Data on vaccines shows very strong protection from severe symptoms and death. (you have to stratify data by age to understand what's really going on)
--The vaccine protection against getting Covid (ie, having a positive test) and transmitting the disease is not zero, but it is nowhere near as strong as the protection against severe symptoms. Biden's statement that if you are vaxxed you can't transmit the disease is plainly false, an absolutist statement about a non-absolute matter. (Bill Gates, FWIW, said the vaccines 'only slightly reduce' transmission, which may be an error in the other direction from Biden's)
--'Natural immunity,' as a result of actually getting the disease, is, unsurprisingly, actually effective.
--Data on masks is all over the place; to the extent that they have an effect, it seems to be more in preventing transmission *from* the mask-wearer than in protecting the mask wearer. Certainly not as effective as the vaccines, contrary to former CDC director Redfield's assertion (in September 2020) that masks may provide more protection than a Coronavirus vaccine; I can't imagine what data he was looking at at the time to make such a statement.
Good info, as usual.
ReplyDelete