Tuesday, June 07, 2022

Worrisome (A Rant)

A reduction in the percentage of people getting their children vaccinated was one of my worries. I hope this news out of Texas is not a trend. I say that know that of course it's going to be a trend.

I have lost nearly half my readership over the covid issues, but the part that bothers me most is that the ones who have left are the ones who most need to hear it.  Such is always the way, I suppose. But being skeptical about what the government says never stays put.  People immediately find some other source to believe instead, and they stop applying the same skepticism.  They believe someone who claims to be the father of the mRNA vaccines (he wasn't) who never goes to a forum where he is challenged. They believe a nursing instructor in England - not a bad one, but not a #1 source.  They believe the predictable scare stories that it's all going to affect your reproduction system somehow. To be fair on that one, lots of things can affect menstrual cycles, but it's usually temporary and minor and does not impact fertility. They start treating all "experts" as if they are taking orders from the government, rather than independent researchers gradually arriving at similar answers. They believed rumors about people dying from vaccines - sometimes thousands of them - and somehow all the doctors in the world decided to cover that up and enter different causes of death on the certificates.  Because the hospitals got $3K each for those patients, they heard. 

I heard some of this nonsense from my own children. At least the Romanians have an excuse for a little paranoia.

I have a post started on safety and risk, but I have waited on it trying to check myself and my own motives.

But this is what happens when skeptics panic. Your local hospital did not go hysterical, even when it took some precautions that turned out to be unnecessary, like making sure no one shared pens.  Well, the hospitals did sometimes get close to hysterical, when their ICUs were overflowing and they couldn't keep enough ER staff, going on into months. Nerves fray. But it was the skeptics that panicked and stopped thinking. Not everyone believed all the crap ideas, but lots of people needed to demonstrate that they were at least somewhat skeptical. It was a point of honor. Yeah, you can't take them in.  They're too smart for that. Did they fear the social pressure of the opinions of friends, or of their opinions of themselves, of the Type of Person I Am? It has been cool to be a skeptic in many places. 

My really ugly fear is that this was a dry run for a much more dangerous epidemic - because we have seen how one can spread in this interconnected world, and slowing things down until we get a vaccine may be the only real strategy - but we learned all the wrong lessons.


8 comments:

Gavin Longmuir said...

"My really ugly fear is that this was a dry run for a much more dangerous epidemic"

It is not clear if you are hinting at something nasty being deliberately released from one of those US Military-funded secret biolabs in the Ukraine. Reports have suggested there were anything from 12 to 30 such labs, where "Our Guys" were spending taxpayer money in a corrupt foreign land under strange circumstances.

Surely a major lesson from the Covid affair was that we should -- Stick To Science! When early data shows that the risks to children & young people are minimal, we should not close down schools & colleges. When the early data shows that old people with pre-existing conditions are the main ones at risk, we should protect such people -- not throw infected individuals into retirement homes.

One of the big consequences from the Covid incident is the loss of credibility by the Authorities. If they want to regain credibility to use in the next epidemic, they need to start admitting their mistakes. apologizing for their arrogance, and instituting real changes in how they do business.

james said...

I've written before that the next epidemic may easily be much worse, and I wonder if we've learned anything. "Admitting their mistakes" is vital to epidemic control--have we a way of holding the responsible officials accountable for "doubling down" instead of learning from experience? In the military we're supposed to remove officers who can't adapt, though politics seems more relevant than our body count sometimes. I suspect we won't do any better with deadly epidemic control.

Anonymous said...

I dunno. Show them the numbers, that show America had the 14th worst response to the pandemic.

Only 13 countries did worse.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

@ Pen Gun - for countries that are telling the truth, and have significant internal and external interaction, we are far better than that. Stop cherry-picking and you will gain a touch of credibility.

@ Gavin - No, not intentional releases. the likely reality going forward. The loss of credibility is partially their own, and partially from people like like you, the skeptics who cannot admit THEIR mistakes. Can you point to a mistake you have admitted?

I repeat the question, Gavin.

Anonymous said...

"we are far better than that."

Obviously not. The 13 worse than you are obviously worse, but who has better numbers, that is lying? I never trusted America's numbers quite frankly.

The thing about credibility is that you have to care, what people think, about what you have said. ;)

Assistant Village Idiot said...

I notice you left out half of what I stipulated. Funny. And I don't believe Eastern Europe, South America, Russia, or China tell the truth, and there are dozens of nations that don't actually even have an idea what the truth is about their covid numbers.

this is, as usual, simply ridiculous, a non-discussion with someone who decides the answer first, and it's always the same answer!

Back to simply ignoring you, I'm afraid. Your one brief moment of reasonableness earned you another shot a couple of months ago, but it has evaporated.

Anonymous said...

Your problem is you think I have respect for you and your views. That is not the case.

I believe China's numbers are more accurate than America's.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

That is, of course, simply insane, and based on your prejudices. Whether you have respect for my ideas is irrelevant. Finding out what is actually true via discussion is what matters.

the other insane and hysterically funny part is that you would not be here if you didn't have respect for some aspect of my views. The simplest self-observation eludes you.