If you don’t agree with lockdowns and mandatory vaccination you are according to the LEFT associated with ‘Far right nationalists, anti-vaxxers, libertarians and conspiracy theorists‘! That’s what Leftist’s think of freedom loving people! So, I wasn’t surprised to read a Leftist say ‘Scenes of protesters clad in hi-vis jackets and shouting anti-vaccination slogans have dominated the news this week. As the ABC reported:
Some of those gathered held a banner reading ‘freedom’, while others sang the national anthem and chanted ‘f*** the jab’.
Some attacked union offices, drawing criticism from officials such as ACTU chief Sally McManus, who described the protests as being orchestrated “by violent right-wing extremists and anti-vaccination activists.”
These images may shock some but for researchers like me — who research far-right nationalist and conspiracy movements, and explore the online spaces where these people organise — these scenes came as no real surprise.
Far right nationalists, anti-vaxxers, libertarians and conspiracy theorists have come together over COVID, and capitalised on the anger and uncertainty simmering in some sections of the community.
‘COVID-19 vaccine refusal rates may be high among white evangelical Christians, but the International Mission Board (IMB) — which deploys thousands of missionaries — is not hesitant about the shot.
The global agency of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest evangelical Protestant denomination in the U.S., announced this month it is requiring vaccinations for missionaries they’re sending into the field amid the pandemic.
The IMB may be the first U.S. missionary agency known to have such a mandate, according to leaders in the field, as other faith groups approach the issue in a variety of ways including limiting where people can serve and making considerations for uneven global access to the vaccines.
“This is a very common-sense decision,” said Ed Stetzer, a Southern Baptist who is dean of Mission, Ministry and Leadership at Wheaton College. “Mission-sending agencies from the United States have the real opportunity to be vaccinated, and they’re going to places around the world that don’t.”
The IMB policy applies to both current and future missionaries as well as some staff members. Among the reasons it cited for the measure are health concerns and the fact that increasing numbers of countries are implementing their own vaccine requirements — some field personnel have reported needing to show proof to board airplanes and subways or enter restaurants and malls.
In a statement announcing the policy, IMB leaders acknowledged that it could be a deal-breaker for some people considering missionary work or currently serving with the organization.
The Rev. Allen Nelson IV, a pastor who leads a Southern Baptist congregation in Arkansas, said he is not against vaccines but is completely opposed to mandates for missionaries.
“This is something that must be left up to a person’s own conscience, research and discussions with a doctor, as well as their particular ministry context,” said Nelson.
The United Methodist Church, for its part, strongly encourages missionaries to get vaccinated but does not require it. That is partly because availability is not consistent around the world, according to Judy Chung, executive director of missionary services for the denomination’s Global Ministries.
“We have discussed how to promote vaccination without making a mandatory requirement,” Chung said, “because some may not have access to that yet.”
The denomination currently has about 240 full-time missionaries serving in 70 countries, and the most recently deployed cohort of about 40 has a vaccination rate around 80%.
“We want to make sure that our missionary population are safe so that they can focus on the mission work that has been assigned to them,” Chung said. “We want to make sure that we are not causing harm as we engage in mission.”
A key question for U.S.-based mission groups is whether they will fall under the Biden administration’s recently announced rule that companies with more than 100 employees must require workers be vaccinated for the coronavirus or undergo weekly testing.
If they do, Ted Esler, the president of Missio Nexus, an association that includes hundreds of missionary agencies in the U.S. and Canada, said about 30% of those agencies could be affected. He thinks they would comply with the federal mandate but said the issue is not currently stirring much discussion.
Ultimately, he noted, organizations’ internal rules may be rendered moot by vaccine entry requirements that many countries have instituted for visitors.
“Whether you have a policy or not,” Esler said, “if you’re going to serve cross-culturally in another country, you’re going to be faced with the government regulation.”
A June survey by the Public Religion Research Institute showed COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy decreasing and acceptance growing, but refusal rates holding steady. It also found significant variance of opinion between people from different faith traditions.
White evangelical Protestants had the highest vaccine refusal rate at 24% and among the lowest acceptance rates at 56%. By comparison, acceptance rates stood at 56% for Hispanic Protestants, 65% for Latter-day Saints, 66% for Black Protestants, 69% for other Protestants of color and 74% for white mainline Protestants.
The IMB has had vaccine requirements for other diseases in place since the 1980s, and it says some have chosen to skip international service because of it.
Esler, who served as a missionary in Bosnia in the 1990s with the Pioneers organization, said he had to be inoculated against diseases like diphtheria, polio, tetanus and typhoid before he could go.
Esler wasn’t eager to get a COVID-19 vaccine and is hesitant to advise others to roll up their sleeves. But he got vaccinated because he is continuing to travel.
“From my perspective, this is an issue more because of the fact that it’s COVID-related than it is vaccine-related,” Esler said.
‘Since mid-July 2020, the Corona Committee has been conducting live, multi-hour sessions to investigate why federal and state governments imposed unprecedented restrictions as part of the Coronavirus response and what the consequences have been and still are for people.’https://corona-ausschuss.de/en/
Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine have been banned for use against Covid here in Australia. Unfortunately, most of the Australian politicians are pushing the experimental vaccines to the detriment of its citizens. What a disgrace for a democracy to do this! What will Australia be like in 2022 or 2023 when so many Australians have been obedient in taking these shots? We will have to wait and see!
Our politicians are so kind to us peasants that this week-end they are allowing those who have taken both shots of the Wuhan flu shots to go to the Burrendong Dam! Are they not generous? Now, because my wife and I are of the unclean we cannot enjoy this luxury but we thank our local state member for his generosity to those who have submitted themselves to the trial vaccine jabs.
‘One of the silver linings to the Covid cloud is that we now know who “they” are. You know, the mysterious “they” who “say.” As it turns out, “they” are lawless politicians, media propagandists, ignorant experts, and deluded educators. Everything “they” have been telling us for 18 months is nonsense. We know it. They know we know it. And still they speak.
They (as personified recently by President Biden) are getting increasingly shrill, frustrated that they have not yet made everyone insane like them.
But who is crazy – them, or us? It’s hard to believe that mental illness could be as pervasive as it seems to be. We have a strong bias against recognizing mass hysteria. Here are some reality checks for those moments when it seems like you’re the last sane person on Earth.
Absurdity #1: Doing the same thing and expecting different results
An unending need for more Covid booster shots would be proof the shots don’t work. “C’mon, man! Get a shot! The shot will protect you! But not this shot, the next shot. No, I mean the one after the next one – that one will really…you know the thing….”
No, sorry. That’s cuckoo.
I got vaccinated so that fearful people would be reassured that it was safe to be around me, and do business with me. And it does give me a sense (justified or not) that I’m safer. But if two shots aren’t enough, then I’m done. More of what doesn’t work won’t work.
Absurdity #2: Believing contradictory things
“They” will say at 10:00 in the morning that everyone should get vaccinated, to protect us from The Covid. Then they’ll say at 10:02 that the vaccinated should wear masks to protect us from The Covid. Well, which is it? If the shots are effective, no vaccinated person should wear a mask. Ever. Freedom from the face diaper is your reward for getting the vaccine – and it would be proof to the skeptical that the vaccines work. It undercuts their position to say, “vaccines work, but wear a mask.”
These nutjobs may really believe the shots protect you, and simultaneously don’t protect you. Somehow. They live in their own scrambled mental universe where something can be itself and its opposite in the same way at the same time.
As President Biden really said in his speech announcing (illegal) vaccine mandates, “We are going to protect the vaccinated workers from unvaccinated coworkers.”
Huh? If your vaccination doesn’t protect you from the virus, how is giving someone else the same ineffective shot going to help you? Total lunacy.
Absurdity #3: Liars demanding to be believed
This one hardly needs elaboration. The frauds who’ve told us one falsehood after another for a year-and-a-half always insist that they are telling the truth this time; that they have only our best interests at heart, and if we don’t comply, they’ll shoot. Because, compassion.
But to give just one example, answer this question: How many Americans have died from The Covid? Now, that should be a pretty solid number. Out of respect for those who have died, not to mention the interests of science and public policy, we should know that number within a small margin of error. But the CDC number is a myth, everyone knows it’s a myth, and “they” know that we know it’s a myth. The real number is not known, and because of the shenanigans they’ve played with incentives and data, it can never be known.
It’s very cynical to lie to people about life-and-death stuff. Or more likely, psychotic. But liars will keep lying to you as long as you keep listening.
Absurdity #4: Insisting on inconsistency
“The vaccine is safe,” they tell us. Yes, as far as we know now, it is – judging by the usual standard of safety for this sort of thing. We call many drugs and treatments “safe” if only a fraction of a percentage of users get sick and die from taking them. Nothing is absolutely “safe” for everyone. We don’t expect that – that would be loony.
But if we were to apply that customary, sane, and normal standard to SARS-CoV-2, we would find that it, too, is “safe.” Few people get The Covid; those who do get it usually don’t get very sick from it; those who do get sick are not likely to die from it. Why is The Covid somehow different from every other danger that mankind has ever faced? Hint: it is not.
Then why is it treated differently?
If we were to apply our Zero Tolerance Covid Policy to other hazards, no one would ever get in a car again. And why don’t we have masking and vax mandates for children exposed to the seasonal flu, which really does kill children? The fact that they do not think about The Covid like they think about anything else is a sign that they’re not thinking straight.
If we’re going to reclaim our individual and collective sanity, we’ll have to deal just as rationally with the dangers posed by The Covid as we do the dangers posed by sugar, swimming pools, and SUVs. We’ll take reasonable precautions, and then go on with our lives.
I wonder whether, if we had kept our heads in the early days of the pandemic instead of allowing them to inflate The Covid into the ultimate bogeyman, we would be over and done with all this by now. More natural immunity, fewer variants, no excuses for carpet-bombing the economy, no endless wars against normality and sanity.
It seems that they’ve “flattened the curve” out to infinity, and the most likely explanation is that they don’t want the suffering and the disruption to end. “Never let a crisis go to waste” is the cry of a sociopath who will prolong a crisis, or create one if none turns up. And we have a lot of those folks.
‘AS THE FDA MEETING ON THE PFIZER BOOSTER CONTINUES, I’M RESENDING THIS POST FROM AUG. 9, SINCE SO MANY OF YOU HAVE SIGNED UP SINCE THEN. (If you’ve already seen it, I hope you don’t mind.)
More to come on boosters soon.
Original post:
As Covid cases, hospitalizations, and now deaths soar in Israel even though over 90 percent of older adults are fully vaccinated, the country is aggressively pushing a third shot.
Hundreds of thousands of older Israelis have already received it.
And other countries are preparing to follow.
Now the inevitable is happening. The third shot is beginning to fail.
The desperate move for a third shot is the latest and maybe most desperate manifestation of the panic around the vaccine failure that health authorities still will not openly admit is happening.
And it is profoundly anti-science.
These mRNA vaccines are not Pepto-Bismol. They have profound biological effects. They are encapsulated in fat particles whose long-term effects are unknown. They spread throughout the body (despite the early promise they would not). They hijack cellular machinery in exactly the same way an actual virus does.
They are no joke.
And – as rushed and flawed as their development was last year – at least regulators forced Pfizer and Moderna to test them in large clinical trials, with a total of more than 70,000 people.
The trials had two main goals: to make sure they didn’t have massive, immediate side effects (safety) and that they actually worked against the virus (efficacy).
In fact, the trials showed the vaccines did have a nasty short-term side effect profile – and that it worsened after the second dose. And despite their size, the trials failed to catch severe side effects for both the mRNA vaccines (which – at the least – cause heart inflammation in some young people) and the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines, which cause a rare but particularly nasty form of blood clotting.
Still, most side effects appeared to fade after a few days. The trials also showed that at peak protection after the second dose, the mRNA vaccines reduced infections by 95 percent.
Thus their almost immediate authorization.
But now we know better.
The real-world data – from Israel, the United States, and everywhere else – are clear. Protection from infection fades within months even against the original coronavirus. It shrinks essentially to zero against the Delta variant (we can argue about time vs. variant effects, but the answer doesn’t matter in this context, either way the vaccines have stopped working).
For now, vaccine advocates are clinging to the hope that even if the vaccines do not protect against infection, they still provide some protection against more serious illness and death. I think the jury is still out on that question, but again it is largely irrelevant for this conversation – the Covid wards are filling in Israel, and most people in them are older and vaccinated. If the vaccines do offer any help after a few months against serious illness, it is far less than the 95-99 percent protection that advocates have claimed.
Thus the move for a third shot. And possibly more shots to come.
But please – please! – understand how radical a move this is.
At this point, these shots are basically being pushed forward on the basis of VERY early data from VERY small trials – a few dozen volunteers, at most – showing that people had significantly more antibodies a month after receiving a third dose.
I don’t doubt these slides are accurate.
THE VACCINES MAKE YOUR CELLS PRODUCE THE SPIKE PROTEIN. YOUR BODY THEN MAKES ANTIBODIES TO THOSE PROTEINS.
That’s what they do, and they’re very good at it. More vaccine makes your body do it more.
But that’s only the beginning of what we should know before encouraging a third dose. Here’s a PARTIAL list of questions we haven’t answered:
Does a third dose of the vaccine ACTUALLY REDUCE INFECTIONS IN THOSE PEOPLE WHO RECEIVE IT?
Does it reduce deaths (remember, even the original, huge Covid trials didn’t answer that question)?
Will the third dose produce a transient spike in infections, as the first dose appears to?
Will the antibodies last longer this time because we have more of them after the second dose, or will they decline more quickly?
Does the vaccine confer ANY long-term protection through T-cell immunity?
Will people who have received a third dose be vulnerable to future variants? Will they be more or less vulnerable than people who have been infected and recovered and are are naturally immune?
Will the side effects – which are generally much worse after the second dose than the first – be still worse after the third?
Will some people die from those side effects?
What is the overall safety profile of the third or more doses in a large population?
Does it differ by age?
—
I could go on, but I hope this is enough to show you how little we know.
Offering a third dose essentially means offering an entirely new vaccine regimen. If the FDA or other regulators had any guts they would insist on a new, full-size clinical trial (a BETTER trial, one powered to detect reductions in death) before allowing it.
Instead governments are rushing ahead based on what are basically early Phase 2 clinical trials – tiny and providing evidence of efficacy based on lab benchmarks rather than clinical data.
Yet, based on the stock action in Moderna and BioNTech in the last few days, investors are VERY confident these boosters are going to be part of our lives going forward.
whatyareckon 