Posted on 12/24/2021 5:33:37 AM PST by MtnClimber
The arrival of Omicron is causing COVID déjà vu in the U.S. With cases surging, many political leaders are considering lockdowns right before the holidays. In New York, the Rockettes have announced the closing of their Christmas Spectacular, and the fate of NYC’s annual New Year’s Eve ball drop in Times Square is in question.
Meanwhile, existing vaccines against COVID seem to have no effect on the spread of this variant — and even the New York Times admits it. Pfizer is already indicating that it will use the occasion to urge a “fourth dose” of the vaccine. In New York City, where 90.6% of adults are vaccinated, officials have announced that the City has broken its COVID case record two days in a row. An Atlantic article reporting on the case-rate in NYC has the simple headline, “No, like, everyone has COVID right now.”
But even though the fear-mongering is out in full force, and extremely restrictive lockdowns are going into effect in many European countries, the news is not actually all bad. The best information we have about the Omicron variant comes from South Africa, where the strain was originally identified. Doctors there have reported that, despite being extremely contagious, Omicron almost always presents with mild symptoms and that only 1.7% of reported cases have led to hospitalization. Even better, Bloomberg News reports “the number of hospitalizations in this wave is also being inflated by the fact that milder patients are being admitted because there is room to accommodate them.”
Says Waasila Jassat, a researcher with South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Disease, “We have seen a decrease in a proportion of people who need to be on oxygen. They are at very low levels.” [sic]. And that’s true in a country with a “full vaccination” rate hovering around 26%. The U.S., with a full vaccination rate closer to 62%, should see even lower hospitalization rates.
So, we know that Omicron travels very fast and seems to be the most contagious version of COVID yet, but also that symptoms tend to be milder than prior variants and Omicron is so far requiring far less hospitalization. I’d say that altogether there is reason to be optimistic — after all, almost everyone catches a cold in the winter.
And furthermore, if vaccines slowed the spread, surely we wouldn’t be seeing record case numbers in NYC with every passing day. Per the most recent (December 20) CDC guidelines: “CDC expects that anyone with Omicron infection can spread the virus to others, even if they are vaccinated or don’t have symptoms.” Lacking evidence that vaccination lowers the rate of spread of infection, and thus lacking evidence that people need to get vaccinated to protect others, you might think political leaders would reconsider their stance on vaccine mandates. Instead, they’re doubling down.
Here’s a statement from the White House that could be satire and unfortunately isn’t: “For the unvaccinated, you’re looking at a winter of severe illness and death for yourselves, your families, and the hospitals you may soon overwhelm.”
My personal instagram feed always gives me good insight into the way the mainstream Left is thinking. As COVID cases rise, my feed has once again become home to plentiful pro-vaccine propaganda and lots of hate towards the unvaccinated and the vaccine-hesitant. This is despite the fact that we know Omicron is infecting both the vaccinated and unvaccinated in record numbers.
My peers are virulent and dogmatic about COVID vaccination, even though they are in the 25-45 age range and therefore not in a high-risk group for ill-effects of COVID. The prevailing view among them is that getting the vaccine is about fulfilling our responsibility to others, and that not getting the Covid vaccine marks one as a selfish, careless — practically violent — member of society: someone who thoughtlessly spreads disease and death to the most vulnerable among us.
My belief is that the government pushes vaccine mandates because without them it’s hard to think of a good reason for a young person with no comorbidities to get vaccinated. That person’s risk from the disease is already low enough that the vaccine may not have much effect against it. And so, the narrative about protecting others persists, even though the only coherent argument in favor of vaccination – even before Omicron – was to protect yourself from the worst effects of the disease.
But even as the Omicron variant continues to undermine the necessity of getting vaccinated, there is unwavering insistence that vaccination is the key to ending the pandemic and that to remain unvaccinated is a burden on society. As an example of the most recent argument in favor of this idea, here is a post from one of my Instagram friends. It is a quote taken from a New York Times opinion piece:
I did not engage this friend in a conversation about her post (as I have with other friends in the past) but if I had, the first thing I would ask is: Since our choices might always have consequences that affect others, do we have a right to any personal choice at all? Why stop at vaccination?
If the unvaccinated are a strain on the healthcare system, then obesity is significantly more of a burden. Should the government control what people can and cannot eat, and what the portion size is? Does the government have the right to mandate exercise? If the unvaccinated stress our emergency care resources, then drug and alcohol addicts do so tenfold. Does that mean the government can — or should — force-prevent substance use?
Many of my progressive friends fail to see the contradiction between freedom and subordination that exists within their own views. The same friends who promote vaccination as a moral obligation for the “greater good” will un-ironically follow it up with a post in support of the “fat positivity” movement. These are the same friends who have grown up in the aftermath of the failed war on drugs. They have likely been smoking pot since they were in high school, and they have certainly lent their voices to the drug legalization movement.
How can they not see that those movements are dependent on a belief in individual freedom and the right to personal autonomy — even when those choices have negative consequences for other people? In their pro-vaccine zeal, they don’t see that there’s a slippery slope in saying that “your” choices – any of your choices – can become “our” choices if there’s a compelling enough reason.
Of course, seemingly unbeknownst to them, that truth was always buried inside the proposition of “healthcare for all.” Maybe COVID will help expose it. Individual choices are a liability when resources are scarce and must be shared. The people overseeing the supply of healthcare resources will have to be able to draw lines and pull plugs. Those who make what are deemed to be “bad decisions” will get the first cut.
I wonder if my friends who think “healthcare for all” simply means “make it so that I don’t have to pay” — the same ones who insist that coverage should include sex changes and abortions, among other voluntary treatments — will catch on to that before the die is cast.
If they can force vaccines, they can force abortions and euthanasia. And they will.
“ Not getting vaxxed is as dumb as trying to run wearing baggy pants
When my decision not to take an experimental medical treatment that killed 4 friends and acquaintances, is criticized by someone who is familiar with running in baggy pants, i ignore it.
“Not getting vaxxed is as dumb as trying to run wearing baggy pants,”
what a stupid thing to post.
Almost as if you didn’t even read the article.
ya wanna vax 6 year olds?
How about 20 yo athletes?
Old & Sick? Obese? etc . . . Maybe get a Kill Shot.
The rest, it’s not necessary.
People sick with Covid should be treated at separate facilities to ensure the safety of the Covid vulnerable.
Young lady, this will prevent you from becoming pregnant for about five years and becoming a burden on the taxpayers.
Common Sense was one of the first casualties of covid.
Yes, I am surprised that it has not been done already.
Getted injections of experimental gene-altering substance is as stupid as not wearing any pants.
“Since our choices might always have consequences that affect others, do we have a right to any personal choice at all? Why stop at vaccination?”
We don’t stop at vaccination. Actually there are hundreds of “personal choices” we are punished for if we act on them.
Any action perceived by the population at large to be detrimental to the well being, peace and tranquillity of “society” is made illegal.
So you’re punished for speeding, for stealing, for harming others, for being a nuisance, for using illegal drugs, etc. I’m sure you can thing of more yourself. Think of the thousands of laws in the books. Everyone of them restricts somebody’s freedom one way or another.
So yes, a society imposes many restrictions to personal choices. In a democracy they are made by the majority, in a dictatorship, by the dictator. And they are necessary for peaceful coexistence, otherwise you’d have total chaos and life would be hell. So the issue is not whether society should or can impose restrictions on your choices, rather, it’s about agreeing on what those restrictions should be.
So the question about the mandate boils down to whether the majority favors it or not.
If it does they have the power to pass a law to enforce it.
As for the minority, they can either submit to it while trying to persuade a majority to their point of view, or revolt, which means taking on the “forces of order” one way or another - not a trivial undertaking.
Often the majority lack accurate information ,and rational judgement.
True, but they still get to make the rules in a democracy.
So it comes down to a choice of governance.
Plato for example thought that the best to govern would be wise experts and philosophers.
Would you opt for that instead? And if so how would they be chosen? Would Fauci be one of them?
Or do you have another option?
What you describe is a democracy where the majority rules. We are a constitutional republic with individual liberty and lightly restricted freedom protected by a Bill of Rights that cannot be violated even by a majority opinion. I personally think that since the “vaccines” don’t protect against infection and the repeat liars say it reduces severity of illness (so who knows if they are lying about this too) then the unvaccinated pose no risk to the vaccinated that I can see. The use of force to make the unwilling take an experimental medicine is also a violation of the Nuremberg codes. This is about the globalist elite “Great Reset” which I consider myself to be Constitutionally protected against even if Joe Bidet and the FIB don’t agree.
Where in the NY Times does it say that the present vaccines have no effect on omicron?
I did not write the article so I don’t know where in the NYT it says that. I don’t waste my time reading the NYT anyway, for propaganda avoidance reasons. I think J&J stated that their “vaccine” is not effective against omicron, but I have not looked for where I read it. The other “vaccines don’t appear to last long so they are not even effective against the variants they were designed for so I can’t imagine they would be effective against a new variant. Just my dos centavos.
So the article you posted possibly misquotes the Times.
Nowhere does it say anywhere (except in posts such as yours) that the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are not effective against the disease they were designed for.
They appear to lose some of their effectiveness after a few months and require boosters, and depending on circumstances of many different kinds, there can be cases that occur despite the vaccine.
It’s important in such serious matters to report the facts faithfully and accurately, even if they seem less exciting than exaggerations and falsehoods.
Lives are still at stake here, even with the relatively mild symptoms of most cases of omicron.
How much did your nose grow when you typed that?
So much for rational discourse.
I have given up on debating the Branch COVIDians who seem to worship Faucci and his magic shots and boosters. The Nuremberg code deals with forcing or deceiving populations to take experiental medicines against their will. I hope there is enough rope.
We weren’t discussing mandates.
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