Feddie Sayers on the streets of Vienna
![](https://unherd.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/freddie-100x100.jpeg)
Mia and Christopher are Austrian circus performers. From their home in Vienna, accompanied by their dog, Magic, they go off to take part in theatrical shows large and small around Europe, from the Royal Albert Hall to private parties, sometimes juggling fire, sometimes trapeze, sometimes simply with stunning displays of balance and strength.
Perhaps the least interesting thing about this talented young couple is that they are unvaccinated against Covid-19. When I meet them at their house in a wooded suburb outside Vienna, I am almost embarrassed to ask about it. But they carefully explain how, for reasons of mistrust, caution and, as they see it, integrity, they have decided not to take the Covid vaccine — and how this fact is suddenly defining their whole lives.
Since Monday, unvaccinated Austrians are not allowed to leave their homes except to go to work, to buy essential supplies, or to take exercise: it’s the world’s first “lockdown for the unvaccinated”. It was introduced in response to rapidly rising cases and a lack of excess capacity in Austrian hospitals. “It is not a recommendation, but an order,” announced the Interior Minister Karl Nehammer at a press conference. “Every citizen should know that they will be checked by the police.”
It is, essentially, a ratcheting up of the regime of vaccine passports that exists already in many countries across Europe, whereby unvaccinated people are already excluded from restaurants, museums and theatres. But to place a minority of the population under partial house arrest does seem to cross a new line.
![](https://unherd.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Screenshot-2021-11-17-at-18.14.52.jpg)
The Brazilian-born Mia has already had Covid and, in the Austrian “2G” system, proof of recovery affords you the same status as if you had been vaccinated — albeit for a period of six months. So, for now at least, she is allowed out and about. Chris is stuck at home. He describes it as a “brainfuck”. Attempting to remain philosophical about it, he explains how he tries to tune out the relentless fear coming out of the TV and keep control of his own mental state. “I don’t want to be dependent on these kind of things to be happy.” But the sense of alienation and unease is palpable. What will the future look like? He is supposed to be performing in Paris before Christmas; who knows if he will get there.
![](https://unherd.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Screenshot-2021-11-17-at-18.39.33.jpg)
Back in the old town, alongside the fancy boutiques of the Kärntner Straße, it’s a very different world. Affluent shoppers are out and about in the crisp November air, and they are more than happy to share their views with us.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeSame across Europe, upper mddle class lumpen bourgeoisie, their brains broken from propaganda, getting to stick it to the working class and feel righteous about it. Not surprised by Nowak – the human rights industrial machine is a jobs programme for the very worst elements of the lumpen bourgeoisie, we really can’t expect them to remain true to principles.
The intellectual and moral hoops these people must go through to not see that coercing vaxx in this way is as bad, and I’d argue worse, than holding someone in a chair and having Nurse Ratchet stick the needle
They are no longer a proper “bourgeoisie”; they are bohemian bureaucrats – a smelly blend of Zhdanov and his victims – subsidised, employed and influenced by each other as fellow employees of the state. They also infest the “arts” and the “third sector”, now heavily funded by general taxation, of course. Were they a serious middle class they would have amassed or inherited wealth independently; they would embody the virtues of scepticism, self-discipiline, industry and thrift; they would support religion, fly the flag and uphold public decorum; they would dress well and speak clearly. Above all, they would disagree, politely, in public and on the basis of evidence, expecting everyone else to conduct debate in that same open but rigorous spirit. Our Boho-Zhdanovs wouldn’t dream of allowing such disaccord – witness their successful attempt to cancel Zemmour from his London venue. In short, they are bag of spineless decadents, best described by some monosyllable from the restricted lexicon of Angela Rayner.
Yes true, bourgeoisie is perhaps inaccurate They are strange people, they get some weird pleasure out of pretending to be speaking “truth to power” defending the rights of others, while everything they do is financed by philanthrocapital. When police in Ireland were beating the heads of working class anti lockdown protesters, these type of people were practically salivating with pleasure while cheering them on.
They are never really defending the rights of others. They are using others as a stick to beat sections of their own society with which they are in conflict.
Witness how those who never miss a trick when it comes to confecting outrage when it comes to some theoretical and abstract infringement of their own government fall silent about or even become apologists for the worst excesses of of left win totalitarian regimes, and human rights lawyers seem to be the worst offenders. of courses they could just be a bunch of opportunistic grifters who have found a lucrative niche financed by the tax payer.
Then there is the real world where the rest of us live: where facts and balance hold sway and labelling and exaggeration are seen as childish and silly..
Do you really believe that gross exaggeration and distortion helps to make your case? In truth it jyst makes you look foolish.. throw in a real, unbuased, non-distorted fact or two and you’ll see a great difference..
I think that most of these people are brain washed by the onslaught of the MSM, who publishes half truth or plain lies. They hardly interview scientists who disagree. Even if MSM reports about dissenting scientists, they will be put down and nothing published about them again (see Prof Gupta and the Great Barrington Declaration). Same goes for the whole Green Hysteria about the coming of the Global Apocalypse. The worst thing is, that the whole political class is in awe of the press and their lies.
What makes them so dangerous is that many of them possess university credentials. They believe this confers a certain superiority over them toward their fellow humans.
As I occasionally remind my students: once you believe your education makes you superior to others, then your education has failed you.
After the Brexit vote we were repeatedly told that remain voters were more intelligent than leave voters.
Actually, being younger they just had more access to University. However, even if it were true was this a suggestion that the vote of those without a degree was somehow worth less, The arrogance is staggering.
I am qualified well beyond degree level and have had 2 vaccinations and a booster. However, I do not use a smart phone (just an old one for calls & texts), and should England ever introduce vaccine passports I will not carry one and will stand proudly with the unvaccinated.
It is my choice to be jabbed as I believe the evidence is overwhelming (I worked my life in pharmaceutical research before lecturing so am not a layman in this), but it is someone else’s choice not to be, I may disagree but will support them completely.
A vaccine does not prevent you spreading the disease, but it prevents serious illness in most people. It will therefore spread freely, and largely asymptomatically, amongst the vaccinated so these passports are utterly pointless except as tools of social coercion.
What if a foreign country decides it wants to see evidence of your being dv+b (not in case you spread the virus but) so you don’t clog up their hospital ICUs and they don’t have the hassle of dealing with your corpse? Is that not a legitimate concern? Now if you were un the EU that would be different because you would have the right to travel and ger sick and die where you like..
I think you you have just demonstrated exaggeration and distortion very few people who get covid end up in ICU or die. There is overwhelming evidence for that. Also there is increasing evidence that people who are double jabbed and soon triple jabbed are filling our hospitals. Not to mention those with vaccine complications
The vaccine is a complete and total failure
I agree with your overall sentiment. However the assumption that most leave voters do not have a university degree is staggeringly arrogant…a little hypocrisy it seems?
“once you believe your education makes you superior to others, then your education has failed you”. I love that – I might borrow it on occasion if that’s ok …
If your education in say virology doesn’t make you superior in your understanding of virology then what is the point? Would you be okay being operated on by someone with a GCE in biology or would you think opting for a more qualified surgeon would be a superior choice. I’m not sure if you know the meaning of the word “superior” because your statement looks silly?
How many patients has Fauci treated in the last 40 years compared to Paul Marik? If I’m sick I am going to see Paul Marik. I’m not listening to a corrupt clown like Fauci. Experience and past performance matter more to me than a degree on a wall. How long and how many dead AIDS patients did it take for Fauci to quit advising AZT, give up on a vaccine, and start treating the disease. We are on what? 2 years of this nonsense and we have a failed vaccine, he’s getting people killed with Remdesivir poisoning and ventilators and there is no end in sight. This 80 year old man is a failure at protecting human life
Experience and past performance and….. agenda.
As this pandemic has shown in spades, many ‘experts’ have conflicts of interest in respect of funding and the like and many are muzzled by the agenda of their employers.
What she meant was being well educated in one subject area does not mean you are able to make superior decisions in another area. Clear as day to me – I can only assume you aren’t superior enough to understand.
Up here in woke Cambridge you find the woke happy to be embraced by the Chinese!!!
Being also a denizen of Cambridge, it is clear that being educated in what is supposed to be one of the top university does not make you clever enough to see you aren’t being bought. Money seems to be the universal opiate to the ‘clever’.
The notion that a 3rd level qualification might confer a superior knowledge in that field is dangerous is it? Far safer is the shouting of the ignorant and the bleeting of the stupid… mmm I’m not so sure?
That’s interesting, I noticed recently (on Twitter) 2 people commenting that anti vaxxers, seemed mostly to poorly educated – all the while touting their own various degrees. One even claimed that her & her partner had 5 degrees between them. Talk about snobbery!! I pointed out that one of the smartest young men I ever met was robbing security vans. (He was always one step ahead of the police).
That’s funny! I do though note than many of the anti-vaxxers on Twitter seem to have a poor command of the English language.
Dare I say the word ‘rape’ comes to mind. Mind coercion till you willingly submit your body to the populous choice.
You are either letting the populous thought down by not taking the vaccine or you are letting yourself down by taking it.
West with its mandates is in danger becoming a joke with its loud voice for freedom and human rights in other countries. This is pure unbearable hypocrisy.
‘Pure unbearable hypocrisy’ based on shoddy thinking.
During the recent age of neo-conservatism, the oft repeated line that explained Islamic terror attacks was “they hate our freedoms.” Looking at what they’ve become, I’m starting to hate them freedoms, too.
It’s just a vaccine. Anti-vaxxers like to suggest having a vaccine is somehow akin to losing any rights as an individual. It’s just a vaccine.
I haven’t heard any anti-vaxxers suggesting that having a vaccine is somehow akin to losing rights as an individual. It’s just a vaccine.
However it seems fairly obvious that to be placed under effective house arrest due to one’s unvaccinated status, or potentially to be forced to take the vaccine, is quite clearly tantamount to losing rights as an individual: unless you do not consider basic autonomy to be an individual right.
Sadly it is not even vaccine
You obviously have a lot of faith in this vaccine and therefore are able to dismiss it as ‘just a vaccine’ and can’t understand why people would make such a big fuss. Well, I don’t trust vaccines in general and this new mRNA vaccine in particular, and yes, our views differ and in a ‘healthy, confident culture’ as Freddie says, we should be able to coexist peacefully. But instead, I am forced to inject this substance which is still under emergency use approval (Cominarty is not yet in production)and for which we don’t really know how safe it is, then, for me, it IS a loss of my rights as an individual. It is not ‘just a vaccine’, it is a medical experiment, and I have a right not to consent.
But you aren’t forced are you.
I believe if you remove your tinfoil hat you will get a more balanced view. The issue is not black and white and certainly in no way is it a class issue. The fact that better off people are better educated and so less prone to be suckered into idiotic theories makes this issue one of education and intelligence, not class.
That old ‘tinfoil hat’ insult is so overused that it is wearying. Give it a rest. This comment is based on logic and observation.
Anyone using the tinfoil hat does not realize the tech is so far past that for it to any good – I personally use a Faraday Hat where the faraday cage is woven into the fabric so no one can see you have one – but they still cannot read your brainwaves or project improper thoughts.
gotta keep one step of our lizard masters…..
I have degrees and post grad qualifications and I am happy to be insulted with petty name calling. I take pride in not watching ANY TV news or current affairs programmes, almost all of which have commercial motives that any intelligent person would realise will impact on what they broadcast. Same is true of many academic institutes these days.
I do my own research and always rely on referenced sources, which is more than can be said for the vast majority of mainstream media. If it can’t be backed up with facts I am not interested.
And I don’t see this as an education and intelligence thing. Many, probably the majority, of the most intelligent people I have ever met were not ‘educated’, and many of the most bombastic, self-opinionated idiots I have come across were in academia and/or the high arts and/or politics. Not all, I might add, as there are always exceptions to the rule.
I will continue to wear the tin hat you refer to with pride.
That bit on Professor Manfred Nowak is astonishing. Just astonishing.
What an old fraud.
The Modern Liberal/Left are Fas *ist to the very core. Fas….m is the conjoining of industry and Government, Oligarchy and Plutocracy and Corporatism – just look at Zuckerberg, Gates, Soros, Musk, Bezos, Klaus Schwab….
The code name for, you know who, has always been the ‘Austrian Corporal’, look it up, Oxfordreference has it as the second search result, it is also the first – Those people should be ashamed of themselves as they should know better.
I refuse the vax and mask Exactly because of these people, same as Biden, Tyrants. Live Free or Die is the state motto of New Hampshire.
““When some of the anti-vaccine people said, ‘we are ready to defend our freedoms’, the basic message of the Government was, ‘Okay, let’s see what price you are ready to pay for them.’ The idea of this measure is to make people uncomfortable.””
In USA AG Garland, the head of all USA Secret Police, Intelligence, and Federal police, a million strong terrifying force, has set the FBI onto parents who protest against CRT as Domestic Terrorists.
“President Joe Biden, saying domestic terrorism was the “greatest threat” in America and white supremacists are the “most dangerous people,” pledged to focus his Justice Department on the rise of white supremacy.”
I do not know, or ever have, a White Supremacist – I do not even think they exist as any sort of organization, or in any numbers of the least significance.
Basically Biden has said the war on terror from Islam is over and the VAST security built up by the ‘Patriot Act’ in 2001 will turn to focus on Trump Supporters now. The Austrian quote above –
“‘Okay, let’s see what price you are ready to pay for them.’ The idea of this measure is to make people uncomfortable.”””
Is just like Biden, they have turned on their own law abiding and patriotic citizens. In fact the more law abiding and patriotic you are the more they are out to get you.
Left and right have been irrelevant for many years, Authoritarianism versus libertarianism is the modern battle. Sadly, authoritarian governments have just about won. I don’t foresee much hope (but will never give up trying).
I’ve wondered for a while why politics in the 21st century should be calibrated according to where Frenchmen plopped their derrières in the 18th.
Speaking of fascism – here in New Zealand we have just one “vaccine” on offer. The Pfizer Cominarty. The “legislation” our government has drawn up in response to the Covid situation includes a mandate for border workers to be jabbed. The actual brand name is written into this legislation! It beggars belief. And in any discourse on the use of vaccine in our Covid response our PM will always refer to “the Pfizer vaccine” rather than just “the vaccine”. Many of us in this country would dearly love to see what is in the contract signed with Pfizer on our behalf, but which we are unable to view.
We watch NZ in dismay….
Who is “we”? Please do not presume to speak for me.
Living in Australia, I watch NZ with delight and some envy. Within that general delight, I take on board that Trish Castle appears to make a valid criticism. Fine. No nation is perfect. Critical appraisal is required of everything. Of the best as much as the worst. So far, so good.
But to speak of “fascism” in the context of criticising a lack of vaccine choice, as Trish Castle does, is going too far. Overblown language, calculated to incite hatred and loathing. Loose, emotive language, designed to bypass reasoned, proportionate criticism.
And to jump from legitimate disapproving of a Pfizer monopoly whose grounds have not been disclosed to the public, to watching the whole country in its entirety “with dismay”, as you claim to do, is an equally problematic, careless use of language.
We were given the gift of speech to heal, not harm others. To enlighten, not hurt. Criticism used correctly enlightens, promotes understanding, corrects untruth, and hence heals.
We? I’m fairly sure Lesley didn’t include you if you live in Australia. We in the western world who believe the zero Covid strategy followed in Australasia is totally futile and that your societies seem to be gripped by mass paranoia are those watching in dismay. Our dismay is currently directed towards Austria at the moment, just hoping that few others will follow suit. If the authorities and MSM stopped publishing Covid cases and just concentrated on statistics on hospital admissions for all serious illnesses and not just Covid, then maybe your country would be back to normal with open borders. What are you going to do when the next serious flu epidemic comes along?
Good. Thankyou. Now I know who you identify with as “we”.
It is always a mistake to identify an entire people with its government. In my book, the only thing our PM Scott Morrison has got right is his handling of the pandemic! Even there, he gets a B/C, not an A, because he was, like your Boris, lazy and complacent and too slow to take action in the early days. In addition to which, he fluffed the vaccine ordering, putting all his eggs in one AstraZeneca basket instead of hedging his bets and spreading orders around, then being caught out when the safety and supply issues hit.
But he does deserve credit for the way he put aside his visceral loathing of the leftwing federal opposition and Labor state governments, created a national cabinet comprising all of them to handle policy and decision-making for the pandemic cooperatively. He quite genuinely commanded support from people across the nation of all political persuasions for this stance, and his approval ratings in the polls soared.
To understand Australia, you need to know that, underneath the overt pro-Americanism, we are still a society recently derived from European origins. An underlying, European-style solidarity persists, which is diametrically opposed to the polarised conflict and extremist individualism that characterise the USA.
For these reasons, it is a mistake to speak of Australians being gripped by “mass paranoia”. Our Covid strategy was coolly and consciously approved of and supported by the overwhelming majority of the population. We quite reasonably wanted protection, and we wanted our government to organise it. That was our free, rational choice.
The recent violent, lawless anti-vaxxer, anti-lockdown protests you may have read about represent only a tiny minority whose minds have been captured by the Trumpist satanism emanating from the US, viz. the copycat use of gallows and nooses taken straight from the racist American confederate south. This vile stuff is coming into our country on the back of extremist rightwing propaganda on the internet and degenerate pentecostal cultism. It is not homegrown and has no legitimate place in this country.
Statistics show our Covid policy has served us well to date, with lower rates of mortality and serious hospital admissions per head of population, and higher rates of vaccination, than nearly all other western countries. Overall, we have an excellent free universal healthcare service, Medicare, which rates as one of the best in the developed world. Our politicians were supported by first-class medical people throughout the pandemic.
The real test, though, is still to come, not just for us but for everyone around the world, as nations try to gradually return to normal life. This is unknown territory, and those on the front line doing their best to serve the public interest deserve to be given support
“It is always a mistake to identify an entire people with its government.” True, but you’ve just reinforced the converse in your 5th paragraph. My impression is that Australia’s handling has been similar to the UK’s times three but without the questioning and objecting voices although I could be wrong. My viewpoint is somewhat distorted since I’ve been living in relative normality in Sweden where the strategy and message coming from the authorities and government has been sensible and level headed. Even the most recent measures of starting to use vaccine passes here for theatres,concerts etc. is a soft touch since it’s a recommendation with the alternative of using distancing measures in restricting the numbers allowed in. Once a whole population has been continually subjected to irrational, confusing and partly unfounded “truths” it could be understandable to believe all steps taken are reasonable and correct. I’m just grateful that Tegnell and his colleagues have had the guts to stand up and be counted with their evidence based assertions and measures.
“It is always a mistake to identify an entire people with its government.” True, but you’ve just reinforced the converse in your 5th paragraph.
This is not logical. First, I pointed up the danger of speaking of an entire people, viz. “Australians” as seemingly being gripped by “mass paranoia”. This is on the same level as saying “all Germans are Nazis”.
In my 5th paragraph I was speaking—accurately—of “an overwhelming majority” of the population, as evidenced by multiple authoritative opinion polls over an extended period. I adduced the second to bring evidence and argument to bear, pointing up the fallacy contained in the first. Your “impression” is just plain wrong, and is not borne out by the evidence.
You are a bunch of paranoid lunatics. The real test? Lmao. Hey just walk out your door and quit being a coward. https://nypost.com/2021/09/13/f-k-joe-biden-chants-break-out-at-college-football-games/
Here¡s what¡s wrong with your response to me:
Perhaps stop and think for a moment. You seem to subscribe to the “we’re better than you approach” to handling of the pandemic. That falls into the same trashy bucket as league tables of death by country that took up such a high proportion of media front pages last year. No country will (likely) be proven to have had the perfect response; most countries have though tried their best with the data and input they have had at the time of decisions.
It is preferable to use “I” instead of “we” when sharing an opinion – it is your opinion and you are wholly entitled to it. However suggesting you speak for an entire “Western” world is perhaps overstating your importance somewhat don’t you think?
A voice of reason at last! Why some people think their point (if they even have one?) is best made with vitriolic attacks and gross distortions and even hate speech is beyond me. Why not make your point in a calm, quiet respectful manner? It is better made that way. It enhances not diminishes it’s effect unless of course you are a rabble rouser and happy to be a hero to the ignorant and stupid contributors. Perhaps that’s the explanation?
“hate speech”? don’t get carried away like the woke crowd taking offence at anything which contradicts their world view. It’s more a question of differing opinions and viewpoints.. I could just as well say that mine and Lesley’s are voices of reason at last but it might not fit into your world view. The fact is, and I know it’s not a fact but more an assertion, that Australia and even more NZ has been gripped in the panic reaction of managing a virus which has a less than 1% mortality rate in those infected, as opposed to Spanish flu or H5N1 at 20-30%. The former was a real serious pandemic and the latter a potential one if it had been more contagious. Rabble rouser, ignorant, stupid?? None of these.
Averaging the mortality rate for Covid is disingenuous.
The risks of catching and dying from the virus vary 10 000-fold depending on age (David Spiegelhalter).
Specifically from : Assessing the Age Specificity of Infection Fatality Rates for COVID-19: Systematic Review, Meta-Analysis, and Public Policy Implications December 2020)
“The estimated age specidfic IFR … increases progressively to 0.4% at age 55, 1.4% at age 65, 4.6% at age 75, and 15% at age 85.”
The aged are almost always more vulnerable to disease, that is a given and seldom do people refer to IFR in age bands as attention spans are small and a lot of stats don’t stick.
The aged are almost always more vulnerable to disease, that is a given and seldom do people refer to IFR in age bands
Er, might this practice be because Covid is very, very infectious? Therefore liable to infect masses of people? Therefore important to get maximum information out about it to as many people as possible? And because it’s a new, hitherto unknown virus, so amassing data becomes critical in formulating effective future management plans? People know what flu is. They haven’t known anything at all about Covid before it struck.
It is not logical to conclude that because IFR are given in age bands for Covid, when that has not been normal practice for other diseases, therefore something must be wrong with the covid data. That is a massive, entirely fact-free non sequitur.
There could be all sorts of reasons, entirely legitimate, for the new practice, a couple of which I explain above. That is called bringing evidence and reasoning to bear on the issue.
Oh, thankyou Elaine Giedrys-Leeper for injecting some cool facts into these exchanges.
You are overly aggressive. Your points will land with more impact if you remove the large chip from the shoulder
The fact is, and I know it’s not a fact but more an assertion, that Australia and even more NZ has been gripped in the panic reaction of managing a virus…
You do not advance your case by simply repeating your fact-free, baseless assertion.
Keeping on repeating the same thing without any attempt to address the issues raised ends up being a form of bullying: “I’m not going to discuss this with you, you are going to listen to me!”
You have not brought forward any evidence of “panic”. But others have brought forward evidence to the contrary, that there has been no panic in Australia and NZ’s responses, rather, that their responses have been based carefully in the best scientific and medical evidence available.
Thankyou for that. You may be interested to know that I have written a formal email of complaint to Unherd‘s editorial people, stating
I was unimpressed to receive a reply which said they were referring my problem with the tick-system to their IT department. But what I was raising was a problem of public ethics, not a technical IT fault! It needs to be considered at editorial policy level.
The reply then went on to remind me they have a flag system for complaints about comments. Apparently they are unaware that, unlike the Guardian and most other mainstream media, no reason is requested for flagging a comment. Thus, Unherd’s moderators judge whether action is merited entirely from within the bubble of their own preconceived views, without any attempt to listen to, and hear, an objector’s reasons for objecting.
It seems Unherd has a tin ear! I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that all they are interested in is click bait to increase their circulation and revenues.
How about you just quit being a fascist
That is pure personal abuse.
Agree on your specific point, but disagree that this is in any way “fascism”. You do not substantiate that claim. Therefore, a harmful, wrong use of language. See my fuller response to Lesley van Reenen below.
You seem to miss that you have a logical, intelligent leader who does her best for her people. Not sure why you feel somehow unable to identify with the decisions taken but perhaps it is more about you than the logic?
and the FDA has asked for 55 years to release all the documents they used to review and give full approval to Pfizer Cominarty, yet the approval process only took 108 days.
Making people uncomfortable because they do not conform dates back to the first law ever enacted. That’s how law works fgs! The vast majority support a certain way of behaving: it becomes law and everyone must obey whether it relates to road safety, paying taxes, employment or public health. It has been like that since we came down from the trees.
The alternative is lawlessness. Do what you like irrespective of the consequences to others! Utter chaos and mayhem. If you want to enjoy the benefits of living in a civilized society, including exercising your limited rights then you must pay a price for that. Too many people today are focussed on their (unlimited) rights with zero consideration for the rights of others. There are two sides: rights and obligations: benefits and a price to pay. My generation was perhaps too focussed on our social responsibilities but the pendulum has swung far too much in the other direction these days..
The 4 marks of a truly evolved human (ala M.Scot Peck) are:
Dedication to the truth.
Taking responsibility.
Deferring gratification
Balance.
All four are sadly lacking in today’s sick, sad delluded undersociety.
I suspect you are right. I would add that social media lends a disproportionately loud voice to a very very small minority on issues such as this. That leads to distortion.
Agreed. But note—
Unherd‘s tick-system suppresses minority commenter voices. This also leads to distortion. Oh, the irony! See my response to Liam O’Mahony above
But explicable if you consider that as an academic he is left wing and the nearest thing to an anti-vax faction is said to be a party of the right.
He is unconcerned about discriminatory measures taken against the unvaccinated because they’re being taken against people he hates.
Exactly… Same is true in Germany. It s pure projection of left leaning “experts”, when they rubbish anything AfD says, be it the Euro, Vaccinations or Green Policies. Everything is terrible, if this party comes up with a fairly reasonable point.
Yes, the masses are being manipulated into equating vaccine-hesitancy with far-right extremist movements. I wonder how long this can go on for. Everything is becoming far-right these days: parents concerned about their children’s education, teachers that insist on good behavior and hard work, people expressing concern about lockdowns…
If it is indeed found that the vaccine can effect the heart in teenagers and they have been forced by government to have a vaccine, will they get compensated? Although hardly an issue if they are then dead!
FYI ALL medicines have side effects. I’m sorry if that comes as a great shock to you! What makes a medicine viable is that its positive effect far outweighs its negative side effects. The most severe side effects are the most rare. If it were not the case the medication would not be authorised.
However: in the case of children (since the vast majority of studies focused on adults) I believe there is insufficient data on longterm side effects and furthermore, the limited benefits in the case of children make the use of vaccines in their case somewhat problematic.
Somewhat problematic seems an understatement there is no case from your risk/ benefits perspective in the case of children.
Please look up risk / benefit. It is used with all vaccine and medicines. Every drug you take has side effects, every drug you take has benefits and risks, even paracetamol. Risk / benefit makes assessment relative – that is very important in context of this vaccine.
Nowak is typical of the Austrian mentality which has produced probably the most heinous human being that ever lived. That individual was born in Austria in 1889 and died by his own hand just outside a bunker in Berlin in 1945.
Said individual must be having a laugh at Austria today from his place in the deepest pits of hell.
Your assertion:
“Nowak is Austrian. Hitler was Austrian. Therefore Nowak is like Hitler.”
This type of so-called argument is based in a logical fallacy.
I can just as easily prove the opposite, using the same fallacious thinking, e.g.
“Nowak is leftwing. Hitler was rightwing. Therefore Nowak cannot possibly be like Hitler.”
See?
The definition of right and left are no longer what they once were.
See?
Okay, so you raise a valid objection to my hypothetical example. You pick up on one of many ways in which it is fallacious thinking. Good.
Now go back to Peter Branagan’s comment, and apply the same critical thinking to it. Can you see why he is not entitled to conclude Nowak is like Hitler simply because both are Austrian?
To apply your own response, one could say that Austrians are no longer what they once were.
Really? Says who? You?
To make such a comparison in heinous! You people think it’s fair game to spew your hate speech with zero regard to what is right and fair and balanced! You should be ashamed and indeed you should apologise to the man you so wickedly maligned. He spoke of balance: a concept that you people find so difficult to grasp!
Tells you all you need to know about the human rights industry.
Why?
Astonishing! Two red downticks for daring to ask why!
Unherd’s commenters are really showing their true colours now!
No freedom of speech for anyone who dares to question the fact-free authoritarian diktats of those who condescend to grace us with their opinionated declamations.
How lucky we are to be told what we should think by imperious decree. God, we should be so grateful!
By downvoting what you write, people are not telling you what to think. They’re just telling you that they don’t like it.
An opinion without any basis is opinionation. This is not a good thing. Opinion for opinion’s sake. This is how the shock jocks operate: “Come on, everyone, what do you think? Doesn’t matter whether you know anything about the subject or not! Tell us your opinion!”
Anonymous people’s opinions voiced simply as a tick are worthless in a public discussion around issues raised in an article, because they add nothing to the discussion.
One doesn’t know why an uptick or downtick was awarded. So how can one respond?
How can saying “I don’t like your stuff” do anything at all for anyone, except to make the person feel good and the recipient bad?
Shouty is not a good look on a site where people actually seem to debate intelligently.
I have been consistently trolled since I joined this site. Examination of the responses to my comments—the immediate piling-on of downticks without discrimination and without accompanying comments bears this claim out. In comments, I have been subjected to ongoing personal abuse and hate speech, and I am fed up. Shouty? Perhaps. But desperation is more accurate. See my response to Liam O’Mahoney above, re my formal complaint to Unherd.
I have not found most of the debate on Unherd to be intelligent. A minority of it, perhaps. But then only when the debate takes place within the rightwing fold. The second people see a leftwing comment or one based in spirituality, the trolling piles on.
Why does Freddy not mention the fact that needs repeating (for the people who are strangers to logic) – vaccinated people can catch and spread the virus. It is this fact after all, that makes this lockdown nonsensical right out of the gates.
Listening for a repeat of the sounds of jackboots marching through the comments section….
“can”
Yes they can. But they are less likely to get it and therefore less likely to spread it.
Ooh, thumbs down for stating a fact.
I’ve cancelled it with a thumbs up :). I’m troubled about where people get their evidence from
I also dislike the thumbs down app. If you like a certain argument give it a thumps up. But thumbs down without argument is a bit silly..
I’ve posted this several times today, but here it is again.
Look 8mins15secs into this from Zoe citizen science
https://youtu.be/qcW6E4fxOvQ
After a year since getting infected, you are only 65% protected – although vaccines wane about as much in 6 months
Yes interesting.. but there are also epidemiologists ( sorry can’t post as it is in German) who think that if you have no comorbidity, you don’t need to get vaccinated as all of vaccines have certain additives which are unhealthy. Was a big debate in Germany and therefore many people are against vaccinations
I think the UK MHRA Yellow Card Vaccine Monitor programme would have picked up any side effects of additives
https://vaccinemonitor-yellowcard.mhra.gov.uk/
Alas it is not being used. The vast majority of adverse reactions are not being reported. There should be a legal requirement for all rs and nurses to report everything, in the same way as for a year anything and everything was put down as a covid case/death.
I think you may be referring to recent debates among those following the spiritual teachings of the late Dr Rudolf Steiner. His work is well known and has many followers in Germany. (I too am a researcher based in his work, and although this topic is not my own specialism, I am conversant with the general lines of discussion.)
In this connection, it is important to understand that a distinction must be drawn between back-room, cutting-edge research into effects of disease extending beyond the physical world, and debate about public health policy involving those with immediate responsibilities at the coal-face.
Students of Steiner will encounter all sorts of specialist things that remain more or less esoteric to the general populace. Notwithstanding this, because of the ferocity of some of the anti-vaxxers in the social and political spheres, the Steiner people have officially stated that they firmly support vaccination as part of public health policy formulated to combat a pandemic.
In other words, the moral/ethical arguments about protecting the health of whole populations outweigh particular positions regarding the benefits of allowing the body to let an illness run its course. Obviously, the latter applies to an individual, where the patient can be expected to recover. Overall resilience is thus enhanced. But one individual is not at all the same thing as an entire population, and an ordinary illness is not the same as a life-threatening pandemic.
The practical exigencies of public health policy should not be confused with particular findings of specialist experimental research, which may have no immediate practical application en masse.
In other words, necessary self-sacrifice of some freedoms in the cause of the common good outweighs unconstrained exercise of individual liberties. The Steiner people are about ethical individualism, not selfishness. Where one’s conduct endangers others, one is required to change one’s behaviour!
https://youtu.be/pVxGyEMmj38
This has nothing to do with Dr.R. Steiner.
Thanks for the link, but my German is “read only”, so I couldn’t follow the video. I take your word for it that this is a different source from the Steiner people.
It is perhaps relevant that Germany is much more receptive than the English-speaking world to Dr Steiner’s work, which is well known in the general population. This may link to a broader and more open-minded national discussion from a range of different sources in that country.
Thankyou for infusing some facts into this exchange.
It’s more than silly. It is unsubstantiated negative opinionation, and it has serious effects. See my comment in response to Rodney Foy above.
I’m troubled about where people get their evidence from
They don’t get evidence. They think emotion is enough.
A big Uk study was necessary to check this out. It didnt really work for me. Yes, if behaviour is the same then being vaccinated will maybe spread the disease less.But behaviour is not the same. Many of the vaccinated are treating vaccination as a get out of covid free card. In such a situation how can it be said that being vaccinated means you spread Covid less. So we are stuck in a situation where vaccinated people are spreading the disease and likely in creasing the odds of un-vaccinated people being infected.
The irony and injustice continues.
Stick to your guns Linda Hutchinson, and don’t let them bully you!
Pls, is there a link substantiating your claim, that you could kindly provide so it may be seen not to be based on wishful thinking.
“While a COVID-19 vaccine will protect you from serious illness and death, we are still learning about the extent to which it keeps you from being infected and passing the virus on to others (transmission).”
https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/coronavirus-disease-(covid-19)-vaccines
Look 8mins15secs into this from Zoe citizen science
https://youtu.be/qcW6E4fxOvQ
Secondary attack rate is lower in vaccinated individuals in a household setting (where it is known that a substantial number of infective episodes occur) even with Delta, but there are caveats. See :
“Community transmission and viral load kinetics of the SARS-CoV-2 delta (B.1.617.2) variant in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals in the UK: a prospective, longitudinal, cohort study” Anika Singanayagam Lancet October 2021
So, vaccination can modify the course of any subsequent infection. There will be many flavours of this modification (we are dealing with human beings here) – there will be some who are closer to sterilizing immunity, there will be genuine non-responders, and everything in between. MANY variables.
But it’s the ‘average’ in the population that makes the difference to transmission. ‘On average’ there will be fewer people who are infected enough to transmit (up until 3 months post vaxx). But every single person IS potentially infected. They will just have to work harder to pass it on, depending on vaccine efficacy.
You have to be careful when concluding that the average makes a difference. In data modelling, we have something called ‘the tomcat principle’. It goes like this: say you have a population of feral cats. You are tasked with reducing their population, but you aren’t allowed to kill them. So the strategy is to trap them, spay or neuter them, and then release them. In a situation like this, reducing the average fertility of male tomcats is a losing proposition. Unless you can be certain of sterilising every male tom, sterilising any is a waste of time and money because the intact toms will indeed step up and work harder to get the job done.
When modelling infectuous diseases we know that there are always people who are asymptomatic and whose bodies either take a long time to clear the disease or never do. One of the frustrating things about the whole covid pandemic is that little or no effort has been made to find out how prevelant these people are, and how significant they are to the spread.
Many thanks for this lovely example.
Yes – agree with you wholeheartedly re : asymptomatics and would add to that particular known, unknown so called “superspreaders” – an individual ? an event ? a specific individual in a particular environment ?
Let’s take an obvious example like Gibralter. 99% vaccinated, yet their cases are soaring. Ooooh. What has gone wrong? They can’t even lock down the unvaccinated. Now let’s go to Israel…. hahahaha….
Israel is doing fine because of their booster campaign
Not entirely sure about that. This is a wide ranging report, which you may dismiss as it does not come from the MSM. It discusses many aspects around the vaccines, their effectiveness, how that is affecting many countries and their populations, and supplies highlighted links.
https://freewestmedia.com/2021/11/18/gibraltar-iceland-taiwan-israel-paint-a-bleak-picture-for-the-vaxxed/
Cases begun to creep up again
Israel is doing fine evidence please
Not soaring. Infections in Gibraltar appear to have peaked at 59 the day18th of November, coming down to 37 on November 26th. One more important point – No deaths due to Covid from April! So vaccination is working well.
Sorry about that!
Evidence please how can this be known
I gave you an uptick for picking the logical fallacy in van Reenen’s thinking, namely—
Lockdowns were not devised because people can catch and spread the virus. Lockdowns were devised to limit the spread to a level at which public health systems could cope with the diseased and dying.
***
Unfortunately, Unherd‘s tick-system does not allow my downtick, registering disagreement with van Reenen’s comment, to be shown to other readers.
Nor does it allow my agreement with your accurate perception—of the problem with van Reenen’s comment—to be shown to readers.
Thus, readers may be forgiven, looking at the amalgamated tick scores, for thinking everyone unanimously agrees with van Reenen and rejects your response.
Unherd‘s tick system is not just inadequate; it is a menace. There can be little doubt that its cumulative effect is to amplify and facilitate majority views. It highlights and emphasises the pile-on, while obscuring the extent, or even existence, of minority opinion.
To that extent, the tick-system does the exact opposite of what Unherd editorially claims to do: to give a voice to the unheard. It smothers, hence inhibits, independent individualism, while tacitly encouraging the mob.
I am unable to see any difference between this distorted system and the problems with the algorithms used by Facebook, Google and other social media. The effect is to intimidate those holding minority views, place pressure on them to conform, make them feel weird, unloved and out of place. It encourages the emotion-driven, hate-filled pile-on.
When this distorted tick-system combines with a large majority of commenters who are apparently unable to distinguish between objective argument and personal abuse, who have not learnt even the basics of logical reasoning, and who love to throw themselves into what they evidently see as a fray, things become very serious. This is not rugby, however. People die from this sort of thing.
Add the final ingredient of an absurdly inadequate moderation system which itself appears to be unable to distinguish between legitimate comment and abusive hate speech, and the verdict becomes clear: Unherd is not promoting free speech and it is not facilitating democratic participation.
I don’t agree with your criticisms of other readers Penelope, as they are just as intelligent and discerning as you, they just happen to have a different view, which is not a sin.
I do however agree on the like/dislike button. To show both makes absolute sense as there could be a situation where there is just one thumbs up shown and yet this is made up of 100 likes and 99 dislikes. I do hope they can change this for the reasons you suggest.
What I want is a button for ‘this made me think’ and ‘this made me laugh’, both of which I find more interesting than ‘x more people agreed than disagreed with me’ or the reverse.
A nice thought. Would definitely improve things. Would add nuance and colour. It would encourage us to move beyond like/dislike.
I think you misunderstand me. My gripes are not about people holding different views from me. Those I welcome.
My problem is with personal abuse, which is neither logical nor discerning nor intelligent. It is invariably fact-free. If you check back to the general theme of my multiple comments on the article, you will see that they are directed to trying to target abuse and show it up for what it is. It is evident that some readers don’t know how to distinguish between abuse and discussion. That is not acceptable, and needs to be called out. Because it does harm.
This important point is repeatedly omitted.
Freddy did put that fact to one of the interviewees in the street, but she simply dismissed it, without answering it.
If 75% of the British population are double vaccinated, which they are, and at least 10m UK citizens have already had Covid, which according to official figures they have, then the virus should have all but disappeared.
The fact that it has not, and that the current daily infection numbers are as high as they are, must mean either that the vaccine (if it is right to call it a vaccine) offers little or no protection against catching Covid, or the virus is mutating in such a way and at such a rate as to render the vaccine ineffective.
Also if the virus offers little or no prospect of catching the disease why should we believe the claims that it makes the symptoms less severe. Might it just be that the virulent as all viruses do.
Alternatively, if the vaccine does reduce the severity of the systems doe it not make the vaccinated more dangerous in two ways. First, if their systems are less severe the vaccinated are more likely to be out and about spreading the disease than the unvaccinated who are more likely to be too ill to be out.
Second, if the scenario mirrors that of anti-biotic resistance, then deploying a vaccine that has little effect in terms of preventing communication of the virus, and which is possibly slightly more effective in mitigating symptoms, will turn the vaccinated into human petri dishes where the virus is put under unnatural evolutionary pressure to involve quite possibly into something truly nasty.
Finally, one think this pandemic has throw into sharp relief is the readiness, through a mixture of motives, of our politicians, the medical profession, and the MSM to lie, manufacture evidence and feed us false narratives. So how am I suppose to know what to believe, and what credibility do I give to anyone who takes a position which can only be based on what they have been told by politicians, the medical profession, and the MSM.
An argument which I have mentioned from time to time is that the vaccinated have caused way more trouble than the unvaccinated.
Given that the vaccine is non-sterilizing, this has driven a viral evolutionary response. These escape mutations typically arise when the virus is put under selective pressure by antibodies that limit but do not eliminate viral replication.
You obviously know more than I do about the science
That’s true, but it also adds to the argument that we need a lot more vaccinations
The way that the virus keeps mutating and the continuous further waves of infection does seem to validate the idea that it is the product of gain of function research targeting human beings and scenting new ways to damage them. A lab leak in China and the very hasty denials and cover ups just add fuel to speculation.
I think a leak is still a possibility that should not be discounted, at least not yet
Suddenly, the lab leak theory is less likely again:
Prof Worobey was one of the 15 or so experts who in mid-May published a column in Science demanding serious consideration of the thesis that the virus had leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan.
In this latest article, he argued that his research into the origin of the outbreak “provides strong evidence of a live-animal market origin of the pandemic”.
One earlier criticism of the market theory was that because health authorities raised the alert about cases of a suspicious disease linked to the market as early as 30 December 2019, that would have introduced a bias that led to the identification of more cases there than elsewhere, since attention had already been drawn to it.
To counter that argument, Prof Worobey analyzed cases reported by two hospitals before the alert was raised. Those cases were also largely linked to the market, and those which were not were nevertheless geographically concentrated around it.
“In this city of 11 million people, half of the early cases are linked to a place that’s the size of a soccer field,” Worobey told the New York Times.
“It becomes very difficult to explain that pattern if the outbreak didn’t start at the market.”
For a lab to be leak proof Level 4, everyone has to obey the rules. What if a member of staff taking a dead animal home to eat and walking through the market allows contamination to occur? The Chinese Government would never admit to such as slap dash leak from a Bio – Security Level 4 Lab nor would any Western official connected to it’s creation. Civil servants, especially communist ones, do not admit mistakes.
The appropriate step is for investigators to review the lab books in the Wuhan laboratory. Scientists are trained to be diligent with their note taking. Has this happened yet?
Entirely agree, but the Chinese government blocked access to them, and hence fuelled the lab-leak theory
The Chinese will not let them. Moreover, they say that important records have been lost.
Is this the Prof who initially said it was almost certainly a lab leak and then, probably due to some funding issue, did an amazing u-turn in a few days. If these people had to wear t-shirts with the names of their funders emblazoned on them, we might have a clearer idea who to listen to.
I think it’s the same Prof, although I’m not against people changing their mind if that’s the way the evidence points (but, yes, which way does the money point?)
Ethniciodo, you are 100% correct in your arguments. In fact, I’d suggest that no rational person could disagree.
I agree to an extent. There is a danger, when country is partially vaccinated, that the virus evolves immunity. Unfortunately, the anti-vaccine sentiment increases that chance
Use of antibiotics cause new strains of super bugs and that is probably the case with this drug (it isn’t a vaccine really). It defnitely isn’t the unvaxxed that are csuding new strains as that just doesn’t make sense.
Not necessarily. These are “leaky” vaccines (that is a specific term which you can search on, with Marek’s disease, for more detail, but see link below), and Gibraltar’s problems do not bear out your point. They could not possibly be a more vaccinated society, similarly Israel, and if you care to do some wide reading, the same problems are occurring in many highly vaccinated countries.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-vaccines-can-drive-pathogens-to-evolve-20180510/
Perhaps we should have reserved the “vaccines” to protect the elderly and vulnerable as was originally apparently suggested, and let everyone else developed naturally acquired immunity, which many reputable organisations and scientists are finally being allowed to say publicly, is longer lasting and more effective than these vaccines. Coronaviruses have always been resistant to suppression by vaccine, as Porton Down found when researching the common cold many decades ago.
“then the virus should have all but disappeared.” Neither vaccination or natural infection confers sterilising immunity for this virus. In fact there is only one vaccine that has ever produced sterilising immunity and that is the HPV vaccine.
“why should we believe the claims that it makes the symptoms less severe” Because there is now masses of international data to show that despite large numbers of vaccinated people carrying the virus, they are not ending up in hospital. See ONS “Coronavirus (COVID-19) latest insights” for the UK data in simple graphical format.
As for the emergence of new variants I would suggest that you read some real science from a real scientist who has done some amazing research during the pandemic – Muge Cevik
COVID-19 vaccines: Keeping pace with SARS-CoV-2 variants Muge Cevik Cell September 2021
“Vaccination, on the other hand, even when partial, is unlikely to contribute significantly to the emergence of escape variants owing to the vaccines’ ability to strongly restrict the evolutionary and antigenic escape pathways accessible to SARS-CoV-2, reducing the emergence of such variants. It has also been shown that intra-host SARS-CoV-2 genetic diversity remains limited during acute infections in healthy hosts. ….. Instead, SARS-CoV-2 evolution during chronic infections of immunocompromised individuals has been found to drive significantly more genetic diversity, including the generation of mutations commonly found in VOCs, such as E484K. This highlights the importance of vaccinating clinically vulnerable groups as a priority globally, which has the most potential to limit the emergence of new variants that may evolve some immune resistance.”
“The fact that it has not, and that the current daily infection numbers are as high as they are, must mean either that the vaccine (if it is right to call it a vaccine) offers little or no protection against catching Covid, or the virus is mutating in such a way and at such a rate as to render the vaccine ineffective”
The other possibility is that it’s because current covid vaccines wane in about 6 months. In fact, I think it’s probable.
BTE, immunity from natural infection wanes in about 12 months
Listening for a repeat of the sounds of jackboots marching through the comments section….
I think you may be hearing the echo of your own footprint.
Your first paragraph is ill-informed and illogical—see my response to Rodney Foy below.
Your second paragraph illegitimately endeavours to establish guilt by association—”people who don’t agree with me are like Hitler”, then resorts to intimidation and threats—”so don’t you dare post anything that takes a different view from mine”.
I cannot believe how shocking and terrible this is. Its like watching a chapter of history being written – one that will be remembered in utter shame for all time
The UKHSA vaccine surveillance data is clearly showing that the majority of new Covid-19 “cases” are in the vaccinated and just a brief glance at the official Yellow Card scheme for reporting Covid-19 vaccine adverse events shows nearly 1,800 deaths and 100’s of 1,000’s of serious reactions including heart attacks, strokes, paralysis, blindness, thrombosis, haemorrhage and anaphylaxis.
Freddie is clearly a very healthy young person who has more chance of being the first female triple jump world champion to set foot on Mars than die of Covid-19. Perhaps instead of asking other people why they haven’t “taken the vaccine” Freddie should be telling all of us why the hell he did!
Agree. The flu vaccine is available to older and more vulnerable people every year. It is not mandatory. Flu kills 10s of 1000s every single year, no-one bats an eyelid and lockdown has never been considered to prevent it spreading.
Yes but the flu has mysteriously disappeared, by order of the WHO
Yes. There could be other things going here though. For instance, particular strains of flu are dominant each year. I wonder if SARS-CoV-2 is just the dominant respiratory virus at this point in time – possibly due to how young it is and how little natural immunity exists, or maybe other factors I do not know. In a couple of years time, it may just be shuffled into the pack of seasonal viruses.
It’s also possible that this is an artefact of testing. We’ve never obsessively tested for other viruses like this. Ever. Hence the absurd numbers of asymptomatic infection. I wonder how many asymptomatic influenza or rhino virus infections we’d have each year if we did the same for those.
Apparently in the face of a dominant virus. That said, I had a cold this year and tested negative for Covid. I went straight for the Ivermectin and was better in 2 days – fastest time ever 🙂
Flu died down due to covid measures. It could make a big comeback, even with vaccines, due to our reduced immunity
How many people has covid killed? Officially, it’s 140,000 in the UK so far, so rather more
Apart from everyone knows that number includes tens of thousands of people who died of something else but had test positive within 28 days. Both the CDC and the Italians have said that less than 10 percent of reported deaths actually died OF covid.
How does that compare with how flu deaths are estimated?
How many people do you know whose death was recorded as “with flu”?
See ONS Influenza deaths in 2018, 2019 and 2020Deaths invloving Influenza and deaths involving and due to Influenza and Pneumonia.
Definitions : “we use the term “due to influenza and pneumonia” when referring only to deaths where that illness was recorded as the underlying cause of death. We use the term “involving influenza and pneumonia” when referring to deaths that had that illness mentioned anywhere on the death certificate, whether as an underlying cause or not.”
You have to compare an annual death rate with an annual death rate, not with a death rate combined over two years
From ONS :
Mortality rates allow comparability between different time periods and places by adjusting for population size and age structure. Age-standardised mortality rates (ASMRs) indicate the deaths per 100,000 people and are used here to calculate a relative cumulative age-standardised mortality rate (rcASMR).
rcASMRs express the percentage change in excess mortality up to a given date compared with the expected mortality rate in the same period, based on the 2015 to 2019 average. This lets us describe excess mortality and mortality displacement taking into account differences in populations.
Good graphs at the ONS site showing excess mortality and mortality displacement from January 2020 to July 2021
No, not in the UK.
More detail from David Oliver consultant in geriatrics and acute general medicien in Manchester :
Death Certificates contain causes 1a (cause directly leading to death) 1b and 1c (causes leading to 1a) and 2 (causes contributing to death but not directly related).
If Covid-19 is in our clinical assessment of the person we have assessed and treated the main cause of death, we will put it as cause 1a.
In other cases, someone might die from a complication of Covid-19 – for instance a pulmonary embolism (blood clot) or a bacterial pneumonia in which case that will be 1a with Covid as 1b or c.
In other cases, the person may have had Covid contributing to a death from another cause – perhaps by making the person weaker or more susceptible or starting a chain of events and may appear as 2.
As I explained earlier, this is based on our knowledge and belief based on our assessment of the patient we were looking after, not any kind of pressure to write Covid-19 down on any part of the certificate if we didn’t feel it was relevant, just based on a positive test.
the 28 day thing :
In the Spring (of 2020), the government had to be pushed hard to start presenting data for deaths outside hospital (bear in mind around 1 in 3 Covid deaths have been in care homes and around 1 in 6 in other non-hospital settings).
It also switched its definition to deaths only in people with a positive Covid test and within 28 days of that test, which doubtless excludes people in whom Covid-19 was an important part of their final illness (it can cause complications beyond that time).
So basically, the government’s own figures tend to underestimate not overestimate the overall numbers of Covid-19 deaths.
If you want accurate mortality stats then you should use the ONS figures and All Cause Excess Mortality
He wouldn’t have been able to go there and write this article if he hadn’t taken it.
I’ve just checked and there are now over 1.25m adverse events reported to the official Yellow Card adverse events reporting scheme. Are you suggesting Freddie seriously considered the very real risks to his good health of having a medical procedure he didn’t need simply so he can courageously report from a Christmas market in Vienna?
Freddie doesn’t even mention official adverse event reports (over 28,000 deaths in the EU from the vaccines) in his ground breaking “investigation” about an apartheid on people refusing the vaccines. You might want to think about that whilst reflecting on your vacuous response.
The majority of new cases are in the vaccinated, but David Spiegelhalter has explained why this is. Now that the vast majority of people are vaccinated it becomes inevitable. He said it is like saying that now that seatbelts are mandatory how strange it is that nearly everyone in hospital after a rta was wearing a seat belt and that proves that seatbelts don’t work. It’s clearly rubbish. Look at the proportion of infected people dying of covid before the vaccination availability compared to now. You are far more likely to get a mild dose if you have had the jab. If you look at the figures for side effects in isolation it looks bad but 90% of the vaccinated don’t even get a sore arm, and look at the over 150,000 who have died of covid. All medical procedures have risks, they need to be assessed in context.
Why then are cases still soaring in countries that carry very high vaccination…. (I must admit I am commenting on the argument above that maintains that the vaccinated don’t transmit nearly as much as the unvaccinated.)
Because lots of vaccinated people think they are now immortal and have started mixing with other people again. This virus can only transmit if you have close extended contact with someone else who is shedding.
Do you honestly think the unvaccinated are not mixing with others? The unvaccinated tend towards libertarianism and against authoritarianism. They have been freely mixing since almost the beginning of the pandemic.
You asked : “Why then are cases still soaring in countries that carry very high vaccination”
I gave you one possible explanation – more people are mixing than were before.
You didn’t specify which countries you were thinking about. One other possible explanation would be that the countries in question have only recently encountered the Delta variant.
What good evidence do you have to support your opinion that the unvaccinated tend towards libertarianism and are against authoritarianism ?
OK, but how does that mean the unvaccinated should be forced to get the vax – as it only effects themselves? The seat-belt is non-invasive wile the vax means injecting alien genetic material which causes your cells to grow bits of viruses like the movie ‘Alien’ and the monster bursting out of your insides. Seat belts carry a mere token penalty for not using it, AND not everyone uses them but still are allowed out to restaurants.
Indeed. If 100% are vaxxed, then 100% of new cases would be among the vaxxed.
That’s why one would want to look at proportions: What proportion of the vaxxed became infected versus the proportion of unvaxxed who became infected?
But, then we would want to account for self-selection in that the population of the vaxxed may tend to be different then the population of the unvaxxed. People who opted in to the vax may tend to be older or just otherwise more susceptible to infection. Or something.
The study that Pfizer — yes, Pfizer — conducted was not bad. Pfizer got hold of a pool of about 40,000 people. It randomly assigned half of everyone to get the vax. The other half got a placebo — specifically, a shot of saline solution, salt water.
Pfizer checked up on these people after six months. 21 of the vaxxed died in that time. Only 17 of the unvaxxed died. In other words, the Pfizer study provides NO BASIS for claiming that getting vaxxed was better than going unvaxxed.
The point of random assignment, of course, is to provide a legitimate basis for claiming that the two populations (vaxxed and unvaxxed) were statistically indistinguishable.
Anyway, it would be nice to dig deeper into the Pfizer data. We might find that the average age of fatality among the vaxxed was lower than that of the unvaxxed. (Basically, did the vax harm younger people disproportionately? Did it induce cardiovascular events? Or not? Or something else?)
A lot of American scientists would like to get a hold of the data that the FDA got from Pfizer which they used to grant the emergency permission to use the thing. The scientists, therefore, submitted a request for it. Not a peep from the FDA which had promised transparency on such matters. So they did the next thing and filed a lawsuit, asking the FDA to cough up the data as it was supposed to. The FDA has just asked a judge to let them release 500 pages of the data a day, which means the whole thing will be out by …. 2076. 55 years.
https://aaronsiri.substack.com/p/fda-asks-federal-judge-to-grant-it?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web
It’s getting really hard to believe that they aren’t hiding something.
Of course the majority of infections are in the vaccinated because the majority of the population has now been vaccinated !
The Yellow Card scheme is a passive reporting system. It is designed as a research hypothesis generating tool, not a diagnostic tool, and most definitely not a tool to seek causation.
Detailed analysis is used to ascertain whether a specific adverse event is occurring at a higher rate than would be expected in the general population. The rates of heart attacks etc in the general population are well known and documented.
You would expect plenty of deaths, strokes etc. to be reported in relation to this particular vaccination roll out because it has been targeted at the older portion of the population, who are more likely to die, suffer from strokes, paralysis, blindness etc. because of their age and general decrepitude.
As a journalist he meets more people and needs all sort of permits. Why is it so important for some that the other be totally identical with oneself. I thought this goes away by age 7
10 out of 10 for missing the point Dan.
Supposing Freddie is as fit and healthy as he appears then he clearly didn’t have the vaccine for his own benefit as he would get no additional benefit from it. It therefore follows that if he gets no additional immune benefit then people around him get no additional protection (whether you’re a Typhoid Mary believer or not).
Now that I’ve done the logic for Freddie I’d be interested to understand what he thinks the benefit is of “taking the vaccine”. Not because I care about whose on my side or whatever childish trot you’re insinuating, but because it shines clear light on the anti-science bigotry of the vaccine zealots. We can all dance around the pseudoscience May Pole chanting mantras about asymptomatic transmission and lockdowns but when it’s reduced down to science and causation rather than correlation, models and politics we can clearly see who is on the wrong side of history.
Spoiler alert! Austria and Germany are (yet again) on the wrong side of history.
Discrimination of any kind is always wrong whether legitimate or not. Medical treatment discrimination seems to be a new concept. Time will tell what direction this travels in.
How can a legitimate discrimination be “wrong”? If you’re saying it’s legitimate, ie being done for justified reasons, then surely the discrimination is not “wrong” but “necessary” or “acceptable”?
Please provide an example of legitimate discrimination.
Hiring somebody based upon experience or qualification. “Discrimination” seems to be only used colloquially these days (i.e. racial discrimination) and not formally, where it simply means to treat something differently based upon a particular characteristic.
Here are only the top 10 examples:
There’s a satirical book by Rob Grant called Incompetence. It’s main premise is that the EU includes competence as an illegetimate form of discrination. The jokes are a bit repetitive, but it seems to be little bit prescient. Some of your examples above are close to what’s in the book and things you may well see in the real world in the not too distant future.
That is not discrimination….
I agree. Not hiring someone because they are not capable of doing the job is not discrimination.
It is not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing. It is a question of knowledge of facts—the facts are that discrimination is a neutral term, which can then be qualified by adjectives carrying positive or negative connotations.
See my responses to Simon Richards and Lesley van Reenen above.
You are wrong. See Andrew Dalton’s first reply to Allison Barrows.
To discriminate means “to distinguish between”. It is a neutral term. Thus it can then be qualified by adjectives such as “legitimate”, “warranted”. “unfair”, etc.
Its use has been debased by people who only use it in a negative context, e.g. “discrimination against Muslims/whites/rightwingers/women”.
A good example of proper understanding of the word is the Buddhist injunction to engage in “right discrimination”.
How about ‘Equity’? The ones who did nothing in school but caused problems (me) deserve as much pay as the ones who did homework 4 hours a night. I think that fair.
‘Equity theorists’ agrees with your 10 list logic – but say the ones discriminated against need to be paid the wage they fail to qualify for anyway – because they are oppressed by being denied.
If you are trying to increase the number of women employed at a company/in a certain sector (which, for argument’s sake we’ll consider a legitimate aim), then discriminating against men as part of that recruitment process would be legitimate.
The jackboots have arrived.
Discrimination is a neutral term. It can then be qualified by adjectives having positive or negative meaning, such as “legitimate”, “unfair”, etc. it can also be qualified by neutral adjectives, so for example, we could speak of “old-fashioned discrimination”.
Several thousand years of Buddhist wisdom teach that we should try to practise “right discrimination”. This is a moral teaching about right conduct of our lives.
The Oxford dictionary defines “discriminating” as meaning “discerning”, “acute”. Thus a discriminating judgement would be one which perceived difference accurately.
To discriminate basically just means to distinguish between, to perceive difference. Thus one could ask, “Can colour-blind people discriminate between red and green?”
I would suggest the reason why governments have not supported prophylactic and early treatment as shown below
On the Treatment of Covid-19 – Swiss Policy Research (swprs.org)
and vaccines is because this would reduce fear. Why did governments not say undertake prophylactic measures along with detailed statistical analysis of those who was most likely to die as well as developing vaccines. The cost of providing Vit C and D3, Zinc and Quercetin is pence per day. Let people follow advice or not. Let adults take risks. Resources would would be targeted at most vulnerable which are those over 80 years in age, have diabetes, are overweight and have heart problems. Let people chose to take vaccines. Let governments persuade people. In 1968/69 Winter some 88K died of flu and we did not close down the UK.
The government has been bad at providing meaningful statistics which must include those who died because of delays in medication, increased mental health problems and damage to young peoples education. The lack of meaningful statistics is beginning to look like deliberate obfuscation in order to maintain fear or just incompetence.
Let us look at at the 2m rule : are we saying Covid is transmitted at a distance of 1.999m but not 2.001m? How many viruses have to hit a cell wall in the lungs before one succeeds in injecting it’s DNA? What is about peoples immune system or lack of it which make them vulnerable or invulnerable to Covid?
I would consider what is more likley is density of viruses per cubic metre x volume of air breathed into lungs or density x flow rate x time. What may be critical is rate at which viruses hit every square centimetre of inner lung surface or total number in a certain period. As breath is warm, rooms with high ceilings and high flow rate of fresh air may not be places of transmission; whereas offices and bedrooms with closed windows would be. The governments have had close to two years to quantify how Covid 19 is transmitted: where is the data? Where is the mathematics to support the 2m rule?
They say there are two theories of history, c**k up and conspiracy. Perhaps there is one; c**k up and the conspiracy to hide it.
None of this response is about Health – we know that by just the fact that natural immunity is not on level with the hugely problematic vax in almost all countries, and that Studies on Medicines other than the vax were NOT funded, and discredited wile medical treatments DO exist – but are prohibited.
The very wealthy have doubled their money in 18 months. The inflation was the PLAN of gov printing those multi Trillions as a way of Social Engineering the world to destroy the Middle Class and Workers so Gov may devide and conquer and the Totalitarian State arise in the West. The destruction of the global economy by Lockdown and Printing means Government will be the source of income supplements to almost everyone, and thus the people owned, just like Serfdom; the new Feudalism is the purpose of this all.
This is a slippery slope.
All evil starts with small steps.
Today: lock down the unvaccinated.
1930s: certain groups are not welcome here.
1600s: discrimination against certain religions.
We know what happened later in the 1930s and 1600s.
The authoritarian slippery slope is my biggest worry
‘THERE IS NO JUSTIFICATION FOR TAKING AWAY INDIVIDUALS FREEDOM IN THE GUISE OF PUBLIC SAFETY”
~ THOMAS JEFFERSON
There is no comparison between being discriminated against for being of a certain race or religion that you cannot change and being discriminated against for refusing to take a medical procedure to protect society. The latter can end their discrimination in a minute.
You can change your religion. History (and the present day) has many examples of people being persecuted in order to force them to do so. But by your logic, that’s not discrimination because all they have to do is submit, and they will no longer be discriminated against
How can this medical procedure ‘protect society’, when the vaccinated can and do spread the virus?
Because fewer people get seriously ill and end up in hospital >> hospitals can then concentrate on other work.
I believe the proportions of vaccinated/unvaccinated in hospitals for Covid are about the same as the proportions are in society as a whole.
Proportion vaccinated / unvaccinated is irrelevant. As far as the hospitals are concerned (other than that it is the unvaccinated that are sicker). It is the total numbers occupying beds that count.
January 2021 53285 cases and 3369 Covid hospitalisations
July 17 2021 54647 cases and 709 Covid hospitalisations
This is called a vaccine effect.
Exactly! Have we forgotten, ‘no Blacks, no Irish, no dogs’? And obviously what happened in 1930s Europe. What kind of mental gymnastics are people performing to deny the connections?
It seems a minority of people on here don’t mind division. The people being excluded may change, but as long as there are people willing to divide then little progress has been made.
Yeah, aren’t you glad that the west held its nerve and didn’t surrender its civilizational inheritance of scientific method, proportionality and cool prudential judgement? I mean, if we HAD done, then we’d be locking up people for not taking a vaccine which does not stop you getting the virus and does not stop you passing it on. Moreover, we’d probably be letting these people — who, presumably are as dangerous as lepers — go out into public areas to work and shop while, out of the other side of our mouths, claiming we have to lock them up to stop them infecting us. I mean, how crazy would THAT be?
The vaccine does not prevent you getting the vaccine but it cuts down your chance of being extremely ill or dying and taking a hospital bed unnecessarily while the NHS is trying to catch up on unprecedented backlogs. So you could be delaying someone’s cancer treatment by taking that bed. It has also been shown that a vaccinated person can pass the virus but are in fact much less infectious than an unvaccinated person with Covid.
It has also been shown that a vaccinated person can pass the virus but are in fact much less infectious than an unvaccinated person with Covid.
I think you need to do a bit more research here!…
See my example of Gibralter above – why are cases soaring in a 99% vaccinated country?
As for the ‘moral’ argument for protecting the NHS – this has been thoroughly shredded on this article as it has been in other articles.
The information you’re basing your opinion on is months out of date. Wake up and keep up.
“Every citizen should know that they will be checked by the police.”
If that one utterance from a public official (outside of N. Korea) doesn’t send a chill down your spine!?
One wonders when Chancellor Schallenberg, Prof. Nowak et al will get around to making the unvaccinated wear a yellow star on their clothes.
Stay tuned…
Even though I can see a certain, historically less than favourable characteristic shining through in Austria in this situation – I still think this is a grossly overstated, knee-jerk and offensive thing to say. It’s Austria, so it must all be to do with the Nazis, right?
Schallenberg is in a difficult situation, having to make tough decisions that balance many different considerations in a factual landscape that is constantly changing. That would be nigh on impossible – even if everyone was on the same page about vaccination. But at the heart of this controversy is an argument about how we best realise/regain freedom. On the one hand, we have the people (self included) who think that the vaccination is the best way overall. On the other, we have people for whom freedom means being able to choose not to have the vaccination.
That underlying disagreement about one of the central issues in our society and democracy makes our politicians’ jobs an utter nightmare. They have made stupid mistakes, but I do have sympathy aswell. Coming out swinging the Nazi argument around is so, SO wrong.
Yes and the mention of the yellow star is an insult to those who died in the Holocaust and an offense to the survivors – as one of them declared publicly when the comparison was made by anti-pass protestors in France.
Exactly, Margaret. These comparisons are routinely flung about like confetti, it’s extremely insensitive and rarely a good argument.
OK, OK. I’ll wear a BLUE star on my sleeve. Satisfied?
Odd, as numerous concentration camp survivors have come out publicly and made the same comparison. Maybe you don’t respect those people. I choose to listen to them as they have experienced tyranny first hand and know how it started.
Holocaust survivors themselves have drawn this comparison
Clearly those comments were made by people who have not watched those emotional speeches by concentration camp survivors. I would be surprised if they had, as it is impossible not to see the comparison after hearing them speak so elequently on this topic.
Providing cheap one-way rail tickets to Poland?
In Victoria the bien-pensant are the ones screaming loudest for strict measures; probably because their party is currently in power. If the Conservatives were in power they would probably be screaming about rights, etc. Politics is all about which side you barrack for.
Amen to that!
Hardly a surprise that such a policy is popular in Austria. No doubt the next step will be to require the unvaccinated to wear yellow stars so the purified majority can push them into the gutters.
Cheap shot.
But accurate.
It’s a ridiculous argument. Like Hillary said, a cheap shot.
Locking up people who committed no crime is wrong. Those enthusiastic supporters of such a “public health” measure are sleepwalking into a trap.
Good to see you back, Freddie! And in the country where I live, no less.
“Somersaults of logic have been performed to assert that the policy is more liberal than the alternatives. For one thing, they say, it stops short of an actual vaccine mandate”
The Austrians are really enjoying this and since yesterday have started to discuss whether a vaccine mandate should be instituted. I’m sure they will soon start to explain how that mandate might look.
It’s over, I have zero expectations that this is going to end well, and my wife and I are discussing where to move next (after having lived in Austria for 10 years). The problem is that this won’t be easy for our 17-year-old-daughter. On the other hand, she is prohibited from doing sports with her basketball team. She can go to McDonald’s, though, and order unhealthy shit masquerading as food. Or drink as much Red Bull as she likes. Not that she does, we we didn’t raise her with modern values, ie mindless consumerism that caused this whole thing in the first place.
Will watch the video this evening. Thanks for making it!
We seem to have completely forgotten that the vaccine was meant to be the solution for those who took it. Rather than acknowledge that the vaccine has not given people immunity or stopped transmission the focus has shifted to frame and blame the unvaccinated for continuing problems.
Many justify the current discrimination stating that the unvaccinated are more likely to have covid and spread it.
But in view of the fact that the vaccinated can also get and spread covid, even if somewhat less, one has to question what the rules of targeting only the unvaccinated are for? For if you don’t apply the same rules to the majority (vaxxed) who still have a significant ability to spread covid, then just targeting a minority does not make any event or space particularly ‘safe’, but sadly it does falsely establish 2 distinct categories of people, the vaxxed who are wrongly considered safe and are fully entitled and the unvaxxed who are considered unsafe and are not fully entitled.
The rules and media propaganda demonises the unvaccinated to imply they are the disease spreaders.
And it is discrimination to ask THEM ONLY to test and prove they are disease free, as it is to put THEM ONLY under lockdown (though I’m not advocating for mass lockdown).
And here’s the rub of the relentless propaganda we’ve been exposed to:
That you are a good person if you did what the state/’experts’ asked of you and you got yourself vaccinated, you deserve to be treated with some respect. Whereas if you did not, you may be framed as selfish, or stupid, as someone who does not deserve the ‘freedom’ others have ‘bought’ by their compliance.
The vaccine was ‘sold’ as stopping transmission, hence people who did not need it for their own protection were emotionally blackmailed into taking it on the grounds of ‘doing it for others’. We now know it does not stop infection or transmission, but it does help prevent bad outcomes once infected – great! Let anyone who is vulnerable or feels frightened take it and let it be a personal choice about ones own health and ones own body.
So are the current rules about safety or about bullying and marginalising those who have not surrendered to the new normal?.. The new forming bio-security state and it’s ever increasing control over people.
The discriminatory treatment of the unvaccinated is built on the premise that the vaccine is the scientifically proven solution and to choose anything different is definitely wrong. But a proper scientific debate has not even been allowed, there has been censorship of good scientists, forced narratives and emotional manipulation of the public.
Supporting special rules for the unvaccinated by stating ‘they are more likely to be carrying the virus’ diverts attention away from the real discrimination being enacted, as both unvaccinated and vaccinated can be carrying and spreading the virus.
Creating a 2-tier society, denying human rights, takes some pretty serious justifying!! It has not been justified.
And yet there are some commenting on here (thankfully only a few), who are advocating and trying to justify this immoral and illogical attack on rights and freedom.
Many of us have read in history how populations reacted limply to increasingly draconian power grabs from governments and how these same people pretended not to know when atrocities started to be committed. Never again.
Are we surprised?
Great investigative piece. Compare Freddie’s journalism with some of the rubbish we are subjected to on MSM news and divisive talk shows. I don’t even need to mention any names.
Covid has exposed everything. This elite do gooder class never gave a toss about people. All they want is power. Covid, immigration, climate change, LGBTQ whatever are just fronts to gain more power and make people submit to them. This Manfred Nowak is a perfect example. How much money has this fraud scammed from people over the years. People need to realise that it’s all corrupted, don’t give them a penny.
If the purpose of the measure is to protect the hospitals, shouldn’t we be prohibiting the 18 year-olds and younger from getting vaccinated, because they are more likely to end up in the hospital due to vaccine related side-effects than as a result of getting covid?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/boys-more-at-risk-from-pfizer-jab-side-effect-than-covid-suggests-study
I just wrote a blogpost on this point, using the latest UK data:
http://grahamstull.com/2021/11/17/absolute-risk-reduction-for-vaccines-in-uk/
Absolutely. This is the point that really switched me from being more or less grudgingly supportive of the vaccine rollout (I still do not take kindly to the coercive measures in place) to being extremely skeptical.
The vaccine rollout should always have been targeted. I guess you make less money that way. It’s also less conducive to authoritarian policies.
Edit: good blog, btw!
I think the vaccination of young people is a tricky decision. They may be less likely to be ill with covid, but they also spread it to older (therefore more vulnerable) people
Thanks Freddie – this reporting is much appreciated. What I don’t understand is many former liberal looking people’s nonchalance to the prospect of a new untouchable class. It bewilders me how this isn’t an issue for the many good people of the West.
When a so called right wing party gather working class support with anti immigration rhetoric they (the left, the establishment) cry populism! meaning one should not govern by numbers thus trampling on individual rights of the migrant. But when they punish the unvaccinated because they are over represented in the hospitals the same establishment has no problem in using the populist argument!
I am very pro-vaxx, I think that it is selfish not to be vaccinated if you can be (I know this will p*ss off a lot of people on this site) but this makes me very, very queasy. It is basically putting people under house arrest for exercising their rights.
Linda, I think you should realize that a comment that yours makes people more than queasy – in fact very worried for the state of the ‘free’ world.
Why?
Absolutely spot on again, thanks, Freddie! Ask the right questions, let people speak and they will reveal themselves. The audience then makes up its’ own mind. Living in France and talking to people here they refuse to think such a discriminatory policy could happen here. I sincerely hope so but nothing is taken for granted any longer.
This so-called Human Rights Lawyer is full of it…. Don‘t want to use a swear word. For HIM everything is about politics, lashing out against the FPÖ, calling the Party extremely right wing, for demanding human rights for the unvaccinated. He even admitted later in the Interview, that he doesn‘t know, if locking down part of the population will be medically successful, bringing down the Covid infection numbers. Unacceptable that the UN employs somebody like him as a human rights lawyer, but then many of its institutions are questionable, especially the Human Rights Department, where often the worst dictators are taking the chairmanship.
The question is why have governments put so much faith in an experimental gene therapy that is injected into the upper arm muscle (hopefully not a blood vessel). This is absolutely not a vaccine! The efficacy of these m-RNA shots is not great: they do not stop people catching covid-19; they do not stop them spreading the virus, they deliver some protection for no more than six months whereas natural immunity lasts much, much longer. At best, they will stop the under 70’s contracting Covid badly. The US pharma company Moderna was set up some 10 years ago to develop M-rna solutions. After 10 years they were losing investors as they could not deliver any workable solutions. Suddenly, Covid 19 was “accidentally” released by a lab in Wuhan that was doing gain of function research on ….Covid 19… at the behest of Dr Anthony Fauci, Head of the US Centre for Disease Control (ha) who had funnelled the funds through an NGO called Eco-Health Alliance. After that, the rest is history, the pharmas have made out like bandits, they are immune from prosecution regarding any adverse effects from their shots…. and Moderna is now projecting sales of some USD35b for 2022. And the Austrian government wants to lock up the people who would rather not have this experimental shot…..like something out of “Yes Minister”!
One of the things I find very interesting with this whole question of vaccines and vaccine passports is what you deprive people of or not and how certain people believe that the depravation will have the required effect without ever walking in the shoes of those who’ve already made their mind up for completely different reasons. EG Theory: people will get the vaccine so they can go to the theatre and restaurants. Fact: People who’ve decided not to get the Sars Cov2 vaccine either can’t afford these things or realise it’s no big deal giving them up anyway.
When you deprive people of the ability to earn a living however, you are going into a whole other realm. This is why I think the Italian mandate is probably much worse than the Austrian one. I was interested to read that you can test to work and that the tests are free in Austria. You can test in Italy – but every 48 hours, you have to pay another E15 and the sites where you can get the test usually have huge queues and there is no self testing available. And yet still, many people are giving up their right to work, their right to education and their right to use long distance travel, amongst other things, because of their concerns over taking the vaccine. After the first rush of people, that just couldn’t be bothered to get round to getting a vaccine, got round to it, there really is very very little more that can be done by coercion and force to make the others change their minds and yet still the fallacy persists.
Anyway, I think the most significant point your article makes, Freddie, is the unvaccinated but negative tested people serving in restaurants to the vaccinated people who have no idea what their infectious status is. I think that one scenario sums up the whole problem and turns any mandate, however well intentioned, into an absolute joke.
Lockdown for the unvaccinated. Another worrying development. Vakzine macht frei eh?
The mandating of a vaccination is beyond the pale. In the US, we in Texas are vilified and harassed when we even venture an opinion regarding the freedoms lost when we succumb to to Mandates. I’m 75, got my vac, have the card because I’m old and fat. Would I recommend it to anyone else, no, none of my business. Now, the Vac is not working, ok I’ll get a booster and a glass of Brandy. My grandkids should not be subject to a “vaccine”.. My son and his fiancé who have both have had Covid should not be subject to this draconian rule. What are we doing? Protecting ourselves or protecting the elites from scrutiny, criticism and approbation. Freedom.
This “lockdown of the unvaccinated” makes no sense (of course – we have known for some time now that not much which is done makes sense). Are they suggesting that 40% of the population which is unvaccinated have no immunity to Covid-19, despite Sars Cov 2 being a “highly infectious” respiratory virus which has “raged” for the last 20 months? At the very least there should be the opportunity to be tested for immunity; but of course they wouldn’t want to find out that there are people who simply do not need this State Injectible…..
Now they’re going to lock down everyone, at least it’s equality but insanity at the same time. I used to believe it was just Hancock and the clown who were making senseless decisions but the Austrian establishment have exceeded this, and that’s in a country which has had some of the most stringent measures during the lull: FFP2 (not quite enough even if used properly) masks mandatory and vaccine pass for hotels, restaurants, cafes, museums, etc. It didn’t seem to help, so applying logic, get rid of the masks when they open up again. I was lucky enough to have 10 days there during the lull.
The most vaccinated place on earth has canceled Christmas:
https://www.gibraltar.gov.gi/press-releases/rise-in-active-covid-19-cases-public-urged-to-be-cautious-and-reduce-mixing-8452021-7433
Probably because they only have 10 staffeed beds in their ICU
In Upper Austria and Salzburg a lockdown for everyone – both jabbed and unjabbed – has been decreed. I think the rest of the country will soon follow, and then the dominoes in Europe will start falling as well. At least, I think they will, because they have so far. One country does something crazy and the rest soon follows, cheered on by the media and the fearful. The UK was instrumental in this regard, initially.
Strangely, though, the numbers in Austria seem to indicate that the peak of symptomatic cases was reached almost a week ago, which would suggest that hospitalisations should follow soon. I will await the updated numbers, but it does seem yet again that the peak was reached just before the decision to institute NPIs (non-pharmaceutical interventions).
It does make me think that if only politicians could hold their ‘sang-froid’ for a while longer, the situation might normalize by itself and big steps towards the necessary herd immunity would be taken. Now, it will all be because of the glorious measures again, which means yet more obstructions and delays, and another prolongation of the mass psychosis.
There we go, not even 12 hours after writing the above comment, a 20-day lockdown for all of Austria has been announced, starting Monday. Austria is relishing its ‘Vorreiterrolle’, and all the COVID cult members around Europe will now clamour for their governments to be as righteous and intelligent as their Austrian counterparts.
Freddie, if you’re still here in Austria, run while back to the UK while you still can!
People on the great You tube speak a lot about Nuremberg these days. They cry Nuremberg! Nuremberg! as in some sort of exorcism . Well there was a Nuremberg for the big nazis. Then one for the camp commandants and the guards followed by one for the doctors. And it stopped there. There wasn’t a Nuremberg for the Kapos. So they – the Kappos – and their mentality are among us. The mentality of rationalizing of one pushing his neighbor into the oven for the sake of surviving yet another day.
Who dies in Covid? 90% is over 70 years old, so probably the younger generation doesn’t feel it affect them as much. It is very individual, if you have relatives and a good relationship to grand pa and grand mom you obviously care more.
If you are a young person (less, then 69) you most likely don’t treat corona as your biggest concern.
The vaccines are on emergency approval. Which means there is unknown side effects. Can we then force the young to take something that could harm them to save the older? No, it should be a free choice to make without being discriminated by the government.
Soo are the Austrians free citizens? Not the unvaccinated.
https://www.bitchute.Com/video/gigUyK3yLtMU/
(A British Undertaker experience of the Covid story)
Thanks for pointing out to people here this ridiculous vid.
Totalitarianism? From Austrians? Never!
Very good report Freddie, and very good comments. Thank you all.
Interesting and worrying. I have no time for the anti-vaxxers personally – but one does remember from history that the Austrians were even more enthusiastic for H*tler than the Germans were.
I have time for everyone and I will gladly take the time to listen to what others have to say. It is through listening to people I might not agree with that I can learn the most. Otherwise I would exist in an echo chamber that simply amplified my own bias and ignorance. Who knows, maybe the other person was right all along and I just didn’t understand things correctly. It is through not having the time for others that division creeps in and how intolerance manifests itself.
Well said !
‘I have no time for the anti-vaxxers personally.’
Ah, ‘the anti-vaxxers.’ The media has done a good job on you!
Nobody cares what you think about your time anyway
Who are ‘the anti-vaxxers’ Mark? Those who look critically at the (albeit limited) data for an experimental vaccine with largely untested technology being rolled out in the middle of an ongoing pandemic, then conduct a risk-benefit assessment based on absolute risk reduction, and ultimately conclude that it is unwise and immoral to consume resources which at best reduce ones risk of death or serious disease by less than a third of one percent?
It behoves you to have time for different points of view. It makes you a richer, more critical thinker.
I do wish people who choose not to take the covid vaccine were not referred to as anti-vaxxers. Many of them would gladly take a sterilising vaccine that rendered them well protected, with no risk of transmission. I don’t understand why anyone would accept a vaccine that only works a bit.
Mr Sayers wrote: “all for the sake of a marginal gain against a virus that is rapidly becoming endemic,” Please keep up Freddie. Covid-19 is already an Endemic disease in the UK. Data tells us this: 40 – 50,000 cases a day; only 2 – 3 % needing hospital care; only around 200 deaths per day. UK’s vaccinated population are not suffering severe Covid-19. Plus vaccination may help with Long Covid. Keeping UK’s vaccination levels high should keep Covid-19 as a Endemic Disease. Vaccination levels like Austria’s (46%) allows the virus to return to a Pandemic Disease.
History shows how this will develop. First confine them to home and when they still do not comply then send them to the gulags.
Prof Nowak hasn’t got a clue. He makes the same mistake as many other by comparing the Covid gene therapy with vaccines for Smallpox and Polio. These viruses are entirely different to respiratory viruses. Smallpox for example is not infectious in the early stages but it can be identified allowing patients to be isolated and this has been at least as important as the vaccines and why is has effectively been eliminated.
… one could imagine setting up a campaign for people who prefer to be hesitant about the vaccination issue, putting big red crosses on their doors …. would that make the rest of society think? Or is the majority too frightened and high rate to recognise the ‘message’?…
What a fraud Nowak is.
Wow, living in America, I had always looked to Europe as the more civilized and cultured part of the world. Watching this video, I am sorely disappointed. I’ve always told my liberal progressive friends that human nature never changes and that all it takes is a threat, and the grand march towards enlightened humanism is shown for what it is, just another slogan to make ourselves feel better, that life is not “nasty, brutish and short”. On the part of the general population that applauds such unnecessary draconian measures, it seems that fear of a virus, tribalism of us vs them, and general couldn’t-care-lessness is in ascendancy. On the part of the intellectuals, what can I say? Almost deliberate refusal to reflect objectively and honestly. Freddie was right to just say thank you professor Nowak and end the interview, there was no point in further conversation when obtusity was so much in evidence.
I was surprised by Freddie’s interlocutor’s lack of knowledge about basic facts regarding the Covid vaccine, like non-prevention from contagion. But this is where the political moment is to be found, for which we must return to Thomas Bernhard’s verdict that Austria’s essence is built on fascism. What happened to his and all the other intellectuals’ teaching about the continuing character of Volksgemeinschaft and the denunciation and social ostracism of those “unwilling to comply”? How difficult is it to see that the government is not a “good willed” actor here? That Manfred Nowak thinks that people who “blame everything on the government” are selfish and wrong-headed, while they are actually right – it is the government, not the unvaccinated who divide society – tells volumes. I am shocked to see and hear this, especially on this grim day when also the majority of the Swiss population has downvoted civil rights in favour of the biosecurity surveillance state.
Again, my feedback from Austria:
1) “In any case, if there were only vaccinated people in a venue, that wouldn’t necessarily make it Covid-free”.
That is a bit of a contradiction, true. But there is a possibility that a rule will be introduced which makes everyone have a test in order to get into restaurants, venues etc. That would make a bit more sense in terms of reducing infections.
2) If you’re against treating the unvaccinated differently because this offends the principles of a liberal society where everyone can choose for themselves, then fair enough. But a liberal society also demands that you accept and bear the consequences of those choices. Freddie has chosen the circus performer couple as an example of the unvaccinated. The lady has had covid, and, fortunately for her, doesn’t seem to have suffered too much. Others aren’t quite so fortunate, needing hospital treatment. And the ones needing that are overwhelmingly the unvaccinated. In Upper Austria, 84% of those in the ICU with covid are unvaccinated. The choice they have made is very clearly keeping their risk of being hospitalised and dying of covid higher. Well, fair enough then, you might say. They are mature adults and have made their decision. But that acceptance of a higher risk should have a consequence, or a price. That might mean being excluded from some areas of public life, or – should they arrive in an ICU at the same time as a vaccinated person and there is only one bed free, the vaccinated person should get it.
3) I’ve already made my feelings about Herbert Kickl and the FPÖ very clear on here. Even without the corona issue, these guys are utter incompetents, absolutely corrupt and not to be trusted. It was their former leader, Heinz-Christian Strache that was at the centre of the so-called Ibiza scandal that precipitated the downfall of the ÖVP-FPÖ coalition back in 2019.
FYI: Herbert Kickl has now tested positive for corona and is in quarantine. I do not like this guy in any way but I do wish him the best for a speedy recovery and that he doesn’t end up in the ICU like his colleague Manfred Haimbuchner did earlier this year. However, I do wonder whether the experience will change his mind in any way.
4) I can feel that Freddie is pretty surprised and appalled by the Austrian attitude and, coming from Britain I get why this is. This is, on paper, a liberal Western democracy. But it is not liberal in the British way. Even if you are free to do something on paper, it doesn’t mean that that action will be accepted. The Austrian culture involves a powerful urge to conform, to run with the herd. This is not individualistic Britain where being eccentric is a prized characteristic. People here who aren’t running in line with the accepted social mores of the day are mostly seen as a bit of a danger, needing a cordon sanitaire, needing to be whipped into shape. Bloß nicht negativ auffallen! Like Britain, Austria is a fantastically creative place, but that creativity comes from a different place than it does in Britain – not from a place of celebrated freedom to experiment and be different, but from a place of unease and exclusion – because you’re different.
This characteristic does frustrate and horrify me a lot of the time. It seems cowardly, dark. I can see what role it played in the events of the 30s/early 40s. But it does have an up side: people do generally do what they are told. Austria is an organised, orderly, clean place where things generally work well (despite the rubbish politics) – making the life quality one of the best worldwide. This is, in part, because people want to be seen to be behaving as expected and do so.
The operation of this characteristic is quite evident in this crisis – and in this instance, I’m fine with it and have no resentment. But I have been on the wrong side of it several times – one of which almost resulted in my packing my bags and leaving. So I get why others now might be upset. Especially that Brazilian-born circus artist. I bet she’s spent at least some time wondering what on earth she’s doing here.
If anyone is interested in finding out more about the strange depths of the Austrian character, read “Cutting Timber” by Thomas Bernhard. This guy was an utter genius.
If a vaxxed and unvaxxed person go into ICU at the same time it is hardly an advertisement for the efficacy of the vaccine and has evidently not resulted in less cost to the health service.
Not in the specific situation. But look at the overall numbers anywhere and the same picture emerges. Less vaccinated people end up in the ICU. 100% efficacy was never promised, but that your risk of serious illness and death would be reduced. It has done what it said on the tin. That the vaccine is not 100% effective at stopping infection, serious illness or death is no reason to entirely reject it.
And people who choose to be obese,who smoke, or participate in dangerous sports, also cost the health service more every year than those who don’t. Flu kills 10s of 1000s every year but the flu jab is not mandatory and we don’t lock down to stop it spreading. We also don’t expect people who are unlikely to die from it to get jabbed. I’ve had Covid. I had a mild case. I then got jabbed and I tell you the effects of the vaccine were far far worse than getting Covid. I really don’t want a 3rd jab.
I enthusiastically got my first 2 shots of Pfizer and see it as clear as the sky is blue that this time next year I will be one of the vilified “unboosted”
You’ll be a boost-denier or anti-booster or whatever other stupid term they’ll come up with.
I’ll be there with you, having been vaxxed but unboosted, 🙂
‘100% efficacy was never promised, but that your risk of serious illness and death would be reduced. It has done what it said on the tin.’
Sorry, but this is a rewriting of history. This vaccine was sold to us a a ‘game changer’ which would end the pandemic and allow us to get back to normal. It was not sold as something that would ‘reduce serious illness and death.’ Vaccines, by definition, innoculate against, and prevent the contraction of, diseases. This ‘vaccine’ does prevent people either contracting or spreading the virus, and it appears to wane in efficacy after six months at most.
But it is a game changer. It has massively reduced hospitalisation/death rates even as case rates remain at levels that, pre-vaccine, would almost certainly have put us back into lockdown. We are pretty much back to normal in the UK now in terms of state intervention. Sure, the media continue to churn out scare stories because that’s what they do. Sure, those of us who have Long Covid are not back to normal and don’t know when or even if that will happen. But for the UK at large, the pandemic is over and is not coming back. Be grateful.
I complely agree with you Jonathan. I wish you a good ongoing recovery.
This is not due to the vaccine. What has changed is the policy.
Other countries which has not chosen to move on politically, with similar or higher vaxx rates, are still in the grips of draconian nonsense.
And then there is the basic fact that the correlation between vaxx rates and infection / hospitalisation rates is positive. Yes positive. Across almost any range of data.
Of course there is a correlation between infection and vaccination in high vaxxed countries – the majority of the population in those countries have been vaccinated !!
The figures that you need to look at are infection positivity rate versus hospitalisations – see ONS “Coronavirus (COVID-19) latest insights” – simple graphs to look at.
As Jonathan says, it HAS been a game changer, by being able to influence the outcome for many of the vaccinated and helping us to better manage the pandemic and keep hospital numbers and deaths lower than they would otherwise be. I don’t know who you’ve been listening to or what you’ve been reading, but the vaccine was never communicated to me as a silver bullet. And it was simply clear to me quite early on after the introduction of the vaccines that we would only get back to anything approaching normal if enough people had the vaccine (and thus reduced their personal risk). That has not happened in Austria which is why we are now in the present situation. In Denmark it’s a different story. They have restrictions (which is bound to be a bit annoying) , but far less draconian.
There are other medical prescriptions and interventions that would also reduce the deaths & serious infections and yet it is ‘flat earth’ to suggest this. I’m sure the opinion will evolve & change as people are required to have booster after booster.
And what is the impact of perpetual vaccination on a healthy system; even paracetamol can cause liver failure & death, Ibuprofen causes stomach problems?
… in which case it was mis-sold, but I don’t think so. Katharine is right. If it wasn’t for the anti-vaccine sentiment, we would be much further along the road to living with it, in the West, as an endemic disease
It has been a game changer. Do you remember only a few months ago more than a thousand people a day were dying and we were locked down with elderly people languishing in care homes without visitors, etc etc.
As long as we have more frequent C19 waves than flu waves it is not a game changer
There is a lot of rewriting of history going on.
We were definitely promised that after two jabs we would be free of Covid. Now the message is “ok, that wasn’t true, but you must accept the third one because that really will do the job”.
There is no reason to believe anything they say, and in fact their only coherent policy over the past 21 months has been to lie about everything.
I think you are being a little harsh. We are battling a novel virus that keeps mutating, as viruses do. The situation is constantly shifting and evolving and so the way we have to address and deal with it also needs to change. That is being done by a process of trial and error. Until we get a miracle cure (which probably won’t happen), there is no single right answer – just trying out new stuff and seeing whether it works. And all of the proposed solutions involve hefty tradeoffs and discussions about key ethical, political, emotional and economic factors. It must be a nightmare trying to navigate all of this and decide as quickly as the virus demands. Therefore, I go a bit easy on our leaders – most of them aren’t lying. They’re constantly being asked to give 100% correct, foolproof answers – when there aren’t any of those to hand out. Because they simply don’t exist.
“We were definitely promised that after two jabs we would be free of Covid.” and where did you hear / see this ?
I haven’t see ANY reference to a Covid free future. All the discussion I saw last year and this year has been about endemicity – definitions of that term and what it will mean practically speaking in the medium / long term
Sterilising vaccines, by definition, innoculate against and prevent the contraction of diseases. Non-sterilising vaccines do not. The childhood vaccines for Measles, Chicken Pox, Mumps and so on are sterilising. But most vaccines are not — flu vaccines, in particular aren’t. They may prevent some people from catching flu, and they usually prevent even more people from getting a servere version of the disease.
But some years, the flu vaccine is a bust. It doesn’t prevent much of anything. This is believed to be because the people who on a twice-yearly basis select the strains of flu to be used in the flu vaccine picked the wrong strains, but sometimes this even happens when the strains they picked are known to be the ones that are making people sick.
Nobody knew whether the corona vaccines would be sterilising or not, though the difficulty we have had in producing sterlising vaccines for other diseases made it a long-shot, with a lot of luck involved. This did not stop the media, government and health agencies from overpromising sterlising immunity last spring.
“It was not sold as something that would ‘reduce serious illness and death.” Yes it was – what useless MSM have you been consuming ?
Vaccine definition :
“A vaccine is a biological product that can be used to safely induce an immune response that confers protection against infection and/or disease on subsequent exposure to a pathogen.
To achieve this, the vaccine must contain antigens that are either derived from the pathogen or produced synthetically to represent components of the pathogen.”
From : “A guide to vaccinology: from basic principles to new developments” Pollard Dec 2020
People reject it because over 99% of us recover from it. The question is, why are world governments pushing this thing? Surely you don’t think they’re doing it for the good of the people. When have they ever done that?
I don’t think that the “99% of us recover from it” is the killer argument you think it is. 99% might recover in the end – but how many will suffer from long covid? What is the economic cost of that? How many people will need hospital treatment, with or without having to go to the ICU before they recover (if they do)? How many people are going to need that treatment at one time? Does the place where those people needing hospital treatment are have the resources to treat them? Austria has a pretty good health system, among the best in the world I believe and it cannot cope with the load it is being asked to take right now. That is why governments are pushing the vaccine: because it helps to lessen the load that the health care system is going to be asked to withstand at any one time due to covid and goes some way to stopping the system collapsing. There are more considerations to think about than how many people will probably survive in the end.
The problem is nobody know the long term effects of the vaccines yet. They were all accepted as emergency measures. What happens to young children in 5-10 years , whose parents were persuaded to get them vaccinated. Will they battle with immune or heart diseases? We are all still guinea pigs and there are many scientists, who are worried about future long term effects . I got very reluctantly vaccinated, because I have to travel…
Nobody knows the long term effects of a lot of stuff we do, but we still do it. All of the rubbish we eat, all those preservatives and goodness knows what. The contraception we use. The cosmetics we smear ourselves in. The medical treatments currently considered to be safe. Any of that might be proven wrong and dangerous tomorrow.
yes, and we have a Choice to eat junk food or use contraception. Nobody would cast us out and tells us that we are right wing nut cases as the Austrian Human Right Lawyer basically tells us in the interview. That was a big part of Freddy‘s interview and I certainly object his views and am appalled that he works for the UN. But nothing surprises me about the UN.
“should they arrive in an ICU at the same time as a vaccinated person and there is only one bed free, the vaccinated person should get it.”
Austria is rubbing off on you..
How about someone in a car wreck wile drunk? Leave them to die in the wrecked car?
The hospitals in Chicago, Atlanta, New Orleans are full of criminals who shoot each other – I spent a couple of weeks in one of them and during that time on two occasions the person next to me was handcuffed to their bed, prisoners, one shot, one stabbed. (and although I was severely harmed with very bad injuries from a fall wile roofing, it took 30 hours till a bed came available to me, so it was not like there were spare places (I was kept on a rolling bed in the hall, and I never thought how I deserved to jump the que, it is just how it is)
But anyway – Freedom. One has the right to some Freedom, crime is rampant in some areas – how do criminals fit into your metric of who deserves what benefit, and what responsibility is owed to society by who? They not only accept personal risk like an anti vaxer – but they predate on society. The Austrian Loons quoted by Freddy would likely defend criminals as much as they could… wile they would persecute the wrong thinking, but law abiding, to their maximum ability.
“Austria is rubbing off on you..” – you are absolutely right, and the extent to which it has sometimes surprises me. But, you know, I’ve been here for 17 years (all my adult life) and I’ve been a good immigrant and taken integration seriously. I’d still call myself a liberal but there are definitely certain areas and certain situations (like this one) where I’ve become a lot more authoritarian. I do not deny it!
You bring up some really good questions which are deserving of an answer – unfortunately I don’t have the time to discuss right now. However, I am sorry to hear of your accident and experience at the hospital and hope you had a full recovery.
That was years ago – I had a great recovery due to the incredable Orthapedic surgeons ability to use steel to knit us back togther – Amazing.
I also have become changed by my moving to USA when I was a young man 40 years ago. I am now really a Redneck, and not at all like the youth from London… I have always returned to London a lot to stay with family and see the old city – and it got weirder and weirder each time back.
I know London so exceedingly well, on an instinctive level, it was so formative on me. Every thing there is so familiar, yet at the same time now, so weird, so alternate Reality. After a couple weeks I am ready to leave – and arriving back in my house, in my woods, on my water – my gardens, animals, and really – Freedom – that I very much appreciate in USA, it is like a load is lifted from me. I love UK, would die for it, but am now American really.
All my life I was a fantastic rebel, it is just part of me, authority defiant disorder. In USA I found I could do as I wished – just live wild and drifting and be one of those fringe people who do not fit into such a structured place as Europe. I would not have managed in Lockdown in Europe/UK. Here I just said F*** Lockdown and masks – I worked openly through lockdown – I refused the mask – and no one messed with me. 99% would be masked but not me – and although one felt the waves of disapproval they just left me alone – that is USA compared to UK/Europe.
Oh blimey you’d hate Austria then!
1] is more than a ‘bit of a contradiction.’ The fact that the vaccine does not prevent the virus spreading destroys the entire reasoning behind the vaccine passport system. This suggests the real motivation is elsewhere.
2] If you want to make this argument, maybe you want to consider excluding fat people, smokers, alcoholics, drug addicts and others who put their own health at risk from society. They too use the health service disproportionally as a result of their choices. Only this kind of exclusion is rigorously rejected by a decent society. What is the difference in your eyes?
Personally I am in favour of making smokers, the obese, participants in dangerous sports etc having to bear a sort of premium for their choices. I didn’t say it specifically in my post because it was already an essay but now you ask – there’s my answer.
At least you’re consistent
Let’s hope to God you are never put in any position of power.
Well how is this different to the situations we are all used to dealing with with insurance? If you are deemed to represent a higher risk (i.e. a young male driver), you will have to pay higher premiums. This is an entirely uncontroversial notion.
I see these other risks (smoking, base-jumping, mountaineering, obesity without some kind of organic cause etc. etc.) in the same way. One way of dealing with the costs that flow from these risky lifestyles/choices is to charge higher rates of social insurance or an excess of some kind.
The question about which risks should be able to be passed on to society as part of a social insurance system is one you can debate about forever, as there is so many different things to consider.
You would then, in effect, dispense with any notion of socialised medicine? Abolish the NHS?
I think – no I know – you would not have a majority of Britons behind you on that one.
I would definitely have a social insurance system – but do it differently. Honestly do not have the time to go into a detailed discussion about this, I will just say that whatever system I would establish, it would allow certain risks to be externalised and be borne by society, but would also make people bear a certain responsibility for specific, unnecessary risks they take. That would mean extra costs for those individuals. A balance between social solidarity and self-responsibility.
But, quite apart from any discussions about covid or ethics I do just think the NHS needs to be taken apart and put back together again in a different way, as it is one huge, inefficient, money-swallowing behemoth. Britons might think that it is the envy of the world, but it isn’t.
Also add a premium for narcissistic personality disorder
Kathrine, how about the ‘Willfully Poor’? The drug addicts, the ones who dropped out of school and live on minimum wage? Why should we pay for them? (I have been one of them a lot in the past)
But more to the point – What about the Criminals? They willfully Harm the innocent dreadfully. What sanctions would you place on them as you would have some depressed, hopeless, loser, obese over eater, made a pariah?
One thing I have from my very long and weird life is I have lived amongst a vast variety of peoples. A great many of them off in the weird fringes of society, and I have found it is that Freedom is the most important thing of all. I have seen really evil and dreadful oppression, and I have seen too much really – I guess I have become quite Librarian. Oppressing people into compliance – like say the vax – well where do you stop?
Re: the wilfully poor. Tricky. Very good question. They have chosen to earn less and therefore contribute less (or nothing) to the system and so it is fair to ask whether they should be able to take anything out. I’d say they’d still be entitled, but mainly because it’s impossible to distinguish them from the working poor, ie people who don’t choose to be poor and drop out but just do jobs that aren’t well paid. Your entitlement to basic healthcare shouldn’t depend on how much you earn…although the rich have the capacity to purchase extra quality and all the bells and whistles not covered by the basic offer.
I’d also agree with you that freedom is the most important thing, but the crucial question is: when does your freedom start to conflict with mine, or even hurt me? A liberal society is not about being able to do 100% what you want, 100% of the time, but bring free to the extent you don’t damage others. Which is what the vax discussion is about, on both sides. We just have a different vision of what needs to be done (or not done) to achieve freedom.
The paradox of a liberal society is that, to survive, it requires restrictions to be imposed on freedom. I mostly think about this when I think about the question of multiculturalism but it goes here too.
This is the kind of thought I occasionally entertain especially when I hear of an idiot climbing Ben Nevis in sandals and carrying a can of Coke as sustainance and expecting to be rescued, but then sense re-asserts. The main question is – what are dangerous activities? Should we charge people who drive cars which is known to be the most dangerous thing the average person does during a day? What about a person who crosses the road when there is a Pelican Crossing half a mile up the road? What about bike riders, horse riders? Sitting in front of a computer for hours on end writing comments and ruining one’s eyesight? Someone has to decide what is unacceptably dangerous – do we leave this to public opinion, professional risk-assessors, politicians?
“Sitting in front of a computer for hours on end writing comments and ruining one’s eyesight?”
Absolutely, this is a daft thing which I know is silly and yet still do it. In this case, I’m going to argue that it’s working my brain and keeping it fit, which will perhaps go towards reducing my risk of dementia and Alzheimers. Or something.
“idiot climbing Ben Nevis in sandals” I was that actual person (luckily I lived long enough to acquire some common sense – although some would disagree)
Well how would this be administered? Who would sit in judgement? What would the definition of “obese” or “smoker” be? Or “dangerous sport”? The system you’re suggesting would be a nightmare and costly to devise and administer. That’s why it’s not in place.
It reduces the spread
no it does not.
Florida/Texas/South Dakota vs New York/California/Connecticut. Sweden/Spain.
The Lockdowns have destroyed MANY times more lives and life years than letting people make their own precautions based on their common sense. Lockdown also destroyed the world economy – it is a ‘Dead Man Walking’ – just does not know it yet.
Yep. When it was just Sweden, the excuse was that it wasn’t doing as well Norway. Presumably because they shared a border with each other they should have the same outcomes. Or something.
Since Florida and Texas have binned the policies so it is possible to compare their before and after performance, they have been entirely ignored. Fauci even admitted that he had no idea why his predictions of a catastrophe in Texas not coming to pass. He was certain it would though.
A short lockdown at the start may have been beneficial in preventing a rapid overwhelming of health services. Maybe. Since they decided this was the golden hammer and continued to use this well into the summer of 2020, slowing natural immunity during a phase of the year of low health service demand and significantly stronger immune systems, it almost certainly exacerbated the situation. Alongside the force multiplier of trashing the economy by setting in motion such amazing benefits as inflation, resource shortages and energy infrastructure collapse (all things that are really helpful for a civilisation) we now stuck up the creek.
You talk as though “the consequences of your choices” were like the consequences of throwing a lighted match into petrol — completely outside the control of the petrol. That might be the case in a chemistry experiment, but not when we’re talking about human agency. It’s like saying the Soviet authorities were not responsible for sending dissidents to the Gulag and consequently bore no guilt for their actions. You’re effecively likening somebody being pushed off a bridge to someone bungee jumping. It’s a ridiculous argument.
I love most of your post, but I’m a bit troubled with this :
“should they arrive in an ICU at the same time as a vaccinated person and there is only one bed free, the vaccinated person should get it”
If it was my choice, I would give it to the one in most danger, or the one most likely to benefit
Fair enough. People performing triage are always being asked to play God and there are many different ways of deciding.
I would give the bed to the better looking one. I mean, they have a better life ahead, so more worth saving.
In Northern Italy last March they triaged simply by age because they had no time to do anything more sophisticated.
Currently in the UK, there are no governement approved guidelines as to who should get the last available critical care bed in a specific situation – a very scary position to put any doctor in.
A group of doctors in Bath and subsequently the RCPhys. have been trying to produce a set of triage guidelines that could be used in the future for extreme scenarios such as this.
Thanks Katherine for this nuanced analysis.
In Belgium, where I live, over half of hospital admissions are of fully vaccinated people. In terms of infection, the numbers are even more damning: Among older age groups, the protective effect of the vaccine appears to be close to zero.
New evidence shows the vaccinated with COVID carry the same viral load, as unvaccinated with COVID.
And as regards your hospital bed straw man: would you say the same for obesity, Katherine? Should a fat person be denied treatment ahead of a healthy skinny person with the same condition? Obesity is, after all, a more significant comorbitity than is not having been vaccinated.
Sounds a lot like the Netherlands where I used to live. Perhaps what you’re describing is a characteristic of Germanic cultures. The Netherlands is a very comfortable place to live as long as you are content to live small and do what you’re told.
A very illuminating post about the general character of Austria and Austrians.
Thank you
I don’t get this horror of vaccine passports. In UK in the past 18 months, covid has been associated with around 140,000 deaths. In the average 18 month period, barely 5,000 are killed on the roads yet I don’t hear calls for the abandonment of the driving licence. If there is a public danger, vectored by members of the public, it makes sense to mitigate the risk that those individual members of the public add to the risk.
Over 140,000 died with dandruff over the last 18 months, but it doesn’t mean white flakes on the shoulders was the cause of death. There is a massive difference between ‘of’ and ‘from’ as the recent FOIR have clearly demonstrated.
Of course. That is why I used the phrase “associated with” because we can’t know how many of those deaths were causally related to covid infection and how many were simply coincidental, nor how many additional causally-related deaths might have occurred but were not so tagged. However, I stand by my argument that driving could be as much a 28 times safer than spreading covid and yet we don’t object to a “driving passport”.
Freddy, I enjoy UnHerd and your writing but you’re wrong on this one. Austria has a low rate of vaccination so far and a rising number of people, mostly unvaccinated, in hospital with COVID. It is to address these two issues that the government has curtailed the freedom of unvaccinated people to encourage them to get vaccinated. It is a measured policy balancing their right to work etc against the pressures on ICU beds. I live in Vienna and COVID policy has generally been well explained in advance, thus encouraging support. The circus performers you interview are very naive if they honk they can continue to travel around Europe without vaccination. I guess it’s their choice: work or anti-vaccination prejudice.
But there is evidence that the vaccinated can be just as infectious as the unvaccinated, and that vaccination does not influence case numbers. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC8481107/ There are other ways than vaccination to keep people out of hospital, like early treatments. Unfortunately, many governments in the western world simply refuse to acknowledge this, and tout the “vaccine” has being the only answer. https://bird-group.org/
Just to play devils advocate. If hospitalisation due to covid costs several thousands of pounds but these costs can be largely avoided by a cheap vaccination. Are we happy that large amounts of our taxpayers money are being unnecessarily spent on an avoidable outcome?
Most people in the developed world who are in hospital are there because of preventable illnesses – obesity, diabetes, heart disease, some cancers, sports accidents, car accidents, etc I could go on but I’d bore even myself. We don’t stop people from buying too much unhealthy food, smoking, drinking alcohol, driving, playing sport etc, though if we did we would save a lot of money
I’m not convinced by your argument. The items that you’ve listed don’t have such a cheap and readily available solution or present such an acute problem.
Also the economic benefits of participating in sport: improved health, and driving: improved connectivity, far outweigh the costs incurred. For foods and drink, I don’t object to taxation been proportionate to the potential costs of treating the damage to the health of the individual consuming them; whilst supporting the right to have the freedom to partake of what we chose.
The economic benefits of not vaccinating are small, the costs of being hospitalised very large and the costs of lockdown even greater still.
Fair enough . Obesity and related conditions, heart disease, diabetes have very cheap and readily available solutions, but we choose not to implement them – ban the production and sale of heavily processed food to obese people, force people to exercise or they don’t get paid by employers or the state etc, you see simple solutions in forcing vax because you want to see them. The vax isn’t that cheap either, governments have signed multi billion dollar contracts with pharma companies and we already know that vaxed people are being hospitalised and in critical care so even with a 100 per cent vax rate people are still going to be hospitalised
Prohibition in the States didn’t work, banning things is costly in terms of regulation and policing. Hospitalisation can occur in those vaccinated but it’s around 80% less likely, which is a significant improvement. I still see vaccination as the most cost effective solution to the pandemic.
Ireland is currently the most vaccinated country in Western Europe – 93% of its people are vaxxed. It also has the highest covid rate in Western Europe. Another lockdown is likely before Christmas and hospitals are overcrowded, with both vaccinated and unvaccinated people.
How exactly is vaccination a ‘solution to the pandemic’?
I, and others, keep bringing this point up. Vaccination rates and lockdown legislation appear to have very poor correlation with actual hospitalisations and deaths.
In the UK (and I’m assuming most countries) the vaccinations have been focused on the at-risk groups such as the elderly and those with certain medical conditions.
The unvaccinated groups are mostly in the younger age groups who make up a tiny proportion of the seriously infected.
When paired against studies showing things like under 15 boys are 5 times more likely to have a severe vaccine adverse reaction than a severe case of covid, I’m left wondering what exactly are we expecting to achieve by these protocols?
We now also know that the vaccines capacity to prevent transmission attenuates fairly rapidly, to the extent that someone with natural immunity is 17 times less likely to infect someone than a 6 month earlier vaccinated individual. Ergo, you are, by an order magnitude, safer around a previously infected but unvaccinated individual than someone who has only been vaccinated. None of this makes sense.
You can fairly easily contract covid twice
No, you cannot. That is a factually incorrect statement. Catching covid twice is extremely rare
The researchers warn that the numbers are quite small, so it is hard to draw firm conclusions, but it seems that previous infection reduces the risk of reinfection by about 70 per cent
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanhl/article/PIIS2666-7568(21)00093-3/fulltext
Look 8mins15secs into this from Zoe citizen science
https://youtu.be/qcW6E4fxOvQ
After a year since getting infected, you are only 65% protected – although vaccines wane about as much in 6 months
“someone with natural immunity is 17 times less likely to infect someone than a 6 month earlier vaccinated individual.” and this information is from which study please ?
I’ve seen it argued that waning vaccine immunity is the cause. After 6 months it’s no longer very effective, hence the need for a booster. Israel is a case in point. They followed the Irish trajectory, but are ahead. Their booster program has squashed the virus for the second time
“All this was inspired by the principle – which is quite true in itself – that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.”
~ Adolf Hitler, page 134 of book: ‘Mein Kampf’
The testimonies project (vaccine injuries):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4BpEr8gztU&t=81s
In case it gets deleted: https://www.vaxtestimonies.org/en
The Testimonies Project was created to provide a platform for all those who were affected after getting the covid-19 vaccines, and to make sure their voices are heard, since they are not heard in the Israeli media.
You have to be careful about claims that something must have caused something just because one followed the other.
For example, huge numbers of people have been vaccinated. Separately, many people develope heart problems. It’s highly likely that some of these were recently vaccinated, whether the vaccine had anything to do with it or not.
In fact, it would be puzzling if there weren’t many such cases where a serious illness followed vaccination, because many would happen by chance.
The UK’s NHS has a world beating program to tease out any relationships between illnesses and medications, including vaccines. It looks at very large numbers of cases. The very rare instances of dangerous vaccine side effects, found by this and other programs around the world, have been well documented.
Meanwhile, there is a much greater chance of a covid infection causing death, or life-changing illness. I can understand there can be a reluctance for a healthy person to have a needle stuck in their arm, but it’s better to cooly look at the risks.
Vaccination is by far the least risky option
And in 3 months time?
Vaccination against covid may end up being offered each winter. It’s not going to be as soon as 3 months
Annemarie makes a very logical argument that many of us have made. Taking only one of the examples: unhealthy eating and lifestyles alone costs health systems stratospherically more then Covid. When you look at the amount of deaths annually worldwide, these by some magnitude are heart disease and cancers – these deaths totally eclipse Covid deaths.
The general lockdown argument is not going to be solved by only locking down the unvaccinated, because the vaccinated can catch and spread the diseas.
Balance and logic is called for.
OK Powell – why do your mindset then prohibit the proscribing of alternate medicines like Fluvoxamine, Ivermectin, and others serious research has shown are a medical answer to covid illness? Because the vaccines were given ‘Emergency’ permission as NO Other Medicines Existed – so if studies showed some Medicines Did work then the Vax would lose its special dispensation. Vitam D has also been, by ‘Fact Finder,’ to be no use – but just watch this REAL mainstream guy, the world’s favorite covid Youtuber, talk of Vit D, and the other drugs I mentioned in his earlier videos – AND watch his videos on Vaccine destroying healthy and young people’s lives – just check him out…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbGug3rczx4
As you want to be ‘Devil’s Advocate’, well then get informed from outside your box if you really wish to understand the issue and not just talk…
All good points, and I’ll add one more.
Why do they ignore prior infection when it appears to be overwhemingly more robust than the vaccine – doesn’t wear off nearly as quickly and is far superior at preventing infecting others?
But is maybe 10,000 times more dangerous than the vaccine (I made that number up from the top of my head, but it’s some large number)
How? Prior.
There is ZERO accepted evidence that Ivermectin can help anyone fight COVID. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/16/huge-study-supporting-ivermectin-as-covid-treatment-withdrawn-over-ethical-concerns
Obesity is easy.
For one day:
Repeat the day again tomorrow.
For every seventh day in the streak, as a reward, you get four hours to eat whatever you want.
Continue until not obese.
Right, sure. I don’t doubt you’re correct. But for me the more fundamental point is that these are individual choices. At the point where protecting access to public health comes at the expense of individual liberties, we have to question whether such a system is worthwhile.
A private health system with means tested, subsidised insurance would be responsive enough to medical need to accommodate all the fluctuations and variations associated with freedom. Some would still suffer? They suffer now – worse, in fact, because the base line standards of a market are superior to the normal standards of a command economy. It is because the western world is increasingly sclerotic with intervention and petty regulation – and I mean petty, as anyone with hands-on experience of the care sector will tell you – that popular restrictions in the face of a severe, flu-like infection have appeared necessary, for health – always the occasion of panic – is more subject to intervention and regulation than any other sector.
Exactly right
I have no idea what the numbers are, but you have to consider the different scales involved – not just of the cost of treatment, but also the number to be treated.
For instance, if 65,000,000 people need the vaccine and the cost, including dosage and administration is say £20 a head – £1.3bn. Then how does £1.3bn balance against, say, 150,000 needing hospitalisation? If treatment is less than £8,500 per person then vaccination is more expensive. By contrast if it’s 1.5m needing hospitalisation and treatment is more than £850 per person, vaccination is cheaper.
Of course, any such numbers quickly get complicated as you argue about real costs, numbers of hospitalisations, and various risk benefits and vaccine efficacy, but the point is that it’s not as simple as ‘unnecessarily spent’ – you can’t just compare individual costs per treatment and think that gives an answer.
It shouldn’t just be an argument about cost. But if it has to be then the government should present it as such. The fact we don’t consider such apartheid for fat people, who, by choice, cost their health systems a magnitude more money every single year, shows how hysterical the governments have become about Covid and how fear is being used as a weapon to get submission. This is a very dangerous path. Vaccinated people are spreading this virus around and the only people at more risk are the unvaccinated who are consciously choosing to take that risk. If there were to be a cost to that, perhaps a higher health insurance premium like for smokers, surely that would be a more consistent solution instead of the stripping of basic freedoms like leaving the house and implementing a kind of segregation? This virus still only has a death rate if less than 1% FFS.
no idea if this dosage number is correct but suggests we’re dictated commercially as much as / perhaps more than medically: –
>UK population is circa 67.2 million people.
>Govt has ordered circa 540 million “doses”.
>That would suggest 8 planned for every man, woman, and child.
https://twitter.com/MattGubba/status/1460554235796279301?s=20
Hospitalisation could also be avoided if doctors did what they do for every other illness, which is early treatment. Only in this case, drugs which may be effective, like ivermectin, are demonised, and doctors are literally prevented from promoting early treatment regimes. This is unique. Why is it happening?
It’s not as if the unvaccinated are being asked to hand over their first-born for sacrifice to assuage the Covid god.
“To law-abiding citizens the … Government brought public order, political peace, better living-conditions, and the promise, some fulfilled, to make Germany once more a great nation… Upon the people who opposed, or looked like opposing, its plans, it laid a heavy hand… The jockey who pats his horse in the paddock may lash him in a hard finish. The rulers of Germany were stern because they believed the fate of their country was at stake.”
-George Ward Price, 1937, reporting for the Daily Mail from Berlin.
Unusually for me, I have very little sympathy with the line implicitly advanced by Freddie’s piece. The latest ONS data (Nov 18th) shows that a triple vaccinated person is five times less likely to contract Covid than an unvaccinated one. Therefore triple-jabbed people are five times less likely to infect others, assuming tranmission from jabbed and unjabbed is equally likely. In fact, however, current data shows that jabbed people are somewhat less likely to transmit. Preventing unnecessary contacts from unjabbed people is a potent means of reducing R.
What is the difference in principle between preventing people from driving a motor vehicle without passing a driving test in order to protect others, and the Covid measures in Austria?
I noted that the acrobats had no credible reason for not getting jabbed.
They don’t need one, it is simply their choice. You may argue it’s a foolhardy choice but it is legitimate.
The point is whether or not the unvaccinated pose more of a risk to the vaccinated than the vaccine poses to the ‘ vaccine hesitant’ (Ridiculous term). The answer is No. Not because the vaccines are particularly harmful (although, let’s not kid ourselves that they’re tic tac’s either); but there is no risk at all to the vaccinated from the unvaccinated. If you are vaccinated you are protected.
Therefore these measures have no altruistic value whatsoever. They are simply sinister segregation and bullying from countries whose recent histories should have taught them better.
It isn’t true that “there is no risk at all to the vaccinated from the unvaccinated”. For example, graph 1 from Zoe https://covid.joinzoe.com/post/biggest-weekly-drop-in-cases-in-2021 shows that at least 22,000 vaccinated people daily are contracting Covid. Some of these will die.
A personal choice is not “legitimate” in my view if it needlessly harms others.
But they still may even if everyone were vaccinated. As the vaccine is not sterilising, it is impossible to reach the state of zero covid this way. So what then? Who do you blame then?
I’m not blaming anyone. Everyone should do everything they reasonably can do to reduce transmission of this virus. People have a right not to take the vaccine, but then they should not complain about the consequences (that they then cannot fully participate in mixing with others). There are sufficient unvaccinated people to overwhelm health care facilities if they are allowed to mix freely, and hence seriously harm everyone else who needs heath care for whatever reason.
So what you’re saying is that the unvaccinated should get vaccinated to make up for the deficiencies in the vaccine? I will never understand the logic of this argument.
Hi Peter, can you link to that data please :”triple vaccinated person is five times less likely to contract Covid” The claim I’ve seen is 60% less likely.
I am referring to the figure of 0.2 in row 15 of this spreadsheet: https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/dvc1677/fig1/datadownload.xlsx
That data records positive PCR tests, not infectious Covid. Even if the data did indicate infectious Covid, your analysis is far too simplistic. Based on this data it’s not possible to come to valid conclusions about infectivity and transmissibility.
I don’t really understand how it can against human rights to lock down a section of society who are regarded as a danger to society, when it was not deemed problematic to lock us all down a few months ago. Surely a mandatory vaccine, as the human rights professor said, where you would be able to ‘tie someone to a chair and force the vaccine into them’ would be a lot worse. The trapeze artists seemed to have very little reason for refusing the vaccine and they were not seemingly badly inconvenienced by being locked down. The problem, as the professor said, is the increasing polarisation in society.
I am almost shocked beyond words at your and others response on this thread.
Indeed, forced vaccination would be worse. I can think of a few other things that would be worse than that.
And that, perhaps, will prove to be the biggest sin Schellenberger commits – lowing the bar for what unthinking people deem acceptable in a liberal society.
I found it very problematic that lockdowns ever occurred in the first place. Suppose in the near future a new discovery leads scientists to believe that the vaccinated are more infectious than the unvaccinated, because their natural immune systems have been irrevocably damaged? Do we continue indefinitely locking down people until COVID is completely eradicated?
Pretty unlikely though
How do you know that Rodney? Many questions are being asked by top scientists regarding what long term impact these mrna gene therapies have. Moderna has never managed to get ANY of its products beyond the animal testing and Pfizer has paid multibillion dollar fines for lying about test results in the past and bribing doctors so I would be VERY surprised if there are no long term issues with such a rushed out product from such a revenue-obsessed industry. When an industry makes the tobacco companies look like choir boys you really need to be VERY careful.
I sympathise with what you say. I don’t understand how vaccination, which is about protecting health, has been associated with authoritarianism. I worry that attempts at enforcement is going to further increase the anti-vaccine sentiment
But the unvaccinated will still expect to get full medical attention from the state, including being hospitalized in an ICU, if they get seriously ill with COVID. This is yet another example of people demanding rights to individual freedoms without accepting the responsibility of playing a responsible part for the greater good in a functioning society. Why are Polio and Smallpox no longer the killer diseases they were ? Mass vaccination is for the greater good; the personal demands of selfish individuals must be subsumed in such circumstances.
It’s disingenuous to compare a sterilising vaccine to the current COVID ‘vaxxines’.
In Belgium, where I live, more than half of all hospital admissions for COVID are among the ‘vaxxinated’, despite over 80% vaxx rate.
Then there’s the fact that the correlation between vaxx rates and infection rates is positive almost everywhere.
But even if it were the case that vaxxines preferred meaning protection, would you extend this same logic to obesity? Smoking? Driving fast? At what point does access to public healthcare become a license to restrict every and all civil liberties to the narrowest ‘healthiest’ course of human life?
But those vaccinated that are admitted get far less ill and recover rather than die, at great cost, in ICU. There is no logical argument against vaccination.
What planet are you on?! You’re talking about people who’ve been admitted to hospital i.e. they can’t cope with their illness without more medical intervention. How is that any kind of proof that their vaccination has helped them to be “less ill”? You are utterly off your tits.
There is a difference between sterilizing vaccines and non sterilizing vaccines.
The argument has been well made that millions of people knowingly court disease and death as a matter of course throughout society and still receive medical treatment.
Once you start trying to allocate medical attention from the state on the basis of deservedness you are on a slippery slope. Who gets to decide who is more deserving than another? And how much would this type of assessment cost? It would be impossibly cumbersome, costly and fraught with problems. That’s why there is equal access to all, with triage based on medical need and not some assessment of deservedness.