Among the Unvaccinated
This is all very compassionate and well-meaning, but people who aren&#x27;t vaccinated against COVID aren&#x27;t all traumatized, uneducated and adhering to their political tribe.<p>Many people haven&#x27;t taken the vaccinations because they understand that they&#x27;re not very helpful for them or their community. The COVID vaccines don&#x27;t work properly and don&#x27;t last very long. They don&#x27;t stop transmission, and they&#x27;re at best mildly protective to the health of people under 50. At worst they might cause heart problems and other unexpected side-effects. In balance, they&#x27;re mostly superfluous to the health of most people.<p>In what world is it ethical for governments to force untested therapies on people while side-stepping laws that were established to prevent just that? How does it make sense to blatantly coerce people to take the shots, while thinking yourself virtuous and saying you&#x27;re &quot;just trying to help&quot;?<p>If this was a lifesaving vaccine against a horrible death and a sure-fire way to end the pandemic, it might make sense - but then would coercion and censorship be necessary?<p>Independent cost-benefit analysis reports (as crude as they must be - at least <i>someone</i> is trying to calculate it openly) find that most &quot;anti-COVID&quot; interventions of governments in the past 2 years have killed more people than they&#x27;ve saved. I have no sympathy for people who push the necessity of such interventions, who don&#x27;t understand that there&#x27;s a high probability that they <i>might</i> be wrong.<p>No epidemiologist prior to 2019 ever suggested that locking down healthy people was a good idea; and not just because that&#x27;s not a cool thing to do, but because it doesn&#x27;t work and it&#x27;s ultimately harmful. Suddenly, because China did it we all believe it&#x27;s the best thing to do?<p>In terms of understanding scientific consensus, and trying to &quot;find the truth of the matter&quot;, the first most basic and crucial rule is to NOT accept conflicts of interest. All governments &quot;encouraging&quot; the COVID vaccinations are locked into contracts with Pfizer, Moderna, etc. for the next 5-10 years. They espouse the scientific assertions of those companies and <i>outright</i> censor scientific assertions that contradict them. To trust them despite this, is sheer stupidity.<p>How many times does this need to be repeated until it gets through to people? Do we really need to repeat the atrocities of the past, over and over again? This is all a sad joke.<p>The road to hell is paved with good intentions, etc. etc.; why not actually understand the problem before trying to solve it? Has there been honest cost-benefit analysis? No one needs melancholic condescension, we need appropriate solutions that work.<p>Not coming to terms with this, and feeling sad about the poor stupid people who didn&#x27;t make the same decision you did doesn&#x27;t make you virtuous or helpful; it makes you a useful idiot. I don&#x27;t say that as an insult, it&#x27;s a socio-political phenomenon that enables all of the dumbest and most dangerous societal &quot;decisions&quot; throughout history.<p>You want to save lives and end the emergency? Start ventilating indoor areas properly, start expanding healthcare infrastructure to deal with surges, start encouraging people to have healthy lifestyles, start developing proper vaccines (if that&#x27;s even currently possible, considering the weakness of Flu vaccines), start developing therapies for helping those who become sick, stop locking down healthy people, stop restricting people&#x27;s ability to make money and live their lives.