Monkeywrenching

So either there is an actual virus sweeping the planet and killing millions of people – (as has happened before) and public health officials are trying to get everyone protected by vaccinating them as quickly as possible, and trying to stop people spreading disinformation that will lead to many unnecessary deaths

or

a global cabal of public health experts and doctors who have spent their lives learning how to prevent and treat disease are actually lying about how dangerous the virus is and/or about how best to treat it, and are conspiring to inject everyone with a killer substance, hiding the evidence, getting scientific journals to publish fabricated studies and suppressing more effective underground treatments because they want to… um… kill all the people? Sell masks?

One of these sounds more likely than the other.

But perhaps there is a third option.

There clearly is a Covid pandemic happening and it is scaring the kak out of medical people. In desperation to get a vaccination out, things were rushed. There were confused messages. That has left legitimate questions in some people’s minds, but in the concern to get people protected, tolerance for those questions has been low. All in all an unhelpful dynamic.

Many people are legitimately suspicious of pharmaceutical companies. Pfizer etc are in it to make money after all. They have the resources and expertise to develop the treatments, but they need to be kept in check by government regulators and good oversight. This is a constant tension. That’s why we need independent (peer reviewed) research, not company marketing.

Like all things, the vaccination carries risks. But it is clear from the independent research that the vaccination is a LOT safer than the virus, for most people. Websites that allow people to self-report side-effects can imply otherwise but not everyone who reports is telling the truth, and not all symptoms are caused by the vaccine. It’s best to rely on robust reports that test and investigate the data – which means Ministry figures. Unless you think that the entire medical profession (doctors, nurses, public health experts) are conspiring to hide vaccine deaths for some reason, which makes no sense to me.

At the same time, the relative risks for children and young people are not as clear. More solid information would be helpful.

But all in all the vaccine seems like the best response we have. Some people are touting unproven remedies, but what evidence there is seems to come from places desperate to try anything because they can’t get enough vaccine. I don’t see that they are better, more like an inferior alternative.

But I do agree with people who say that we should have more health promoting information from the Governmentl. Again, it’s not an alternative to the vaccine, but always good advice. We have to overstand health and well-being in its holistic fullness.

Then there is the politics. Some government’s have used this pandemic as an opportunity to cover up their incompetence and make a grab for power. In Aotearoa a few people have tried to drum up a following by playing this up, but as far as this country goes, it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. People have claimed that the Government has passed laws to make vaccination compulsory, or to force people to participate in medical experiments, or remove the Bill of Rights. I read the act. They haven’t.

Was the virus made in a lab? I’m not sure it matters. If you weren’t already horrified at micro-biological weapons research, what’s the difference? In any case, humanity has been due for a pandemic for a long time. We are out of balance with the rest of life and we either get IN balance, in a hurry, or we pay the price. This pandemic, or the next one, or food insecurity, or something else entirely will soon end this short lived civilisation if we do not radically transform it.

Perhaps what worries me most about this vaccination debate is all the confusion and disinformation. The ones who benefit from the babble are the people behind a REAL conspiracy – one well documented and well-known. The conspiracy to defend and protect a dysfunctional global economic system based on inequality and exploitation, that is destroying the web of life on which human existence depends.

Challenging THAT is much harder work than refusing a vaccine. It means we have to do more than share posts on Facebook or Twitter. It means we have to change ourselves and how we live, and it means we have to change the system that we are all so dependent on.

We urgently need to restore balance and harmony. That’s what we are here for, I&I, in this time.

Give thanks for Life!