Any wonder why this pandemic never ends?
By Rich Glennie on December 29, 2021.
I give up. At this point, nothing said now will ever change anyone’s mind. So let’s move on and accept the consequences.
I’m talking about the COVID-19 pandemic that still has many Americans believing it is either a hoax or over-hyped melodrama nearly two years in the making. Not sure if it will take a million American deaths to finally get the attention of anti-vaccinators, but we’re fast approaching that milestone. That’s enough to populate a major American city. Wiped out. Gone.
Apparently that’s not going to make any difference to many.
If a neighbour, dear friend or close relative gets sick, is hospitalized or dies of COVID-19, would that change minds? Probably not.
This pandemic is destined to end like the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. It will simply run out of hosts and disappear, leaving millions of dead worldwide in its wake.
The difference is we now know what we’re dealing with and many still don’t believe vaccinations work. Over one hundred years ago, they had no clue what a virus was let alone how to treat it.
In reality, today’s vaccine hesitancy has little to do with the science and the vaccines’ effectiveness any more. The science is there. The effectiveness is unquestioned if statistics mean anything.
The dilemma we’re facing is political. We simply don’t want to be told by “Big Brother” what we have to do. That’s our call, not the government’s, anti-vaxxers claim.
That would be fine if the information we are using to make a decision is all the same and accurate. That is impossible with all the social media “junk” floating around, mucking things up.
The real question is: Who do you trust more, a highly trained epidemiologist or a social media wonk sitting in his basement spewing out conspiracy theories? Once thought to be a no-brainer is no longer a no-brainer.
Thankfully my parents’ generation was smarter than many of us. They got their children vaccinated, no questions asked. The vaccines were said to prevent childhood diseases, and they believed it. And surprise, the vaccines worked and the polio pandemic, tuberculosis, measles outbreaks and other diseases were nearly eliminated within a few decades.
My parents did not argue that government officials can’t make them do anything, they simply followed their own common sense. You remember common sense don’t you?
We’ve become a nation of personal rights over the welfare of the community. Some people would rather do their own thing than look at the bigger picture of maintaining a healthy community. That, folks, is a definition of selfish and self-centered.
Anyone who has studied American history knows we are unique. We are a nation of rules and laws. But the recent uber-emphasis on “individual rights” has many Americans deciding for themselves which laws to follow. Those they dislike they simply ignore or disobey. Vaccine mandates come to mind.
Pretty soon Americans will be demanding that stop signs be optional and speed limits be considered mere suggestions. Oops, many are doing that already.
Looking at the stress-filled mess our hospitals, nursing homes and emergency room staffs are experiencing, there is little doubt where the problem lies. The unvaccinated are keeping the COVID-19 pandemic alive and thriving.
Is it any wonder this pandemic never seems to end?Â
Rich Glennie is a Minnesota-based columnist and retired editor who has spent decades working at newspapers in the U.S. and Canada.
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Intelligently put .
Who do you trust more?”A highly trained epidemiologist” who collectively have changed their minds countless times or critical thinkers(social media junk) to some who follow the narrative! There are actually “highly trained
epidemiologists who contribute to this social media junk also.
And the stats don’t speak for the self ,at least not yet.
Critical thinkers is a nice word for nut-jobs!
It seems that when you don’t follow the narrative and people
can’t discredit you with facts 🤔 ,they simply call you names!🙀
I will acknowledge that if you pick any given epidemiologist at random, there will be a 50% chance that he/she/they finished in the bottom half of their graduating class. There is also a 50% chance he/she/they finished in the top half of their class. Those are statistical facts. It’s also a fact that there is a 100% certainty that a person who relies on social media for their scientific information and medical advice is an idiot.
Who do you believe? Science used to be question everything to prove a theory wrong. Now it has become a consensuses of opinions (with no prove, positive or negative). And, any dissenting views or opinions are discredited and banned. It all boils down to mind control and seems to be working quit well. The goal is to reduce population and subjugate and control the masses and this was done using a virus that has a 99.95% survival rate and kept publicising covid deaths. Howervr, statistics showed no increase in death rate over the previous years and even lower than some years.
After reading this sentence – “It all boils down to mind control and seems to be working quit well.” – I came to the only conclusion possible; you should quit now. And what does “The goal is to reduce population” mean?
The vaccine worked? The fact that thousands of “fully vaccinated” people are out there catching and spreading the omicron variety would seem to disprove that. The solution? Let’s jab everyone again! This time it will work for sure. How many times have people had to get MMR boosters in the last year?
Well, some might say, we have to protect the health care system. Everyone has to be vaccinated, otherwise the system might collapse! How about instituting a passport for smoking? Drug and alcohol abuse? Overeating? Maybe we should mandate exercise. If you don’t take your vitamins, you’ll lose your job. After all, the health care system must be protected.
Let’s wake up and face the fact that these “vaccines” aren’t all they’re made out to be and vaccine mandates should be consigned to the dustbin of history.
unfortunately the vaccine is more than you expect. if you look at vaers, with a 1-4% reporting 20622 died (full reporting may indicate 1,500,000 to 2,000.000 dead). 108,572 hospitalized. who is fooling who. Also, they changed the definition of vaccine so that this gene therapy could be called a vaccine. a lot of skulduggery behind the scenes.
They changed the “definition” of a vaccine. Really? Explain please!
John, you are behind times.
How so? State why this is not a conventional vaccine. You called it “skulduggery” after all.
John, I will use the new scientific method to answer your question. Since intelligent people never ask a question without knowing the answer, lt seems we have consensus on the answer.
Allow me to be as polite as possible.
Your so called answers (and for that matter, your comments pertaining to pandemic and subsequent mind control deviances are nothing but unadulterated , ill researched, meandering inconsequential none – sense.
Have a nice 2022.
Because the vaccines before this one have been grown in a petri dish and these they have taken the DNA and protein structures and produced a synthetic vaccine. It would have taken at least 4 years to do the old way.
perhaps the better response to the question is, how do you end a pandemic that never really was? 2 years along and 5.5 million dead worldwide, out of a pop pushing toward 8 billion. as unlikely as one is to die from covid as that ratio underscores, let us consider what makes that ratio even more astounding: the majority of the almost 8 billion of us have less than ideal living conditions – ie abject poverty – and little in the way of quality health care. and yet, hardly a blip of us have been killed by covid.
now, let us examine the “pandemic” another way: to date there have been about 282 million cases worldwide, with about 5.5 million deaths. it is astounding that this “pandemic” has an outcome rate that astronomically favours recovery! 282 million cases, 277 million recoveries. i will restate that most of the planet is either impoverished and/or lacks decent health care. i will let you each do the math to discover the wonderfully high covid recovery rate (hint: divide the little deaths total by the “infection” total). if we further accounted for advanced age and comorbidity, well, the minute odds of dying from covid for the vast majority of people would likely require the equivalent of a microscope to discern.
not to say i have no feeling for the relative handful of dead and the bereaving. however, this “pandemic” is hardly cutting down the masses, let alone the masses in their prime. it is taking down people who, mostly, have enjoyed a long life, and who, mostly, have reached or surpassed the average life span of a person; using a lifespan average that is based on those that live in the most pampered environments on the planet.
go ahead, run and get your 10th shot – and get it along with whatever killer flu vax is being sold to us, as well. if you think that is going to work for you, there is indeed “science” enough to back up the placebo effect. then again, there will be as much such “science” to back up a placebo of sorts related to believing that covid is hardly likely to snuff short the life of most everybody.
next entry (i know, you are each dying to know what i write next): we have far more to fear from unnaturally occurring environmental toxins, thanks to big corp and corrupt govts, than we do covid (also thanks to big corp and corrupt govts), when it comes to premature death.
Biff.
Notwithstanding the worldwide poverty that exists as you correctly point out, distributing vaccines to third world countries is of paramount importance. Earlier efforts such a smallpox eradication and now even malarial vaccines have helped these disenfranchised peoples around the world.
Your obvious concern for the lab animals involved in these trials as with many medicines is not lost on this writer and I certainly respect you reminding us all of this unsavoury but currently, necessary practise. It is worthy of further consideration and hopefully future medicines will avoid such practises.
Maybe not the “plagues” of old but given the sheer numbers of infections and the numbers of the work force including health care workers who are temporarily infectious and thereby sidelined , requires a response – otherwise the health care system and other services would collapse. We have already witnessed cancelled surgeries and even the possibility of using triage to determine who lives and who dies.
Vaccines and their provincial mandates have helped save these essential services and I believe have reduced mortality across the globe.)
(I wished we could talk face to face about this challenging subject.)
john, i agree that not only would it be easier to share out thoughts in person, it would be more enjoyable. stay well, and thank you for the taking time to share.
biff, you state: “not to say i have no feeling for the relative handful of dead and the bereaving. however, this “pandemic” is hardly cutting down the masses, let alone the masses in their prime. it is taking down people who, mostly, have enjoyed a long life, and who, mostly, have reached or surpassed the average life span of a person;” (my emphasis)
I couldn’t agree more — those who have lived beyond their “best-buy date” are so obviously expendable. After all, they are just a drain on society’s resources, and they clog the lines at the grocery store on “Seniors Tuesdays”, something I find incredibly inconvenient. But I would extend the net to include stupid people (according to my definition, of course), those who think “A Man for All Seasons” is a superior movie to “A Lion in Winter”, first-base fans, as opposed to third-base fans, and anyone who has ever mistaken Michael Bublé for Mel Tormé.
Wow, three negative votes. I’ve always known there is no reasoning with first-base fans. I can’t imagine that anyone would disagree with my other points.
Perhaps next time, avoid cherry picking a point, taking it out of context, and then completely misconstruing it?
I would suggest a certain user has multiple accounts and is logging in and out with votes!
vvv
as seth notes – you have taken that point entirely out of context. reminds me of ann coulter. she made a great buck and some cheap celebrity for herself consistently taking points out of context.
as you well know, my point is that it is hardly a “pandemic” when the vast, vast majority of people that get covid recover from covid. 282 million cases; 5.5 million deaths. did you figure out how to do the math on those numbers? my mention of the comorbidity affected elderly as the most likely of all to die due to covid is only to further underscore that the vast, vast majority of people do not die from covid. in fact, the vast majority of elderly do not die from covid. i expect you also know that the point you take out of context is further underscore that this “pandemic” is ever the less a basis upon which to steal away what must be the inalienable right of each person to their body. i have to ask: you reply to entries with a bevvy of references to what you may have read or watched, and baseball, but you do not seem to ever discuss points with which you do not agree.
Sorry, biff, but I’m not about to accept that you or Seth have the right to dictate to me the manner in which I frame a response. I’m sure if the shoe was on the other foot, your position would be the same.
And the baseball reference was derived from a short story by W.P. Kinsella called “The Thrill of the Grass”, and I’ve read it many times. If you haven’t read it, you might enjoy it.
i do my best to share out my points and to respond to points with honesty and integrity. i would not purposely take a point out of context to try and score points, as that would not assist toward reaching a truth. i would acknowledge my mistake and try a different tact.
i am curious as to why you feel 5.5 million deaths out of 282 million cases is the basis for giving up what should be an inalienable right to have sole ownership over one’s body; also, why you feel unprotected by your vax(es) such that you feel everyone must be vaxed, and under threat, no less; also, why you seem to have som much blind trust in govts and big corps, especially in the light of the tank the planet is in with never a real solution, just new long term dates….all the while the system remains much the same: the ultra wealthiest get ever the wealthier, the middle and lower classes continue to struggle more, and the planet’s systems are ever the more under attack.
thank you for the reading suggestion – i will look it up.
Anti- vaxers- Covidiots. You can’t fix stupid. This pandemic will be with us for a very long time.
Your assertion is demonstrably false. What about the massive number of “fully vaccinated” people (e.g. the Calgary Flames) who are catching and spreading COVID?
Yes, they are catching Covid from the stupid un-vaccinated.
the vaxed are catching covid from the unvaxed? then, the vax doesn’t work? why bother taking it? 282 million covid cases worldwide; 5.5 million deaths. we have a planet approaching 8 billion humans…282 million is hardly a number compared to that, let alone 5.5 million. hardly a pandemic outcome. go on, divide the little number that is covid deaths by the larger number that is covid cases to see how deadly is covid. after 2 years of this crap, no less. far more people die because of unnaturally occurring toxins due to rogue mining, manufacturing and cancer causing big chemical company products.
Not entirely true.
What IS true is that the vaccinated are not the primary driver for the pressure on our Health Care System.
Those who treat vaccination as a joke ARE.
Those who are not vaccinated are also the primary gestation ground for mutations.
Which is why the hoarding of vaccines by wealthy nations is infuriating.
only as long as the government wants it. or needs it for control of the population until it over writes our constitutional freedoms (see BILL C-2
phlush, agreed. you may wish to read at least the last 4 lines in my reply to jpn, but entered just below.