Caveat 1: I take it as axiomatic that any vaccine produced for Covid-19 is and will be non-neutralizing and non-sterilizing. To this end, I waited to take the vaccines upon the results of the following questions: did the vaccines neutralize COVID during the seasonal surge of the Cold-Flu-COVID season of 2021-2022, showing sterilizing efficacy? Would two shots neutralize the virus or would the governments attempt to mandate so called “booster” shots, suggesting that an endless sequence of repeated shots would be employed ad infinitum? The answer to both of these questions was and is no. Those who took the vaccine over the summer—when COVID was latent and seasonally retarded—confounded the efficacy of the vaccine with the low rate of summer infection. We now see the true efficacy of the vaccines and we can never unsee it.
Caveat 2: I take it as axiomatic that the confounding factors in the aggregate data result in a misdiagnosis of proper policy relative to the data. Any policy that is not age stratified, comorbidity stratified, and takes into account seasonality is the wrong policy.
Caveat 3: I take it as axiomatic that the media by and large has abrogated its responsibility in asking tough questions and in understanding the aggregate data, hence the need for Substacks such as this.
Caveat 4: I take it as axiomatic that COVID as a disease has killed and harmed people, and that the vaccines have certainly extended the life of individuals who are particularly vulnerable to COVID. This should be shouted from the rooftops and celebrated. I also take it as axiomatic that COVID policy has killed and harmed people, and the long term impact of COVID policy, in time, will be understood to have been the greatest blunder in Human History, that is if after COVID there is such a thing as History or if the “End-of-History” is part of the “New-Normal.”
Caveat 5: I take it as axiomatic that life implicitly has a series of embedded associations including disease, mortality and death. There is no right not to become sick, just as there is no right not to suffer heart break. If one is born, then one must die, and disease has always been the constant reaper of humanity from the dawn of human consciousness. The fear of death is the greatest threat to human consciousness and freedom, and the most fearful people on the planet have the loudest mouth pieces under the current Bio-Medical Regime.
Caveat 6: I take it as axiomatic that the governments employed campaigns of demoralization (another term for “the Nudge”) against their own people in order that citizens would be willing to undergo any act of compulsion to return to “normal.” By normal I mean the following: masks in every store (in spite of the overwhelming evidence that masks are minimally effective); children masked in school (in spite of overwhelming evidence that masks are minimally effective); showing personal health information in order to enter bars and restaurants (what had been termed at one point in History a Gesundheitpass); the inability to see family members and loved ones (a profound violation of the sacred right of family bonds in the face of government rule; Antigone is rolling in her grave); the assumption that everyone is sick with COVID or is diseased or a danger or a pathogen, etc (fill in your own observations of the New Normal). The return to NN is simply the acceptance of dystopia. I am not obligated to entertain your dystopia.
Caveat 7: I take it as axiomatic that the human population increased by 81,000,000 people last year, or 1.7 %. As far as plagues go—historically speaking—COVID is a total failure.
Caveat 8: I take it as axiomatic that COVID is here forever and part of the human experience. Vira semper omnia mutantur: All viruses mutate always. The idea that the “unvaxxed” (ie, those who practice informed consent) are “mutating” the virus is one of the great hallmarks of COVIDIOCY, a mental disease pathogen in its own right.
Caveat 9: I take it as axiomatic that if hospitals are in danger of being overrun by a new disease, the proper policy decision is to increase hospital capacity and create mobile, seasonal spike hospitals, in addition to a litany of at home care prophylactics. That we are two years into the pandemic and hospital capacity has not been fixed is a sign of mismanagement and poor governance. Those individuals responsible for not increasing capacity must step down from their positions effective immediately. Their incompetence is no excuse to shut down society and culture. By way of analogy: if I have a broken arm, I therefore should shut down schools and businesses to fix that broken arm. That this is the current policy algorithm after two years suggests a fundamental crisis of human ingenuity and intelligence among our policy makers.
Caveat 10: I take it as axiomatic that “experts” in health or epidemiology are *not* experts in Culture and Society. That experts and their policy mandates in health can intrude into culture and society requires a robust response by those of us who are experts in Culture and Society (hence this Substack). The Humanities by and large has shown itself to be a total failure in the face of COVID and has abrogated its responsibility in expanding and situating COVID within a broader field of human consciousness and wisdom. Imagine the following: Woodstock. Add COVIDIOCY. Imagine the Selma to Montgomery march. Add COVIDIOCY. Imagine Normandy. Add COVIDIOCY. Imagine every great global achievement of humanity over time…add COVIDIOCY. Each of these achievements are either negated or so wholly transformed as to result in a net harm to human Culture and Society. Imagine the cultural loss of the last two years. Imagine the intellectual loss over the last two years. Imagine the social loss over the last two years. Now look at the rise of total and complete social and cultural demoralization over the last two years all in the name of safety and health. The time for listening to medical experts with respect to culture and society is over. These are people ill equipped to dictate mandates as to how society and culture should function.
Caveat 11: I take it as axiomatic that informed consent is an inalienable and sacred human right. We do not need human rights councils or “fact-checkers” or government leaders or health officials or editorial boards to deny that Informed Consent is a Human Right. Informed consent is the line between a bio-medical (dare I say “fascist”) state and a free society. Violations of informed consent are a species of rape and violence against bodily autonomy. If one does not have the right to say no, then one has no rights all.