Wall Street Journal columnist Holman Jenkins writes about the fourth wave. Two slices:
The good news is that herd immunity is starting to take hold. This does not mean no Covid. It means less Covid. Less Covid overall means less chance of the next trillion-to-one dangerous mutation. Google the words “herd immunity” and “influenza” and running off the page will be evidence that herd immunity has never been taken to mean a disease stops existing. Flu still kills children by the dozens or hundreds in the U.S each year. If our testing is missing 80% of cases, the current fourth wave is equivalent to a medium-severity flu season.
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The trip from novel pathogen to familiar one is not a day at the beach—but it means that Covid will become one of those subliminal risks (like dying of the flu) that humans manage best by mainly removing them from their minds.
We are witnessing the birth of what you might call the ‘biosecurity state’, a new world in which politicians and the scientists who advise them decide that suppressing disease is more important than the human freedoms we take for granted.
We have made huge progress in fighting Covid-19, with a 90 per cent drop in the rates of hospitalisation and death. The crisis, if not completely over, is by any reasonable measure now close to its end.
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We are witnessing the birth of what you might call the ‘biosecurity state’, a new world in which politicians and the scientists who advise them decide that suppressing disease is more important than the human freedoms we take for granted.We have made huge progress in fighting Covid-19, with a 90 per cent drop in the rates of hospitalisation and death. The crisis, if not completely over, is by any reasonable measure now close to its end.
Sir Patrick envisages that scientists will advise governments when to ‘release’ citizens from restrictions, regardless of the vaccine success. The citizens don’t get a say.
What, then, are the supposed justifications for preventing us enjoying our ‘old’ freedoms? Foremost is the colourful claim that letting the virus circulate risks new mutations
It is increasingly clear, however, that even the current Covid variants of concern – from Brazil and South Africa, for example – are unlikely to defeat the vaccines, despite the many and repeated claims by mathematical modellers (who are not, I should point out, experts in genetics).
We would be better listening to California’s world-leading La Jolla Institute for Immunology, which recently concluded that new variants seem less dangerous than previously feared.
Britain is no longer a free country. See also here.
Randy Holcombe explores the why and how of vaccine passports. Here’s his conclusion:
There are many problems with the idea of COVID passports. First, because a vaccine is not required, they would compromise people’s liberty by pressuring them into getting one. Second, despite promises that such a system would not compromise individuals’ medical and other records, the necessity of linking the vaccine information with one’s individual identity always opens this risk. Third, if required by the government, this overreach would extend the power of the government to collect personal information and track individual behavior. As long as the vaccine is not mandatory (which is how it should be), nobody should be required to disclose whether they have had it.
Great Barrington Declaration co-author Sunetra Gupta debates Gabriel Scally on the question “Is eliminating Covid-19 worth it?” A slice from Prof. Gupta:
Those pursuing a safe public health goal must consider all the costs associated with their policy and, in the case of infectious disease, understand the natural history of the pathogen. Not all pathogens are the same; elimination is a realistic goal for measles, where vaccination confers lifelong immunity and is the only way of preventing deaths in childhood.
Covid-19 belongs to an entirely different category. Immunity is not lifelong and re-infection is common, even though subsequent reinfections rarely lead to disease. It would be foolish to expect vaccine-induced immunity to last longer than natural immunity—as many vaccinologists know from bitter experience. To achieve elimination through repeated vaccination and draconian restrictions would require investment on a scale that would dwarf anything we allocate to the many other pressing public health problems.
The good news is there is another solution. The vaccines have shown high efficacy against severe disease, and the indications are that this will hold for new variants. By using them to protect the vulnerable and letting natural immunity accumulate among those who are not especially at risk, we can avoid the unconscionable collateral damage caused by indefinite suppression, while also minimising Covid deaths.
Elimination is neither feasible nor necessary.
Here’s an instance of one of the more heartbreaking realities of the Covidocracy’s tyranny. (HT Phil Magness)
Three cheers for this brave pastor at a small church in Canada – a pastor who is spot-on in both style and substance. (HT Phil Magness). This is how everyone should treat agents of the biosecurity state:
