It Doesn't Matter Who Was Right
It Doesn't Matter Who Was Right
Only ONE side wanted to force their choice on the other.
It doesn’t matter who was right on these vaccines. It doesn’t matter if the vaccine ends up being proven helpful or not. What matters is that only one side of the debate forced their belief onto the other. The ones opposing vaccine mandates didn’t want to take away the right of consenting adults to take advantage of mRNA technology. We all just wanted everyone’s personal medical choices to be respected. The way they have always been before 2020.
It seems the narrative is shifting on COVID shots. It’s taken a lot longer than I would have expected but society seems to slowly be understanding the obvious.
Every day more and more famous people are coming forward with their opposition to vaccine mandates and finally voicing their opinions. Nearly two years ago when I started speaking out against vaccine mandates, I knew that I wasn’t alone in my beliefs. But oftentime it certainly felt like I was. So I’m happy to see a lot more conversations on this topic today.
I’ve been grateful for the ones who spoke out early on and risked their reputation and career. In Canada, the best examples are hockey legend Theo Fleury and Olympic gold medalist Jamie Salé. Worldwide we have seen one of the world’s most famous musicians, Eric Clapton dragged through the coals for simply sharing his adverse events after choosing to take the vaccines. We’ve seen the most famous podcaster, Joe Rogan nearly cancelled because he just chose to stay unvaccinated. And we have seen countless reputable Canadian and world-renowned doctors vilified and fired for sharing their opposition to forced medical products.
More recently, Elon Musk even got the courage to share his true opinions on the vaccine debate. Musk is likely one of the smartest and most successful humans on earth. He took the COVID vaccines but last month he shared that he personally had “major side effects” from the shot and “felt like he was dying for several days”. He even admitted that the idea of permanent damage from the shots is something he thinks about.
Elon was commenting on one of several threads created by Scott Adams lately. Scott Adams is a famous American author and cartoonists who was a vocal advocate for lockdowns and vaccines but has since come out publicly to acknowledge he was wrong. Adams is a very respected figure and his public acknowledgment that society might have gotten COVID wrong is very important. The example of getting Musk to speak out is just one of the fortunate consequences.
What Scott Adams has been trying to argue is that he may have been wrong, but many others may have been right only because of luck…
He has repeatedly been trying to make the argument that those who were against the vaccine simply guessed correctly. And those who supported the vaccines guessed incorrectly. And that anyone could have easily been on the other side.
Adams may be right but I think he is missing the point. I’ve thought to myself many times over the last two years that it doesn’t matter if the COVID vaccine ends up being undoubtedly proven beneficial to all individuals. It also doesn’t even matter if the shots are indisputably proven harmful.
It doesn’t matter if the therapeutic mRNA shot is/was good or bad, we should never force a new product on society and we certainly shouldn’t shame those who view things differently.
When the dust settles, the ones who advocated against vaccine mandates will be right. No matter what. And it’s not because (as Adams claims) they were lucky.
In Canada before we ever started discussing vaccine mandates at every level of government and before we started accepting the narrative as a society that those who declined the shots were bad people; the scientific community already had the answers it needed. The shots didn’t stop the spread. Unlike traditional non-mRNA vaccines, this shot could not neutralize the COVID virus. This was proven in the Summer of 2021 with the CDC’s own Barnstable study released in July 2021.
In this study, the authors examined all reported cases of COVID in this region for a month. They identified 469 positive cases with 74% of them being found in fully-vaccinated individuals. This was very close to the the COVID vaccination rate among Massachusetts residents at the time (69%). The authors concluded that that vaccinated people were just as likely to catch and spread the virus. This study was used to substantiate a new recommendation by authorities to reintroduce mask mandates at the time (even for vaccinated individuals). The study firmly concluded that these shots may have personal benefits but they were not going to stop transmission. Again, this was in the Summer of 2021.
This fact was also proven by looking at the data that was coming out of Israel by the Summer of 2021. Israel was one of the first countries to vaccinate their population. Even though the majority of their country was vaccinated and that the country had rolled out the first controversial vaccine passport, Israel saw their COVID cases and COVID hospitalizations reach record levels in the Summer of 2021. The country would see more infections, deaths and hospitalizations than at any time before the vaccine was available. And this was before Omicron existed.
We had these studies and real-world before our leaders chose to start dividing us. Justin Trudeau knew the science. But when he started campaigning in September 2021, he went directly on the attack against unvaccinated Canadians. Joe Biden would do the same. The political opportunities were to great to pass up. The majority of society would follow suit. Despite what the science said…
It’s an understatement to say that the world’s scientific community knew that the vaccines were not going to solve the pandemic and;
It’s an understatement to say that our leaders purposely tried to force this shot and/or shame those of us who viewed it differently.
They may have been correct in assuming that the shots could act like a therapeutic and alleviate the symptoms for many. But the preposterous idea that we needed to throw away all our societal norms in order to elevate our vaccinate rate from 80% to 90% was a mistake. The ones who supported this idea were complicit. We would end up firing everyone who didn’t take the shot. We would ban them from travelling. We would forbid them from entering almost all public spaces. Because they wouldn’t take a therapeutic product which we definitely knew did not stop transmission of this virus.
That’s why it doesn’t matter who was right on these vaccines. It doesn’t matter if the vaccine ends up being proven helpful or not. What matters is that only one side of the debate forced their belief onto the other. The ones opposing vaccine mandates didn’t want to take away the right of consenting adults to take advantage of mRNA technology (if some were advocating this, then I would say they were wrong as well).* We all just wanted everyone’s personal medical choices to be respected. The way they have always been respected before 2020.
*I’ll also state that anyone who has ever advocated that adults should be denied the right to take the COVID vaccine are also wrong. No matter what. COVID was serious. And vaccine could have had theoretical (it may still) benefits to the individual. If someone willfully wanted to take a chance on it, that should continue to be a choice.
Exactly. It all comes down to consent.
Even if the vaccine ends up being proven indisputably harmful, there could have still be a positive outcome in all this.
Many people would have volunteered to take it knowing the risks and benefits. And if it was a a bad choice then they would likely be okay living with that. Because they made a choice. And society could have moved on without any division or loss of trust.
When we started coercing and shaming people then we took out the voluntary aspect and guaranteed a terrible outcome down the road. And a huge loss of public trust. Public health officials (and everyone in healthcare that stood by and said nothing) should have known this. They should have stuck to the key rules of public health.
Excellent points. There is a question circulating, that Scott Adams has touched on, which is 'how could you have known in 2020/2021 what would be the outcome of a novel intervention for a novel problem?" Which has led some to the conclusion, either side guessed what was right, it was a gamble, some won and some lost. But that's not true. As you point out much research was available. The question that needs to be addressed still, is why was it not available as part of our comitment to informed consent?