A letter to my 82-year-old sister
Dear R...Although rarely stated explicitly, the justification for compelled vaccination has been to protect others, i.e., to stop the spread. But it is evident from the excellent data gathered by the UK Health Security Agency (This is a link to their latest weekly Covid Surveillance report, see Page 44) that vaccination increases the Covid case rate (it more than doubles it in most age classes), and hence disease trransmission. This effect is presumably because the vaccinated, believing themselves to be protected, tolerate a greater risk of infection — and hence also of passing on the infection — than the unvaccinated.
My own view of the management of Covid in Western countries is that it has been idiotic from start to finish, and generally harmful, lethally so, to some among the most vulnerable people. The objective of government authorities throughout has been to keep people frightened so they would unresistingly do exactly as idiots like Trudeau and his dim-witted advisors and ministers demanded. True, Covid has killed many people (though perhaps far fewer than claimed), but mostly, these were people of our age group who were, with us, fellow travelers nearing the end of our journey to the grave. In particular, they were the most frail among the elderly, especially those in care homes where a lack of daily exercise diminishes cardiovascular and respiratory capacity. For such people, a respiratory disease is inevitably a severe and often overwhelming challenge. But the propaganda never allowed attention to focus on the very high dependence of Covid mortality on age and, among younger people, specific conditions such as asthma, obesity and diabetes that predispose to severe illness.
But since we, and in fact most people of our age group, are still alert of mind and more or less physically active, the risk of Covid is not that great. Moreover, living in our own homes, the risk of infection is much less than that of younger persons commuting to the office five days a week, and caring for children who are the most important vectors of respiratory diseases. What this means is that there was no good reason for lock-downs of entire countries when those most at risk were already in effect locked-down in care homes, which as is now evident, are among the most dangerous places for a vulnerable person to be.
In the climate of propaganda and cultivated fear that governments and the media created, it has been impossible for most people to make a rational decision about the Covid vax. Vaccination will prolong life of care home occupants, which may or may not be what we and the care home occupants themselves want. Furthermore, it will save many old and middle-aged people from the severest though non-fatal consequences of Covid infection. That being the case, S... (our oldest sibling) might be wise to take the shot, although she must be very fit, so her chances of surviving Covid are almost certainly well above 90%. (At our age, to lose a year or two of freedom to lockdowns, thereby to avoid a five or 10% risk if death by Covid seems a poor bargain.
As for possible adverse long-term consequences of the so-called vaccine, these should be of greatest concern to younger adults and parents of children. Probably, the long-term consequences will be insignificant, but there is presently no certainty of that. One unsettling discovery is that the spike protein mRNA, which is the active component of the vaccine, can be retrotranscribed to DNA and then incorporated into the genome. Then you could have a life-long supply of spike protein. That this is a serious problem seems slight, but about risks that remain to be evaluated by long-term testing, one cannot give confident assurances.