As to why people have little or no faith in the faux-ocular pronouncements of public-health officials and experts, I submit for your consideration the news that the CDC has flip-flopped yet again on masking, and now recommends that VACCINATED people wear masks indoors in certain situations, e.g. when children under 12 are present. The idiocy on display here, both scientific and political, is simply mind-boggling.
When the facts change—which in this case they haven't. Several things things are well known at this point:
(1) “Although vaccines afford very high protection, infection with the delta and other variants remain possible. Fortunately, vaccination, even among those who acquire infections, appears to prevent serious illness, hospitalization and death from COVID-19"—this according to the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Moreover, even if a vaccinated person does come down with COVID, the risk of transmission to another person is very low.
(2) The risk to children from COVID-19 is infinitesimal, as represented by a a survival rate of over 99%. Those very few who have fallen seriously ill or died had serious preexisting conditions.
(3) The overwhelming majority of those who remain unvaccinated have voluntarily assumed the risks associated with that status. They, not people who have been vaccinated, are responsible for the management of those risks.
Given the above facts, the CDC's revised guidance on masking is, to be rudely frank about it, a prize piece of idiocy. It has no basis in "the Science." Indeed, the recommendation that schoolchildren should wear masks is an infliction of harm on them—and one cannot help suspecting that the teachers union had a hand in it it. And of course, recommending that vaccinated people wear masks sends a signal that vaccines don't really work—exactly the opposite of the message that should be communicated.
The CDC director, Rochelle Walensky, announced this new "guidance" via a conference call, which itself was a PR fiasco. One would have thought that the official responsible for such a major change of course would have the intestinal fortitude to face the nation in person, but no. Her performance since being appointed has been lamentable and this was just one more example of her unfitness for the position she occupies.
I can't say I agree with this: "The risk to children from COVID-19 is infinitesimal, as represented by a a survival rate of over 99%. Those very few who have fallen seriously ill or died had serious preexisting conditions." The research so far suggests children are as vulnerable to long Covid as adults, and it also suggests that long Covid is associated with *significant* declines in measured IQ. If every child in the US contracts Covid19--and they *will,* at this rate, given it's as contagious as chicken pox and again, irresponsibly and inexplicably, the vaccine has not been authorized for use in children--we can expect that about a quarter of them will suffer from long-term and significant cognitive damage. How long? We have no idea, but we know it *can* last as long as 18 months, since many people who contracted the disease at the outset are still crippled by it. This suggests to me there's a non-zero chance this syndrome may, in some people, be permanent; or at least, it will last until we find effective treatments for it--which we're in no way close to doing, since we don't yet understand it.
If you think the American body politic can survive a generation of kids who've lost that much cognitive function, think twice. It will interfere not only with their education (obviously), but with every aspect of life governed by IQ. It is very reasonable to suspect kids damaged this way will have the same criminogenic propensities as children damaged by lead poisoning. I've seen the effects of long Covid: My brother had Covid19 in December, and is still suffering from it. I see no evidence his IQ has declined, but he says that he certainly feels as if it has. He still has to take steroids, every day, just to be able to get out of bed and breath normally. Steroids are the Devil's handmaiden: My family vacation, last week, was notable because we all hid in our rooms all day to avoid my brother's 'roid rage. I do not hold him responsible for this. He *needs* to take the steroids; he can't breathe without them. This is seven months after the initial infection, which was extremely mild, almost asymptomatic. This is not in his head. It's not psychosomatic. My brother is one of the many, many people who report this constellation of syndromes, after a *mild* infection, and this is going to be a massive, long-term disease burden for 25 percent of the people who become infected: https://time.com/6073522/long-covid-prevalence/.
This will affect all of us. We can't say, "Well, if they get sick, that's their problem." We'll all be paying for their disability checks--and yes, they will go on disability, because what choice will they have? We'll all be dealing with the fallout of the family dysfunction that will ensue because one or both parents in so many households are too sick properly to take care of their kids. We'll all be picking up the tab to compensate for the lack of tax revenues among those who have been forced out of the workforce by illness.
And children are just as susceptible to long Covid: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7927578/. The studies of this so far are deeply, deeply worrying. These kids have been dealt a *severe* blow--forget it for sports, play, and other normal childhood activities, but even more worrying, forget it for academics. Coupled with a year or more of online learning? The most vulnerable kids will end up completely unschooled. Probably literally illiterate. We can't afford this: Our kids are already far behind peer nations in education, particularly in science and math. This will be the coup de grâce.
That we've failed to authorize the vaccines for children is a catastrophic public health failure: It's a classic symptom of a public health bureaucracy that's so risk-averse and so dedicated to covering their asses that they cannot do what they're designed to do: protect public health. In this respect, I agree with your dismal assessment of the CDC and the FDA. But not for the same reasons. Kids should be the *priority* for vaccination, because they're the ones who stand to lose the most years of their lives, and they're our future.
The vaccines are clearly far safer than the disease, even for children: Not one person has died from the vaccine, but hundreds of American kids have died from this disease--and remember, kids aren't *ever* supposed to die. It's no good to say, "Oh, something was wrong with those kids to begin with." First, civilized people do not practice eugenics. Whatever was "wrong" with them was in all likelihood perfectly compatible with a happy and valued life. Second, it isn't true: The hospitals are growingly filling up with *perfectly healthy* young people. Try telling the parents of the kids who've died of Covid19 that their deaths were no big deal!
We have an obligation to protect children--and an obligation to do so, especially, if their parents are incompetent and unfit. Parents who reject vaccination are incompetent and unfit. An FDA that fails even to *authorize* the vaccination of children is incompetent and unfit.
And remember: We do not know what the long-term effects of this virus might be. The feline coronavirus causes a mild illness in kittens, after which it appears to be completely asymptomatic. Except that ten percent of the time, the virus later mutates and swiftly, agonizingly, kills the cat. That's what happened to Daisy. Viruses, including coronaviruses, are known to do this. There's no evidence this will happen, but none that it won't, either.
Vaccines, on the other hand, are *not* known for doing this. No vaccine in history has ever had adverse effects that have not been apparent within two months. Nor is there any plausible biological mechanism by which ours might. The case for vaccinating children is overwhelming, yet the CDA and FDA are sitting on their asses and twiddling their thumbs--worried about making the anti-vaxxers mad, to judge from their internal communications. By the time they get around to authorizing them, it will be far too late: Delta is here *now,* not a year from now; for many Americans it's already far too late.
If I were an American parent, I'd strongly consider keeping my kids home, or even looking for a vaccine on the black market, until this wave has washed over us. There's no way I'd expose my kid to a one-in-four risk of brain damage. None.
First, there cannot possibly be anything in the way of research suggesting long-term cognitive damage to children from COVID-19—the necessary data being unavailable. What this is, is a speculative premise. But we do know that children are not prone to contract COVID and that if they do, they rarely—very rarely—become seriously ill. We also know that locking down children—especially young children—for fear of COVID has had very serious side effects. Already they’ve missed a year of school, and it looks as though the teachers unions wouldn’t mind if the kids lost another year. What do the teachers care, after all? They get their pay and benefits whether the schools are open or not. And that’s to say nothing of the damage being done to family life, particularly among lower-class Americans who don’t have the option of working from home.
I make a similar observation concerning so-called long COVID in adults. It may turn out to be a big problem, but then again maybe not. Let’s be honest and admit that nobody really knows. Yes, it’s unwise and even stupid for people to forego vaccination and get sick but after all, people do lots of other stupid things that damage their health and are socially irresponsible, such as poor diet, smoking, excessive drinking, drug use and other dangerous behaviors. But—I was about to say that no one proposes forcing them to change their ways. Indeed, however, there are more than a few nasty little commissars who wish they had the power to do just that. But they don’t have such power, and a good thing too. Trying to force people to do what’s best for them inevitably has an effect opposite to that intended. As far as I’m concerned at this point, vaccine skeptics are on their own. I’m not responsible for the decisions they make, nor for the associated consequences.
As for the danger of dangerous mutant strains of COVID, that too is no more than a speculative premise and besides, what are we supposed to do? Stay locked down forever? Anyhow, it’s much more likely that if such a dangerous mutation arises, it likely won’t be here in America but somewhere (Is the term “Third World” still permissible?) where most people remain unvaccinated. Maybe instead of persecuting vaccine skeptics in this country we should consider what might be done about that situation.
If we are wise we will bear steadily in mind that COVID-19 is also a disease ravaging the country’s social fabric. But we have not been wise—well, I’ve been wise enough but our political leadership, the expert class and the media have not. Would it be going too far to say that they’ve abused their power? Not at all. In countless ways they’ve made a bad situation worse. Incompetence, lethargy, misinformation and plain lies have been the order of the day—stepping all over the great American success story of the pandemic, the amazingly rapid development of effective vaccines. Popular distrust of the political class and other elites is no recent phenomenon and you’d think that luminaries like Dr. Anthony Fauci would have taken a moment to factor that into their plans. But I’ll bet you serious money that he and the rest of them never gave it a moment’s consideration. The arrogance of expertise has cost us dearly and I for one will support no policy that gives these people more power over our lives. Not only is that kind of authoritarianism un-American, but it just won't work.
I do agree with you about the gross incompetence of the public health establishment. The FDA’s failure to expedite full approval of the vaccines is scandalous. The erratic, panicky behavior of the CDC under Dr. Rochelle Walensky would be comic if it weren’t so damaging. Its latest debacle, the meltdown over the outbreak in Provincetown, Massachusetts, was just about the last straw for me. But whatever damage has been done, it can’t be undone now.
Oh, and lest I forget: Claire, I received your Thatcher book and read it with the greatest attention and pleasure. She was certainly one of the most interesting public figures of recent times. Your assessment struck me as thoughtful and well balanced. It’s too bad we don’t have someone like her around to deal with this pandemic. (Recently I had just the same thought regarding Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, if you know who he was.)
You’re right, Claire, that the listless approach that the FDA is taking to providing emergency use authorization for Covid vaccines for children is inexcusable.
It is also inexcusable that the Agency is tarrying on providing final approval for the vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and J&J. Everyone knows that final approval for these vaccines is inevitable; there is zero chance they won’t be approved. In light of this, only government paper-pushers could possibly think that dotting each administrative “I” and crossing each bureaucratic “T” will comfort or protect the American public. The mere fact that the vaccines are granted final approval might convince thousands or even tens of thousands of Americans to get the jab. In light of this the delay is unfathomable.
Had Donald Trump been re-elected, there’s an excellent chance that he would have simply ordered the FDA to grant final approval. He would have been fiercely criticized for it by the same journalists, pundits and politicians who pray at the altars of Drs. Fauci and Walensky but it’s a decision that would have saved lives. Instead, we have President “Follow-the-Science” Biden who is permitting the FDA to dawdle at the expense of needless death.
Claire, here’s what I think you don’t get. The philosophy that you espouse, globalism and especially cosmopolitan globalism, is precisely the system that’s responsible for all of the bad decisions coming out of government when it comes to Covid.
Global systems as opposed to radically decentralized systems inevitably rely on bureaucracies for governance. The more global in scope these bureaucracies are the more inefficient they become. International bureaucracies perform more poorly than national bureaucracies which perform more poorly than local bureaucracies.
As bureaucracies get larger in scope and scale, society has little choice but to rely on experts to run the organizations society comes to depend on. In no time at all, bogus systems are devised to credential these experts who administer these organizations.
Before long, these experts become so steeped in their own arcane rules, procedures and nomenclature that they fully abandon any fidelity to common sense.
Inevitably, average citizens realize that the bureaucrats making all the decisions (whether well-intentioned or not) are accountable to no one, least of all the average guy or gal trudging to the polls to vote in elections that, over time, become increasingly meaningless.
As people become more estranged from their own rulers, (not only the politicians but the bureaucrats who run everything) the alienation leads to a tendency to mistrust or even react with hostility to anything those rulers recommend. How many Americans and Europeans do you suppose, Claire, are hesitant to be vaccinated for exactly the reasons that I have just outlined? My guess is that it’s many millions.
Average folks understand perfectly well that when Hillary Clinton denigrates them as “deplorables” she wasn’t speaking for just herself but for the entire class that she represents. These same average folks understood the put down when Obama called them gunslingers and religion-clingers and when Mitt Romney rolled his eyes at the good-for-nothing 47 percent.
After all this abuse, if you can’t understand where vaccine hesitancy comes from it’s because you’re averting your eyes.
The philosophy of globalism,
whether cosmopolitan or not, requires the strengthening of mega-bureaucracies. When these mega-bureaucracies fail, the results can be catastrophic. That’s what we are seeing now.
Thanks for the link; I look forward to reading it. To further illustrate my point, I noticed that Dr. Fauci appeared on CNN and said that if the attitude currently prevailing about Covid vaccines prevailed in the late 1950s and early 1960s about polio vaccines, polio would never have been eradicated. See,
Dr. Fauci is right; one of my earliest memories is lining up to take take the Sabin sugar cube.
But Dr. Fauci, like most members of the tribe to which he belongs (credentialed elites) can’t seem to figure out why views have changed.
At the time, when the Salk and Sabin vaccines were being administered, people didn’t hate their own Governments. There was only a small administrative State back then.
Now millions of people do hate, or at least mistrust, their own Governments. What cognitive elites are not quite smart enough to figure out is that much of this mistrust is well-deserved.
I have a suspicion there's something else at work here. Scientists are reluctant to extrapolate, and for very good reasons. It's remarkably less accurate, and in the current political environment there are a lot of pundits waiting in the wings, eager to point and howl. The profit motive to sow distrust is especially high, not to mention certain cultural vulnerabilities to facts.
They made a mistake by making predictions for this summer, in an environment where people are eager to see them fail. I suspect part of the reason that policies on masks are changing is because trends are changing. Initial estimates of vaccine acceptance were far higher, and when the people failed to make the responsible civic choice, it allowed the Delta variant to spread more rapidly and with a higher body count. I put the majority of the blame for the lack of acceptance on the people profiting off that narrative, not on the people who brought us the vaccine. As a result, the prediction that we wouldn't need masks to reduce the spread was incorrect. That doesn't mean at all that the vaccines aren't helpful, and you'd have to be deliberately misinformed to draw that conclusion. Maybe we should be addressing those actors.
I also disagree with your assessment that people who choose not to get vaccinated are only affecting themselves. Those who choose not to get vaccinated are more likely to be infected, and therefor not only more likely to infect others, but also be the petri dish that afflicts us with the next, potentially more hostile, variant. I will feel a terrible shame if the next killer variant, or variant that can beat our vaccines, is produced by our unwillingness to behave with others in mind.
Unfortunately the Bill of Rights came along in a century that didn't have Pasteur. Public health is every bit a concern to life as foreign invaders.
This is exactly the kind of argument that cannot help. The problem with it is that whatever its validity, it's chasing a wave of distrust and suspicion that's been generated by politicians, the media, public health bureaucrats and experts generally.
Example: The vaccination program was proceeding well when the CDC, in response to a mere half-dozen averse-reaction cases, suspended the use of one vaccine. This panicky decision had the effect of slamming the brakes on the vaccination program, and it has never recovered since then. Meanwhile, the FDA sits around twiddling its thumbs instead of straining every nerve and muscle to finalize approval of the vaccines. Until they get around to doing that, attempts to force vaccination on people is only going to make a bad situation worse.
And now the CDC has done it again, reversing an advisory on masking that it issued a week and a half ago. How this is supposed to improve the situation I cannot imagine. Surely the idea that such bureaucratic to-ing and fro-ing will slow the spread is frivolous in the extreme. As for vaccination mandates: Just wait until it dawns on the Biden Administration that a very large number of unvaccinated people are not Trump supporters living in the former Confederacy but black and brown minorities living in the urban areas of blue states.
Comparative vaccination rates are more than a little deceptive. For instance, if one compares Los Angeles County, California (population 10 million, population density 2,100 people per square mile, full vaccination rate 56%) with Knox Country, Indiana (population 37,000, population density 71 people per square mile, full vaccination rate 40%), it becomes immediately clear that the problem is Los Angeles County, not Knox County. In the former, around 4.8 million people are partially vaccinated or unvaccinated; in the latter that number is around 17,000—most of whom have had one dose. But how often are such comparisons made? Hardly ever. The "stupid conservatives and Republicans and Trumpsters" line is too convenient by half for the Biden Administration & etc. This is how the game is being played.
And probably worth mentioning: you're right, the CDC completely screwed the pooch when they suspended the use of the J&J vaccine. That was a utter failure of data-driven decision making when it was needed most.
"This is exactly the kind of argument that cannot help."
This is fair to bring. I think the only reason we're down this particular rabbit track, is because I think neither of us are the subject of conversation (both vaccinated). I think the meta-conversation we're having is important, because it addresses the underlying problems that spur people to make bad decisions. But the meta conversation isn't for the trenches, it's for us lofty snobs in the CG comments.
I admittedly experience failures of conversation outside of meta-analysis as well. That's to be expected. I've also witnessed and participated in dozens of conversations on theology, and know that a modest percentage of them result in changing minds, which many regard as impossible. If you're interested, Street Epistomology with Anthony Magnabosco is quite revealing:
I'm beginning to suspect that the street conversation is basically going to come down to meeting some one emotionally on a one-on-one level.
People who change their mind don't report looking and statistical analysis, the report being pressured by family or annoyed by restrictions. I suppose I could try it on some of the few unvaccinated people I know, then report back how that goes?
"How are you going to feel if you transmit this disease to a loved one? Maybe a grandparent?"
"You're afraid of side effects? What's are the worst consequences you could imagine? What about the worst case scenario if you don't get vaccinated?"
It might help a little, changing a few minds, and I am interested in the study of argumentation. But I'm also interested in fighting the currents that are causing exponential growth to rise again. And we can never get experts to be 100% right 100% of the time. Science is always only a best guess, and people are making that sound like intuitions are a better alternative.
I agree with your final observation. But unfortunately some of the science hasn’t been based on a best guess. There is science, and then there are scientists. The two are not synonymous.
Ideologues of both the Left and the Right have been playing politics with COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic. Government officials and public health authorities have demonstrated a startling degree of incompetence and mendacity since the beginning of the pandemic. The anti-vaccination movement predates this pandemic. So does the public's appetite for conspiracy theories. Thus no one should be particularly surprised by what's happening now.
I look at it this way. What we now have is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. While anti-vaccine resistance may indeed lead to preventable deaths from COVID-19, almost all of them will be anti-vaxxers. Which is to say, they voluntarily assumed the risk of illness and death. Very likely some of them have already contracted the virus and are protected by natural immunity. Most others will get sick but suffer no long-lasting effects. But yes, there will be excess deaths.
I myself came down with COVID. I'm 71 years old and it made me pretty sick but fortunately my overall health is good and my life was never in danger. Subsequently, on the advice of my doctor, I got myself vaccinated. I have absolutely no use for anti-vaxxers due to the fact that when I was six I contracted polio. At that time the Salk vaccine was just being rolled out and I shudder to think what might have happened if the anti-vaccination movement existed then. The vaccine was too late to help me but eventually it eradicated the disease that crippled me for two years, though thanks to the grace of God I eventually made a full recovery.
All that being said, if liberty means anything it means that people get to make decisions even if they're wrong or stupid, and on the assumption that they're prepared to live—or die—with the consequences. The alternative—some dictatorship of Dr. Fauci—appeals to me not at all.
“The mRNA vaccines seem to be more effective against this variant than our other vaccines.” (Claire Berlinski)
Not according to the latest data. While mRNA vaccines are highly protective against the variant, the J&J vaccine appears to be as protective or almost as protective against it.
Although it’s a small study, the results are very impressive. It’s not just that the J&J shot seems to protect against all the variants, it’s that the vaccine seems to have escalating immunogenicity against the virus at least for the eight month duration of the trial.
Based on the titers of the neutralizing antibodies, protection provided by the J&J vaccine may be more durable than the protection from the mRNA vaccines, though it’s too early to say for sure.
Initially, the feeling was that the mRNA vaccines were superior to the viral vector vaccines, but based on this admittedly small study, I’m beginning to wonder whether I should have taken the J&J jab instead of the two Moderna jabs.
Of course, all of the vaccines are remarkably effective; much more efficacious than an annual flu shot.
It’s really terribly depressing that the government experts who are imploring Americans to be vaccinated have lost so much credibility.
Why the expert class is so reviled by tens of millions of Americans would be an interesting topic for our erudite Cosmopolitan Globalist friends to opine on. It’s a topic that is at least as critical as the nefarious role of social media in the current crisis.
I think some of this goes back to the 2008 financial crisis in particular. If you really scratch the surface the populist far left much of their overriding world view comes out of 2008. Also a sense on the far right that the financial crisis helped get Obama elected.
The thing I personally push back on this sentiment over is actually quite a few "Western" did not have a banking crisis and some case warned the others against taking certain policies that are now regarded as having to led to the 2008 crisis. For example "Experts" in countries as wide ranging as Australia, Canada, and Japan all kept there countries out of the crisis. Even France was somewhat mildier that the UK, Germany, and the US.
As to why people have little or no faith in the faux-ocular pronouncements of public-health officials and experts, I submit for your consideration the news that the CDC has flip-flopped yet again on masking, and now recommends that VACCINATED people wear masks indoors in certain situations, e.g. when children under 12 are present. The idiocy on display here, both scientific and political, is simply mind-boggling.
When is the appropriate time to change one's mind?
When the facts change—which in this case they haven't. Several things things are well known at this point:
(1) “Although vaccines afford very high protection, infection with the delta and other variants remain possible. Fortunately, vaccination, even among those who acquire infections, appears to prevent serious illness, hospitalization and death from COVID-19"—this according to the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Moreover, even if a vaccinated person does come down with COVID, the risk of transmission to another person is very low.
(2) The risk to children from COVID-19 is infinitesimal, as represented by a a survival rate of over 99%. Those very few who have fallen seriously ill or died had serious preexisting conditions.
(3) The overwhelming majority of those who remain unvaccinated have voluntarily assumed the risks associated with that status. They, not people who have been vaccinated, are responsible for the management of those risks.
Given the above facts, the CDC's revised guidance on masking is, to be rudely frank about it, a prize piece of idiocy. It has no basis in "the Science." Indeed, the recommendation that schoolchildren should wear masks is an infliction of harm on them—and one cannot help suspecting that the teachers union had a hand in it it. And of course, recommending that vaccinated people wear masks sends a signal that vaccines don't really work—exactly the opposite of the message that should be communicated.
The CDC director, Rochelle Walensky, announced this new "guidance" via a conference call, which itself was a PR fiasco. One would have thought that the official responsible for such a major change of course would have the intestinal fortitude to face the nation in person, but no. Her performance since being appointed has been lamentable and this was just one more example of her unfitness for the position she occupies.
I can't say I agree with this: "The risk to children from COVID-19 is infinitesimal, as represented by a a survival rate of over 99%. Those very few who have fallen seriously ill or died had serious preexisting conditions." The research so far suggests children are as vulnerable to long Covid as adults, and it also suggests that long Covid is associated with *significant* declines in measured IQ. If every child in the US contracts Covid19--and they *will,* at this rate, given it's as contagious as chicken pox and again, irresponsibly and inexplicably, the vaccine has not been authorized for use in children--we can expect that about a quarter of them will suffer from long-term and significant cognitive damage. How long? We have no idea, but we know it *can* last as long as 18 months, since many people who contracted the disease at the outset are still crippled by it. This suggests to me there's a non-zero chance this syndrome may, in some people, be permanent; or at least, it will last until we find effective treatments for it--which we're in no way close to doing, since we don't yet understand it.
If you think the American body politic can survive a generation of kids who've lost that much cognitive function, think twice. It will interfere not only with their education (obviously), but with every aspect of life governed by IQ. It is very reasonable to suspect kids damaged this way will have the same criminogenic propensities as children damaged by lead poisoning. I've seen the effects of long Covid: My brother had Covid19 in December, and is still suffering from it. I see no evidence his IQ has declined, but he says that he certainly feels as if it has. He still has to take steroids, every day, just to be able to get out of bed and breath normally. Steroids are the Devil's handmaiden: My family vacation, last week, was notable because we all hid in our rooms all day to avoid my brother's 'roid rage. I do not hold him responsible for this. He *needs* to take the steroids; he can't breathe without them. This is seven months after the initial infection, which was extremely mild, almost asymptomatic. This is not in his head. It's not psychosomatic. My brother is one of the many, many people who report this constellation of syndromes, after a *mild* infection, and this is going to be a massive, long-term disease burden for 25 percent of the people who become infected: https://time.com/6073522/long-covid-prevalence/.
This will affect all of us. We can't say, "Well, if they get sick, that's their problem." We'll all be paying for their disability checks--and yes, they will go on disability, because what choice will they have? We'll all be dealing with the fallout of the family dysfunction that will ensue because one or both parents in so many households are too sick properly to take care of their kids. We'll all be picking up the tab to compensate for the lack of tax revenues among those who have been forced out of the workforce by illness.
And children are just as susceptible to long Covid: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7927578/. The studies of this so far are deeply, deeply worrying. These kids have been dealt a *severe* blow--forget it for sports, play, and other normal childhood activities, but even more worrying, forget it for academics. Coupled with a year or more of online learning? The most vulnerable kids will end up completely unschooled. Probably literally illiterate. We can't afford this: Our kids are already far behind peer nations in education, particularly in science and math. This will be the coup de grâce.
That we've failed to authorize the vaccines for children is a catastrophic public health failure: It's a classic symptom of a public health bureaucracy that's so risk-averse and so dedicated to covering their asses that they cannot do what they're designed to do: protect public health. In this respect, I agree with your dismal assessment of the CDC and the FDA. But not for the same reasons. Kids should be the *priority* for vaccination, because they're the ones who stand to lose the most years of their lives, and they're our future.
The vaccines are clearly far safer than the disease, even for children: Not one person has died from the vaccine, but hundreds of American kids have died from this disease--and remember, kids aren't *ever* supposed to die. It's no good to say, "Oh, something was wrong with those kids to begin with." First, civilized people do not practice eugenics. Whatever was "wrong" with them was in all likelihood perfectly compatible with a happy and valued life. Second, it isn't true: The hospitals are growingly filling up with *perfectly healthy* young people. Try telling the parents of the kids who've died of Covid19 that their deaths were no big deal!
We have an obligation to protect children--and an obligation to do so, especially, if their parents are incompetent and unfit. Parents who reject vaccination are incompetent and unfit. An FDA that fails even to *authorize* the vaccination of children is incompetent and unfit.
And remember: We do not know what the long-term effects of this virus might be. The feline coronavirus causes a mild illness in kittens, after which it appears to be completely asymptomatic. Except that ten percent of the time, the virus later mutates and swiftly, agonizingly, kills the cat. That's what happened to Daisy. Viruses, including coronaviruses, are known to do this. There's no evidence this will happen, but none that it won't, either.
Vaccines, on the other hand, are *not* known for doing this. No vaccine in history has ever had adverse effects that have not been apparent within two months. Nor is there any plausible biological mechanism by which ours might. The case for vaccinating children is overwhelming, yet the CDA and FDA are sitting on their asses and twiddling their thumbs--worried about making the anti-vaxxers mad, to judge from their internal communications. By the time they get around to authorizing them, it will be far too late: Delta is here *now,* not a year from now; for many Americans it's already far too late.
If I were an American parent, I'd strongly consider keeping my kids home, or even looking for a vaccine on the black market, until this wave has washed over us. There's no way I'd expose my kid to a one-in-four risk of brain damage. None.
Well, let's think a bit.
First, there cannot possibly be anything in the way of research suggesting long-term cognitive damage to children from COVID-19—the necessary data being unavailable. What this is, is a speculative premise. But we do know that children are not prone to contract COVID and that if they do, they rarely—very rarely—become seriously ill. We also know that locking down children—especially young children—for fear of COVID has had very serious side effects. Already they’ve missed a year of school, and it looks as though the teachers unions wouldn’t mind if the kids lost another year. What do the teachers care, after all? They get their pay and benefits whether the schools are open or not. And that’s to say nothing of the damage being done to family life, particularly among lower-class Americans who don’t have the option of working from home.
I make a similar observation concerning so-called long COVID in adults. It may turn out to be a big problem, but then again maybe not. Let’s be honest and admit that nobody really knows. Yes, it’s unwise and even stupid for people to forego vaccination and get sick but after all, people do lots of other stupid things that damage their health and are socially irresponsible, such as poor diet, smoking, excessive drinking, drug use and other dangerous behaviors. But—I was about to say that no one proposes forcing them to change their ways. Indeed, however, there are more than a few nasty little commissars who wish they had the power to do just that. But they don’t have such power, and a good thing too. Trying to force people to do what’s best for them inevitably has an effect opposite to that intended. As far as I’m concerned at this point, vaccine skeptics are on their own. I’m not responsible for the decisions they make, nor for the associated consequences.
As for the danger of dangerous mutant strains of COVID, that too is no more than a speculative premise and besides, what are we supposed to do? Stay locked down forever? Anyhow, it’s much more likely that if such a dangerous mutation arises, it likely won’t be here in America but somewhere (Is the term “Third World” still permissible?) where most people remain unvaccinated. Maybe instead of persecuting vaccine skeptics in this country we should consider what might be done about that situation.
If we are wise we will bear steadily in mind that COVID-19 is also a disease ravaging the country’s social fabric. But we have not been wise—well, I’ve been wise enough but our political leadership, the expert class and the media have not. Would it be going too far to say that they’ve abused their power? Not at all. In countless ways they’ve made a bad situation worse. Incompetence, lethargy, misinformation and plain lies have been the order of the day—stepping all over the great American success story of the pandemic, the amazingly rapid development of effective vaccines. Popular distrust of the political class and other elites is no recent phenomenon and you’d think that luminaries like Dr. Anthony Fauci would have taken a moment to factor that into their plans. But I’ll bet you serious money that he and the rest of them never gave it a moment’s consideration. The arrogance of expertise has cost us dearly and I for one will support no policy that gives these people more power over our lives. Not only is that kind of authoritarianism un-American, but it just won't work.
I do agree with you about the gross incompetence of the public health establishment. The FDA’s failure to expedite full approval of the vaccines is scandalous. The erratic, panicky behavior of the CDC under Dr. Rochelle Walensky would be comic if it weren’t so damaging. Its latest debacle, the meltdown over the outbreak in Provincetown, Massachusetts, was just about the last straw for me. But whatever damage has been done, it can’t be undone now.
Oh, and lest I forget: Claire, I received your Thatcher book and read it with the greatest attention and pleasure. She was certainly one of the most interesting public figures of recent times. Your assessment struck me as thoughtful and well balanced. It’s too bad we don’t have someone like her around to deal with this pandemic. (Recently I had just the same thought regarding Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, if you know who he was.)
I'm so pleased you enjoyed it. Thank you for telling me.
You’re right, Claire, that the listless approach that the FDA is taking to providing emergency use authorization for Covid vaccines for children is inexcusable.
It is also inexcusable that the Agency is tarrying on providing final approval for the vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and J&J. Everyone knows that final approval for these vaccines is inevitable; there is zero chance they won’t be approved. In light of this, only government paper-pushers could possibly think that dotting each administrative “I” and crossing each bureaucratic “T” will comfort or protect the American public. The mere fact that the vaccines are granted final approval might convince thousands or even tens of thousands of Americans to get the jab. In light of this the delay is unfathomable.
Had Donald Trump been re-elected, there’s an excellent chance that he would have simply ordered the FDA to grant final approval. He would have been fiercely criticized for it by the same journalists, pundits and politicians who pray at the altars of Drs. Fauci and Walensky but it’s a decision that would have saved lives. Instead, we have President “Follow-the-Science” Biden who is permitting the FDA to dawdle at the expense of needless death.
Claire, here’s what I think you don’t get. The philosophy that you espouse, globalism and especially cosmopolitan globalism, is precisely the system that’s responsible for all of the bad decisions coming out of government when it comes to Covid.
Global systems as opposed to radically decentralized systems inevitably rely on bureaucracies for governance. The more global in scope these bureaucracies are the more inefficient they become. International bureaucracies perform more poorly than national bureaucracies which perform more poorly than local bureaucracies.
As bureaucracies get larger in scope and scale, society has little choice but to rely on experts to run the organizations society comes to depend on. In no time at all, bogus systems are devised to credential these experts who administer these organizations.
Before long, these experts become so steeped in their own arcane rules, procedures and nomenclature that they fully abandon any fidelity to common sense.
Inevitably, average citizens realize that the bureaucrats making all the decisions (whether well-intentioned or not) are accountable to no one, least of all the average guy or gal trudging to the polls to vote in elections that, over time, become increasingly meaningless.
As people become more estranged from their own rulers, (not only the politicians but the bureaucrats who run everything) the alienation leads to a tendency to mistrust or even react with hostility to anything those rulers recommend. How many Americans and Europeans do you suppose, Claire, are hesitant to be vaccinated for exactly the reasons that I have just outlined? My guess is that it’s many millions.
Average folks understand perfectly well that when Hillary Clinton denigrates them as “deplorables” she wasn’t speaking for just herself but for the entire class that she represents. These same average folks understood the put down when Obama called them gunslingers and religion-clingers and when Mitt Romney rolled his eyes at the good-for-nothing 47 percent.
After all this abuse, if you can’t understand where vaccine hesitancy comes from it’s because you’re averting your eyes.
The philosophy of globalism,
whether cosmopolitan or not, requires the strengthening of mega-bureaucracies. When these mega-bureaucracies fail, the results can be catastrophic. That’s what we are seeing now.
It’s very sad, but perfectly predictable.
This is a rich and interesting comment, but not quite right. I'm going to write about this subject. In the meantime, you might very much enjoy reading this: https://dominiccummings.com/2014/10/30/the-hollow-men-ii-some-reflections-on-westminster-and-whitehall-dysfunction/
Thanks for the link; I look forward to reading it. To further illustrate my point, I noticed that Dr. Fauci appeared on CNN and said that if the attitude currently prevailing about Covid vaccines prevailed in the late 1950s and early 1960s about polio vaccines, polio would never have been eradicated. See,
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/fauci-slams-fox-news-vaccine-skepticism-polio-would-still-be-around-2021-7%3famp
Dr. Fauci is right; one of my earliest memories is lining up to take take the Sabin sugar cube.
But Dr. Fauci, like most members of the tribe to which he belongs (credentialed elites) can’t seem to figure out why views have changed.
At the time, when the Salk and Sabin vaccines were being administered, people didn’t hate their own Governments. There was only a small administrative State back then.
Now millions of people do hate, or at least mistrust, their own Governments. What cognitive elites are not quite smart enough to figure out is that much of this mistrust is well-deserved.
I have a suspicion there's something else at work here. Scientists are reluctant to extrapolate, and for very good reasons. It's remarkably less accurate, and in the current political environment there are a lot of pundits waiting in the wings, eager to point and howl. The profit motive to sow distrust is especially high, not to mention certain cultural vulnerabilities to facts.
They made a mistake by making predictions for this summer, in an environment where people are eager to see them fail. I suspect part of the reason that policies on masks are changing is because trends are changing. Initial estimates of vaccine acceptance were far higher, and when the people failed to make the responsible civic choice, it allowed the Delta variant to spread more rapidly and with a higher body count. I put the majority of the blame for the lack of acceptance on the people profiting off that narrative, not on the people who brought us the vaccine. As a result, the prediction that we wouldn't need masks to reduce the spread was incorrect. That doesn't mean at all that the vaccines aren't helpful, and you'd have to be deliberately misinformed to draw that conclusion. Maybe we should be addressing those actors.
I also disagree with your assessment that people who choose not to get vaccinated are only affecting themselves. Those who choose not to get vaccinated are more likely to be infected, and therefor not only more likely to infect others, but also be the petri dish that afflicts us with the next, potentially more hostile, variant. I will feel a terrible shame if the next killer variant, or variant that can beat our vaccines, is produced by our unwillingness to behave with others in mind.
Unfortunately the Bill of Rights came along in a century that didn't have Pasteur. Public health is every bit a concern to life as foreign invaders.
This is exactly the kind of argument that cannot help. The problem with it is that whatever its validity, it's chasing a wave of distrust and suspicion that's been generated by politicians, the media, public health bureaucrats and experts generally.
Example: The vaccination program was proceeding well when the CDC, in response to a mere half-dozen averse-reaction cases, suspended the use of one vaccine. This panicky decision had the effect of slamming the brakes on the vaccination program, and it has never recovered since then. Meanwhile, the FDA sits around twiddling its thumbs instead of straining every nerve and muscle to finalize approval of the vaccines. Until they get around to doing that, attempts to force vaccination on people is only going to make a bad situation worse.
And now the CDC has done it again, reversing an advisory on masking that it issued a week and a half ago. How this is supposed to improve the situation I cannot imagine. Surely the idea that such bureaucratic to-ing and fro-ing will slow the spread is frivolous in the extreme. As for vaccination mandates: Just wait until it dawns on the Biden Administration that a very large number of unvaccinated people are not Trump supporters living in the former Confederacy but black and brown minorities living in the urban areas of blue states.
Comparative vaccination rates are more than a little deceptive. For instance, if one compares Los Angeles County, California (population 10 million, population density 2,100 people per square mile, full vaccination rate 56%) with Knox Country, Indiana (population 37,000, population density 71 people per square mile, full vaccination rate 40%), it becomes immediately clear that the problem is Los Angeles County, not Knox County. In the former, around 4.8 million people are partially vaccinated or unvaccinated; in the latter that number is around 17,000—most of whom have had one dose. But how often are such comparisons made? Hardly ever. The "stupid conservatives and Republicans and Trumpsters" line is too convenient by half for the Biden Administration & etc. This is how the game is being played.
And probably worth mentioning: you're right, the CDC completely screwed the pooch when they suspended the use of the J&J vaccine. That was a utter failure of data-driven decision making when it was needed most.
"This is exactly the kind of argument that cannot help."
This is fair to bring. I think the only reason we're down this particular rabbit track, is because I think neither of us are the subject of conversation (both vaccinated). I think the meta-conversation we're having is important, because it addresses the underlying problems that spur people to make bad decisions. But the meta conversation isn't for the trenches, it's for us lofty snobs in the CG comments.
I admittedly experience failures of conversation outside of meta-analysis as well. That's to be expected. I've also witnessed and participated in dozens of conversations on theology, and know that a modest percentage of them result in changing minds, which many regard as impossible. If you're interested, Street Epistomology with Anthony Magnabosco is quite revealing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ic8O-m1lAZo
I'm beginning to suspect that the street conversation is basically going to come down to meeting some one emotionally on a one-on-one level.
People who change their mind don't report looking and statistical analysis, the report being pressured by family or annoyed by restrictions. I suppose I could try it on some of the few unvaccinated people I know, then report back how that goes?
"How are you going to feel if you transmit this disease to a loved one? Maybe a grandparent?"
"You're afraid of side effects? What's are the worst consequences you could imagine? What about the worst case scenario if you don't get vaccinated?"
It might help a little, changing a few minds, and I am interested in the study of argumentation. But I'm also interested in fighting the currents that are causing exponential growth to rise again. And we can never get experts to be 100% right 100% of the time. Science is always only a best guess, and people are making that sound like intuitions are a better alternative.
I agree with your final observation. But unfortunately some of the science hasn’t been based on a best guess. There is science, and then there are scientists. The two are not synonymous.
Ideologues of both the Left and the Right have been playing politics with COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic. Government officials and public health authorities have demonstrated a startling degree of incompetence and mendacity since the beginning of the pandemic. The anti-vaccination movement predates this pandemic. So does the public's appetite for conspiracy theories. Thus no one should be particularly surprised by what's happening now.
I look at it this way. What we now have is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. While anti-vaccine resistance may indeed lead to preventable deaths from COVID-19, almost all of them will be anti-vaxxers. Which is to say, they voluntarily assumed the risk of illness and death. Very likely some of them have already contracted the virus and are protected by natural immunity. Most others will get sick but suffer no long-lasting effects. But yes, there will be excess deaths.
I myself came down with COVID. I'm 71 years old and it made me pretty sick but fortunately my overall health is good and my life was never in danger. Subsequently, on the advice of my doctor, I got myself vaccinated. I have absolutely no use for anti-vaxxers due to the fact that when I was six I contracted polio. At that time the Salk vaccine was just being rolled out and I shudder to think what might have happened if the anti-vaccination movement existed then. The vaccine was too late to help me but eventually it eradicated the disease that crippled me for two years, though thanks to the grace of God I eventually made a full recovery.
All that being said, if liberty means anything it means that people get to make decisions even if they're wrong or stupid, and on the assumption that they're prepared to live—or die—with the consequences. The alternative—some dictatorship of Dr. Fauci—appeals to me not at all.
“The mRNA vaccines seem to be more effective against this variant than our other vaccines.” (Claire Berlinski)
Not according to the latest data. While mRNA vaccines are highly protective against the variant, the J&J vaccine appears to be as protective or almost as protective against it.
See,
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2108829?query=featured_home
It’s good news and just another reason vaccine-hesitancy is so absurd.
Oh, that *is* good news. Thank you for letting me know.
Although it’s a small study, the results are very impressive. It’s not just that the J&J shot seems to protect against all the variants, it’s that the vaccine seems to have escalating immunogenicity against the virus at least for the eight month duration of the trial.
Based on the titers of the neutralizing antibodies, protection provided by the J&J vaccine may be more durable than the protection from the mRNA vaccines, though it’s too early to say for sure.
Initially, the feeling was that the mRNA vaccines were superior to the viral vector vaccines, but based on this admittedly small study, I’m beginning to wonder whether I should have taken the J&J jab instead of the two Moderna jabs.
Of course, all of the vaccines are remarkably effective; much more efficacious than an annual flu shot.
It’s really terribly depressing that the government experts who are imploring Americans to be vaccinated have lost so much credibility.
Why the expert class is so reviled by tens of millions of Americans would be an interesting topic for our erudite Cosmopolitan Globalist friends to opine on. It’s a topic that is at least as critical as the nefarious role of social media in the current crisis.
I would have quite a bit to say on that subject.
We're actually planning a series on that subject exactly. But it will be in the autumn, after we've formally launched.
It's not just an American phenomenon, by the way; that's what makes it unusually interesting.
I think some of this goes back to the 2008 financial crisis in particular. If you really scratch the surface the populist far left much of their overriding world view comes out of 2008. Also a sense on the far right that the financial crisis helped get Obama elected.
The thing I personally push back on this sentiment over is actually quite a few "Western" did not have a banking crisis and some case warned the others against taking certain policies that are now regarded as having to led to the 2008 crisis. For example "Experts" in countries as wide ranging as Australia, Canada, and Japan all kept there countries out of the crisis. Even France was somewhat mildier that the UK, Germany, and the US.