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It was the politicization of vaccines during the latter stages of the COVID pandemic that finally broke my hopes for a positive future in the near term. I thou

It was the politicization of vaccines during the latter stages of the COVID pandemic that finally broke my hopes for a positive future in the near term. I thought that something like a pandemic would have brought us all together around a base truth. However, politics + social media was stronger than R₀, this time.

morkalork 1y ago
When deaths lagged infections by weeks it was all over. Just seeing the tsunami of people dividing today's deaths by today's infections and loudly proclaiming it was no worse than the flu was just wow. People are that dumb aren't they. After that, there was no hope for any related topics more complicated or nuanced.
- const_cast 1y ago
  It really proved to me that fear is the mind killer. When fearful, people will truly believe anything. Delusions go from something that only applies to the psychotic to something you see in every person.
- cryptoegorophy 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - ghushn3 1y ago
    You can make this point without the slur.
    - breakyerself 1y ago
      As much as I hate the slur I think it carries an irony in this context that couldn't be achieved otherwise.
    - mindslight 1y ago
      [flagged]
- Scuds 1y ago
  there were crematoriums falling apart because of constant use. Morgues overflowing with coffins. Three of my direct coworkers died from covid. One guy didn't get his sense of taste back for a year. People just gasping to death in their bedrooms waiting for things to improve and only going to the overloaded ER when it's too late. I'm an asthmatic, I've been close to that feeling where sub 90% oxygen saturation made me feel like death. Anything like 80% your lungs start to fail. You're dead in a hurry.
  - cowboylowrez 1y ago
    I seem to remember that for some cases, some covid patients didn't even notice the low oxygen levels.
Balgair 1y ago
Yeah, plagues and famines are really bad at driving solidarity. They tend to do the opposite. I also had high hopes in the beginning too. But I feared that it would be like the Plague of Milan in 1630. That particular plague is in Il Promisi Sposi ( The Betrothed), the Italian national epic. Really, it's a bit picardesque. But the first hand descriptions of that plague are just so damn similar to what the COVID was like. I remember reading it years before the pandemic and thinking that I was glad we weren't so mideaval anymore. Now it read it again ( it's only a few chapters in the book) and I feel more like one veteran talking to another about their war. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45334 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45334 Chapter 31 is where the plague part starts, you needn't really read the rest, but it's a good summer book all the same
- tony69 1y ago
  *I Promessi Sposi (spelling)
  - Balgair 1y ago
    Gracias ;)
- ZeroGravitas 1y ago
  I checked to see if there was a Standard Ebooks version, as they're generally nicer to read than Gutenberg (though translated works are a weak spot in both projects as you need the translation to fall out of copyright too). However Standard Ebooks didn't have it. They did have a page about how they want sponsors or volunteers to help create it which I found interesting in itself: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/alessandro-manzoni/the-betrothed https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/alessandro-manzoni/the-bet...
  - igor47 1y ago
    Whoa thanks, I hadn't heard of standard ebooks, looks very useful
- evklein 1y ago
chrisco255 1y ago
Everybody got Covid (multiple times!), despite draconian measures to force people to take the vaccine. I've taken many vaccines in my life. I never got measles, mumps, or rubella. I never got tetanus or hepatitis C. Nobody I know who got the smallpox vax ever got smallpox. But everyone I know got Covid, vax / no vax. Some people I know got ill for three weeks from the vax itself. One dude got bells palsy from it. Nobody ever had to force people to take the smallpox vax or lose their job. People just willingly took it because they knew smallpox was really, truly, desperately deadly and that the vax actually worked. The Covid vax had none of those properties of the smallpox vax and yet it was paired with the most 1984 level insanity of my entire life.
- redczar 1y ago
  The virus that causes Covid mutates rapidly. The Covid vaccine is effective up to a point. It’s similar to how flu vaccines work. People who get a flu vaccine are less likely to get the flu but are not immune to the flu. Covid was and is deadly. It’s caused millions of deaths. You are wrong.
- boxed 1y ago
  ..in the US. Here in Sweden, I never got covid that I know of, people lined up real fast to get the vaccine without any threats.
- asadotzler 1y ago
  I'm an example that proves you wrong. Vaccines and masks and careful travel and I've avoided it, my wife's avoided it, and many of my friends and family have avoided it. Maybe you travel in careless circles but those of us with chronic health issues aren't as willing to leave things up to chance as you are.
Nathanba 1y ago
Next time they shouldn't lie nonstop about almost every single thing during a pandemic. Then you can expect people to follow you. People don't like to follow proven liars, whether they did it with "good intentions" is ultimately irrelevant. Someone with good intentions can also bring you to ruin. 1. They lied about masks, first it was irrelevant whether you wore one or not, then they changed their mind and suddenly masks were super important and you just have to wear one or else. The truth is that it probably helps a little because duh, you have some cloth in front of your breathing, it probably catches some particles but definitely not all all the time. Saying that scientific truth evolved is utter nonsense, experts definitely always knew particle size and mask efficiency. They just didn't care and didn't do their job figuring it out and telling people the real efficiency. 2. They lied constantly that vaccines are super safe and super effective, outright attempting to gaslight you that "nobody" dies to vaccines. Which is just a flat out lie. People absolutely died from vaccines and always have. Just stop lying about it. 3. The U.S president himself lied that you will not spread it anymore if you get vaccinated. All lies. And it was definitely already known at the time he said this, frankly it's common sense. 3. They lied about herd immunity which is basically impossible to achieve. 4. Deals with vaccine companies were kept secret, that doesn't exactly inspire much confidence to follow guidances when everyone knows how much money can corrupt. 5. They mounted a massive coercion campaign and constantly shamed everyone in the most pathetic ways possible with patronizing TV coverage. Colbert's little vaccine dance is historic at this point. 6. They strongly suppressed alternative points of view from other scientists and doctors. These were not flatearther tier people, they made good points and many were and are well respected people. And yet they were suppressed anyway. And after all this you come here with a very generic comment about how disappointed you are that people didn't come together on a base truth. I'm disappointed that you seem to have no complaints and offer such a generic, apologist view of the past.
- redczar 1y ago
  They lied constantly that vaccines are super safe and super effective, outright attempting to gaslight you that "nobody" dies to vaccines. Commercial airplane travel is super safe. Some people die from commercial airplane crashes. Both statements are true. Ignorance is bliss.
fuckyah 1y ago
[dead]
cameldrv 1y ago
Yep so we got the guy that dumped a dead bear in Central Park in charge of the national vaccine strategy.
- raverbashing 1y ago
  And the brain worm for eating uncooked meat And the raw milk (might or might not contain a bit of cow poop)
  - jeroenhd 1y ago
    For what it's worth, the brain worm story was relevant when he needed to get a better legal position during his divorce. Maybe he did have a real parasite in his brain, but according to him the parasite left no permanent damage after it got cleaned up after the divorce ended in his favour. I don't see why raw milk necessarily contains cow poop unless the udders aren't cleaned before milking (though I suppose you can't trust the diary industry to take care of that reliably) but I doubt he's consuming any of it beyond the public appearances set up for the raw milk grifters. Why attribute to insanity that which could just as easily be attributed to corruption and lies.
    - raverbashing 1y ago
      > Why attribute to insanity that which could just as easily be attributed to corruption and lies. Indeed
    - thephyber 1y ago
      > Why attribute to insanity that which could just as easily be attributed to corruption and lies. Because his “insanity” is more than just a claimed brain worm: The trauma from the men in his life being assassinated when he was an impressionable little boy. He now blames the CIA for both. The heroin addiction. The whale on the car incident. The bear cub corpse in NYC. The swimming in raw sewage. There is no spy or health conspiracy too large for this guy. Everyone is corrupt/corruptable in his mind except him. These are not the actions of a stable person. His solution to autism is to dictate that there is no significant genetic component, then give scientists 6 months to “find the cause” (after hijacking all of the medical data the US government can coerce). Sure, there is corruption in that he is making referral money from some of his companies. I’m not sure he’s lying though — that requires Mens Rea. He might just have crazy ideas about reality. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t believe in _germ theory_ after his statements about HIV /AIDS.
renewiltord 1y ago
It was damaging. Saying Jerome Adams saying "masks don't work" and then Antony Fauci coming out and saying they said that because they wanted to keep masks for healthcare workers was honestly a bad deal. That kind of lie to the public was not going to go over well.
- consumer451 1y ago
  That I can agree with, but part of their job is panic control. Just like anytime you hear the gov talk about radiation. On my part, I didn’t need anyone to tell me how various masks do or do not work. They all have certifications one can read on their own. But, that mask messaging was bad. I suppose the alternative was, yes masks work, but we don’t enough have for you. Apparently we are not adult enough to hear that type of thing. And, I mean we’re not.
  - renewiltord 1y ago
    The real truth is “masks work and our current reuse recommendations were made in peacetime so we waste them causing us to not have enough if everyone were to buy them”. On this very site people were saying you “can’t wear an N95 mask without training”. The fact of the matter is that such dishonesty makes one untrustworthy. It was clear that everyone landed in political lines here. The right answer is to not lie. “You can’t handle the truth” is nice in a movie but we’re in real life and if you say that to me you shouldn’t be surprised if the next time you say something I think that you’re lying again.
- whateveracct 1y ago
  that...was not the biggest problem lol
  - lenkite 1y ago
    When they were busy arresting people for not wearing masks, kids not wearing marks and not social distancing while Fauci's family was gallivanting around without masks and attending public functions...yes it was a big problem, lol. Most of the rules were proven unscientific as Fauci himself admitted later in senate hearing.
refurb 1y ago
I agree. When Fauci made comments about “get vaccinated and it’s unlikely you’ll transmit Covid” when the trials never tested viral transmission (1) was shameful. Once it turned out not to be true public trust was seriously eroded. (1) https://abc3340.com/news/local/those-fully-vaccinated-very-unlikely-to-spread-covid-19-fauci-says https://abc3340.com/news/local/those-fully-vaccinated-very-u...
- NewJazz 1y ago
  Fauci's statement is true. Weird link you got there.
  - ifyoubuildit 1y ago
    How does that square with the fact that approximately everyone got covid? Do you think all of the infections came from unvaccinated people?
    - NewJazz 1y ago
      The vaccine was never advertised to prevent infection 100%, especially after time.
      - ahmeneeroe-v2 1y ago
        [flagged]
        justinrubek 1y ago
        Go ahead and prove it
        jghn 1y ago
        No vaccine is ever advertised as being 100% effective. Because no vaccine is. That's not how they work.
        1y ago
dehrmann 1y ago
The mistake was mandates. They might have saved some lives in the near-term, but Americans don't like being told what to do, and the long-term policy consequences could be much worse than the extra 5% coverage mandates brought.
- ActorNightly 1y ago
  There was no mistake. In no other civilized society, requiring people to do something so small to actually care for each other would be considered a breach of civil rights. Americans are just special Unfortunately, because of how special Americans are, the outcome of being stuck with this current administration was inevitable. It was going to happen sooner or later. Im glad at least its happening sooner when Im still fairly young and have the flexibility to peace out if I need to.
  - somenameforme 1y ago
    There was major backlash against mandates everywhere they were imposed, even including in places like China which has an extremely social culture paired with a government with authoritarian level power and relatively low tolerance for public dissent. Asking people to inject themselves with something that was rushed out the door, most using novel technology, and whose results did not come remotely close to the early rhetoric (which included claims that you would not get infected or spread COVID if vaccinated) is not something that people would ever organically rush to adopt.
    - ActorNightly 1y ago
      China doesn't have extremely social culture. It has developed rapid economic growth and societally there are quite a few issues. The only country that had a very good societal response was Japan, as a result they had one of the lowest death rates in the world, even with their aging population, while having the law in place that pretty much only restrict government power to closing certain places, without being able to enforce quarantine. The initial decision of the government was even against imposing emergency powers, but eventually all parties agreed that emergency powers were necessary. >Asking people to inject themselves with something that was rushed out the door, most using novel technology, and whose results did not come remotely close to the early rhetoric (which included claims that you would not get infected or spread COVID if vaccinated) is not something that people would ever organically rush to adopt. And yet, those same people eat food that contains who knows what, was processed with random chemicals that may or may not cause cancer, buy meat from animals injected with chemicals that they don't know the contents of, smoke, drink alchol, vape. But suddenly, when it comes to taking a vaccine with technology that not only has been around for a while, but also adequately tested, the "government can't be trusted". The negative response to vaccine was never about government distrust, it was pretty much a very easy ideological line to draw in the sand. This is why every single anti vaxxer person on their way to the grave breathing through a ventilator was changing their mind and telling people to take the vaccine, because when shit actually gets real, ideology matters less. And equivalently now, maybe (and hopefully), when US is embroiled in civil unrest with martial law in place, and people can't feed their families, they will realize that having a black woman president would have been probably a much better outcome than voting for a convicted felon who sold them lies of individual liberty.
somenameforme 1y ago
It was the hyperbole and extremely visible coordination around the COVID vaccines that broke confidence. Here [1] is a montage of various highly influential public figures stating that if you get vaccinated you won't get COVID and you won't transmit COVID. Oh and the censorship. The reason I'm linking to X is because these exact montages, simply quoting public figures saying things, tend to get removed from YouTube. There should be public debate around most of any issue. Tell people something as simple that getting some sunlight is good for them and some will even argue against it claiming that no it's not, you'll just get skin cancer. And that's fine, even those sort of views deserve their place in the public discourse. But when that discourse is completely absent - presumably to try to give the appearance of complete consensus, it doesn't inspire confidence, but destroys it. [1] - https://x.com/ITGuy1959/status/1581034815700488192 https://x.com/ITGuy1959/status/1581034815700488192
- aredox 1y ago
  The people RFK jr just nominated to replace the vaccine board have been even more wrong and yet nothing happened to them except being promoted. The problem isn't the lack of debate, it is the hysteria against minor inconvenience and raw selfishness.

morkalork 1y ago

When deaths lagged infections by weeks it was all over. Just seeing the tsunami of people dividing today's deaths by today's infections and loudly proclaiming it was no worse than the flu was just wow. People are that dumb aren't they. After that, there was no hope for any related topics more complicated or nuanced.

const_cast 1y ago
It really proved to me that fear is the mind killer. When fearful, people will truly believe anything. Delusions go from something that only applies to the psychotic to something you see in every person.
cryptoegorophy 1y ago
[flagged]
- ghushn3 1y ago
  You can make this point without the slur.
  - breakyerself 1y ago
    As much as I hate the slur I think it carries an irony in this context that couldn't be achieved otherwise.
  - mindslight 1y ago
    [flagged]
Scuds 1y ago
there were crematoriums falling apart because of constant use. Morgues overflowing with coffins. Three of my direct coworkers died from covid. One guy didn't get his sense of taste back for a year. People just gasping to death in their bedrooms waiting for things to improve and only going to the overloaded ER when it's too late. I'm an asthmatic, I've been close to that feeling where sub 90% oxygen saturation made me feel like death. Anything like 80% your lungs start to fail. You're dead in a hurry.
- cowboylowrez 1y ago
  I seem to remember that for some cases, some covid patients didn't even notice the low oxygen levels.

Balgair 1y ago

Yeah, plagues and famines are really bad at driving solidarity. They tend to do the opposite. I also had high hopes in the beginning too. But I feared that it would be like the Plague of Milan in 1630. That particular plague is in Il Promisi Sposi ( The Betrothed), the Italian national epic. Really, it's a bit picardesque. But the first hand descriptions of that plague are just so damn similar to what the COVID was like. I remember reading it years before the pandemic and thinking that I was glad we weren't so mideaval anymore. Now it read it again ( it's only a few chapters in the book) and I feel more like one veteran talking to another about their war. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45334 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45334 Chapter 31 is where the plague part starts, you needn't really read the rest, but it's a good summer book all the same

tony69 1y ago
*I Promessi Sposi (spelling)
- Balgair 1y ago
  Gracias ;)
ZeroGravitas 1y ago
I checked to see if there was a Standard Ebooks version, as they're generally nicer to read than Gutenberg (though translated works are a weak spot in both projects as you need the translation to fall out of copyright too). However Standard Ebooks didn't have it. They did have a page about how they want sponsors or volunteers to help create it which I found interesting in itself: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/alessandro-manzoni/the-betrothed https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/alessandro-manzoni/the-bet...
- igor47 1y ago
  Whoa thanks, I hadn't heard of standard ebooks, looks very useful
evklein 1y ago

chrisco255 1y ago

Everybody got Covid (multiple times!), despite draconian measures to force people to take the vaccine. I've taken many vaccines in my life. I never got measles, mumps, or rubella. I never got tetanus or hepatitis C. Nobody I know who got the smallpox vax ever got smallpox. But everyone I know got Covid, vax / no vax. Some people I know got ill for three weeks from the vax itself. One dude got bells palsy from it. Nobody ever had to force people to take the smallpox vax or lose their job. People just willingly took it because they knew smallpox was really, truly, desperately deadly and that the vax actually worked. The Covid vax had none of those properties of the smallpox vax and yet it was paired with the most 1984 level insanity of my entire life.

redczar 1y ago
The virus that causes Covid mutates rapidly. The Covid vaccine is effective up to a point. It’s similar to how flu vaccines work. People who get a flu vaccine are less likely to get the flu but are not immune to the flu. Covid was and is deadly. It’s caused millions of deaths. You are wrong.
boxed 1y ago
..in the US. Here in Sweden, I never got covid that I know of, people lined up real fast to get the vaccine without any threats.
asadotzler 1y ago
I'm an example that proves you wrong. Vaccines and masks and careful travel and I've avoided it, my wife's avoided it, and many of my friends and family have avoided it. Maybe you travel in careless circles but those of us with chronic health issues aren't as willing to leave things up to chance as you are.

Nathanba 1y ago

Next time they shouldn't lie nonstop about almost every single thing during a pandemic. Then you can expect people to follow you. People don't like to follow proven liars, whether they did it with "good intentions" is ultimately irrelevant. Someone with good intentions can also bring you to ruin. 1. They lied about masks, first it was irrelevant whether you wore one or not, then they changed their mind and suddenly masks were super important and you just have to wear one or else. The truth is that it probably helps a little because duh, you have some cloth in front of your breathing, it probably catches some particles but definitely not all all the time. Saying that scientific truth evolved is utter nonsense, experts definitely always knew particle size and mask efficiency. They just didn't care and didn't do their job figuring it out and telling people the real efficiency. 2. They lied constantly that vaccines are super safe and super effective, outright attempting to gaslight you that "nobody" dies to vaccines. Which is just a flat out lie. People absolutely died from vaccines and always have. Just stop lying about it. 3. The U.S president himself lied that you will not spread it anymore if you get vaccinated. All lies. And it was definitely already known at the time he said this, frankly it's common sense. 3. They lied about herd immunity which is basically impossible to achieve. 4. Deals with vaccine companies were kept secret, that doesn't exactly inspire much confidence to follow guidances when everyone knows how much money can corrupt. 5. They mounted a massive coercion campaign and constantly shamed everyone in the most pathetic ways possible with patronizing TV coverage. Colbert's little vaccine dance is historic at this point. 6. They strongly suppressed alternative points of view from other scientists and doctors. These were not flatearther tier people, they made good points and many were and are well respected people. And yet they were suppressed anyway. And after all this you come here with a very generic comment about how disappointed you are that people didn't come together on a base truth. I'm disappointed that you seem to have no complaints and offer such a generic, apologist view of the past.

redczar 1y ago
They lied constantly that vaccines are super safe and super effective, outright attempting to gaslight you that "nobody" dies to vaccines. Commercial airplane travel is super safe. Some people die from commercial airplane crashes. Both statements are true. Ignorance is bliss.

fuckyah 1y ago

[dead]

cameldrv 1y ago

Yep so we got the guy that dumped a dead bear in Central Park in charge of the national vaccine strategy.

raverbashing 1y ago
And the brain worm for eating uncooked meat And the raw milk (might or might not contain a bit of cow poop)
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  For what it's worth, the brain worm story was relevant when he needed to get a better legal position during his divorce. Maybe he did have a real parasite in his brain, but according to him the parasite left no permanent damage after it got cleaned up after the divorce ended in his favour. I don't see why raw milk necessarily contains cow poop unless the udders aren't cleaned before milking (though I suppose you can't trust the diary industry to take care of that reliably) but I doubt he's consuming any of it beyond the public appearances set up for the raw milk grifters. Why attribute to insanity that which could just as easily be attributed to corruption and lies.
  - raverbashing 1y ago
    > Why attribute to insanity that which could just as easily be attributed to corruption and lies. Indeed
  - thephyber 1y ago
    > Why attribute to insanity that which could just as easily be attributed to corruption and lies. Because his “insanity” is more than just a claimed brain worm: The trauma from the men in his life being assassinated when he was an impressionable little boy. He now blames the CIA for both. The heroin addiction. The whale on the car incident. The bear cub corpse in NYC. The swimming in raw sewage. There is no spy or health conspiracy too large for this guy. Everyone is corrupt/corruptable in his mind except him. These are not the actions of a stable person. His solution to autism is to dictate that there is no significant genetic component, then give scientists 6 months to “find the cause” (after hijacking all of the medical data the US government can coerce). Sure, there is corruption in that he is making referral money from some of his companies. I’m not sure he’s lying though — that requires Mens Rea. He might just have crazy ideas about reality. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t believe in _germ theory_ after his statements about HIV /AIDS.

renewiltord 1y ago

It was damaging. Saying Jerome Adams saying "masks don't work" and then Antony Fauci coming out and saying they said that because they wanted to keep masks for healthcare workers was honestly a bad deal. That kind of lie to the public was not going to go over well.

consumer451 1y ago
That I can agree with, but part of their job is panic control. Just like anytime you hear the gov talk about radiation. On my part, I didn’t need anyone to tell me how various masks do or do not work. They all have certifications one can read on their own. But, that mask messaging was bad. I suppose the alternative was, yes masks work, but we don’t enough have for you. Apparently we are not adult enough to hear that type of thing. And, I mean we’re not.
- renewiltord 1y ago
  The real truth is “masks work and our current reuse recommendations were made in peacetime so we waste them causing us to not have enough if everyone were to buy them”. On this very site people were saying you “can’t wear an N95 mask without training”. The fact of the matter is that such dishonesty makes one untrustworthy. It was clear that everyone landed in political lines here. The right answer is to not lie. “You can’t handle the truth” is nice in a movie but we’re in real life and if you say that to me you shouldn’t be surprised if the next time you say something I think that you’re lying again.
whateveracct 1y ago
that...was not the biggest problem lol
- lenkite 1y ago
  When they were busy arresting people for not wearing masks, kids not wearing marks and not social distancing while Fauci's family was gallivanting around without masks and attending public functions...yes it was a big problem, lol. Most of the rules were proven unscientific as Fauci himself admitted later in senate hearing.

refurb 1y ago

I agree. When Fauci made comments about “get vaccinated and it’s unlikely you’ll transmit Covid” when the trials never tested viral transmission (1) was shameful. Once it turned out not to be true public trust was seriously eroded. (1) https://abc3340.com/news/local/those-fully-vaccinated-very-unlikely-to-spread-covid-19-fauci-says https://abc3340.com/news/local/those-fully-vaccinated-very-u...

NewJazz 1y ago
Fauci's statement is true. Weird link you got there.
- ifyoubuildit 1y ago
  How does that square with the fact that approximately everyone got covid? Do you think all of the infections came from unvaccinated people?
  - NewJazz 1y ago
    The vaccine was never advertised to prevent infection 100%, especially after time.
    - ahmeneeroe-v2 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - justinrubek 1y ago
        Go ahead and prove it
      - jghn 1y ago
        No vaccine is ever advertised as being 100% effective. Because no vaccine is. That's not how they work.
        1y ago

dehrmann 1y ago

The mistake was mandates. They might have saved some lives in the near-term, but Americans don't like being told what to do, and the long-term policy consequences could be much worse than the extra 5% coverage mandates brought.

ActorNightly 1y ago
There was no mistake. In no other civilized society, requiring people to do something so small to actually care for each other would be considered a breach of civil rights. Americans are just special Unfortunately, because of how special Americans are, the outcome of being stuck with this current administration was inevitable. It was going to happen sooner or later. Im glad at least its happening sooner when Im still fairly young and have the flexibility to peace out if I need to.
- somenameforme 1y ago
  There was major backlash against mandates everywhere they were imposed, even including in places like China which has an extremely social culture paired with a government with authoritarian level power and relatively low tolerance for public dissent. Asking people to inject themselves with something that was rushed out the door, most using novel technology, and whose results did not come remotely close to the early rhetoric (which included claims that you would not get infected or spread COVID if vaccinated) is not something that people would ever organically rush to adopt.
  - ActorNightly 1y ago
    China doesn't have extremely social culture. It has developed rapid economic growth and societally there are quite a few issues. The only country that had a very good societal response was Japan, as a result they had one of the lowest death rates in the world, even with their aging population, while having the law in place that pretty much only restrict government power to closing certain places, without being able to enforce quarantine. The initial decision of the government was even against imposing emergency powers, but eventually all parties agreed that emergency powers were necessary. >Asking people to inject themselves with something that was rushed out the door, most using novel technology, and whose results did not come remotely close to the early rhetoric (which included claims that you would not get infected or spread COVID if vaccinated) is not something that people would ever organically rush to adopt. And yet, those same people eat food that contains who knows what, was processed with random chemicals that may or may not cause cancer, buy meat from animals injected with chemicals that they don't know the contents of, smoke, drink alchol, vape. But suddenly, when it comes to taking a vaccine with technology that not only has been around for a while, but also adequately tested, the "government can't be trusted". The negative response to vaccine was never about government distrust, it was pretty much a very easy ideological line to draw in the sand. This is why every single anti vaxxer person on their way to the grave breathing through a ventilator was changing their mind and telling people to take the vaccine, because when shit actually gets real, ideology matters less. And equivalently now, maybe (and hopefully), when US is embroiled in civil unrest with martial law in place, and people can't feed their families, they will realize that having a black woman president would have been probably a much better outcome than voting for a convicted felon who sold them lies of individual liberty.

somenameforme 1y ago

It was the hyperbole and extremely visible coordination around the COVID vaccines that broke confidence. Here [1] is a montage of various highly influential public figures stating that if you get vaccinated you won't get COVID and you won't transmit COVID. Oh and the censorship. The reason I'm linking to X is because these exact montages, simply quoting public figures saying things, tend to get removed from YouTube. There should be public debate around most of any issue. Tell people something as simple that getting some sunlight is good for them and some will even argue against it claiming that no it's not, you'll just get skin cancer. And that's fine, even those sort of views deserve their place in the public discourse. But when that discourse is completely absent - presumably to try to give the appearance of complete consensus, it doesn't inspire confidence, but destroys it. [1] - https://x.com/ITGuy1959/status/1581034815700488192 https://x.com/ITGuy1959/status/1581034815700488192

aredox 1y ago
The people RFK jr just nominated to replace the vaccine board have been even more wrong and yet nothing happened to them except being promoted. The problem isn't the lack of debate, it is the hysteria against minor inconvenience and raw selfishness.