When considering viruses and human history, everyone agrees on two basic fundamental truths.
- All viruses follow a predictable pattern – viruses arrive, quickly spread through the human population and then disappear once we develop antibodies. Herd immunity.
- All viral pandemics end.
Except, it seems, for COVID-19.
What follows are 11 reasons to end COVID-phobia – an irrational fear of a virus – here in Vermont.
1. The COVID catastrophism model proved dead wrong: UK Imperial College London’s Neal Ferguson created March 2020 catastrophic COVID modeling data used to justify near-global lockdown policies, modeling he admitted one week later was 2400 percent overinflated. On May 16, the London Telegraph stated that “Neil Ferguson's Imperial model could be the most devastating software mistake of all time.”
- The COVID lockdown policy failed: “Lockdowns haven’t proved they’re worth the havoc,” observes a May 2020 Bloomberg article, noting that “as of May 12, the U.S. had 237 deaths per million people. Taiwan, a no-lockdown country, had 0.3 deaths per million. No-lockdown Sweden has had 347 deaths per million; lockdown Belgium, with a similar population, has had 763 deaths per million. Ethiopia, with a population of 109 million, had no lockdown – and a death rate of 0.04 per million.” Notably, Sweden’s both/and COVID policy – (a) isolate a country’s most vulnerable groups and (b) issue clear, consistent and voluntary viral social protocols for the rest of the Swedish herd – has at once protected their society’s most fragile and accelerated the natural evolutionary herd immunity process. And, Sweden, like Vermont, is a country where (a) the communitarian impulse (a high level of commitment to one’s neighbors) as well as (b) the level of trust in fellow citizens are both quite high. Vermonters would do well to take note of Sweden’s both/and viral policy for future viral planning.
- S. policymakers neglected COVID protection in nursing homes: The one demographic group everyone agreed we ought to isolate from COVID? The elderly. Yet, in many U.S. cities, policymakers neglected to lock down nursing homes and elder care facilities. Note: In Vermont to date, the majority of our 54 COVID deaths occurred in two Vermont nursing homes.
- COVID social distancing is speculative and unscientific: In addition to the psychological trauma it imposes, this widely adopted 2 meter/6 feet protocol grew out of a 14-year-old Albuquerque High School student’s lab experiment, according to an April 12, 2020, New York Times article titled “The Untold Story of the Birth of Social Distancing.” To date, there exists no definitive scientific proof of social distancing’s efficacy. In fact, it slows down herd immunity, which moves us as a species toward viral immunity.
- COVID mask wearing is ineffective and unhealthy: The CDC, the WHO and the NIH’s Dr. Fauci himself on a March 8, 2020, “60 Minutes” episode are all on record as stating that wearing masks does nothing to protect wearers from viruses, “like trying to use a chain link fence to protect from a mosquito.” Lab scientists working with actual viruses wear N95 respirators and entire hazardous materials (HAZMAT) suits. Wear a mask if you choose and require masks in your business if you wish, but don’t legislate mandatory mask wearing for your fellow humans, as it makes us hypoxically less healthy and may cause us to pass out in Vermont post offices or crash our cars into Vermont telephone poles.
- COVID remedies politicized: Numerous COVID remedies – from increasing vitamin C intake to using hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) – have been dangerously politicized into ridiculous pro vs. anti Trump talking points. HCQ, an antimalarial drug successfully used for more than seven decades, shows successful promise in treating COVID, as more than 200 published scientific studies and more than 600 surveyed doctors have attested.
- COVID medical protocols missed the mark: Early emphasis on expensive and hard-to-procure hospital equipment (ventilators) resulted from misdiagnosing COVID symptoms, and more U.S. doctors are speaking out, observing that COVID often seems to present as a patient’s increasing inability to effectively “uptake” oxygen. A finger-clipable $20 oximeter measures both pulse rate and blood oxygen saturation level – a recommended and inexpensive health device anyone can use.
- COVID promised vaccine a unicorn: History teaches us that viral pandemics always work their way through human populations in approximately two years’ time. Even as Bill Gates and Co. rush a COVID vaccine to global markets, the virus is weakening through our natural evolutionary herd immunity process. And herd immunity costs no one a single cent.
- COVID death rate mirrors seasonal flu: Ferguson’s original COVID modeling predicted more than 2 million U.S. COVID deaths. Even with inflated COVID U.S. death numbers due to (a) expansive viral labeling vagueness, (b) unclear viral testing results, (c) ginned up viral U.S. death certificate co-morbidity classifications, (d) for-profit U.S. hospital remuneration incentives, and (e) constant 24/7 COVID news fear porn, we’re looking at U.S. death rates that mirror a rugged seasonal flu.
- COVID cure is worse than the disease: As summer approaches and Vermont begins to open, Vermonters are wrestling with the myriad consequences of COVID lockdown – unemployment, business collapse, anxiety, stress, isolation, anomie, mental anguish, physical abuse, and the 24/7 fear of potentially contagious family, friends and neighbors.
- COVID trusted experts are all big pharma partners: The CDC, the WHO, U.S. mainstream media news channels, and digital media corporations are all financially bed-fellowed with the pharmaceuticals industry and their global nonprofit partners. This reality creates an obvious 24/7 conflict of interest whenever COVID news is reported on our TVs, computers and mobile phones.
We Vermonters are neighborly, compassionate and resilient. Moving forward, let’s end COVID-phobia and the assault on herd immunity and get back to being fully human. See you outside.
Rob Williams lives in Waitsfield, Vermont
