I haven’t seen any good evidence (yet) that vaccine passports are effective at reducing infection rates when used to restrict daily activities, like going to restaurants, gyms, concerts, movies. And, I don’t expect that they are particularly effective. Why? How much infection is happening in these businesses in the first place? From any statistics I’ve seen, at worst it’s only a small percentage of the total.

The second problem is employees don’t have to be vaccinated. But “they’re masked” you say. So are the customers (except in restaurants). If masks were sufficiently effective, then we wouldn’t need the passports in the first place, would we?

The third problem is we allow exemptions. Either the unvaccinated are a risk, or they’re not. Pick one. If allowing some “approved” unvaccinated is not a big risk, then allowing all unvaccinated can’t be that much of a risk – in Canada 85%-90% of eligible individuals were already vaccinated when the passports were imposed. There aren’t that many unvaccinated left.

So, as is, I think the vaccine passports are really non-sensical. And until they are rescinded or changed into immunity passports, I’m protesting by choosing not to use mine. I’m not going to berate the poor local businesses that are required to have them – they’re already in an impossibly difficult situation. I’ll find other ways to support my favorite local business instead (ex: ordering take-out). I’m also not going to protest in front of hospitals or harass healthcare workers, they didn’t make the mandates, and I might actually need them if I get sick. If you have objections, direct them (legally and responsibly) at the right place, the government.

So how can I possibly argue that vaccine passports might be reasonable? Look at it from the government’s point of view. They’re under extreme pressure to do something, anything, to keep infection rates low by the panicked public, struggling local businesses, and the over-burdened healthcare system. Are passports preferable to lockdowns (e.g. “mockdowns”)? Probably. What other tools do governments have? Not much if you really think about it.

So, despite believing that the passports are largely ineffective, I believe they might be effective enough to justify the corresponding “loss of freedom”, compared to the alternatives (ex: job mandates).

If we believe shopping restrictions are necessary, what changes would I make?

• No exemptions
• Immunity passports (vaccination or previous infection) rather vaccine passports
• Allow business choice – let individual businesses choose if they want to require passports or not, consumers will vote with their feet for both options
• Support informed consumer choice – encourage individual businesses to choose to advertise if their staff is fully vaccinated or not, again consumers will vote with their feet

(Enlighten me if I’m wrong – I’m seeking the truth, not to be right)

Related:

• Do our vaccine passports make sense? No.
• Is getting the COVID vaccine still a choice? Apparently not.
• Are COVID vaccine job mandates reasonable? Absolutely not.

Exemptions

If the vaccine passports were solely based on reducing health risk, based on the belief that vaccination lowers risk (which I think it does, then allowing exemptions makes no sense. Either the unvaccinated are high risk, or they’re not. Sorry if your religion prevents you from getting vaccinated, sorry you have a medical condition that makes vaccination dangerous, you are unvaccinated therefore you are a danger, and we need to restrict your freedoms for the “greater good”. Some jurisdictions have chosen to go this route^[1], and good on them. At least they have a more logically defensible position.

But that’s not what most jurisdictions have. For example, religious exemptions are typically tolerated. Why? Because apparently, we mustn’t force people to violate their strongly held religious beliefs. But are religious beliefs really more valid the non-religious beliefs? I don’t believe so. In Canada, freedom of conscience is protected just as freedom of religion is in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms^[2]. This makes sense because then we don’t have to argue over which religions are valid, whether you are sufficiently devout, or other arbitrary technicalities. Strongly held beliefs should all carry equal weight. And at this point, anyone who’s chosen not to get vaccinated, despite the hate and threats, has strong beliefs against them. But if the government exempted everyone with strongly-held beliefs, no one would be excluded. So instead, they’ve chosen arbitrarily.

The same thing applies to medical exemptions. They’ve deemed that allergy to the vaccine itself or myocarditis and pericarditis are the only valid reason for exemption^[3]. Any doctor who dares use their medical judgement and years of experience to assess their individual patient’s situation and grant them an exemption will be looked upon with significant suspicion. Essentially, we’re saying we can’t trust doctors to do the right thing.

Natural immunity

There has been strong and clear evidence that post-infection immunity is at least as good as vaccine immunity for a while now. Yes, the previously infected may still benefit from vaccination. But to willfully ignore their reduced risk undermines the legitimacy and purpose of the passports.

Conclusion

Between exemptions and not recognizing natural immunity I would propose that they got the name wrong – rather than vaccine passports, I think they should be called compliance passports, because that’s effectively what they are. Is that too harsh? If the shoe fits…

That said, if we decide that we truly need a passport of some kind, what would my solution be?

• Call them immunity passports – that’s the real goal
• No exemptions
• Vaccination grants you 6 months pass from second (or booster) dose since that’s their effective duration
• Provable previous infection grants you a year pass
• Provable previous infection and vaccination grants you 18 months pass from the earlier of the two
• Test a random sampling of people for antibody levels (or appropriate substitute) monthly to validate that these timelines hold true for the majority
• Update the timelines as science give us new information

(Enlighten me if I’m wrong – I’m seeking the truth, not to be right)

[1]: No medical or religious exemptions for B.C.’s vaccine passport system | CTV News

[2]: The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (justice.gc.ca)

[3]: Ontario confirms there are only two valid medical exemptions from COVID-19 vaccines | CTV News

Related:

• Are vaccine passports for daily activities reasonable? Maybe.
• Are COVID vaccine job mandates reasonable? Absolutely not.
• Is getting the COVID vaccine still a choice? Apparently not.

Some example of their positions are:

• “PSAC supports measures to increase vaccination rates, including vaccination requirements for federal public service workers to protect our members, their colleagues, and our communities.“ – PSAC
• “As the union representing the scientists who approved the COVID vaccines, PIPSC welcomes all efforts to increase vaccination coverage in Canada. That includes a vaccine policy that makes vaccines more accessible to our members and accommodates legitimate reasons for which an employee may not be vaccinated.” “Will PIPSC represent me if I don’t believe that I should have to be vaccinated?” “Personal beliefs are not protected grounds under human rights legislation and, as such, the employer has no legal duty to accommodate in those circumstances.” – PIPSC

Although some unions feel differently:

• “As a union, we’re protecting the rights of our members and our concern is that it’s being forced on our members that don’t want to receive it for various reasons,” – Amalgamated Transit Union
• “CUPW is currently working on a National Grievance to challenge Canada Post’s vaccination practice.” – CUPW

So, let’s start with ideology – what do you believe the role of a union should be? I believe their primary purpose is to represent the interests of individual workers as a counterbalance to overall corporate interests. They exist to stand up against mistreatment of workers by a corporation and to provide a voice for workers that is harder to ignore than an individual voice would be.

I see their role as similar to the way a defense attorney counterbalances a prosecutor for a court trial. It’s not the job of the defense attorney to believe the accused is innocent, or condone their alleged crime, but simply to ensure the accused has their interests fully heard and represented fairly. It’s the same thing with unions. I expect them to, as they are paid to, represent the interests of all of their members.

So, for example, if a company says “sorry, we don’t have enough money to keep all our employees, we need to lay off 25%”. The union will rightly stand up and fight to get the best possible settlement for those being laid off – not simply throw up their hands and say, “sorry guys, no money…”. Or if an employee is accused of theft, or sexual harassment or some other personal transgression, the union will still try to ensure that employee is dealt with fairly and appropriately, rather than spitting at their feet and saying “you disgust me…”.

With vaccine mandates, people’s jobs are being threatened without any attempt at accommodation. This is not a health-driven mandate – it’s an ideologically-driven mandate. Even if you’ve been working from home since the beginning of pandemic and can continue to do your job from there indefinitely – sorry, no jab, no job. That’s wrong. That’s governmental overreach.

The union saying that “Personal beliefs are not protected grounds under human rights legislation” is a cop-out and misses the point. The point is whether the employment conditions they are imposing are reasonable for the employee to safely perform their jobs. For these mandates, for office workers, this is clearly not the case.

If the government wants to have compulsory vaccination for the entire population, that’s a different argument. But as long as this is allegedly about employment, then let’s debate this on those grounds.

The union can, and should, have the very defensible position of:

• We strongly believe that all workers should get vaccinated
• We strongly believe that all workers have the right to safe work environment
• But firing unvaccinated workers does not help health-outcomes (they’ll still be unvaccinated)
• It merely looks to punish those who don’t agree with you – that’s punitive, that’s coercion, that’s wrong
• If accommodation is possible and that doesn’t put anyone else at risk, then it should be offered
• If accommodation is not possible, then some reasonable, alternate arrangements should be negotiated, like full paid leave, or partial paid leave, an alternate position, etc.

Unions have a duty to act in the interests of its members, all its members, regardless of their personal beliefs.

(Enlighten me if I’m wrong – I’m seeking the truth, not to be right)

Related:

• Are COVID vaccine job mandates reasonable? Absolutely not.
• Are COVID vaccine mandates for healthcare workers reasonable? Maybe.

Resources:

• Feds For Freedom – Canadian Federal Employees Advocating Freedom

Ideally, I believe that hospitals should be able to put protocols in place that protect patients, both for vaccinated and unvaccinated staff. After all, we just went through all of 2020 with entirely unvaccinated staff. Were they a big danger to patients last year? Maybe.

• The Ongoing Problem of UK Hospital Acquired Infections – The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (cebm.net)
• More than 10,000 patients caught Covid-19 in a hospital, analysis shows. They never made it out (msn.com)
• Hospital-acquired COVID-19 tends to be picked up from other patients, not from healthcare workers (medicalxpress.com)

The main problem, I think, is hospitals are huge, centralized buildings and with extreme specialization of roles. If we were designing hospital from scratch today, no one would say “let’s put infectious and non-infectious people all together in physical proximity and have thousands of people moving around that could inadvertently spread infection”. I’d hope you’d design it with much more ability to physically segregate and isolate patients with zero crossover in staff. Have a lot fewer people interacting with each patient, with each staff member being more interdisciplinary.

But we’re stuck with what we have. The bottom line is way too many people are contracting COVID in hospital. Are unvaccinated staff provably a disproportionate cause? If yes, then I think you can definitely make a case that mandates are necessary.

Is vaccinating staff an important step in protecting patients? Absolutely.

Is mandating staff vaccination a necessary step in protecting patients? The problem is we don’t live in magical fairy Christmas-land. We can’t make people get vaccinated (unless we hold them down). There are going to be some percentage of staff who are resistant to vaccination, let’s assume 5%, which seems pretty common across multiple different groups in Canada. As such, the first question is, would you rather staff your hospitals at 95%, and have patient care suffer accordingly? Or would you rather staff hospitals at 100% with some additional safety protocols for the 5% unvaccinated? I don’t know about you, but as a patient, given that the unvaccinated are not disproportionally that much higher a risk, I personally prefer the second option. It seems some provincial governments have reluctantly agreed^[1][2].

The second question is, are you going to allow religious or medical exemptions to the mandate. If this is truly about protecting vulnerable patients, how can you justify it? Either unvaccinated healthcare workers present an unreasonable risk to patients, or they don’t.

(Enlighten me if I’m wrong – I’m seeking the truth, not to be right)

[1]: Ford won’t impose COVID-19 vaccine mandate for Ontario health-care workers | CBC News

[2]: Disappointment and resignation as Quebec drops health worker vaccine mandate | CTV News

Related:

• Are COVID vaccine job mandates reasonable? Absolutely not.
• Should unions be speaking up against vaccine mandates? Absolutely yes.

Resources:

• Mandatory vaccination for health care workers: an analysis of law and policy | CMAJ
• Opinion: Canadians should avoid extreme measures to coerce the unvaccinated – The Globe and Mail

Workplace safety

The main reason given for vaccine mandates for jobs seems to be safety – minimizing spread and risk to others. And I bet that’s what most people polled would answer as their main reason for supporting mandates.

In that spirit, if I were creating a policy that was focused on workplace safety, it would go something like this:

• Being unvaccinated may make you a higher risk to others (fine – I agree)
• If you’re going be in close contact with others for your job, we may deem it necessary to require additional testing or safety measures
• If you can work from home, we may require it
• If those precautions are not possible or insufficient for your particular job, then unfortunately we have no alternative other than to put you on leave until the risk has passed
• Sorry, we can’t have any exemptions, you’re still a risk

Seems straightforward to me. But this doesn’t bear any resemblance to the actual mandate, does it? No, because workplace safety is just the pretense. Incidentally, my proposed policy is similar to the policy initially outlined by Treasury Board when the public servant mandate was first announced^[3], but it only lasted about 5 minutes before it was “disappeared”.

If this were truly about workplace risk, they would have started with healthcare workers.

If this were truly about workplace risk, working from home would be acceptable accommodation.

If this were truly about workplace risk, they would have tried to lessen the financial hardship of the forced leave (ex: partial pay, employment insurance benefits).

Terms of employment

What about terms of employment? Can’t the government just require vaccination for all federal employees? Two points on this. First, they’re not just saying that this should be a requirement for federal employees. They’ve strongly suggested that all employers do the same^[4]. They would be happy as clams if vaccination were a universal job requirement in Canada. Essentially, they believe that if you are not vaccinated, you don’t deserve a job to feed yourself or your family.

Second, just because an employment condition may not be illegal, doesn’t mean that it’s reasonable. For example, imagine tomorrow the government decided that all employees must have blue hair. Does that violate any charter protected freedoms? None that I know of. Is requiring blue hair reasonable? No, because it clearly has nothing to do with your ability to do your job. Same thing with vaccination status. The vast majority of public servants have been working at home for 18 months and will continue to do so indefinitely^[5] (even while vaccinated). But they’ve outright dismissed that possibility.

Do they believe that only public servants should be vaccinated? No. They just happen to have a unique type of leverage over public servants. So why pick specifically on public servants? Why not also require those on public assistance to be vaccinated? Why not just have a country-wide mandate for every citizen?

Coercion

Let’s cut to the chase then, shall we? The federal government’s actions make it very clear that they believe that everyone should be vaccinated^[4]. And because of the perceived risk to all, they feel they have the right to coerce anyone who refuses to comply – they just happen to be starting with public servants because it’s convenient. And coercion is absolutely the right word for it because the threatened actions are not the goal. They don’t gain anything from firing you – you’re still unvaccinated. You’re still the same risk as the day before. No, the threat is merely meant as punishment, as a significant financial “incentive” to get you to do something else (get vaccinated).

The ends justify the means

But people will die… Yes, they will. This is what it boils down to isn’t it? We’ve been convinced that these escalating coercive steps, that only a year ago were considered outlandish conspiracy theories, are absolutely necessary, and therefore justifiable.

So, should we coerce anything that will saves lives? Ok, all cigarette smokers must immediately stop or lose their jobs. That would save lives and reduce COVID deaths – maybe even more than these vaccine mandate will over the long run. Is that reasonable?

If you want me to believe that the vaccine mandates are necessary and we have no choice, prove it. And let’s be specific about this. Yes, many people have already died – not relevant, this is not retroactive. Yes, the vaccines have been proven relatively safe – not relevant, they are not guaranteed safe. The only relevant question is, how many lives could be saved (or hospitalizations avoided) going forward from November 2021 (mandate start), by coercing the last remaining public servants to get vaccinated?

More specifically, after the attestation deadline (as of November 3, 2021) there were^[6]:

• Unvaccinated: 1,255 of 268,000 public servants
• Requesting (begging) for accommodation: 3,150 of 268,000
• Did not attest: 779 of 268,000

The Canadian COVID weekly infection / death rates in Fall 2021 have been approximately^[7]:

• Vaccinated: 30 per 100K (cases), 0.3 per 100K (deaths)
• Unvaccinated: 175 per 100K (cases), 1.9 per 100K (deaths)

So, for those 1,255 unvaccinated public servants, over the next 6 months (the effective length of the vaccines), assuming case rates remain unchanged, we can guestimate that:

• If they stay unvaccinated: something like 57 will get COVID, 0.6 will die
• If instead they were vaccinated: something like 10 will get COVID, 0.1 will die

So, we’re saying is we’re comfortable firing 1,255 people because it may save 47 positive cases and 0.5 deaths, and whatever follow-on infections they cause. That doesn’t seem reasonable to me, but fine, if that’s the bar – challenge accepted!

Alternative

If we really want to save lives and quell this pandemic, rather than futilely chasing the last few percentage points of vaccination, I have a radical suggestion. We know that health (i.e. comorbidities) has a huge impact on COVID outcomes. What if we had health mandates instead:

• Around 30% of Canadian adults are obese
• We can guess that there are around 80,400 vaccinated obese public servants
• Obesity increases COVID hospitalization and risk of death by at least 1.5x-4x^[8][9][10]
• There are many other health conditions that are strongly associated with obesity (ex: type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease) that also increase risk, but for simplicity we will only consider obesity for now
• These vaccinated obese will have around 625 cases and at least 9 deaths over the next 6 months
• If they improved their health, we could cut their risk of severe illness by at least 1/3

Just imagine, we could apply that same mandate to all Canadians. Think of all the lives that would be saved! And unlike the vaccine mandate, which is mostly punitive, this mandate would reduce all-cause mortality too. But don’t worry, we won’t make people step on a scale in front of their boss, that would be an embarrassing invasion of privacy. We’ll let them attest to the fact that they’re losing weight each month. And if you want permission to buy Doritos or Pepsi at the grocery store, you can get a BMI passport QR code from your doctor to prove you’re allowed. And until you fix your health, and stop putting yourself and others at increased risk, I promise not to judge you, but unfortunately, I can’t control what others do.

Conclusion

This is about tunnel-vision ideology, “vaccines save lives, therefore everyone must be vaccinated, consequences be damned”, with no sense of the bigger picture, and no talk about what the actual net benefit of this mandate would be, because it would be small. Extraordinary measures (firing thousands of people) should have an extraordinary burden of proof that there is no other choice. That bar has not been met in this case.

We’re using the unvaccinated as scapegoats. “This a pandemic of the unvaccinated”. That is a lie. This is a pandemic of all of us – we all contribute to prolonging it in our own way. The pandemic will not end if we vaccinate everyone – the vaccinated still get infected, hospitalized, die, and infect others. The incremental benefit gained from inoculating the last remaining holdouts is vanishingly small compared to the benefits we’ve already gained – which is why herd immunity only requires the majority to be protected to be highly effective^[11].

The question isn’t should everyone get vaccinated or not. You can’t win that battle unless you’re going to forcibly hold people down. It’s as futile as arguing with your teenager about their curfew (“you can’t make me!”). You can choose to mindlessly escalate your threats until you beat them into submission and “win” the battle. But that risks permanently damaging the relationship and you losing all credibility. That’s exactly what the government is doing in this case. The only productive approach is to accept you may get less than you’d want, but to find a compromise that is good enough, that preserves the dignity of all.

These mandates also ignore all the evidence that natural immunity is probably better than vaccine immunity. You’re going to cost someone their job, even though they could be less risk than most vaccinated? That’s immoral.

(Enlighten me if I’m wrong – I’m seeking the truth, not to be right)

[1]: Prime Minister announces mandatory vaccination for the federal workforce and federally regulated transportation sectors (newswire.ca)

[2]: Vaccine Passport or pink slip? 70% say health workers, teachers & others should be fired for refusing inoculation – Angus Reid Institute

[3]: Chris Selley: The Liberals’ vaccination wedge collapses — thank goodness (msn.com)

[4]: Feds could push provinces to mandate vaccines for all workers | Canada’s National Observer: News & Analysis

[5]: Feds looking at permanent remote work, office needs after COVID-19 | CTV News

[6]: Reported attestations in the federal public service: COVID-19 vaccination requirement – Canada.ca

[7]: Interactive Data Visualization of COVID-19 in Canada – Public Health Infobase | Public Health Agency of Canada

[8]: Impact of obesity on COVID-19 patients – ScienceDirect

[9]: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Severity in Obese Patients May Be Linked to Viral Load and Immune Response | The Journal of Infectious Diseases | Oxford Academic (oup.com)

[10]: Prevalence and Associated Risk Factors of Mortality Among COVID-19 Patients: A Meta-Analysis | SpringerLink

[11]: COVID-19 Stopping the spread: Reaching herd immunity through vaccination (reuters.com)

Related:

• Does vaccinated equal safe? No, we prove that every day.
• Is natural COVID immunity as good as vaccine immunity? Actually, it’s better.
• Are COVID vaccine mandates for healthcare workers reasonable? Maybe.
• Should unions be speaking up against vaccine mandates? Absolutely yes.

Needs of the many

Imagine a theorical scenario where there was a viral outbreak. The government knows this virus will kill 1 in 100 people, but there is a treatment that will lower the mortality to 1 in 1,000 people, with the unfortunate side effect that treatment will kill 1 in 10,000 people.

If you were responsible for health decisions, what would you do? The math makes it easy to see that many lives would be saved if the government mandated the treatment. The government doesn’t care about individual people. It’s all just numbers on a spreadsheet to them. Mandating the treatment would clearly save more lives than it would cost – no conspiracy theories necessary. And I wouldn’t even blame the government for that position. Would you?

Needs of the individual

From the individual’s perspective, the argument is quite different. You can’t tell me my personal risk-reward odds of the treatment is 1 in 100 (no treatment) versus 1 in 10,000 (treatment). That’s the average for everyone. My specific odds will, most certainly, be different. So, what if I know my particular health and circumstances means that the risk reward balance is closer to even, like 1 in 500 (no treatment) versus 1 in 1,000 (treatment). Now what? You’re asking me to take an irreversible medical intervention, which may kill me, that is comparatively high risk when compared to the risk of doing nothing. Many people will choose not to take that action – they’d rather leave it to fate. But given my odds are known, you could argue that, since the odds are in my favor and the risk is low, it would still be logical to get the treatment.

But therein lies the actual dilemma – we can’t know our actual odds. We can only estimate them. So, what if I believe my odds are even (treatment versus no treatment), regardless of what the actual odds are? Why would I take a risk that offers no apparent benefit? Is it not logical for me to resist the treatment in that case? Is it not my duty to advocate for myself and stand up and say that the treatment is not in my personal best interest? I think it is, and that’s certainly what I’d do, and I think you would too. Where do we draw the line on the level of risk we should require someone to take for the greater good? The government certainly isn’t going to advocate for me, nor would I expect them to.

So that is what all of this boils down to, the unknowability of my actual risks. You and I can argue all day about what they might be, but there is no way for either of us to actually know (currently), no matter what your credentials. This is the fundamental basis of informed consent^[1]. Without certainty, you must ultimately leave the decision up to me, because it’s my risk and my life. And if that means that some people might make an unreasonable, illogical, selfish choice, so be it. That is the balance we must strike, because the alternative is worse, coercing a treatment upon someone who doesn’t want it and having it seriously harm or kill them.

Conclusion

Where does that leave us? I believe this tension between the needs of the many and the needs of the individual is normal and healthy. Both perspectives are important and need to be respected. So, let’s not be surprised, nor blame them, when both the government and the individual act in their own self-interest.

(Enlighten me if I’m wrong – I’m seeking the truth, not to be right)

[1]: CMPA – Consent: A guide for Canadian physicians (cmpa-acpm.ca)

Related:

• Should I voluntarily get the COVID vaccine? Yes, probably.
• Should getting the COVID vaccine be a choice?
• Are COVID vaccine job mandates reasonable? Absolutely not.
• Are vaccine passports for daily activities reasonable? Maybe.

Let’s start with some definitions. There are various levels of vaccine policy that government can impose^[1]:

• Voluntary: be a good citizen – get vaccinated
• Mandatory: get vaccinated or there may be some restrictions (ex: school, public venues)
• Compulsory: get vaccinated – it’s the law!

I believe we’ve crossed a line (at least in Canada) where vaccination is no longer being treated as a choice by government, even if that reality hasn’t truly been universally applied (yet). We’re moving from mandatory to compulsory. Incidentally, when was the last time you heard the phase “vaccine choice” from a government or health official? I bet it’s been a while.

Protection versus punishment

The justification given for most of the government health measures has been: “they are necessary to limit infection, to flatten the curve.” The same reasoning is used for encouraging vaccination: “the best way to reduce risk is widespread vaccination.” Fine. I agree that vaccination is an important component of limiting the impact of this pandemic.

Looking at “carrot and stick” encouragement, there are two “sticks” to encourage vaccination:

1. Put restrictions on the unvaccinated that aim to mitigate the increased risk they may pose
2. Impose measures that are purely punitive and do nothing to mitigate risk

When the health measures fall into the first category, then I think you can argue we still have choice about vaccination – we’re simply saying there may be reasonable and necessary consequences to your choice. Fine.

When the measures fall into the second category then you’re saying, “we disagree with your choice, and we’re going to punish you incrementally until you change your mind.” That’s no longer choice, that’s coercion, pure and simple.

For example, I think you can argue the following fall under the first category of restrictions (ignoring how effective they might actually be):

• Can’t go to restaurants, movies, concerts, gyms
• Can’t travel by plane or train
• Require work or school from home
• Require a stay in a quarantine hotel after returning from travel

Contrast that with:

• Firing unvaccinated workers, even if they could work from home, and have been doing so for 18 months

That clearly falls under the second category for me. Firing unvaccinated workers does very little to reduce their risk. They’re still unvaccinated. There is no pretense of accommodation based on potential lack of workplace risk, no attempt at reducing the financial burden. It’s unabashedly 100% coercion.

And that’s the trap. Now what? It’s like threatening your child with no screen time if they don’t clean their room. What’s the next step if they don’t comply? No screen time for week? A month? A lifetime?

What happens when we fire people, and they still don’t comply? What’s next? The government doesn’t have a stated vaccination end goal or target. They’ve made it clear that they believe all unvaccinated workers should be fired^[2]. Do we need 100% compliance? 95%? 90%? Why stop at denying people their job? If the risk is really that grave, then obviously we must continue to escalate the threats until everyone complies. Here are some of my suggestions:

• Public shaming (check – people on social media have already started)
• Take their money (check – already started^[3])
• Deny them medical care (check – already started^[4][5])
• Make them pay for their own medical care (check – already started^[6][7])
• House arrest (check – slowly but surely^[3][8][9])
• Prevent them from getting housing (check – tentatively started^[10])
• Take away their kids
• Deny them internet access
• Turn off their electricity
• Deny them food
• Hold a gun to their head

Do you think those are extreme? I think taking away someone’s job isn’t much different. This is no longer about whether you believe that people should be vaccinated. Stop pretending this is about workplace safety. This is a question of what level of coercion do you think is morally justifiable to achieve your noble goal?

Milgram

If you took Psychology 101, you may remember the Milgram experiments^[11]. For everyone else, they’re a set of experiments run about 60 years ago (and since replicated in many variations), that showed that someone in a position of authority can take an ordinary, well-meaning, basically good person, and convince them to do great harm upon someone else. And we’re not talking about convincing some tiny fraction of people, but convincing most people, to do harm to another. All you need to do is create an “us and them” situation, then slowly escalate the harm they are inflicting to “them”, keep telling them it’s for the greater good, that we “need” to do this, there is no other choice. The moral is: we all have the capacity to do great evil upon others, way beyond what we’d believe ourselves capable of. During this pandemic we are all being asked to harm the unvaccinated: shun them, fire them, fine them, lock them in their homes.

I’ve already had my Milgram moment. I believe that taking someone’s job, not for workplace safety, but as punishment, is over the line for me. I’m saying no, stop the experiment. Where’s your line?

Conclusion

One sacred principle we’ve always had with medical treatments is informed consent. The key element of informed consent is the absence of coercion^[12]. We’re clearly breaking that tenant here. Does this sound like consent: “as the sole income earner for my family, with no other options to feed them, I reluctantly see no other alternative than to get vaccinated”? You’d think we’d have learned what constitutes consent by now (#MeToo). The government is clearly coercing people into getting vaccinated against their will. To deny that, I think, is being willfully blind.

I believe the level of coercion being exercised has become immoral, and there’s no end in sight. I don’t think the ends justify the means in this case.

(Enlighten me if I’m wrong – I’m seeking the truth, not to be right)

[1]: Vaccination – Our World in Data

[2]: Feds could push provinces to mandate vaccines for all workers | Canada’s National Observer: News & Analysis

[3]: These countries are slapping unvaccinated people with COVID fines and bans | The Seattle Times

[4]: Unvaccinated patients say they were denied access into medical clinics | CTV News

[5]: COVID-19: Can doctors refuse unvaccinated patients? Reports suggest this is already happening | Globalnews.ca

[6]: Unvaccinated hospital patients in Illinois should pay for their COVID-19 care: Democrat | Toronto Sun

[7]: Unvaccinated-by-choice Singapore COVID patients to pay for med bills (yahoo.com)

[8]: Now Italy is set for ‘lockdown of the unvaccinated’ | Daily Mail Online

[9]: This country might send millions of unvaccinated people into lockdown (msn.com)

[10]: Apartment building owner hopes to set precedent with vaccine requirement (msn.com)

[11]: Milgram experiment – Wikipedia

[12]: CMPA – Consent: A guide for Canadian physicians (cmpa-acpm.ca)

Related:

• Should getting the COVID vaccine be a choice?
• Why are governments pushing vaccines so hard, and why are people resisting? Rational self-interest.

• “They’re variant factories”
• “If everyone would just get vaccinated, the pandemic would be over, and we’d get our lives back”
• “The vaccines are perfectly safe – why not get vaccinated”
• “They’re putting those who can’t be vaccinated and the immunocompromised at risk”
• “They have such a heightened sense of self-importance, and such a diminished capacity for empathy, that they are willing to become pariahs”

Since the unvaccinated are “clearly” being irrational they deserve our scorn. They’re “obviously” dangerous and need to be removed from society^[1]. As such, they’ve become the scapegoat for the suffering of the dutiful majority.

Risk

The unvaccinated seem to rank right up there with:

• Someone who knows they are HIV-positive and continues to have unprotected sex, deliberately trying to infect others^[2]
• Someone who runs through your grocery store with an active case of Ebola
• Someone who carelessly waves a loaded gun around in a large crowd
• Someone who drives their car along a busy sidewalk

But in each of these examples there is an obvious, immediate, clear and present danger, and the person is obviously acting in ways that disregard that danger. So, let’s contrast those with simply being unvaccinated. Are these in any way comparable? Being infectious means you are a potential danger to others. Being unvaccinated doesn’t mean you’re infectious. It simply means you’re at higher risk of becoming infectious. Since when do we punish people for what they might do? The odds of getting infected are low, regardless of vaccination status – during the first 6 months 2021, in the U.S. around 1 in 25 people tested positive for COVID, and in Canada around 1 in 50^[3].

How can someone who works from home, who rarely leaves the house, who is highly unlikely to be infected (let alone infectious), who is not actively trying to infect others, who happens to be unvaccinated, be a clear and present danger to anyone? They’re not, clearly. Yet we insist on treating all unvaccinated as a threat to the continuation of the human species.

Verdict

This is a clear case of moral arrogance. “I’ve been vaccinated, they haven’t, therefore I’m morally superior”. Except you aren’t. I’m certain there are examples in your personal life where you have meaningfully increased your risk, and the risk to those around you during this pandemic:

• Have you traveled for a vacation?
• How often have you gone out to a restaurant, concert, or movie?
• Have you gone to work or the grocery store with the sniffles?
• Have you sent your child to school with the sniffles?
• Have you hugged a friend or non-household family member?
• Have you skipped getting COVID tested because your COVID-like symptoms were very mild?

Before you get all high and mighty, take a look in the mirror. Judge not lest ye be judged. You may believe that those activities are low-risk, and I would agree. But the point is very few people are doing “everything” possible. As much as we’d like to believe, this is not a pandemic of the unvaccinated. This is a pandemic of all of us. We are all contributing to extending it in our own ways.

Conclusion

There is no reason to fear the unvaccinated (unless they’re obviously acting as jerks). There are many other factors that significantly increase risk of COVID besides vaccination status.

As long as we say that vaccination is a choice (which it is quickly no longer becoming), we must not then turn around and judge people harshly for their choice, regardless of whether we agree or not, otherwise it becomes coercion.

Tolerance, humility, and respect are key human virtues. I think the world would be a better place if we all practiced them more often.

(Enlighten me if I’m wrong – I’m seeking the truth, not to be right)

[1]: Noam Chomsky says the unvaccinated should just remove themselves from society | National Post

[2]: HIV Terrorism: 13 Cases Where People Deliberately Infected Others | Thought Catalog

[3]: GitHub – CSSEGISandData/COVID-19: Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Cases, provided by JHU CSSE

Related:

• Should I fear the unvaccinated? No.
• Is getting the COVID vaccine still a choice? Apparently not.
• Are COVID vaccine job mandates reasonable? Absolutely not.

Many are treating the unvaccinated like plague-ridden lepers. Family and friends are turning on each other. Emotions are high on both sides of the debate. And as we all know, when emotions are high, rational thought goes out the window. I find it all incredibly sad.

Perspective matters

Let’s try putting things into perspective. Consider the following scenarios:

• Imagine you can’t be vaccinated – you’re allergic. If you get vaccinated, it’s probable you will die. Should all your friends and family fear you? Is the danger of being around you too high, simply because you’re unvaccinated? Some will believe that, but many would not. I’d expect that most people would simply take extra precautions, extra physical distancing, whatever, and find some way to accommodate you. And if you think about it logically, they are actually a bigger risk to you than you to them.
• Imagine a scenario where you’ve been deep in the Amazon jungle since 2019 and couldn’t get vaccinated. Now you’ve come back home. Would you say your friends and family would be justified in being afraid of you for the next couple of months while you go through the process of getting vaccinated? No, you’d likely say “I self-isolated for 14 days. I’ve been extra careful at the grocery store. I’m currently working from home. I’m highly unlikely to be infected.” Again, they might be extra careful, but you’d reasonably expect to be accommodated.

The point is, it’s very easy to be afraid of the “faceless” unvaccinated. But when it’s personal, your perspective changes.

Not convinced? How about the following:

• Your crazy Uncle Buck believes COVID is hoax and takes absolutely no safety precautions at all. He refuses to wear a mask and doesn’t physically distance while out. Surely, he’s virtually guaranteed to be infectious, and dangerous to be around, right? Well, if he were really that cavalier, he surely would have caught COVID long ago, no? How long has this pandemic been going on? This is not leprosy – if you get COVID you’ll be infectious for a week or two. If he did previously catch COVID at some point, he now has highly protective natural immunity and thus is exceptionally low risk to you. The only other possibility is somehow he’s the luckiest son-of-a-gun in the world and has somehow managed to avoid getting COVID all this time, despite his best efforts otherwise. But today, today is the day. Today is the day he’s infectious. Seems illogical to me.

Common-sense risk assessment

If you want a more concrete estimate of actual risk, look at the active case rate in your area. For example, in my area:

• Active cases are currently steady around 250 (currently fall 2021) versus a population of around 1 million people
• Some of these cases are past their infectious stage, and you’d hope most of them are self-isolating
• But there will be some people who are asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic and unknowingly walking around infected
• Let’s assume a non-symptomatic rate of 50%, although it’s probably lower^[1]
• From this I’d guesstimate there are, at worst, a few hundred people walking around my city from whom I could catch COVID, give or take
• This means something like 1 in 4,000 people I encounter daily could theoretically be a risk to me
• If I’m unvaccinated I have 2x-18x higher risk of getting infected
• But being unvaccinated is irrelevant if I don’t encounter anyone who’s infected
• If I kissed everyone I meaningfully interacted with for next couple weeks (sorry dear ;-), even if I were unvaccinated, I’d still be highly unlikely to get COVID (unless I had some specific professions)

I think the actual real-life risk to most people is quite low. But I’m not surprised by the level of fear among the general public. Every day we are intentionally made more fearful with the daily news reports of new cases and deaths (“if it bleeds, it leads”), the daily health screening prompts from schools, or reports of how bad the next wave “could” be. There is a deliberate, on-going, not-very-subtle effort by government and health authorities to encourage fear of the unvaccinated as way to drive vaccination. “They” are the cause of all our problems. “This is now a pandemic of the unvaccinated.”

So, should we encourage vaccination? Yes. Would infection rates be lower if more people were vaccinated? Likely, but we’ve reached the point of marginal incremental value (at least in Canada). Should we coerce people into getting vaccinated? No, given the actual risk, I think that’s morally wrong.

Should we fear the unvaccinated? No, I don’t, and I don’t think you should either. There are plenty of other factors (ex: work environment, overall health, recent travel, household exposure, social behaviors) that have at least as much impact as vaccination. Take the precautions you feel necessary for your personal situation, but the hatred and scorn is irrational and unreasonable.

(Enlighten me if I’m wrong – I’m seeking the truth, not to be right)

[1]: Magnitude of asymptomatic COVID-19 cases throughout the course of infection: A systematic review and meta-analysis (nih.gov)

Related:

• Why are governments pushing vaccines so hard, and why are people resisting? Rational self-interest.
• What will end the COVID pandemic? Natural immunity.

Health perspective

A more appropriate place to start, I think, is looking at whether the vaccine would benefit your overall health. The simple answer is probably yes. [Note: this is not medical advice, and no I’m not a medical professional.] Those people with preexisting medical conditions will have a different benefit / risk profile, which is why they always caveat it with “consult your doctor” (except they basically don’t care what your doctor thinks^[1]). And for context, my eligible immediate family and I are all vaccinated.

Despite all the anti-vaccine commentary and supposition, the vaccines have proven to be relatively safe. But that doesn’t mean they are risk-free. It just means that, given our limited choices, and the best scientific information available, for most people they are a reasonable choice. Skepticism is always appropriate and justified, but we’ve had enough time to consider most objections.

What about natural immunity? I think there’s lots of evidence that you’re more protected than vaccination alone, although very few jurisdictions will treat you as such^[2]. You’re basically still forced to get vaccinated, even if it only provides limited benefit with the same amount of risk.

One final thought, some people believe that because they’re young and/or healthy, that they shouldn’t fear COVID. And in that, I fully agree with you, don’t fear COVID. You certainly have less reason to fear COVID than most. But consider this, instead of believing the choice is between getting COVID or getting vaccinated, what if the real choice is between getting COVID while unvaccinated, or getting COVID while vaccinated? I’ve not heard this discussed much^[3] but given that the vaccine protection wanes fairly quickly, I believe that the only way we’re going to get to true herd immunity is through natural immunity. Given that choice, I’d rather get COVID while vaccinated.

Personal choice

Despite my belief that you may benefit from vaccination, if you choose not to get vaccinated, I fully respect that decision, and I think everyone else should too. To me, it doesn’t even matter why you’re choosing to skip it: health, religion, conscience, natural immunity, embedded 5G chips, mind-control, aliens, whatever. No one should, under any circumstances, be compelled to undergo an irreversible medical procedure against their will “for their own good” (mental incapacitation aside). Personal autonomy is a fundamental, basic human right. I have a moral (and legal) right to decline critical life-saving treatment if I want^[4].

But what about the risk the unvaccinated pose to others? In this case, the threat posed by a minority people not getting vaccinated has been wildly exaggerated compared to the benefits that would be gained. This isn’t the Blitz in London with your neighbor setting up a Griswold family style Christmas light display. 100% vaccination will not end this pandemic. There are reasonable accommodations or compromises that can be made that balance our desire to protect the many, and respect the autonomy of the few, even if we don’t agree with their reasoning. Right now, that moral and legal right is being completely ignored and dismissed.

Conclusion

Whatever your beliefs, let’s at least have a civil, grown-up, open-minded discussion rather than a divisive, ignorant, hateful yelling match. There’s more than one defensible, science-backed, morally-sound position on this topic. If you can’t fathom government or health authorities being wrong on anything, or on the other side, being right on anything, you’re being closed-minded and naïve because we already have abundant evidence of both.

(Enlighten me if I’m wrong – I’m seeking the truth, not to be right)

[1]: Ontario confirms there are only two valid medical exemptions from COVID-19 vaccines | CTV News

[2]: Vaccine passports will show ‘natural immunity’ for people who have had Covid (msn.com)

[3]: Dr. John Campbell – Herd immunity will not come – YouTube

[4]: CMPA – Consent: A guide for Canadian physicians (cmpa-acpm.ca)

Related:

• Are the COVID vaccines safe? Safe enough.
• Are the COVID vaccines effective? Yes, but less than you’d think.
• Does vaccinated equal safe? No, we prove that every day.
• Is natural COVID immunity as good as vaccine immunity? Actually, it’s better.

Official narrative

The narrative that has been presented by the news media has downplayed natural (post-infection) immunity. For example:

COVID-19 Vaccines: Myth Versus Fact | Johns Hopkins Medicine

• “While evidence suggests there is some level of immunity for those who previously had COVID, it is not known how long you are protected from getting COVID-19 again.”

Natural immunity vs. COVID-19 vaccine: Which is stronger? (yahoo.com)

• “health experts in the U.S. say immunity through vaccination is the best way to protect people who have had COVID-19 from reinfection.”
• “So no question if you’re infected and recovered, you want to get vaccinated.”
• [Side note: the article never actually addresses the headline question]

Get vaccine even if you’ve had COVID-19, Windsor Regional Hospital warns | Healthing.ca

• “The real world data has clearly shown that people who’ve had natural infection are prone to reinfection and potentially dying from their illness”
• “And their rate of transmission and infectivity is all the same as somebody who has been unvaccinated”
• [Side note: I’d love to see the evidence for equal infectivity after reinfection – I’ve seen none]

Contracting COVID-19 vs. Vaccination: Which is better for immunity? | University of Utah Health

• “While there is some evidence natural infection provides strong immunity, there is variability from person to person and less predictability than vaccine immunity,”

Why natural immunity against COVID-19 is not as good as vaccination, according to doctors (yahoo.com)

• “The problem with natural immunity is that A) it’s not as good as vaccination and B) it does wane over time and people get re-infected if you don’t follow that up with a vaccination,”

The thing I immediately noticed is that many of these articles never directly compare the risk of the groups we’re talking about: “vaccinated + no previous infection” versus “unvaccinated + previously infected”. They skirt around that part and often only compare “vaccinated” versus “not vaccinated” for previously infected individuals.

Science

Despite the uncertainty expressed in news media, there’s lots of actual science. We’re not cherry-picking, but looking at anything that could add perspective, noting that some of these studies may still be in preprint.

New CDC Study: Vaccination Offers Higher Protection than Previous COVID-19 Infection | CDC Online Newsroom | CDC

• First let’s replace the (deliberately?) misleading clickbait title with something more accurate: “Vaccination Offers Additional Protection to Those With Previous COVID-19 Infection”.
• “unvaccinated had 2.34 times the odds of reinfection compared with those who were fully vaccinated”.
• Takeaway: vaccination helps prevent reinfection.

Protection of previous SARS-CoV-2 infection is similar to that of BNT162b2 vaccine protection: A three-month nationwide experience from Israel (medrxiv.org)

• “Vaccination was highly effective with overall estimated efficacy for documented infection of 92.8%”
• “Similarly, the overall estimated level of protection from prior SARS-CoV-2 infection for documented infection is 94.8%”
• Takeaway: natural immunity is at least as good as vaccine immunity.

Laboratory-Confirmed COVID-19 Among Adults Hospitalized with COVID-19–Like Illness with Infection-Induced or mRNA Vaccine-Induced SARS-CoV-2 Immunity — Nine States, January–September 2021 | MMWR (cdc.gov)

• This one is, unfortunately, ridiculous, and has been widely panned by many medical professionals^[6].
• It’s an outlier in that it’s the only study I’ve seen that “shows” that vaccination is much better than natural immunity, and thus has been widely quoted by the news media.
• “COVID-19–like illness hospitalizations among adults …, the adjusted odds of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 among unvaccinated adults with previous SARS-CoV-2 infection were 5.49-fold higher than the odds among fully vaccinated recipients [with no previous infection].”
• The implication is that vaccination immunity is 5.5x better than natural immunity – and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said exactly that when questioned in Congress^[5].
• But why would we care about people with COVID-like symptoms – shouldn’t we only care about those with provable (or likely) COVID illness?
• If we actually look at the study data, for known positive COVID cases, there were 89 (reinfections in unvaccinated) versus 324 (no previous infection in fully vaccinated). And somehow this leads to the conclusion that fully vaccinated were 5.5x better protected. For this to be true, and representative in the general population, the vaccination rate would need to be an average of 95% through the length of the study. It was near 0% at the beginning and 56% by the end (at least across U.S. in general).
• Takeaway: Bad science.
• Alternate takeaway: If we guestimate that the vaccination rate was an average of 30% through the study period (simply based on starting at near 0% and ending at 56%), then we could estimate that previous infection was 8.5x more protective than vaccination (interestingly more in line with the other studies…).

Comparing SARS-CoV-2 natural immunity to vaccine-induced immunity: reinfections versus breakthrough infections | medRxiv

• “SARS-CoV-2-naïve vaccinees had a 13.06-fold increased risk for breakthrough infection with the Delta variant compared to those previously infected”.
• Takeaway: natural immunity is way better than vaccine immunity.

Persistence of neutralizing antibodies a year after SARS‐CoV‐2 infection in humans – Haveri – – European Journal of Immunology – Wiley Online Library

• “We found that NAb against the WT virus persisted in 89% and S-IgG in 97% of subjects for at least 13 months after infection.”
• Takeaway: natural immunity can last beyond a year, unlike vaccine immunity which wanes almost completely by 6 months.

SARS‐CoV‐2 re‐infection risk in Austria – Pilz – 2021 – European Journal of Clinical Investigation – Wiley Online Library

• “observed a relatively low re-infection rate of SARS-CoV-2 in Austria. Protection against SARS-CoV-2 after natural infection is comparable with the highest available estimates on vaccine efficacies.”
• Takeaway: natural immunity is at least as good as vaccine immunity.

Necessity of COVID-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals | medRxiv

• “COVID-19 did not occur in anyone over the five months of the study among 2579 individuals previously infected with COVID-19, including 1359 who did not take the vaccine.”
• “Individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination”.

There are more studies that show the same thing – natural immunity is at least as good as vaccine immunity, and probably better. I can’t find any science that says otherwise, and I’ve looked.

There has been speculation that vaccine immunity could be better because the antibody levels from the mRNA vaccines are higher and more consistent^[3]. But that’s a hypothesis, not proof. So far, we don’t seem to have any data to support that theory.

Real-world example #1

To lend credence to these studies, here’s some real-world data from Ontario, Canada^[1][2]:

• Number of positive cases (March 2020 – October 2021): 597,689
• Number of reinfection cases (March 2020 – October 2021): 359
• Number of positive cases (August – October 2021): 45,386
• Number of breakthrough cases (August – October 2021): 12,313
• Number of positive cases (March 2020 – July 2021): 557,703
• Vaccination rate (at end of July 2021): 64% (full), 74% (partial)
• Therefore, the population ratio of vaccinated versus previous infected (at end of July 2021): ~17x
• If we assume that natural immunity is similar to vaccine immunity, then we’d expected to see 700+ reinfections between August – October 2021 (the actual number was 359 through whole pandemic).

Since we only see a fraction of the reinfections that we’d expect, we can infer that either reinfections are substantially underreported, or natural immunity is substantially better than vaccine immunity.

Real-world example #2

Here’s some more data, this time from Minnesota^[7]:

• Number of cases: 797,984
• Number of reinfection cases: 8,184
• Number of breakthrough case: 57,023
• “33% of infections were breakthrough past week”
• “reinfections make up only 1% of all infections”
• “breakthrough infection rate 1.8%”
• The population ratio of vaccinated versus previously infected: ~4x (60% of population versus 15%), if we assume vaccination is not strongly correlated to previous infection
• If we assume that natural immunity is similar to vaccine immunity, then we’d expect 14,000+ reinfection cases (the actual number was 8,184)

Again, since we only see a fraction of the reinfections that we’d expect, we can infer that either reinfections are substantially underreported, or natural immunity is substantially better than vaccine immunity.

Conclusion

From all the scientific evidence I’ve seen and the real-world data, it seems abundantly clear: post-infection immunity is at least as good as vaccine immunity (and probably much better), and lasts much longer. The World Health Organization also cautiously agrees^[4].

[Note: this isn’t an endorsement of purposely getting infected, nor a rejection of vaccines.]

So why would the authorities be ignoring this information? My guess is they’re scared to death about anything that might undermine vaccination efforts. They believe that as soon as someone could say “I had the sniffles last year, it must have been COVID, therefore I’m immune and don’t need to get vaccinated”, they’ll use it as an excuse.

And they have a point, but to willfully dismiss the preponderance of evidence is wrong. To not grant someone who’s unvaccinated (for whatever reason) and has provable post-infection immunity the same relative “freedoms” (ex: ability to keep their job) as someone who is vaccinated, is completely unjustifiable health risk-wise, and I think outright immoral. This is one example of why some people don’t listen to the authorities anymore. They don’t trust them, and frankly, with good reason sometimes.

(Enlighten me if I’m wrong – I’m seeking the truth, not to be right)

[1]: COVID-19 in Ontario: Focus on October 17, 2021 to October 23, 2021

[2]: COVID-19 vaccinations data | COVID-19 (coronavirus) in Ontario

[3]: Science Brief: SARS-CoV-2 Infection-induced and Vaccine-induced Immunity | CDC

[4]: COVID-19 natural immunity (who.int)

[5] : GOP Senator Asks Walensky, Fauci If Someone Who Had COVID-19 Should Be Mandated To Get Vaccinated – YouTube

[6]: My SCIENTIFIC HYPOTHESIS on NATURAL COVID IMMUNITY + response to very “odd” CDC study – YouTube

[7]: Minnesota data show COVID-19 reinfection is no free pass – StarTribune.com

Related:

• Should we censor misinformation? No.
• Have the COVID vaccines killed thousands? Likely, but not provably.
• Are the COVID vaccines safe? Safe enough.
• Are the COVID vaccines effective? Yes, but less than you’d think.
• Does vaccinated equal safe? No, we prove that every day.
• Should I voluntarily get the COVID vaccine? Yes, probably.
• Are COVID vaccine job mandates reasonable? Absolutely not.

Resources:

• Dr. John Campbell – Natural versus vaccine immunity – YouTube
• ‘What Percent Of CDC Employees Are Vaccinated?’: Cassidy Grills Walensky At Senate Hearing – YouTube

• 99% of COVID deaths are now of unvaccinated people, experts say – CNET
• Fully vaccinated? You can ditch the mask, CDC says (nbcnews.com)
• ‘No masks for the vaccinated’: What the latest US mask guidance means – BBC News
• CDC: Fully vaccinated people don’t need to quarantine if exposed to Covid (nbcnews.com)
• Fully vaccinated Canadians, permanent residents can soon skip hotel stay: Hajdu | CBC News

Although some of these measures have been rolled back, but there are still many “privileges” for the vaccinated. The question is, does this delineation make sense?

We know that based on individual behaviors, health, and environment, some people are at higher risk of infection, and some people are at lower risk. So, imagine if we plotted the distribution of infection risk, it might look something like this:

After getting vaccinated, the implication is that risk distribution changes to something like this:

That, regardless of other risk factors, all the vaccinated are imagined to be substantially less at risk, and less of a risk, than all the unvaccinated. If the vaccines were as effective as the measles or smallpox vaccines this could be plausible. Those vaccines are 95%-99% effective^[1]. But the COVID vaccines are much less effective and very quickly lose their effectiveness.

In reality, the risk profile probably looks more like this:

The mistake is believing that “vaccinated” equals “safe” (i.e. much lower risk). The reality is that “not sick” equals “safe”. But “vaccinated” does not equal “not sick”. “Vaccinated” means “less likely to be sick”. But there are lots of other things that also make you “less likely to be sick”.

For example, imagine you had to rank the following people (assuming all the same age) in terms of their relative risk if you were considering inviting them into your home:

1. A vaccinated healthcare worker who works in a hospital
2. A vaccinated non-symptomatic person who has an active COVID case in their household
3. A vaccinated person who has just returned from vacationing out-of-country
4. A vaccinated person who is symptomatic with flu-like symptoms
5. A vaccinated person who just attended a big music festival
6. A vaccinated office worker who has multiple health risks (ex: obesity, diabetes, hypertension, etc.)
7. An unvaccinated person who works from home, and only really goes out to get groceries or for walks for exercise

In this example, I believe that the unvaccinated person is mathematically provably less of a risk than all of the vaccinated people. Vaccination reduces your susceptibility by 2x-10x, but that is only part of the risk equation. The other part is your risk of exposure. If your risk of exposure is very low, your susceptibility is not really relevant. There are many lifestyles, work environments, and health risk factors that increase or decrease your risk (as illustrated above). To focus on vaccination status as the primary determinant of safety, I believe, is foolish. And the number of breakthrough cases we’re getting proves that. The unvaccinated are not the only ones spreading illness.

I believe that all the attention on increasing vaccination as our sole goal misses the point. Tracking community vaccination rates does not measure success at containing the virus. Higher vaccination rates do not necessarily correlate with lower infection rates^[2]. If infection rates are too high, increasing an already high vaccination rate is unlikely to make a meaningful impact.

I believe there is a mismatch between the level of concern about case rates in most countries, and the level of risk inherent in permitted activities (ex: concerts, professional sporting events, election campaign daily photo-ops, large climate conferences) under the mistaken assumption that proof of vaccination is sufficient to limit the risk.

If we really cared about reducing spread, and we wanted to determine if a specific event were “safe enough”, I would suggest the following test:

• Knowing the current level of active cases in the area,
• If you could only screen people based on standard screening questions (symptomatic? recent travel? recent contact with positive case?),
• And you could not screen based on vaccination status,
• Would you still believe the event was safe to hold?

If the answer is no, then you’re deluding yourself. I believe that health screening is more effective than vaccination screening alone (i.e. worrying about risk of exposure rather than susceptibility) and that vaccination screening only adds marginal benefit on top of health screening.

This is what makes the job vaccine mandates so illogical. We’re going to fire people for something that may be a marginal predictor of the risk for that person. While vaccination does lower risk, it is insufficient, by itself, to determine safe or not. And we need to stop pretending it is, for all our sakes. The vaccines are simply not effective enough.

(Enlighten me if I’m wrong – I’m seeking the truth, not to be right)

[1]: Measles vaccine: Canadian immunization guide – Canada.ca

[2]: Increases in COVID-19 are unrelated to levels of vaccination across 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States (nih.gov)

Related:

• Are the COVID vaccines effective? Yes, but less than you’d think.
• Is natural COVID immunity as good as vaccine immunity? Actually, it’s better.

• 99% Of People Killed By Covid Last Month Were Unvaccinated, Analysis Finds (forbes.com) (June 24, 2021)
• 99.2% of US Covid deaths in June were unvaccinated, says Fauci | US news | The Guardian (July 8, 2021)
• COVID-19 Deaths Are Rising, And 99% Of Them Are People Who Are Unvaccinated : NPR (July 16, 2021)
• 99% of COVID deaths are now of unvaccinated people, experts say – CNET (July 29, 2021)
• 99 percent of COVID-19 hospitalizations from unvaccinated: data (nypost.com) (September 8, 2021)

Two things have happened since the initial optimism: the delta variant, and vaccine effectiveness has waned.

Science

For reference, here’s how effectiveness translates into risk:

• 99% effective → 100x less likely
• 95% effective → 20x less likely
• 90% effective → 10x less likely
• 75% effective → 4x less likely
• 50% effective → 2x less likely
• <50% effective → basically ineffective

And for context, the effectiveness of other common vaccines are: measles (97%), rubella (97%), smallpox (95%), flu (20%-75%)^[1][2][3].

Let’s look what some of the science says, noting that some of these studies may still be in preprint:

Virological and serological kinetics of SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant vaccine-breakthrough infections: a multi-center cohort study | medRxiv

• “The mRNA vaccines are highly effective at preventing symptomatic and severe COVID-19 associated with B.1.617.2 (Delta) infection. Vaccination is associated with faster decline in viral RNA load and a robust serological response.”
• “Despite significantly older age in the vaccine breakthrough group, the odds of severe COVID-19 requiring oxygen supplementation was significantly lower following vaccination”

Comparison of two highly-effective mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 during periods of Alpha and Delta variant prevalence | medRxiv

• 90% – 95% effective during study period (i.e. Alpha)
• Now only 42% (Pfizer), 76% (Moderna) effective (i.e. Delta)

Effectiveness of COVID-19 Vaccines in Preventing SARS-CoV-2 Infection Among Frontline Workers Before and During B.1.617.2 (Delta) Variant Predominance — Eight U.S. Locations, December 2020–August 2021 | MMWR (cdc.gov)

• “The VE [vaccine effectiveness] point estimates declined from 91% before predominance of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant to 66%”

Effectiveness of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna Vaccines in Preventing SARS-CoV-2 Infection Among Nursing Home Residents Before and During Widespread Circulation of the SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 (Delta) Variant — National Healthcare Safety Network, March 1–August 1, 2021 | MMWR (cdc.gov)

• “Two doses of mRNA vaccines were 74.7% effective against infection among nursing home residents early in the vaccination program (March–May 2021). During June–July 2021, when B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant circulation predominated, effectiveness declined significantly to 53.1%.”

No Significant Difference in Viral Load Between Vaccinated and Unvaccinated, Asymptomatic and Symptomatic Groups When Infected with SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant | medRxiv

• “Our study is consistent with other recent reports showing similar viral loads among vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals in settings with transmission of the Delta variant.”
• “Interestingly, the viral loads decreased more rapidly in vaccinated than unvaccinated individuals in Singapore, suggesting that vaccinated individuals may remain infectious for shorter periods of time”

Shedding of Infectious SARS-CoV-2 Despite Vaccination when the Delta Variant is Prevalent – Wisconsin, July 2021 | medRxiv

• “68% of individuals infected despite vaccination tested positive with Ct <25 (PCR threshold cycle), including at least 8 who were asymptomatic at the time of testing.”
• “Our data substantiate the idea that vaccinated individuals who become infected with the Delta variant may have the potential to transmit SARS-CoV-2 to others.”

Effect of Vaccination on Household Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in England | NEJM

• “Overall, the likelihood of household transmission was approximately 40% to 50% lower in households of index patients who had been vaccinated 21 days or more before testing positive than in households of unvaccinated index patients”

Effectiveness of mRNA BNT162b2 COVID-19 vaccine up to 6 months in a large integrated health system in the USA: a retrospective cohort study – PubMed (nih.gov)

• “Effectiveness against delta infections at 1 month after being fully vaccinated was high at 93% but fell to 53% up to 5 months after being fully vaccinated.”
• “Effectiveness against other (non-delta) variants within 1 month of being fully vaccinated was also high at 97% and also waned, to 67% up to 5 months after being fully vaccinated.”

Effectiveness of Covid-19 Vaccination Against Risk of Symptomatic Infection, Hospitalization, and Death Up to 9 Months: A Swedish Total-Population Cohort Study by Peter Nordström, Marcel Ballin, Anna Nordström

• “Vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic Covid-19 infection wanes progressively over time across all subgroups, but at different rate according to type of vaccine, and faster for men and older frail individuals”
• Pfizer: 92% (2-4 weeks), 47% (4-6 months), no effectiveness detected (6 months+)
• Moderna: 96% (2-4 weeks), 71% (4-6 months), 59% (6 months)
• AstraZeneca: 68% (2-4 weeks), no effectiveness detected (4 months+)

Summary

My main takeaways from this science would be:

• Initial risk reduction of infection, hospitalization, and death is around 10x-18x (mRNA), 3x (AstraZeneca)
• When sick, vaccination may reduce the risk of transmission by about half (while vaccine is still effective)
• When sick, vaccination probably causes viral load to decrease faster
• Vaccine protection drops by half or more by 4 months
• Vaccine protection wanes nearly completely by 6 months, sooner for non-mRNA vaccines

Overall, the vaccines seem to provide a measurable, meaningful benefit, at least for several months.

So, how long ago was your last dose? Have you gotten your booster yet? Are you as much of a risk to yourself and others as all those who are unvaccinated?

(Enlighten me if I’m wrong – I’m seeking the truth, not to be right)

[1]: Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) Vaccination | CDC

[2]: Vaccine Basics | Smallpox | CDC

[3]: Past Seasons Vaccine Effectiveness Estimates | CDC

Related:

• Are the COVID vaccines safe? Safe enough.
• Should I voluntarily get the COVID vaccine? Yes, probably.
• Does vaccinated equal safe? No, we prove that every day.
• Is natural COVID immunity as good as vaccine immunity? Actually, it’s better.
• Should kids get the COVID vaccine?
• Should getting the COVID vaccine be a choice?
• Are COVID boosters necessary?

So, a better question is: Do the known benefits of the vaccines significantly outweigh the known risks? Accepting, of course, that quantifying one or both is challenging, even at the population level, never mind at the individual level. So, we can only speak in terms of estimated average safety, based on the best currently available data.

Data

For vaccine risk data I’m going to use VAERS (U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System)^[1]. I’ve previously discussed why I believe the numbers in VAERS are reasonable and plausible, even if not provable. The event rate is calculated to be per 100K people vaccinated (adjusted for single-dose versus double-dose vaccines).

For COVID numbers, I will use officially published government numbers.

Vaccines versus confirmed infection risks (January – October 2021)

First, let’s imagine we live in the U.S., and in January 2021 we were forced to choose between COVID vaccination or a COVID party^{[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]}. Basically, should we have feared the vaccine more than getting COVID?

Hospitalization rate (U.S.)

Death rate (U.S.)

Seems pretty obvious that COVID is much more dangerous. Also note that COVID risk could be understated in these statistics because some of these infections were in vaccinated people, who have a reduced risk of hospitalization and death. Balancing against that, the COVID risk could be overstated since many asymptomatic people will not get tested. Given the magnitude of difference between vaccines and COVID, those discrepancies aren’t going to change our conclusion.

Vaccines versus population infection risk (January – October 2021)

Ok, so you skipped the COVID party. What was the actual risk during the first 10 months of 2021, given all the protective pandemic measures taken^[1][3][6][9]?

[Note: I’m extrapolating the U.S. side effect rates worldwide, even though there could be significant differences between countries due to demographic and health differences.]

Death Rate

Again, the COVID risks dwarf the risks of the vaccines. What about those countries that have largely avoided widespread outbreaks (ex: Australia, South Korea, China)? I think they’re destined to have substantially more cases eventually – that they’ve just managed to delay them for now.

Vaccines versus possible future infection (Winter 2022)

What about the scenario where you’ve managed to avoid getting infected so far? No sense getting vaccinated now, the risk is over, right^[1][3][6][9]? I think we’re a long way from ending this pandemic, and thus the risk will be around of a while yet (i.e. years).

As a simple example, if we take the current (October) infection / deaths rates and project them over the winter as an arbitrary guestimate of future risk, we get:

Death Rate

This is also assuming that vaccine adverse events remain constant. But there are indications that health authorities are recognizing and managing adverse events better (however belatedly). COVID is still not a good bet, even today.

Vaccines versus daily life (January – October 2021)

What about comparing vaccine risk against the other risks we already take for granted in daily life^{[1][2][3][5][6][7][8][9]}?

[Note: we’re using death data from 2018 as a comparison, calculating the risk over 10 months (not seasonally adjusted) to align with COVID data.]

Death Rate (U.S. per 100K population)

A few of observations:

• Vaccine risk is substantially lower than many other risks we take for granted every day
• COVID is comparable to the top killers for each age group, and therefore not to be dismissed casually
• COVID is bad, but it’s not Smallpox, or the plague, or the 1918 Spanish flu-like bad – it’s just much worse than other infectious diseases that we’re used to (ex: seasonal flu)
• COVID and vaccine risk is substantially worse for older people, but so is the risk of other health problems
• Even though COVID is one of the top killers in each age group, preventable medical mistakes by your doctor are also estimated to be a top killer^[10]
• While we hear about higher risks of heart problems in young people, vaccine induced heart problems in older individuals may get “lost in the noise”

Conclusion

From all the evidence, I believe we can clearly see that whatever risk there may be from the vaccines, it’s low enough, compared to alternatives, to be considered safe enough.

That said, dismissing the risk of the vaccines outright, I think, is a mistake. There are too many healthcare professionals that have raised concerns or chosen not to get vaccinated. If it were only the “uneducated” conspiracy theorists objecting, it would be easy to dismiss their concerns. But it’s not. Has misinformation from questionable sources mislead these healthcare professionals? Or there are more serious problems that are going unreported. We can’t know (yet).

Also note that I’ve purposely avoided discussing vaccinating children, which deserves a separate post.

(Enlighten me if I’m wrong – I’m seeking the truth, not to be right)

[1]: The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) Request (cdc.gov)

[2]: Age and Sex Composition in the United States: 2019 (census.gov)

[3]: U.S. COVID-19 vaccine tracker: See your state’s progress (mayoclinic.org)

[4]: COVID-19 Hospitalizations (cdc.gov)

[5]: Provisional COVID-19 Deaths by Sex and Age | Data | Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (cdc.gov)

[6]: GitHub – CSSEGISandData/COVID-19: Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Cases, provided by JHU CSSE

[7]: COVID-19 Cases by Age Group

[8]: Deaths (cdc.gov)

[9]: Coronavirus COVID-19 (2019-nCoV) (arcgis.com)

[10]: Your Health Care May Kill You: Medical Errors – PubMed (nih.gov)

Related:

• Are the COVID vaccines effective? Yes, but less than you’d think.
• Should I voluntarily get the COVID vaccine? Yes, probably.
• Does vaccinated equal safe? No, we prove that every day.

That’s so lazy. Just because some numbers agree or disagree with your premise, that doesn’t necessarily grant them less or more credibility. Lying with statistics has a long tradition in politics and advertising. So, we must be careful when dealing with numbers to understand what they truly represent, whether they have been purposely chosen to obfuscate the truth, and more importantly, understand the limitations of the underlying source.

With that in mind, for COVID death statistics, I choose to use the officially published government numbers, and believe they are close enough, even though they may be flawed. Here are some common critiques and my response.

Overreported (it counts people dying with COVID, as opposed to dying of COVID)

There have been some high-profile examples of misreported cases that were corrected^[1][2]. But how many cases weren’t corrected because they didn’t get media attention? Probably some, but I haven’t seen any evidence that this is more than a small fraction. And I’m OK counting cases in which COVID played a meaningful part in the death, even if it wasn’t the only contributing factor. Was the death 10% or 90% caused by COVID? It’s subjective and arbitrary. What’s an appropriate threshold?

Underreported (not all deaths get COVID tested)

By comparing death statistics versus previous years there are estimates that COVID death counts could be significantly unreported^[3][4]. While this was most certainly true early in the pandemic, I’m not sure how much of a factor this has been since summer 2020. There are many possible reasons for the excess deaths besides COVID itself: people not seeking timely medical help, delays in medical surgeries, or general pandemic stress (ex: suicide, opioids, domestic violence). We’d need to break down the specific causes of death to get a better sense of the likelihood that COVID deaths are still undercounted.

Overreported (counts people who would have died of something else anyway)

This was a very common theory early in the pandemic, but excess deaths statistics show that the opposite is more likely^[5]. And what’s your threshold for hastening a death? A week? A month? A year? We’re all going to die of something. COVID is clearly killing people that wouldn’t have died yet otherwise.

Conclusion

None of these complaints sway me enough to believe the numbers are not close enough. COVID is not the number one killer, but it’s certainly in the top 5 or top 10 depending on the age group.

(Enlighten me if I’m wrong – I’m seeking the truth, not to be right)

[1]: Was a Fatal Motorcycle Crash Listed Among COVID-19 Deaths in Florida? | Snopes.com

[2]: Hinshaw apologizes after Alberta mistakenly reports 14-year-old’s cancer death was caused by COVID-19 | CTV News

[3]: COVID-19 deaths in Canada may be 2 times higher than reported, study finds | CBC News

[4]: Tracking covid-19 excess deaths across countries | The Economist

[5]: Excess Deaths Associated with COVID-19 (cdc.gov)

Related:

• Have the COVID vaccines killed thousands? Likely, but not provably.
• Are the COVID vaccines safe? Safe enough.
• Are the COVID vaccines effective? Yes, but less than you’d think.

Without some sort of agreement on the order of magnitude of the actual numbers, we can’t have a rational debate on anything else, and we’ll never reach consensus on what might be appropriate public policy.

As the basis for this discussion, I will use VAERS (U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System)^[1]. For context, as of November 2021, it had almost 9K U.S. deaths reported as correlated with COVID vaccination.

Theory #1 (10x more than VAERS)

Let’s consider first the claim that hundreds of thousands have died in the U.S. from the COVID vaccines. To reach this conclusion we can use the following logic:

• Assume that some fraction of VAERS deaths are caused by the vaccines rather than simply coincidence (some estimate 1 in 3)^[5]
• Calculate the fraction of all adverse events that ever get reported to VAERS (some estimate 1 in 40 or less)^[6]
• That implies that VAERS could be underreporting actual events by a factor of >13x
• If so, we would predict 100K – 150K+ deaths due to the vaccines in the U.S. through November 2021

Sounds logical, but is it possible? This level of deaths would be on the same order of magnitude as COVID deaths (400K+ for 2021). That should be large enough to show up on weekly excess death statistics^[4] (“excess” being a seasonably unusual number of deaths).

There are definitely an abnormal number of excess non-COVID deaths occurring, but not nearly enough to demonstrate the proposed 100K+ deaths. Besides, the non-COVID excess deaths aren’t really synchronized timewise with the vaccine roll outs (first half of 2021), and were also high in 2020, before the vaccines. Where are all of these supposed vaccine deaths? Are people suddenly not dying of other things? Are the vaccine deaths being deliberately omitted from official statistics? Are the vaccine deaths being reported as COVID deaths? Overall, even if we believe the logic of this theory, it seems unlikely that the magnitude is as high as claimed. Without digging into changes in causes of death, it’s very hard to explain away this discrepancy.

Theory #2 (10x less than VAERS)

Next let’s consider the official narrative, which is that deaths are exceeding rare. I’ve not seen any official vaccine death statistics in the U.S. other than “some small fraction of VAERS”.

In Canada, the official death statistics are “maybe as many as 163”^[3], as of October 2021:

• 6 definitely linked
• 41 still under investigation (many months later…)
• 116 insufficient information to be assessed

Using these numbers as a starting point:

• If we arbitrary assumed all 163 deaths were caused by vaccines, extrapolating to the U.S, that would translate to less than 1 in 9 deaths in VAERS were caused by the vaccines (when adjusting for vaccination rates)
• Since people die every day of many causes, the vast majority of deaths could be unrelated if the majority of deaths that occurred soon after vaccination were being reported to VAERS (as required by law)
• Essentially, we’re assuming most of the VAERS deaths are coincident with, not caused by the vaccines (i.e. background deaths)
• If so, we would predict <1,000 deaths due to the vaccines in the U.S.

If this theory is true, I’d expect that the death numbers in VAERS would be similar to on-going background death numbers. So, let’s compare the number of VAERS deaths (0-14 days post-vaccination divided in half) adjusted for % of population vaccinated^[1][8], versus expected average weekly all-cause mortality (2018 statistics)^[7]:

This tells us that only a small fraction of deaths that occur soon after vaccination, regardless of cause, are being reported to VAERS, as intended. Without an ability to compare to background deaths how can it be determined how many, if any, are caused by vaccines? An early review of 250 VAERS COVID vaccine deaths^[9] found the following:

• 5% were probable
• 81% were possible
• 14% were unlikely

Say we accept that only 5% of the reported deaths were “probably” caused by vaccines and ignore the 81% “possible”. But as we saw above, less than 1 in 15 of all expected deaths were actually reported to VAERS. Are we to believe that 100% of deaths probably caused by the vaccine were correctly reported, and the other 14 in 15 deaths were definitely not related? That’s presumptuous. The point of VAERS is to document all deaths, even if it’s not clear that it’s related to a vaccine. There’s too much room for confirmation bias (“I believe it can’t be, therefore it isn’t”). Maybe we can assume a higher rate of correctly reported events versus not reported (ex: 3x), but that still leaves a lot of possibly causative deaths that went unreported. For example, even for reactions that are blatantly related and immediately obvious (ex: anaphylaxis) for COVID vaccines, VAERS has been shown it could be underreported by 100:1^[10].

If we test our conservative assumptions:

• Only consider 5% of reported deaths that were “probably” caused by the vaccines, and assume none of the “possible” cases were contributory
• From the 1 in 15 deaths that were reported, assume that reported deaths are 3x more likely contributory than unreported deaths
• That would suggest that actual vaccine deaths represent ~20% of the number reported by VAERS

Next, if we include some of the “possible” cases:

• Assume that 1 in 5 of “possible” deaths were caused by vaccine (20% of 81% possible = 16%)
• That would mean 21% (5% probable + 16% possible) of reported deaths were likely caused by the vaccines
• From the 1 in 15 deaths that were reported, still assume that reported deaths are 3x more likely contributory than unreported deaths
• That would suggest that actual vaccine deaths are approximately equal to the number reported by VAERS

Next, if we remove the assumption about unreported deaths:

• From the 1 in 15 deaths that were reported, assume the reported deaths are just as likely to be contributory as unreported deaths
• That would suggest that actual vaccine deaths are actually ~300% of number reported by VAERS

Which end of the spectrum seems more plausible to you?

Theory #3 (VAERS is close enough)

Given the huge level of underreporting of VAERS deaths compared to background deaths, even if only 5%-20% of VAERS deaths are contributory, the underreporting rate can very plausibly overcome that fraction. Therefore, I choose to take the VAERS death numbers as an arbitrary, “good enough” approximation, even though we can’t prove them. Maybe the numbers are off by a factor 2x-4x in either direction. Overall, even with that level of uncertainty, I think we can still draw several solid conclusions.

What that means in practice is that I will use the following assumptions as the basis for other discussions:

• The average death risk from vaccine could be ~3.8 per 100K vaccinated
• The age group breakdown per 100K vaccinated translates to 0.2 (age 12-18), 0.7 (age 18-50), 2.6 (age 50-65), 11.8 (age 65+)
• There have likely been ~9K U.S. vaccine deaths through November 2021 (equal to VAERS)
• There have likely been ~1K Canadian vaccine deaths through November 2021 (versus the official number of 6 with an upper maximum of 163)

Addendum

Arguably with all of its problems with completeness, trying to estimate mortality risk with VAERS will always be extremely difficult and inaccurate.

An alternative, maybe more reliable, technique for understanding the risk benefit balance of the vaccines could be to compare all-cause mortality in the vaccinated versus the unvaccinated. Then we wouldn’t need to tease apart why someone died. If the vaccines are as obviously beneficial and necessary as claimed, then all-cause mortality would be noticeably lower for the vaccinated in each age group. Unfortunately, we don’t have the data to do this analysis (yet), but there are some people who are actively pursuing that approach^[11]. Maybe eventually this will give us a better basis of understanding the true risks and benefits of the vaccines.

(Enlighten me if I’m wrong – I’m seeking the truth, not to be right)

[1]: The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) Request (cdc.gov)

[2]: European database of suspected adverse drug reaction reports – Eudravigilance (adrreports.eu)

[3]: COVID-19 vaccine safety: Summary of weekly report on side effects following immunization – Canada.ca

[4]: Excess Deaths Associated with COVID-19 (cdc.gov)

[5]: Science – Heidelberg – Chief Pathologist Insists on More Autopsies of Vaccinated – Knowledge – SZ.de (sueddeutsche.de)

[6]: Electronic Support for Public Health – Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (ESP:VAERS) | Digital Healthcare Research (ahrq.gov)

[7]: Deaths (cdc.gov)

[8]: COVID-19 Vaccination and Case Trends by Age Group, United States | Data | Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (cdc.gov)

[9]: (PDF) Analysis of COVID-19 vaccine death reports from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) Database Interim: Results and Analysis (researchgate.net)

[10]: Acute Allergic Reactions to mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines | Allergy and Clinical Immunology | JAMA | JAMA Network

[11]: Comparing all-cause mortality rate by age group: vaccinated v unvaccinated (normanfenton.com)

Related:

• Are the COVID vaccines safe? Safe enough.
• Are the COVID vaccines effective? Yes, but less than you’d think.

Let’s unpack the distinct aspects of this problem. First, who decides what’s misinformation? The government? The big news media companies? The social media platforms? Self-appointed “fact-checkers”? There are endless historical examples of governments trying to suppress information with which they didn’t agree. How can we differentiate “inconvenient” from “untrue”? How can we guarantee that the government is acting in our best interest, rather than its own, even if somehow there was a universal best interest? We can’t. And this presupposes that the government is infallible. How did it achieve this superpower? Why is this particular group of people obviously altruistic and benevolent, whereas everyone else is not? Believing that there exists a group that could be fully entrusted with this duty is willfully ignorant of credible evidence to the contrary.

Second, our ability to suppress information simply doesn’t exist. It’s not possible. In our connected digital world, if we remove information from one place, it will just flow someplace else, pushing it further underground. They couldn’t permanently suppress information in the Dark Ages, what makes you think we can do it now? And besides, the more you try to suppress information, the more you lend credence to the theory that you’re trying to hide something out of your own self-interest. You feed the conspiracy. Many digital platforms have been trying to suppress “misinformation” throughout this pandemic. How’s that working out so far? Not well, from all appearances, and I’d argue it’s made things worse, not better.

Third, why would we even want to censor “misinformation”? Dissenting opinions are essential, both to society at large, and in our personal lives. We need them to keep us honest and function as a balance against self-delusion. They force us to ensure we can actually defend our beliefs. They let us strengthen them by battle-testing them. Why are you afraid of information? If their information is so much more believable than yours, maybe your information is actually incomplete, or maybe you need to explain it better. Or maybe, theirs is more believable because it’s actually more true.

Fourth, truth is not static. What we fervently believe today could be disproven true tomorrow. The strength of our beliefs doesn’t necessarily correspond to their accuracy. To outright dismiss information without even listening is burying our heads in the sand. The burden of proof for challenging the prevailing wisdom should be high, but not infinite.

As in all things, the source of information makes an enormous difference – credibility matters. There have been many highly credentialed doctors, scientists, and statisticians that have tried to raise reasonable, well-thought-out concerns about government pandemic policy^{[2][3][4][5][6][7][8]}. But these concerns have been attacked or dismissed (but not refuted). The sources have been sanctioned, censored, and threatened. This is not evidence of truth seeking. This is evidence of mindlessly driving to an agenda. If the truth were so obvious, why isn’t it obvious to these experts? Why are so many willing to risk so much?

Aren’t lies dangerous? Yes, but so is trying to control or suppress information. True nonsense will wither away under real public scrutiny. We need more open, honest, public debate, not less. We don’t need an arbiter over what constitutes “true” information. Who watches the watchers? Let’s trust that the vast majority of people are logical, rational human beings, if given a chance.

So how do we fight lies? First by listening, and by trying to understand the basis of the information. Very rarely is “misinformation” purely made up – there is almost always a kernel of truth to it. So, admit to that truth. Be humble in admitting when you’re wrong. Be open and transparent. Be compassionate rather than judgmental. Earn people’s trust. Morals matter. When a significant percentage of people (20%+) believe conspiracy theories about the government^[9][10], the problem isn’t the conspiracy theories, the problem is that government has acted in ways that destroys its credibility.

I welcome and encourage dissenting opinions, as I think everyone should – because I think we would all be better for it.

(Enlighten me if I’m wrong – I’m seeking the truth, not to be right)

[1]: Authoritarian Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com

[2]: Declaration of Canadian Physicians for Science and Truth

[3]: John Stossel – Fact-BLOCKERS – YouTube

[4]: Rome Declaration – Concerned Doctors

[5]: SARS-CoV-2 mass vaccination: Urgent questions on vaccine safety that demand answers from international health agencies, regulatory authorities, governments and vaccine developers – ScienceOpen

[6]: Surgeon fired by College of Medicine for voicing safety concerns about Covid shots for children | Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (jccf.ca)

[7]: The Problems With Censoring Doctors Over Their COVID-19 Stances (msn.com)

[8]: Blog | Norman Fenton

[9]: Canadians falling prey to conspiracy theories despite strong trust in institutions: poll – National | Globalnews.ca

[10]: 20% of Americans Believe Microchips Are in COVID-19 Vaccines: YouGov Study (insider.com)

Related:

• What is truth? What is fake news? What is misinformation?
• Have the COVID vaccines killed thousands? Likely, but not provably.
• Can we trust the COVID death statistics? Probably.
• Are the COVID vaccines safe? Safe enough.
• Are the COVID vaccines effective? Yes, but less than you’d think.

As a result, it appears that people have retreated more and more into tribes, or groups of like-minded people. These groups tend to be echo chambers of groupthink, because those with dissenting opinions are often cast out (cancelled), further reinforcing the singlemindedness of the group. Something said and repeated often enough becomes accepted “truth” whether it has factual basis or not. As people become increasingly entrenched in their beliefs, they become more unwilling to consider the ideas of others outside their group, or that they themselves could be wrong. Actual public debate disappears.

You can see this closed-mindedness reflected in any public political “debate”. Both sides have a full set of rehearsed talking points which they gleefully hurl at each other, without any form of listening to what the other side is saying. The label of “fake news” or “misinformation” gets immediately applied to anything that people disagree with, without any sort of thought of “could this be true”. The level of thinking has become “this can’t be, therefore it isn’t”.

When building our beliefs, especially these days, it’s easy to find some evidence (credible or not) that supports that belief, so we stop looking. We’re more likely to notice things that confirm what we already believe to be true (confirmation bias), and literally perceive things differently based upon what we expect to find (motivated thinking). Being presented with information that contradicts one of our beliefs is uncomfortable because it casts doubt upon our own infallibility (cognitive dissonance). When we’re convinced we’re right, contradictory information is a threat to our egos and core identities. So, by default, our brains are conditioned to subconsciously dismiss or explain away that problematic information. Critical thinking requires accepting that we are all prone to bias and need to actively work to overcome it.

Another trap is using language that is intentionally meant to insult or disparage a person or an idea (descriptive bias). You’re trying to undermine that person or idea without actually refuting it. For example, calling someone an “anti-vaxxer”, “conspiracy theorist”, “science denier”, “right-wing extremist”, “left-wing extremist”, “Antifa”, “Trumpist”, “communist”. Or using phrases like “China-virus”, “quarantine detention hotel”, “horse de-wormer”, “poison-death shot”.

Critical thinking requires keeping an open mind rather than assuming we already have all the answers. An everyday example of this is when people say “the science is settled” or “sciences proves that …”. But that misunderstands what science is – science is not an end-state, it is a process, and therefore, by definition, can never be settled. The scientific method is clear: (1) form a hypothesis, (2) devise and run a test that could disprove your hypothesis, (3) take what you learned from your test, then rinse and repeat^[1][2]. Your test cannot “prove” your hypothesis true. It can simply reject it or fail to reject it. Therefore, science never stops, there is always more to learn. Those things which we have not yet disproven, despite our collective best efforts, are those things we consider facts, for now. True scientific thinking always leaves open the possibility that we could be wrong and will gladly accept credible evidence that may refute our claims.

Critical thinking requires skepticism, a term that’s somehow become demonized. Society as a whole would be better off if we were all more skeptical. Skeptical of government. Skeptical of the daily news. Skeptical of celebrities. Skeptical of big pharmaceutical companies. Skeptical of health authorities. Skeptical of Dr. Google. Skeptical of your virtual friends on social media. Skeptical of your crazy Uncle Buck. Skeptical of your high school buddy and his questionable theories. Skeptical of random websites (like this one). Skeptical of everyone.

If you train people to blindly accept information because you want them to simply accept what the authorities say, you don’t train them to spot nonsense, to have good bullshit filters. So of course, many of them will end up believing outlandish things. Instead, if you train people to be more discerning, they may not always accept what the authorities say, but they’ll also be less likely to accept random people’s nonsense too.

The next time you’re confronted with challenging information that may seem like misinformation, pause a moment. Consider the source, and at least entertain the possibility that it might be partially true.

“Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”

Albert Einstein

“Follow the evidence wherever it leads, and question everything.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson

“Truth is hard to find. Truth is difficult to understand when it arrives. But truth doesn’t work to evade us. It usually stays still until we find it.”

Seth Godin

(Enlighten me if I’m wrong – I’m seeking the truth, not to be right)

[1]: When you can never be wrong: the unfalsifiable hypothesis – You Can Know Things

[2]: Scientific method – Wikipedia

Related:

• Should we censor misinformation? No.

Resources:

• Mistakes Were Made, But Not Be Me – Carol Tavris & Elliot Aronson
• The Parasitic Mind – Gad Saad
• Think Like a Rocket Scientist – Ozan Varol
• Antifragile – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• Predictably Irrational – Dan Ariely
• The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe – Steven Novella
• Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain – Lisa Feldman Barrett