No, my friend, the focus is on you right now. Everyone just witnessed you being completely wrong and unable to admit it. My feelings are irrelevant.

I think it's your feelings that are hurt now. A bit of a bruised ego, the sting of embarrassment. Publicly exposed as a phony intellectual that can't even deal with new information and accepts headlines at face value.

But be sure to hold everyone to impossible standards and question the nature of reality while trying to have a discussion about... well fucking anything really. Hopefully we'll forget about it in a day or two, and people will be convinced you're clever again.

It's your story that I'm wrong. Not all of us are so hung up on being correct all the time.

Questions of epistemology are always relevant, especially so when you're claiming you know better than those who have spent careers developing their knowledge.

But you think for yourself, conveniently getting to skip out on developing any sound base of knowledge, crying persecution at any attempts to test what you know.

#selfawarewolves

Sssssh, Jeremy. No tears, only dreams.

Something still has you burning, eh Mavis?

He was so close, too.

Remember that influenza you got in Malaysia and you felt like you were going to die in the hotel room? No? Just me? Well, it turns out it may give your immune system a T cell advantage to fight SARS COV2.

https://21a86421-c3e0-461b-83c2-cfe4...afa4b60664.pdf

mentioned in this video (14 min mark):
Dr Fleming on Covid cause and solution
https://rumble.com/vmq1g3-dr-fleming...-solution.html

Trigger warning for the above video.

Random link from some random website: Follow? No thanks.

Rumble.com... lol

But my dislike of your sources aside, I hope that is true - I hope that some of the antivaxers out there actually do have some level of immunity, because I don't actually want them to die or get long covid.

However relying on that immunity without any wider studies is a fools game and if that's your defense against getting the jab, you're less intelligent than I thought.

Regarding vaccines my message has always been: Don't get the vaccine because a politician says so.

Is anyone actually doing that tho? Politicians are the ones who facilitate the vaccine, impose the incentives that are necessary.

But... we're taking the vaccine as part of a long, successful history of using vaccines to minimise the impact of infectious disease.

Right?

It's pure contrarianism to resist the vaccine because politicians are involved. How could they not be?

The promise was that big meanie government will stop being mean when a % of population gets vaccine. Yes, I think a lot of people are getting the vaccine more to make the government stop being a pain in their ass rather than personal health benefits.

Let me be clear that i believe the COVID vaccines do provide personal health benefits to some, and those that need it should get it.

Well what are our options?

Open everything up, make the vaccine available to everyone who wants it, but do nothing other than tell people it's there?

What are the consequences of that?

Or perhaps somehow get NGOs involved, get them to do the incentivising without the support of the government?

How does that work?

What's the point of the government if not for times when we all need to act as a group?

Is the vaccine about personal health benefits, or about social health benefits? I eat well for personal health benefits. I drive to the road rules for social health benefits. There seems to be a difference.

#yolo and open it up. Vaccine is there, take it or leave it.

You eat well for social benefits too in that you won't overburden hospitals when your bad diet fucks up your body. In that sense vaccines are a social benefit as well as personal benefit.

Some kind of government-scale organisation element is required, or indeed a cultural requirement. When I think of the opposite of government I think of Ethereum. The culture rewards people who participate in it. It heads in the right direction according to all. Governments during the pandemic have been all about obedience and less about finding harmony withh citizens.

If you don't have harmony, people will hurt themselves and society (stay unvaccinated, defy curfew, spit on nurses, protest), if it spoils the plans of their enemy.

the social contract is obliterated. Government have given us marching orders, then told us we should think of it like "we're all in this together". This when many health ministers have been mountain biking or travelling for the holidays when everyone else should be locked up. It's hard to tolerate this double standard when we should all have a common goal.

VIC government just wants everyone to hurry and double vax. Some even get a call for their second vax after 2 weeks. This is terrible for personal and societal benefit, but great if you're a politician trying to get reelected and you want to say "vaccinated number go up!" . It's a simple automated smart contract (book in 2nd dose after 10 weeks for best public health outcome), but human ego element dicks around with shit and always makes things worse.

Got any links to the double-vax calls? Because that's plain idiotic and ignores the science. Even with the pfizer the studies are showing upto 12 weeks is optimal. (Couldn't find original study but here's a couple news articles [Forbes] [Birmingham Uni])

OTOH while searching I found that Vic has reduced the AstraZenica interval to 6 weeks. [Royal Aus College of GPs] in an attempt to balance getting people vaccinated vs increasing case numbers. I note the recommendation is only to shorten for those in COVID hot-spots, but government, clunky, etc.

That being said, the interval is still 6 weeks for Pfizer too - haven't reduced it to the manufacturer's initial 3-week recommendation.

Robyn got a call to book in 2 weeks after her shot. so no link, just personal experience.

I reckon the Maori vaccination rate being comparatively low creates an ethical dilemma.

Michael Mina has been banging the drum on rapid tests for over a year. This podcast he explains why they’ve taken so long to get recognised as a great public health tool.

Lex Fridman - Michael Mina
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0IF...c6GTFvKFPXnkCL


He talks of his recommendations at 45 min mark:
- Goal should be to reduce transmission
- Most people will self isolate if empowered with knowledge of their infectivity
- Every house should be given a box of tests (tax payer funded)
- when community has no cases, just test the waste water for traces of virus. If detected, spread news to community that cases are turning up and they should start using their at home tests.
- PCR test takes too long and only identifies super spreaders after the fact, rapid test can deny an infectious person entry to a shop, or gathering
- E-med is a service to verify people are taking an antigen test and have a negative result https://www.emed.com/



Our local pharmacy has nasal swab rapid test available for sale 8th Nov. $14 per single test. Left my number and got them to reserve some for our household.

100mil and counting so far.

I think you should all vaccinate your children without waiting to see what happens long term. Please do it for society. Give them heaps of boosters too.

There is obviously no risk with this vaccine, and huge benefits, because otherwise you're gonna die.

Way ahead of you, vaxed em as soon as it was available.

You call people afraid, yet you peddle fear. You claim to think for yourself, but parrot the same "we don't know what happens in the long term" line as so many other anti-vaxxers.

Maybe you'll regale us with another tale about how you go your own way.

It's a siding scale.

I eat well for me. I drive to the road rules for me and others. I don't drink and drive for me, others, as well as the legal implications of not abiding, and I understand that it's a law for the benefit of everyone.

It's not just one or two individuals here, i see it on social media too. People against vaccines, or vaccine mandates, are all about the "Don't let fear control you." one second, and "My research shows this vaccine will make you sterile and kill everyone you love" the next.

These two classes wouldn’t roughly correspond to “white people” and “brown people” would they?

Good job Simon, I'll be doing the same thing.

that's just the opposing, yet still delusional, side to people who claim the vaccine stops the spread, has zero side effects, makes you immune, and stops you dying of any cause

Somewhere in the middle is a place where we can find a larger consensus. And less people later regretting their decisions to vax or not vax. If people were primarily convinced to get the vaccine because they were told it stopped them giving COVID to others, they were tricked into getting the vaccine. Likewise, if someone decides not to get the vax because their balls might swell up are also being tricked.

tricking people into getting vaxxed you might say the end justifies the means. The people doing the tricking are treating their audience with contempt. That trust may never be won back.

Kia Ora, Simon.


They'll also be the ones who get fired from their government jobs. #aroha

nga mihi

Karen

Yep. The unvaccinated will fall into the 2 types of people

Anti Vax, Anti Govt, anti whatever.
and those where the system doesn't work. Where they don't have the time to worry about this. There first priority is surviving and helping their family survive.

However there was $100m+ being spent on focusing on Maori & Pacifica and helping them.
So with that, it should then mostly only affect the antivax.

Yeah, then once the pandemic is over, we'll leave 'em to rot again. Complain about the gangs they join when society proves unworthy. It's only cause we're all at risk that we're willing to flick a few dollars their way.

Meanwhile, billions upon billions are spent yearly no questions asked on our predominantly white superannuates, thanks to their tendency to actually survive into retirement over their browner peers.

Like the 1.9bil that Angry Andrew spent and couldn't account for recently.

You've also got a Maori party that was incapable of recognizing the risk to Maori people in March saying they wouldn't tell Maori people to get the vaccine.

It's almost like the state isn't capable of representing the people.

Or maybe we're incapable of electing a competent government? We're suckers for whoever is telling us they'll put the most money in our pockets?

There's a very sad series of posts on social media from people proudly stating their intention to never vax, that no one should ever vax, and you're crazy for doing so. Then posting regretting their decisions to not vaccinate, normally followed up by an obituary from their significant other.
In fact it's become so common that it's become known as the Herman Cain Award, named after the American Republican senator that blew off the virus, then subsequently contracted & died from it.

I'm not seeing anyone regret their decision to vaccinate. I can't say they don't exist, but the former is so much more apparent.


Edit: and the doctors weigh in too.

That's one thing that gets me about the pandemic, it's not just the deaths, but how awful the deaths are.

Of course, some will rebuke me for being afraid or for somehow believing what I can't know to be true. That somehow I'm a sheep for even having these things in mind.

That's just crazy talk. Expecting people to vote for the betterment of everyone.

Yeah "regret" is the wrong word for it. What I meant was "resentful" of how they were talked / coerced into getting the vaccine. Won't be easily forgotten. Yes, it's beneficial for those who get it and suffer no side effects, but the authorities thought you were so dumb that they needed to lie or threaten you in order to get you to do the right thing.

Story checks out with FAAARRRRR too many people.

nice sweeping generalization yet again, Jeremy. Wrong as usual. But sure, let's go with your retarded thought process.

And what are you offering, Mavis of the Vapours? Snide comments and quips? Whatever grand insight you have, you seem unable or unwilling to articulate it.

I'd probably start by saying sweeping generalizations don't really help and are probably incorrect, well in your case at least.

4/10 kiwis have less than 1k in their back pocket for emergencies. I'd probably start by looking at that as a problem statement.

You think your characterisations are any more helpful?

4/10 kiwis having less than $1k in their account isn't something that just happened. It's a function of the neolib trickle down economics which are a complete scam.

Money is for people with money. If you're in a hole, we're sure as hell not providing any way out. Our schools are junk, our prisons perpetuate crime, our social services barely exist. If you get raped in NZ, your best hope is the ACC, where your file can be pawed over hundreds of times, long after your claim was settled. All the ladders have been pulled up.

You want to blame the baddies. "Angry Andrew". It's not him. It's us.

I don't know how you sit Mavis, you're so constantly butthurt.