Greetings and Salutations;

As I was poking around on Facebook today, I ran across a thread about the ongoing Covid vaccinations. The Original Post was a question “Have you gotten one or both Vaccination jabs?” Well, the following thread, consisting of several hundred replies, seemed to shake out into three, basic, themes. There were the people who said “YES” and mentioned which vaccination they had gotten. There were the ones who said “Not yet…but I am getting it scheduled, or have not because I cannot find a place to get it done” The third category is the one I am going to address here. Those are the people who said “No, and I am not getting it for <reasons>”.

• Some of the folks said they were not getting it because they did not believe in vaccines of ANY sort. Many of these folks say that they are very healthy, that they eat a healthy diet, and have not had any problems with the flu before. Others are convinced that the vaccines are filled with terrible, foul chemicals, parts of ground up, aborted babies, or something that will give them the disease.
• These days, we have a LOT of people who seem to be refusing to get vaccinated because it is political thing. Apparently they believe that the politicians on the other side of the aisle are engaged in some sort of nefarious plot, and are using lies about how bad Covid is in order to push a Communist/Socialist agenda.
• Some of the folks say they are not going to get the vaccination because they do not know what is in it, or, that it has been rushed out, and nobody knows about what effects it will have.
• Some folks refused to get it because “They have heard” that many people die from it.
• Some folks refuse to get it because it is a plot by Bill Gates to implant a microchip that will allow him to track them, and control their mind.

In the real world, NONE of these have any truth to them. They are the product of shadowy sources, conspiracy loony websites, and random rumors started on the Net – in SOME cases by Satirical Web Sites, whose humor goes over the head of the listeners and causes them to believe these are real things. I want to address them in reverse order…because I find the last one to be the most amazingly funny of the group.

So…What about that claim? These are the points I usually make to the people making these claims.

• I ask them “what makes you believe that your life is so interesting that anyone, much less the government, is interested in tracking you?”
• I point out that they already are carrying the perfect tracking device. Their smartphone allows them to be located within a circle about 60 feet across at worst, and with a foot or two of their location most of the time. I also point out that it provides more services in that it can be activated remotely to transmit sound and video without any indication it is happening.
• I may point out that mind control is not a trivial thing. To work it would require significant power, and electrodes implanted throughout the brain. The Microchip they are talking about is a passive device. It is an RFID chip which only activates when hit with a specific frequency of radio waves. It uses the energy from those radio wave to wake up and broadcast a very short message…typically a long number. It has NO electrodes and sits under the skin. Also, if it were injected into the muscle, as vaccines are, it would fail to work at all, because the radio waves could not penetrate the flesh to get to it.
• As for being included as part of the vaccination process. That is UNLIKELY to happen….Why? Well, the syringe and needle used for vaccinations is very different from that one used for the microchip. HERE is an image that compares the two. Anyone else notice a slight difference in the two? And, no, microchips do not come small enough to fit through the vaccination needle.

• Do people die from a vaccine shot? Yes, but so rarely one is more likely to be hit by a golden meteor than for this to happen. As of this date, there is ONE vaccine that may have had issues. There was apparently an issue with blood clots in women. One woman did die from the clots. However, the remaining 6 were treated and recovered with no problems. The vaccinations with this version were halted for a while, as treating the clots should not be done with the usual medicines, and the government wanted to have time to get the information out to all medical facilities…so if they did see this problem they would understand what to screen for, and how to treat it. This, by the way was out of over 7 million doses of the vaccine given…. Overall, there have been a few thousand people who have died after receiving any of the vaccines available. Autopsies, though, showed no connection to the vaccination. All the people who died were either quite old (increasing the probability they would die at some point), or had unknown, underlying conditions that kicked in randomly. While each of these deaths is a personal tragedy for the person and their family and friends, they are a nearly invisible number compared to the 200 million doses of the vaccines that have been administered as of today.
• I derive some amusement from the people complaining about the vaccines being ‘rushed out’, and that they do not know what is in them. For the former, I point out that Corona viruses have been around for a long time, and research on the best vaccines against them has been going on for at least 20 years. The Covid-19 vaccines we have today are simply the results of that research. It was possible to get them online quickly specifically because of those decades of research and development that has kept a large number of very intelligent and talented people busy for all these years. As for the complaint that they do not know what is in them…I usually ask “You eat Chicken McNuggets, hot dogs and bologna, and you are worried because you do not know what ingredients are in the vaccines?” As for long-term effects…this simply shows that they have no idea of how vaccinations work. The long-term effects of these vaccines are to ensure that the body is programmed to produce enough antibodies to wipe out any trace of Covid-19 when one is exposed to it. They will not affect one’s genetic structure, cause horn or tentacle growth (although that does sound kind of cool), or leave a person in a fragile state.
• The political reason seems totally nuts to me. The reality is that Covid is real and JUST as bad as advertised…it is not a hoax or some plan to gain political points. The 565,000+ dead citizens and the millions left damaged and disabled by the after effects of the disease should make that clear.
• Finally, the anti-vaxxers. These people are the classic example of the ignorant, prejudiced and unwilling to learn that have managed to slither through the American School system. Their arguments, as touched on above, are nonsense and driven by a gullible acceptance of the spews on Conspiracy Loony Web Sites and Media Outlets. What is worse, they cling to the lies they embraced, and refuse to consider or explore alternatives. It is, perhaps, some of the worst examples of intellectual dishonesty one can find. Oh yes…the points I mentioned upstream that are a few of their excuses are totally without merit. Not one is true now, and, for that matter either have never been true, or have not been true for 40 years or more.

A major reason I am so hard on the anti-vaxxers is that their decision to refrain from vaccinations do not just affect themselves. They refuse to let their children be vaccinated, thereby providing a fertile field for some really nasty diseases. Shucks, for that matter…I just interacted with a women who was looking for a kitten to take home, but did not want it Vaccinated. She lives in Florida, by the by, where there are a LOT of rabid animals who do bite humans and cats. Here is a page showing the statistics. Well, back to the point…another issue with the anti-vaxxers is that when they are infected, they not only are an unnecessary burden on the health care system, but, perhaps more importantly…The Only way a virus can mutate and become more virulent is to infect a host and grow. Until it gets into the cell of a living host, it is nothing more than an inert bundle of genetic material. SO, by providing hosts, the anti-vaxxers are likely to produce the mutation that will ensure that the current vaccines are no longer effective. The same process happens every year with the flu. It moves through an unvaccinated or poorly vaccinated population, evolving into a form that requires us to get a booster shot every year.

What can we do to address these issues? In the short term….If YOU are reluctant to get the vaccination…talk to your doctor. Do what he or she suggests. If you cannot trust your doctor, who can you trust? In the long term, we really need to address the educational system in America. This pandemic has brought to the forefront the reality that too many citizens do not have the tools, provided by a good education, to critically evaluate the flood of information the Net provides, sifting out the valid from the invalid data that sprays out of our screens. One down side of the Net is that the goofiest and least valid theories can LOOK as if they have equal footing with a peer-reviewed, long-term study from Mayo Clinic! The tools of skeptical thinking, and library skills taught by a good school system will allow the reader to find evidence to either support or disprove the data they are getting. Sadly, there are a lot of other changes that need to happen in America, many of which have been uncovered by the awful administration of the 45th president. However, those are a topic for other posts

God Help Us All!

GET your vaccination, Wear your mask, social distance and be careful out there.

Beemandave