Pondering the Pandemic
What the priority should be to ensure our collective safety
President Biden declared the pandemic was over in a “60 Minutes” interview on September 18th, 2022. Although we’d hoped the pandemic was for all intents and purposes considered “over” by a majority of the US population, even in the summer of 2023, mask mandates have been reinstated for new variant outbreaks. Even though a lot of people are “over it” so to speak, many are still dealing with illness from infections, as well as injuries from the subsequent injections. The reaction to the pandemic was unprecedented and many are still struggling with the consequences of loss. Loss of loved ones, loss of businesses due to closures, loss of health with what has been termed, “Long-Covid”, plus adverse events, and the loss of jobs.For many, this pandemic caused a lot of pain, a lot of division, a lot of vitriol, polemics, and antipathy. People wanted to do the “right thing” and that right thing tended to be very different depending on what people valued. Some valued the economy over the lives of the elderly, while others claimed they hoped whoever didn’t do the right thing would die. Some valued a sense of community, where everyone would answer the rallying cry to come together and “flatten the curve” by engaging in social distancing, masking, sheltering in place, taking many tests, and getting multiple injections. In contrast, others valued the right to be free from medical tyranny, and were labeled “anti-vaxxers” or “conspiracy theorists”. Family members became estranged and long-time friends no longer spoke to one another. Posting content questioning the mainstream media, questioning the bureaucratic hegemony that dominated the health system response led to being de-platformed, doctors were turned into social pariahs, and people were denied the right to eat at a restaurant, travel, go to college, or participate in athletic competitions.
There were so many negative experiences in relation to the Sars-Cov-2 pandemic, that many have lost trust and faith in the regulatory agencies as well as their governments, and millions more have lost trust in the media, the healthcare system, and social media giants. There was tangible loss all around and there were some immeasurable intangibles such as to the degree we all lost sight of the consequences of allowing ourselves to be so outright manipulated that people would actually believe it is good to take away our right to speak freely about what we were witnessing, and making sense of what was really going on. A lot of the marketing, coercion, lotteries, and requirements made things seem rather suspicious, especially when some of the rhetoric, rationale, and directives rolled out defied logic. Those outspoken early on had very cogent arguments as to why some of what was being implemented was wrong, were nevertheless, systematically either marginalized, maliciously attacked, or blatantly silenced, not to mention, having their accomplishments ignored, and their licenses to practice medicine revoked. That methodology easily produced a palpable air of fear among most to remain silent, to put their heads down, and not say or do anything to disrupt the obviously well planned, and well-orchestrated directive to inject as many people as possible as quickly as possible, and as many times as possible.
Who to Demonize? The Dissidents, or the Demagogues?
It wasn’t enough for society on a massive scale to endure alienation in real isolation with the actual physical lockdowns. However, even when people could meet out in public again, individuals were still suffering from additional disconnection and further affronts to what we were all accustomed to. The headlines suggested we welcome the new normal and that things would never go back to the way things were. And then the additional alienation began to grow. Many became alienated from those they thought were their friends, and they were ostracized from their families. Relations devolved rather quickly into an us vs. them stance, and a lot of personal attacks ensued simply because people felt the need to begin asking very valid questions.
Society basically devolved into the “Star-Bellied Sneetches” and the star-bellied (ie, injected) got to look down and sneer at those without (ie, non-injected). Those who, for whatever valid reason, decided to wait to see the long-term side effects, or wait until the product was actually approved, rather than line up for the emergency authorized products, were immediately discriminated against and treated like second-class citizens.
Even if people were Covid recovered, which meant that they did actually have immunity and had even been acknowledged by the CDC as being more effective than those twice injected, they still didn’t get to enjoy what others got to. The term #naturalimmunity was banned, blocked, or otherwise suppressed on social media, and the push for injections was absolute. Everyone was supposed to get the injections, no matter what. Both medical and religious exemptions were denied. It was as if only getting that special badge of honor (ie, a vaccine card or passport) counted for the “in” crowd. Things devolved so quickly that the attitudes of the “superior” became morally repugnant by going so far as to say that the “inferior” deserved to die and that they should be denied care in the hospitals. The sentiment in and of itself is terrible, but it didn’t stop there, because the attitude was reflected in the actual treatment of people. After a few years of this, many began to realize that despite having done all that was asked of them, the 2 to 3 to 4 injections they got didn’t help stop the transmission, nor infections, which was the initial reason everyone was supposed to get it in the first place. Instead, the goal post was moved to say that the treatment was always about mitigating the severity of the disease, as if people paying attention didn’t notice the gaslighting taking place where people spouted online that no one ever said it was for stopping infection or transmission. We’ve all seen the videos of President Biden and Rachel Maddow where they say if people get the shots that the pandemic would stop with them and that the pathogen would no longer spread. The new catchphrase became the “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” and they were then being blamed for the fact that their products weren’t working as advertised.
In retrospect, did the people who refused the experimental injections really deserve to die in general? Did the hospital administrators have the right to make those life-or-death decisions for surgeries or organ transplants? To decide not to have a genetic therapeutic injected into their bodies, the new second-class citizens were met with cruel forms of exclusionary abuse and violations of their rights. People were actually denied care at hospitals. Donor recipients were denied organ transplants or surgeries due to their injection status, and families even lost their parental rights in family courts. What are the consequences on families when doctors and judges can decide things like that? It is clear that many in positions of power over people’s lives abused their power. Employers denied livelihoods, and health workers and military personnel either left or were laid off. Fortunately, some court cases are ruling in favor of those wrongfully fired and are now ordered to provide their jobs back along with back pay, while others are not so lucky. It’s basically a crap shoot and your luck depends upon justices that either have true impartiality and look at things through the letter of the law, or they are the silent minority who resisted the seductive appeal of the cultural mass hysteria and were able to apply sound reason in the court of law.
Looking back at the laws, statutes, emergency powers, and vetoes made it clear that politicians were either a part of the problem or fell victim to the groupthink phenomenon. Doctors, judges, administrators, teachers, celebrities, you name it, all walks of life seemed to be infected by an ever more pernicious virus. This one was more insidious because it infected the minds of millions to do and say things they might not have otherwise ever dreamed of thinking, saying, believing, or doing. Despite how moral or ethical they thought they were, they were not immune to the propaganda being spewed out to bolster the ideologues who bought into the demonization of anyone who didn’t do as they had done - giving blind faith and allegiance to “team Pfizer” or “team Moderna” - as if lining up for their latest designer drugs was like lining up for the latest iPhone. How could that kind of behavior ever be a virtue or something to celebrate?
Regardless of Pfizer’s historic track record of criminal behavior (ie, human rights violations, bribery, product safety, price gouging/fixing, misleading marketing, environmental pollution, worker safety, and tax evasion),1 the majority of the populace embraced the sloganeering. They were hoodwinked into catchphrases like they were the ones that believed in science,” as if to say those that didn’t buy into the mass appeal marketing ploys and coercive tactics were people who didn’t believe in science! All the while, the mass psychosis event merely produced agents of a more disgusting and vile disease, that of mindless automatons of a tyrannical social pathology - one that rewards conformity at all costs and punishes non-conformity at the expense of freedom and democracy. Where people become slave masters in the fiefdom of the new Corporatocracy. Where the masses are no longer free to decide for themselves, but must obey the writ of government and captured agencies who benefit from their corporatocracy benefactors. Where the brainwashed and bamboozled repeated talking points in a zombie apocalypse. “Thank god I got [the injection] ‘cause it would have been worse,” they all repeated ad nauseam. Unbeknownst to them all, they were sycophants to the industrialized factions that engage in criminal behavior at the behest of a corrupted system of $ience™ that is beholden to those who pay for it. Independent scientists don’t get funded, and the ones that do are hired to produce outputs that are selective and doctored research (the kind that skews the data to appear favorable). Can we trust the publishers are impartial if the only kind of papers that will get published are those that don’t threaten the plutocratic bottom line?
Any in the medical profession understood a common core belief. If you recovered from a viral illness, you have a natural immune response to the pathogen. Yet, even if people were previously infected, they were denied the right to work, go to concerts, go to college, travel, or compete in tournaments. Why would they do such a thing? Because evidently, only the injections matter. Why would there be such a large push for EVERYONE to get it? Is COVID-19 so dangerous that those recently born and those near death must get it, plus pregnant women too? Instead of being able to discuss the topics in earnest, any posts that brought up cogent arguments were met with ad hominem attacks, censored, or banned from accounts outright without any appeals process. If it were about safety or health, why all the drastic and draconian efforts to silence and excommunicate scientists, researchers, and doctors at the forefront of the growing movement asking meaningful questions?
Postmortem Analysis
Trying to make sense of it all in the aftermath is not unlike going back to your home after a natural disaster, to assess the damage, and look through the wreckage to find what remains. So, the President declared the end of the pandemic, and we are now in the post-mortem phase. Assessing the data, finding the key takeaways, and trying to pick up the pieces will take years, if not decades, to decipher. Much will not become apparent to the populace either, until the judiciary branch flexes its muscle. The judicial system has no shortage of cases to hear, and many lawsuits have been filed due to discrimination and civil rights violations. Attorney Generals in two states have filed lawsuits against the President of the United States, as well as the NIH, CDC, and Big Tech companies, for colluding to violate the First Amendment of free speech. It will be important to see what comes of that case in particular, plus many other cases related to 1st amendment violations, and whether or not mandates can be deemed legal in all cases. Despite the fact that a majority of the population was willing to receive injections that had only received Emergency Authorized Use, or EAU, that doesn’t mean that mandating them is actually lawful. In an article the Kaiser Foundation published in 2021, although the “authority to mandate vaccines to protect public health is well-established… it is unclear whether COVID-19 vaccines can be mandated while operating under an EUA, and courts have not yet ruled on this issue.”2
Who Determines What is Right and Wrong Behavior, What is True, and What is False?
Regardless of where people feel they stand on this very divisive issue, the major question perhaps worthy of asking has to do with ethics. If we are to fully consider our duty with respect to ourselves and the rights of others, we must consider the ramifications of granting 100% immunity to for-profit industries, while also providing a lack of support to those injured by the products that the industries produce, whether or not they are for emergency use. Is mandating an experimental treatment ethical if there is no accountability if/when the treatment causes harm?
As it is said, “truth is the daughter of time.” Time will tell as to what the real costs of this pandemic are. It is not just the cost to the economy for shuttering businesses with the shelter-in-place orders, nor the cost to families who lost loved ones, or to the children who lost years of socialization in school, or for those who lost incomes due to being fired, or have their medical licenses revoked. There was a cost to people’s dignity, their right to medical privacy, their right to an education, to travel, to speak, plus to their right to live like anyone else. After a federal justice order that Pfizer release the documents that they provided the FDA due to the FOIA,3 researchers are now able to sift through the data that was used to authorize the products in the first place, but the amount of data being published is overwhelming. Once we are able to actually understand the data, review which protocols worked, and which ones didn’t, which methodologies are the most effective and which ones weren’t, that is just one piece of the puzzle. The other has to do with how quickly society accepted a normalization of discrimination based on their injection status.
Perhaps we will be better equipped for the next pandemic we face in this lifetime, or in future generations. If anything, we can all agree that a culture of coercion, censorship, and discrimination is antithetical to a truly informed, ethical, and just society.
What many have yet to really discuss more in earnest is whether or not the products that were released provided benefits that actually outweigh the risks. As more information comes out, it appears that there was indeed more risk than many were led to initially believe. Researchers from Stanford University, the University of Maryland, and UCLA published an independent randomized clinical trial that found that the Moderna and Pfizer trials combined, produced a 16% higher risk of serious adverse events in mRNA recipients. Although the combined number is 16%, Pfizer alone was at [a] 36% higher risk of serious adverse events in the vaccine group.”4 Then, V-Safe, another reporting system created by the CDC, showed that of their 1 million responders, 7.7% of those recipients had an adverse event. It’s not just a statistic to say that over 77,000 people were harmed, according to the CDC monitoring system. Each one of those numbers is a human being, and there are a number of others who are impacted by each of those human beings being injured. Take some time and look up what the injured are going through. Watch the seizures, the people who can barely walk, the bedridden, the crying, the sudden dying on stage, or in a sports field or arena. Would you want that for yourself or your loved ones? If not, then why are you still saying that people should get it, or that they are safe?
Considering thousands (or is it tens of thousands, or is it hundreds of thousands?) have been killed and injured as a result of being injected with the products that pharmaceutical manufacturers released under emergency authorization, was the discrimination against the control group justified? Also, why have we not considered the needs of the injured, too? For they too have been victims of the pandemic, just not from the infection itself, but from the treatment that was supposed to be the cure, and which many were coerced into getting or losing their livelihoods. According to an article in Forbes, the federal government paid zero claims for COVID-19 vaccine injuries and deaths in 2021. Due to the nature of the drugs having EAU status, the mRNA injections do not qualify under the Vaccine Injury Act. Is it moral, just, or ethical to require everyone to get something that ensures a percentage will be harmed by it and not provide care to those harmed by it?
The injuries themselves and the lack of care provided aren’t enough of an affront to moral decency; what about the decision to take away social network support too? How can we consider our societies actually care about our health or safety, if they are actively silencing people who have been harmed by the products pushed so heavily? In order to avoid any “vaccine hesitancy,” Facebook deleted entire groups dedicated to providing support for those who were injured and mis-labelled them as “anti-vaxxers” when they in fact went and got the vaccines in the first place! Not to mention the fact that families who tried to raise funds on crowdfunding sites like GoFundMe had their successful campaigns suspended and their legitimately raised funds rescinded. All because the injured contribute to “vaccine hesitancy” and thereby, are summarily executed - dead on arrival, by being lumped into the “vaccine misinformation” category. Even if their claims are legitimate and the injuries actually occurred, their pleas for help are denied. Those with medical exemption claims requesting not to have to be injected a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th time for having been injured from the first injection have had their claims denied. Why not consider their health and circumstances? Where has the consideration, the compassion, the care for people gone?
Will we have to enact new laws to protect people who have experienced adverse events? Will we have to pass an excess profits reappropriation bill to help injured children and adults? Will we help the families burdened with ever-increasing hospital bills? What of those who’ve lost their medical licenses by calling the treatments into question, or for simply recommending better protocols to keep people out of the hospital by applying early treatments instead of resorting to high price tag drugs that cause permanent organ damage? For all who were treated unfairly for not getting the injections, do they have recourse now that information is being disclosed that supports the idea that their choice to “opt out” was a prudent one?
Now, it’s time that we invite everyone to ask more questions, rather than shame or denigrate others for asking them. If there is, in fact, excess risk of serious adverse events found in more peer-reviewed studies, what is the recourse for those who were treated unfairly? Asking for an apology simply isn’t enough. If people were harmed due to mandating the experimental treatments, is it right to continue allowing corporations to be shielded with zero liability clauses? Whether or not governments allowed corporations to get away with murder, or if people signed a waiver, there must be a check on corporate malfeasance, especially if they are guilty of fraud, or worse.
Will we still discriminate against others who decided to forgo the treatments in favor of their own innate immune response? Why hasn’t the majority of people who opted to get the experimental genetic therapy considered the right of the infection recovered to rely on their immunity, rather than expect them to get injected? Would you force a child to get a chickenpox vaccine if they had already recovered from chicken pox? What if your child has a greater chance of being harmed by an injection post-infection? What if you were unable to ask any questions about these kinds of things with your Doctor because your state passed a law to suspend licenses from doctors who speak to you about your child’s health in relation to the vaccine because the producers of said vaccine said it was 100% safe, so anything different from that was “misinformation”?
Democracy Requires Transparency, Accountability, and Justice
If we are to ensure that our healthcare systems, regulatory agencies, and governmental organizations remain trustworthy servants to the public, we should at the very least, demand transparency, but also extend the circle of our compassion to all affected. We should not sit idly by and allow profit incentives to drive public health policies, nor should we ignore the decisions of many to ostracize others, smear people's reputations, or destroy their livelihoods for having opinions that aren’t popular, or a part of the cultural virtue signaling bandwagon. And for the love of all that is holy, come to the aid of your fellow humans who are suffering from injuries!
The clear and present danger is what sort of precedent we are allowing by letting the corrupt and criminal profiteers get away with so many horrible violations since the COVID-19 pandemic began. What’s to stop for-profit industries from creating more emergencies so they can usher in more emergency-authorized products? If the Sars-Cov-2 virus was indeed a lab-produced chimera, and it cannot be ruled out, as there are plausible arguments that show that it could very well have been produced in a lab, how safe are we from another pathogen released, whether it is accidental or on purpose? What are we doing to ensure neither of those probabilities exists in the future? What can we do to ensure pestilence profiteering is not even possible at all?
We should all hope to have learned a very important lesson in all of this after enduring years of a pandemic. If we are all truly “in this together” we have a lot more work to do for our collective safety.
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Corporate Research Project - Pfizer: Corporate Rap Sheet | https://www.corp-research.org/pfizer
Musumeci, MaryBeth; Kates, Jennifer “Key Questions About COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates” Kaiser Family Foundation, Apr 07, 2021
Greene, Jenna, “Paramount importance” Judge orders FDA to hasten release of Pfizer vaccine docs” https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/paramount-importance-judge-orders-fda-hasten-release-pfizer-vaccine-docs-2022-01-07/
Fraiman, Joseph; Erviti, Juan; Jones, Mark; Greenland, Sander; Whelan, Patrick; Kaplan, Rober M.; Doshi, Peter “Serious adverse events of special interest following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination in randomized trials in adults” Vaccine, vol. 40, issue 40, September 2022, pages 5798-5805. Science Direct.
Note: this article was 100% human with zero AI assistance or LLM support.