Just going back to that boring issue for a little moment
I’ve been ranting like a crazy old man for almost two years against “lockdowns” and “vaccine passports”, and for the right to freedom of movement and to make your own health choices, in other words, to a life such as we had back in 2019, but I realize now that most people don’t really care. Either they really believe that “vaccine passports” are helpful “against Omicron”, or they just accept that “life is like that now, no big deal.”
I don’t really understand that mentality; I personally don’t want to live forever in a bad science-fiction movie. But many people seem to enjoy this permanent pandemic state with masks and vaccines and boosters and so on — I guess it makes them feel like they are part of something. Most people care more about their safety (even a false sense of safety) than about “freedom”. I guess they forgot what Benjamin Franklin said: “Those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor safety.”
Now, I do understand that there is a disease out there, and many people I know have been ill, even in my family (most, luckily, with mild or not too bad cases). I don’t really have a problem with people taking the vaccine, I understand it. It may be really helpful against symptoms, who knows. Most people I know took it and are fine. Two of them had “Covid” anyway, but again, a mild case — whether it was because the vaccine helped, or not, I don’t know.
My problem is really only with “vaccine passports”, and with all this new bureaucracy of control, and with people being forced to take a medication they don’t want.
The other day, a Brazilian news presenter collapsed live on TV; he was 36 years old and pretty fit. He had other 5 heart attacks on the way to the hospital. He’s still at the hospital and can barely move his hand and feet. He had taken the third shot of a Pfizer vaccine a month or so ago.
We cannot say if there is any relation between the vaccine and the heart attack; it might really be just a coincidence. But it is undeniable that there are many cases in which there is a clear link to the vaccine. In Slovenia, a 20-year old woman, Katja, died after taking the J & J shot. In that case, the link was proven, and that particular vaccine was suspended in the country. There was a case of a woman in Brazil who had her leg amputated because of a blood clot due to the Pfizer vaccine; also in that case, it was proven through a lab test that the thrombosis was caused by the vaccine.
Those cases are rare. Most people will not experience bad side-effects. Most people will have no problems, and it may help them against Covid. Fair enough. But the issue is that, since the vaccine may cause serious side-effects, and does not even stop the spread of the disease, much less “ends the pandemic” as promised, then it should NOT be mandated. It should be strictly optional, and with people knowing the risks, as it happens in Japan.
This is compounded by the fact that “Omicron”, if it exists at all, appears to be pretty mild compared to previous variants, so it doesn’t seem to require all this panic and hysteria. Children in general are basically immune to the disease, so their vaccination also seems incomprehensible, with a bad risk-benefit ratio.
Kit Knightly from the Off-Guardian wrote a good article about the irrationality of current rules and mandates. But it won’t matter. I don’t think most people care, and I myself am tired of ranting about an issue about which no one cares. So it’s back to travel articles from me. Thank you, and good bye.
