"That doesn't mean the vaccine isn't a good idea for both"
Says who? Its been now 9 months or so since the 5-11, and even the 12-17 vaccine can of worms opened. I have yet to see ONE convincing argument to vaccinate healthy kids. And I'm 2x Pfizered so I'm not some anti vaxx nut. I am still waiting to find it. Studies showing "relative risk reduction" from "negligible" to "REALLY negligible" are not good enough!
Vinay, I know you do not read these comments which is too bad. But I think one of the issues is that there are too few voices that have a platform that are heard on this. You are one of the few with medical credibility that has been careful to not be labeled a "kook" (even though most of those so labeled are not kooks.) (And I am ignoring your "bioplausible" view on masks which you must know is wrong. Masking has only served to show the general populace in a more-obvious-way-than-vaccines that they are being lied to.)
Sadly, the counter-voice, the American Academy of Pediatrics (they should all be de-licensed) has a big trumpet. Clearly the organization is in someone's pocket, but the fact that most of the practitioners blindly follow through is very disappointing to say the least.
Perhaps you can organize a group of academics and practitioners (happy to join) who will, with some strength in numbers, come down hard on how broken this all is....as was said in The Lion King "It is time". I have no trouble anymore offending my erstwhile peers who are wrong...someone has to do it. The GBD (wish you had signed it -- it had 90% correct stuff which was WAY better than the 0% correct stuff we have had instead) had 50,000 mostly physicians sign it. I'll bet we could do that again. Just a thought.
Finally, for those not up with the pediatric immunization question, there is nothing difficult about this particular question at all. Virtually no other country is going down this path. The ONLY reason the pharmas and their government collaborators so desperately want the children to be added to the vaccine schedule is because this then gives a complete liability exclusion to Pfizer/Moderna.
Until the children are added, there is a liability gap when the drug comes off EUA...which, despite there being an "approved" med it never has because of this issue...even though it is illegal to give an EUA drug when there is an approved drug available. They will keep on giving us the "emergency" (anyone see any emergencies regarding this lately?) dose because the EUA drug is also liability excluded until they get the pediatric patients in line for side-effects-without-benefits...I guarantee it. If children never get approved (unlikely in the current completely captured political machine) there will never be a non-EUA vaccine, either. Liability protection for the manufacturer is driving this ENTIRELY non-medical decision. It is beyond stupid...it is shameful.
We cannot vote these people out fast enough. Further, we need people we vote in who will make it a high priority to dismantle the very-captured/very-broken FDA/CDC/NIH axes and recraft them in a way that they are immune (at least more immune) from political pressure. Dismantling bureaucracy is the thing the federal government likes to do least...this will take some real political courage. I hope it can be found. The day the CDC disappears will be a great leap forward for public health in this country. Lots of good people there -- impossibly politicized leadership. And the leaders call the messaging.
In any case, thanks for continuing to hammer on all this.
Yes, Prasad walks that thin line (which shouldn't be a "thin" line, but as goes the internet) of keeping the credibility while being a strong critic. This demonstrates some serious skill on his part to navigate today's insane politics.
Many critical voices could have retained credibility by not jumping on to miracle cures narrative and keeping some modesty.
In the end, those pushing medical miracles end up being just as useless, and worse, just as fear-mongerey as the covidians.
You left out one point from your response. Even at the outset, the IFR for c19 was around 0.05%. NONE of the restrictions onto the healthy population were EVER warranted.
We can discuss "the fight against the virus" til the cows come home among biologists, but until the statisticians get out of their silence to repeat this virus never warranted shutting down society... and until "public health" experts (who've lost all credibility in the last two years) put their critical thinking hat back on and speak out to the collateral damage to the masses were worse than the IFR... then we're never going to fix this and the population will want more drastic measures next time too.
I've watched 100s of movies, read books, on dystopian authoritarian futures, and even if only 10% of humans survive, shutting down life for all is NEVER the right solution.
Agree..I've been saying this idea to VP for months. Maybe he is grouping up with others behind the scenes? It needs to be a HUGE group...even moreso whatever individuals CONDUCT the research at the Pharma companies...CDC...saying...ummm no we can't do a credible study this way...it needs to be THIS way. There needs to be a coordinated shift in MANY realms in the Med/Science realm and it needs to be near the top. Hopefully with elections change from the top will start to slowly occur......
Respectfully (and with acknowledging that your criticisms are mostly correct and valid) this is a very bad idea both strategically and organizationally.
The people who begrudgingly support any of the doctors/professionals are doing so tentatively without a shared sense of obligation or commitment and will likely NOT be there if you misstep.
Secondly this also unites under what is an unavoidably partisan position where politicians/PR are now bound in their own selr-interest and will ally based on what is best for their political and business interests (with the addition of it appealing to culture-war-only those who often balk at actual long-term strategy as useful).
The doctors aren’t being manipulated because a $100,000 “bribe” is a joke if you make $300,000 already with full autonomy; the medical community chose this ON PURPOSE <very long history of the AMA, docs being exploited by robber-Barons during rairoad/“tonic man” late 1800’s, The Flexner Report overhaul of medical schools; you had to be a Member or the AMA to have any hospitital privileges => incredibly powerful interest group;). Media is still banned from M&M conferences despite decades of trying). It doesn’t LOOK like it but they have lots of INTERNAL social pressure from within but are incredibly useful and ideal as they are the sole providers of a highly skilled necessary service that cannot be easily replaced or substituted.
What the actual real insidious issue (imo) is the collusion, mutual benefit and very aggressive position of politics, pharma conglomerates and speculators where they actually managed to negotiate a recklessly “liability waived” FULL proprietary ownership/control over a vaccine that was funded BY the American taxpayer and utilized all the benefits of prior public-record advancements/knowledge. It’s getting near-monopoly power of controller supply, obligated “only us” presales and whoops did we also add clauses let let us shut down “adverse events” reporting and rare liability protection “even if it’s our fault.” Therefore they don’t have to share the vaccine-“formula” with poor counties who can’t reverse engineer it and this is why Africa has like a 15% vaccinate rate on purpose, basically setting up our own little “all the variants will come from here” and it’s in our own selfish best interest to vaccinate them to prevent variants/mutation but business (quietly) refused made comically large profits and gave us a new variant!
This permitted people with lots of institutional power control not the Pediatriicans group themselves but instead the medical journals, funding, broader system system to permit a very perverse “it would be a shame if your grant wasn’t approved and also you were replaced on the board!” (Remember the mass reisgntations/firings of all the child psychologists who were THE authority on minors transitioning? Most don’t because this happened a few years BEFORE activists went off the rails because they were still establishing lower, BUT as they became so unpopular it became a political liability now there’s less narrative control.
What I’m saying is that even though yes tons of these so called “experts” are more interested currently in using Covid as intra-elite social competition (as elite power is in inconspicuous consumption) and are spineless disloyal dickheads they also are better left alone than discredited or de-licensed as a group (they will become front-page unsung heroes to corporate journalists.
What you want is for
- these structures to become untenable political liabilities that will make them scapegoats for politicians.
- hopefully a non-useless GOP sweep that might permit legislative changes that disempower these agencies.
- a solid base of communicators (that’s this guy! and other detractors) who have enough **unpopularity** among the right that they can sell this “principled position” as originating from within their professional-network (wow the heroic scientists are heroes yet again they must have actually just been pressured!!).
TLDR: The right has almost no so institutional power after a decade of Congressional Republicans choosing to “opt out” of the culture war entirely (they deserve the wrath of their electorate). Literally DeSantis seen as this magical god simply because he “does stuff.
Corporate Democrats are functionally identical to Republicans in foreign policy, austerity politics, anti-union, wall-street aligned etc positions (great for Raytheon, the CIA, etc).
I’m in this weird “populist right but no longer think the free market is our friend and it’s been people like “canceled” leftists who have an uncanny full knowledge of these social things and are who other journalists read
Anyways I’ll stop my incredibly onsesuben and long rambling. I really want to right to make the most of this very obvious BETTER position on body autonomy and not trusting big pharma, and I hope they see “kind of on out side” people as assets.
Masking was dump and kind of pointleess but I would happily mask for 4 years if it meant we could have avoided lockdowns
It’s really frustrating because all the people that share her views are too afraid to speak out. The Twitter mob is a viscous place. Liberal elites will pay dearly in the coming election. People are sick and tired of the fear mongering going on and they will vote against them.
It is all obvious stuff as you put it. But that's the insanity of it all. Why can't a huge portion of sane people process this? The Ceti-Alpha-Five fear-mongering brainworm by MSM notwithstanding! 😁
This is exactly it--this is the horrifying part. Two different epistemological views of the world, and not in a "this is my belief, this is yours" way but in a way weaponizing the very concept of science/the scientific process.
There’s a very very good article that talks about how this is the emerging dialogue of intra-elite social competition. There’s no “guarantee” that material wealth indicates elite status and so it is very niche and performative signaling that is “I’m one of you.” It’s like how candles were once extremely expensive and so having a fully-lit dining room was only possible for very wealthy but then because of this light bulbs we’re pedestrian and morally bad perhaps ONLY in the group.
The official message to shame those who chose to wait or not vaccinate has and continues to do great harm. I believe in the long run it will harm all vaccine uptake.
By and large we are not following the data which tells us vaccines are not stopping the spread and that they provide varying degrees of protection to different groups of people. That to me equals choice not coercion. And hurling insults at people is coercion. People who use “anti vaxxed” “trumper” “conspiracy theorist” “fringe” “nut job” had this instilled in them from early on in the vaccine roll out. Articles in the NYTimes like “Nation Faces ‘hand-to-hand combat’ to get reluctant Americans vaccinated” or The New Yorkers Daily Shout: “Fashionable ways to let people know you’re vaccinated and not a maskless asshole” (I am not making these up) fueled the name calling vitriolic battle. The White House’s “dark winter for the unvaccinated” proved wrong but it was a booster shot in the arm for the vitriol. This shit needs to stop right along with the lies about what the vaccine can do.
Unfortunately all of our vaccine policy has and continues to be preordained. Maybe because the US government spent too much money on them and now we are stuck with a pile of them in the freezer that needs to be justified by jabbing them into an arm.
The discussion about vaccination now should follow what Dr Oster said: personal risk or choice. And that message should come from the top.
Thanks for this post, and especially the PS. It’s well past time to be MORE FIRM and DIRECT! I’ve loved your channel and substack for awhile now. I know you are a busy man(!!) and apparently you don’t read your comments(?) but really, this platform especially feels like it can and should have a bit more of a conversational feel. Not that I expect you to read alllllllll comments, but thinking you don’t read ANY of them (as you have said), is disappointing. The commenters have so much to offer, and the other substacks I follow (even those with thousands of followers!) receive some level of engagement with the authors. Open debate and discourse are so important, and We The People out here are worth listening to too. It might inform or flavour some of your thoughts and pieces.
Either way, keep up the wonderful work. I know you must be walking a fine line.
Data arriving about repeated re-infections among the vaccinated in the UK and Israel need careful attention before any further vaccinations. Commentary here indicate the IFR for a those below certain ages never warranted much of what has been done to protect us and eventually the authorities must admit error. Can't know the real motivations for those wishing to damage children by vaccination but the effort should stop.
Also it’s simply just not worth it and somewhat irresponsible to never reconsider killing all goodwill around attitudes of vaccination for a pandemic we initially feared was going to be MUCH deadlier. We all got incredibly lucky to have this virus spare the youngest as it’s particularly devastating on a “we lost our past and our future.”
Faith in vaccine was on borrowed credit from the medical community usually doing a GREAT job with this and so we had to force and ban people to prevent them all from trying to cut in line (not very kind but in terms of “motivated” it’s a dream come true to have your good thing be “patience this is *temporarily limited supply* (rumors of shortage always boost flu vaccine uptake).
It’s such a disaster to enternally dig in (regardless of how correct you are) if you are burning bridges that will be needed for it there’s a greater emergency! I thought for sure nobody would be so incompetent as to demand a mandate OR else (they could have let Biden pitch it as “not worth the effort” and a prudent “focus on people who want to help” or whatever let’s it be “not a failure because we weren’t trying to win.”
It’s the “if we mandate and force the children’s MMR vaccine during this autism panic are we possibly going to just make parents more paranoid and we will lose the fence-sitters” reason why backing off when the (mostly libs!) had their anti-vax panic (and it was good not to ban them from facebook because it then became “cool” for younger kids to show their sass in pointing how OBVIOUSLY EVERYONE KNOWS VACCINES ARE SAFE!” and antivaxxers seemed less principled when there all infighting as all intense Facebook groups do.
Nearly all of these “crazy unhinged moms” eventually came back on their own time in less than 2 years pretty much totally normal which means they weren’t actually crazy (just incredibly stubborn!) so anyone doubling down on “but they’re so crazy and reckless” likely won’t be vindicixated!
Thank you this was my rant but mostly the TLDR is “I really respect and appreciate anyone who is dodging these minefields in the hope it helps future us because this is a very difficult position to navigate as a lone speaker!)
"That doesn't mean the vaccine isn't a good idea for both"
Says who? Its been now 9 months or so since the 5-11, and even the 12-17 vaccine can of worms opened. I have yet to see ONE convincing argument to vaccinate healthy kids. And I'm 2x Pfizered so I'm not some anti vaxx nut. I am still waiting to find it. Studies showing "relative risk reduction" from "negligible" to "REALLY negligible" are not good enough!
Vinay, I know you do not read these comments which is too bad. But I think one of the issues is that there are too few voices that have a platform that are heard on this. You are one of the few with medical credibility that has been careful to not be labeled a "kook" (even though most of those so labeled are not kooks.) (And I am ignoring your "bioplausible" view on masks which you must know is wrong. Masking has only served to show the general populace in a more-obvious-way-than-vaccines that they are being lied to.)
Sadly, the counter-voice, the American Academy of Pediatrics (they should all be de-licensed) has a big trumpet. Clearly the organization is in someone's pocket, but the fact that most of the practitioners blindly follow through is very disappointing to say the least.
Perhaps you can organize a group of academics and practitioners (happy to join) who will, with some strength in numbers, come down hard on how broken this all is....as was said in The Lion King "It is time". I have no trouble anymore offending my erstwhile peers who are wrong...someone has to do it. The GBD (wish you had signed it -- it had 90% correct stuff which was WAY better than the 0% correct stuff we have had instead) had 50,000 mostly physicians sign it. I'll bet we could do that again. Just a thought.
Finally, for those not up with the pediatric immunization question, there is nothing difficult about this particular question at all. Virtually no other country is going down this path. The ONLY reason the pharmas and their government collaborators so desperately want the children to be added to the vaccine schedule is because this then gives a complete liability exclusion to Pfizer/Moderna.
Until the children are added, there is a liability gap when the drug comes off EUA...which, despite there being an "approved" med it never has because of this issue...even though it is illegal to give an EUA drug when there is an approved drug available. They will keep on giving us the "emergency" (anyone see any emergencies regarding this lately?) dose because the EUA drug is also liability excluded until they get the pediatric patients in line for side-effects-without-benefits...I guarantee it. If children never get approved (unlikely in the current completely captured political machine) there will never be a non-EUA vaccine, either. Liability protection for the manufacturer is driving this ENTIRELY non-medical decision. It is beyond stupid...it is shameful.
We cannot vote these people out fast enough. Further, we need people we vote in who will make it a high priority to dismantle the very-captured/very-broken FDA/CDC/NIH axes and recraft them in a way that they are immune (at least more immune) from political pressure. Dismantling bureaucracy is the thing the federal government likes to do least...this will take some real political courage. I hope it can be found. The day the CDC disappears will be a great leap forward for public health in this country. Lots of good people there -- impossibly politicized leadership. And the leaders call the messaging.
In any case, thanks for continuing to hammer on all this.
Yes, Prasad walks that thin line (which shouldn't be a "thin" line, but as goes the internet) of keeping the credibility while being a strong critic. This demonstrates some serious skill on his part to navigate today's insane politics.
Many critical voices could have retained credibility by not jumping on to miracle cures narrative and keeping some modesty.
In the end, those pushing medical miracles end up being just as useless, and worse, just as fear-mongerey as the covidians.
You left out one point from your response. Even at the outset, the IFR for c19 was around 0.05%. NONE of the restrictions onto the healthy population were EVER warranted.
We can discuss "the fight against the virus" til the cows come home among biologists, but until the statisticians get out of their silence to repeat this virus never warranted shutting down society... and until "public health" experts (who've lost all credibility in the last two years) put their critical thinking hat back on and speak out to the collateral damage to the masses were worse than the IFR... then we're never going to fix this and the population will want more drastic measures next time too.
I've watched 100s of movies, read books, on dystopian authoritarian futures, and even if only 10% of humans survive, shutting down life for all is NEVER the right solution.
Agree..I've been saying this idea to VP for months. Maybe he is grouping up with others behind the scenes? It needs to be a HUGE group...even moreso whatever individuals CONDUCT the research at the Pharma companies...CDC...saying...ummm no we can't do a credible study this way...it needs to be THIS way. There needs to be a coordinated shift in MANY realms in the Med/Science realm and it needs to be near the top. Hopefully with elections change from the top will start to slowly occur......
Respectfully (and with acknowledging that your criticisms are mostly correct and valid) this is a very bad idea both strategically and organizationally.
The people who begrudgingly support any of the doctors/professionals are doing so tentatively without a shared sense of obligation or commitment and will likely NOT be there if you misstep.
Secondly this also unites under what is an unavoidably partisan position where politicians/PR are now bound in their own selr-interest and will ally based on what is best for their political and business interests (with the addition of it appealing to culture-war-only those who often balk at actual long-term strategy as useful).
The doctors aren’t being manipulated because a $100,000 “bribe” is a joke if you make $300,000 already with full autonomy; the medical community chose this ON PURPOSE <very long history of the AMA, docs being exploited by robber-Barons during rairoad/“tonic man” late 1800’s, The Flexner Report overhaul of medical schools; you had to be a Member or the AMA to have any hospitital privileges => incredibly powerful interest group;). Media is still banned from M&M conferences despite decades of trying). It doesn’t LOOK like it but they have lots of INTERNAL social pressure from within but are incredibly useful and ideal as they are the sole providers of a highly skilled necessary service that cannot be easily replaced or substituted.
What the actual real insidious issue (imo) is the collusion, mutual benefit and very aggressive position of politics, pharma conglomerates and speculators where they actually managed to negotiate a recklessly “liability waived” FULL proprietary ownership/control over a vaccine that was funded BY the American taxpayer and utilized all the benefits of prior public-record advancements/knowledge. It’s getting near-monopoly power of controller supply, obligated “only us” presales and whoops did we also add clauses let let us shut down “adverse events” reporting and rare liability protection “even if it’s our fault.” Therefore they don’t have to share the vaccine-“formula” with poor counties who can’t reverse engineer it and this is why Africa has like a 15% vaccinate rate on purpose, basically setting up our own little “all the variants will come from here” and it’s in our own selfish best interest to vaccinate them to prevent variants/mutation but business (quietly) refused made comically large profits and gave us a new variant!
This permitted people with lots of institutional power control not the Pediatriicans group themselves but instead the medical journals, funding, broader system system to permit a very perverse “it would be a shame if your grant wasn’t approved and also you were replaced on the board!” (Remember the mass reisgntations/firings of all the child psychologists who were THE authority on minors transitioning? Most don’t because this happened a few years BEFORE activists went off the rails because they were still establishing lower, BUT as they became so unpopular it became a political liability now there’s less narrative control.
What I’m saying is that even though yes tons of these so called “experts” are more interested currently in using Covid as intra-elite social competition (as elite power is in inconspicuous consumption) and are spineless disloyal dickheads they also are better left alone than discredited or de-licensed as a group (they will become front-page unsung heroes to corporate journalists.
What you want is for
- these structures to become untenable political liabilities that will make them scapegoats for politicians.
- hopefully a non-useless GOP sweep that might permit legislative changes that disempower these agencies.
- a solid base of communicators (that’s this guy! and other detractors) who have enough **unpopularity** among the right that they can sell this “principled position” as originating from within their professional-network (wow the heroic scientists are heroes yet again they must have actually just been pressured!!).
TLDR: The right has almost no so institutional power after a decade of Congressional Republicans choosing to “opt out” of the culture war entirely (they deserve the wrath of their electorate). Literally DeSantis seen as this magical god simply because he “does stuff.
Corporate Democrats are functionally identical to Republicans in foreign policy, austerity politics, anti-union, wall-street aligned etc positions (great for Raytheon, the CIA, etc).
I’m in this weird “populist right but no longer think the free market is our friend and it’s been people like “canceled” leftists who have an uncanny full knowledge of these social things and are who other journalists read
Anyways I’ll stop my incredibly onsesuben and long rambling. I really want to right to make the most of this very obvious BETTER position on body autonomy and not trusting big pharma, and I hope they see “kind of on out side” people as assets.
Masking was dump and kind of pointleess but I would happily mask for 4 years if it meant we could have avoided lockdowns
https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/?sort=top
It’s really frustrating because all the people that share her views are too afraid to speak out. The Twitter mob is a viscous place. Liberal elites will pay dearly in the coming election. People are sick and tired of the fear mongering going on and they will vote against them.
It is all obvious stuff as you put it. But that's the insanity of it all. Why can't a huge portion of sane people process this? The Ceti-Alpha-Five fear-mongering brainworm by MSM notwithstanding! 😁
This is exactly it--this is the horrifying part. Two different epistemological views of the world, and not in a "this is my belief, this is yours" way but in a way weaponizing the very concept of science/the scientific process.
There’s a very very good article that talks about how this is the emerging dialogue of intra-elite social competition. There’s no “guarantee” that material wealth indicates elite status and so it is very niche and performative signaling that is “I’m one of you.” It’s like how candles were once extremely expensive and so having a fully-lit dining room was only possible for very wealthy but then because of this light bulbs we’re pedestrian and morally bad perhaps ONLY in the group.
Near the bottom is the “this is dead-on.” And kind demystifies a lot of this craziness https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/covid-panic-is-a-site-of-inter-elite?s=r
I really liked that one from Freddie too. Good old social/cultural capital displays.
The official message to shame those who chose to wait or not vaccinate has and continues to do great harm. I believe in the long run it will harm all vaccine uptake.
By and large we are not following the data which tells us vaccines are not stopping the spread and that they provide varying degrees of protection to different groups of people. That to me equals choice not coercion. And hurling insults at people is coercion. People who use “anti vaxxed” “trumper” “conspiracy theorist” “fringe” “nut job” had this instilled in them from early on in the vaccine roll out. Articles in the NYTimes like “Nation Faces ‘hand-to-hand combat’ to get reluctant Americans vaccinated” or The New Yorkers Daily Shout: “Fashionable ways to let people know you’re vaccinated and not a maskless asshole” (I am not making these up) fueled the name calling vitriolic battle. The White House’s “dark winter for the unvaccinated” proved wrong but it was a booster shot in the arm for the vitriol. This shit needs to stop right along with the lies about what the vaccine can do.
Unfortunately all of our vaccine policy has and continues to be preordained. Maybe because the US government spent too much money on them and now we are stuck with a pile of them in the freezer that needs to be justified by jabbing them into an arm.
The discussion about vaccination now should follow what Dr Oster said: personal risk or choice. And that message should come from the top.
Thanks for this post, and especially the PS. It’s well past time to be MORE FIRM and DIRECT! I’ve loved your channel and substack for awhile now. I know you are a busy man(!!) and apparently you don’t read your comments(?) but really, this platform especially feels like it can and should have a bit more of a conversational feel. Not that I expect you to read alllllllll comments, but thinking you don’t read ANY of them (as you have said), is disappointing. The commenters have so much to offer, and the other substacks I follow (even those with thousands of followers!) receive some level of engagement with the authors. Open debate and discourse are so important, and We The People out here are worth listening to too. It might inform or flavour some of your thoughts and pieces.
Either way, keep up the wonderful work. I know you must be walking a fine line.
Data arriving about repeated re-infections among the vaccinated in the UK and Israel need careful attention before any further vaccinations. Commentary here indicate the IFR for a those below certain ages never warranted much of what has been done to protect us and eventually the authorities must admit error. Can't know the real motivations for those wishing to damage children by vaccination but the effort should stop.
Awesome, as always.
Also it’s simply just not worth it and somewhat irresponsible to never reconsider killing all goodwill around attitudes of vaccination for a pandemic we initially feared was going to be MUCH deadlier. We all got incredibly lucky to have this virus spare the youngest as it’s particularly devastating on a “we lost our past and our future.”
Faith in vaccine was on borrowed credit from the medical community usually doing a GREAT job with this and so we had to force and ban people to prevent them all from trying to cut in line (not very kind but in terms of “motivated” it’s a dream come true to have your good thing be “patience this is *temporarily limited supply* (rumors of shortage always boost flu vaccine uptake).
It’s such a disaster to enternally dig in (regardless of how correct you are) if you are burning bridges that will be needed for it there’s a greater emergency! I thought for sure nobody would be so incompetent as to demand a mandate OR else (they could have let Biden pitch it as “not worth the effort” and a prudent “focus on people who want to help” or whatever let’s it be “not a failure because we weren’t trying to win.”
It’s the “if we mandate and force the children’s MMR vaccine during this autism panic are we possibly going to just make parents more paranoid and we will lose the fence-sitters” reason why backing off when the (mostly libs!) had their anti-vax panic (and it was good not to ban them from facebook because it then became “cool” for younger kids to show their sass in pointing how OBVIOUSLY EVERYONE KNOWS VACCINES ARE SAFE!” and antivaxxers seemed less principled when there all infighting as all intense Facebook groups do.
Nearly all of these “crazy unhinged moms” eventually came back on their own time in less than 2 years pretty much totally normal which means they weren’t actually crazy (just incredibly stubborn!) so anyone doubling down on “but they’re so crazy and reckless” likely won’t be vindicixated!
Thank you this was my rant but mostly the TLDR is “I really respect and appreciate anyone who is dodging these minefields in the hope it helps future us because this is a very difficult position to navigate as a lone speaker!)