COVID-19 Keeps on Giving

The Other Pandemic, Verbal vaccination and the Wotabout song!

Yes, I know. You’re over COVID-19. Meh. But …

A few weeks ago I needed a semi-urgent MRI of my spine and spinal cord,¹ so I was admitted briefly to a hospital packed with winter illnesses (mostly viral). There was no empty bed on the ward, so I sat in the waiting room with three other patients. I quietly minded my own business, and before long one of them started a nasal whine about COVID 19, COVID-19 vaccines, and what a bad job our past prime minister Jacinda Ardern had done. The other two picked this up with a figured bass on the theme of gubmint control, and how COVID-19 is just a mild ‘flu. This continued for about 15 minutes, at which point I pulled up the above graph on my cellphone and asked “Would you like to see a single graph that shows you why you’re wrong?”

Can you guess what happened next? Yep. They turned their heads and shielded their eyes. For some people there is no hope. Let’s explore the rest of humanity. But first, a credit…

Thank you Donald Trump

Credit where credit is due. Okay, the list is short:

• Previously, we were not clear where the USA stands. Now we are. In choosing a narcissistic sex abuser in his dotage over a moderately intelligent and basically decent black woman, the American People have declared their preference for a fascist, racist, misogynistic autocracy. This is now playing out.²

• He has appointed a nasty bunch of fumbling sycophants. As they fail, the USA will recede from the world stage, and ironically this will do its bit to combat anthropogenic global warming.

• Trump has provided an illustrated manual³ of “How not to do it”, be this economics, foreign relations, growing industry, equity and human rights, the environment, the law, stifling corruption, tolerance, Science, win-win, mutual respect & trust, and of course health care.

Especially health. Vaccines have been one of the greatest boons for child health (and children not dying or being crippled). This is starting to look a bit dodgy in the US. Measles seems to have extended an open hand to Donald. Or vice versa.⁴

mRNA vaccines again, Bob

But what about COVID-19? And what about COVID-19 vaccines? The graph at the start of my post tells you pretty much everything you need to know about the COVID-19 pandemic. I continue to be astonished how some otherwise bright people still fail to get this big picture, either mumbling about cherry-picked details, or singing the incoherent “Wotabout” song at the top of their voice. We’ll get to that soon.

For those who aren’t MAGA cultists (ineducable) and are still a bit unsure, here are the headlines. Everyone else, forgive the short refresher!

1. An appropriate response to a pandemic saves lives. In my country—New Zealand—timely action saved the lives of 1:250 of our citizens.⁵ Awesome.

2. Such a response is taxing, complex and requires endurance and follow-through.

3. Even ‘milder’ variants of SARS-CoV-2 (like omicron) are still hugely lethal,⁶ as seen by the uptick of deaths in Hong Kong when the wave broke over them.

4. The vaccines are massively protective, notably mRNA vaccines. Hong Kong chose inferior vaccines that need more doses to work, and failed to engage older people. The death spike with the ingress of omicron is obvious.⁷

5. If you fuck it up, millions die. We saw this in many countries like the USA, with over a million unnecessary deaths from Trump; but also in India (Modi), Russia (Putin), Brazil (Bolsonaro), the UK (the unmentionable Boris) and so on.

The Wotabout Song

I hope that my preamble chased away MAGA cultists (all averting their eyes), so I won’t be plagued by multiple verses of the Wotabout song, but I’m not holding my breath. Amazingly, we still encounter verse 1 (“New Zealand is an Island”), verse 2 (“Each Country is Different so you can’t compare them, Ohno”), verse 3 (“There were other causes of death just coinciding with the virus spikes”), verse 4 (“It woz the vaccine wot dunnit, it has a built-in time machine chip”), verse 5 (“But there’s only partial protection, half a loaf is worse than no bread, Yeah!”), verse 6 (“I don’t mind dying from a COVID heart, no matter how mild the vaccine myocarditis is”), verse 7 (“It don’t fully stop the spread, so I don’t want it, no no no”), verse 8 (“Blame the Chinese, waah!”) and verse 9 (“I’m living proof of survivor bias”). I’m sure there are more verses that invoke masks or the lack thereof, crowded rooms, bleach, ivermectin, chloroquine, Illuminati, invading aliens, a 5G chorus, and even a cotton ball soaked in violet oil applied to the anus.

But what about this? Trump now has an antivaxxer in charge of vaccines, so he’s unleashed that Other Pandemic. Too few people talk about this.

The Other Pandemic and Verbal Vaccination

Have you noticed how misinformation spreads virally? Good minds become infected. It’s sort of like a metaviral encephalitis, with a somewhat gloomy prognosis. MAGA as verbal kuru. We need a vaccine for this too, it seems. But how?

One way is to anticipate what the loonies are going to come up with next—and send out a clear metavaccinatory message beforehand. Like now!

Don’t shoot the messenger (RNA)

Pandemics don’t only bring out the worst; they also allow the best to shine. One of the sanest voices during the COVID-19 pandemic has been Your Local Epidemiologist, Katelyn Jetelina (Image above from the Houston Chronicle). Remarkably, she goes from strength to strength. This week’s post concerns vaccine label changes.

In keeping with the above idea, here are her 3 key messages:

1. There’s a Vaccine Integrity Project that is separate from the Federal madness. This week, they will hold a public meeting and give sane advice on not just COVID-19 but also influenza and RSV vaccines.

2. Then professional organisations will give advice on COVID-19 vaccines, based on the latest science.

3. On Friday, the FDA will turn their heads, shield their eyes, and give their advice on who should get the vaccine.

Consider this your verbal vaccine!

My 2c, Dr Jo (Fading strains of the ‘Wotabout Song’)

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And in related news, SARS-CoV-2 is on the up in the USA (from Katelyn’s post).

1. For those who are interested, the doctors rapidly decided that I could be sent home, and the prompt outpatient MRI of my entire spine turned out to be OK. It’s just my spine degenerating in multiple places and graunching the nerves. My total cost was a few dollars for parking. The New Zealand healthcare system still has its good points.

2. Many of those who suffer the most will be those who love him the most. Pity about the rest, especially those who didn’t even bother to vote. Belatedly, millions of Americans are now standing up, after realising that “Democracy is not a spectator sport”.

3. With small words.

4. Measles graph was from the CDC. There’s a strong suspicion that the recent rates are substantially underreported.

5. It also prevented the healthcare system from crumbling to bits, especially given the paltry number of ICU beds we had (and still have)—second lowest in the OECD, per capita.

6. Only the epidemiologically innumerate think that 0.5% is a small number.

7. Omicron moved into New Zealand at about the same time. We were well vaccinated.