Angus Aardvark
There was a time when scientists felt an obligation to ‘Science,’
acknowledging that they themselves ‘stood on the shoulders of giants’.
Because of that, they felt obliged to openly debate things that did not fit previous views in order to expand human knowledge as they passed the baton to the next generation of scientists. While there were always a few who spun the situation for their own glory, that was considered a shameful thing to do.
In the early Covid days it was excusable to panic. What was happening? How bad was it? No one knew, and social media were awash with lurid tales, so politicians felt the need to do something. However, it soon became apparent that Covid was moderately infectious, dangerous for old people and those with severe health problems, and trivial for almost all young people.
Fast mutating respiratory viruses, like the many variants of the ‘flu and common cold, almost always become more infectious and less dangerous as time passes. Those variants that leave the patient walking around and coughing over everyone outcompete those that put the sufferer into bed at home or dead and not spreading the virus at all.
Left to itself, Covid would have spread through the population. Everyone’s immune system would have recognised many parts of the virus (not just the spike), and so have at least a partial resistance to the new variants. Some of those seriously weakened by age or other diseases would have needed hospitalisation, and some would have died as has sadly happened every 5 to 10 years for at least the last 200 years. Think Hong Kong flu, Bird Flu, SARS, MERS etc.
But in New Zealand ‘flatten the curve’ changed to ‘elimination’ without any acknowledgement of a change of strategy, and apparently without any thought as to what came after that.
So here we are now:
- A much more infectious (as expected) Delta variant
- Kids now more affected (the bug has evolved to spread better)
- No built-in resistance to multiple parts of the virus (just the spike for those jabbed)
- Rest of the world awash in Delta.
- And like the American Indians when the first Europeans arrived, no resistance to viruses of the outside world.
- We hear that, “Covid has evolved to have symptoms very similar to the Common Cold”… Indeed, that is because it IS the latest variant of the Common Cold and evolving as its variants always do.
And how about the rest of the viruses? ‘Flu, norovirus and the great sea of viruses that we and the animal world swim in. Instead of these circulating continuously so that everyone has their immune systems tweaked whenever they meet another person, we’re left behind while evolution continues at full speed in the rest of the world.
How do we rejoin the world? Waiting for jab #5 with the latest Omega strain would mean that we are locked down on our prison islands forever, as evolution never stops. Politicians believe that they can beat biology with regulation and enforcement. Hubris in the extreme, or perhaps that target is ‘aspirational’.
Most of all, what’s happened to our scientists… or should that be ‘scientists’? All these epidemiologists, microbiologists and medical practitioners are well aware of how the viral world works and must understand the effects of locking down a population and isolating it from evolution.
Why haven’t we heard from them? Have they joined the journalists in the ‘Team of $55m’ and betrayed their calling for the baubles of TV fame, goverment jobs, knighthoods and damehoods in the future, ‘Hero of the Year’ awards etc?
Perhaps I’m being a bit unfair here, as in these Orwellian times, anyone speaking against the official line is cancelled, as was Dr Bellamy when he dared to suggest that climate change should be debated openly. The ‘phone didn’t ring again and David Attenborough rode off to sainthood.
I guess you can’t blame some scientists for selling out, keeping their heads down and taking the baubles. Some brave ones may even have ‘Done a Bellamy’ but have been effectively de-platformed so we won’t hear about them ever again from the MSM.
What’s happened to our scientists and the exchange of views on how best to move forward?
Please share so others can discover The BFD.