The Virus
So we've been dealing with the virus for some time. A common theme in the annals of the Bureau has been the lack of solid, reliable information. There have been many instances where presumably competent people have said stuff that is obviously untrue, yet we are daily harangued for not believing these same people when they claim they need us to.
For instance, the dufus-in-chief, Joe Biden, made a speech where he asserted the various inoculations against the virus were all approved by the FDA, which is, of course, untrue. He also went on to insist that those who have been inoculated are at risk from those who haven't, which is risible.
Do the Vaccines Work?
Short answer? I don't know; someone will have to define some parameters first. For instance, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has readily available information that you can peruse yourself about its efficacy and risk, and isn't some completely new idea on the concept of vaccine. It also doesn't work that well.
There is some evidence that being vaccinated reduces the potential severity of the disease. However, once again, much important information is missing, and there is also evidence that areas with a higher vaccination rate have a higher overall damage from this latest variant.
More importantly, we don't know the risk from the vaccine, which information is simply not being released, except for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. There are serious questions about the long-term risks of messenger-RNA vaccines. They have been tried before and have had serious complications that last a life time. Particularly in the case of the very young, the usage of a completely new vaccine that may have long-term effects is unwise.
But, Surely, the Science Is Settled?
This is the cry of the new religionist, with his inquisitors and armies of snitches, enforcing compliance to the latest nostrum regardless of evidence. These vaccines are only approved for use on an emergency basis; the science on them is in no way settled. We won't know for perhaps ten years what the actual fallout from this experiment is.
Please note I'm not saying that the vaccines are dangerous; I'm saying we specifically don't know, and, worse, the information necessary to make that determination is being withheld. One thing that has been true since the dawn of medicine is that a treatment that actually works is not hard to sell, but doing so requires convincing the public of the benefit of the treatment.
If these things actually protected you from getting the virus, you could charge a fair amount of money and people would happily pay. The fact is that none of them do prevent you from getting the virus in any meaningful way, and we're on our second variant that appears to prefer vaccinated people as a vector.
That, the Bureau is convinced, is mostly because those vaccinated proceed to lower their guard and thus engage in riskier activity. Since the beginning of this pandemic, the analysts of the Bureau have pursued a policy of distance: distance by ordering online rather than shopping in person, distance by having meetings remotely, distance by not getting closer than six feet to strangers. Whether by luck, or through the success of this policy, none of the analysts so far have tested positive for this virus.
However, it appears those vaccinated tend to ignore these simple rules and return to some sort of normalcy. This means a much higher risk of transmission of this disease.
So Then, You Support the Lockdowns?
Absolutely not. The lockdowns did far more damage than the virus ever did. We now have a generation of kids that have been badly bent by lack of proper schooling. The lockdowns triggered the demographic overhang the Bureau has been warning of for some time early, meaning many people who could left the work force. The general response to this virus has been to constrain freedom and create perverse incentives.
What do I mean about that? Tell a bunch of kids to stay home and not go anywhere, then make it clear that it is perfectly ok to go out in mobs and join one side or the other of the Black Lives Matter movement. Before the flames start, I should point out that I, in general, approve of the idea that lives matter, regardless of color, which statement, I understand, has somehow become considered racist by some, although I'm leaving that paradox alone for now.
What happened is that kids and young adults had no outlet for socialization except to protest, so protests swarmed all over. Throw in a government that seemed determined to pay people to not work, and you have two of the major support legs for social unrest, a lack of acceptable outlet for socializing and nothing better to do with their time. Quite literally, these kids thought they were engaged in a divine work and also able to meet with people who agreed with them.
What they actually believed didn't matter so much for this. Both sides, the Proud Boy types, and Antifa and the whole constellation of the left, were engaged in saving the world while getting out and getting fresh air. If these people had a job to go to, they would be less likely to burn down a neighborhood or shoot each other. If they could go to a bar or a movie, they would be less likely to go to a protest as well.
So What Should Have Been Done?
Well, first of all, a short, maybe two weeks, maybe a month, complete hard lockdown at the beginning of the virus so public health officials could work out what was going on and also prepare for the inevitable onslaught on emergency rooms would not be out of order. Such a lockdown is a serious breech of liberty so must be both very short and very precisely tailored for a specific set of goals, which must be monitored constantly with an eye to modifying the lockdown to meet the goals or stopping it altogether if it doesn't.
While vaccines are an admirable idea, to get people to actually take them, you need to have credibility, which means not having provably lied already, and you need to charge for them, even if it is a nominal charge that you wave for people who can't afford it. Giving something away for free generally convinces people that its value is low or there is an ulterior motive to giving it away. Forcing people to take something that is free is likely to lead to pushback on basic principle. We have reams of research on human behavior on this, and those who would be our masters have simply ignored it all, choosing to fight a moral battle against the other side rather than keep in mind what the goal should be.
What Can We Do Now?
Not much. The Biden Administration has now made it completely clear they do not care about half the country. Recent polls show more people in this country identify with the opposition than with the current leadership. If Biden actually commits to healing this country and starts by listening to the opposition, maybe that situation can be salvaged, but it is doubtful he will do so, given the number of chances he has had to do so.
What we will need to remember going forward is that this country, and, indeed, the world, is composed of many different factions with differing goals and differing methods of achieving them, and a centralized solution is unlikely to make anyone happy as a result. We need decentralization, with ruling power at the lowest possible level, while rights are protected at the highest possible level.
As for this virus, we can just wait, which was always the correct response. It would be bad to start, then improve over time to the point it is nearing now, where it is no worse than other diseases we just live with. Doing nothing has actually worked rather well for other countries that have tried it, with outcomes not significantly different from countries that initiated draconian policies.
