Tag: COVID

Personal statement:

1. I am a scientist, a doctor, a believer in the centuries of scientific methods and reasoning that have gone back and forth to come to our, though still learning, very sophisticated and successful medical advancements. I am also a believer in God. Go figure.
2. I do NOT, at all, like politicians or care what they have to say about science, as they know little to none of what experts have spent their lives studying and perfecting.
3. Scientists and researchers are not rich people and do not benefit much at all compared to their toils for the great things they do and come up with.
4. There will be individuals in every profession who think radically and do not go with the vast majority of evidence or research findings – this cannot be helped, but the one outlier is MUCH less likely to have the right answer than the 99% of the others. That’s just statistics.
5. Politics should NEVER have an influence on science and how the people are presented with facts – this is dangerous and irresponsible. (Besides, political parties are like football teams and the voters can be like the fanatical fanbase. Tom Brady is, like, the best quarterback, but people hated him because he played for the Patriots. He can play for your least favorite team, but this does not retract from the fact that he is, currently, the best. The same idea extends to a fantastic vaccine coming out and because your political base says it’s bad when the science says it’s not, is just down right irresponsible, and even murderous.)

So, that being out of the way, lets talk conspiracies (I’ve actually heard – like, for reals) surrounding the science.

First conspiracy: “The Government wants you to get vaccinated because they make money off your getting the vaccine.” Okay, this doesn’t make sense at all. The vaccine is currently free. The government is paying for the vaccine for everyone. I’m sure this will have an expiration date, however, and once they feel everyone has had a reasonable window to get vaccinated, they will stop paying for it and the pharmaceutical companies will charge whatever they want.

Second: “The hospitals are making up COVID death diagnosis to get more money from the government.” The government IS subsidizing hospitals for COVID cases whether they die or not because the cost to treat COVID is ridiculously expensive with the intensive care patients require: the isolation protocol and days to weeks of oxygen which can be charged by the hour. Many people don’t have insurance or insurance isn’t covering all of it, so costs go to tax payers – which seems to be another good reason to get that free vaccine. The hospitals are NOT making up COVID diagnosis to get the subsidies, however, that is fraud and a serious violation that could lead to license loss and/or litigation that no one wants to deal with. It is true that some people have other disease processes and then contract COVID which brings them over the edge. Some may argue that COVID didn’t kill these people, that they were sick with other things already, but their other disease processes were controlled, being maintained carefully through medications, diet, therapy, etc, then they got COVID, and their body couldn’t take it anymore. So, without COVID, these people could have lived another several years to decades.

Third: “The government is pushing the vaccine because there’s a microchip in it and they can, then track your every movement.” Do you have a phone? They don’t need a microchip in your body because you willingly carry one in your pocket at all times. Also microchips are huge – like the size of a rice grain and you would need a MUCH larger needle. Also, how would they differentiate which vaccines had the chip in them? The first vaccine? The booster?

Fourth: “The government invented this virus to kill the population.” OR “The government is pushing the vaccine because they know it will kill us”…. *crickets* Does this make sense to anyone? If everyone dies, who will pay their taxes? How does having less people benefit the government? We DO know the government is also made up of people – people who are also susceptible to the virus, right?

Fifth: Not so much of a conspiracy as just very bad information being propagated: “The vaccine is experimental and developed too fast” The vaccine for viruses like COVID has been in development for many years – now that there is a need for them, they already had all the parts, they just needed to assemble. The trials vaccines are required to go through were also all completed. The vaccine is safe. Like 1000x safer than the disease. Everyone talks about how harmless the virus is “it’s just the flu” even though almost 800,000 people have died in the US, but even with the only 1.6% death rate_T, the vaccine is 1000x safer, with a death rate of 0.0022%. So, if you love your neighbor, get vaccinated.

T: Current COVID deaths in the US is 793,958 with 48,643,963 cases. Therefore, death rate is deaths/cases= 0.016 x 100 = 1.6% deaths. For fun, I looked up some PAST flu data since people are claiming Flu doesn’t seem as bad because everyone is reporting COVID now. In 2017-2018 Flu cases was 41,000,000, flu deaths were 52,000. Deaths/cases= 0.0013×100 = 0.13% deaths. In other words, no, COVID is not just like the flu, you are 10X more likely to die from COVID.

In conclusion, this virus is costing the government a LOT of money – between subsidizing hospitals for the increased costs, paying for vaccine development from multiple companies and continued vaccination of the public, not to mention the cut to the economy with 700,000 less available workers and trying to keep the remaining people safe with closures. None of this would benefit the government in any way. It just doesn’t make sense to think of the virus or the vaccine as a conspiracy.

To end this segment, I’m going to steal a story my dad told me recently. He has retired from working 31 years at Warner Robins Air Force base (civilian) and has since been picked up by a large Department of Defense contractor to keep up his good work (whatever that is, we don’t talk about it – which works out because I don’t tell him what I do either…. because he’d vomit). Any who, he was talking to a guy at one of the facilities and they were just talking the typical weather, football, small talk, then my dad went to walk away when the guy said “Hey, what do you think this whole COVID vaccine? Kinda crazy isn’t it?” My dad said, “Listen, I’m vaccinated and here’s why; my momma is 91 years old and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I thought even for a moment that I got her sick and caused her to die. Let me tell you another thing, I’ve been on a military base for 31 years before I started here, and working around all of those soldiers who spent time overseas getting shot at, giving up large chunks of their lives with loved ones, risking their lives every single day, sometimes living in hot, miserable conditions for months to years for people they don’t even know, just to keep them safe. I thought, a vaccine was a pretty small sacrifice I could make for my fellow American.”