Data, Censorship, and the Cost of Isolation
We are not going to know the full impact of the pandemic for some time. A look at some of the data and the trend in censoring vaccine dissent.
My apologies ahead of time, this post is going to read a bit like a train of thought. But there are some things that I’ve seen and heard over the course of the last few days that are highly concerning to me. For those who have been following this website since January, you may remember my social media and big tech purge.
One of the things that has been great about dumping social media is I’ve been able to cultivate a terrific content subscription list through a variety of newsletters and substacks. Everything I want to read gets sent to my inbox and I read it when I feel like it. One of the Substacks I’ve enjoyed is Alex Berenson’s. He’s been doing a lot of interesting work covering the vaccine data and as a result, has found himself getting repeatedly suspended by Twitter. Not for sharing incorrect information, but for sharing inconvenient information. It’s the sin of going against the state’s initiative that Berenson has seemingly committed. Any vaccine doubt is silenced. This kind of censorship is literally the catalyst behind why I axed these platforms from my life earlier this year. So to say I’m not surprised that it’s getting worse would be an understatement. We should have all seen this coming.
If it wasn’t obvious in January when Ron Paul was aCciDeNTLy banned by Facebook, there is a narrative takeover that has been intensifying since Biden won in November. Big tech, rightfully scared shitless of regulation, has unrightfully opted to go completely beyond the pale in the private/public partnership to keep the attention monetization model going. We now have outright censorship of facts happening on our favorite social media platforms. The politicization of both the virus and the vaccines have led us to a point where we can no longer have an honest conversation about the pandemic or an individual’s right to not get vaccinated.
This weekend I was listening to the Reason Roundtable podcast from last week. While I usually like the content, this time I was fairly disappointed in the main contributors. Personally, I think the team is correct in the view that government mandated vaccines are not the best way to get more people vaccinated. That said, I was discouraged by what amounted to a pro-COVID vax groupthink session. Mainly, the notion that vaccines are a net positive health decision was presented essentially as fact. In reality, a true risk/reward analysis of the vaccines creates quite a bit of gray area. Listeners of Reason’s last podcast offering “enjoyed” more episode time hearing Peter Suderman explaining the specifics of what a Mai Tai is than they did getting an actual rebuttal to the idea that COVID vaccines should just be accepted by everyone as essential. Libertarians are supposed to be better than this. What do we know about the COVID vaccines?
Though it decreases your chances of getting sick, we know that getting a vaccine does not mean you are totally immune from the virus. In fact, we’re seeing plenty of instances of breakthrough cases. We know the vaccines do not have full FDA approval. Instead the Food and Drug Administration has granted them emergency use authorizations. We know that if you were to get vaccinated and unfortunately experience a severe or life-altering side effect, Pfizer and Moderna have been given full immunity from litigation to rectify those issues. Essentially, those getting the vaccine are gambling. Just like those who do not get the vaccine are gambling. Which gamble one takes should be entirely up to each individual and without public shaming.
How do we know what is best for us individually? A good start is understanding where the greatest risks are. For instance, the CDC published data that shows 96.5% of deaths from COVID were people who had two or more comorbidities. Perhaps more incredibly, nearly two thirds of the deaths were from those with six or more comorbidities. Less than 1% of the deaths came from people who didn’t have a comorbidity. Breaking the data down by age, 95% of the deaths were from people aged 50 and above. Also of note, according to this data set, the worst comorbidity one could have with COVID is obesity.
So if you’re old and overweight, you should probably get the vaccine. If you’re young and healthy, I think there’s a case to be made for not getting it. If the manufacturers could be sued for severe side effects and/or long term issues, I might feel differently. But that is not the reality of the situation. We have a health crisis in this country. No doubt about it. But is it possible we’re missing the forest for the trees? Is it possible the 40% of the country that is now classified as obese should be more concerned about their own health and wellness as opposed to the vaccination rates of the rest of the country?
What about mental health? The second leading comorbidity in the recently published CDC study was “anxiety and fear-related disorders.” This weekend I had some time to myself and decided to call a couple of the groomsmen from my wedding party who I haven’t talked with in a while. Luckily, my guys are good. Their families are good and they seem to be in good spirits. But in the same afternoon I heard an eerily similar story from both of them. Both of them had immediate family members who recently experienced mental health related fatalities in their friendship circles. That’s astounding and it got me thinking. We don’t know what the long term ramifications of the pandemic will be. While I don’t normally care about the Olympics, it's impossible not wonder if Simone Biles could be foreshadowing that many of us are probably far from ourselves right now.
2020 was a nightmare. 2021 has been rough for different reasons. What is the cost of all of this? Are we so convinced that injecting ourselves with experimental immunizations will be the correct choice five or ten years from now? Are we so convinced shutting down economies and forcing healthy, low-risk of death individuals into isolation is a good idea? Are we not terrified that those asking these kinds of questions are getting silenced by big tech overlords? Finally, will we ever hold these big tech overlords accountable for their pre-pandemic roles in our current mental health crisis?
Listen, I get it. Twitter is fun. Social media can actually be useful. But if you are as concerned about the social media censorship movement or the social media-fueled dopamine addiction as I am, I’d invite you to do as I have done and start boycotting these services. If they are “free” platforms from a cost of use perspective, the only way you can truly voice your displeasure in a meaningful way is by removing the apps from your phone and no longer using them. These companies are selling your attention. They are spying on you and your friends whether they have accounts or not. These are evil companies and they deserve our collective rejection.
There’s very obviously a link between social media and depression. We’ve known for nearly a decade that there’s a link between depression and obesity. Anxiety and obesity are the top two comorbidities contributing to COVID deaths. Why not take a break from social media? It’s admittedly an unusual way to address the pandemic, but what if deleting your social media actually decreased your chances of dying from COVID? Is it a stretch? I’m not so sure it is. If you're apprehensive about the jab, digital minimalism might be the better medicine anyway.