Rant: Child Dead in LA is Just a Sign of Things to Come

When Trump nominated RFK Jr to CDC Head, things are going to get bad, and the latest news is merely a sign to come. 

RFK Jr is, for lack of better term, a so-called vaccine freedom-fighter... as in vaccine should NOT be mandatory. They claim the "risks" of vaccine means it should be a personal choice, when it *should* be public policy, because diseases affect everybody. Once RFK jr took office, one of the first things done was firing the entire vaccine advisory panel... and replaced it with a group composed of various vaccine denialists that were discredited during COVID. Since then, CDC has basically waived every school vaccine mandate, claiming it's a state-level issue or personal freedom issue. As a result, childhood diseases such as measles, which was nearly eradicated decades ago (back in Year 2000), and used to be only counted in the teens, except for a few cases in isolated communities where vaccine denialists congregate, is making a major comeback. Measles case count per year is at a 33 year high. 

And this new child death in Los Angeles is a sign of things to come. 

To keep a long story short, Los Angeles County Health has reported a death of a child from a measles-related brain disorder called SSPE, which was basically "delayed measles". The child probably contracted measles while very young (less than 1 year old). While it is notable that this is probably BEFORE the child could be vaccinated for measles (generally MMR vaccine is given between 12-15 months old), but unvaccinated people are often protected by "herd immunity" (low chance of encountering the disease due to high percentage of vaccinated people around them). SSPE means measles virus entered the brain, and lay dormant until months or even years later. The child appears to have recovered, then the symptoms started appearing, as the virus started to destroy the brain and nerves from within. First memory starts to go, then mood changes, then muscle coordination deteriorates. Mental acuity lessens. All this, in the course of a few months... and the body lives on... And there is no cure and no treatment. 

Los Angeles County Health officer Muntu Davis released a statement, from which I quote: "Infants too young to be vaccinated rely on all of us to help protect them through community immunity. Vaccination is not just about protecting yourself—it's about protecting your family, your neighbors, and especially children who are too young to be vaccinated."

And yet RFK jr is proposing that we do away with vaccines because of "freedom". 

Would you not sacrifice a little bit of YOUR freedom to lessen the health risks for your children and your children's children? 

Common COVIDiocy: Is Vaccine Hesitancy Due to Lack of Education? New Studies Sheds Light on Why

According to Edzard Ernst, citing a study by the Austrian Science Ministry, anti-vaxxers are across all age groups, gender, and so on. There is only one consistent characteristic: the vaccination rate is strongly related to the level of education. 

The other interesting thing to point out is that people who were formerly from Romania or Russia are the least likely to vaccinate, and such low rates are not observed among the other immigrant groups. The hesitancy may be attributed somewhat to the lack of trust in the government, despite living in a new jurisdiction. 

Is the problem as simple as simply educating the folks though? Is it as simple as using a slogan: "Those who know nothing must believe everything"?  

(Sounds like a variation on "if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything" but I digress)

Which reminded me of an antivaxxer I met in real life. My job and my social circle don't tend to intersect with antivaxxers, except for one thing... 

A few years ago (before COVID), I took Lyft to work almost daily, and as a result, I met a lot of drivers with a lot of different views. One day, I met a black antivaxxer as my driver. He was listening to a radio talk show about anti-vaccine views, and they kept bringing up Tuskegee Study. 

(If you didn't know, the doctors back in 1932 chose NOT to treat syphilis in some black men without telling them, just to observe how far the disease can go. This was unethical and later the US government made formal apologies as well as created compensation funds and provided health coverage to the participant survivors, their spouses, and their children. )

So I asked him how much does he believe in this stuff. Turns out he's pretty far in, laced with a dose of black power, Illuminati (of old white men), and so on. I basically just listened, and try not to react because much of it really make no sense to me.  

I have no idea what his education level was, but somehow, reading that education level corresponds strongly with vaccination rate and that fear of government just brought back that little incident. 

I hope you are doing well, bro. And you did eventually got your COVID vax, both doses plus booster. 

Crazy COVIDiocy: Man Punches Nurse in Pharmacy Because Wife Vaccinated Without His Permission?!

Sherbrooke Police of Quebec Canada is looking for a man who punched a nurse multiple times, knocking her to the ground, while screaming that his wife did not have his permission to be vaccinated for COVID. 

On September 20th, 2021, a man walked into Brunet Pharmacy in Sherbrooke at 9:15 AM, and was super-rude and aggressive to the nurse, who is in her 40s, accusing her of vaccinating his wife without his consent. Then immediately punched her in the face multiple times. Then the perpetrator ran out of the pharmacy. The nurse was sent to the hospital, and due to her being the only nurse in the pharmacy, the vaccination program had to be suspended. 

Unfortunately, there was no surveillance camera. Sherbrooke police is asking any witnesses with information to come forward. 

And there certainly is no need to ask a husband for permission to be vaccinated. And the guy was too mad to mention his name or his wife's name. And since the pharmacy typically vaccinates 15 people a day, there's really no way to narrow down the suspect. 

More COVIDiocy: Simple Proof that Vaccination Stopped Outbreaks

Some antivax "scientists" are just kooky, because they are so convinced of their own righteousness, they no longer recognize that they're using truthiness, not truth (such as their training, actual scientific studies, and so on). And their uneducated followers? Even worse. 

One of the most uneducated opinions was published by a French virologist by the name of Luc Montagnier. He claimed the COVID "variants are the product of and result of the vaccination". He claimed that "breakthrough infections" are creating more dangerous COVID variants, and cited a mechanism called ADE. 

This is utter bullshit, as fact-checked by none other than Reuters itself. There has been NO documented case of ADE with COVID. NONE. With several million dead, and hundreds of millions of cases world-wide, and being studied by EVERY medical organization in the world, you'd think SOMEONE would have found a case of this happening since COVID vaccine was first administered. It has been MONTHS. 

In fact, EVERY delay in vaccine mandate or mask mandate is allowing the virus time to infect an unvaccinated person... and mutate. 

And the only way to stop it is to vaccinate everyone... until herd immunity threshold has been reached... or hope the victims die without infecting more people and still reach herd immunity (by reducing the herd)

Let's take a look at Samoa and the 2019 Measles Outbreak. The islands have a vaccination rate of about 35% before the crisis. The outbreak was detected in September 2019, and fully declared an outbreak in October 2019. In November the government declared a state of emergency and shut down EVERYTHING, including all schools and public meetings, made vaccination mandatory (yes, vaccine mandate!), and in December, declared a curfew, while vaccination teams go from door to door administering vaccines to practically EVERY one of the 200000+ residents in the islands. By year's end, it's estimated that 94% of the eligible population has been vaccinated, and the outbreak ended. 

The nearby islands such as Tonga and Fiji have all declared a state of emergency in 2019, but due to their own high vaccination rate, was not hit hard by the crisis. 

All in all, there were 79 deaths and 5520 cases due to measles, out of 200874 population in Samoa.  33% of cases required hospitalization. That number should be at most, a handful. Measles is a vaccine-preventable disease that we had prevented for decades.  

Why did Samoa's vaccination rate fell to 35%? Because in 2018, a nurse prepared the MMR vaccine wrong (instead of saline, she mixed the vaccine with expired anesthetic). Two children died. The mistakes were quickly identified, but anti-vax organizations touted this as proof of "harmful vaccine" and when the cause was identified, "cover-up for vaccine harm". During the 2019 outbreak, antivaxxers continued to spread misinformation, blaming the deaths on "malnutrition", or "vitamins deficiency", or even "immune deficiency". All of which are debunked, but the misinformation campaign was not stopped. The head antivaxxer declared on Facebook "I'll be here to mop up your mess" and "Enjoy your killing spree". Samoa government arrested the head antivaxxer in December 2019 for inciting against emergency government order. The head antivaxxer was later released on bail and eventually charges were dropped. 

Then 2020 came along, and now it is mainland US's turn. 21 months later, and we have lost 659K people due to COVID (as of 10-SEP-2021)  Sure, we had to start from ZERO, but we've had 9 MONTHS to vaccinate the nation to achieve herd immunity. We're not even close. As of mid-August, barely over half of Americans have had 2 shots. We don't know what the R number for COVID is, but we have to make the worst-case assumption: we need 90-95% vaccination like measles. 

Samoa's outbreak was stopped when the disinformation campaign stopped and the government made the harsh decision to close everything and instituted a vaccine mandate. Outbreak was contained in months. 

We are at 21 months and counting. Sure, we spent 12 months getting the vaccine ready, so let's just count 9 months. And we thought we turned the corner on COVID. 

But with the low as **** vaccination rate, vaccine hesitancy on the rise, the economy barely chugging, and antivaxxers spreading false treatments both in 2020 and 2021... and now the Delta Variant, and maybe the scary Mu variant... 

We are now WORSE than we were in 2020. In fact, US is now the MOST COVID INFECTED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!!! Worse than Russia, India, Iran, China, Turkey, etc. ! 

This outbreak will end only one way: when it runs out of people to infect. Whether that's by death of said people... or by vaccination of the same people... is purely up to those people. 

Frankly, I'm ready for my third shot, when it's offered. 

And the rest of you who don't want it... 

Just don't infect the rest of us while you practice your "freedom". 

RANT: When rumors actually maim and kill, part 1

Andrew Wakefield and wife, Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Since 1998, a bunch of paranoid parents, claiming that the MMR (mumps, measles, and rubella) vaccine may actually CAUSE autism, started an anti-vaccine movement, leading to massive drop in vaccinations for mumps, measles, and rubella. All of which were nearly eradicated in the 1980's and 1990's, that is, until this movement got started. Since then, these diseases are on the rise again. And autism rates are STILL going up for the past 10 years.

The only legitimate reason these anti-vaccine folks have that they can cite was a single paper, written by Andrew Wakefield and his group, published in February of 1998, in the British medical journal "The Lancet". So what did the paper actually say?

The paper is a study of twelve children with developmental disorders (i.e. autism). Eight of the parents claim that the symptoms started after the MMR vaccination. Studies show some sort of gastrointestinal problem in addition to the developmental problems seem to be in common among the children. However, the paper did NOT prove any sort of association between MMR vaccine and autism. What was its conclusion? Without the medical-ese, what it says is:

These kids, previously normal, now have digestive problems and autism, which seems to be triggered by something in the environment.

Absolutely NO mention of the vaccine at all was in the paper's conclusion. 

The author, Andrew Wakefield, in a press conference before publishing the paper, stated that he believe it may be prudent to use single vaccines instead of the triple-combination MMR vaccine until it can be proven that there really is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism, even though there was no evidence that single vaccines will avoid triggering autism. This is his personal opinion, and was NOT in the research paper.