"Smokers less sick after superspread event" – dIt would have been a better title for yesterday's article. The e-mail about Professor Streeck's new research has been opened much less than usual, while this virologist has already made remarkable discoveries several times that could have turned virology upside down if it had been a science in the pure, independent sense of the word. Missed opportunity. In this post, some current 'miscellaneous' are also available.
Letter from a reader
Sometimes I receive reactions from readers. I sometimes ask a few people if he/she is interested in writing a guest blog, but that never happened (except from FB colleague fighter Guido). Last week I received a letter from Rob, who agreed that I posted it here. So here is a letter from reader Rob. Not really a "letter to the editor" because it was not intended to be posted. A "spontaneous letter", in other words.
Hi Anton,
Compliments for your unwavering effort to make a reasonable dissenting voice heard.
[...]
I still read your articles with great interest, but what I miss in them is the bigger picture. The big why question. What is really going on? Why deny aerogenic transmission when they have steered for it in the lab at GOF?
Why €150k fine for doctors who prescribe innocent medicines?
Denouncing MdH? Jan Paternotte who panics at a demonstration of the nicest people. The hatred of Pierik, Verweij and a whole group of debunkers who are very fanatically trying to ridicule the wappies.
Finally, the commitment to vaccination among young people and the enforcement of vaccination for adults. Deaf to the many scientists who have been saying for a year and a half that zero covid is an illusion.
And everywhere. My son has just returned from Bangkok. Sat there with the whole crew in isolation for 48 hours in a hotel with plastic wrap over the carpet and the remote control in a plastic bag. Meals on a chair in the hallway. At the airport, all Thai Airways planes are rusting. Tourism completely dead. Haven't flown for two years, gray from air pollution and soaking wet from condensation. According to my son, actually ripe for the scrap heap. If you don't fly with an airplane, it should be in the desert and not in Bangkok.
And soon pilots will no longer be allowed to enter Canada without a vac certificate. Major discussions at KLM and VNV. And let's not talk about Australia and New Zealand at all.
Is this just stupidity and blind panic? I don't believe in conspiracies, but if we are told in ten years' time that all government leaders have been forced by aliens to have everyone vaccinated because otherwise the earth would be destroyed, I would find that a very acceptable explanation.
Craziness Anton...
Sincerely,
Seal
P.S.: I had a few girls in 4vwo today who weren't as cheerful as usual. Half the class is at home because one tested positive.
When I ask if they are afraid, they say they are not, but they do say that they find it all so horrible. One had a cold and had just been tested (negative). Very relieved because she had just been with grandpa and grandma. To measure is to know, we say in physics, but is it really that good to know all this? That you were contagious when you visited that old aunt? How nice is it to know that you have metastatic cancer and then hang on the couch your last year nauseous from chemo? Seen it at my brother's. It may have given him an extra 4 months. But it took him at least 8 fairly carefree months.
Addressing the why: The temptation to assume a plan is great. Agendas always make use (call it abuse) of the circumstances, after all, that's what agendas are for. Very simple: if (law) enforcement is one of your core tasks, then a mandatory government app can mean enormous progress in this regard. That does not mean that you have created the virus to be able to enforce better. Not that you are therefore against aerosols, there would also be plenty to enforce in that area. But that you might want to have jobs in it that have nothing to do with a disease anymore. The conflicting interests between enforcer and enforcement are magnified in a crisis situation. For example, there are many parties that would benefit from extra monitoring and a little less freedom – and that possibility is now there for the taking. Other agendas see something in a different part of the crisis spectrum. All these agendas together seem to be an organized roll-out and the elaboration also has characteristics of this. Opposition, resistance, rebellion, resistance is therefore indeed important, even if there is no conspiracy.
Furthermore, the description of misery throughout society involuntarily forces itself on me as a possible factor of the greatly increased mortality. But unanswered questions are often too easy to fill in, I know.
The September 5 experiment Zandvoort + Amsterdam
Last week we had the F1 in Zandvoort (70,000 people a day, total race weekend a good 100,000) and the freedom demonstration in Amsterdam (estimates of a few tens of ultra-rightists to 100,000 freedom fighters). If we don't end up with overflowing ICUs next week, it will probably be because of the vaccinations and because the organizations have adhered well to the measures. We have all seen those measures on TV: Bobos and drivers with face masks, in the background tens of thousands of F1 enjoyers embracing each other without face masks.
If the ICUs do fill up afterwards, it is because people have not complied with the measures. It is therefore not possible to assess at the time whether this is the case. Enforcement is therefore not possible. Only after they know the infections, can they say something about it afterwards... What scientists they are. Because they also have no idea in advance of the number of infections to be expected at such events (with or without measures), no one will be able to judge afterwards whether there are many or few. One keeps the risk-averse control by feeding uncertainty and fear. Unfortunately, it is only the short-term risks that are avoided.
They were outdoor manifestations so nothing happened in the stands or while walking. Still, it gets exciting: those people have all been on the train, together in cars (carpooling of course because of the crowds), maybe slept in groups in hotels and B&Bs. You would think that there should be some infections from that, also because the vaccinations offer neither sterile immunity nor 100% protection and there will also have been some unvaccinated people walking around. (My impression is that the latter pay more attention to fresh air).
If there are no hospital admissions despite this, we owe it to low doses because of the outside air, protection by the vaccines and because people understand the fresh air concept better and better. Of course there will be compliments for the organizations that people have adhered so well to the measures. Success has many fathers.
And then, after all the mortality misery- another joke in conclusion:
The start of double-blind research
Looking back in history, we realize how much misery the one-and-a-half-meter rule could have prevented. Early pioneers discovered its usefulness through observation and deduction.
