Western North Carolina – First, let me start this week’s commentary by saying this has nothing to do with whether you’ve been vaccinated with the COVID-19 vaccine or not. That is a personal preference to each person and I will not disparage your decision either way. We live in uncertain and perilous times—what people do to make them feel secure is their business. At least for now, that is.
With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s talk about the goal post related to the pandemic continually being moved. To do that, let’s look at the COVID-19 timeline starting with the emergency use approval of the vaccine:
According to TIME, on December 11, 2020, the first COVID-19 vaccine was given emergency use authorization and vaccinations began.
In February, NPR reported that “Tens of thousands of people who volunteered to be in studies of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines are still participating in follow-up research. But some key questions won’t be easily answered because many people who had been in the placebo group have now opted to take the vaccine.”
The move totally corrupted the control group and diminished any confidence in the results of the study.
A Healthline.com article written back in May of this year said, “Herd immunity prevents community transmission of disease when about 70 percent of the population is immune (either through vaccination or previous infection).”
Also in May, the CDC announced that full-vaccinated people no longer need to wear masks.
In July, the more contagious, less-lethal Delta variant of COVID-19 showed up on the scene. Ask any virologist—that is what viruses do when they mutate. They become more contagious but less deadly, as shown on the John Hopkins COVID-19 information site.
Again in March, Pfizer stated that their vaccine demonstrated, “the vaccine’s effectiveness in preventing symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections, COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, severe and critical hospitalizations, and deaths. The latest analysis from the MoH proves that two weeks after the second vaccine dose protection is even stronger – vaccine effectiveness was at least 97% in preventing symptomatic disease, severe/critical disease and death.”
Yahoo News reports on July 27, “Seventy-five days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared that vaccinated people no longer needed to wear face coverings, the agency has reversed course, announcing that the rise of the Delta variant necessitates a return to masking.”
An August 9 article on MSN.com said, “For Delta, threshold estimates are well over 80%, maybe approaching 90%, Dr. Ricardo Franco, an associate professor of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, told an interviewer.
As you can see, the goal post keeps getting moved by the so-called “experts.”
It’s kind of like Charlie Brown with Lucy holding the football for him to kick. He gets suckered every time, thinking Lucy will hold that ball in place for him to kick, only to have her pull it away at the last minute. This movement of the goal post is causing a loss of confidence in the “experts.”
Are they giving us advice based on evidence or their best guess?
What happens with the next variant? More contagious, less-lethal again? That’s what past science tells us. In a few years, does this become nothing more than a cold-like nuisance? Time will tell.
The most frustrating thing has to be for those who got the vaccine and were told masks were no longer necessary to just find out that they are.
Some people see conspiratorial overtones to this virus with FEMA camps for the unvaccinated as the vaccinated are turned into puppets by nano-bots hidden in the vaccine. Others see Biblical prophecy for the last days quoting verses from the Bible and connecting the vaccine to the mark of the beast or a precursor to the mark. Still, others see this as a repeat of the 1918 Spanish Flu that happens naturally and it’s just something people have to live through or not.
No matter your point of view, as I said before, we live in uncertain and perilous times and the “experts” in charge are not instilling confidence in their expertise by moving the goal post.