Re: <nettime> CfP: Critical reflections on pandemic politics:, left-wing, feminist and anti-racist critiques

[carlo von lynX <lynX@time.to.get.psyced.org>]

No-one has replied to this one, so I'll carefully try to do so.
After all it happens to be a reply to a post of mine.

On Fri, Feb 04, 2022 at 01:25:55PM +0100, Luca Barbeni wrote:
> Hi to everyone,
> I don't write frequently on the list but I'm pretty tired of the
> association of provax with science vs novax against science.
> I'm definitively against the vaccine mandate and strongly against the pass.
> In Italy I know people with the pass that were positive but because
> they had the pass
> they took an airplane... and you tell me the pass is a solution?

In fact Italian airports are among the ones doing a not so bad
job. At least they still check for body temperature which I
haven't seen happening in many other places.

Recently in various airports I have been asked to prompt my
vaccination QR code or the printed lines below it, but never
has anyone actually checked whether the QR code actually comes
with any valid digital signature, making the whole "green pass"
infrastructure apparently pointless.

As I asked the employee why she would not use the "CoronaCheck
Scanner" app (which is even available from F-Droid, like all
governmental apps should) to ensure my colour-printed sheet
of paper is actually legit (and not signed by a rogue pharmacy
for example, or entirely made up), she just said the airways
aren't getting paid to do governmental jobs.

So what's the deal with governments not being very precise and
serious about checking the rules they make? Well, I presume it
has to do with epidemiology: It is not important to intercept
*every* single case and to be super strict with everyone as
long as the large majority of population respects the rules
and thus slows down the spread of the epidemics.

And apparently that strategy has worked out. We are about to
get out of the covid tunnel.

> I don't believe these measures because I trust science,
> and pharmaceutical science until before the pandemic was based on
> cautionary principle
> that has been thrown in the bin.

Strangely however, your conclusion doesn't sound very scientific,
it sounds like you trust your own understanding of science better
than what the scientific consensus would say - but the point in
being science-based is to not follow a single person's opinion
or even scientific evaluation, but rather to seek the consensus.

> If the vaccine is working so well why do we still have 400 dead by
> day in Italy?

If people weren't vaccinated, then either Italy would still be in
a real lockdown, or the numbers of people dying would be some
hundredfold higher - simply because the hospitals wouldn't keep up.
The vaccine, the masks, the distancing have tamed the exponential
growth of the malady. The illness still kills people, but a lot
less than it could have killed, had we been less rational.

> I agree the vaccine for elderly but a mandate for everyone doesn't
> make any sense
> when the average age of death is 82.

That average is so high *because* the hospitals are keeping up.
We have seen in many countries with unreasonable political
leadership how hospitals got overrun with the consequence of
getting a spike in young deaths which could have been avoided
if they hadn't all gotten infected *at the same time* and in
such high numbers.

By vaccinating all of the population, young people do not crowd the
hospitals, allowing hospitals to do their best for the elderly
which are still at risk of dying.

> and BTW people are dying because badly cured,
> in Italy we're still relying on a protocol based on "paracetamol and
> watchful waiting"
> that's only killing people
> and that's what science says.

I don't know where you have your science from, but the
scientific consensus that I have been following speaks
differently.

> That's really not the case, we still have "problems" because Omicron
> doesn't care at all about the vaccine

That is incorrect.

> and by the way all my family isn't vaccinated, more than 20 people,
> everyone got it in January and it was less severe that a flu, also
> my parents who are over 70 and not vaccinated.

Glad you like Russian roulette, but your behaviour has nothing to do
with science.

> Young people is dying less not for the vaccine but because the virus
> is milder...

But that is still a guess, not a scientific certainty. So your
entire family has been at risk for over a year of getting the
nastier variants of the virus? You call that reasonable? Also,
since it is scientifically clear that there is nothing wrong
with the vaccine, what was the point in taking a risk? Maybe
you aren't actually behaving in a scientifically solid way by
supporting some irrational doubts about the vaccines?

> and btw you'll never know if vaccinated people got it milder because
> of the vaccine or not becasue there's no control group...

Then why are the hospitals mostly crowded by non-vaccinated
persons, some of them pretty young? Where do you get your
facts and science from?

> In my humble experience I only know people who got Covid without any problem
> while I know people who got severe problems from the vaccine, but
> perhaps I'm unfortunate...

Yes, indeed, because you are confusing science with anecdotical
observations. There are young unvaccinated people occupying
hospital beds needlessly, and there are people who experience
side effects of the vaccine because they are afraid of it -
not because any of those effects are caused by the vaccine
itself. Here's the Harvard study in that regard:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jan/18/nocebo-effect-two-thirds-of-covid-jab-reactions-not-caused-by-vaccine-study-suggests 
https://hms.harvard.edu/news/power-placebo 

2/3 of vaccination side effects only exist in the mind!
Considering that many people experience real pains in their
arms after getting a jab, it is surreal that patients have
been reporting more paranoid pains than real ones. This is
illustrating once more how humans are unable to think 
rationally on these matters.

If you are an informed science-oriented person, did your
information channels let you know about this new scientific
fact? Maybe they didn't because they are moderated with the
habit of censoring any science that doesn't fit the agenda
of the moderator? Try posting these links in your favourite
covid chatroom and see if they get removed...

> BTW I'm vaccinated because unless I couldn't work.

Some governmental measures are designed to save lives.

> so please stop to make an equation between vaccine and science that
> doesn't make any sense.
> Do you want to have a vaccine, please do it
> but don't blame the no vax
> rather the state that should build new hospital, more beds, raise
> the paycheck to nurses
> rather giving billions to pharmaceutical companies

You're not being scientific. Vaccination is the only realistic
and scientific way to address this virus - medicines are only
about to enter the market *now* and there is no number of
hospitals that would be able to manage an exponentially
growing epidemic going through the roof.

Always in favour of raising nurses' paychecks and de-privatising
hospitals, but it would not address the covid emergency.

> This war between vax and novax has been created in order to divide us,
> the longtime classic "divide et impera"...

No. Politicians had hoped that everybody would be rational and
acting reasonable. Instead a number of people has chosen to get
manipulated by anti-scientific political forces on the Internet,
suggesting there could be something wrong about the only possible
remedy against the virus. Bad luck for the politicians acting in 
such a liberal way. In the meantime science has found out that a 
strong mandate would have worked better, psychologically:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/11/11/vaccine-hesitancy-psychology-regret/

    "Anticipated regret sheds light on why vaccine-hesitant people seem more comfortable taking their chances with the virus rather than getting the shot, a decision that is not rational given the relative likelihood of experiencing severe effects of covid-19 vs. severe vaccine side effects. […] When people don’t feel the weight of making their own choice, they aren’t as tormented by the anticipated negative outcomes of their decision. Mandates externalize responsibility for getting vaccinated — shifting it from the self to others — making it easier to go forward with getting a shot."

I know this scientific evidence is a hard hit to anyone
who believes in individual freedom ideologies. The problem
in those ideologies is that Cartesian individual rationality
has been proven wrong long time ago, which to me makes it
likely that individual freedoms are also psychosocially 
wrong. It is wrong to ask an individual whether they agree
on giving away their data to a behemoth (GDPR) just as it 
is wrong to expect an individual to grasp the long-term 
consequences and therefore stop smoking, eating sugars etc.
It's even wronger to ask individuals to change their habits
to save the planet, because by doing so you are denying the
science we have about human psychology! I wished we could go
that way, but science has slapped these ideologic approaches
in our face. We need to seek collective freedoms and
collective rationality. The latter is what should
distinguish us from the Chinese approach.


P.S. I try to base everything I say on scientific consensus
and evidence. If you plan to reply to this mail, please do 
not just throw science-rejecting opinions at me, but rather
provide solid evidence and facts that prove me wrong.
Thank you.


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