@bluedog seems to be swimming in a sea of misinformation without a science-background paddle to get them out, which is distressing but not unusual.
Bluedog, every point you’re raising has been addressed, and addressed reasonably, by dozens of epidemiologists, virologists, drug developers, doctors, nurses, science communicators, and public health experts.
If what you’re saying here is “I don’t trust any of them because they’re too self-interested,” then not only are you missing the boat on why most of them are doing the work they do, but there’s no point in listening to anyone involved in medical science. You can stop pretending that you take them seriously – or hoping that they’re going to give you some magical nonscientific response to your concerns. At that point you can just go pick up an herbalist book and hope that it’s clear and honest about why human lifespans were so much shorter back when that was the best anyone could hope for in terms of medicine. If it’s honest, it’ll also bring you back around to pharmaceuticals, because so much in medicine comes from plants – only science has been applied to find out what exactly it is that makes the cure go, the molecules have been identified, and the drug companies have avoided clearing entire forests in a hunt for tiny quantities of the magic and instead gone and synthesized the active ingredients in labs. And those molecules are very much the same as the ones in the plants. That was a couple decades’ worth of intense and fashionable science, and some’s still around.
If what you’re saying is “I’m scared,” then please go watch some videos of nurses taking you through covid wards, and read some covid-autopsy papers, so you’ll know what to be scared of. Have a good gander at what that virus does to the insides of people’s bodies. The vaccines themselves have turned out to be spectacularly safe after hundreds of millions of doses have been given. Most of what you take for whatever ails you is more dangerous to you than these vaccines are likely to be.
If what you’re saying is “I don’t want to be forced,” well, you aren’t. Because our government is ridiculously tolerant, anyone can go ahead and be as unreasonable with their own health as they like. You just aren’t allowed to go spreading a bad disease to other people, so you’ll have to get tested quite often and isolate if you catch it.
If what you’re saying is “people shouldn’t have to consider other people,” then may I suggest making better friends with Bezos so you can hitch a ride on that rocket to a place where you won’t have other people to worry about. Here on earth we have to consider each other. More and more all the time.
If what you’re saying is “make people feel safe,” then at this point my preferred option is to require vaccination for most of what people want to do. You’ll notice that after years of hysterics, almost nobody worries about the varicella vax, the HPV vax, Dtap, most of the ones you need for kindergarten. Or meningitis, which some colleges require. Or hep C, or pneumovax. And that’s because vaccines are the most spectacular public-health win we’ve ever had. Hardly anyone suffers ill effects; diseases vanish; outcry also subsides.
If, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, what you’re saying is “I dunno, looks pretty sus,” then I can’t do anything about an enjoyment of paranoias, a need for secret and superior knowledge, and an unwillingness to take the deaths of millions seriously.
If what you’re saying is “Purity Of Essence,” then ain’t nothing to say.
Yeah – I saw something from some rural-medicine person in Indiana who’s using this as a platform for more money for rural medicine, and it’s really annoying to get this spin. Yes, rural America needs more doctors. But no, the doc’s living 45 minutes away is not the reason why rural people aren’t being persuaded by kindly, familiar Dr. Wenowdis. (s.v.: we have zoom now, and I hear most people are on the telephone, and I don’t know what fantasy world this is in which all city folk have trusted Dr. Wenowdis consulting in some kind of Norman Rockwell scene and rolling up their sleeves in consequence.)