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| (thanks to "Private Eye") |
Mixed Messages in Protest on Freedom from Covid Restrictions
Advocate Hiren Mistry on the other hand criticised the regular publication of statistics by the government saying that, in isolation, they lacked context and were potentially making the Island’s Covid situation look worse than it actually was.
I'd also like some transparency on the protest's agenda. In the UK, these protests are associated with anti-vaccination propaganda. Is the Jersey protest doing likewise?
The most important question for those who are hesitant about vaccination, then, is not, “What can the vaccine do for you?” It is, “How many people will you harm if you don’t get vaccinated?”
Mitigation efforts like testing, distancing and masking are imperfect tools for preventing spread of the virus. Vaccination is the closest thing we have to a sure thing in this pandemic. The data are in, and the vaccines are wondrously effective in reducing transmission.
The message to those who remain unvaccinated should be: Don’t let the virus use you to harm others.
Advocate Mistry said: "Telling me that I have to stay at home for 14 days infringes on the right to my liberty. You only get that normally because of curfew orders because you have committed a crime. What crime are we committing here?"
"It won’t be freedom for the hundreds of thousands of immune-suppressed people who have much reduced protection from vaccines and will have to restrict their movements if others go mask-free. It won’t be freedom for unvaccinated young people who find they have long-Covid after a relatively mild initial attack of the virus. And it won’t be freedom for the many, afraid to challenge cavalier unmasked travellers on crowded buses and trains, who would be driven off public transport but for the intervention of devolved governments in Scotland and Wales and London’s Labour Mayor, Sadiq Khan." (Ian Linden)
According to the studies of sociologist Paul Heelas, the 20th century has seen a "subjective turn" of Western culture - "a turn away from life lived in terms of external or 'objective' roles, duties and obligations, and a turn towards life lived by reference to one´s own subjective experiences. This is also a turn away from outer authority, as the individual becomes his or her own authority."
References
https://www.contagionlive.com/view/cdc-expected-to-announce-wearing-masks-under-certain-circumstances
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jmv.26897
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-crucial-vaccine-benefit-were-not-talking-about-enough1/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/personality-and-individual-differences/special-issue/10WLXB
In the recent protest, Hedi Green called on the government to demonstrate more transparency and more accountability. ‘It was a very peaceful event and was represented across the whole of Jersey’s social spectrum – from the very young to very old,’ she said. ‘People came together because they have lost trust in the government. There is a distinct lack of transparency and accountability and the public should not have to go through the Freedom of Information unit to get the answers which they should be getting from their elected States Members.’
Advocate Hiren Mistry on the other hand criticised the regular publication of statistics by the government saying that, in isolation, they lacked context and were potentially making the Island’s Covid situation look worse than it actually was.
So on the one hand, we want more information, and on the other less!
I have noticed, however, that on the whole protestors seem to imagine that if the baseline figures of numbers of cases was published less, or as some protesters elsewhere seem to indicate, not at all, then we could all get on with our lives and "live with Covid".
Yet the same protestors tell us that we have to make up our own mind on risks. How are we to do that without statistics?
Advocate Mistry doesn't say exactly what "context" means in these circumstances. We have the number of active cases, and the number of hospitalisations. What more could we want?
She obviously wants something to make the numbers look better than they are. I'm not sure that is what statistics are meant to do, outside of advertising!
I know that I'd like to see how many "breakthrough" cases of vaccinated people getting the virus, and information on how that is being transmitted. Is it, as I suspect, because of the relatively high numbers of unvaccinated people getting Covid and making it more likely to pass on.
At present around 60% of the population - that's the total population, not adult population - have been vaccinated. The more there are with Covid, the more breakthrough cases we shall see.
What is the real benefit of vaccination?
Daniel Oran and Eric Topol, writing in Scientific American, make this very plain:
Particularly because so many COVID cases are asymptomatic, an unvaccinated person is at risk of unknowingly becoming a carrier of the virus. Indeed, those who have the lowest risk of severe illness or death from COVID—the young and healthy - are most likely to serve as these unwitting carriers, because they live the most active lives, routinely coming into contact with many others
Daniel Oran and Eric Topol, writing in Scientific American, make this very plain:
Particularly because so many COVID cases are asymptomatic, an unvaccinated person is at risk of unknowingly becoming a carrier of the virus. Indeed, those who have the lowest risk of severe illness or death from COVID—the young and healthy - are most likely to serve as these unwitting carriers, because they live the most active lives, routinely coming into contact with many others
The most important question for those who are hesitant about vaccination, then, is not, “What can the vaccine do for you?” It is, “How many people will you harm if you don’t get vaccinated?”
Mitigation efforts like testing, distancing and masking are imperfect tools for preventing spread of the virus. Vaccination is the closest thing we have to a sure thing in this pandemic. The data are in, and the vaccines are wondrously effective in reducing transmission.
The message to those who remain unvaccinated should be: Don’t let the virus use you to harm others.
Advocate Mistry said: "Telling me that I have to stay at home for 14 days infringes on the right to my liberty. You only get that normally because of curfew orders because you have committed a crime. What crime are we committing here?"
This is a selfish individualism we can no longer afford.
Freedom
"It won’t be freedom for the hundreds of thousands of immune-suppressed people who have much reduced protection from vaccines and will have to restrict their movements if others go mask-free. It won’t be freedom for unvaccinated young people who find they have long-Covid after a relatively mild initial attack of the virus. And it won’t be freedom for the many, afraid to challenge cavalier unmasked travellers on crowded buses and trains, who would be driven off public transport but for the intervention of devolved governments in Scotland and Wales and London’s Labour Mayor, Sadiq Khan." (Ian Linden)
According to the studies of sociologist Paul Heelas, the 20th century has seen a "subjective turn" of Western culture - "a turn away from life lived in terms of external or 'objective' roles, duties and obligations, and a turn towards life lived by reference to one´s own subjective experiences. This is also a turn away from outer authority, as the individual becomes his or her own authority."
But that is very individualistic. Post-Covid, we have to look out for each other, and not just think about "the right to MY liberty" as the protestors want, but the harm we could do to others by being selfish.
The answer, as above, is "Don’t let the virus use you to harm others"
References
https://www.contagionlive.com/view/cdc-expected-to-announce-wearing-masks-under-certain-circumstances
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jmv.26897
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-crucial-vaccine-benefit-were-not-talking-about-enough1/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/personality-and-individual-differences/special-issue/10WLXB
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