Staying clear-headed in the time of COVID19
This is my contribution to the many ongoing discussions on how to bring awareness to the risks of COVID-19 and the actions needed to keep us all healthy. I am not trying to convince anyone to take the same position as mine, nor increase divisions; instead I hope to encourage readers to question the current narrative around Covid as presented by governments and the media. (Spoiler alert for the statistic-shy: there are a few that I have had to include in the first half).
I start with asking my readers a couple of questions. Are you afraid of Covid-19? Are you living in the hope that vaccination will keep you ‘safe’? After eighteen months of seeing newsfeeds full of scary statistics, how ‘safe’ do you actually feel?
Let’s make an effort to understand the statistics being presented to us in the media more fully, including the intention of those using them. Here is a recent example from the BBC: “ Covid: US Death Toll passes 600,000…” (Link 1 below) The BBC could instead have lead with this headline from around the same period: “CDC (the USA’s Center for Disease Control) reports 94.6% Covid19 survival rate for those age 70+ (link 2). Thus the whole tone of their Covid story would have been different. Does it make you, like me, wonder why the choice was made? As for understanding the statistics better, another few minutes research reveals that the 600,000 includes all ‘Covid19’ related deaths, even if the primary cause of death was a serious pre-existing condition. How much trust should we therefore place in that figure? Does it actually help us know anything about Covids role in their deaths?
Let’s not give in to intellectual laziness in response to such scaremongering, nor to misleading headlines like: “Vaccinations are 100% effective in preventing Covid19…” (link 3). We need to dig a little deeper and see who is spreading this ‘information’ (in this case an American right-wing libertarian group with its own agenda) before blindly believing claims that vaccines are safe as well as effective. In fact the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Effect Reporting System received 14,000 Covid Vaccine Reports of Deaths during 2020-21 (link 4). Both statistics need to be treated with a pinch of salt.
Once one takes the time to question facts that are presented to us, we discover that there are wider questions involved, so let us leave the minority sport of statistics and look at it from another viewpoint. Here’s a further question. Which do you prefer to trust, a profit-driven biotechnology industry (which also pays for most medical research), or your own immune system, honed since millions of years? People who are ‘vaccination hesitant’ like me are often portrayed as being in fear of the new and unknown. Actually for me I err on the side of caution as a result of my trust in and understanding of Nature and its provision of a defense mechanism in the form of a (well supported) immune system. It is also a result of an understanding of the nature of the society we live in, which – as Osho pointed out to us repeatedly – is driven by priests and politicians who dominate us through fear.
In order to see where the medical/biotechnology road is taking us let us look at Israel, a country and society I know well through my Israeli partner of 22 years. They are currently requiring a third vaccination, and vaccinating children from the age of three upwards. They operate a system of Green Passports, which bans the unvaccinated minority of their population from cinemas, concerts, sports grounds etc. (I fear the parallels with how the Germans began their Final Solution with a relatively innocent yellow star identification of the Jews in their midst). How will you feel about such legalized discrimination in your home country? How comfortable will you feel about your three year-old (and why should it stop there – what about two year-olds, newborns) being given an experimental vaccine that has had less than a year of trials?
If any of my readers are concerned about Covid 19’s threat to their health, then consider this. The leading risk factors for hospitalization and death from it are (except for age) all linked to poverty, a compromised immune system and poor gut health, obesity, diabetes, exposure to air pollution, and poor diet. Perhaps I am naive in expecting the medical profession to be presenting us with information about effective treatments for the illness (for example Ivermectin and NAC) and preventative measures (vitamin supplements and a probiotic, alkaline-based diet). (Link 6). Instead in the UK Ivermectin is not approved for prescription by the British National Health Service, NAC is being banned by the USA’s FDA (link 7) and the single recommendation from the NHS is Vitamin D supplements, without acknowledgment of the need for zinc, magnesium and others to support its absorption.
This lack of proper information makes a mockery of modern medical practice in the UK, supposedly based on shared decision making and consent. Patients are simply not informed enough to give their consent to vaccination. So I repeat: which would you rather trust. A medical/pharmaceutical industry that is not giving us vital information about the illness, or the natural defenses of your immune system? A media spreading fear through selected scary statistics, with governments breaking the laws of the Nuremburg Code (children should not be used for medical experiments) or your own sense that the Israel route is too frighteningly dystopian to follow blindly?
On a personal note I add that, at the age of 67, I have just recovered from Covid19 myself. I picked it up at a celebration festival month ago at Osho Leela here in UK. (Information alert: roughly half of the many other people who caught it at Leela were vaccinated, and I have not heard of any difference in the outcomes, fortunately none of them serious, for them vs the unvaccinated). It was a challenging month but one I am utterly grateful for. I stopped doing, and took a leaf out of Osho’s discourse series title “Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There!” (Of course I recognize that not everyone is as lucky as me to be in a position to stop working for a month and that is part of my gratitude). I cut out most of my social life and took time to be with my partner and daughter, and to watch the dragonflies over my garden pond. I find myself more sensitive, receptive and compassionate (towards myself and others) now compared to my usual driven personality, aware of my mortality and the preciousness of the gift of being alive. I’m glad I choose love over fear, value freedom above safety, trust natural heath rather than what looks likely to be endless medical intervention. And I consciously dedicate the rest of my life to caring for my family and for this tribe of non-vaccinated, non mask-wearing questioners I feel most close to in this time of polarization and division. For any of my readers who still find themselves anxious about Covid19s effect on their health, I have no judgments, only compassion. And recommend you dig deep and wide in your search for information about risks and how to stay healthy.
Link I BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57473436
Link 2 CDC www.realinsight.kiwi/category/pandemic/statistics
Link 3 100% https://reason.com/2021/02/23/vaccines-are-100-effective-at-preventing-covid-19-hospitalizations-and-deaths/
Link 4 VAERS www.openvaers.com/covid-data/mortality
Link 5 vaccine deaths https://rightsfreedoms.wordpress.com/2021/07/15/fact-deaths-due-to-the-covid-vaccines-in-the-uk-after-6-months-are-407-higher-than-deaths-due-to-all-other-vaccines-combined-in-the-past-11-years/
Link 6 health www.realinsight.kiwi/category/health-wellbeing/