Yesterday, various federal agencies decided they don’t like the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine as much as they used to. Following along, most states have now “paused” their vaccination programs that use the J&J product. A couple of national drug store companies that were giving the shots have backed off as well.
This
stated reason is that, having administered the J&J shots to seven million
people, there are six people (all women between the ages of 18 and 48), who
have experienced a “rare disorder involving blood clots.”
The
story, as reported, is a lie---yet another lie about the American experience
with COVID vaccines. What normally
happens if there are only six adverse reactions out of seven million doses is
that the guy who came up with the vaccine gets a Nobel Prize. They name hospitals and medical schools after
him. It cannot be true that solely because of six bad reactions, even
including one death, the J&J vaccine was pulled.
There
is more to this story that is not being told.
*
Another
question.
Why the
hell are healthy women between the ages of 18 and 48, for whom the coronavirus
poses a danger quite a bit less likely than the danger of getting hit by lightning,
getting the vaccine in the first place?
*
I know
people who had COVID, recovered from it, and now wear masks and avoid
crowds. I know people who have been
fully vaccinated, yet still wear masks and avoid crowds and won’t dine in a
restaurant. I even know people who had
COVID, recovered from it, then got
fully vaccinated, and now wear masks, avoid crowds, won’t dine in a restaurant,
and look at you funny if you ask what they are afraid of.
I know
these people. They are my friends, and I
worry about them. I wonder if they will
ever come back out into the sunshine.
At this
point, I think we all know what the future will bring. There will always be another “wave”
coming. There will always be a new and
terrifying variant. There will always be
a reason to keep your mask on. There
will always be a reason not to go to that party. There will always be a booster shot that will
be available in a few weeks, so you better just stay inside your house for now.
My
friends will never be told, by the
people they trust and believe in, that it is safe to live a normal life again.
*
A month
ago, I wrote about my trip to Las Vegas, and the hygiene theater on display in
hotels and casinos. All the shows are
closed (too dangerous!), but the show they put on when a new dealer comes to a
blackjack table, with rags soaked in disinfectant, frowning housekeepers, and
latex gloves, is every bit as amusing as Buddy Hackett ever was. Everything
gets wiped down---cards, chips, chairs, felt, beer bottles, leather, bald guy’s
heads---you name it. The same is done
everywhere---bars, restaurants, etc. Any
flat surface that didn’t move was constantly getting purified.
We have
known for quite a while that the virus is transferred through the air and not
from touching contaminated surfaces, but the rules or guidelines or whatever
the hell they were remained in force, so the show went on.
Then last
week, the CDC finally fessed up and withdrew all recommendations about
disinfecting things and wiping them down.
So I called my buddy in Vegas and asked whether the hotels and
restaurants and casinos had dropped the vaudeville routines involving cleaning
and disinfecting every surface.
“Nope,”
he replied. “Exactly the same.”
*
The
other bit of the Vegas hygiene show I especially enjoyed was the elevator
protocols. This was another bit of
theater that cost the hotels and casinos almost nothing, but proved to
everybody just how much they care.
There
was a huge NASCAR event the weekend I was at the South Point, and the hotel was
packed. The elevators were in constant
use with thousands riding up and down all day and all night. And in every elevator foyer containing six
elevators, there were signs telling us the maximum number of people allowed on
an elevator was four, though the normal capacity would be about ten. And people obeyed. During peak times in the morning and evening,
you might have to wait ten minutes for an elevator, but people obeyed.
An
individual elevator at the South Point probably carried more than a thousand
people per day, all of them breathing, coughing, belching, farting, and maybe
even exchanging some body fluids on occasion, but as long as there were only
four people on an elevator at the same
time, all of us would be fine. When
that fifth person stepped on, however, well….
Copyright 2021MichaelKubacki
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