By the beginning of last week, several countries had suspended use of the AstraZeneca vaccine pending investigation into reports of blood clotting. Both France and Germany joined the suspension on Monday 15th March – a suspension which the Italian Health minister was reported as labelling “political”.
Indeed that proved to be the case. By Friday 19th March 2021 the AstraZeneca vaccine was not only rehabilitated, but the French Prime Minister was shown on television news baring his arm to receive the very same AZ vaccine. This followed the all clear given by the European Medical Agency on Thursday 18th March.
The EMA verdict was of course inevitable, given the statistical evidence and given the ruling credo that vaccination is necessary.
But there was one interesting revelation in all this. The attack on AZ forced the pro vaccine media to adopt a realistic, representative perspective for the first time [in my experience of MSM]. A perspective noticeable by its absence among the statistical distortions deployed to “prove” the vague notion that Covid 19 is a deadly threat to us all …
What did they do ? They actually compared the incidence of blood clot problems associated with people who have been vaccinated with Astrazeneca with the normal rates in the general population. Not only did the analysis show the blood clot percentage to be extremely low, but it also indicated little discrepancy with what normally occurs anyway.
Pity this straightforward perspective and analysis has not been brought to bear on the Covid threat itself. If it had been routinely applied to the stats we are daily bombarded with about Covid 19 incidence and deaths, it would expose the exaggeration which has been assumed and repeated by officials and mainstream media for the last year.
As pointed out in a previous recent post, surplus deaths over the normal levels of death in the United Kingdom saw an increase of 63,000 in 2020. In a normal year 600,000 people die for whatever reason in the United Kingdom.
In my view, the price being exacted by governments in terms of
- our ordinary, basic civil liberties,
- suicides and domestic violence
- the public finances
- the state of the economy
is totally disproportionate and unjustified.
This establishment response reflects the moral state and philosophical assumptions in politics today.
The European Union, and notably its primary movers France and Germany, have used a serious public health issue in a political power game being waged against heretical Brexit Britain. They are playing the same game with Northern Ireland issues …
Because politicians now routinely view issues in terms of their image impact alone, they have lost sight of the realities they deal with on our behalf. Reality and its consequences for people’s lives come a very poor second or third to the primary game of positioning themselves in terms of reputation and their influence over events.
Philosophically, of course, we are now living in a world where politicians have no understanding – let alone awe – of their Creator and Judge. They do not answer to any higher authority for their moral conduct – witness the way they treat the truth. They answer only to their own ambitions and reputation. If they answer to any sense of moral, philosophical belief, it is to Materialism. They may well convince themselves that they have to reduce numbers entering hospital, and that they are saving lives. But by doing so, they are playing god.
They are trying to control something over which they can have no ultimate control, even with vaccinations and Covid passports. Reference the University of Bath analysis reported this week.
And in foolishly trying to play this role, they also play god with our civil liberties, emotional stability and the economy. In this latter role, they demonstrably do only damage, not good. They demand we obey the most intrusive restrictions on normal and necessary everyday movement. They sacrifice, too, the public finances and countless businesses for their short termism – the serious cost of which is yet to be seen.
Politicians and media have together created the discredited reputation of politics today, yet they scratch their heads and wonder why electors turn away.
They are responsible. They are bringing society and economy into a serious predicament, and in that place only extremism gains.
Ray Catlin
One Reference blood clotting:
PS we cannot know, of course, just how safe any vaccine is until several years have passed during which effective mechanisms for reporting any issues must also exist
Conservatism Institute 