Why I haven't been Goo'ed

I’m not averse to putting toxic substances into my body. I enjoy a large brandy and a cigar.

And Skittles.

So why didn’t I choose to get the Goo?

I’ve had lots of vaccines before - left arm, right arm, and both arse cheeks - never thought twice about them. So why my Hesitancy™ over these new covid vaccines?

Initially, I was delighted that something had been developed so quickly. I had hope. Lockdowns, masks, sanitizer and plastic screens had already meant I had to buy a new MoronMeter which could measure beyond a KiloTwat. But governments seemed blind to the data and so I thought, finally, here was something that could get us out of the ridiculous holes we’d dug for ourselves.

If there was a product that could reduce deaths by 90% then, just by vaccinating the elderly and vulnerable, we could reduce the threat level of covid19 to well below that of flu.

Job done.

I didn’t consider myself to be in a very vulnerable category. Not too old, a generous amount of blubber, but not quite in the land whale category and in fairly robust good health. At the end of 2020 I’d already done my own estimation of the risks based on ONS data. Here’s a slightly later version of it (I didn’t save the 2020 version) based on death registration and the assumption of an overall IFR of 0.4%

It’s worth noting that this is very much an overestimation of the risk - and it’s the risk you face if you actually catch covid in the first place - so, conditional upon infection.

What really inspired my Hesitancy™ at the time, though, was the fact that the vaccines had been developed, and mass-produced, so quickly. I was more than happy to let others choose to be the guinea pigs. Personally, I wanted to see how it all played out. Even in my more naïve state back then I was dimly aware that it was very unusual for a new drug, of any kind, to go from invention, trial and then into production in a matter of months.

Even being repeatedly beaten about the head by the Government’s Great Stick of Safety and Effectiveness did not shake my suspicion that the lovely cuddly kitten might grow up to be a Pferal tiger. I wanted to wait and see. I really did want my suspicions to be unfounded. Only some kind of psychopath would be wishing for the vaccines to fail.

Back then, of course, it was all about personal safety - the doctrine of MoralDuty™ had not yet been fully developed as a central plank of the CovidCatechism™.

The initial trial results seemed promising. In the Pfizer trial each group (vaccinated and placebo) numbered about 22,000 people - so 44,000 (approx) in total. In the vaccinated group there were 8 cases of covid19 (defined by symptoms and a positive PCR test). In the placebo arm there were 162 cases of covid19.

Running the numbers, they seemed to show that the efficacy of the vaccine was 95%. But these are relatively small numbers of infections. Even in the placebo group the risk of infection over the trial period can be calculated to be 0.745%. So in the 3 month trial period the risk of (symptomatic) covid infection was below 1%. If you were in the vaccinated group the risk of infection was lower at 0.037%.

Even taking these results at face value and assuming the honesty, integrity and scrupulous morality of Pfizer, we can see that the baseline risk of (symptomatic) covid infection was not all that high (less than 1%).

Hmmm, I thought, I’ll take my chances until I see whether this Goo is actually safe to take.

After seeing the tragic and spectacular failure of these vaccines over the last year, I’m glad I waited. The data has only confirmed, and continues to confirm, the correctness of my initial position. I take no pleasure in that - it is a tragedy of epic proportions that things have gone so wrong and also that so many have been directly harmed by the Ghastly Goo.

According to the Great Narrative of Truth™ the vaccines have saved lives. Maybe they have saved some from a covid death (although I am not entirely persuaded of that - as some professional statisticians have pointed out it’s not that clear a signal of positive efficacy against death when you take all of the confounders and mis-categorization of “vaccinated” into account) - but that’s not really the right way to look at things.

It’s not much use being saved from a covid death if the stuff you take gives you a heart attack. Out of the covid frying pan and into the clot conflagration. So what we really need to assess is whether the vaccine has reduced overall mortality. It doesn’t seem to be the case, so far, with many places seeing worrying rises in excess mortality. Even in the initial trial data there were indications that the vaccines had worsened overall health.

You don’t try and get data hidden for up to 75 years if you don’t have something to hide. The only tenable conclusion is that there’s something desperately wonky with the trial data, data that doesn’t support the Safe and Effective Narrative™. Even if there is some proprietary data with commercial sensitivity to be redacted, you don’t need 75 years to do this.

I’ve written over 50 scientific papers, a load of conference papers, lots of lengthy commercial reports and analyses, more presentations than I care to remember - and that represents only a fraction of the time I’ve spent. So much more time was spent reading, figuring stuff out, attending meetings, and writing reams of pointless bureaucracy too (getting ISO9001 certification, for example, reduced everyone’s output by about 20% I would estimate). I reckon I could get through the Pfizer bumpf on my own in about 6 months - at most.

The other thing that has prevented me from doing my Sacred Duty is the pressure to get vaccinated that has been applied. It has been off the scale. The propaganda and messaging has been bad enough, and also off the scale, but the punitive mandates and so-called passport schemes have been grotesque and deeply unscientific. They make not one jot of medical sense, given the data.

Where there is risk there must always be choice.

This unholy push to enter the Jabbathon has been extraordinary and a huge red flag for me. Like almost everything about this pantodemic it has been insanely out of proportion to the actual threat level.

There’s just something not right about all of this. It’s too much, for too little. Even if we allow for a smidgeon of over-zealous overreaction at the beginning of things - this bloody freakshow has gone on for nearly 2 years. In the UK they have, very grudgingly, rolled back on mandated vaccination for NHS staff - but Mr Malteser Head, Sajid Javid the Health Secretary, was not in the slightest bit gracious about it. He did his best grumpy old git impression as he still castigated the NHS workers for their choice to remain vaccine-free.

Elsewhere in the world the fight is very real and more serious - governments have hurtled down Authoritarian Avenue for no good medical or scientific reason. Let’s hope someone, soon, parks a great big truck in their way - or 50,000 or so.

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