Two items on WSJ’s Opinion page tell a singular story about the state of the union and its potential improvement:
Another Turn in the Covid Lab-Leak Story.
Three Years Late, the Lancet Recognizes Natural Immunity.
Together, these opinions represent a correction of the record — a good thing, considering the Covid-19 hysteria that has ruled in the public square since the beginning of the pandemic.
First, we learn that some U.S. officials think the Covid-19 virus may be man-made. Then we learn that natural immunity may be superior to vaccination in some applications of public health policy/practice.
Neither of these opinions is Earth shattering, but I am glad for both of them. Now that a man-made origin for Covid-19 is an official speculation, we can begin to wonder and discuss who were the men who made it, and why, and what happened when they did. Now that the efficacy of natural immunity is established, we can begin to speak of Covid in terms of the standard epidemiological model again.
Small steps, to be sure, but I expect they will have profound effects on the Covid-19 narrative.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
Uh, so what?
Whether natural or man-made, the appearance of the virus was an accident and not the spearhead of a conspiracy by the Chinese. This latest theory of an accidental infection in the Wuhan lab is offered with “low confidence.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2023/02/27/covid-lab-leak-energy-department-theory-explained/11357354002/
The second hair-on-fire link says natural immunity MAY be as effective as two doses of the mRNA vaccines. Well whoop-dee-doo! IF you survive an infection then you MAY not need to get vaccinated. Again, so what?
How easy for the survivors to forget that over 1,130,000 people have died from Covid-19 in our country alone. What was all the hysteria about they wonder. After all, everyone is going to die.
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So what?
As stated, I expect these two small shifts in the Covid narrative to lead to new conversations.
For example, DOE’s revised assessment of the lab-leak theory backhandedly revives speculation about U.S. biowarfare programs. The Lancet report undermines vaccine fanaticism.
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There is never going to be a shift in the narrative that adds one dollop of legitimacy to the anti-vax narrative. People who did not get vaccinated when it could have stopped the spread and the mutations that followed have blood on their hands.
There is no such thing as “vaccine fanaticisim.” There is just medical science which tells us that vaccines add a measurable degree of virus protection without significant countervailing risks. Now, anti-vaccine fanaticism – that’s a thing which you are still demonstrating two years later.
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RE: “There is no such thing as ‘vaccine fanaticisim.'”
Says the poster child who describes the unvaccinated as people with “blood on their hands.”
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It is a factual statement.
Okay, “blood on your hands” is a metaphor. You do not literally have blood on your hands. But you and others who spread anti-vax confusion directly killed uncounted thousands of unvaccinated people who would have either not become ill or who would have survived when they did. And by keeping the pandemic going you created vast new opportunities for variants to arise.
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RE: “It is a factual statement.”
No, it isn’t. Not even as a metaphor.
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Yes it is a factual statement.
Numbers do not lie.
Anti-vax misinformation is DEADLY.
And, you spread it every chance you get.
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RE: “Numbers do not lie.”
So you say, but you don’t cite any, probably because you can’t. Besides, it is general knowledge at this point that some people who developed Covid-19 were infected by vaccinated contacts. Do you intend to claim those vaccinated spreaders have blood on their hands, too?
Your obtuseness is why I think you are a poster child for vaccine fanaticism.
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“Numbers do not lie.”
The numbers I refer to is the relationship between Covid death and Covid vaccination. The unvaccinated have been dying out of proportion to their numbers. Bigly. You know that and they do not need citing again. However, since you are playing (?) dumb here is one of thousands of sites where you can see the numbers for yourself.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/data-review/vaccines.html
Sure, we now know that it can happen that a vaccinated person can carry the disease. Do they have blood on their hands. No. They did not make stupid, cowardly decisions when the vaccine was offered to them.
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RE: “The numbers I refer to is the relationship between Covid death and Covid vaccination.”
In that case you are doubly obtuse. Your claim is that unvaccinated people harmed their fellow man, but your numbers show only that they harmed themselves.
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“In that case you are doubly obtuse.”
Uh, no. That would be you.
Sick people are spreaders of the virus. And the sicker they are, the more likely it is that they will spread it. By becoming sick – or sicker – when they could have avoided it, the unvaccinated not only harmed themselves, they harmed the people around them and those who cared for them. They have blood on their hands as do those who encouraged such deadly foolishness. People like you.
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