The measles thing gives me a chance to moan about the fucking Telegraph again. Because I note that even when they write a mostly very sensible piece about vaccines and Measles, the headline and a paragraph or two is smeared with shit in order to serve the long-standing agenda of that newspaper.
The vaccine has prevented 20 million cases in the UK since its introduction in 1968, but cases are now on the rise
www.telegraph.co.uk
Non-paywalled version:
Im not going to quote any of the sensible parts of the article, just the stuff that stands out in stark contrast.
The dodgy headline: "Measles is surging again because Covid destroyed trust in the medical establishment"
And the dodgy bit from the body of the article. I've had to include a non-dodgy bit at the start so that whats said later is in context:
Fuck off you distorting bullshitters. The basic scientific facts about covid were known from the early days and unlike what the fucking Telegraph would have us believe, did not change. Early back of the envelope calculations about fatality rates, hospitalisation rates, age profiles in regards who was at most risk actually stood the test of time rather well. Rather, the stuff that changed over time with covid was political stuff, policy stuff, and attempts by the establishment to bullshit their way out of inconvenient realities of covid. ie the original shit 'let it rip' policy of this countries government, the lies about not understanding how important asymptomatic transmission was, and the deliberate downplaying of airborn transmission and the wearing of masks during the period where they didnt want to have to implement policies to deal with the realities on those fronts, including PPE stockpile limitations. There were plenty of scientists who always understood what the realities were likely to be on those fronts, so they didnt have to u-turn later, there was no need for a huge evolution in their positions because the science never changed. Even things like Long covid were expected, and it was just the finer details that needed to be determined over time. It wasnt an overall science failing, it was a political failing. Granted during such times there will be establishment scientists who try to play along with the governments desired version of reality, and those shits did have to u-turn later, but this is not the same phenomenon as the Telegraph would have us believe. Theres a valid lesser version of this, where science and politics met in ugly and dangerous compromise, that is arguably true, eg the WHO didnt do themselves any favours with some of their early advice and how long it took them to correct it, but to do this justice you have to get into the detail and the Telegraph doesnt even bother to give any examples of what they are referring to.
Presumably thats because what the Telegraph are actually hinting at is their own entirely distorted version of reality, one where we 'overreacted' to Covid, and all the policies the Telegraph didnt like (lockdowns etc) were later shown to be entirely unnecessary. Well actually the world of science doesnt support this version of reality. And its a disgusting spectacle to see the Telegraph doing articles like this where they still want to be on the right side of the overall vaccine debate, but are actually part of the problem when it comes to misinformation and encouraging distrust in medical authorities and policies. The fucking nerve of it. Its not just the most wacky of conspiracy theories that undermines trust, the Telegraphs way of poisoning the well on such issues is insidious and can do just as much harm, reaching groups that might not buy into conspiracy shit but may find it tempting to buy into 'overreaction' right wing pandemic narratives. Plus over time the likes of the Telegraph learnt how to twist almost any covid news story into something that could support their position and that might sound vaguely reasonable to partially-informed readers who shared some of the same sorts of bias as the Telegraph itself. If you convince people that the reaction to covid was an overreaction, then that has consequences for vaccination campaigns too. There is always a risk-reward balance with vaccines, so if people think that the disease risk was overstated then their sense of that balance shifts, and they may end up thinking it was inappropriate for as many people to get the covid vaccine as did.
but for balance, the late Terry Pratchett also left us a very large amount of money and actually visited regularly/participated until his failing health prevented it. Bill has yet to put-in an appearance.
