I'm not a doctor, but I believe that I am reasonably intelligent, and have tried to keep myself informed on COVID 19. My opinions are not formed from reading about anyone's anecdotal evidence, nor by listening to or reading what any politicians have to say, nor by anything posted by left or right wing social media. I instead have listened to organizations whose members are recognized as experts in preventing the spread of infectious diseases and/or treating sick patients. Every major medical organization that I know of, whether it be the CDC, WHO, Mayo Clinic, American Academy of Pediatrics, etc. (the list goes on and on) recommends getting vaccinated, wearing a mask, frequently washing/sanitizing your hands, avoiding large, densely packed crowds, etc. As I read posts on this board, read other stuff that I find online, and listen to some of the things that people say on TV on radio, I am struck by several thoughts:
1. Politicians are not typically doctors or infectious disease experts. Most often they are lawyers or businessmen. If what they say differs from what the true experts say, ignore them.
2. The fact that someone claiming to be a doctor might disagree with guidance from the CDC, WHO, Mayo Clinic, etc. doesn't mean that you should follow what they say because they are an expert. Flat Earthers have "experts" claiming that the Earth is flat. There are some physicists that believe in cold nuclear fusion, though no one can reproduce their results. Some like to romanticize those in a field that go against what everyone else their field believes, believing them to be brave, honest souls fighting the good fight against a corrupt system. While there might be instances of this happening in history, this is almost never the way it works. In science, if your new theory is reproducible and/or can be proven, it will become adopted by the community. Copernicus and Galileo were persecuted by the Catholic Church, not by other scientists. Einstein's theory of relativity, unlike Newtonian mechanics, violates intuition, yet was quickly adopted despite it being so revolutionary. When Geiger and Marsden's gold foil experiment was reproduced by other scientists it meant the end of the Bohr model of the atom (though this model is unfortunately still the one most used to visualize the atom). If any of these lone wolf doctors had anything to say that they could defend they would be heard by their communities rather than just gathering a following of kooks on social media. Don't listen to the quacks.
3. Anecdotal evidence is meaningless. If you tell me that you walked across a busy street blindfolded and didn't get a scratch on you I'm still not going to believe that this is safe behavior. TellIng me that your great aunt Sally smoked two pack of cigarettes a day and lived to be 101 won't change my opinion of smoking. The advice the experts give us is based a forming two large groups, a control group and an experimental group, testing their hypotheses with the experimental group, and determining if there are statistically significant differences between the groups. It doesn't matter that you don't follow any of the recommended steps for preventing COVID yet still haven't contracted while your friend who was careful to a fault, ended up getting sick. Anecdotal evidence means nothing compared to well designed scientific studies.
4.
EVERYONE does not know that the COVID 19 vaccine does not protect you from contracting the disease. From the CDC:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/201...hould i vaccinate:sem.ga:p:RG:GM:gen:PTN:FY21
If you took the time to at least skim through the article you saw that the antibodies that you receive from the vaccine do indeed
reduce the chance of contracting and spreading the disease. There is a reason why I bolded the word "reduce'. It is still possible for crossover infections, like it's possible for there to be crossover infections from any vaccine that you have received. And for the COVID 19 vaccines it has been shown that this protection deteriorates with time, hence the reason for the booster shots. If you do happen to get a crossover infection your risks for hospitalization and death are greatly reduced.
5. If I walked down the street without wearing some type of cloth over certain parts of my body not only would people recoil in disgust, I could get arrested. We've all (well, maybe not some nudists) accepted the fact that there are certain parts of our bodies that we have to cover up. I have yet to hear of a case where protestors condemn parents for sending their kids to school with clothes on, or of a restaurant receiving a bunch of negative Yelp reviewers for a "No shirt, no shoes, no service" sign. But ask people to wear one more piece of cloth, this one over your mouth and nose, and people act like they're in Nazi Germany. It's stupid. My not wearing cloth over certain parts of my body only violates you sensibilities (and your eyes, your poor eyes). My not wearing a cloth around my mouth and nose could potentially result in much more serious consequences for you (though your eyes might disagree).
My final thought is that I love the internet. It allows us to share knowledge and entertainment, keep in touch with our loved ones, and so much more. But there is a downside: it allows for hate groups to more easy spread their hate, conspiracy groups to share their thoughts with a much wider audience, and for anti-science beliefs (anti vax, COVID denial, flat earth, etc.) to gain steam. Please try to understand whom your getting your information from, and try to make sure that it's from a trustworthy source.
