A messy post about COVID-19 and what the pandemic is doing to us as a society

Things have been quiet here. Really, really quiet. Some of you may have already surmised part of the reason: I’ve been working a lot lately. With four kids at home, renovations going on, and building up my freelance writer business, my own stuff has taken a place on the back burner.

But there are also other issues. COVID-19 has messed with my wellbeing in a massive way. No, I haven’t had the virus (I think). I’m just finding it extremely difficult to adjust to this new world we’re living in.

About a month ago, our new PM started a witch hunt campaign against people who haven’t taken the COVID jab yet. “They’re endangering us,” Mr. Bennet says. The ensuing media echo chamber has led to an unrestrained hate trip against the approximately 1 million un-Pfizered Israelis, many of them children under 18.

This circus goes on while two things are becoming clear: first, vaccinated people still spread the coronavirus, specifically the Delta variant; and second, people who’ve had two Pfizer shots are now getting infected. The vaccine’s protection against COVID is wearing off rapidly, and the government has started a massive Round Three campaign, giving people a third jab in what is essentially a clinical trial, since they have not tested this practice anywhere as far as I know.

This was not what people expected when they started lining up to get vaccinated in January. We kept hearing, “the vaccine will probably be effective for at least a year.” Well, it isn’t. And now we hear, “You should get used to it: a scheduled jab every 6 months.” Long-term effectiveness? Risks? Pffft. Don’t be ninnies, just roll up those sleeves!

Furthermore, there’s a more aggressive push than ever to vaccinate children and teens, who have a near-zero risk of COVID complications but not a near-zero risk of newly emerging side effects of the vaccine, like myocarditis.

All these months, I’ve felt like I have so much to say and so few words to articulate it all. Then Dr. Robert Malone came and said it all for me in his recent interview. I’ll just share a few select quotes.

“We had the CDC come out last week, talking about the pericarditis and other cardiomyopathies that are showing up in the pediatric population, up to the age of 18. That is a significant safety risk. That was only recently identified about two months ago. It’s taken two months for the CDC to verify it.”

The thing is, mRNA vaccines use a new technology. They’re being researched as I write this, and the research will continue for many years to come. It’s not surprising that things like this are cropping up. In fact, I won’t keel over with shock if honest, unbiased research discovers more and more side effects down the road.

“So there’s things going on there with the vaccines. The problem is we don’t know how severe they are in general. What is the bell curve distribution for severity? What’s the incidence? Often the question is asked, why don’t we know? And the answer is because the FDA elected during this phase of emergency use authorization to not require that the drug manufacturers rigorously capture adverse events and efficacy signals.”

And this just begs to ask WHY?? My logic says that capturing adverse events should have been the FIRST aim during a mass trial of a novel genetic vaccine.

Dr. Malone also mentions Israel:

“We had hoped to have a rigorous data set from Israel. The CDC and FDA had been very comforted by what they thought was a rigorous data set from Israel and the ability of the Israeli government-related epidemiologic monitoring people to data-mine that database and identify signals.

The cardiac events in the adolescent population were actually first identified by an Oracle biostatistician, working with people at the FDA that are outside of all this. That was data mining from the various publicly available databases. He identified it, and notified the CDC. They identified it, then tracked it. They notified the Israelis, and then the Israelis were able to verify that they saw that signal in their database too. And how could this happen?”

I’ll tell you how. The Israeli government (Netanyahu, then Bennett, together with all their cohort) declared that we were pioneers. We were trailblazers. We were quicker and smarter and more advanced than the rest of the world. We’d grab this amazing new mRNA vaccine technology by the horns and we’d be the first in the world to BEAT COVID.

“Effective” and “effectiveness” were the only words in the official jargon. Nobody used terms like “caution”, “prudence”, “conservative approach” or “rigorous monitoring.” People who experienced a whole array of post-vaccine side effects were simply brushed off or told it’s “all in their heads.”

I haven’t been out to collect data, but individual cases stare me in the face. A family member with inflammation flare-ups. A friend who hasn’t had her period since getting jabbed. People complaining of muscle pain, general weakness, allergies suddenly rearing their heads.

So they come to their family doctor, and they’re told, “this has nothing to do with the vaccine. The vaccine is safe. Safe. SAFE.”

Of course, no treatment is 100% safe for everyone, let alone an experimental vaccine. Israeli health experts are no fools. If our government had been totally honest, they’d have said, “Yeah, we expect some people are going to suffer severe health effects from the vaccine. Some may possibly lose their lives. But as epidemiologists and statisticians, we have made our calculations and figured out that we’d lose more people if we let COVID run rampant. So we’ll sacrifice a few in order to save many. Roll up that sleeve, please.”

You know what would have happened then? No one would get vaccinated except possibly the risk groups. And they couldn’t let that happen, could they? Not after they’d agreed to become Pfizer’s biggest lab. So the vaccine is SAFE. It HAS to be safe. And anyone who has experienced a different reality must be a crazy anti-vaxxer.

“The consequences of what we’re doing socially right now in this context is driven by fear. We’re driving ourselves a little bit mad with our fear over this pathogen.”

I’ve seen this with my own eyes. Today, Israel has a Green Pass for vaccinated people and people who’ve recovered from COVID. Children under 12 cannot get a vaccine yet. Children between 3 and 12 must get a COVID test before entering ANYWHERE, including movies, amusement parks, or the library. One mom got hysterical because another mom tried to get her 3-year-old into the local public playroom without a COVID test. It escalated to the ugliest mudslinging you can imagine. The offending mom left in tears.

Today, the public playroom is empty. Parents just won’t bother with constant health paranoia for their 3-12-year-olds. They’ll take them to the beach, out to nature, to visit friends, or to any place that doesn’t require a Green Pass. The library is empty because they fired the librarian for not getting the jab. People live in fear.

I hear hate-speak all the time. “Non-vaxxed people shouldn’t be on public transportation.” “Non-vaxxed teens shouldn’t be in schools.” “I’ve crossed any non-vaxxers off my friends list.”

Even with one million non-vaxxed people, Israel still has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world. Declining effectiveness and sneaky variants are responsible for the new upsurge of severe cases, coupled with the fact that COVID vaccines were never able to fully prevent transmission. Mr. Bennett must know it, yet he still points an accusing finger to the non-vaxxed even as their numbers shrink. This is called scapegoating, and it’s a classic bullying tactic.

Dr. Malone says, “Eventually, we’re going to get through this, but it’s impacting on society in profound ways. This censorship of information, those that are experiencing it, including myself, are profoundly disturbed by what we’re seeing, and the long-term meanings of it.”

Do you know the saying, “two Jews equals three opinions”? Jews love to debate. Israelis love to argue. But not when it comes to the COVID vaccine. Ever since the vaccination campaign first launched in January, there’s been no discussion. Just one huge echo chamber on the mainstream media and perpetual shutting down of social media profiles for people who posted “misleading” information (honest personal opinions and experiences).

It scares me. It scares me because it seems that free exchange of information, the ability to disagree, the ability to shift from monochromatic yes-no, black-and-white thinking are gone.

“Just today, the World Health Organization made an announcement clearly and unequivocally. You’ve got to start using masks because none of these vaccines are preventing infection. They’re preventing disease. They’re not preventing transmission.”

Got this, Mr. Bennett?