There is a lot of nonsense again been talked about COVID. The simple message, however, is, get jabbed or risk death.
The same old sources are again demanding that the economy be wrecked, by locking it down, in response to an increase in reported infections. Lockdowns were ineffective from the start, and are not going to magically become an effective measure now. But, in any case, the rise in infections is still to a level way below what it has been in the past. More importantly, the proportion of those infected who become seriously ill, need hospital treatment, or who die, is also significantly lower than it was in the past, basically because those being infected now, are younger people, who have not been vaccinated, and who, as has always been the case, are unlikely to suffer any serious consequences from it.
The simple solution, for any of these people, who do not want any risk of illness, hospitalisation or death is to get jabbed. Its not that society should be hampered because they refuse to do so.
The demands for lockdowns are demands for the economy to be seriously damaged, and, thereby, for the lives and livelihoods of millions of people to e damaged for no real benefit. Many of those who demand lock downs do so out of a misguided desire to harm the economy, because they think that, in doing so, it harms the Tory government, and for others, capitalism itself, and so in a perverted way is seen as being somehow a step towards socialism. The opposite is the case. It damages the standing of workers, and strengthens the forces of reaction, who always thrive as a result of economic weakness, and catastrophe. Those that operate on that crude mentality that "anti-capitalism" is the same as Socialism, are no different than the saboteurs, and Luddites, criticised by Marx.
On the other hand, Tony Blair has complained that those who do not get jabbed are not just harming their own interests, but those of everyone else. How? That is only the case, if the government allows itself to get bullied into introducing more lockdowns and restrictions, as a result of some people not protecting themselves, by getting jabbed. All of us who have got jabbed are at no significant risk from those who do not. The ones at risk are those that refuse to get jabbed, because anyone other than children, can now get jabbed. As for children, they are at essentially no risk whatsoever, other than those with immune deficiencies, and its a simple matter to ensure they get jabbed.
On the overall question of vaccinating children, I have no great opinion one way or the other, except that, given that children are at essentially zero risk, it would be better to use available vaccines to provide boosters for the elderly, and those at risk, or else to ensure that vaccines are provided to poorer countries, to prevent death in those places.
Blair is wrong in saying that people have a civic duty to get jabbed. They do not provide any benefit to everyone else in society, who has got jabbed. The simple point is that they should get jabbed, or else themselves accept the risk of death or serious illness, not expect the rest of us to destroy the economy, and civil liberties so as to protect them from their own idiocy.
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