COVID 19 - my early thoughts about Lockdown and Vaccines

 COVID 19 - my early thoughts about Lockdown and Vaccines

(written in Autumn 2020)

I know I can't share this widely because it is such an emotive and divisive subject, and I have no wish to make enemies over it, but I need to put pen to paper on my thoughts and questions (writing causes my Carpal Tunnel to flair up so I'm typing instead).  Who knows, one day we might be in a place where I can share it. ;P

To put a bit of context in, my immediate family did in fact lose someone in April, and the timing of that loss was due to COVID (he himself thought he had it), however my father-in-law was unwell already, and the most vulnerable organ in his body was his lungs... in fact, he'd been in intensive care at least twice in the last 2 years already.  He is missed terribly, but our family are believers in Jesus as our Saviour and the peace that God has granted through His love and the knowledge that Dad is in Heaven has been greater than the sting of death and grief.

So I do believe that COVID exists, and I am well aware that this disease preys on those with vulnerabilities (it actually attacks areas of the body which are already weak or damaged!).  I would argue that those who have died from COVID having been seemingly healthy, may well have had unknown underlying conditions, and we won't be able to prove they were actually completely "healthy" because no autopsies were conducted on them.

1. The first Lockdown

The first couple of weeks, okay... four weeks, well, maybe we're not actually at the peak yet.  Beyond that and I had a growing feeling that it was not necessary as we first thought, and started wondering whether the damage being done BY Lockdown was starting to cause more damage.  I remember the first time I heard a friend/minister voice this opinion, and it felt like he had taken my scattered thoughts and questions and managed to find very intelligble words to describe them.

I noticed that COVID didn't seem to have caused the problem in hospitals that we were meant to be protecting, but then around the same time the reason for Lockdown seemed to be changing... no longer to protect the hospitals but now to stop the disease.  Straight away that rang alarm bells because we were still no closer to understanding the disease, so just how long were we going to wait in Lockdown?  Not long after and we were starting to see statistics of people  struggling with ill mental health, untreated physical ailments, financial loss, job loss, etc... and those statistics seemed to be much more concrete and undisputed than any of the COVID statistics released!  I personally was supporting, as a friend, two young adults who were really struggling with their mental health due to Lockdown, delivering numerous food parcels each week to families that couldn't afford to buy enough food for themselves and was seeing negative impacts of Lockdown at my workplace and Church (happen to be the same place, but I was seeing impacts on both the staff and the congregation.

I will pause for a moment and mention that we did see good things happening during the first Lockdown, like Tyler riding a bicycle for the first time and his reading improving, but let's face it, Lockdown is nothing more than an inconvenience when you have a house, garden, family and job security... what about the many people who are lacking one or more of those!  And having not been able to support my recently widowed mother-in-law in the in-person and practical ways we would have if we could have, what started to really bother me was when she was at the point in her grieving when I could see that she was ready to start 'moving forward' without Dad there, and yet she couldn't because of the restrictions!

However, we in the west and developed countries really should take a minute to consider what Lockdown has been like for those in developing countries, those living in slums or without adquate shelter, those vulnerable to exploitation, those out of work without a furlough scheme and those who are literally beaten for leaving their home. Makes my heart break just thinking about it.

2. Inconsistencies

• SINGING - professional singers were allowed to sing for filming before other singers were... same activity different rules (didn't know the virus could tell whether someone was paid or not!)?
• MASKS - people can stand/sit in a pub or restaurant while talking directly at/to each other, I'm sure with social distancing going out the window where enough alcohol is consumed, and yet I can't go to church without wearing a mask to sit side-by-side while mostly listening, assuming mingling was still discouraged?
• RULE OF 6 - without any guidance on how long between or far apart these 6s can be formed, how is it less risky to have 4-5 people from other households inside my home, than it is for a family of 5 to have 2-3 from one other household?

3. Test & Trace

I do give my correct name and number manually when I attend public places, but I did not download the app because of the fact that I might be fined for leaving my home after the untested, unproven app decided I had been in close proximity to someone with COVID.  Had they separated the two, the app to help track contact and gain data, but not to be the issuer of legislation, then I would have downloaded it because I recognise that research & knowledge helps.

4. Vaccinations

I will have automatically been hesitant about this as I am a "semi-vaxer" (not "pro-" and not fully "anti-"... see my other posts for explanation on that), and I could have said from the outset that I will be arguing against Tyler having it, but at least my "semi-" position means I'm asking questions and seeing inconsistencies:

a) My preference would be for Antibody Tests to be available/used instead, but as yet they can't say whether having antibodies means you can't get it again and/or can't pass it on, or if so for how long you'd be protected from not getting it again and/or passing it on.  HOWEVER, having had an announcement this week that they are close to a vaccine being available, they still can't answer the questions, whether having antibodies means you can't get it again and/or can't pass it on, or if so for how long you'd be protected from not getting it again and/or passing it on... so why would I prefer to inject with an RNA altering chemical rather than have the same assurances (and take the same risks) with a finger-prick blood test?

b) There has NEVER been a vaccination approved this quickly but, even if they feel they have done the tests and trials required, we're still finding out what negative long-term "side effects" vaccinations developed years ago might have, so we really don't know what we're doing by pushing this one through so quickly.

c) Most vaccinations give us a 'dead' version of the same contagion we're fighting, and it's up to our bodies to react the right way to it in order for the vaccination to be effective (one reason why it is possible to have a vaccination and yet still get the disease), however this one isn't doing that... this one is altering our RNA to prevent the virus from making us 'symptomatic' (not to not get it, not to be able to fight it, but to CHANGE the way our body reacts to it).  

5. Second Lockdown

I was against this from the start, again for the reason that Lockdown does more damage than COVID does, and if one wants to look at the "long-term damage" of Lockdown then they need look no further than the latest costs of what the Government is currently paying to individuals and businesses as a result of lost-earnings due to COVID.  How are we (UK & World) going to recover from this expenditure?

6. Long-term effects

One thing that's being increasingly reported and publicised is the number of people who had a seemingly mild symptoms when they had COVID and yet they are experiencing "long-term mild" symptoms... this is interesting to me because I have been aware of conditions being 'triggered' by viral infection for some time but aware that the NHS is completely underfunded/resourced to treat these cases.  Post-Viral conditions tend to vary from person to person in how they present (like COVID, it'll be the 'weak spots' that are affected) and for the same reason they require an 'individual' approach (i.e. there's no "one pill fits all" which is the approach that NHS is best set up to offer).

7.  Media

I have stopped watching mainstream news all together except for the occasional national announcements... it was like listening to a broken record in the early days of COVID, and I have a feeling that hasn't changed much. Too many times I have heard people say both how scared they are and what they've seen/heard on the news in the same sentence... they are not doing any research themselves, but are being blindly led by businesses whose main goal is to keep people watching them.  I've heard a BBC presenter say that they have to "keep it interesting", and that means we should never assume they are telling the full story, the most important story or the correct figures... they will choose the figures that keep people watching in the same way that they will choose to show a story because they have photo/video footage of it. 

8.  Data

This is the thing I have the least knowledge about, but starting with when I first thought that there was a possibility that Dad died of his existing lung condition instead of COVID, yet COVID was put on his death certificate (which I later changed my mind on, once I heard that he himself thought he had it), I've been unsure of how COVID has been reported.  I would encourage anyone reading this to look into how the statistics are being gathered, recorded, deciphered and delivered before assuming that they are correct, and when it comes to 'predictions' even more so!