Vaccine

If you look at the actual study Chart B, the differences in vaccine hesitancy depending on levels of education seem to be split into two intertwined clusters: High School or Less, Some College, and PhD in one group, and Four-Year College Degree, Master's, and Professional Degree in the other, with the first group about twice as hesitant as the second. The term "Professional Degree" includes medical professionals (doctors, nurses, dentists, veterinarians, and the like), lawyers, and licensed engineers.

A more stark division can be seen in Chart D, which shows the vaccine hesitance rate divided according to the proportion of t support in the last election in the county in which the respondents lived. To put it simply, the higher the local t support, the freedumber they are.

Apparently they are about as dumb as the PhD's.
 
Unmasking GMU Officials’ Covid Hypocrisy
by DON BOUDREAUX on AUGUST 14, 2021

Here’s a letter to Todd Zywicki, a long-time friend, sometimes co-author, and colleague over in GMU’s Antonin Scalia School of Law:

Good luck in your lawsuit against GMU officials who wish to compel you – despite your earlier case of Covid-19 having given you much natural immunity against the disease – nevertheless to be vaccinated. Your case has been strengthened by GMU’s newly announced requirement of indoor masking of all people including the fully vaccinated. One necessary condition for this masking requirement to pass any reasonable cost-benefit test is that vaccination be not very effective. So you can infer from this new masking policy that GMU officials are not confident in the vaccines’ effectiveness. These officials’ skepticism of the vaccines’ effectiveness has, as it were, been unmasked by their own new masking policy. And if these officials themselves doubt the vaccines’ effectiveness, they have even less business than before in insisting that you subject yourself to whatever risk might be posed to you by receiving the vaccination. You (and Jenin and Jay) have likely already thought of this point that identifies the actions of GMU officials themselves as further tilting the balance of the case in your favor. But I mention it in the off-chance that you haven’t.
Again, much good luck!
Sincerely,
Don
 
An Open Letter to Dr. Francis Collins by DON BOUDREAUX on AUGUST 16, 2021 in COUNTRY PROBLEMS, CURRENT AFFAIRS, DATA, MYTHS AND FALLACIES, RISK AND SAFETY, SEEN AND UNSEEN


Dr. Francis Collins, Director
National Institutes of Health
Bethesda, MD

Dr. Collins:

In your interview yesterday with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday you rightly complained that “the evidence and the basis for making decisions on facts has gotten pushed aside by politics.” But you, sir, are as guilty as anyone of politicizing this disease by distorting the presentation of facts.

Numbers – quantitative facts – are meaningful only in proper context. Yet in this same interview with Wallace you ignored this reality when you announced that “more than 400 children [in America] have died of Covid-19,” and then concluded from this ‘fact’ that “the evidence” shows that Covid poses a great risk to children.

Well.

Ignore the fact (!) that the number of “deaths involving Covid-19” in America, as of August 11th, 2021, of persons under the age of 18 is reported by the CDC as 353; let’s take 400 as the correct number of children who’ve so far died of Covid. Aren’t you, as a public-health official, ashamed that you didn’t bother to observe that 400 children deaths from Covid is a paltry 0.76 percent of the total number of children deaths in America (52,672) over the same time period? Aren’t you embarrassed that you forgot to note that, over this same time period, the number of children in America whose deaths are classified as “involving pneumonia” is 859 – that is, more than double the number whose deaths are classified as “involving Covid-19”?

Are you not mortified that you neglected to say that the number of children who are killed each year in motor-vehicle accidents is multiple times higher than is the number who’ve died since January 2020 of Covid? Do you regret forgetting to reveal that in 2019 the number of children in the U.S. who died from cancerous tumors was, at 1,060, more than 150 percent higher than is the number who have so far died of Covid? (These data are available here.) And are you not overwhelmed with remorse that you said not a word about the number of children (and adults) who’ll die unnecessarily of cancer and other non-Covid illnesses because of treatment delays sparked by disproportionate fears of Covid – disproportionate fears that you consistently stoke?

You’re no longer promoting public health; Dr. Collins; you’re peddling panic porn – which has become a lethal collective addiction.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
 
All Benefits Have Costs by DON BOUDREAUX on AUGUST 17, 2021

Here’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal:

Editor:
Today’s edition contains three letters critical of my colleague Todd Zywicki’s defense, in your pages, of his lawsuit against George Mason University’s vaccination requirement. Each letter-writer, alas, misses a point that’s central to the broader case against vaccination mandates – and, indeed, against all Covid restrictions: Because vaccination is indeed quite effective at protecting each vaccinated person against suffering serious consequences from Covid, there’s no good reason to require anyone to be vaccinated. Each individual has easy ability to acquire such a high degree of protection that we can stop tyrannizing each other in the name of fighting Covid.

Furthermore, evidence from amply vaccinated countries, including Israel, Iceland, and the U.K., reveals that vaccination doesn’t stop disease spread. It provides a personal benefit – reduced disease severity upon infection – but little public benefit.

The predictable response is that vaccination isn’t 100 percent effective even for the vaccinated. True. But whatever additional benefits might be gained from vaccine mandates and other Covid restrictions must be weighed against the costs of these intrusions – costs that include solidifying an ominous precedent for until-now unprecedented authoritarian intrusions into Americans’ private affairs.

Contrary to each letter-writer’s supposition, establishing the case for vaccination mandates requires more than pointing out the trivial reality that an unvaccinated person might impose more risks on nonconsenting others than does a vaccinated person. Other questions must be asked and correctly answered – chief among these are ‘How much more risk?’ (answer: not much), and ‘At what cost?’ (answer: immense).


Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
 
Adults sitting at home pose less risk to strangers than do adults out driving automobiles. Yet we correctly do not leap from this reality to the conclusion that therefore further restrictions are justified on adults’ freedom to drive automobiles.
 
Shocking isn't it? Lol! Hospitalization numbers are more due to lack of staffing than beds.
Yup. I know of two non jabbed nurses that are being treated like lepers. They have to endure peer pressure unlike anything. They have to get fired but until they do, they will be retaliated against and scorned. My pal who is a teacher is a conflict avoider and because of his not wanting to butt his head into things like I do and ask a few questions, he took the jab and got blood clot and is on blood thinner. Thanks God he doesn;t blame me for his decision to avoid being hassled and treated like shit at work. The root of evil has a money trail folks.
 
So they are up to the same level as March 2020 for the Bay Area, and area that had a much lower infection and death rate per capita than areas like Florida, Texas and even North Dakota. Hmmm, I wonder what caused that difference?
 
So they are up to the same level as March 2020 for the Bay Area, and area that had a much lower infection and death rate per capita than areas like Florida, Texas and even North Dakota. Hmmm, I wonder what caused that difference?
Now tell me about Utah who has one of the lowest rates in the nation. Yet didnt do lockdowns, keep kids out of school, etc.
 
Now tell me about Utah who has one of the lowest rates in the nation. Yet didnt do lockdowns, keep kids out of school, etc.
Why talk Utah? Six months ago, you wanted to talk about Florida, Texas, and California.

Let’s talk about those fine places. How are they doing right about now?

Florida? 6.4 daily covid deaths per million.

Texas? 3.4 daily covid deaths per million.

California? 1.0 daily covid deaths per million.

Yeah, California is really messed up. Almost 1/6 as bad as Florida.

(Our problems are mostly socal. I blame LA.)
 
Back
Top