Five essential elements are especially evident in history—a leader, a pack, a talisman, a scapegoat, and a sacrifice. Thus a medieval foot soldier had a baron, his army, armour, an enemy, and a battle. To ward off plague some might have been happy to follow a priest, his religion, the sacrament, to abhor witches, and burn them at the stake to ward off the evil eye. A bit dramatic you might say. We have moved on from these primitive instincts haven’t we?

The  pandemic  has  evoked  a  somewhat  similar  response.  Our  leader  is   ‘science’, our pack is the vaccinated, our talisman the vaccine, our   scapegoats the unvaccinated, and the requirement for a sacrifice is   appeased  by  confining  the  unvaccinated  to  their  homes.  For  some  it  has   been  a  comforting  response  to  a  much  hyped  pandemic.  Vaccination  does   have a mythic history of success dating back to the nineteenth century and   should  qualify  as  a  talisman  with  special  powers  to  ward  off  disease.   Similarly  science  is  a  fundamental  of  modern  civilisation.  The  existence  of   luddite unclean elements of society, who have primitive fears of vaccination   and almost certainly of science and technology too, is to be deplored. They   should be excluded from the company of the great and the good. This sort of   response  has  been  associated  with  a  certain  kind  of  smug  self-righteous   nobility throughout history.

All  well  and  good,  but  a  problem  appears  when  our  response  is  rooted   deeply in belief rather than rational thought. Thus the first world war had its   hereditary generals, its armies, its trenches, its enemy and its bloody battles.   The  generals  soldiered  on  with  trench  warfare  far  beyond  any  rational   realisation that as a strategy it was not working. Millions of young men were   sacrificed to an almost medieval ideal of a noble cause.   Schizophrenia  comes  in  when  the  facts  no  longer  fit  the  narrative.

Here  are   the talismen of vaccination mandates put next to the contradictions:

• Europe has high rates of vaccination, but is experiencing a fourth surge.
• Vaccination confers immunity, but it allows transmission 
• Vaccination protects against symptoms, but it wanes rapidly and disappears.
• Israel mandated booster shots, but covid deaths doubled last week.
• Vaccination is safe, but causes 50 times more adverse reactions than normal.
• Vaccination will protect society, but there is unprecedented excess mortality. 
• Young people are at great risk from covid, but their risk is miniscule.
• Covid is a killer, but it is just 1.5 times more deadly than regular flu.
• Covid will overwhelm health services, but they are functioning overseas.
• Vaccination will develop herd immunity, but it doesn’t 

A  couple  of  days  ago  I  sent  out  a  press  release  to  our  NZ  media  about  a   paper  in  the  journal  Circulation  reporting  that  vaccination  elevated  the  five   year  risk  of  a  cardiac  event  from  11%  to  25%.  Did  our  mainstream  media   report it? No. In the UK it caused a stir. The lack of any reaction to this and   other  contradictory  findings  is  increasingly  looking  like  a  conspiracy  of   silence. How long will we have to wait until the penny drops?

Thomas Kuhn described the psychology of this very aptly when he   discussed  the  warfare  associated  with  competing  paradigms  of  scientific   thought.  He  referred  to  the  anomalous  card  experiment.  A  deck  of  cards  is   sprinkled with false cards amongst the real, such as a black nine of   diamonds or a red jack of spades. Cards are rapidly presented to a subject   and  he  is  asked  to  identify  them.  At  first,  all  cards  whether  real  or  false  are   identified as real, this is known as a dominance reaction—we wish to impose   our  own  truth  on  our  experience.  As  the  rate  of  presentation  is  slowed,   moments of confusion set in when false cards come up. At some point, the   subject  realises  that  anomalous  cards  can  exist  in  his  universe.  He  has  an   aha  moment.  Interestingly,  a  few  people  never  make  the  transition,  they  are   trapped  in  their  tendency  to  dominate  their  perception  of  the  world  around   them and impose their own views even if they are inconsistent with fact.

It is time to review mandates and reconsider how much dominance,   hope, and fear are contaminating our perception of covid facts

Guy Hatchard PhD was previously a senior manager at Genetic ID, a global   testing and safety certification company which manages risk