imagine a doctrine of original sin so potent that your own lack of grace not only pollutes you but all those with whom you come in contact.

imagine that this sin is so ingrained into you that even those washed of it, contrite, and granted absolution can STILL never be free of it. it will haunt their lives and dreams forevermore and sustain itself as the driving factor of their place in and relation to society.

if this sounds like a sect you are keen to join, then look no further, the branch covidians are still accepting new members!

i realize this sounds a bit tongue in cheek, but hear me out, as i fear it may be nothing of the sort. the parallels to some of the more aggressive historical religions in which man is fallen and hellfire or damnation inevitable are legion.

consider the relentless campaign of MOAR FEAR imposed upon an unsuspecting citizenry for the last 15 months and the erection of dogmatic performative obeisance to it rooted in moralistic and talismanic pseudoscience.

• “stay home, save lives!”

• “your mask protects me”

none of this was ever real epidemiology and was contra indicated by all the pre 2020 standing guidelines. we were always swerving around a squirrel as though it were a dragon. lockdowns and masking were never real as NPI’s.

but the fear was real and fear has real effects.

the effects of such fear are greatly magnified when you moralize it and demand performative response to it. the mere act of staying home and wearing masks amplifies the belief that these actions were noble and needed. human cognitive dissonance and pavlovian training conjoin in a powerful confluence. it has long since broken many brains among those who were already more fearful and given rise to the neurocracy, the government by the most neurotic.

the “year of fear” was a both a torment and godsend to such people. the most fearful simply broke and cowered. the marginally so seized upon the pretext of wrapping their neuroses in sanctimonious virtue: “my fear saves you!” both lost sight of the actual risk/reward of the situation and threw cost/benefit analysis, the backbone of any personal or public health policy, under the bus over a disease whose ultimate IFR looks like a middlin bad flu.

and it’s not going to stop. at this point, this is way past rational and into the realm is inflamed and imprinted atavistic terrors justified by the ascribed virtues of social ritual cum calvinistic religion.

• you are always at risk. covid is everywhere and lethal.

• your risk is everyone’s risk and your sin is everyone’s downfall

• vaccines cannot save you

• variants make the risk of sin perpetual.

you are fallen and you cannot get up.

the real “long covid” will lie not in the imagined pathologies of the hypochondriacs that switched brands from “chronic fatigue” and “fibromyalgia” in response to non-specific complaints and the after effects common to many respiratory illnesses. it will instead lie in the lasting and crippling fear that this foray into the doctrine of unforgivable sin that epidemiology by hobgoblin has erected.

those vaccinated have near zero risk of covid deaths or hospitalization. it’s not even 1/10th the risk faced every year by flu. this is simply not a risk level any in human society have ever evidenced any concern over. we do not cower to reduce flu risk by 7%.

and yet look how the post vaccinated cower now: they look to be 20-50% LESS comfortable engaging in normal social activity than the unvaccinated.

yikes.

now, some of this may be selection bias where the higher risk got vaccinated, but given that these are the same people who were used to calculate post vax risks and that i compared them to the US as whole for flu and not the high risk cohort that would be more apt, it’s tough to come to any plausible cost/benefit explanation where that is rooted in rational risk assessment.

this is all driven by fear.

perhaps the fearful were more likely to vax or perhaps the act of vaccination triggers that great foe of rationality “cognitive dissonance” and the fact that you took a vaccine to protect yourself serves to enhance your sense of danger just as wearing masks and cowering at home did. you have to tell yourself a story about why you did things and what story for vaxxing or masking does not include “covid is dangerous and i must protect against it”? repetition sets belief.

or perhaps many have simply become wedded to the tribal signaling and mantle of virtue associated with these activities and observances and are loath to relinquish their righteous vestments.

or maybe they never really wanted to do these things at all and were driven to because their fear of missing out exceeded their fear of going out, they were looking to minimize discomfort, and they still are by keeping these new social norms.

perhaps these endless scare stories just scared the bejeezus out of people until their brains broke.

maybe these are all true.

but one thing is sure: for many of these people, there is no redemption.

if the tiny risks of vaccinated life still appear too high, then what is ever going to look safe again?

if fear has been so successfully ingrained as “civic virtue” that leaving the house appears terrifying and antisocial what can restore community?

continuing to foist these narratives upon people who are so low risk to terrify them into obedience to diktat is not public health, it’s predatory self-aggrandizement. our alleged “expert” have a lot to answer for.

this is going to be like prying the kool-aid out of the hands of jonestowners.

it’s the horrific and entirely predictable outcome of incessant fear-mongering masquerading as health policy so that officials and politicians could gain budgets, status, and feed their cronies.

it borders on becoming literal munchausen by proxy. imagine the adulation a horrific menace like cuomo enjoyed before everyone realized he was endlessly lying, cooking the books, and killing people wholesale by pioneering the nation’s worst nursing home policy and then covering it up.

does this sound like any politicians or public health officials you know? offering them status, money, power, and attention as a reward for making up tales of terror to panic you and then lionizing them for inflicting terrible harm upon your lives and livelihoods to cure this vastly overstated risk with fake medicine is an invitation that narcissistic quacks and tyrant simply cannot refuse.

you might as well scratch your neck and beckon a vampire.

such tyrants, once elevated to such a lofty perch, are not interested in climbing down. so they turn the fear into old timey fire and brimstone calvinism: you cannot be redeemed. you need to vaccinate, but it will not alleviate your ritual pollution. you must still mask and distance. normal is off the table. it’s new normal or nothing. you’re damned.

this is all bunkum. they are doing this to you because it serves them and these structures are what ossify and perpetuate their elevation and dominance.

this is long since over. if you’re worried about covid, get the vaccine. if you are not (and this may be quite rational if you are young and healthy) go live your life. if you’re not sure, consult a trusted medical practitioner.

but above all, let go of your fear.

let go of the terrors and shame beaten into you by a 15 month social experiment in conformity and submission to authority that would have had even the ethicists that oversaw the milgram experiments saying “wow, that’s a bit over the line.”

step out of the house of horrors and back onto rational ground.

help others do the same.

it’s the only way this ends.

and you’ll be glad you did.