For me, it wasn't anything spiritual, I'm afraid. In the beginning, I bought into the fear - masked up, waited impatiently for the vaccine to be available to everyone. Fortunately, Germany was slow to distribute the stuff at first, I think there was some problem with coordinating orders of sufficient magnitude with the other EU members or something. That gave me enough time to notice some inconsistencies.
First was the masking rule in the supermarkets that was enforced for everyone except the cashiers. They were sitting behind these plexiglass screens, sure, but if this was an airborn virus, it would simply drift over and behind the barrier, right? As for the masks, if I can sniff the cigarette smoke and the perfume of the people waiting in line with me - six foot distance and all - doesn't that mean that a virus that is as small as these molecules carrying those smells can also get through my mask? Plus the mask doesn't sit airtight over my face, so the virus could get through the gaps.
Yet despite all these insufficient measures, none of the cashiers, nor I, got sick during 2020.
When the vaccine did arrive, I wasn't in one of the priority groups (although I was deemed 'essential', lol, so no hiding in my home for me. That was another thing I noticed, that I didn't get sick although I was forced to come to work). By then I had reverted to my usual attitude of wait and see how others do with the novelty before I commit to trying it, too. I've never been an early adopter of new technology, because I see it as overprized and underdeveloped, and I don't have enough money to buy stuff before the kinks have been worked out. At this point, I had also read statistics of who was primarily affected by severe illness from the virus, and had determined that I was neither old, overweight, or suffering from comorbidities, and that my risk of contracting a severe form of illness was below 1%. I was in no hurry to get vaccinated.
Then news hit that a young woman had died from a sinus vein aneurism which was an averse reaction to, I believe, the Moderna vaccine (it was neither J&J nor the Pfizer stuff). Curiosly, at that time the media didn't yet try to bury admissions of that kind. She had suffered from migraines and so had mistaken the severe headache for another migraine attack. I suffer from migraines, too, so this hit me hard - this could've been me.
So I was already determined by that point not to get vaccinated. I still had that 'moment of clarity', that felt quite different from all the observation and rational conclusion processes I described above. I work as a vet tech, and one day, as I was walking one of our canine patients, a thought emerged in my mind a propos of nothing: "If I didn't hear about this pandemic in the media all the time, I'd have no idea we're even having one." My observed reality provided NO indication that the country was swept by a wave of a new and deadly illness. People were not dying left and right, services and commerce were shutting down due to governmental decree, not because staff was dying off. It was on that patch of grass behind our practice, in a very quiet moment, that I realized that something was very, very strange about the whole thing.
And then almost all countries around the globe implemented the same measures in lockstep. Reading international news, I realized even their announcements were phrased exactly the same way. That was when 'strange' turned to 'creepy'...
So, I didn't get vaccinated. I couldn't go anywhere because the Unclean were locked out of Christmas markets, cafes, restaurants, cinemas, even shops that weren't supermarkets - I got new winter shoes because ALDI had some on offer, otherwise I would've been out of luck, or forced to order online. I had to shove a test up my nose every day, because my boss was sure that the government would send someone to oversee if we were doing those tests every day (nobody ever showed up, of course - but that's how you get people to comply). At some point, we came this close to a general vaccination mandate, and I got legal insurance because I was determined to fight for my bodily autonomy tooth and nail, but that was the low point where I was terrified that I'd lose my job and wouldn't even be eligible for welfare aid: they had already decreed that if you're unvaccinated and fall ill with covid, you wouldn't get paid for the duration of your illness (which you usually are).
The really scary thing is how they just canceled every legal and constitutional right, dispersed the few, feeble protests, and then went right back to business as normal afterwards - and the wider population just went along with it, both times. I realized that I'm part of a minority that will always be steamrolled, and probably carted off to some camp or other, when totalitarianism ever rears its head again. And it WILL come, because now they learned that they can do it, and 80% of the population will go along with it, and 20% of those will zealously enforce the new regime...
The most depressing thing is that I don't even have any idea where I'd emigrate to if that happens. The whole West flipped like this. The old 'if I won the lottery' game is totally pointless now, because even if I won a million Euros, the US seems to be as bad as Germany, as France, as Ireland, as Iceland, as ... well, not as bad as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, tbh. Those three took the cake.
So I stay and hope for the best. Sometimes I wonder if this is how people in the provinces felt as Rome was beginning to fall. Stay where they are, with barbarians coming across the Wall in regular intervals and raiding the countryside, or move back to the center of the Empire, where the barbarians are far away, but madness is even more rampant?
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branchandroot
Re: The Epiphany (A reflection thread on pandemic choices)
Date: 2023-07-19 10:55 am (UTC)First was the masking rule in the supermarkets that was enforced for everyone except the cashiers. They were sitting behind these plexiglass screens, sure, but if this was an airborn virus, it would simply drift over and behind the barrier, right? As for the masks, if I can sniff the cigarette smoke and the perfume of the people waiting in line with me - six foot distance and all - doesn't that mean that a virus that is as small as these molecules carrying those smells can also get through my mask? Plus the mask doesn't sit airtight over my face, so the virus could get through the gaps.
Yet despite all these insufficient measures, none of the cashiers, nor I, got sick during 2020.
When the vaccine did arrive, I wasn't in one of the priority groups (although I was deemed 'essential', lol, so no hiding in my home for me. That was another thing I noticed, that I didn't get sick although I was forced to come to work). By then I had reverted to my usual attitude of wait and see how others do with the novelty before I commit to trying it, too. I've never been an early adopter of new technology, because I see it as overprized and underdeveloped, and I don't have enough money to buy stuff before the kinks have been worked out. At this point, I had also read statistics of who was primarily affected by severe illness from the virus, and had determined that I was neither old, overweight, or suffering from comorbidities, and that my risk of contracting a severe form of illness was below 1%. I was in no hurry to get vaccinated.
Then news hit that a young woman had died from a sinus vein aneurism which was an averse reaction to, I believe, the Moderna vaccine (it was neither J&J nor the Pfizer stuff). Curiosly, at that time the media didn't yet try to bury admissions of that kind. She had suffered from migraines and so had mistaken the severe headache for another migraine attack. I suffer from migraines, too, so this hit me hard - this could've been me.
But when the authorities began to make wildly differing recommendations who should get that vaccine in response to this incident - no women under 50 years of age; scratch that, no women over 50 years of age; no, only men should get it - I realized that they had no idea what they were doing. They were just trying things - ON US! We were lab rats for a gigantic experiment! And nobody in my social circle agreed with me, which shocked me most of all. It was so obvious, but they were all scared to contract the terrible illness and die from it. Everyone in my workplace got the vaccine except me. My sister, initially hesitant, was persuaded by her fiancé to take it. She also got the booster...
So I was already determined by that point not to get vaccinated. I still had that 'moment of clarity', that felt quite different from all the observation and rational conclusion processes I described above. I work as a vet tech, and one day, as I was walking one of our canine patients, a thought emerged in my mind a propos of nothing: "If I didn't hear about this pandemic in the media all the time, I'd have no idea we're even having one." My observed reality provided NO indication that the country was swept by a wave of a new and deadly illness. People were not dying left and right, services and commerce were shutting down due to governmental decree, not because staff was dying off. It was on that patch of grass behind our practice, in a very quiet moment, that I realized that something was very, very strange about the whole thing.
And then almost all countries around the globe implemented the same measures in lockstep. Reading international news, I realized even their announcements were phrased exactly the same way. That was when 'strange' turned to 'creepy'...
So, I didn't get vaccinated. I couldn't go anywhere because the Unclean were locked out of Christmas markets, cafes, restaurants, cinemas, even shops that weren't supermarkets - I got new winter shoes because ALDI had some on offer, otherwise I would've been out of luck, or forced to order online. I had to shove a test up my nose every day, because my boss was sure that the government would send someone to oversee if we were doing those tests every day (nobody ever showed up, of course - but that's how you get people to comply). At some point, we came this close to a general vaccination mandate, and I got legal insurance because I was determined to fight for my bodily autonomy tooth and nail, but that was the low point where I was terrified that I'd lose my job and wouldn't even be eligible for welfare aid: they had already decreed that if you're unvaccinated and fall ill with covid, you wouldn't get paid for the duration of your illness (which you usually are).
The really scary thing is how they just canceled every legal and constitutional right, dispersed the few, feeble protests, and then went right back to business as normal afterwards - and the wider population just went along with it, both times. I realized that I'm part of a minority that will always be steamrolled, and probably carted off to some camp or other, when totalitarianism ever rears its head again. And it WILL come, because now they learned that they can do it, and 80% of the population will go along with it, and 20% of those will zealously enforce the new regime...
The most depressing thing is that I don't even have any idea where I'd emigrate to if that happens. The whole West flipped like this. The old 'if I won the lottery' game is totally pointless now, because even if I won a million Euros, the US seems to be as bad as Germany, as France, as Ireland, as Iceland, as ... well, not as bad as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, tbh. Those three took the cake.
So I stay and hope for the best. Sometimes I wonder if this is how people in the provinces felt as Rome was beginning to fall. Stay where they are, with barbarians coming across the Wall in regular intervals and raiding the countryside, or move back to the center of the Empire, where the barbarians are far away, but madness is even more rampant?