Anti-vaccination sentiment is still spreading in our communities. People have lost faith in the authorities and in the medical field, and they are finding their own way. Unfortunately for them, the decision not to vaccinate their children will backfire.

Just this morning I read that there is a Measles outbreak ongoing in Ohio. For months now I've been reading about a resurgence of polio in New York. And of course Military personnel will no longer be required to take the Covid vaccine. The backlash against vaccination (what people perceive as an assault on bodily autonomy) will result in an increased death rate from vaccinatable diseases.

It's not an easy question, when and how to vaccinate. I don't exactly trust the official recommendations either, because I know that the guidelines are created by a council packed with representatives of Big Pharma. I am sympathetic with those who are skeptical. And I see the writing on the wall. If you don't vaccinate smartly, you are destined to be diseased.

There are a lot of anti-vax media personalities and websites that are spreading a bunch of BS. You can't believe everything you read on the internet. Of course you know that. But you also can't believe everything you read that you already agree with. If you seek "information" that supports your current position about ANYTHING, you could be allowing Confirmation Bias to steer you into a trap.

Rather than seeking supportive information, seek out the information that tries to prove your belief wrong. Test your belief. Check your understanding against what the experts say. Check your medical knowledge against the CDC, or come bounce it on me. I am not parroting anyone's sound bytes, I am a true student of medicine. I am interested in scientific studies or background information that sheds light on the hard questions.

The problem with the anti-vax craze is that a lot of the so-called "information" is coming from people who have zero science background and very little understanding of the actual risks and benefits of vaccination. Unfortunately for the anti-vaxxers, their sources are misguided and downright wrong about a lot of things. And they and their kids will suffer and die as a result.

I am always one to look for silver linings, and this particular situation has just one, which is that a reduction in the human population would be a quick way to reduce our impact on the planet. We are destroying habitat and polluting air and water at such a rate as to cause massive suffering and death in the not-so-distant future. Anti-vaxxers are offering to remove themselves and their children from the human population which will be a boon to future generations who survive diseases because their ancestors were vaccinated.

A healthy friend of mine had Covid over the last couple of weeks.  She described it as the worst sore throat she'd ever had. When she described the testing that she had done it became apparent that she didn't know that DAY 5 is the day that you are likely to test positive--at least with the last few variants.  She tested herself during the first 4 days when she felt sick, and thought she didn't have Covid. She even went in for PCR testing.  All came back negative until day 5.

Experts say that the best way to home test is to test twice (or more) once you have symptoms, 48 hours apart. That's two DAYS apart, right?  Lots of people test just once when they get symptoms, and consider that test definitive.  It isn't. If that one test negative they think they have something other than Covid, but that could be a terrible mistake.

The message here is Don't Trust negative Covid tests before day 5 of feeling symptomatic. If you test negative after feeling sick for 3 days, and spend time with someone who then spends time with an elderly relative, you could conceivably cause the elderly person to die. 

This is why the new normal is to stay home if you feel sick.  Don't go to work.  Don't go be social.  Take the opportunity to rest and relax.  You know you need it anyway.  Take the time and slow the spread.

Oh and by the way I got my bivalent booster 2 days ago and I did not have nearly the massive response that I had to previous vaccines.  To me this means that I have not yet had the new variants that they are vaccinating us against.  This vaccine is FREE and it's available NOW and I recommend that as many people get it as possible, because it is still our best tool for limiting severe disease and death during the spikes that are going to come this winter. 

Go get your bivalent Covid vaccine, says this naturopath.  Why does this naturopath say get a vaccine?  I don't say you should get all vaccines, I say you should pick and choose.  Get this one because it will save a lot of lives. Because the benefits of the previous Covid vaccines far outweigh the risks, according to the science.  And believe me, I do look at the science.  I am even trained to recognize bogus "science" which is definitely out there.

Should you listen to the CDC?  I say yes.  They are on the comeback from a period of political distortion and I trust them more now than I did last year.

CDC GUIDANCE ABOUT COVID-19 FLIES IN THE FACE OF SCIENCE
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/17/health/coronavirus-testing-cdc.html
Several of our most important government agencies have fallen prey to anti-science populist politics and can no longer be trusted to sort through the information and tell us what to believe or trust.  We need good-faith gatekeepers of information in this age of excessive and some false "speech" clouding every question.  In this case the scientists (especially the ones that study infectious disease) are telling us that to contain this pandemic we need to test EVERYBODY and make sure that all the asymptomatic carriers are quarantined.  The CDC just issued a report saying that we shouldn't be tested unless we have symptoms.  This is what we have been doing, and it has resulted in nearly 200,000 dead in this country alone.  If we continue with this method, and with the likely efficacy of vaccines being in the neighborhood of 50%, and with the likely avoidance of the vaccine by somewhere around 50% of the population, we can expect A MILLION DEAD in this country alone.  So the CDC, in line with the authoritarian administration that has perverted it, is setting us up for an ongoing pandemic disaster.  Best get some great time outdoors with friends this fall while the weather is still good, because when wintertime comes smart people will keep their indoor social circles tiny.  TINY.