Gordon Robinson | Narcissists, whackos and Professor Bumbledore

The past two and a half years have been, well, educational.

Mostly, it’s been a refresher course regarding most persons’ attitudes and priorities. The COVID-19 pandemic during the pre-vaccine; post-vaccine and now endemic phase of the virus has stripped bare the illusion of humanity and proven homo-not-so-sapiens, in overwhelming numbers, to be self-centred, materialistic and cavalier at a level of senseless, counter-productive perversity that’s almost suicidal. The scope of humans’ inhumanity to other humans has been breathtaking.

Even before vaccines provided a high level of protection from infection (especially with early variants) and severe illness (from all variants), we were bombarded daily with news reports of imbecilic defenders of “freedom” abusing persons who asked them to be masked to enter businesses. This super-spreader of stupidity infected even the pinnacle of some national governments, including the USA and Brazil.

It led me to ask Oxford English Dictionary to add a new word:

Freedumb: The belief that your personal freedom outweighs others’ personal safety.

Then the vaccines came. I felt that, at last, there was something, endorsed by scientists worldwide, we could all unite around. After all, vaccines have successfully eradicated horrific diseases in the past so, whoopee, here they come to the rescue again!

What could possibly go wrong? Well, even I underestimated how effectively narcissistic, narrow-minded political opportunists combined with insanely dogma-driven religious whack jobs could raise the stupidity quotient in so many otherwise intelligent citizens who were also fans, followers or flock of these self-lovers and whackos.

All of a sudden, right-wing politicians were sounding the ‘freedumb’ trumpet and self-appointed messengers of God were telling us that vaccines were “mark of the beast”.

Unfortunately, an ultra-connected world is feverishly fed American propaganda daily. THAT didn’t help. Thank God Fox News wasn’t around in the 1950s because we’d still be battling polio. I can’t wait for Kevin Smith’s (another USA-grown maniac) book to be posthumously published (working title ‘How you can reject modern medicine and die a medieval peasant’).

So, American right-wing political and evangelical misinformation combined with record-breaking Jamaican political incompetence resulted in 75 per cent of Jamaicans unvaccinated. This has kept us dying from COVID-19 at unnecessarily high rates and delayed full economic recovery.

On August 2, I opined Government had clearly “dropped its hand” regarding its long abandoned “balancing lives and livelihoods” mantra:

“With regard to ‘lives’, Government’s policy seems to be let the Devil take the hindmost. Yet I keep hearing ‘no problem, Mon’. There’s ‘natural immunity’ (which wanes faster than vaccine efficacy); early treatments; and those of us who eat too much and exercise too little are more to blame for COVID deaths than the virus. Vaccines are damned with faint praise by highlighting (with some justification) declining efficacy and surging infections in highly vaccinated countries to validate tired surrender.”

So President Joe Buddy tested positive for COVID; then negative after isolating; then positive again, all in nine days. That loud flapping noise you hear is “natural immunity” flying out the window. Don’t bother blaming short-term Paxlovid treatment because studies have found Paxlovid rebound in one to two per cent of patients – the same as the placebo group.

Folks, corona viruses are ALL as adept at re-infection as a mother-in-law at unwanted visits. Like mother-in-law, each follow up visit from corona viruses lasts longer and is more traumatic than before.

I also blamed vaccine manufacturers:

“Vaccine manufacturers must accept plenty blame for tired surrender. …They’ve lazily ignored the virus’ attack-is-the-best-form-of-defence mutations, which developed new protein spikes that avoid natural and vaccine immunities alike. Despite the virus’ continued advance, vaccine manufacturers haven’t tweaked original vaccines to combat new strains.”

Good news. Two weeks later, the New York Times’ Jenny Gross reported (headline ‘U.K. Approves COVID Booster Vaccine That Targets Two Variants’):

“Britain is the first country to approve the Moderna-made vaccine which generated a strong immune response against the original virus and the Omicron variant ...

In clinical trials, the vaccine generated a good immune response to these two variants as well as the BA.4 and BA.5 sub-variants in adults.”

As it did with Astra-Zeneca, UK is once again leading the anti-COVID fight.

Is Jamaica ordering the ‘new’ vaccine? Of course not! Instead, Professor Bumbledore (aka Health Ministry) announced the availability of second boosters (three months late). But, in a country with less than two per cent boosted and thousands of vaccines dumped monthly, Bumbledore has limited the distribution of second boosters to over 60s.

I keep saying, despite scientists insisting the virus spreads mostly through the mouth and nose, we know it’s the ass’ rear end that’s the problem.

Peace and love!

Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.