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Dealing with propaganda


myata

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How to deal with propaganda? Pare it, peel it, scrape it, bring it up into the light, make it obvious. Let's take this piece, for example: "As delta surges among unvaccinated focus on science..." (CBC).

The title seems innocent enough, sure science, but it already plants a misconception that it's the problem is of the unvaccinated only, "an epidemics of unvaccinated", foregone conclusion, wait, based on what argument or evidence? The evidence, peer reviewed and published in several countries around the world on the contrary shows that infections are growing among vaccinated as well, so could be, by any chance, surging among them as well? Ah, such an innocent omission.

Then, thanks to honest science, we know that for the vaccinated the risk of being infected with the delta variant is 4.6 times lower, and including unreported or non symptomatic cases, possibly / likely significantly higher than that (because in reality there would be more of infection cases than those that were reported). It means that approximately one quarter to one third of the vaccinated population could produce infections at the same rate as the non vaccinated one. Looking at the recent numbers one can see (not deep science, just Grade 3 arithmetic) that there has to be up to six times more of vaccinated than non vaccinated without strong protection for another reason. So what does it do to the number of infections? 6 times the population divided by 4 times lower risk is 1.5. That's 50% more cases overall that can be expected from the vaccinated. Sorry whose epidemics did you say it was?

But here it goes:

"With the majority of COVID-19 cases appearing in unvaccinated people, experts say it's as important as ever to increase vaccination rates across Canada to stem a delta-driven fourth wave" (by the way spell checker here does not like "unvaccinated" but one of the leading news sources in the country surely knows better).

Remember, one quarter to one third of the vaccinated population will produce infections at the same rate as the non vaccinated? Now, under drums and fanfare, drive those pesky "unvaccinated" ones down to the absolute minimum even to holy zero itself. What will happen to the infections? Still, one quarter to one third of the vaccinated population will produce infections at the same rate as the non vaccinated. Without addressing the cause, still significant infection rate in the vaccinated yes you can make non vaccinated into new huguenots and with time and glorious effort perhaps drive them all the way to zero. But Grade 3 math tells us very clearly that it wouldn't reduce the cases to zero, without understanding and addressing the problem. So are you trying to understand it or hoping that by marching and drumming you'll make it somehow fix itself?

And yes that's it, all the explanation you're going to get from the experts. Remember that experts said earlier about: travel from Wuhan; masks; lockdowns; returning to normal as result of vaccinations (even now ads run on TV without masks) and now you can have complete confidence that it'll work out exactly as said this time around. Without any meaningful explanation. With no supporting arguments that can be shown and defended. And the rest of the informative piece, all 36 sentences of it out of 37 are about how to convince someone to vaccinate. Sorry, you were expecting focus on science?

Of course this is just propaganda. Is it any different from Soviet, CPC, etc propaganda, in the form or justification (always and by default, greater good)? If so I'd like to see how and where. It misleads, does not answer any questions, sidetracks and ignores them and presses its own agenda based on proclaimed assumption that is never substantiated in any meaningful way. Why, with a very high level of voluntary compliance it is important to invest efforts and resources into propaganda that will not do much to change views of those who either cannot or decided not to do it voluntarily? Why is it not better to invest it into understanding what is going on, and based on this knowledge find effective solutions that can work now instead of chasing alternating panaceas to an uncertain but certainly bright new dawn, future?

Well questions can be asked, many and for a long time. There's one problem though: no one is listening and so don't expect many answers. Looking for answers is not what propaganda is for.

Edited by myata
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