Following the Covid rules requires the righteous enthusiasm of a religious zealot. Vaccination and accepting all booster shots is mandatory as is social distancing and wearing a mask everywhere, including indoors when eating out if required.
Avoiding Covid like the plague means unquestioning adherence to the Covid rules no matter how ineffective.
This is a story about a young woman adopting a curious zombie-like attitude after dining out with a dozen friends in Melbourne recently.
“The group of 13 was fully vaccinated, and they wore masks when they left the table where they spent about four hours together. They had followed the rules, but a few days after their joyous reunion, 11 of them with came down with COVID, making their dinner what one epidemiologist described as a “superspreader” event.”
Despite the rules failing to protect her, this privileged Victorian let loose on Melbourne’s hospitality industry strangely expects a better outcome by adopting more rules.
The Victorian government is only too happy to oblige. Unvaccinated Victorians are banned from non-essential retail stores and the government is considering mandating vaccination for 5-12-year-olds meaning unvaccinated 5-12-year-olds will also become social pariahs outside their own homes.
At the heart of the vaccination and rules is a firmly ingrained fear of dying from Covid which results in a quasi-religious adherence to Covid rule-following.
“For Ms Webster, confronting the fear and stigma attached to catching the virus was almost more challenging than the mild symptoms she experienced.”
Very reluctant to join the stigmatised social pariahs, Ms Webster is quick to state that she kept to the rules. Even though her stance defies logic, no way is she taking a position anywhere near the unvaxxed.
Because she is not at fault for contracting Covid, something or someone else must be to blame.
The actual culprit is the failure of the vaccine to protect her and her friends but that explanation is given no consideration. Instead, she becomes a self-righteous prat, blaming the restaurant staff whom she observed broke the rules.
“Ms Webster said in hindsight she would have taken more heed about risks she picked up on, like the restaurant she was in not checking vaccination status, and some wait staff not wearing masks.
“We were all sitting there, fully vaccinated … at a restaurant, in what we thought was quite a safe environment,” she said.”Nowadays I would definitely be a lot more stringent about where I’m eating out and what I’m doing.”
Following the rules when they don’t work is zombie thinking, and doubling down to produce more rules is no better. Doherty Institute epidemiologist Katherine Gibney agrees more rules are needed.
“Being in a crowded area for a long time that’s indoors, poorly ventilated and not wearing masks is one of the highest-risk things that you can do,” she said. Dr Gibney said being fully vaccinated and getting a booster shot if you were eligible were the most important ways to minimise the risk of catching the virus, and prevent serious illness if you do contract COVID-19.”
ABC News
Logic has no place in the quasi-religious zealotry of Covid rule following.
Covid rules are supposed to be temporary measures until vaccination rates achieve herd immunity.
“Herd immunity occurs when a large portion of a community (the herd) becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. As a result, the whole community becomes protected — not just those who are immune.”
Mayo Clinic
Until herd immunity is reached, Gibney says the rules will be rewritten over and over again, which should delight self-righteous Covid zombies like Ms Webster.
“COVID kind of rewrites the rule books every few months and it could still be a rocky 2022 if things don’t go the way we’d like them to go.”
ABC News
No one knows what percentage of a population with Covid antibodies achieves herd immunity. Governments are blindly sticking needles in arms hoping to reach the unknown and, to some experts, unattainable herd immunity while the virus does its business very well, which is protecting its survival by mutation.
“To win the war against this virus, we need safe, effective and cheap treatments.”
NBC News
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