Coronavirus

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s June 2021 World edition. ‘The last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking that in the meantime everything’s fine, take off your mask, forget it,’ said Joe Biden. ‘It still matters.’ Sorry, Mr President, I disagree. After more months than I care to count of rigorously strapping a face covering across my mouth and nose, I’ve decided to shed the mask. Now, after nine maskless days, I can say that I have never felt so sensible, so liberated and so, well, attractive. In fact, I cannot recommend it enough. I first shed the mask by accident after getting slightly drunk one evening. Who cares, I thought, as I hurled myself on to the subway.

Your business may have closed, your kids still aren’t in school, nana hasn’t had a hug in 18 months, and your uncle drank himself to death from the crippling isolation — but the real tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic is that the luckless fats are feeling stigmatized again. Over the weekend the Los Angeles Times detailed the tearful struggle of being grotesquely obese in the age of COVID-19. ‘Chrystal Bougon cried after the needle went into her arm. Not because her first dose of the Moderna vaccine hurt. But because, finally, being fat actually paid off,’ the article begins. ‘Her experience with medical providers has been one incident of size stigma after another, she said, like the time she went in with a scratched cornea and was told to lose weight.

The Seychelles has become a place to watch. Known as the world’s most vaccinated nation, ahead of even Israel, a third wave of COVID is hitting the archipelago despite the fact that over 60 percent of its population has been fully vaccinated — and nearly 70 percent have received at least one shot. In April the Seychelles was hopeful it was soon to reach herd immunity. But now 456 new cases reported over three days (the population is approximately 98,000) has cooled optimism there — especially since a third of the new cases were fully vaccinated (the remainder had received only one shot or were unvaccinated). It’s perhaps too soon to draw conclusions, but it doesn’t look like good news for those hoping widespread vaccination will bring about herd immunity.

Left-wing magazine Slate took the stunning and brave step Saturday of publishing an article outlining the case for no longer wearing masks outside. 'As we’ve come to know more about the virus, as vaccinations are ramping up, and as we’re trying to figure out how to live with some level of COVID in a sustainable way, masking up outside when you’re at most briefly crossing paths with people is starting to feel barely understandable,' the author reasoned. Mask enthusiasts melted down in response, insisting that Slate's article was 'irresponsible', 'going to get people killed' and 'misleading'. Others celebrated the article as 'a good sign of progress'. A Harvard infectious disease specialist asserted, 'I am generally a hawk about maintaining rules with a clear benefit.

The widespread implementation of some kind of digital vaccine passport or ‘vaxport’ appears to be a foregone conclusion in the United States — but not if I can help it. I’m going hard against it while there’s still time. You should too. It’s a very simple question: do I trust the government, Big Tech and corporations not to abuse this power? The answer is NO. Absolutely not. And why should I? Why would anyone? I could have just stopped at ‘do I trust the government, Big Tech and corporations?’ Opposing vaccine passports seems like something that should unite people across the entire political spectrum. Over the past decade we’ve had all of these institutions sell our data, spy on us and lie to us.

The ethical case against domestic use of ‘vaccine passports’ was made with some passion in Britain before Boris Johnson’s change of heart. Matt Hancock repeatedly assured people that Britain is 'not a papers-carrying country'. Vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi said vaccine passports would be 'discriminatory'. Michael Gove promised that there were 'no plans' to introduce them. In a Westminster Hall debate, MPs from all parties lined up to say that out of principle, the minority who chose not to take the vaccine should suffer no penalty. Brits have not been told the reason for the U-turn. In theory, the UK government is taking soundings. In practice, those involved in Michael Gove’s review have been told that the decision has already been made by the PM: so they’re happening.

Pfizer and BioNTech have released some extraordinary findings from a Phase 3 trial involving 46,307 participants, between seven days and six months after a second dose was administered. The vaccine was found to have a 91.3 percent efficacy rate. These findings line up with the real world data coming out of Israel, which has used the Pfizer vaccine to inoculate its population, and reported several weeks ago that it proved 94 percent effective in preventing symptomatic illness. But on top of the overall efficacy rate came even better news: Pfizer is reporting that the ‘vaccine was 100 percent effective in preventing severe disease’ as defined by the Centers for Disease Control.