8:49pm, Tuesday 26th of January 2020 worldometer Covid-19 records reads, Death: 2,159,142, Recovered: 72,553,612, Active cases: 25,889,697. Phew! It’s just for 8: 49pm, I don’t know what will read for 8:50, 9:00pm nor 9:15, if the death rate will reduce or increase, or even if people will recovere, stay stagnant or even if the active cases will increased by 7%. Now, with a stare at the back, one should remember that Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a illness caused by a novel coronavirus now called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2; formerly called 2019-nCoV), which was first identified amid an outbreak of respiratory illness cases in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. Remember that It was initially reported to the WHO on December 31, 2019. On January 30, 2020, the WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global health emergency. On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, its first such designation since declaring H1N1 influenza a pandemic in 2009.
Yet more, we also know that It is transmitted from human-to-human via droplets. When an infected person coughs or sneezes, these droplets find their way into the mouth or nostrils of another person that is within a close range. Alternatively it can be contracted by touching infected hard surfaces and using the same hands to touch the mouth, nose and eye(s). True also, there is currently no therapeutic substance accepted as a panacea for the prophylaxis of this infectious disease. As a result of this back drop, many nations have instituted fourteen (14) days quarantine for suspected cases, social distancing and border closure in an attempt to curb the spread of COVID-19. Again, at the early days of the pandemic, one should remember that there were been several conspirary theories that emanated since the disease was declared a pandemic. That as the COVID-19 crisis worsens, the world also faced or still facing a global misinformation pandemic. Conspiracy theories that behave like viruses themselves are spreading just as rapidly online as SARS-CoV-2 does offline.
You should remember the conspiracy theories of Blaming 5G, remember how Bill Gate was used as a scape goat, how many of these plots and subplots seem to involve Bill Gates, who became a new target of disinformation after gently criticizing the defunding of the World Health Organization. According to the New York Times, anti-vaxxers, members of QAnon and right-wing pundits have seized on a video of a 2015 Ted talk given by Gates, where he discussed the Ebola outbreak and warned of a new pandemic to bolster their claims he had foreknowledge of the COVID pandemic or even purposely caused it. Remember? You should also remember the escaped virus theory? The idea which was seeded originally via a slick hour-long documentary produced by the Epoch Times, an English-language news outlet based in the United States with links to the Falun Gong religious cult that has long been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The Epoch Times insists on calling COVID “the CCP virus” in all its coverage. The theory has now tipped into the mainstream, being reported in the Washington Post, the Times (UK) and many other outlets. Remember?
What of the biological weapon, remember A spicier variant is that COVID not only escaped from a lab, but it was intentionally created by Chinese scientists as a biowarfare weapon. According to Pew Research, “nearly three-in-10 Americans believe that COVID-19 was made in a lab,” either intentionally or accidentally (the former is more popular: specifically, 23 percent believe it was developed intentionally, with only 6 percent believing it was an accident). What of the theory of how the US military imported the virus? The Genetically modified crops? The pandemic is being manipulated by the ‘deep state? COVID is a plot by Big Pharma? What of the Plandemic? And many more theories, you know?
Wherein today, while the governments and health authorities have been working to contain the virus and slow down its transmission, the earlier conspiracy theories and the new hope of it vaccines. While the world is ready with two vaccines of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna’s which are authorized and recommended to prevent this disease, It is sad confirming that despite clinical trials revealing the safety and efficacy of coronavirus vaccines, a number of people in World remain hesitant about being administered with the newly developed vaccines, thereby making the fight against the Covid-19 disease even more difficult. According to a sample survey by Ipsos Mori, approximately 46% of the French, highest among other Europeans, and more than 40% of Poles and Hungarians refuse to be vaccinated with the coronavirus vaccines. Even Nigeria here, the dailypost.ng reported that the Kogi State number one citizen sees things differently. While addressing a crowd in a viral video, Bello said “the vaccine is meant to kill people instead of being a source of healing. He said “They want to use the (COVID-19) vaccines to introduce the disease that will kill you and us. God forbid”
You should have seen numbers of conspiracy theories painting the new coronavirus vaccines black, calling them Bill Gates’ efforts to insert chips into the body. Hence, Economists believe that while the 18th and 19th century reactions against vaccines were mainly religious, today’s resistance against the vaccines is due to political reasons. As elites fear and distrust the new generation of Covid vaccines, politicians believe that people will eventually agree to get vaccinated in few countries. For me, this is enough headache to discuss about the conspiracy theories and reactions from the scientists.Therein, according to Abcnews.com, Chinese state media recently stoked concerns about Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, despite rigorous trials indicating it is safe. Their government spokesperson raised the unsubstantiated theory that the coronavirus could have emerged from a U.S. military lab, giving it more credence in China. Now, as the ruling Communist Party faces growing questioning about China’s vaccines and renewed criticism of its early COVID-19 response, it is hitting back by encouraging conspiracy theories that some experts say could cause harm.
It should be noted that State media and officials are sowing doubts about Western vaccines and the origin of the coronavirus in an apparent bid to deflect the attacks. Both issues are in the spotlight because of the rollout of vaccines globally and the recent arrival of a World Health Organization team in Wuhan, China, to investigate the origins of the virus. From them, however, some of these conspiracy theories find a receptive audience at home. The social media hashtag “American’s Ft. Detrick,” started by the Communist Youth League, was viewed at least 1.4 billion times last week after a Foreign Ministry spokesperson called for a WHO investigation of the biological weapons lab in Maryland.
Outside China now, you should have seen countless comments about how these vaccines will do everything from rewriting your DNA to changing your body system. Imagine! Maybe it is believable anyways? On the issue of re writing the DNA and many other conspiracy theories, Chris Ceneto, a Scientist and researcher explained that DNA plus an enzyme generates mRNA which generates proteins and then is destroyed, as the vaccines use mRNA to generate the spike protein from the SARS-CoV2 virus. Then that mRNA is destroyed. He explained that there is no way that mRNA can reprogram your DNA. That statement comes from somebody who obviously failed high school biology class
Yet more, another theory also proclaimed that months after being vaccinated many people will develop severe immune reactions. The theory which position is that the COVID vaccines will prime the immune system in such a severe way that people will begin dying 2 months after they get the vaccination. Replying to this, the Scientist answer rules that the ‘evidence’ didn’t test the novel coronavirus (SARS-Cov2) from 2019, but the MUCH more lethal (by two orders of magnitude) SARS-CoV from 2003. This is from the CDC and the SARS-CoV (3): as almost all patients with laboratory evidence of SARS-CoV disease evaluated to date developed radiographic evidence of pneumonia by day 7-10 of illness, and most (70% -90%) developed lymphopenia. The overall case-fatality rate of approximately 10% can increase to >50% in persons older than age 60.” Meaning that the original 2003 SARS-CoV was so serious that a very high proportion of patients ended up in the ICU, which is one reason it burnt itself out so quickly as these people were so sick they could only spread it to hospital employees. In addition, this ‘evidence’ didn’t look at an mRNA/liposome vaccine like the Pfizer and Moderna products but a deactivated whole virus vaccine (two of them), a recombinant DNA vaccine (a very dangerous approach), and a virus against mouse hepatitis coronavirus. They tested the lungs of rats and ferrets on day 2 and 56 and saw significant inflammatory lung disease.
Hence Chris’s analysis opines that what’s the practical issue with how this paper is being applied? First, we have the wrong virus, second, we have the wrong vaccines, third no human subjects, and fourth, if anything like this was happening, the initial study patients who got this vaccine would be dropping like flies. For example, Moderna had enrolled 30,000 patients by Oct 22nd and is still providing the FDA with safety data. Their initial FDA submission includes follow-up through a mean of 2+ months and NONE of these types of reactions were reported (2). From the FDA approval documents, there was a 1% chance of a severe adverse reaction in both the vaccine group and placebo group.
More so, another theory being talked about is that this Vaccine only helps reduce symptoms. Responding to this, the Scientist state that these vaccines are approved by the FDA for a claim that they prevent COVID-19 infection. Both approval documents show clearly that the companies meticulously defined how they determined COVID-19 infections and severe COVID. Conclusively now, one can not reel out nor exhaust all the conspiracy theories that I’ve heard concerning the vaccines. They are overwhelming, with some almost belivable, why some are out of it.
As of December 28, 2020, large-scale (Phase 3) clinical trials are in progress or being planned for some other three COVID-19 vaccines in the United States, which are AstraZeneca, Janssen, Novavax, which means there will be variants of these vaccines and more variants of conspiracy theories. Is that? Now, 11:51pm, same Tuesday, 26th January 2021 worldometer reads further, Deaths: 2,164,126, Recovered: 72,786,191, while active cases reads 25,824,303. You should check the difference with the earlier numbers. Is it not good that we get this killing virus out of town? Its up to you.
Ogungbile Emmanuel Oludotun
