New study confirms the bleeding obvious: most COVID-jabbed people don’t read science

Well, I'll be buggered.

An analysis of a survey of the German public, published in BMJ Open on 18 August 2022, has found that people who accepted a COVID injection are more likely to hold beliefs about COVID-19, and the injection itself, that accord with the dominant narrative but are factually wrong, and are less likely to read original scientific publications than those with no intention to get jabbed.

As my dear old Dad used to say, back in the days before political correctness eviscerated our vernacular, “Well, I’ll be buggered!”

[The Macmillan online dictionary provides a helpful translation, for those unfamiliar with British/Australian idiom:]

I mean, it’s not like I’ve been spending the last two-and-a-half-plus years reading scientific papers about SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 injections, analysing and explaining them in my articles, and sending letters summarising these analyses to politicians only to receive evidence-free appeals to authority from their office dogsbodies.

It’s not like I’ve had any conversations with injection zealots in which I’ve calmly presented data from government websites, showed them studies, and patiently explained how the clinical trials weren’t even set up to determine whether the COVID-19 injections were capable of preventing infection, transmission, or serious illness, only to be met with a glassy-eyed stare and a recitation of the Branch Covidian catechism: COVID-19 is a deadly disease… the only way out of the pandemic is for everyone to get vaccinated… the vaccines are safe and effective… anyone who questions this is an antivaxxer.

And it’s not like any of you have had the same experience. Here’s a list of strategies that one of my Substack subscribers has used to try to break the hypnotic trance:

<sarcasm off>

Right, now that I’ve vented just a little teensy bit of my FREAKIN’ GINORMOUS FRUSTRATION AT THE ABSOLUTELY TRANSPARENT STUPIDITY OF THE DOMINANT NARRATIVE and the PAINFULLY EVIDENT INCAPACITY OF THOSE WHO STILL BELIEVE IT TO THINK THEIR WAY OUT OF A WET PAPER BAG – oops, sorry about that; I might have a bit more venting to do, in private – let’s dig into the new study, which has the straightforward title (very German, that) ‘Why do people consent to receiving SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations? A representative survey in Germany‘.

The researchers used a professional market survey company to survey 1032 respondents who were socioeconomically representative of the German population. Their aim was to identify the major motivations for receiving, intending to receive, or intending not to receive a COVID-19 injection, and the factors that best predicted respondents’ actions and intentions with respect to these injections.

The survey was conducted during the last week of November and the first week of December 2021, by which time, according to official figures, 69.3 per cent of Germans were “fully vaccinated” (back in those halcyon days when having two jabs earned you that hallowed status).

Almost 83 per cent of the respondents had already received one or more COVID-19 injections, 4.6 per cent were currently uninjected but intended to be injected in the near future, and the remaining 12.5 per cent were uninjected and intended to stay that way.

Of those who had already received a COVID-19 injection, or intended to get one soon, the major factors motivating their decisions were:

1. I am afraid that an infection with the Corona-virus will create severe health problems, and I want to avoid these – 60%

2. I simply want to have a normal life again, going to restaurants, cinemas, concerts, etc. – 18.5%

3. I want to help eradicate the virus – 10.3%

4. I want to travel again – 7.9%

5. My social environment urges me (family, friends, workplace, learning or other social environment) – 3.2%

6. I do that because others do it also – 0.5%

The authors of the study provided trenchant commentary on each of these motivations. On the first factor, the fear of suffering health consequences from infection, they pointed out that

“The average age of the population in this survey is 49.6 years and the infection fatality rate for this age group is between 0.01% and 0.1%.”

Why do people consent to receiving SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations? A representative survey in Germany

Why would people who had between a one in one thousand and one in ten thousand risk of dying from viral infection be persuaded to accept an experimental injection with no long-term safety data? The researchers hazarded a guess: “This fear is likely due to media coverage and consumption.” You don’t say.

The researchers observed that motivations #2 and 4-6 did not constitute medically-justified reasons to receive a vaccine (let alone an inadequately-tested experimental product), and had nothing to do with SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19, but were instead the consequences of the deleterious impacts on people’s lives of non-evidence-based government policies.

And finally, the third-ranked motivation cannot be achieved through the use of COVID-19 injections because they do not break transmission chains – a fact that was already not just evident but acknowledged by public health authorities, including the CDC by, at the latest, early August 2021.

How could so many respondents be unaware that COVID-19 injections did sweet Fanny Adams to eradicate SARS-CoV-2, over four months after that fact had been publicly admitted? To understand that, we need to look at the researchers’ findings on factors influencing the decision to accept being injected.

While several sociodemographic factors had some predictive value – people who were older, had a higher income and lived in a smaller household were more likely to elect to get jabbed – the strongest predictive factor was a high ‘Corona Orthodoxy Score’, or COS.

This was a scale developed by the study authors, based on a previous survey of immunologists. Essentially, it rates adherence to six statements constituting the mainstream narrative about COVID-19:

• SARS-CoV-2 is more infectious than influenza

• SARS-CoV-2 infection leads to higher mortality than influenza

• COVID-19 poses a stronger challenge to the health system than influenza

• The virus is more important than the immune system in determining outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 infection

• Vaccines for COVID-19 should have been developed in an expedited process rather than following the normal sequence

• More damage was done by the virus than by non-pharmaceutical interventions (i.e. public health policies focused on containment).

I’m sure it will shock you to discover that those who scored highest on the COS were the most likely to have already been, or intended to be, jabbed. You’ll be even more startled to learn that people who used public television and radio as sources of information were more likely to accept the experimental injection. Gee, I wonder if there’s any correlation between those two.

And here’s a big surprise: “use of alternative media and use of scientific original publications as information source were negatively associated with being vaccinated”. Golly gee. So people who make the effort to go beyond the lamestream media, and who actually read scientific papers to help make an informed decision for themselves, are less likely to accept an inadequately-tested, rushed-to-market, liability-free experimental product that prevents neither infection nor transmission. Well, I’ll be buggered.

<oops, sarcasm turned itself back on again. must fix that>

Now, I hear you ask, what were the motivations of respondents who did not intend to get injected. Here, in rank order, are the outrageous reasons given by those kooky granola-crunching tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy-theorist nut-jobs:

1. I don’t want to be treated with novel pharmaceutical products whose long-term safety profile is unclear – 40.3%

2. I am afraid of side effects – 36.4%

3. I think a vaccination is not necessary – 9.3%

4. I generally don’t do what others do – 6.2% [OK, hands up all of you who would have chosen this as your principal reason – oh, I forgot, you don’t obey arbitrary orders 🤣]

5. I have heard so many scary stories – 5.4%

6. I have already had Covid19 and I am immune against it – 2.3%

Can you imagine that? People who don’t sit in front of the telly imbibing moronic government propaganda (really, could anyone who hadn’t been frontally lobotomised be taken in by the transparent lie that products that will still be in phase 3 clinical trials until 2023 could possibly be declared “safe and effective”, especially when the control group has been abolished in all of those trials) have rational concerns about the safety and long-term effects of those products. What’s that colourful expression one uses when one is very surprised about something?

<darn it, i just can’t seem to stop that sarcasm from turning itself back on. does anyone have any tips?>

As for motivation #3, maybe some of the respondents caught wind of the way the Amish were handling COVID-19:

The authors of the study provided some helpful context for the principal motivations of the unjabbed:

“The incidence of reported side effects just within the last year of using these vaccines is at least 20 times higher than for other vaccines together over the last 20 years. For instance, the German Adverse Reaction Database of the Paul-Ehrlich-Institute reports 456 cases of deaths and 54 488 reports altogether for all vaccinations, excluding COVID-19 vaccines, since 2000 (http://52625146fm.pei.de/fmi/webd/%23UAWDB, accessed on 20 December 2021) The PEI has taken its adverse reaction database offline as of 30th April 2022 in order to adapt it to the security standards necessary; it will ‘soon’ be online again; it does not say when ‘soon’ will be, while the cases of deaths reported after COVID-19 vaccines amount to 1 802 among 171 415 total reports in the most recent report of 30 September 2021 (https://www.pei.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/newsroom/dossiers/sicherheitsberichte/sicherheitsbericht-27-12-20-bis-30-09-21.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=10, accessed 20 December 2021). Thus, the reports of side effects for all vaccinations together per year over the past 20 years are 1.6% of the number of reports due to COVID-19 vaccines over the last year until end of September in Germany.”

Why do people consent to receiving SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations? A representative survey in Germany

Nothing to see here. Move along.

Here are a few more juicy morsels from the survey data:

• Respondents who cited a medical reason for getting injected were less likely to believe that the injection prevents disease but more likely to believe that it helps to prevent one from infecting others. Work that one out for yourself.

• Nearly 10% had a positive SARS-CoV-2 test after vaccination.

• 5.8% of those who had been jabbed reported that their health status was worse than before they had received their experimental shot vs 4% who said it was better. Now that’s a fantastic cost-benefit ratio.

• 30% reported some improvement in their general psychological well-being after getting jabbed, which, the authors point out, may have had something to do with no longer being excluded from all the activities that make life worth living. D’ya think?

• 16% of the injected described some kind of serious side effect, such as thrombosis, immunological dysfunction, psychological stress or lack of stamina.

On that last point, the authors explain,

“The official rate of all side effect reports according to the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut safety reports is 1.6 reports in 1000 vaccinations, or 0.16%. This is close to the 0.1% found by a systematic review of all safety data to date.43 However, the definition in those official databases of a ‘severe side effect’ is likely more restricted, compared with the descriptive one we adopted for our survey. Thus, our figure is about 100 times as high, which tallies with empirical studies that show that only 1% of all side effects are reported in adverse reaction databases.17 44–46 A review of 37 studies providing estimates of underreporting yielded a median underreporting rate of 94%.47 Taking into consideration that 16% of all vaccinated people in Germany would face serious side effects, this would amount to roughly 12 million cases.”

Why do people consent to receiving SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations? A representative survey in Germany

That cost-benefit ratio is looking better all the time.

<i give up. sarcasm is the only appropriate response to this bollocks.>

Let’s recap. Respondents to this survey who had already accepted, or intended to accept, a COVID-19 injection were primarily motivated by fear of becoming seriously ill from SARS-CoV-2 infection (an unjustified fear for the vast majority of them, but one stoked by the establishment media which formed their primary information source) and secondarily by their desire to resume normal life again in the face of restrictions imposed not by the virus, but by the very governments pushing them to get jabbed with a liability-free experimental product.

They were more likely to hold beliefs about COVID-19 and the injections that were factually incorrect but congruent with the orthodoxy promoted by government and its supplicant media outlets.

And they were less likely to read scientific papers or consume alternative media sources to inform themselves.

Meanwhile, those who shunned the jabs cited concerns about the lack of long-term safety data (which is incontestable), fear of suffering a serious side effect (which 16 per cent of the jabbed reported), and the lack of necessity for any vaccine (which seems eminently justified given a) the availability of effective treatments for COVID-19 and b) the stunning lack of efficacy of the jabs).

I’m reminded of that MIT paper, ‘Viral Visualizations: How Coronavirus Skeptics Use Orthodox Data Practices to Promote Unorthodox Science Online’, which – as I wrote about in The death of science? Part 2 – observed with evident alarm that “coronavirus skeptics” and “anti-maskers” were using rigorous scientific methods to obtain accurate data and conduct careful, unbiased analyses of it. You know, like actual scientists are supposed to do.

Except – the horror, the horror – these dangerous citizen scientists (and no few professional ones, including Nobel laureate Michael Levitt), who “often create polished counter-visualizations that would not be out of place in scientific papers, health department reports, and publications like the Financial Times”, were “us[ing] orthodox scientific methods to make unorthodox arguments, beyond the pale of the scientific establishment.” Yes, you read that right. They were diligently using the scientific method to come to wrongthink conclusions. How dare they. They should just Follow the Science™.

All sarcasm aside, I’m pleased that BMJ Open has had the courage and integrity to publish this study. Unlike the MIT grifters who authored the waste-of-cyberspace paper on “anti-maskers” who “believe that science is a process, and not an institution” (yes, they actually intended that as a criticism), the authors of this analysis are motivated by genuine concern for the appalling toll that oppressive containment policies and unethically coerced experimental injection drives have had on their fellow Germans, and indeed people all over the world.

Will the publication of this study in a reputable medical journal force politicians to abandon the pointless and highly destructive biosecurity theatre that they’ve imposed on us for almost three years, since the manufactured COVID crisis began? Of course not. Will it persuade your Branch Covidian friends and family members that you’re not a whack-job for not wanting to be injected with a novel product that prevents neither infection nor transmission and has no long-term safety data? Don’t be silly.

But I guess there’s some comfort in knowing that you’re not alone in sensing that there’s something very rotten in the state of public health policy, and some sense of vindication that you’re definitely not crazy. So go ahead and enjoy your “I told you so!” moment, if it helps to re-energise you for the long drawn-out struggle that we face, to restore honesty to the scientific endeavour and sanity to public policy.

For information on my private practice, please visit Empower Total Health. I am a Certified Lifestyle Medicine Practitioner, with an ND, GDCouns, BHSc(Hons) and Fellowship of the Australasian Society of Lifestyle Medicine.