In my most recent Spectator column, I describe my recent bout of Covid and why it has almost – almost – persuaded me to get vaccinated.
While I was ill I read the following sentence in an article by Ed West, which put the wind up me: “An unvaccinated man in his fifties has about a one-in-150 chance of dying if he catches Covid, and is much more likely still to be hospitalised, put in ICU and left prematurely aged.” He didn’t give a source for the one in 150 figure, but that was on the high side, surely? Concerned, I commissioned a professor of epidemiology to calculate Omicron’s infection fatality rate for my Daily Sceptic website and he came up with 0.04 per cent, or one in 2,500, a figure that includes the vaccinated. Slightly higher for men in their fifties no doubt, but not one in 150.
However, the second part of Ed’s sentence – that the unvaccinated are more likely to end up in ICU than the vaccinated – is probably right. Was that where I was headed? I know, I know. My chances of being hospitalised, let alone put on a ventilator, were low, assuming it was Omicron. But what if it wasn’t? Or what if it was and I just got unlucky? I could picture the newspaper headline: “Unvaccinated lockdown sceptic in intensive care with severe Covid.” It wouldn’t be long before the BBC’s Clive Myrie was standing at the end of my bed, microphone in hand, asking me how I felt about not being jabbed.
This, for me, is the best argument against remaining unvaccinated. Not the risk of being in ICU and left ‘prematurely aged’ or worse, but the absolute certainty that if that happened I would be ridiculed mercilessly by my enemies. Totally undeserved, of course. I’m dubious about the effectiveness and durability of the Covid vaccines and concerned about the lack of medium- and long-term safety data, but I think of myself as a ‘vaccine sceptic’ rather than an ‘anti-vaxxer’ – and even that is over-stating it, as I’ve got nothing against the MMR. Nevertheless, you can bet your bottom dollar that if I was hospitalised with the virus I would be branded a “leading anti-vaxxer” and pilloried accordingly. In the eyes of the vaccine enthusiasts, anyone who expresses the slightest smidgen of doubt is a science-denying ‘conspiracy theorist’ and if they’re laid low by COVID-19 that’s divine justice.
Worth reading in full, obviously.
Stop Press: I’ve just been interviewed by Brendan O’Neill for his podcast to mark the second anniversary of the Free Speech Union. You can listen that here.
Discussion
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Toby here is some good advice – stop worrying about what wankers think. All these people – these jabbed enemies who want to drag you down into their cesspit of lies and fraudulent science and brainwashing and fear based on the word of criminals – are morons who are generally deficient in spirituality and connection to God. There is no sound reason for you to sacrifice your body to the devil and his latest scam. Theoretical arguments based on what would have happened is the same warped thinking that believes the work of Neil Ferguson is valuable. Severe respiratory illness is horrific and can be up there with the worst experiences in life. If you were to theoretically get ill, the most worrying thing as we have learned from John O Looney is that the British State will try to coerce you into taking Remdesevir or being ventilated – in other words they may do things that decrease your chances of survival. You are part of a movement which wants to see the best and cheapest and most effective treatments every time – not our people turned into Human2.0 labrats for the provably criminal pharma cartel and governemnt stooges getting… Read more »
Your answer to Clive Myrie would be “My blog is ‘Lockdown Sceptics’ not ‘Vaccine Sceptics’ so shove that microphone up your arse”
I recommend everyone to read Real Anthony Fauci by Bobby Kennedy Jr. On chapther 3 he explains how Ivermectin could have saved 80 percent of deaths Worldwide. This book have opened my eyes. I now know that, 90% of all medicine is not for anything else than profit for them. Low profit and effective medicines are bashed and marketed as ineffective because they go against their narrative and profit plans. One of them is wonder drug Ivermectin. I see that everyday people search for it but can’t find a place to obtain. You can get yours by visiting https://ivmpharmacy.com
Anyone else read about vaccination centres closing due to criminal investigations by police?
Get yourself an El Salvador covid kit. You will be fine.
I am simply amazed that, given all that is now out there and all that we now know, from so many honest and trusted medical and scientific authorities, those not sponsored by Gates, that supposed intelligent people are still taking seriously and even swallowing the official narrative by playing the prescribed game they have so obviously prepared for us.
Simply amazed. Conformity is so obviously a very powerful force against reason.
Reason doesn’t infect everyone with its dangerous tentacles.
But yes: we were wrong to rate people higher than conformists.
They just cannot SEE anything wrong.
And what if I were run over by a bus if I tried to cross the road?
And what about the word ”unvaccinated” that’s now used to mean two-jabbed? And the ones ”more likely” to end up in ICU within the first two weeks after a jab, known as the unjabbed?
And those in their 50s – how many have comorbidities, or are/were obese?
And how about the argument that this is still an unlicensed drug, and no-one knows anything about its future effects, let alone its immediate ones?
And if you know you had ”It” why would you want a jab? And anyway, how did you know it wasn’t flu?
So many questions…..
Was TY ‘prompted’ to write this article by ‘others’ to promote a questioning stance vis a vis the partaking of the ‘vaccines’? The piece holds him up to ridicule on several levels. Further, are DS readers meant ( or ‘they’ hope they will) reconsider their views because TY has personal doubts/concerns? Do the ‘others’ believe he has that much influence? Obviously posts below are critical and acknowledge at the same time the huge value of the site. Has the article come as booster uptake dries up? We won’t ever know but because of the past 22 months of egregious and blatant misinformation spewed out in many media outlets, it is difficult not to question!
Strange principles to live by, but that’s journalism for you.
And 20 weeks later, your 3 jabs (because that’s what is now required) will have zero efficacy.
Fancy a fourth? How about a fifth? To potentially save embarrassment?
No-one is immortal. the best “vaccine” is to look after your own health. Lose weight; eat a decent diet; exercise; develop a decent sleep pattern; take Vit C, D, Zinc and (in the winter months) Echinacea.
I was in a similar positions last Feb, my partner tested positive and feel very ill, unable to do anything.
While I maintained my scepticism on these new vaccines and the risk with covid, my 30 year old partner was in intensive care for 5 days on mask oxygen.
I however, just lost my sense of taste for a few hours while looking after our 2 kids.
She had developed sepsis which had caused her to become so ill.
I am still in the same boat regarding coivd being overstated and stand by the data on these vaccines doing very little for most and lockdowns making deaths worse, but everyday I find myself wondering if we made the correct choice.
I would like to add, after having covid, we have not changed our way of life and continue to live normally and apart from a recent brush with a common cold, we seem must have an excellent degree of immunity.
For what it’s worth, I’m fairly sure I’ve had the virus three times since March 2020. I’m assuming I had the original variant back in March 2020, albiet relatively mildly. Tiredness and croaky voice for 10 days, lost of taste and smell. It wasn’t nice, but it wasn’t the worst thing ever.
Fast forward to November last year, I appear to have got the delta variant. This time it hit me harder. Fever, cough, somewhat laboured breathing (although I could have been hyperventilating), alongside lost of taste and smell. And then a strange UTI and a course of antibiotics after recovering from it, which I wonder was related at all…
Fast forward to now – I recently got back from a trip abroad. Came down with a slight sore throat and tested positive for covid with a PCR a few days after getting home, although lateral flow tests were all negative. My test was from Monday, so assuming today is day 5 – I can say gratefully that it’s been very mild and seems to be more consistent with reports on Omricom.
Interestingly no nasal congestion, and not much fatigue. Dry cough occasionally and a bit of a sore throat… Read more »
I agree, if the benefit outweighs the risk then I would also consider it as I also had covid last year and my partner was in the ICU with it for days.
However, I am still sceptical over if its necessary after already having a covid, and if it would compromise my immunity. We would also never be ‘fully’ vaccinated as the timescale for 2 jabs + 6 month booster would likely mean its unnecessary now we’re ‘hopefully’ towards the end of the **** show.
Completely agreed. It’s a funny beast as it seems that many have different experiences which shape their beliefs on it and I respect people’s decisions to be vaccinated if they want to be.
The sad thing is how many of the vaccinated feel it is their right to condemn the unvaccinated as stupid or selfish. Many have indeed been brainwashed and family / friends are completely under the BBC narrative spell.
Certainly at this point we can be grateful that things are looking up and I think the whole vaccination crusade will start to peter out along with the pandemic / endemic as the whole thing becomes more managable..
I remain humble after the past few years though, it would just take a new variant / virus for this whole horror show to restart.
All I want to know is when will China begin to pay reparations and take responsibility for all this?
China won’t because responsibility lies with Fauci and the US.
Hold your line Toby – I’m in the same demographic, health, vaccination and familial “boat” as you and had Covid (1st timer!) end of November – mild to medium cold for 5 days and then gone. Two positive LFTs, no PCR. I then rather generously (and inadvertently) passed it on to one of my sons and my wife. My wife laid on the sofa for a week watching Netflix and drinking lesbian teas; my son had a cold for a day and then moaned about boredom for 9 more.
During that time, I too had the same doubts, fears and quandaries as yourself – I’m only human, I have frailties and weaknesses. I’d spent 20 months campaigning against this madness – including vaccines – and now I had the deadliest widespread disease known “man”, an extinction level event without intervention, an existential threat to all life without big pharma. And I’m unprotected!!!!!
But my biggest fear was actually going into hospital, not because of my mocking detractors, but that hospitalization would push my wife – works for the NHS, double vaxxed – to disregard my vaccination decision for our 10 and 12 year old boys. I don’t get my… Read more »
here here
Where? Where?
While I sympathise with anyone in the unpleasant situation of being publicly pilloried for being hospitalised when unvaccinated, FEARING this POSSIBILITY is NO reason for getting the jab.
It’s tantamount to saying, ‘I’ll get jabbed in case I get covid.’
Fear is always a lie and should never control us.
Toby should take the Daily Sceptic’s own posted article here, to heart.
https://dailysceptic.org/2022/01/20/natural-immunity-superior-to-vaccine-immunity-cdc-study-finds/
Well, I’m 62 and hubby is a robust 70. We chose to not get vaccinated and the articles in Sceptics have, over the last 22 months, just confirmed to us we have made the right choice.
Toby Young. You’ve had, what we used to call a ‘cold’, or ‘flu’. Do what you’ve always done to get better, unless you get a visceral thrill from playing Russian roulette with an experimental gene therapy, then you will be in ICU.
How do you know you had the Rona @tobyyoung ? One of those PCR things?
you had a cold and we used to get ill before and will do so in the future.
Toby Young is an odd chap. Two years int to this ridiculous charade, he still thinks clever data anlaysts can come up with reliable percentage risk assessments about Covid-19. They cannot, for the simple reason that using any/all available covid data is pointless because none of it is actually true.
The only way of looking at this is to ask one simple question: Does Covid-19 kill or seriously affect healthy people of any age? The answer to that is no, it does not.
If it did, there would be a large percentage of dead people amongst the demographic consisting of tens-of-millions healthy Brits.
But there is no large percentage. Indeed there is no percentage at all. Covid-19 presents a zero threat to the healthy of any age. It really is as simple that.
So you almost gave up on your principles for fear not of death but of embarrassment.
We really are a peculiar species.
Not really peculiar for a paranoid person suffering from inferiority complex and outwardly inflated ego, which I think is a pretty representative diagnosis of an average anti-vaxxer.
I’ve taken every vaccine I’ve been advised to take including Flu so I resent being called an “anti-vaxxer” for point-blank refusing to take these jabs which are not, as I always point out, vaccines.
The basic fact of them is that a) they do not work b) Even the “protection” they are said to give is not proven c) You can still catch or pass on Covid. Then of course there is the really major point: once it is in your arm it invades every cell in your body and you can never remove it.
For me the fact they are untested, very unlikely to ever be fully approved and they cannot be undone is way more than enough to convince me I am right. When these things are proven to kill people over time I shall allow myself a wry smile.
Or as Bret Weinstein puts his reluctance to get vaccinated against Covid: “Not this disease, not these vaccines, not these health authorities.”
That’s showbiz, Mr Young.
Don’t get twitchy. The numbers in ICU are minute.
Do you think Toby is more embarrassed about being labelled a “porn-addict”, a “eugenicist” or an “anti-vaxxer”?
Because I think it’s only the people he wants to impress that would label him all three.
I saw this over on gab, source unknown. I think it sums things up the state of play with ‘vaccines’ very succinctly:
[“Among all the vaccines I have known in my life (diphtheria, tetanus,measles, rubella, chickenpox,hepatitis, meningitis and tuberculosis), I want to also add flu and pneumonia. I have never seen a vaccine that forced me to wear a mask and maintain my social distance, even when you are fully vaccinated. I had never heard of a vaccine that spreads the virus even after vaccination. I had never heard of rewards, discounts, incentives to get vaccinated. I never saw discrimination for those who didn’t. If you haven’t been vaccinated no one has tried to make you feel like a bad person. I have never seen a vaccine that threatens the relationship between family, colleagues and friends. I have never seen a vaccine used to threaten livelihoods, work or school. I have never seen a vaccine that would allow a 12-year-old to override parental consent. After all the vaccines I listed above, I have never seen a vaccine like this one, which discriminates, divides and judges society as it is. And as the social fabric tightens… It’s a powerful vaccine! It… Read more »
Hell, Toby, ridiculing you is what your enemies are for. Get stronger from it! Never mind the fever dream of a BBC devil with a mic at the end of your hospital bed. There will be 10 of those wretches in every dream you have if you submit to being “vaccinated” 🙂
I write this as somebody who thinks your views on eugenics and the “blueprint” are a steaming pile of sh*te.
Glad to hear you recovered. Stay strong and healthy!
Toby – thanks for the website. But sometimes, as articulately explained by multiple other commenters, you really speak out of your arse.
Take a break.
I guess I wont be the only to comment, ridicule will be forgotten in a few weeks, the injection stays with you for the rest of your – now maybe shortened – life.
Today’s newspaper is tomorrows fish wrapper.
But I guess the internet does not forget, so in 10 years time, he could still be ridiculed? I guess I do not know what people who are “famous” have to consider when conducting life “in public” and how bad it is for “your mental health”, or do I just say, in this case, you are a snowflake!
Toby, sorry to break it to you, they aren’t vaccines.
MOH is now several days out of hospital, having been admitted because of covid, and not for some other reason.
MOH is 70 years old, with poorly controlled diabetes, and was therefore in a higher risk category, and has still not been vaccinated.
It was touch and go early last week, and the confirmed Omicron infection was serious, not “just a cold,” and there were moments where I did question whether we had made the right decision to remain unvaccinated. I also had it, and while it wasn’t anywhere near as bad, it was less than the flu for, but definitely worse than a cold. It was unpleasant, but never life-threatening for me.
For someone of Toby’s age, I would not expect him to end up in hospital, let alone the ITU, unless he has serious underlying health issues he’s not admitted to.
One of the reasons for us not getting vaccinated was the experience of a friend of our who suffered from serious blood clots following the AZ jab last year, and another friend who had a minor stroke.
https://www.birpublications.org/doi/10.1259/bjrcr.20210139
Bilateral adrenal haemorrhage with renal infarction after ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 AstraZeneca vaccination
Very glad to hear YOH lives to fight another day!
But I guess those in their seventies are rarely admitted to hospital for only one reason (i.e. Omicron, as you say)? Nobody – at least, no-one sensible – is trying to claim that flu is never enough of an extra load to overcome that person’s defenses, i.e. “the straw which breaks the camel’s back.”
It seems quite harsh to say it, but people must die – imagine what the world would look like if people were not allowed to die?
Respectfully yours – I believe you have done the right thing not being “vaccinated”. Your natural protection is far superior to these experimental mRNA drugs! And they will never strictly be anything other than experimental, because the tests are being conducted in an entirely uncontrolled fashion. Soon, the drug companies will be crying out for the help and cooperation of the Scientific Control Group (i.e. the “unvaccinated”)!
Sorry if some think this unfair, but this piece reads like it was written by someone who desperately wants the whole Covid sham to be true.
Anyway, you don’t “catch” Covid; Covid is a disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus (allegedly).
Presumably you knew you ‘had’ Covid as the result of a PCR, or LFD, test, and not diagnosed in a hospital by a doctor, the diagnosis confirmed by x-ray; am I correct?
PCR and LFD tests don’t tell you if you have Covid; this is just another lie spread by the Government and the MSM. The tests (allegedly) tell you if you have the virus, NOT the disease.
What complete bollocks!
You need to start reading your colleagues’ posts, Toby.
Toby had an antibody test after his first bout of suspected covid, which confirmed he had antibodies for it, so it’s pretty certain he had it the first time.
In which case it tweaks the sums quite a lot – after all, there should be even less of a reason to use the so- called “vaccine”, even after the short-term antibodies have been chucked out.