From the vantage point of September, 2026 it might seem pointless to kick Joe Biden when he’s down, but it’s more critical than ever to show what the Dem establishment is and does.
In response to a pretty dumb commenter who called me an anti-vaxxer:
I’m the furthest thing from an anti-vaxxer. I already got my flu vaccine this year and have gotten every version of the COVID vaccine that’s been released. Also, I’m upset and concerned that they don’t have a new COVID vaccine ready already this year.
We are critiquing the way the vaccine was presented — it does NOT prevent transmission; what it DOES is reduce severity of symptoms.
I’m happy to have that last part, but people were lied to and told it would do the first part, which caused people to become cynical and doubt the claims and evidence about what the vax was good for.
Now look at the informational climate. I’m far more likely to hear people spreading conspiracy theories about the vax than any kind of sensible discussion about it’s pro’s and cons and the need for seasonal updates to match the transmissions.
Honestly, do you think it was good science to stop data collection and reporting on excess deaths, COVID transmission, etc? Those were all moves made by the Biden administration that honestly are completely consistent with the kind of nonsense coming from RFK Jr in the Trump admin.
Biden’s lies and cover-ups (and mass casualties) led directly to the public being primed for RFK’s nonsense.
This comment by Bruce Wilder is also worth sharing:
"The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines were pretty good at reducing the severity of disease once infected, but they were not terribly good at preventing infection altogether and such effectiveness as they did achieve, peaked early after a booster injection and faded fairly rapidly, in a matter of weeks. Too fast a fade and once infected, the vaccinated were contagious.
"Israel achieved very high rates of vaccination early on and the rates on infection among the vaccinated reported then should have made it obvious that the COVID-19 vaccines were not capable of stopping transmission altogether.
"Encouraged to be overconfident about their partial and rapidly fading immunity to infection by being granted their special privilege to travel and gallivant, the vaccinated were, by their sheer numbers, frequent vectors of continued transmission in the U.S.
"Biden himself infamously lied about the vaccines granting immunity to infection.
"Moreover, the vaccinated were the most likely incubators or filters of variants, providing as they did an environment against which variants could test fitness to overcome vaccine immunity.
Sharing a comment from the IanWelsh site where this was co-posted in response to someone who claimed the vax would have stopped transmission if it had been universally adopted:
You are right about one thing, refusal to do things right did lead to mutation, which did make the vaxxes even less effective. But being vaccinated by itself did not stop spread.
And Biden’s terrible COVID messaging and even worse practices only fanned the flames of resistance to the vaccine and anything else having to do with the government’s approach to COVID. It was clear that what we were told early on — droplets, six feet of distance, plexiglass shields, wash your groceries — was stupid but because no one from the CDC or the administration ever came forward and told people how science’s understanding of the disease had evolved since the first weeks of the pandemic, people just stopped believing anything the government said.
But on the whole, you’ve got it backwards. These vaccines were never capable of stopping transmission — not at 50% uptake, not at 100%. That isn’t a claim about resistance; it’s about the route of administration.
An intramuscular shot produces systemic IgG, which is why it prevented severe disease so well. It does not produce mucosal IgA in the upper airway, which is what you’d need to stop someone catching and shedding a respiratory virus. Akiko Iwasaki and Eric Topol — nobody’s idea of vaccine skeptics — laid this out in Science Immunology and called the shots “leaky” for exactly that reason. It’s why they spent 2022 pleading for a nasal vaccine. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciimmunol.add9947
The data matched the mechanism. Imperial College and UKHSA found fully vaccinated people with breakthrough Delta infections had the same peak viral load as the unvaccinated, and passed it to household contacts at 25% versus 23% for unvaccinated index cases — statistically indistinguishable. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00648-4/fulltext
In the NEJM, Eyre’s study of 146,000 traced contacts found the transmission benefit was already smaller for Delta than for Alpha, and faded within months. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116597
And it was never tested. Pfizer’s and Moderna’s Phase 3 endpoint was symptomatic disease. Transmission was not an endpoint, and the FDA’s own briefing document said further study would be needed to assess it.
Smallpox and measles were eliminable because those vaccines block infection and those viruses have no animal reservoir. SARS-CoV-2 established itself in white-tailed deer — over 100 separate spillovers from humans, sustained deer-to-deer spread, and documented spillback to people (via Nature). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04353-x
The vaccines did the thing they could do: they cut death, substantially. The mandates were sold on a thing they were never able to do.
Goddammit I keep posting as myself instead of Nat Wilson Turner. Dang nom de blogs are hard to keep straight.
In response to a pretty dumb commenter who called me an anti-vaxxer:
I’m the furthest thing from an anti-vaxxer. I already got my flu vaccine this year and have gotten every version of the COVID vaccine that’s been released. Also, I’m upset and concerned that they don’t have a new COVID vaccine ready already this year.
We are critiquing the way the vaccine was presented — it does NOT prevent transmission; what it DOES is reduce severity of symptoms.
I’m happy to have that last part, but people were lied to and told it would do the first part, which caused people to become cynical and doubt the claims and evidence about what the vax was good for.
Now look at the informational climate. I’m far more likely to hear people spreading conspiracy theories about the vax than any kind of sensible discussion about it’s pro’s and cons and the need for seasonal updates to match the transmissions.
Honestly, do you think it was good science to stop data collection and reporting on excess deaths, COVID transmission, etc? Those were all moves made by the Biden administration that honestly are completely consistent with the kind of nonsense coming from RFK Jr in the Trump admin.
Biden’s lies and cover-ups (and mass casualties) led directly to the public being primed for RFK’s nonsense.
This comment by Bruce Wilder is also worth sharing:
"The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines were pretty good at reducing the severity of disease once infected, but they were not terribly good at preventing infection altogether and such effectiveness as they did achieve, peaked early after a booster injection and faded fairly rapidly, in a matter of weeks. Too fast a fade and once infected, the vaccinated were contagious.
"Israel achieved very high rates of vaccination early on and the rates on infection among the vaccinated reported then should have made it obvious that the COVID-19 vaccines were not capable of stopping transmission altogether.
"Encouraged to be overconfident about their partial and rapidly fading immunity to infection by being granted their special privilege to travel and gallivant, the vaccinated were, by their sheer numbers, frequent vectors of continued transmission in the U.S.
"Biden himself infamously lied about the vaccines granting immunity to infection.
"Moreover, the vaccinated were the most likely incubators or filters of variants, providing as they did an environment against which variants could test fitness to overcome vaccine immunity.
"The eagerness with which self-regarding idealists can come with faulty rationales to bully and coerce others never ceases to amaze me." https://www.ianwelsh.net/joe-bidens-three-genocides-in-four-years-part-1-covid/comment-page-1/#comment-171976
Sharing a comment from the IanWelsh site where this was co-posted in response to someone who claimed the vax would have stopped transmission if it had been universally adopted:
You are right about one thing, refusal to do things right did lead to mutation, which did make the vaxxes even less effective. But being vaccinated by itself did not stop spread.
And Biden’s terrible COVID messaging and even worse practices only fanned the flames of resistance to the vaccine and anything else having to do with the government’s approach to COVID. It was clear that what we were told early on — droplets, six feet of distance, plexiglass shields, wash your groceries — was stupid but because no one from the CDC or the administration ever came forward and told people how science’s understanding of the disease had evolved since the first weeks of the pandemic, people just stopped believing anything the government said.
But on the whole, you’ve got it backwards. These vaccines were never capable of stopping transmission — not at 50% uptake, not at 100%. That isn’t a claim about resistance; it’s about the route of administration.
An intramuscular shot produces systemic IgG, which is why it prevented severe disease so well. It does not produce mucosal IgA in the upper airway, which is what you’d need to stop someone catching and shedding a respiratory virus. Akiko Iwasaki and Eric Topol — nobody’s idea of vaccine skeptics — laid this out in Science Immunology and called the shots “leaky” for exactly that reason. It’s why they spent 2022 pleading for a nasal vaccine. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciimmunol.add9947
The data matched the mechanism. Imperial College and UKHSA found fully vaccinated people with breakthrough Delta infections had the same peak viral load as the unvaccinated, and passed it to household contacts at 25% versus 23% for unvaccinated index cases — statistically indistinguishable. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00648-4/fulltext
In the NEJM, Eyre’s study of 146,000 traced contacts found the transmission benefit was already smaller for Delta than for Alpha, and faded within months. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116597
Rochelle Walensky said it on CNN in August 2021: “They continue to work well for Delta, with regard to severe illness and death — they prevent it. But what they can’t do anymore is prevent transmission.” https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/05/health/us-coronavirus-thursday/index.html
And it was never tested. Pfizer’s and Moderna’s Phase 3 endpoint was symptomatic disease. Transmission was not an endpoint, and the FDA’s own briefing document said further study would be needed to assess it.
Smallpox and measles were eliminable because those vaccines block infection and those viruses have no animal reservoir. SARS-CoV-2 established itself in white-tailed deer — over 100 separate spillovers from humans, sustained deer-to-deer spread, and documented spillback to people (via Nature). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04353-x
The vaccines did the thing they could do: they cut death, substantially. The mandates were sold on a thing they were never able to do.