I got such a spectacular headache reading the Facebook comments on last week’s column I wrote about anti-vaxxers, a term which apparently now triggers people.
Some people who are opposed to taking the vaccine get very upset when you call them anti-vaxxers.
So I better be careful, because there are so many angry people out there, and they are not prepared to even hear any opinion different to their own.
And so many of them don’t even bother arguing the facts anymore, they just attack the person.
I read through most of the comments, which eventually made me reach for the Panados.
But then I realised that I don’t have a clue what’s in it, so I quickly did some research.
In other words, I Googled it. Did you know that more than 450 Americans die from paracetamol poisoning every year; and thousands end up in hospital ICUs?
Reading that gave my headache a headache, so I ma took the Panado and hoped for the best.
I tell you that story to illustrate one of the tactics that the vaccine opposition likes to use these days.
They highlight all the people who have died, after taking the vaccine.
I saw a list of about seven or eight Australians, some of whom died from Covid after they were vaccinated.
On the face of it, this sounds like a pretty solid argument. And of course it’s going to make you think.
It is a natural self-preservation instinct to wonder whether your actions will mean the end of you. And that is exactly why they do it that way.
If the news only tells you about all the aeroplanes that crash and the horrific deaths the passengers suffered, despite the fact that they had travel insurance and wore their seatbelts all the time during the flight, then you may want to avoid flying anywhere.
But if you knew that millions of people fly all over the world every hour of every day without incident, then you may think that it’s an acceptable risk.
And that’s what they choose not to focus on – the millions of people who do not die, after getting vaccinated.
They don’t share the fact that millions of people all over the world are slowly returning to normal lives, because large numbers of their fellow citizens chose to get vaccinated.
Last week saw the approval of Mosquirix – a new malaria vaccine aimed at saving the lives of especially children in sub-Saharan Africa.
Is this going to be the new focus of their attention, convincing those poor families that this vaccine is dangerous, because the World Health Organisation was involved?
They have weaponised social media and they are using it to sow doubt, because they enjoy controlling you and your decisions.
And to do that, they have to convince you that your life is at stake if you listen to the sensible people.
These are the same people who claim that there is a conspiracy of silence; that social media, mainstream media and the authorities are kop in een mus to hide these deaths from you.
So then how did they find out about the casualties?
That’s right, yes. They got the information from the internet, or mainstream and social media, after which it was publicly addressed by the supposedly “secretive” authorities.
And even then they have new conspiracies to spin around the fact that it was addressed so openly.
That’s the thing with anti-vaxxers, according to them, there is always a new conspiracy to replace the one that has just been disproven.
As a result, they never have to apologise for misleading you, because they are never wrong.
Never mind those who have dedicated their lives to understanding science and disseminating facts.
They are the only ones who know the real facts, which – by the way – they obtain from the very media sources they claim are part of the conspiracy.
You see how it works? No…? Take a Panado and read it again.