Sta Hungry Stay Foolish

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

A blog by Leon Oudejans

Rights & duties: vaccination

The Netherlands is considering following a German law: mandatory vaccination in child care facilities against common child diseases (eg, measles, DKTP). In my view, the right of the majority (ie, health) is more important than the (ideological) right of a minority (ie, freedom).

Nevertheless, this entire vaccination issue is the result of government stupidity. Any virus has two benchmarks: (i) infection rate, and (ii) symptomatic disease rate. In June 2020, Maria van Kerkhove (WHO) stated that most people appeared asymptomatic. Hence, infection = yes and disease = no.

The next day, she retracted her words (Guardian-2020). That moment raised my immediate curiosity. I assume that she was forced to retract her words under immense (political) pressure. That moment was the start of global stupidity. Trillions of dollars and euros have been wasted.

Perhaps worse (than the financial damage) is the decrease in government trust. Hence, the conspiracy thinking. For (very) many people, it’s (too) difficult to assume that governments can also be stupid. However, stupidity is far more likely than conspiracies (eg, basic laws on human stupidity).

Today, common – nearly eradicated – child diseases are returning worldwide as vaccination rates are dropping rapidly amongst the children of new parents. I feel little sympathy for their freedom-of-vaccination demands. I do feel sympathy for the deteriorating health of their children.

In my view, the health of children is far more important than the ideological beliefs of parents. I’m glad that my parents followed common sense, back in the 1960s. Someday, today’s babies will blame the stupidity of their parents.

Wiki: “These are Cipolla’s five fundamental laws of stupidity:

  1. Always and inevitably, everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
  2. The probability that a certain person (will) be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
  3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
  4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places, and under any circumstances, to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
  5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.”

If You Tolerate This, Your Children Will Be Next (1998) by the Manic Street Preachers
band, lyrics, video, Wiki-band, Wiki-song

Note: all markings (bolditalicunderlining) by LO unless in quotes or stated otherwise.

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