The 36 Points of Covid Rationalism

Jordan is the host of the Peaceful Way Podcast, advocating for peace and nonviolence. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts. https://thepeacefulway.ca/

1. A Covid Rationalist has epistemic humility and understands that there is a limit to the knowledge that any one person, entity, or scientific body can have. And, that as the data changes, so should ones beliefs and behaviours.
2. A Covid Rationalist understands that the scientific method is an incredible tool to help us find truth and that no person, entity, or scientific body can lay claim to have a monopoly on science.
3. A Covid Rationalist acknowledges how much nuance almost all claims made about sars-COV-2 require and that often there are no black-and-white answers
4. A Covid Rationalist understands that Sars-COV-2 has a risk gradient that changes dramatically based on age.
5. A Covid Rationalist understands that Sars-COV-2 has a risk gradient that changes dramatically based on health conditions like obesity, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and auto-immune disorders.
6. A Covid Rationalist understands that Sars-COV-2 is significantly more deadly and virulent than the annual flu, but significantly less deadly and virulent than the Spanish Flu of 1918.
7. A Covid Rationalist understands that Sars-COV-2 is orders of magnitude more dangerous than the seasonal flu to the elderly and frail.
8. A Covid Rationalist understands that Sars-COV-2 is orders of magnitude less dangerous than the seasonal flu to healthy children.
9. A Covid Rationalist understands that Sars-COV-2 is an endemic coronavirus and cannot be driven to extinction with the current level of technology, and will presumably circulate indefinitely in human and animal populations.
10. A Covid Rationalist understands that a so-called “Covid Zero” policy is unachievable, inhumane, cruel, and in the realm of pseudoscience.
11. A Covid Rationalist understands that the evidence for the efficacy of masking in preventing spread is very weak and inconclusive. Cloth masks are almost certainly not effective, while N95 masks have low to moderate efficacy.
12. A Covid Rationalist acknowledges that there is very little evidence that Sars-COV-2 spreads via fomites (Surface spread). Wearing gloves and sanitizing surfaces is completely unnecessary and may even be detrimental in some contexts (Like schools or daycares where it is important that children's immune systems are exposed to a variety of bacteria and virus)
13. A Covid Rationalist understands that lockdown measures, short of martial law and forcing people into their homes, has little to no evidence of being effective, and may in fact prolong a pandemic by making the virus spread slower and over a longer period of time.
14. A Covid Rationalist acknowledges the harms associated with lockdowns and restrictions and that they must be weighed against the benefits of any society wide intervention.
15. A Covid Rationalist understands that during any pandemic in general and the Sars-COV-2 pandemic in particular, avoidance and suppression of the virus must not be the only consideration in policy making.
16. A Covid rationalist acknowledges that any policy which requires 100% compliance from any population is fundamentally flawed and has no chance of being successful.
17. A Covid Rationalist understands that community resources are much better spent protecting the vulnerable, not in enforcing draconian and unproven interventions against the non-vulnerable.
18. A Covid Rationalist understands that the term “Herd Immunity” is in fact a real epidemiological concept even if or when it is misunderstood by the general public, and that dismissing this important concept is highly unscientific. A rigorous debate on how to get there is reasonable, denying its existence is not.
19. A Covid Rationalist understands that vaccines in general are an amazing, and life saving human invention, and also acknowledges that in rare cases vaccines have caused harm.
20. A Covid Rationalist understands that Covid mRNA vaccines are truly a great scientific breakthrough and hold huge potential for the future of medicine.
21. A Covid Rationalist acknowledges that the current Covid vaccines are a great scientific achievement and have been effective against early strains of the virus.
22. A Covid Rationalist acknowledges the limits of the current Covid vaccines and that they become less efficacious with each new strain of sars-COV-2.
23. A Covid Rationalist acknowledges the risks of the current Covid vaccines which include heightened risk of myocarditis and myopericarditis in young men and boys and a heightened risk menstrual bleeding in women.
24. A Covid Rationalist understands that quarantining the healthy is unethical and unscientific.
25. A Covid Rationalist acknowledges that there may be longer term risks associated with the vaccine that are impossible to measure at this time.
26. A Covid Rationalist understands that it is virtually impossible to vaccinate out of a global pandemic. With a virus that spreads and mutates like sars-COV-2, there is little to no evidence that widespread vaccination is going to be a sufficient tool to end any virus that has established itself in a community.
27. A Covid Rationalist understands that vaccine mandates and passports are highly unethical and scientifically unjustifiable. That every human being must be afforded the dignity of bodily autonomy, and have the principles of informed consent applied to any and all medical decisions. That any coercive or forceful measures applied to a personal medical decision must be vigorously resisted as a fundamental human rights issue.
28. A Covid rationalist opposes any attempt by a person or government to create a two tiered society vis-a-vis vaccine based segregation.
29. A Covid Rationalist understands that any emergency powers given to the state must be limited to the scope of the emergency and must have a sunset clause. Free, democratic societies have an ethical duty to ensure governments do not hold emergency powers in perpetuity nor are used for any purpose other than the emergency itself.
30. A Covid rationalist understands and appreciates the pressures that healthcare systems face in a pandemic, particularly with single-payer systems which tend to have more scarce resources and less flexibility to expand capacity.
31. A Covid Rationalist insists that the proper role for Public Health is in an advisory capacity to the government and the public. It is inappropriate for unelected public health bureaucrats to have any type of law enforcement capacity, or the ability to issue edicts, mandates, or health orders.
32. A Covid rationalist understands that society cannot be held hostage to Public Health, and that Public Healths’ role is to serve society, not for society to serve Public Health.
33. A Covid Rationalist understands that it is not Public Health’s job to be an arbiter of what is acceptable to debate in relation to any topic. Any effort to censor discussions or criticisms of a Public Health consensus is a uniquely unscientific tactic and unbecoming of anyone claiming to represent science.
34. A Covid rationalist maintains both a healthy skepticism and an open mind to any claims on off label therapeutics including, but not limited to, Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, Vitamin D, Fluvoxamine, monoclonal antibodies, etc. Any and all therapeutics should be fair game to experiment with until such a time as they cause undue harm to patients.
35. A Covid rationalist condemns Public Health administrators and bureaucrats from politically motivated interventions in doctor/patient relationships with threat of license revocation for trying safe, off label therapeutics in the treatment of sars-COV-2. This is cruel and unusual punishment.
36. A Covid rationalist condemns Public Health administrators and bureaucrats from politically motivated interventions in doctor/patient relationships with threat of license revocation for writing mask and vaccine exemptions.