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After two years of hysterical Covid fear-mongering, the corporate press is apparently coming to its senses. You may fall off your chair, but The Guardian this week coherently defended dissenters, explaining why their refusal of the vaccine may have been driven by logic — not ignorance or selfishness.

In a stunning reversal, left-wing newspaper The Guardian has made a perfectly rational case for why some people refused a Covid-19 jab despite immense societal and government pressure.

While still touting the benefits of vaccination, the British-based rag provided a list of 19 well-articulated motivations for people’s non-compliance over the last year. The article comes as welcome relief at a time when those opposing government mandates are being locked up as political prisoners and labelled ‘domestic terrorists‘.

A Rebuke for Progressives

Written by Colombia University sociologist Musa al-Gharbi, the piece opened with a gentle rebuke for ‘progressives’ who have long assumed people’s “failure to comply with the directives of public health officials is absurd” and “must be driven by some pathology or deficit”.

Al-Gharbi describes the puzzled reaction of the typical Guardian reader, who has for the last year pondered “the primary malfunction of ‘those people’: Are they ignorant? Brainwashed? Stupid? Selfish and apathetic? All of the above?”

Not so, he argues. “Hesitancy and non-compliance may actually be reasonable responses to how experts and other elites have conducted themselves, both before and during the pandemic.” In words that directly mirror the concerns shared by countless million dissenters all around the Western world, al-Gharbi makes the case that:

There are many powerful and fairly straightforward reasons people cite for why they are suspicious of authorities, both with respect to the Covid-19 vaccine and other pandemic-related public health guidance.

Rational Reasons for Refusing the Vaccine

Excerpts from his list are provided below. Regardless of whether you got vaccinated or not, if you have stood against coercive government mandates, you may fall off your chair reading this:

• “The Covid-19 vaccines were developed, approved, mass produced and distributed at record speed. On the one hand, this was a miracle of modern science, state capacity and private sector ingenuity. On the other hand, the rapid process gave rise to questions about whether proper protocols had been followed and exacerbated concerns about how safe and effective the vaccines would be.”

• “These rapidly produced vaccines also pioneered the use of “artificial proteins never seen in the natural world”. Again, a miracle of modern science, but one that left many wondering if there was sufficient research on possible long-term problems and side-effects…”

• “During the 2020 US presidential campaign, both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris expressed grave concerns about the ‘Trump vaccines,’ alleging that they may not have been properly developed, vetted, approved or manufactured – and consequently, may not be safe. The Biden administration is now depicting hesitancy around these same vaccines as irrational and immoral.”

• “In a recent interview, Anthony Fauci outright acknowledged that he has engaged in ‘noble lies’ with respect to herd immunity vaccination targets in order to encourage more people to take the shots.”

• “Pre-Omicron, the vaccines were portrayed as providing more than 90% effectiveness against Covid-19 infection. It turned out that even a two-dose sequence faced precipitous declines in efficacy, dropping to less than 50% effectiveness several months after the second shot…”

• “In the wake of Omicron, even people who have been ‘boosted’ with a third shot are regularly experiencing breakthrough infections. And so, over time, the justification for getting vaccinated has shifted. Rather than being sold as a means of preventing infection altogether, it is now argued that people should take the shots in order to reduce hospitalizations and deaths…”

• “It was initially reported that a single shot provided great protection, although a booster could conceivably be suggested down the line. Then two shots became the standard to be “fully vaccinated.” Now, according to Fauci, three shots will soon become a requirement for being considered “fully vaccinated” – and the CDC is urging some Americans to pursue a fourth shot. There does not seem to be a clear end in sight for how many shots may ultimately be suggested.”

• “Each additional round of shots generates billions for vaccine manufacturers. Pharmaceutical companies have a clear stake in multiple rounds being mandated or encouraged for as many people as possible, in as many places as possible (at as high a price as possible).”

• “The CDC receives immense sums of money from big pharma, while failing to adequately disclose these donations and industry ties, despite obvious conflicts of interest in many of these ‘gifts.’ This was a big problem even before the pandemic. Yet despite vocal calls for reform, no changes were made – even as donations rapidly increased in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis.”

• “The FDA approved the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as safe and effective. It subsequently advised against Americans taking this vaccine due to rare but occasionally fatal side effects.”

• “According to the VAERS (vaccine adverse event reporting system) database, nearly 12,000 Americans have died shortly after receiving Covid vaccines, possibly as a result of side-effects or allergic reactions from the vaccines. On the one hand, these casualties represent a minuscule share (0.0022%) of all doses given out, and are radically offset by the immense number of lives saved by vaccination. But at the same time, 12,000 lives are not nothing. There are many, many towns in the US with populations smaller than that. Nonetheless, people expressing concerns about vaccine-related deaths are often mocked or derided.”

• “Over the course of the pandemic, legislators and other government officials have invested heavily in the stock of vaccine manufacturers, and reaped significant financial windfalls from these investments. Pharma companies have reciprocally poured millions into the campaign coffers of sympathetic congress members.”

Explaining Opposition to Other Covid Measures

Looking at the approach of authorities to Covid more broadly, the Guardian article offers further reasons for people’s scepticism and non-compliance:

• “In the early days of the pandemic, the CDC insisted that Americans did not need to mask, and went so far as to suggest that masking could actually be harmful under certain circumstances. They later insisted that everyone should mask in public settings, even if they are fully vaccinated. Mask mandates have proliferated. Cloth masks, once deemed effective, are now proclaimed as better than nothing, but not very helpful.”

• “Expert modelling and predictions around the Covid-19 pandemic have often been inaccurate. In particular, they tend to wildly overestimate rates of infection, the numbers of deaths, etc, over a given period… These dire projections have been quite costly for many – from “lost years” of learning in schools to devastating financial losses for individuals and businesses and increased social isolation, mental health strain and substance abuse to radical increases in antisocial behaviours resulting from a breakdown of social cohesion. These costs have all been borne most heavily by those who were already relatively disadvantaged and vulnerable…”

• “Statistics on ‘Covid-19 related hospitalisations’ seem to significantly inflate the number of people who are seeking medical care specifically due to health problems related to a Covid infection (even as Covid-related deaths may be significantly undercounted).”

• “While Trump was in office, insinuations that Covid-19 may have originated from a lab leak were widely derided as a racist conspiracy theory and media content exploring the possibility of a lab leak was actively censored by Facebook. Nonetheless, significant evidence has continued to build in support of the “lab leak hypothesis,” to the point where senior Biden administration officials now view the lab leak theory as roughly as credible as the natural origins theory – raising questions for many about why some public officials so aggressively (and prematurely) sought to suppress and discredit this hypothesis.”

• “Trump continues to be mocked and condemned for allegedly downplaying the severity of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, many in the expert class and mainstream left-aligned media outlets did exactly the same thing, and have apparently memory-holed this fact.”

For full context and more detail, read the full article here.

Have We Learnt Our Lesson?

There’s only one problem with The Guardian’s article — it’s around a year late. Common sense people have been making all of the above arguments for a painfully long time, often at the cost of friendships, reputations, and even careers.

Here at the Daily Declaration, we have published some 600 articles since 2020 arguing against Covid hysteria, and for an end to draconian lockdowns and divisive mandates. In fact, consider an almost identical piece to The Guardian‘s, published by our site in July 2021, entitled An Unspoken Reason So Many Remain Vaccine Hesitant.

Either way, the narrative that Covid was worth mothballing the economy for two years and tearing apart the fabric of Western democracy is now tumbling like dominoes. Consider these recent backflips from other corporate media outlets:

• News.Com.Au: End of restrictions exposes senseless Covid ‘scare-mongering’
• The Daily Mail: Ben Fordham exposes astonishing list highlighting what’s REALLY causing coronavirus deaths in Australia and the damning statistic that will leave you fuming: ‘There’s an overblown scare campaign’
• Sky News Australia: Former deputy chief medical officer Dr Nick Coatsworth says Omicron variant is ‘clearly not’ as threatening as influenza

The question that remains is, have we learnt our lesson — or will we allow ourselves to be driven to paranoia by the next all-consuming ‘crisis’?