Comment: Covid scam fools endanger us all

Vaccination is the key to regaining our freedoms and preventing deaths. Those who refuse to get the jab may one day regret their idiocy but by then it will be too late, writes Kylie Lang.

It’s not only the dim-witted who are wrong about Covid. People with seemingly fully functioning brains are also misguided, to their detriment.

On the one hand, we have mask-free imbeciles wearing “Covid scam” T-shirts – aka the bully who tore into staff at a Gold Coast for simply doing their jobs this week – and on the other, learned academics who should have trusted the science, opened their eyes and accepted the truth.

This pandemic is real.

Police have charged Zoran Radovanovic for leaving his residence and travelling to Byron Bay, while positive with COVID-q9.

Leslie Lawrenson, a 58-year-old Cambridge-educated lawyer, posted a video on social media in which he said: “The idea that we have to be afraid of this bogeyman, this Covid-19, this somehow is a monster. We’ve got to get over this.

“I know it sounds strange and some people may get upset by me saying this, but I hope I’ve got it, I hope it is Covid, because I’d rather have the antibodies in my blood than take the jabs.”

Mr Lawrenson’s partner uncovered the post while searching for photos to share at his funeral.

Amanda Mitchell said the father of her two youngest children believed his body’s immune system was stronger than Covid.

She said he was a very intelligent man so she believed him, only to have the ultimate tragedy change her mind.

Stepdaughter Carla Hodges said Mr Lawrenson, who died on July 2, had been brainwashed by misinformation and “fell down a rabbit hole”.

The family chose to go public with their heartbreak to convince others to get vaccinated.

“It’s so sick, it’s so dangerous, it’s a killer, and vaccines are out there to protect us now,” Ms Mitchell told Sky News.

“Don’t be a family like ours and have regrets.”

John Eyers also thought he was invincible.

The British ironman was climbing mountains just weeks before contracting the virus. On his deathbed, the 42-year-old father told his doctor he regretted not being vaccinated.

His sister Jenny McCann said he had “bought into this age of disinformation … and some conspiracy theories”.

Supplied John Eyers died of covid after refusing vaccination. Picture: WNS/Australscope

Australians, particularly in low vaccination areas, should wise up fast.

In Byron Bay, locked down until August 17, some shops are refusing entry to vaccinated people due to a fear they will shed the virus. Nonsense. Many locals are not getting Covid tests because they think nasal swabs are carcinogenic. Also nonsense.

While Queensland’s immunisation rates climb – and a mass-vaccination hub opened this week at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre – the percentage of Australians fully vaccinated remains poor, at 18.9 per cent, or 23.5 percent for those aged 16 and over.

The Federal Government’s initial targets of four million Aussies fully immunised by March and the whole country by October have blown out, as we know, with the current goal being 80 percent vaccination by December.

We need to get there.

Widespread vaccination is the key to unlocking restrictions and regaining some of our freedoms.

Being jabbed won’t save every vulnerable individual and those whose health is already compromised – as we saw this week with the passing of a NSW man in his 90s who had received two shots – but it will save many, many others.

In January last year Harvard-trained epidemiologist Dr Eric Feigl-Ding predicted a “thermonuclear pandemic”.

Members of the public are tested at a drive through COVID-19 clinic. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Joel Carrett

And now, as small children are hospitalised with the highly contagious Delta strain, Dr Feigl-Ding believes vaccines, while crucial, must be supported by other measures.

He told Channel 9 on Wednesday vaccine passports and bans on indoor dining should be seriously considered.

There should be ongoing wearing of masks, improved ventilation, hyper filters and upper-air UV disinfection, including in classrooms.

In Louisiana, the current Covid epicentre in the US, the median age of children hospitalised was five, down from 16 in June and 12 in July.

Dr Feigl-Ding said vaccines for infants could be approved within months.

Make no mistake. There is no Covid scam. The sooner we all realise this and act accordingly, the safer our world will be.

Kylie Lang is associate editor of the courier-mail

[e-mail]

LOVE

Instagram launching tools to limit racist online abuse, in the wake of high profile athletes being targets. Good move but what took so long? As eSafety Commissioner Inman Grant says “the horse has bolted”.

Primary school children making blankets, bowls and other items for pets which also suffer from the scourge of domestic violence. The animals are in foster care, through the charity Safe Pets Safe Families.

LOATHE

Premier Palaszczuk saying she doesn’t need a “focus group” because “I’m out there talking to Queenslanders nearly every single day and they can tell me what they’re thinking and what they’re feeling”. Yet her government just blew $528,000 of taxpayer dollars on a sentiment survey?

That some people still can’t work out how to wear masks. They are not bandanas or neckerchiefs. They go over your nose and mouth. You’re welcome.