Spiked Asks What’s Wrong With Subjecting Teenagers to a Novel Medical Intervention Against a Germ That Doesn’t Threaten Them

A lot of valuable stuff against the lockdown over the last two years from Spiked, but sadly always accompanied by normie-signaling. Pieces here and there to show the outfit nonetheless subscribes to (and regurgitates) parts of official orthodoxies and shouldn’t be mistaken for ‘kooks’ that it is all too willing to turn on.

In the last such offering, it’s “assistant editor” (that’s usually the underpaid staffer who does all the real work day-to-day) Fraser Myers asks “What’s wrong with vaccinating teenagers?” since he can’t figure out “what the fuss is all about.”  Hilariously the extent of the argument is that since the vaccines are allegedly safe then what’s the harm in shooting them up into 16-year olds:

Just as expected has been the backlash from the vaccine-hesitant, vaccine-sceptical and outright anti-vaxxers. As ever, social media are awash with the usual lines about an ‘experimental’ vaccine (or ‘gene therapy’, as some insist on calling it). And now it is apparently being foisted on our innocent children, against their will, putting them at great risk.

But the vaccine is not mandatory (though we certainly have to oppose any attempt to bring in ‘vaccine passports’ which would bring in mandatory vaccination by the back door). Indeed, I suspect even fewer teenagers will take it up than the 18-30s, who the government is struggling, fruitlessly, to cajole into getting the jab with a bizarre mixture of threats and discounts at McDonald’s. (Boris is said to be ‘raging’ at the low take-up among young adults.)

Nor is it as dangerous for teenagers as is being made out. One of the most talked-about side-effects is heart inflammation. This is extremely rare, and is typically mild. Yes, five people in Europe have died from heart inflammation after taking either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, though they have all been elderly. The young people unfortunate enough to get this rare side-effect typically recover in short order.

Given the extremely low risk Covid-19 poses to young people, there is a sensible debate to be had about how to balance those risks with the risks posed by the vaccine. That is why the JCVI has taken its time in forming its decision, despite being put under enormous political pressure. (And it is still holding out on whether teens should get a second dose, and whether 12- to 15-year-olds should be offered the vaccine – much to the consternation of politicians.)

But to pretend that it is simply too great a risk for young people to get vaccinated distorts that balance of risks – neither Covid nor vaccination is dangerous for the healthy young.

So according to Spiked since the vaccine is not dangerous it doesn’t matter if 16-year olds are injected with it or not. It is an irrelevancy.

This is an utterly laughable line of argument. We can not treat the two as equivalent. The default position is always non-intervention. 

If there is no expected benefit intervention is not undertaken. This has been the cornerstone of medical ethics for thousands of years.

It is up to those who want a novel injected shot into the arms of 16-year olds to show there is a benefit — in this case, a substantial total risk reduction.

But since Fraser Myers himself concedes (even in the very subtitle) that Covid illness is not a risk to teenagers, then “vaccinating” them against it can’t possibly be argued for except as an empty mass ritual of Covid cult piety.

This is doubly so when we are talking about a novel injection whose long-term effects by definition can not possibly be known and which therefore only has emergency use authorization. Except there is no emergency for 16-year olds. (At least not a virus emergency. Obviously, there is an emergency in the form of all the crap they’re being subjected to by the virus cult and the governments it has captured.)

Myers’ later point that vaccinating teenagers would get us to herd immunity sooner is wrong. That claim may have passed muster six months ago, but we now know vaccine protection against infection and transmission is minimal and short-lasting. To reach actual herd immunity everyone who has been vaccinated will still also have to become infected.

Myers emphasizes that the vaccine is not mandatory for 16-year olds, implying it is thus a simple matter of personal choice and freedom for the cohort, but in the very next sentence concedes that the state is already trying to “cajole” young adults with “threats”. So in fact this does not represent the government extending the freedom to chose to 16 and 17-year olds, but the expansion of the population that will be henceforth subject to the “cajoling” and the “threats” and Myers is just playing dumb.

Somehow because Myers (correctly) predicts that the majority will not give in, the state harassment this opens the door for and that will inevitably ensue somehow isn’t an issue.

Why is it that Spiked is so afraid of being grouped together with the ‘kooks’ that it will state lazy and obvious nonsense?