Covid-19: Associated Press says it’s time to abandon idea of “pandemic of the unvaccinated”
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In contrast to most of the world’s mainstream media, New York-based powerhouse Associated Press (AP) stated yesterday that it may be time to abandon the “pandemic of the unvaccinated” idea that is often repeated by government officials and the media in the official Covid-19 portrayal.
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AP is one of the so-called “big four” news agencies that provide most foreign news printed by the world’s newspapers. The other three agencies are United Press (UPI), Reuters, and Agence France Press (AFP).
Whatever these four agencies publish becomes mainstream narratives worldwide, as their articles are republished by newspapers around the globe. In this sense, they are instrumental in what people believe is true and real in the world regarding many topics.
In an article describing the flaws and potential consequences of perpetuating “pandemic of the unvaccinated” narrative, AP quotes Dr. Eric Topol, professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California, who said:
“It is true that the unvaccinated are the biggest driver, but we mustn’t forget that the vaccinated are part of it as well, in part because of the Delta variant. The pandemic clearly involves all people, not just the unvaccinated.”
Calling it a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” could have the unintended consequence of stigmatizing the unvaccinated, Topol said “We should not partition them as the exclusive problem,” Topol said.
Dr. Leana Wen, a former Baltimore health commissioner and commentator on public health issues, told AP that in a pandemic, no one is an island:
“Stating it’s a pandemic of the unvaccinated implies that if you are vaccinated, you are protected, and you should not care about those who are unvaccinated, and how that may impact you,” said Wen. “That is not the case. The more infection there is around, the more likely you are to contract COVID and spread it to others, even if you are vaccinated.”
“That’s lost if we just say it’s a ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated.'”
Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who collaborates with Garin’s firm on some major polls, said, “calling it a ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated’ is certainly not going to increase the compliance among the unvaccinated.”
According to AP, a July poll by the AP-NORC Public Affairs Research Center found that 45% of adults who had not yet been vaccinated said they definitely would not get vaccinated, and 35% were unlikely to get vaccinated.
Nearly 2 in 3 (64%) unvaccinated adults said they had little or no confidence in the effectiveness of vaccinations against mutations such as the Delta variant. Only 3% of unvaccinated adults said they would definitely get vaccinated.
The facts do not support the “pandemic of the unvaccinated” statement.
Rachelle Walensky, director of CDC, claimed at a July 16 White House press conference that “more than 97% of the people coming into the hospital now are not vaccinated.” But, as Fox News host Laura Ingraham reported on The Ingraham Angle, that statistic is “completely misleading.”
Ingraham was referring to an August 5 video statement in which Walensky inadvertently revealed how the 95% to 99% statistic was arrived at. It turns out that for those statistics, the CDC used hospital and death data from January to June 2021, when the vast majority of the U.S. population was unvaccinated.
The statistics did not include more recent data or data on the Delta variant, which is now the most common strain in circulation.
Studies show that Covid-19 vaccines do not fully protect against infection with the Delta variant and that fully vaccinated individuals who contract the virus infect others, both vaccinated and unvaccinated.
One study found that people who were fully vaccinated with Pfizer’s vaccine had a 6- to 13-fold higher risk of contracting Delta than people with natural immunity from having already contracted Covid-19. Adverse Effects of the COVID-19 Vaccine Reported by Lecturers and Staff of Kabul University of Medical Sciences, Kabul
Some scientists also argue that a mass vaccination campaign with vaccines that do not prevent infection or transmission could prolong the pandemic by creating the perfect conditions for more and more transmissible variants to develop.
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This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated AI newsroom. Editorial responsibility: Matthias Camenzind, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief. The Rio Times also runs Ask Rio Times, which answers from 100,000+ of our own articles, the daily Latin America Power Map, and prediction-market odds on elections and markets.. How we use AI · Report an error