You know the old joke—I think it was an original by Bob Newhart—about putting an indefinite number of monkeys in a room with an indefinite number of typewriters (For you young’uns, that’s a mechanical device that worked much like a computer keyboard, but made more noise and printed directly on paper with piano-like hammers with raised letters), anyway, as I was saying, if those monkeys were given the freedom to type whatever their fingers—less the thumbs, of course, because they aren’t opposable—that eventually, meaning about the time it will take for the universe to expand to nothingness, those critters will reproduce every great literary work. In Bob Newhart’s version, the guy in the white lab coat with a clipboard, says something like, “Wait! I think we have something here. This one typed 'To be or not to be; that is the gazorninplatz'" (I’m winging the memory part here).
So, anyway, the point is that with an indefinite number of monkeys with the same number of typewriters—okay, keyboards and Word—you would get the great literary works and probably a bunch of writing that either made no sense or that made only partial sense. Anyway, again, that’s how I feel about the indefinite number of reporters given an indefinite number of keyboards or an equal number of microphones writing or talking about the 2020 pandemic. Is there any aspect of this pandemic that hasn’t been covered ad infinitum? And what is the latest reporting done under the prospect that finding a cure might be very difficult? It’s about the “herd immunity.”
I don’t know about you, but I would find little comfort in the herd immunity because the herd is never the individual. One of those monkeys is going to type “gozorninplatz.” Many of them won’t even come that close. Much of the herd can fail, leaving only a few to continue typing either nonsense or partial stories.
But maybe I shouldn’t fault them, the reporters, that is. Each day they get bombarded with sickness and death statistics, some of which are questionable, others of which are a day behind the current realities, and some of which might be fudged to help an agenda, like hospital funding. Certainly, it’s well known by now and through all the reporting that the CDC wants “Covid” on part one of death cause, and only on part two does it want other contributing factors like heart problems, COPD, or diabetes. That puts current death data in question.
So, desperate either for a story or for a sign of hope, reporters talk about “herd immunity” as though that in itself will save individuals. Or they talk about it because every other aspect of the pandemic has been covered by their indefinite number of competing reporters. Possibly, “herd immunity” is the bright spot in the eyes of those who are being worn down by the daily dealings of death data.
I’m wondering whether or not there isn’t another kind of herding. One that puts a single mindset in the brains of the human herd. The pandemic is wearing people down. It has crushed the world’s economies. Many went from prosperous to desperate in a matter of weeks. For example, with the closure of restaurants came a decrease in demand for products like pork, a decrease that, when coupled with ailing meat packers, shut down about 25% of the demand and, thus, the supply. Under the continuous bad news, many people look for some sign of hope.
Individuals—you?—might now be thinking in a herd mentality that the economy will open again and that the disease will fade to the significance of a yearly flu. But that’s a desperate thought, sad to say, at least for the short term (a year? 18 months?). Is there a herd immunity against the flu? Is that helpful? Remember that the flu leads to hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations and hospital visits annually. Is it better to have something like the flu, which, according the CDC results in an annual death toll between 12,000 and 61,000 in the USA? Let me give you other numbers from the CDC. Some 9 million to 45 million illnesses and between 140,000 and 810,000 hospitalizations can be attributed to influenza. And that’s with the so-called herd immunity. So, those 12,000 to 61,000 people who died from the flu found no solace in being part of the herd.
And guess what? Herd immunity is not something we do consciously. It happens, or it doesn’t happen. It’s not like making an antiviral medicine or some vaccine. No one has control over herd immunity. It’s not a beacon of hope, not a great work wrought by a great mind. It’s a bunch of monkeys running helter-skelter and either unknowingly becoming immune or not and the same bunch trying to type explanations that appease even when they don’t make much sense. There’s no conscious typing of a coherent story, however. The tale of herd immunity, for example, is merely a hope based on random words that might, like “gazorninplatzes,” indicate that such immunity is essentially a meaningless chance event.
Yet, you will hear some say or write “We just need to wait to see whether or not we get herd immunity.”
So, anyway, the point is that with an indefinite number of monkeys with the same number of typewriters—okay, keyboards and Word—you would get the great literary works and probably a bunch of writing that either made no sense or that made only partial sense. Anyway, again, that’s how I feel about the indefinite number of reporters given an indefinite number of keyboards or an equal number of microphones writing or talking about the 2020 pandemic. Is there any aspect of this pandemic that hasn’t been covered ad infinitum? And what is the latest reporting done under the prospect that finding a cure might be very difficult? It’s about the “herd immunity.”
I don’t know about you, but I would find little comfort in the herd immunity because the herd is never the individual. One of those monkeys is going to type “gozorninplatz.” Many of them won’t even come that close. Much of the herd can fail, leaving only a few to continue typing either nonsense or partial stories.
But maybe I shouldn’t fault them, the reporters, that is. Each day they get bombarded with sickness and death statistics, some of which are questionable, others of which are a day behind the current realities, and some of which might be fudged to help an agenda, like hospital funding. Certainly, it’s well known by now and through all the reporting that the CDC wants “Covid” on part one of death cause, and only on part two does it want other contributing factors like heart problems, COPD, or diabetes. That puts current death data in question.
So, desperate either for a story or for a sign of hope, reporters talk about “herd immunity” as though that in itself will save individuals. Or they talk about it because every other aspect of the pandemic has been covered by their indefinite number of competing reporters. Possibly, “herd immunity” is the bright spot in the eyes of those who are being worn down by the daily dealings of death data.
I’m wondering whether or not there isn’t another kind of herding. One that puts a single mindset in the brains of the human herd. The pandemic is wearing people down. It has crushed the world’s economies. Many went from prosperous to desperate in a matter of weeks. For example, with the closure of restaurants came a decrease in demand for products like pork, a decrease that, when coupled with ailing meat packers, shut down about 25% of the demand and, thus, the supply. Under the continuous bad news, many people look for some sign of hope.
Individuals—you?—might now be thinking in a herd mentality that the economy will open again and that the disease will fade to the significance of a yearly flu. But that’s a desperate thought, sad to say, at least for the short term (a year? 18 months?). Is there a herd immunity against the flu? Is that helpful? Remember that the flu leads to hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations and hospital visits annually. Is it better to have something like the flu, which, according the CDC results in an annual death toll between 12,000 and 61,000 in the USA? Let me give you other numbers from the CDC. Some 9 million to 45 million illnesses and between 140,000 and 810,000 hospitalizations can be attributed to influenza. And that’s with the so-called herd immunity. So, those 12,000 to 61,000 people who died from the flu found no solace in being part of the herd.
And guess what? Herd immunity is not something we do consciously. It happens, or it doesn’t happen. It’s not like making an antiviral medicine or some vaccine. No one has control over herd immunity. It’s not a beacon of hope, not a great work wrought by a great mind. It’s a bunch of monkeys running helter-skelter and either unknowingly becoming immune or not and the same bunch trying to type explanations that appease even when they don’t make much sense. There’s no conscious typing of a coherent story, however. The tale of herd immunity, for example, is merely a hope based on random words that might, like “gazorninplatzes,” indicate that such immunity is essentially a meaningless chance event.
Yet, you will hear some say or write “We just need to wait to see whether or not we get herd immunity.”
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