why I’m (still) getting the vaccine: part #2

Hello world!

It feels like I’m somewhat emerging from a period of non-writing hibernation. There’s too much to say about what’s been going on in my world the past few months – my existential crisis about being in year 4 of my PhD and wishing I could just take my degree and run far away (see graph below as a visual representing how I feel) while trying to mentally prepare for a wedding that will be happening in 3 months and singing “Sovereign over Us” over myself because I have to remember that He is with me in the fire and the flood.

But apart from feeling somewhat overwhelmed in my personal/work life (but also encouraged by the goodness and sovereignty of God), I also wanted to post a follow-up to my first post on the vaccine.

This first post came out in December when we were still reeling from the prospect of having a COVID vaccine made available to us in such a short time but by now, if you are reading this article, there is a high chance you have already had your first dose or perhaps are even more confused by all the conflicting information out there (of which there has been a lot in the last few months!).

This week, vaccinations in Quebec will be made widely available to anyone above 18 who wants to get one, so I thought it would be a good time to post a segment of my correspondence with a friend as we’ve gone back and forth on the safety/efficacy/ethics of vaccines and the possible vaccine passport.

Again, as a disclaimer:

Not an expert in immunology/vaccines, just an engineering PhD student over here, but I speak more about the philosophical/ethical aspects of the vaccine roll-out as I think sometimes it’s more helpful to zoom out and look at why we are fearful and if those fears are grounded in reality, rather than dive into the scientific details of what is true/untrue (also because there’s lots of this debate that abounds on the web and I’ve linked quite a few of those articles below if they interest you)

I also speak from a Christian perspective, just to be upfront with the lens I’m approaching this with (because we all come to debates with some sort of lens/worldview) and – yes – I DID get my first dose as of two weeks ago 🙂

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Hey!

OK I finally made my way through the articles/videos (although this will prob be the last time I will be able to watch everything you send me as it does take quite a bit of time and I always feel the need to thoroughly read and watch everything before responding haha..) and am going to try to write up this response in the next hour or so before I leave for church! 

This last bit of information was actually quite helpful (even though you were hesitant to share :P) in framing the conversation for me and I have been thinking about the material you sent me/trying to figure out how it fits into my worldview.

But as I normally try to do, I’ll zoom out a bit to talk about the bigger themes I see at play and what I think about them as I feel like that would be more productive than getting lost in the weeds of what are very complex issues. 

So I’ll separate this into two main fears:

1. The fear of the vaccine being more dangerous than we think

2. The fear of being forced to take such a vaccine with the vaccine passports and the technocracy that could result similar to the social credit system in China (the censorship of free speech, scientists who disagree etc. fits into this too)

And I think you would agree that they are two separate fears – we’ve been talking more about the first one, in that there are unknown side effects especially long-term such as antibody-dependent enhancement, but what I hear you saying (and I think this is almost a deeper fear), is that EVEN IF the vaccine was good/effective, the way the vaccine is being rolled out with the passports makes you feel very uneasy. 

I actually don’t think you’re crazy and I don’t think there is NO basis for the fears. Fear is our alarm system based on some signal that could indicate some future harm. And I do see, based on what you have sent me, how there is a basis for many of the fears you have expressed (scientists who have expressed concerns, the possibility of vaccine passports and how that could be similar to the social credit system in China etc.). 

But what I think about more is:

(A) How do I put that fear into an appropriate context? (i.e. could there be ways that I am giving this fear more weight than it deserves? I know I definitely do this – that even though the original fear is based on some sliver of reality, the fear that it evolves to is not based on reality.) 

So the question here is: is the fear an accurate representation of reality? 

(B) What response should a believer have towards such fears? Now, I know that framing it in terms of fear can seem to downplay it, and I can hear you say – but it’s not just about fear, it’s also about justice and wanting the right thing to be done! 

So the question here would be: even if the fear is an accurate representation fo reality, how should we practically address that fear or injustice?

And I’ll use this numbering system to help organize my thoughts on this…

A1. Is the vaccine as dangerous as we think? 

So, we’ve discussed this one at length I think! But if I may summarize what I think your fears about the dangers surrounding the vaccine are, they would be (1) antibody-dependent enhancement, (2) infertility and how the spike protein could affect the placenta/menstrual cycle etc. and (3) the temporal correlation with adverse events and deaths. 

I also think we both agree that the vaccine IS effective at reducing cases (see recent data on Israel in the Nature paper I sent you…I’m attaching it here as well!) based on what we know right now.

Rossman-2021-Covid-dynamics-after-a-national-immunization program in IsraelDownload

So, if we were to go with what we know right now, the path forward is to continue with the vaccine (or vaccine + ivermectin or other drugs that have proven to be safe and effective), unless there is data to show that the vaccine is actually causing harm. 

Looking at the claims that vaccine causes real harm, this is a summary of where I stand:

(1) Antibody dependent enhancement (ADE)

There are some scientists who think this could be a problem in the future due to the widespread nature of the vaccine rollout (e.g. Dr. Vanden Bossche and Dr. Hooman Noorchashm), others say that we’re keeping an eye out for it and although it is a theoretical possibility, we don’t have any evidence of it happening right now, so we shouldn’t be making any decision based on non-existent data (I think we disagree on the probability of this being a real event – but we just have no way of estimating that probability and so my stance is to hold back any conclusion until we have data to support it). 

This article says:

The Chinese inactivated whole-cell vaccine could “conceivably” generate ADE like those older vaccines, according to Bloom…”To date, there’s really no evidence of ADE with the COVID-19 vaccines. It’s all theoretical,” he said. “I think all the evidence so far is that ADE is not turning out to be a problem with any existing vaccines or viral variants.”…Throughout the pandemic, scientists have been looking for ADE associated with SARS-CoV-2, but so far they haven’t found any cases of it, noted Lichty.

So my conclusion on ADE is…possible outcome, risk is lower with these new vaccines, scientists are looking out for it but haven’t found any evidence for it yet.

If anything, the way the rollout is being indiscriminately administered (e.g. screening people for antibodies before giving them a vaccine like what Dr. Hooman suggested…note he is NOT suggesting not getting the vaccine) could be modified but not completely stopped.

(2) Infertility 

The fear is that when the immune system learns to recognize the spike protein via the vaccine, it will also attack the syncytin-1 receptor on the placenta and cause infertility. I know you are skeptical of Reuters but this is an article by them showing why this is not correct due to the differences in protein structure (and you can read the sources they cite). 

As well, this is a video explaining the concern around infertility and why the vaccine is not linked to infertility, citing laboratory, animal and human studies that have not shown a link between the two. 

As to the abnormal changes in menstrual cycles, that could be a side effect that was not detected in the clinical trials but is showing up in the global population, which is normal, as talked about in this article.

When you are giving some sort of medical intervention to millions of people, there are bound to be side effects that show up that are not previously accounted for, but I believe that these side effects are being taken account of and when they become statistically significant, they will become one of those effects that the public is pre-warned of before they take the vaccine.

One could argue that that’s unacceptable, but on the other hand, that’s just how the scientific process works – data comes up that have to be added to the body of knowledge later on. 

I know that your stance is that all these side effects could be avoided if we had chosen some other route other than vaccination from the very start (e.g. taking drugs to treat the elderly who are affected and not enforcing lockdowns and allowing there to be natural immunity amongst the young people).

I don’t disagree. It could very well be! The hard thing is that it’s impossible to know since that was NOT the route taken, and with COVID being a virus and the most established route to treating a virus being vaccines, I’m not surprised that was the initial instinct of the global scientific community. 

And could have there been momentum that was hard to stop even as other data showed up that pointed to other methods being effective treatments? Sure. That’s the problem of having large regulatory bodies or scientific agencies is that there is a certain momentum that is set in place when a decision is made, that is unfortunately hard to change based on a minority of voices (I hear this frustration over again with the FLCC webinars). 

With the weight of a pandemic and the health of a global population on their shoulders, I do think there is wisdom in having some momentum and not just changing direction based on what a minority of scientists say. Now am I saying that the majority should always win? Certainly not.

I just think that it’s easy to be critical of the Goliaths (governments, WHO) that are squashing the Davids (the “rogue” scientists who are being censored/not listened to) when there could be more complex issues at play. 

I’ve definitely been in positions in leadership before where people have criticized the decisions I’ve made and in their eyes, the decision seems so easy from their perspective, whereas as a leader, I have many other things to take into account which they don’t understand.

It’s easy to be critical when observing leadership until we are thrust into those positions and forced to make decisions on the fly with millions of lives at stake. 

What I’m saying is that there a couple of other factors that could be at play (other than the government is trying to dupe us or implement a system of control) that need to be considered, which include

• information we know not of because we are not in a position of leadership (most generous interpretation)

• unconscious bias due to scientific momentum (we have a certain hypothesis we hold onto until sufficient data arises that make us change our opinion – we saw this with Galileo and the Church – so definitely not a new problem haha…)

• and of course other financial incentives that could be influencing the process (more sinister but what Dr. Kory was alluding to and I actually don’t think is entirely impossible…we know that lobbying is real and there are always these supposedly “objective” regulatory bodies are maybe not so objective because of who is paying them…hence why we haven’t outlawed smoking even with the intense health detriment due to all the cigarette companies who are paying the big bucks).

But even if we take the more sinister interpretation of the “puppets” behind the government/WHO, my thinking jumps to what I outline in points A2b, c and B2. 

Ok I’m digressing from my original point but I do think that it is hard to assume intent and I believe there are more complex issues at play when talking about whether or not we could have avoided this whole lockdown/vaccine route!

But back to the dangers of the vaccine:

(3) Adverse events

Just a quick couple notes here: 

Just because there are reported deaths after a vaccine doesn’t mean that they are directly related to the vaccine (but VAERS reports these deaths that could be mistaken as vaccine-related, even they could be due to the person’s pre-existing condition or because people die normally and especially when we were vaccinating the elderly, they are already very weak/fragile/likely to die)

Even with the number of deaths that are reported by VAERS seem high (2602 deaths as the screen shot you sent me…although you said there are studies that said this a low number?), they have to be reported as a percentage of the TOTAL number of people vaccinated.

VAERS says that of the 211 million doses administered from Dec 14, 2020 through April 19 2021, they received 3486 reports of death, which corresponds to 0.0016% 

Just for comparison, this risk is similar to the risk of a random person dying from a bee sting (0.0017%): https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/preventable-death-overview/odds-of-dying/.

The risk of dying when crossing the road is actually 0.18% (1 in 543 people) and yet we cross the road every day. 

So even if there are some deaths after vaccine which were not reported, I think the risk would still be well under 0.18%, just to put things in perspective!

One other thing to note is how even though the actual percentages and risks are low, the stories linking deaths to vaccines are receiving more attention than they should on social media. I think we have to be careful of over-amplifying stories that might make that fear seem bigger in our mind than it actually is, as that is a normal human tendency I think 

Re: blood clots, I may have sent you the PDF by Dr. Ben Chan comparing the risk of getting a blood clot from the AstraZeneca to the risk of dying from COVID if you weren’t vaccinated. I thought it was an interesting way of assessing risk which could be applicable to point B1. 

Dr.-Ben-Chan-risk-analysis of blood clots from Oxford Astrazeneca vaccineDownload

A2. Is the fear of a technocracy an accurate representation of what will happen in the future? 

I see this fear come through with Naomi Wolfe and the other video on vaccine passports that the passport will be the final step in losing our freedom (coupled with all the other governmental measures like the travel regulations, wearing masks etc.).

It is the tyranny of the state which could lead to a Communist/Fascist reality with China and the technical companies becoming the global superpowers. 

I definitely see where this fear is coming from. I especially think that this fear is amplified as a Christian when we believe that the governments’ interests are not aligned with our own (e.g. sex education in the schools) and the slippery slope argument would be – if the government makes all the shots and gets to decide who gets access to public services based on whether or not we do what they want, then those of us who are not aligned with them will be persecuted. 

So, I’ll start off by saying I don’t think this is entirely not within the realm of possibility, although it is quite the slippery slope argument! In order for it to be true, I think we would have to make the following logical leaps:

a. Vaccine passports = control

Just because this is implemented, does this mean the government will have the amount of control the videos say they will? I’m not so sure. I know that in Africa, you have to have a certain set of vaccinations (e.g. yellow fever vaccine) in order to even enter certain countries because of their history with viruses.

Yet, we don’t see anything wrong with them and people who have gone on mission trips there get their vaccines before going. It’s not a control thing, but rather a practical safety thing.

b. Government control = necessarily bad

I would argue that this is only in the case of a bad and corrupt government. This goes back to more philosophical or political reasonings – I know that America was founded on democracy/capitalism and the pursuit of liberty so anything that flies in the face of that and even hints at socialism/communism is considered against the American ethos. 

I grew up in Singapore, however, where one could argue there is quite the autocratic government. We’ve had one party in power since it became a country. However, Singapore runs very efficiently, the people are relatively happy and actually are largely satisfied with the government, the economy is booming AND the church is flourishing.

This is because even though the government had a higher level of state control, it was not corrupt/immoral as a whole (not that it didn’t have oversight or times that people acted wrongly) and thus could govern the state with a high degree of efficiency.

I believe that the governments we have (Western democracies) generally try to do their best to act in the best interests of the people, or at least are comprised of individuals who do care for the country.

What makes me uneasy is the videos where it seems to be making a blanket statement across all these governments saying that they are all in on some sort of conspiracy and are out to “get us”. I think this is highly improbable given how hard it is to get governments of different countries to collaborate on ANYTHING much less a conspiracy to harm its people.

I would find it easier to believe if the claim was “there is one person in the government who is planning harm – like Hitler or Putin – and he is a menace that needs to be removed” rather than all the governments in the world are out to get us (sorry if this is a misinterpretation of the video but it was the message I felt was being communicated!), where I felt it painted government in a black-and-white manner, while neglecting the fact that a. WE elected these governments, b. Governments are comprised of people LIKE US and c. Each government in each country is different and cannot be all lumped together in a category of “big state”. 

Even when I lived in China for 2 years, where things were arguably a LOT more controlled and the government arguably less guided by moral principles than those here (we had to be careful of what we texted each other on WeChat i.e. not being able to spell the name Jesus), coming back to the West, I do see how the situation in China is catastrophized (oh the citizens have absolutely no freedom, the state is watching your every move etc.).

While on a day to day, living in China was pretty great for a citizen (they weren’t constantly living in fear and also happy with the government which I actually found super surprising!!) AND again the church was flourishing even as it was under more pressure/persecution. 

c. Bad government control = worst evil 

Which leads me to my last point on this line of logic, that even if the vaccine passports was a malicious attempt at government control by a corrupt government that would lead to something like a technocracy, I really don’t think that is the worst evil there is.

If we look at the Bible, the church flourished under Roman persecution.

I would actually be curious to hear how your conversation with that couple on Romans 13 went because we can tend to see living under unjust rulers as such a horrible thing while it is in fact quite the status quo for a lot of the world (we have just gotten used to having governments that are supposed to care for the interest of the general public). 

In fact, if persecution of the church under a totalitarian government leads to its growth, I would argue that is actually a greater good which would lead to eternal results! I also believe that even if the church were to suffer, I am not surprised because of John 16:33 where Jesus says in the world we will have tribulation but we are not to lose heart because He has overcome the world. 

Naomi Wolfe says in her video that this is “a hill worth dying on”, but I wonder if the mandate of the church is to die on the hill of sharing the gospel more than this particular hill (more on that in B2).

B1. What should we do with a potentially “dangerous” vaccine?

This question boils down for me to risk assessment, a topic we covered in the last email thread.

Nothing is 100% safe – so we each have to come up with criteria for what is considered “safe” and “dangerous”. 

This is a point individuals can disagree on depending on their assessment of the information out there – for example, both of us read the same information, yet we have different assessments of whether or not it is safe. This is a complex algorithm of our past history with vaccines, our social circles and the opinions of those we trust, the base level of risk we take in our day to day lives etc. 

I think on this point, it is normal that individuals would have differing opinions on what is safe/dangerous and you have a valid point in that once things like vaccine passports are enforced where individuals are “forced” to take the vaccine to have access to public goods, that variety of opinions in risk assessment becomes less tolerated. 

The larger question behind that would be – is it ever okay for the government to enforce a medical treatment on its citizens? This would be somewhat akin to the ethical question of would you do a blood transfusion on a Jehovah Witnesses patient knowing that it could save their life but that it’s against their belief? Who knows what is better for the patient’s health – the patient or the doctor? 

But then in this case, it wouldn’t just concern the individual’s health, but the health of the population.

Of course, as we have discussed extensively, you would argue that this isn’t true – that herd immunity via the vaccine is not the best way out of the pandemic, and that the opposite is true, that the vaccine would adversely affect the health of the population in the long-term (although I would disagree on this, see A1). 

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that it’s not such a cut-and-dry issue (“it’s my body and I should decide what I do with it”) because there are a variety of opinions in the society about what is “best” for the health of the individual and the population. 

Perhaps since everyone’s individual risk assessment and comfort levels of the vaccine is different, we should just let the individuals decide whether or not they take the vaccine and leave that choice to them.

The complicating factors are whether individuals are accurately assessing risk (see point A.1.3 and how our natural instinct to over-exaggerate/dwell on negative events), or whether we are researching both sides of the issue or only focusing on pieces of news that confirm the narrative we already believe to be true.

It is also the governments’ role to protect the health of the society as a whole.

I can understand how they do not think individuals are the best actors to make decisions about the vaccine, given that individuals are much more likely to look out for their own health and wellbeing more than the wellbeing of the society as a whole. 

There are many experts who believe that having a sufficient number of people vaccinated (and that number includes the current 28% of Canadians who are hesitant about taking the vaccine!) is essential to stopping the spread of COVID-19, in which case this decision is not just an individual one, but one that has to take into account the interests of the population at large.

B2. What should we do with a potential technocratic state? 

OK. Then the final point which is what I was hinting at the end of our last call – which is what you think we are called to do as believers. For point B1, the decision is whether to get vaccinated or not. But for this question, the practical outworking of this is less clear. 

Even if the fears outlined in point A2 are real, what is the appropriate response of a believer? And what should we as Christians care about as well as invest our time and energy doing? Both you and I know that it is SO EASY to get sucked into a vortex of never-ending research and information/news and to believe the fallacy that having more information means that we’re somehow getting nearer to the truth (while sometimes it only serves to confuse, overwhelm, or lead us to more confirmation bias). 

I think about the verse in Philippians 4:6-8 where we are called to “be anxious for nothing…and the peace of God shall guard your hearts and your minds…whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things.” 

So this is the first benchmark that I use when deciding what to fix my mind on/spend my energy reading and learning about.

If it is true and right and pure – the hard thing with all the debate surrounding the vaccine is that I’m not sure if they fit this criteria. I’m not sure if these reports are completely true, and if I’m meditating on how the government has malicious intent when it is not true, right or pure, I think that would be not living out these verses.

Which is why my stance has been more like – if I’m not sure if it’s true, I would rather not dwell on it.

The second benchmark I use is if God has put it on my heart and convicted me to care about it.

So just because something is not right or lovely doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care. Sex trafficking for example is not right or lovely but it is an injustice that God cares deeply about and so we think about it so that we can learn God’s heart for it.

But as you said at the IF gathering, every believer is not called to care equally about every injustice. God imparts different burdens to different believers so even though there are certain injustices that are TRUE and actually happening in the world (and there are SO many of these – abortion, racism, sex trafficking, war crimes etc.), just because I am not actively involved in fighting every single one of them doesn’t mean I am immoral or don’t care. It’s just not my burden that God has given me to bear. 

Finally, the third benchmark I use is whether or not I have agency to affect change.

So, this conversation may go differently if I was a major decision maker in the World Health Organization for example, or an actor of the vaccine rollout plan because then I would not only have more accurate, insider information (vs. Speculation) to offer to the conversation, but also real agency to right wrongs if there have been wrongs.

I think about this with regards to the call to care for orphans. It fulfills the 1st 2 benchmarks for me – (1) there ARE orphans in the world who need a home, so this is a real problem; (2) it is something God has put on my heart specifically. However, I currently am not married and do not have the capacity to adopt and so it is an injustice that I am unable to directly deal with right now (although I do hope to adopt in the future! :D) 

So, when I look at this fear of a totalitarian technocratic state in the future and the injustices that could happen because of that and how that falls into my benchmarks, 

 

• TRUE – Not completely convinced that this is true (see points A1, A2) but more hypothetical

• CONVICTED – Fighting a totalitarian state isn’t exactly a burden I feel God has specifically given me to bear

• AGENCY – Even if this fear was true and I felt convicted to fight it, I am not in government or a public health organization or have any sort of agency to affect change.

 

Now, as you said, it doesn’t mean we throw our hands up as Christians and just isolate ourselves from the world because we can’t change anything, but I think that as believers, it does mean trusting in a sovereign God, electing our leaders well through voting, praying for our leaders.

It also means, for me, strengthening my faith so I would be able to stand up if I were to be persecuted under a totalitarian state. I think it means spending time caring for our neighbours because if this truly is a signal of the end times, I should be really concerned for my unbelieving friends.

But it also means choosing NOT to be ruled by fear as a believer because I hold to 2 Tim 1:7 – that God has NOT given us a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind. 

Sorry if this is turning into a bit of a sermon – I just think we have to be careful as believers what we spend our time and energy on, what we choose to dwell and meditate on and what we are choosing to be ruled by (whether it’s fear or a confidence in God and His sovereignty).

Which is why I hope it’s okay that we end the conversation here (although please feel free to share any more follow-up thoughts if you have them) because I think that as helpful as it has been to work through the issues with you, it also has been taking quite a bit of time and I want to be conscious of the place that “current affairs, the world, vaccine passports etc.” occupies in the grand scheme of things 😉 

It’s also 11:34p.m. (I obviously did not finish this before I left for church haha…) and I should probably get to bed before the work week starts so I shall end my long rant here. I hope this made sense – tried to organize my thoughts the best I could and hope you think I have been fair in trying to evaluate/process through the articles and videos you have sent me, while also communicating clearly what I think about them 🙂 Please let me know if you have any questions! 

Have a lovely Sunday evening and much love,

Vivienne

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Other Resources:

Davidson Institute of Science Education: The numbers reveal: the vaccines work

• This article goes through the data following Israel’s vaccination effort. It cites the most extensive study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that showed that the vaccine’s efficiency rate with respect to preventing infection was 46% three weeks after the first dose and 92% the second week after the second dose. Furthermore, the researchers found that the vaccine prevents mortality from COVID-19 with 72% effectiveness three weeks after the first dose. 
• This is a response to the Nakim article you sent that claimed that Israel’s vaccination efforts led to increasing mortality:
  • https://healthfeedback.org/claimreview/data-from-israel-showed-that-the-pfizer-biontech-vaccine-reduces-the-likelihood-of-dying-from-covid-19-analysis-in-a-forum-post-claiming-the-opposite-is-flawed/
• I’ve found it helpful to google any claims and read through what people have said about it, as there are quite a few fact-checking organizations out there that can help sift through what data is accurately reported and what is not. I sent these links in the FB message but here they are again re: the claim of increase in mortality in elderly homes
  • https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-vaccine-covid-auburn-death-idUSKBN29J1NH
  • https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-norway-idUSKBN29P2R1

Dr. Francis Collins: A Christian Perspective on the COVID Vaccines

• I definitely respect Dr. Collins as someone who is trying to navigate being well-respected in the secular, scientific world as director of the NIH but also living out an open faith. 
• Youtube interview

Harvard Law: COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation and the Anti-Vaccine Movement

• This article highlighted the dangers of the anti-vaccine movement that I think we should be aware of – how possible and easy it is to spread claims (without data or proof to back it up) on social media, when there is an objective TRUTH of whether or not the deaths among nursing home residents were caused by vaccine. The article points out how many of these claims are unfounded as the deaths happened before the vaccination. 

Curtis Chang Youtube video series and website “Christians and the vaccine“. 

CBS News: Why the pathway to ending the pandemic runs through the evangelical church

New York Times: How white evangelicals’ vaccine refusal could prolong the pandemic

Biologos: 5 reasons Christians should get the COVID-19 vaccine