Neuroscientist Professor Tomás Ryan of ISAG fame wrote an Irish Times article over the weekend urging a campaign with one simple goal:
The total global “elimination” of Covid-19.
In his own words, the article reads:
“Looking to the long term, there seems to be only two endgames. Either we accept Covid as endemic, which could kill many thousands of people in Ireland each year, with ensuing human, social and economic effects, or, we move towards Covid’s progressive elimination via a globally co-ordinated and equitable vaccine-plus campaign, as we have for smallpox.”
Feels like Groundhog day. I really hope we're wrong about #Omicron, and I don't envy our health care workers or policy makers. But boosters alone is not a strategy, the proposed measures are unlikely to be enough, & time is running out.#COVIDisAirbornehttps://t.co/WOfOLSsdRx
— Tomás Ryan (@TJRyan_77) December 18, 2021
For those not in the loop, a “vaccine-plus” strategy involves vaccination, and other Covid restrictions working in tandem. Vaccine certs, masks, social distancing – the works. Ryan’s proposal here is basically to continue these measures globally in a coordinated fashion, along with boosters and what-have-you-not-got, until we “eliminate” Covid-19 worldwide.
Immediate responses to current COVID19 situation – @ISAGCOVID19 press release.
We urge the government to implement a vaccines-plus strategy of Prevention, Vaccination and Control (PVC) pic.twitter.com/vIH9qnkKu2
— Independent Scientific Advocacy Group (ISAG) (@ISAGCOVID19) October 19, 2021
Now, that might sound very attractive to some. After all, just imagine returning to total 2019 normality, with this damned virus behind us once and for all. It’d be like a dream, wouldn’t it?
Well there’s just one problem with dreams – they aren’t real. Ryan’s stated goal is impossible, as most experts are fully aware.
First, take the reference to smallpox. In the past, other ISAG figures like Professor Luke O’Neill have pointed to smallpox as an example of a disease humanity has eradicated, as if to say “We’ve done it before and we can do it again.”
Professor Luke O'Neill: 'History holds the answer as to how we should deal with the pandemic' – https://t.co/rdkV3E7ALO https://t.co/6uPuC9xBcp
— john kenny (@JohnKennyMedia) March 28, 2021
But do you want to know why the example of smallpox is always raised, and not some other disease?
Well, the answer is simple: there are no other examples. Smallpox is the only human pathogen ever eliminated in history. The only other disease we’ve managed to successfully purge is rinderpest, a kind of weird cow disease which didn’t affect humans at all.
We haven’t eliminated polio. We haven’t eliminated malaria. We haven’t eliminated the flu, or colds, or mumps, or HIV, or tuberculosis, or zika, or ebola. People still get all of these diseases today.
Is this because we could cure them and scientists just aren’t arsed? Or is it because most diseases behave in a way which makes it virtually impossible to fully eliminate them, and smallpox just happened to be an exception?
Well, obviously the latter.
In fact, for more on what makes a disease a likely candidate for elimination, it’s worth consulting “The History of Vaccines.”
This is an award-winning informational, educational website created by The College of Physicians of Philadelphia – one of the oldest medical societies in the United States, dating back to the 1700s.
Here’s what the society has to say about disease eradication:
“Smallpox was a good candidate for eradication for several reasons. First, the disease is highly visible: smallpox patients develop a rash that is easily recognized. In addition, the time from exposure to the initial appearance of symptoms is fairly short, so that the disease usually can’t spread very far before it’s noticed.”
So in other words, you have to immediately and quickly be able to verify if someone has the disease. Already, Covid has failed this test and fallen at the first hurdle.
We know, and have known for almost 2 years now, that many cases of Covid-19 are mild or asymptomatic. Someone could look and feel absolutely fine, not a bother on them, and yet be carrying the virus.
4 in 10 with COVID may be spreading virus unknowingly, global study warns https://t.co/J3edtAzKjY pic.twitter.com/JUZvQFo6CW
— New York Post (@nypost) December 20, 2021
Therefore, you can never identify and isolate every case. Right off the bat, Ryan’s thesis has blown up like the Hindenburg.
But it gets worse – the piece continues:
“Second, only humans can transmit and catch smallpox. Some diseases have an animal reservoir, meaning they can infect other species besides humans.
Yellow fever, for example, infects humans, but can also infect monkeys. If a mosquito capable of spreading yellow fever bites an infected monkey, the mosquito can then give the disease to humans.
So even if the entire population of the planet could somehow be vaccinated against yellow fever, its eradication could not be guaranteed. The disease could still be circulating among monkeys, and it could re-emerge if human immunity ever waned.”
Again, Covid fails this test as well, because we know animals can contract it. According to the American CDC, animals such as dogs, house cats, ferrets, big cats, primates, otters, hyenas, mink, deer and more have all been reported as having contracted Covid-19.
Therefore, as the The History of Vaccines website suggests, even if we vaccinated 100% of the human population, and the vaccines were highly effective, all it would take would be for an animal to pass it to some guy in Mongolia and we’d be back to square one.
This is why experts have been telling us since the beginning that Covid-19 is endemic, and will never go away.
Coronavirus may never go away, @WHO warns — “There is some magical thinking going on that lockdowns work perfectly and that unlocking lockdowns will go great. Both are fraught with dangers”https://t.co/xRzPlcCtbe pic.twitter.com/oHEqAqRfkP
— Alfons López Tena 🦇 (@alfonslopeztena) May 14, 2020
It’s worth asking at this point if figures like Ryan are able to accept any risk whatsoever, or if we have to stay with Covid restrictions until there is not a shred of danger anywhere on earth.
The extreme over-caution of these individuals is simply baffling; Ryan previously posited that Covid-19 could cause autism, without any evidence provided. Astonishing stuff.
"If Dr. Ryan had suggested, with no evidence, that it was the Covid vaccines that cause autism, he would never appear in the Irish media again, and it would be the subject of endless fact-checks. With this, though, everyone will pretend not to notice."https://t.co/q8vltUU2V8
— gript (@griptmedia) May 20, 2021
Eliminating Covid-19 is a total pipedream, and if a return to normality is reliant on this absolute impossibility, we may give up.