Dr Du Bois misguided about Covid vaccines

DR DUNCAN du Bois’s letter, “Covid jab: more bad than good”, presents a fallacious argument for the anti-vaxxing brigade, for whom Du Bois seems to be the standard bearer.

Predictably, his argument fails the rudimentary test of logic. Not only is it specious and pseudo-scientific, it is more than that. For a highly literate South African – judging by his avowed credentials – it is perverse and an insult to the memory of those who have succumbed to this insidious, devastating pathogen. It is an insult, too, to the families of health workers who have lost their lives in the line of duty.

Du Bois begins by appealing to the authority of Johns Hopkins University, where some scientists “concluded that the policies of lockdowns, social distancing and masks are ill-founded and should be rejected”. So what does this have to do with Covid vaccines?

In the early days of the coronavirus, it was strict lockdowns that minimised the initial impact of this deadly virus. The fact there has been an easing of such restrictions in some countries does not invalidate the effect of lockdowns and precautions countries worldwide adopted to save lives.

Statistics can be manipulated to prove or disprove anything. Du Bois marshals some selective statistics to make his point. If 75% of vaccinated people at a hospital die, it does not mean they died of the virus or the vaccine. They could have died of medical conditions that predisposed them to the virus. A vaccine does not mean you will not contract a virus after receiving a jab.

Having trotted out a selective list of “empirically obvious” data to bolster his argument, Du Bois arrives at the spurious, if not ludicrous, conclusion that the Covid vaccine is “perpetuating the transmission of Covid”. He seems to have forgotten the days when people in New York City and Mumbai were dying like flies in the streets. How sad.