That's hours of "testimony" from conspiracy theorists who all have long records of making flagrantly incorrect statements on COVID. Johnson's big leadoff panelist was a Texas cardiologist who is far from a respected authority in epidemiology and seems to be courting attention by disputing every best practice that ER doctors and the scientific community have agreed works best with acute COVID patients and hyping up silver bullet drugs that have shown limited effectiveness in the best studies. I recommend everyone look up "Dr. Peter Mcullough" and getting a whiff of his reputation before investing any of their time in that panel.

The vaccines are extremely safe and the real world data from shows they protect you from getting covid in the first place (and are much more effective at preventing severe covid).

Here's the data from Sen Johnson's state: https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/covid-19/vaccine-status.htm#ca...

Again, this is based on the assumption that adverse effects are being sufficiently reported and/or attributed to the vaccines.

And once again, the real world data shows that the virus is spreading across the globe at record pace regardless of vaccination rate.

I know it sounds like dangerous conspiracy talk, but sometimes we need to think outside of our official sources. Ultimately it is up to the people to hold our institutions to account. The real world data does not line up with the official claims.

You seem to be alleging a massive global conspiracy that must involve tens if not hundreds of thousands of health officials, academics, and scientists all working together to hide the truth for some unstated reason.

You think Wisconsin health officials are cooking the books? Along with every single other state? C'mon

No. This is the danger of blithely dismissing everything as a "conspiracy theory".

None of this requires a conspiracy. None of this requires explicit communication or collusion. That's not how bias works. Bias works as subtle (sometimes not so subtle) pressure. Pressure against asking certain questions, against publishing certain results (this is hardly unique to covid), massaging data and models (often unconsciously) in favor of certain conclusions.

And then there is the very real stigma - also something which does not depend on an overt conspiracy, just an army of true believers who will publicly castigate those who speak out, putting the livelihoods of dissenters at risk.

There should be stigma for people who spread misinformation during a deadly pandemic, in my opinion.

And yes, what you're implying heavily in your posts would require some sort of conspiracy to be plausible. You're going against dozens of countries' thousands of experts and numerous studies, then choosing to believe quacks on panels on youtube whose wikipedia articles have giant "covid-19 misinformation" sections in them with ample citations.

>And yes, what you're implying heavily in your posts would require some sort of conspiracy to be plausible

Look, regardless of whether what I'm saying is true, your primary argument is that it is implausible because of the logistics of organizing such a vast conspiracy. This is false. All it takes is an emergent culture to instill an implicit bias under threat of ostracization/unemployment/unpersoning and then without any overt conspiracy you will see discourse, studies, and policy all align in a single direction regardless of that direction's validity.

This is the mechanism by which authoritarian governments flourish while simultaneously oppressing their peoples. Life in the Soviet Union was miserable, but the average person would not publicly speak against their leaders. Note that I don't mean to imply that anything about the covid response is "socialist" or anything to that effect, only that emergent consensus, especially when bolstered by propaganda, can influence individuals and society to together behave in an irrational manner in an emergent, implicit fashion.

Let's try to materialize an example. Suppose that you indeed have a society which is irrationally biased in favor of the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, and you are trying to study adverse effects. Moving up the chain

1. Patients are less likely to connect adverse effects to their vaccines (e.g. it only recently came out that monthly cycles were disrupted, originally a "conspiracy theory")

2. Doctors are less likely to acknowledge that strange symptoms are related to vaccines (remember, I'm alleging that they're biased)

3. Researchers are less likely to look into adverse events, especially when from the bottom they now have substantially less data to review

4. Policymakers see this lack of evidence of adverse events as proof of safety when it is only bias which has an emergent muting effect on cataloging of adverse events. They continue to distribute "safe and effective" propaganda in good faith (no conspiracy).

5. The cycle continues.

You may not agree that this bias exists, but my point again is that none of this requires a conspiracy, only a pervasive bias.

Now remember, the phrase "safe and effective" was repeated across media from day one, long before there was ample time to gather evidence of harm. The seed of bias was planted early. I hope you'll at least acknowledge that this is far more plausible than some cooky "conspiracy theory".

Those series of events could potentially happen, but I just don't think it's the case with so many disparate countries at play. I don't really want to get into an extended debate about this, but I appreciate your detailed response and civility here nonetheless.

Can you explain specifically what bias leads to Wisconsin reporting most covid cases are among the unvaccinated?

> I know it sounds like dangerous conspiracy talk, but sometimes we need to think outside of our official sources.

... to Dr. McCullough, this guy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_A._McCullough#COVID-19

Literally one of the main guys on the panel you cited yourself a post or two ago. Sounds like the definition of a conspiracy theorist / quack to me.