Long before Coronavirus became a pandemic, there was a small but fervent substrata of society that was decidedly anti-vaxx. They ranged from the mild ("too many vaccines at once for my kid") to the uninformed ("vaccines cause autism") to those pushing fake or discredited "studies" or alternate treatments. Once coronavirus hit and COVID-19 became a deadly plague upon the world, microbiologists and other scientists in the various disciplines related to creating vaccines quickly found a way to use mRNA as way to stimulate the immune system to create anti-bodies. It was rather fortunate that they had been studying this approach for 20 years already, so all they had to do was "plug in" the mRNA from the coronavirus, and begin testing and ramping up production.

For most of the world, this was a miracle come true. The peer-reviewed double-blind studies showed that the vaccine prevented infection most of the time, and prevented the worst symptoms over 90% of the time. That is an amazing success rate for vaccines.

The problem, as we all know, is that The Former Guy had already poisoned the well. He had initially told his cult followers that it wasn't a pandemic, it wasn't his fault, it wasn't as bad as all the medical professionals indicated, etc., etc., etc. He tried to sell them on untested and dangerous "treatments", and then when Pfizer came out with a vaccine (with no help from the government), he tried to take credit for it, while at the same time saying it didn't work and no one needed it.

Considering that those who thrive on paranoid conspiracy theories overlap considerably with TFG cultists, it's been a perfect storm of insanity. These people would rather believe that some rando on the internet, claiming to have expert knowledge and information that "they" don't want you to know about, can provide better medical advice than actual medical professionals. It's the snake oil salesman scheme all over again, except I don't understand how they make any money doing this. The claims of "microchips", etc. would be laughable if they weren't so dangerous.

The latest quack "cure" for COVID is Ivermectin. Why a cure? Because people get desperate when they've spent the last 10 months railing against the vaccine and end up in the hospital with severe symptoms. Why Ivermectin? I wish I could tell you.

Once this became the cure d'jour, however, the "early adopters" rushed to their local farm supply stores and bought Ivermectin paste. It's sold as a treatment for worms and other intestinal parasites for cattle, and is meant to be administered based on the weight of the animal. People have been taking WAY to much and literally shitting themselves in public. What they're doing to their intestines is much worse.

There IS a version of Ivermectin sold for human consumption. It's in pill form, and is used for treating - you guessed it - worms and other intestinal parasites - just like the "horse" version. What it's NOT meant for is treating viral infections. Manufacturers Merck and Edenbridge have had to put out statements to that effect.

There will always be those who will claim that it "cured" them or that "they heard about" some doctor curing patients, but COVID-19 is fatal in less than 10% of cases, and coincidence is not causation. There has been no medical explanation as to why it WOULD work. There have been no actual peer-reviewed double-blind studies to back up the claims of this being a cure. Any doctor asked to prescribe this as a cure for COVID-19 could just provide a placebo, and the results would be the same.

We are experiencing yet another spike in infections and hospitalizations, all because of the unvaxxed and the unmasked (who generally are the same people). Of those taking up ICU hospital beds with severe infections, 96-98% are unvaccinated. The courts decided over 100 years ago that when it comes to vaccines, public safety comes before personal liberty, so perhaps it's time to force vaccines on people. These wackos are certainly endangering the rest of us with their stubbornness.