Things are a little crazy right now

I'm sure everyone is aware of the protests that happened last week. I watched them from the comfort of my home, and didn't feel the need to visit the march on Parliament on Tuesday or experience the “gridlock” in Wellington central on Saturday. There was one thing at Tuesday's protests that really struck me. The protesters, under the banner of the Freedoms and Rights Coalition (created by “Apostle” Brian Tamaki), have been asking for our best protections against people dying of COVID to be removed - lockdowns, vaccine mandates, MIQ, and all other restrictions. A frequent message throughout the day was about the government needing to listen to the public - the speakers outside parliament talked about how a government should heed the people.

But what the protesters seem to have not noticed is that they're not representative of “the people”, or the voice of “the public”. They're not the majority in New Zealand, just a loud minority, with big motorbikes and crazy signs, religious proclamations, swastikas, threatening looking hangman's nooses, tennis balls thrown at parliament calling for Jacinda Ardern to hang, and even someone biting a policeman in Auckland. A majority of New Zealanders support vaccination, mandates and MIQ - indeed, a majority have chosen to be vaccinated already. And the data clearly shows that those who have been vaccinated in New Zealand are much less likely to become ill from COVID. This is not to say that we should not protect the rights of minorities, but in this case I think the minority we should be focused on are those who are unable to receive the COVID vaccine, those who need the protection of the rest of us being vaccinated.

As always, the best advice is to trust the experts - and by experts I don't mean Deanna Copeland, a naturopath who last week wrote an article for the Otago Daily Times telling readers that to protect against viruses such as the flu they should eat “garlic, mushrooms, onions, turmeric, thyme and oregano” for their immune-boosting effect. The idea of boosting your immune system with certain foods is just nonsense. Your immune system is either compromised, in which case go and see your GP, or it's not - in which case it doesn't need boosting. In fact, if these foods actually boost your immune system, it would be risky. As a great article on the website Massive Science says:

“there is no way to “boost” the immune system. The immune system is a complicated and dynamic network of cells, proteins, hormones, and other biological components. Even if it were possible to ratchet up such a complex system, you wouldn't necessarily want to, because the immune system operates primarily by inducing inflammation... if a product were to truly “boost” the immune system, this mechanism would be amplified. We know what too much inflammation looks like: autoimmune disorders, inflammatory disease, and allergies.”

Instead of trying to boost your immune system, go and get vaccinated, wear a mask, sign in with the tracing app and follow the rules. There was an Aucklander who made the news after deliberately infecting himself with COVID recently, and said to the media:

"I survived Covid unvaxxed but I just wanna say that I do not recommend this little experiment to anyone.”

If, like me, you found that the amount of nonsense last week was too damn high, consider purchasing a ticket to this weekend's joint Australian and New Zealand Skepticon - our annual conference. For around $40 you'll be able to watch an entire weekend of people who talk sense, with evidence to back up their claims - and I guarantee you nobody will be calling for us to overthrow the government.

Finally, in this week's newsletter I look at a couple of COVID claims, see if QAnon is finally right about something, and test out some ghost hunting apps for mobile phones. But first, Peter Clemerson has written about some issues he found with a credulous article published in Nature about acupuncture.