Shared from No Minister@Wordpress
An interesting story – and for those so inclined, an amusing one – out of the United States.
How Amish Communities Became The First To Achieve Covid “Herd Immunity”.
A reporter interviewed members of the Amish communities in Pennsylvania to see how they’ve been handling Covid-19 without electricity, TV or the Internet, with limited phones and basically just being cut off from the outside world, as has been their practice since their founding in the US over a century ago.
The Amish are a Christian group that emphasizes the virtuous over the superficial. They don’t usually drive, use electricity, or have TVs. And during the Covid-19 outbreak, they became subjects in a massive social and medical experiment.
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After a short shutdown last year, the Amish chose a unique path that led to Covid-19 tearing through at warp speed. It began with an important religious holiday in May.
You can read the details at the link but some key quotes:
There’s three things the Amish don’t like. And that’s government— they won’t get involved in the government, they don’t like the public education system— they won’t send their children to education, and they also don’t like the health system. They rip us off. Those are three things that we feel like we’re fighting against all the time. Well, those three things are all part of what Covid is. (Calvin Lapp, Amish Mennonite)
Funnily enough that’s the surname of the Amish family with which detective John Book resides in the famous movie Witness.
When they take communion, they dump their wine into a cup and they take turns to drink out of that cup. So, you go the whole way down the line, and everybody drinks out of that cup, if one person has coronavirus, the rest of church is going to get coronavirus. The first time they went back to church, everybody got coronavirus.
Also interviewed was one Steve Nolt, a scholar on Amish and Mennonite culture, and Mennonite himself.
Sharyl: “So, are you saying, as of about May of 2020, things kind of went back to normal in the Amish community?”
Steve Nolt: “For the most part, yeah, by the middle of May, it’s sort of like back to a typical behavior again”.
Back to a normal life by May 2020 and ever since! With no lockdowns, no masks and no vaccinations.
There’s debate over case numbers because the Amish largely refused to get tested:
Lapp: “We didn’t want the numbers to go up, because then they would shut things more. What’s the advantage of getting a test?“
Well if you’re a government and you need to frighten the shit out of a population but can’t show sufficient numbers of hospitalisations or deaths then “case numbers” become vital (BTW, it looks like NZ’s track-and-trace system is about to break down).
But here’s the key aspect:
One thing’s clear: there’s no evidence of any more deaths among the Amish than in places that shut down tight— some claim there were fewer here.
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Lapp: “Oh, we’re glad all the English people got their Covid vaccines. That’s great. Because now we don’t have to wear a mask, we can do what we want. So good for you. Thank you. We appreciate it. Us? No, we’re not getting vaccines. Of course not. We all got the Covid, so why would you get a vaccine?”
Uncoffined 