I’ve been alternating between being bemused and aghast when I hear about people taking horse dewormer to deal with COVID symptoms. We have a proven preventative! The COVID vaccines are an incredible achievement, and absolutely everyone who can take one should take one. If you don’t trust that, why on earth would you trust a different medicine developed by science which isn’t at all indicated for this? The mind simply boggles.

I had not previously seen an explanation for the origins of this nonsense, however, so I was glad to read this piece from the Washington Post

So how did people get the idea that [ivermectin] can treat covid?

The idea that ivermectin could be a coronavirus treatment began gaining steam in the spring of 2020, when Australian researchers observed that the medicine killed the virus in a laboratory setting. The findings had notable caveats, however. For one, the amount of drug required to have an effect on the virus was much higher than the amount approved for use in humans, and could be fatal. And lab-based tests, where the drug and virus interact in a petri dish, also don’t account for the complexities of the human body.

By that same token, did you know that bullets can stop cancer if applied correctly?

When I read a headline like “A breathing tube through the butt could be an alternative to mechanical ventilators”, I think “OK, but you first”. Still, given the fact that ICUs around the world to have often run out of ventilators due to COVID, this research could one day prove life-saving.

Never let it be said that Charles Barkley shilly-shallied when it came to the question of whether folks should get vaccinated against COVID.

Prior to COVID-19, XpresSpa ran a chain of dozens of airport neck massage locations. When the pandemic made that business model untenable, the company pivoted to a new XpresCheck brand providing airport COVID tests. At $250 a pop, they’re making very good money off travelers with very few options.

I recently read a smart reframing of the debate when it comes to COVID-19 vaccines, intended to counter vaccine skepticism. In short, everyone is going to get vaccinated against COVID. Would you rather be vaccinated by a scientifically developed, widely tested vaccine that has proven itself to be incredibly safe, or by the virus itself, which has killed millions of people?

[A]ll of us are going to get vaccinated one way or the other. Sooner or later…people who don’t take one of the approved vaccines will get the virus. They might think of that as an alternative to vaccination, but it’s not. The virus will do the same thing the vaccines do: It will provoke their immune systems to develop antibodies. The difference is that the virus, unlike the vaccines, will attack their bodies and quite possibly kill them.

An abrupt vaccination entirely against your will is not the way to go.

You’re a trendsetter, an influencer, a real groundbreaker. Now thanks to CVS, when you protect yourself against COVID-19 by getting vaccinated, you’ll also have the chance to win a “pleasure” cruise. Catch the next pandemic before it gets popular.

I hereby propose we replace the phrase “as American as apple pie” with “as American as a vaccine clinic at a strip club”.

Here in America, the government has spent trillions of dollars to help deal with the economic impact of the COVID pandemic. Other countries have had similar stimulus programs, and friend of the site Ya’ir A. alerted me to one way the money is being spent. In the Japanese fishing village of Noto, they chose to commission a sculpture of a giant squid:

Now you have to admit, that’s a pretty great squid. And yet:

[T]here have been questions among locals over whether this was necessary or even an effective way to do PR for Noto.

Sure, Noto only has 17,000 residents, and maybe the money (roughly $250,000) could have been better spent, but keeping the world as weird as possible has value. And hey, judging by their Wikipedia entry, I was never going to link to Noto otherwise. So I say this big old squid is delightful, and that it’s working great as a PR measure. Readers, when it’s safe to do so, I urge you to go visit Noto. First one to send me a picture of themselves with the squid wins a free post here on OFT.