Ivor Mectin - COVID-19: Ultimate Misinformation

Dr Ivor Mectin is a metallurgist from the United Kingdom, who uses computer modelling to solve complex problems in materials science. Hence it may seem strange for the topic of his first book to be on the alternative medicine/COVID-19 denial/COVID-19 minimalism/Antivaxxer propaganda. He still isnt exactly sure, but it started how many things started in late 2019, an interest in armchair epidemiology as the COVID-19 pandemic developed. Eventually he would discover the absolute legends The Real Truther, Bad COVID19 Takes, Bad Vaccine Takes, Bad Medical Takes and GidMK on Twitter (also the consulting of his old favourites Thunderf00t and potholer54 on YouTube). These people have done a great public service over the course of the pandemic, and I fully recommend that the readers check them out. There will, in fact be a full list of social media profiles that you should follow for COVID-19 and vaccine information near the end of this book.

However, it was after the discovery of American breast cancer surgeon Dr David Gorski (and his significantly more snarky alter ego Orac) that the idea of this book began to take hold. Ivor read a lot of articles on the Dr Gorskis blog about the more intelligent science based misinformation regarding the COVID-19 vaccines, the stuff which in general cites scientific papers, instead of the usual infamous sources like Natural News and INFOWARS. Ivor decided to send Dr Gorski a thank you email, after Ivor got his first vaccine (Pfizer gang, baby!).

Ivor had also designed some satire for his friends over the past year, so he decided to make like the elite th Brigade sniper that he is and, well, send it! There were 2 pieces of satire, one was a satirical bingo card of the usual stuff he had seen on Twitter (just browsing it at this point, still had no account). The second was a tweet thread made using an online generator to imagine what would happen if Twitter was around in the 1940s during the Battle of Britain, the former is at the end of this chapter (in addition to an updated version). But wait, the plot thickens, after sending this to Dr Gorski, Ivor got curious, just how large of a bingo card of antivaxxer misinformation could actually be produced. One of Ivors frustrations with the antivaxxer movement, is they resort to a tactic known as Gish Galloping, this essentially means that you create the appearance of overwhelming evidence by simply producing a torrent of arguments. Quality in this case does not matter, whether they have all been debunked, doesnt matter! Ivor was able to easily expand from a x to a x on the topic of COVID-19 vaccines alone. He sent this list to Dr Gorski who was impressed. But Ivor, was he done? We all already know the answer to that particular question, and it is a resounding no. If he were to expand to topics such as Bill Gates, COVID-19 itself and medical quackery, just how high could be go!? This book is the result of that very question, and the answer is over 500!

Of course, there cannot be a book without some form of promotion and that was where that hell site we all know as Twitter comes in. Those of you who are eagle eyed will have realised that Ivor Mectin is not the authors real name, but a persona, a more brash version of the author. Thus, the account was created Ivor Mectin @IvorMectin1, a snarkier version of the author. Ivor was able to grow his social media through what he calls cutting edge hard-hitting satire, but others will call reposting the same 3 moderately funny jokes in other peoples replies sections in a desperate attempt to pick up some clout and followers. Which one you choose is all a matter of perception, I guess!

I think we should all take a moment to embrace the great irony of someone who is a scientist by trade writing the book which is probably the most overloaded with misinformation talking points of all time. There are simple debunks of all of these talking points which can be found in a matter of minutes, some of which I provide myself in brackets. However, it is beyond the scope of this book to provide a debunk for all of them, as if I did the book would be thicker then War and Peace (and I dont think anyone would read that). Its been a tough pandemic for everyone, but as more vaccines are distributed, we push it back and the world returns to normal, we can still hope for a more enlightened future without such misinformation (a very naive hope I know, based on the current trajectory).

The original bingo card sent to David Gorski.

The updated version of the bingo card.