Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson fiercely defended the position that the COVID-19 vaccines were not adequately tested before their rollout, and that vaccine mandates later implemented by governments were unjust in a viral debate with the leftist livestreamer Destiny.
In a conversation with the influencer, Peterson was challenged to defend the positions that many conservatives had taken over the course of the pandemic relating to vaccines and lockdowns.
The debate between the two has since garnered over two million views and has been clipped widely on various social media channels. Other livestreamers have also provided commentary on the debate since its release.
Peterson pushed back, arguing that the COVID-19 vaccines likely have something to do with higher-than-expected excess mortality statistics in the post-COVID-19 pandemic era, specifically in Europe.
Peterson offered a couple of alternative explanations as to why excess mortalities were up but circled back to the vaccines as being a possible cause for this phenomenon.
“One relatively straightforward hypothesis is that it’s (excess mortalities) a consequence of the disruption of the healthcare system, the staving off of cancer treatment, et cetera. The increase in depression, anxiety, suicidality, and alcoholism that was a consequence of the lockdowns, the economic disruption,” said Peterson.
“But the other obviously glaring possibility is that injecting billions of people with a vaccine that was not tested by any stretch of the imagination with the thoroughness that it should of before it was forced upon people, also might be a contributing factor.”
The conversation developed into a discussion about claims that the vaccine would prevent the transmission of COVID-19 and the measures that governments put into place to prevent unvaccinated individuals from interacting with the vaccinated.
After Destiny attempted to make the argument that US President Joe Biden was the only public official to claim the COVID-19 vaccine would completely stop the transmission of the virus, Peterson shot back with his experience in Canada.
“Do you know that our Prime Minister in Canada deprived Canadians of the right to travel for some six months because the unvaccinated were going to transmit COVID with more likelihood than the vaccinated? So this wasn’t one bloody statement, this was a thorough government policy in my country,” said Peterson.
Destiny and Peterson went on to debate the legitimacy of governments using force to enforce public uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Peterson complained that governments and corporations used force to get their citizens to take the vaccines, but Destiny argued that this policy was not unfamiliar to Canadians and Americans.
“How long have vaccine mandates been a thing in Canada, the United States, and the entire world?” said Destiny.
“We absolutely use force, we’ve enforced vaccines for a long time, it’s an important part of public health.”
Peterson countered by saying that how vaccines were pushed onto citizens was different in nature to the mandates for conventional vaccines.
“Yes, fair enough. We did it on a scale and at a rate during the COVID pandemic, so-called pandemic, that was unparalleled. And the consequence of that was that we injected billions of people with an experimental – it wasn’t a bloody vaccine,” said Peterson.
The two then debated whether or not calling the mRNA vaccine a vaccine is an accurate way to describe the remedy.
After Destiny and Peterson debated the matter, Peterson conceded that the mRNA vaccine is a novel form of vaccine different in kind to other vaccines but argued that administering a new technology to billions of people without adequate testing was irresponsible.
“Well okay, it’s a radically transformed form of vaccine, I don’t give a damn. That still makes it something so new that the potential danger of its mass administration was highly probable to be at least or more dangerous than the thing that it was supposed to protect against. And we are seeing that in the excess deaths,” said Peterson.