COVID-19 vaccines: medical concerns and recommendations

[Clusterfrack]

This is a new thread continuing the discussion started in the now closed COVID VACCINE thread (https://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?45742-COVID-VACCINE).

Please limit discussion in this thread to medical concerns and recommendations related to COVID-19 vaccines. Literature citations and conclusions based on legitimate medical and/or scientific expertise are encouraged.

There is another thread for discussion of political issues and concerns related to COVID-19 vaccines (https://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?49006-COVID-Politics-vaccines-lockdowns-et-al).

[Joe in PNG]

My sister, a nurse, was asking about my current vaccine status in light of my many previous malaria infections. It seems that one of her unvaccinated co-workers got Covid, and that triggered a malaria attack.

Now, a few years back, I had a case of food poisoning that triggered a malaria flare up, so yeah.

[Baldanders]

My sister, a nurse, was asking about my current vaccine status in light of my many previous malaria infections. It seems that one of her unvaccinated co-workers got Covid, and that triggered a malaria attack.

Now, a few years back, I had a case of food poisoning that triggered a malaria flare up, so yeah.

Guess I have some reading to do, had no idea that was a thing. Sorry, brother.

Grandpa had malaria. He got it while nursing some abdominal Japanese artillery shell fragments with no antibiotics.

I am glad to have some of his DNA.

[Yung]

https://www.axios.com/jj-vaccine-fda-warning-guillain-barre-408bb913-1d78-4096-acdc-7114186c0d75.html

https://www.fda.gov/media/146305/download

[entropy]

I’ll be attending a Celebration of Life this weekend.

Per Yung’s link above.



74407

[entropy]

*Wrong thread*

[Eric_L]

Here in OK, essentially all hospital admissions for COVID are unvaccinated persons. I think it is ALL at this time, but few things are “all, 100%”.

Recommendation: vaccinate.

[RoyGBiv]

Hopefully this is appropriate for this new thread?

New Study on Antibody Response Shows We Should Hit the Brakes on Push for COVID Vaccine Boosters (https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2021/07/15/if-new-study-holds-up-then-do-we-even-need-covid-vaccine-boosters-n2592577)

The story takes a while to get to the gist of the byline.... too much blather... but...
The first embedded link is to Science Daily... Interesting read there as well.


Also, I cannot cite how many studies that show the long-lasting immunity (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210524110135.htm) that comes from initial vaccination (https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/new-studies-suggest-lifetime-covid-19-immunity-isnt-out-of-reach-for-some/2616914/).

I mean, this isn’t breaking news. WBUR from May (https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/05/27/covid-19-lifetime-immunity):

A new study that focused on the immune response to COVID-19 in patients who contracted mild cases found that antibody production lasts up to a year and may last a lifetime.

Vaccines heighten the antibody response and are crucial in protecting those who developed asymptomatic COVID-19 or never contracted the virus at all, the study finds.



Further down in the same story... Emphasis mine...

And Good Morning America also cited a study from NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins showing long-lasting immunity post-vaccination. For those who have received the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines—pay attention. It is a small study. I want to make that clear, but 14 vaccinated people after 15 weeks had their lymph nodes biopsied and found a lasting cellular immune response from COVID. Dr. Darien Sutton said these types of cells can last for decades (via Director’s Blog NIH (https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2021/07/13/mrna-vaccines-could-pack-more-persistent-punch-against-covid-19-than-thought/)):

[frank]

My sister, a nurse, was asking about my current vaccine status in light of my many previous malaria infections. It seems that one of her unvaccinated co-workers got Covid, and that triggered a malaria attack.

Now, a few years back, I had a case of food poisoning that triggered a malaria flare up, so yeah.


Interesting. I grew up in the Ivory Coast in the late 80s through early 90s and had malaria at least 2x a year despite being on meds (Nivaquine? I think that's what it was. I had hallucinations from it.)

Anyway, malaria sucks. I'm vaccinated so I'm happy that won't be popping up years later.

[TGS]

Interesting. I grew up in the Ivory Coast in the late 80s through early 90s and had malaria at least 2x a year despite being on meds (Nivaquine? I think that's what it was. I had hallucinations from it.)

Anyway, malaria sucks. I'm vaccinated so I'm happy that won't be popping up years later.

Your quote of Clusterfrack doesn't link to a post by him saying anything about malaria.

Can you give a correct link so I can read what you're referring to? There's otherwise no context to your reply.

Moderator edit: fixed the quote.

[HeavyDuty]

Your quote of Clusterfrack doesn't link to a post by him saying anything about malaria.

Can you give a correct link so I can read what you're referring to? There's otherwise no context to your reply.

I think he was quoting Joe.

[peterb]

From CDC: 5,500 reported breakthrough infections of vaccinated people resulting in hospitalization or death from a population of 159 million fully vaccinated people.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/breakthrough-cases.html

[RoyGBiv]

From CDC: 5,500 reported breakthrough infections of vaccinated people resulting in hospitalization or death from a population of 159 million fully vaccinated people.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/breakthrough-cases.html

i know one of them. She has COPD. Probably would be dead if not vaxxed.

I wonder if by "breakthrough" what is really meant is "noticeable enough to get tested and confirmed"?

[Yung]

Moderna
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04470427


Actual Enrollment : 30420 participants
Actual Study Start Date : July 27, 2020
Estimated Primary Completion Date : October 27, 2022
Estimated Study Completion Date : October 27, 2022

Pfizer
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04368728


Estimated Enrollment : 43998 participants
Actual Study Start Date : April 29, 2020
Estimated Primary Completion Date : November 2, 2021
Estimated Study Completion Date : May 2, 2023

[Spartan1980]

From CDC: 5,500 reported breakthrough infections of vaccinated people resulting in hospitalization or death from a population of 159 million fully vaccinated people.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/breakthrough-cases.html

So using this data we have a .003% of vaccinated people being hospitalized/dying from COVID. I realize this will change as time goes on and I also realize that it doesn't account for the infections of people who never knew they were infected, but the vaccines look pretty damned effective.

[David S.]

Just curious.

Is anyone here arguing that the vaccine is ineffective at reducing the number (and/or severity) of COVID cases?

(edit: clarification.)

[Spartan1980]

Just curious.

Is anyone here arguing that the vaccine is ineffective at reducing the number (and/or severity) of COVID cases?

(edit: clarification.)

I've heard it argued both ways of late but not here on P-F that I've noticed.

[Baldanders]

Hopefully this is appropriate for this new thread?

New Study on Antibody Response Shows We Should Hit the Brakes on Push for COVID Vaccine Boosters (https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2021/07/15/if-new-study-holds-up-then-do-we-even-need-covid-vaccine-boosters-n2592577)

The story takes a while to get to the gist of the byline.... too much blather... but...
The first embedded link is to Science Daily... Interesting read there as well.



Further down in the same story... Emphasis mine...

IIRC, way before Covid, I read articles about the hypothesis that mRNA vaccines would lead to much more long-lasting immunity than traditional vaccines. Looks good so far.

But if a new strain bypasses the immunity of the current vaccination, I can't imagine we would have time to get a booster out without extensive genetic testing on the virus globally and a plan to produce and distribute the booster at transwarp speed.

Am I being too pessimistic?

[Bio]

IIRC, way before Covid, I read articles about the hypothesis that mRNA vaccines would lead to much more long-lasting immunity than traditional vaccines. Looks good so far.

But if a new strain bypasses the immunity of the current vaccination, I can't imagine we would have time to get a booster out without extensive genetic testing on the virus globally and a plan to produce and distribute the booster at transwarp speed.

Am I being too pessimistic?

I'm guessing, that a booster is, like anything, part of a solution that overlaps with other solutions. If some really new and nasty variation breaks out, you try it slow it down with social distancing, partial shutdowns, and quarantines to buy time for to research what the booster needs to contain. If I had any sway at an R&D branch of a pharmaceutical company, I'd have my people working on stuff for any variant that rears its head to reduce the lead time for the one that ends up becoming problematic. I imagine there are a few universities doing the same thing.

At least the we have better experience with the mass manufacture and distribution of vaccines now compared to a year ago.

[Baldanders]

I'm guessing, that a booster is, like anything, part of a solution that overlaps with other solutions. If some really new and nasty variation breaks out, you try it slow it down with social distancing, partial shutdowns, and quarantines to buy time for to research what the booster needs to contain. If I had any sway at an R&D branch of a pharmaceutical company, I'd have my people working on stuff for any variant that rears its head to reduce the lead time for the one that ends up becoming problematic. I imagine there are a few universities doing the same thing.

At least the we have better experience with the mass manufacture and distribution of vaccines now compared to a year ago.

Yeah, and mRNA vaccines can be developed and produced faster than then the alternatives. But given the problems with vaccine acceptance, it's hard for me seeing boosters doing enough soon enough to affect the strain that evades the current vaccines as far as transmission goes.

Would it be prudent to start boosting against Delta anyway, on the assumption that the strain that does require a booster for sure will be more similar to Delta than the original strain?

I'm guessing the answer to that question is "no," since I pulled that reasoning out of my posterior.

[Patrick Taylor]

The people giving out numbers on covid are some of the same ones that gave vote counts.

No idea which ones are truthful and which are pushing a plan but taking experimental gene therapy because of numbers on CNN is not in my plan.

[Bio]

Yeah, and mRNA vaccines can be developed and produced faster than then the alternatives. But given the problems with vaccine acceptance, it's hard for me seeing boosters doing enough soon enough to affect the strain that evades the current vaccines as far as transmission goes.

Would it be prudent to start boosting against Delta anyway, on the assumption that the strain that does require a booster for sure will be more similar to Delta than the original strain?

I'm guessing the answer to that question is "no," since I pulled that reasoning out of my posterior.

I think the answer is "no" as well, it's a lot of effort to make a vaccine in large scale when it isn't really needed. I bet there's a ton of research that is already ongoing to identify alternative vaccine targets that is in-part based on the Delta variant, however.

[Bio]

The people giving out numbers on covid are some of the same ones that gave vote counts.

No idea which ones are truthful and which are pushing a plan but taking experimental gene therapy because of numbers on CNN is not in my plan.

Just FYI, mRNA vaccines don't change your genes. I'm not telling you want to do, just thought you might want to know.

[Sanch]

So using this data we have a .003% of vaccinated people being hospitalized/dying from COVID. I realize this will change as time goes on and I also realize that it doesn't account for the infections of people who never knew they were infected, but the vaccines look pretty damned effective.

Meaningless statistic in its own.

What if 0.003% of all total unvaccinated people were also being hospitalized/die from covid? Then the vaccine would be doing nothing and covid just would be overblown.

We need to know what percentage of the unvaccinated public are being hospitalized or die of covid to make a comparison.

We also need to know if people dying of non-covid related reasons are still being tested for covid, and having that on their listed cause of death. And perhaps, if people vaccinated are less likely to get covid tested when dying of something else.

Example. Die of motorcycle crash. If unvaccinated, they test for covid, and say died if covid. Same motorcycle crash, but vaccinated, so don’t check for covid, and thus did not die of covid. I doubt this is a huge factor but it needs to be analyzed for.

We’d also need to look at how many are dying or being hospitalized from the vaccine itself. Suppose 0.003% of people getting the vaccine die or are hospitalized from the vaccine. That needs to be factored in.

Example. 0.005% of people unvaccinated are dying or hospitalized from covid compared to 0.003% of total vaccinated population. But, vaccinations result in 0.004% of vaccine takers getting hospitalized or dying. Then the comparison is 0.005% to 0.007% in favor of not being vaccinated. Since the unvaccinated still have a 0.003% chance of covid issue but are introducing a new 0.004% chance of serious vaccine issue.

Based on loose numbers I’ve seen I strongly suspect when broken down by age, if you’re under 20 years old, you’re far better off not getting vaccinated. Since the vaccine complication rate is higher than unvaccinated covid problem rate. Both rates are very very small but as an individual, you are more likely to be hospitalized or die if you got vaccinated, by a small margin.

And if you’re over 70 years old, the vaccination complication rate stays the same but covid problem rate is exponentially higher, so you are better off getting the vaccine.

Need to stratify data by age and risk factor groups. Unless it’s a public policy decision where we force everyone to get the vaccine, even if it’s at their personal detriment because it’s for the good of society at large. And then I’d say turn your guns in, too, because while it makes you individually less safe, it makes the public more safe if you were disarmed.

[HeavyDuty]

I think the answer is "no" as well, it's a lot of effort to make a vaccine in large scale when it isn't really needed. I bet there's a ton of research that is already ongoing to identify alternative vaccine targets that is in-part based on the Delta variant, however.

A casual acquaintance is a biochemist for one of the huge pharma companies, and usually works on cancer gene therapy research. But with covid it was all hands on deck, so she is (or was) working outside her usual area to support the company’s efforts.

She said something about how mRNA vaccine development was a little like having a sourdough starter. They can start from much further in the process than they could with traditional vaccines, which saves a lot of time. But the actual “payload” (for the lack of a better term) is developed as needed.

I may have totally misunderstood her, though.

[Bio]

A casual acquaintance is a biochemist for one of the huge pharma companies, and usually works on cancer gene therapy research. But with covid it was all hands on deck, so she is (or was) working outside her usual area to support the company’s efforts.

She said something about how mRNA vaccine development was a little like having a sourdough starter. They can start from much further in the process than they could with traditional vaccines, which saves a lot of time. But the actual “payload” (for the lack of a better term) is developed as needed.

I may have totally misunderstood her, though.

That concurs with my understanding of mRNA vaccines as well, from the viewpoint of someone who is acquainted with the science, does not work with them directly.

[Baldanders]

Meaningless statistic in its own.

What if 0.003% of all total unvaccinated people were also being hospitalized/die from covid? Then the vaccine would be doing nothing and covid just would be overblown.

We need to know what percentage of the unvaccinated public are being hospitalized or die of covid to make a comparison.

We also need to know if people dying of non-covid related reasons are still being tested for covid, and having that on their listed cause of death. And perhaps, if people vaccinated are less likely to get covid tested when dying of something else.

Example. Die of motorcycle crash. If unvaccinated, they test for covid, and say died if covid. Same motorcycle crash, but vaccinated, so don’t check for covid, and thus did not die of covid. I doubt this is a huge factor but it needs to be analyzed for.

We’d also need to look at how many are dying or being hospitalized from the vaccine itself. Suppose 0.003% of people getting the vaccine die or are hospitalized from the vaccine. That needs to be factored in.

Example. 0.005% of people unvaccinated are dying or hospitalized from covid compared to 0.003% of total vaccinated population. But, vaccinations result in 0.004% of vaccine takers getting hospitalized or dying. Then the comparison is 0.005% to 0.007% in favor of not being vaccinated. Since the unvaccinated still have a 0.003% chance of covid issue but are introducing a new 0.004% chance of serious vaccine issue.

Based on loose numbers I’ve seen I strongly suspect when broken down by age, if you’re under 20 years old, you’re far better off not getting vaccinated. Since the vaccine complication rate is higher than unvaccinated covid problem rate. Both rates are very very small but as an individual, you are more likely to be hospitalized or die if you got vaccinated, by a small margin.

And if you’re over 70 years old, the vaccination complication rate stays the same but covid problem rate is exponentially higher, so you are better off getting the vaccine.

Need to stratify data by age and risk factor groups. Unless it’s a public policy decision where we force everyone to get the vaccine, even if it’s at their personal detriment because it’s for the good of society at large. And then I’d say turn your guns in, too, because while it makes you individually less safe, it makes the public more safe if you were disarmed.

Posting a bunch of "must have" information which we must have to say which folks should be vaccinated, then making pretty definitive statements about it being a bad gamble for young folks to get vaccinated with no reference to any numbers whatsoever is ironic.

I'd link the article, but I'm at work on my phone--the biggest ivermectin "study" that formed the backbone of all the meta analysis saying it did anything got retracted. I doubt it will stop the quacks from promoting it.

[Yung]

Elgazzar study retraction
https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-100956/v4

Removed from ivmmeta on 7/15
https://ivmmeta.com/#revisions

Guardian article
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/16/huge-study-supporting-ivermectin-as-covid-treatment-withdrawn-over-ethical-concerns

[Joe in PNG]

Here in PNG, our local hospital vaccination clinic is out of Astra-Zed, and we're hoping they get some more, soon, as there's a few of us that need shot #2.

Meanwhile, the nation is rolling out the Chinese vaccine to great fanfare. Considering the usual ethics of the PRC, I suspect that the two are related, because the AZ is free, but the Sinopham is part & parcel of the Belt & Road Debt Trap Loanshark Scheme.

[Baldanders]

Here in PNG, our local hospital vaccination clinic is out of Astra-Zed, and we're hoping they get some more, soon, as there's a few of us that need shot #2.

Meanwhile, the nation is rolling out the Chinese vaccine to great fanfare. Considering the usual ethics of the PRC, I suspect that the two are related, because the AZ is free, but the Sinopham is part & parcel of the Belt & Road Debt Trap Loanshark Scheme.

Hope some AZ makes it's way to you soon, buddy.

Is there any perception that the Sinopharm is inferior to AZ among the general populace in PNG, like Brazil?

[Joe in PNG]

Hope some AZ makes it's way to you soon, buddy.

Is there any perception that the Sinopharm is inferior to AZ among the general populace in PNG, like Brazil?

There's a general level of distrust and dislike for China here, as in many of the Belt & Road nations*. Add that to the general level of distrust for Covid vaccinations, and that would be a safe bet.


*China is a lot like the spoiled rich brat that kids only hang out with because he has the cool toys and cool games. But no one really likes him, because he's an abusive jerk & bully that demands his way or he'll take his toys and go home.

[Borderland]

Just FYI, mRNA vaccines don't change your genes. I'm not telling you want to do, just thought you might want to know.

I was afraid I was going to turn into a bat with the vaccine but I went ahead and got the poke. My thinking is if it turned me into a bat they would have already had a few people who turned into a bat and were working on some process to reverse the error.

[RoyGBiv]

I was afraid I was going to turn into a bat with the vaccine but I went ahead and got the poke. My thinking is if it turned me into a bat they would have already had a few people who turned into a bat and were working on some process to reverse the error.

Definitely the plot from a Star Trek episode, IIRC.

[Joe in PNG]

Definitely the plot from a Star Trek episode, IIRC.

Or a silver age comic book.

[Baldanders]

Or a silver age comic book.

Luckily, being the ex-comic collector I am, I wasn’t surprised by my development of echolocation recently.

Still waiting on the ability to make hideous screeches and a taste for bugs.

[Sanch]

Posting a bunch of "must have" information which we must have to say which folks should be vaccinated, then making pretty definitive statements about it being a bad gamble for young folks to get vaccinated with no reference to any numbers whatsoever is ironic.


The reason it's not ironic is because the information I'm saying about the vaccine being a bad gamble for younger folks is readily available on the CDC website. And young people should go there, look at the numbers themselves, and make the decision. The numbers change over time and I last looked 6 weeks ago, and if you see the number of deaths and problems with the vaccine, as a percentage of people who received the vaccine, you'll see that that percentage, while very low, was similar to the death and hospitalization rate for COVID within that age range.

It was something like 0.0002% of people will have a bad vaccine reaction And 0.0001% of people under 20 will die or hospitalized from COVID. The vaccine bad outcome rate was marginally higher when I looked last. And I'm just some anonymous dude or dudette on the internet. Anyone who cares should look at the numbers themselves on the CDC website to decide and not trust me. I'm merely suggesting that the numbers are worth looking at, and that they do exist.

Compare that to the nonsense numbers the government is putting out about what percentage of people hospitalized have been vaccinated, and they aren't giving the full picture.


What if I told you that only 1% of people hospitalized with COVID in Chicago are Mormon. Does being a part of the LDS church reduce your chance of getting COVID?

Or would you want to know what percentage of the population of Chicago is a member of the LDS church? Because maybe only 1% of Chicago is Mormon, and therefore you'd say there's no connection.

[HCM]

My sister, a nurse, was asking about my current vaccine status in light of my many previous malaria infections. It seems that one of her unvaccinated co-workers got Covid, and that triggered a malaria attack.

Now, a few years back, I had a case of food poisoning that triggered a malaria flare up, so yeah.

I’m guessing it’s the stress on the system rather than the Covid itself causing the flare ups?

[Joe in PNG]

And it looks like the locals just got some AZ in, from Sweden this time.
Hopefully it will last until 2 weeks from now, otherwise I'll have to go in early.

[Joe in PNG]

I’m guessing it’s the stress on the system rather than the Covid itself causing the flare ups?

That would be my uneducated guess as well. Hit the immune system with enough stress, and the little parasites take advantage.

[Borderland]

The reason it's not ironic is because the information I'm saying about the vaccine being a bad gamble for younger folks is readily available on the CDC website. And young people should go there, look at the numbers themselves, and make the decision. The numbers change over time and I last looked 6 weeks ago, and if you see the number of deaths and problems with the vaccine, as a percentage of people who received the vaccine, you'll see that that percentage, while very low, was similar to the death and hospitalization rate for COVID within that age range.

It was something like 0.0002% of people will have a bad vaccine reaction And 0.0001% of people under 20 will die or hospitalized from COVID. The vaccine bad outcome rate was marginally higher when I looked last. And I'm just some anonymous dude or dudette on the internet. Anyone who cares should look at the numbers themselves on the CDC website to decide and not trust me. I'm merely suggesting that the numbers are worth looking at, and that they do exist.

Compare that to the nonsense numbers the government is putting out about what percentage of people hospitalized have been vaccinated, and they aren't giving the full picture.


What if I told you that only 1% of people hospitalized with COVID in Chicago are Mormon. Does being a part of the LDS church reduce your chance of getting COVID?

Or would you want to know what percentage of the population of Chicago is a member of the LDS church? Because maybe only 1% of Chicago is Mormon, and therefore you'd say there's no connection.

So what is the full picture?

The numbers are coming from hospitals. The fed isn't making these numbers up. But there will always be people who want to believe this is a gov't conspiracy to get people to subject themselves to a vaccine that so far has not been approved by the FDA. When the FDA approves the vaccine through a standardized process, what then? Are all the people who didn't get the vaccine going to get it? Probably not because the FDA is a government agency. When the military requires everyone to be vaccinated and the severe reaction deaths are less than .0003%, will that still be a government conspiracy to vaccinate a large population with a killer vaccine?

How does covid vaccine deaths compare to drug overdoses? 93,000 deaths in 2020 and a 29% increase.
https://people.com/health/drug-overdoses-caused-more-than-93000-deaths-in-2020-a-29-percent-increase/

If the vaccine were killing even .0003% of the number of people being vaccinated I would be concerned. But it isn't. The reality is people are killing themselves in greater numbers with illegal drugs than with the covid vaccine.

Now that's truly ironic. But the under 40 crowd can choose their poison I guess.

[YVK]

From CDC: 5,500 reported breakthrough infections of vaccinated people resulting in hospitalization or death from a population of 159 million fully vaccinated people.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/breakthrough-cases.html

Publicly available state-level data has been showing about 15% of all recent new cases are breakthroughs. Those are test positives, not hospitalized or deaths.

[Sensei]

The reason it's not ironic is because the information I'm saying about the vaccine being a bad gamble for younger folks is readily available on the CDC website. And young people should go there, look at the numbers themselves, and make the decision. The numbers change over time and I last looked 6 weeks ago, and if you see the number of deaths and problems with the vaccine, as a percentage of people who received the vaccine, you'll see that that percentage, while very low, was similar to the death and hospitalization rate for COVID within that age range.

It was something like 0.0002% of people will have a bad vaccine reaction And 0.0001% of people under 20 will die or hospitalized from COVID. The vaccine bad outcome rate was marginally higher when I looked last. And I'm just some anonymous dude or dudette on the internet. Anyone who cares should look at the numbers themselves on the CDC website to decide and not trust me. I'm merely suggesting that the numbers are worth looking at, and that they do exist.

Compare that to the nonsense numbers the government is putting out about what percentage of people hospitalized have been vaccinated, and they aren't giving the full picture.


What if I told you that only 1% of people hospitalized with COVID in Chicago are Mormon. Does being a part of the LDS church reduce your chance of getting COVID?

Or would you want to know what percentage of the population of Chicago is a member of the LDS church? Because maybe only 1% of Chicago is Mormon, and therefore you'd say there's no connection.

A couple of points that I believe may undermine your analysis. First, the original trials of the mRNA vaccine boasted a whopping 0.3% serious adverse outcome rates. While that may seem shockingly high, it was identical to placebo - yes, a saline injection had a 0.2% serious adverse event rate. That is because the studies are required to go overboard in describing adverse events to the point that a case of appendicitis was logged as a vaccine serious adverse event. The CDC is doing the same now.

Second, you are comparing unequal outcomes. A serious vaccine event that rarely if ever results in death or permanent organ dysfunction is nothing comparable to a disease that uncommonly but significantly results in death or permanent organ dysfunction. For example, the are still 10 patients in my ICU with severe COVID; 5 are on CRRT, 3 are on ECMO, and 2 are college age. There are 2 kids in our PICU with COVID or lingering COVID complications. There are no cases, not one, in my hospital for a serious adverse vaccine reaction. I do not know an intensivist who can say they have managed a significant number of vaccine complications despite us vaccinating 162 million people. On the other hand, every intensivist that I know has taken care of a few early twenty cases.

Bottomline, we have immunized half the population. Where the fuck are all these serious vaccine reactions? If they exist, they ain’t coming to my ICU or any of my colleague’s shops.

[Jakus]

Elgazzar study retraction
https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-100956/v4

Removed from ivmmeta on 7/15
https://ivmmeta.com/#revisions

Guardian article
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/16/huge-study-supporting-ivermectin-as-covid-treatment-withdrawn-over-ethical-concerns


Here’s a data scientist that works for the WHO showing the effect of removing this study from the meta analysis in real-time. The prophylactic benefit seems to remain. There are several references to this Guardian article as well. Worth a listen.

https://odysee.com/@BretWeinstein:f/TessLawrie:0

[Sensei]

Here’s a data scientist that works for the WHO showing the effect of removing this study from the meta analysis in real-time. The prophylactic benefit seems to remain. There are several references to this Guardian article as well. Worth a listen.

https://odysee.com/@BretWeinstein:f/TessLawrie:0

Ah, Brett is now digging up ol’ Tess Lawrie. And it looks like she is back at her old tricks of trying to turn non-peer reviewed garbage into a bullshit meta-analysis.

Here’s the deal, Tess and some of her pals pooled together a bunch of published and non-peer reviewed data to create a bullshit meta-analysis. The problem with a meta-analysis is that it’s only as strong as the studies behind it. Well, all of the high-quality studies of ivermectin suggest no benefit, and only the smaller studies or ones with methodological concerns suggest a small benefit. Of course, an unscrupulous scientist can skew the impact of the weaker studies by ignoring their bias. It is a big clue that the drug probably doesn’t work when the well conducted studies show no benefit. However, that is not the real reason for why it’s bullshit - that comes from the fact that they falsified their conflict of interest statement by claiming they had no competing interests. In reality, all of the authors are members of a European ivermectin interest group called BIRD that is dedicated to spreading ivermectin around the globe as if it were Mormonism or some shit. Yeah, it’s kind of important when the scientists studying a drug are members of the drug’s cult. However, that’s not a problem for journals that nobody reads like The American Journal of Therapeutics (Impact Factor of 2.6) that is willing to publish this garbage.

If you want a meta-analysis of ivermectin and covid, then here: https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciab591/6310839
This on come from Clinical Infectious Disease (Impact Factor of 8.3)

[Hambo]

Bottomline, we have immunized half the population. Where the fuck are all these serious vaccine reactions? If they exist, they ain’t coming to my ICU or any of my colleague’s shops.


Ah, Brett is now digging up ol’ Tess Lawrie. And it looks like she is back at her old tricks of trying to turn non-peer reviewed garbage into a bullshit meta-analysis.

In reality, all of the authors are members of a European ivermectin interest group called BIRD that is dedicated to spreading ivermectin around the globe as if it were Mormonism or some shit. Yeah, it’s kind of important when the scientists studying a drug are members of the drug’s cult.

Thank you very much for sharing your expertise and experience. There is so much bullshit and ignorance out there, and it's great to have our own acessible SMEs here.

[Hemiram]

I have a friend who is totally convinced the Janssen vaccine caused his near total sudden loss of hearing in his left ear, 4 months after taking it. He's ignoring his Type II diabetes, quadruple bypass done AFTER he was vaccinated, and the severe ear infection he had just before he lost his hearing. I had a not so sudden loss of hearing in my right ear and his near meltdown over his hearing issues is kind of, well, over the top, IMHO. So far he's had a totally normal MRI and is going to get a post drilled into his skull with a magnet in it to attach a hearing aid. He's terrified to shoot anymore, scared he will lose his right ear's hearing. How he thinks the hearing protection he's been using for 40 years will suddenly fail is a question he can't answer. He's lost 20 pounds since the hearing loss started and he looks like a cancer patient, and admits he was a sobbing mess over the whole thing last week. I don't get it.

On the dope front, a guy I used to work with 40 years ago died after 2 weeks in the ICU of Covid. He was 65 and before he got it, he was in pretty much perfect health. He believed every crazy conspiracy theory about the vaccines and refused to get any of them, and he paid the price. His 3 kids, 8 teenaged/college aged grandkids, and his wife all got the shots, and none of them had any issues and when a couple of them got Covid, it was no big deal, a few days and all was well. He's in an urn on the mantle. His wife oddly predicted if he got it, it would be bad. He was a fun guy 40 years ago, but about the time of 911, he started believing in nonsensical conspiracies and seemed to ignore basic science and rejected common sense. His emails had gotten so out there the last couple of years, mutual friends and I would forward them to each other with snarky comments. We never thought his buying into the "tales" would cost him...everything.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

. For example, the are still 10 patients in my ICU with severe COVID; 5 are on CRRT, 3 are on ECMO, and 2 are college age. There are 2 kids in our PICU with COVID or lingering COVID complications. There are no cases, not one, in my hospital for a serious adverse vaccine reaction. I do not know an intensivist who can say they have managed a significant number of vaccine complications despite us vaccinating 162 million people. On the other hand, every intensivist that I know has taken care of a few early twenty cases.



That's some pretty good direct observational evidence there IMO.

[Erik]

Thank you very much for sharing your expertise and experience. There is so much bullshit and ignorance out there, and it's great to have our own acessible SMEs here.

I couldn't agree more. This has been very important for me and I truly appreciate the medical professionals who have taken the time to share information here.

[Totem Polar]

I couldn't agree more. This has been very important for me and I truly appreciate the medical professionals who have taken the time to share information here.

Seconding both you and Hambo. This place and the big C19 thread kept me sane over the course of the pandemic. Best filter of info for the lay person on the ‘net, and it was right here the whole time, next to the meme thread.

Mods are still shit though.

[Crow Hunter]

Seconding both you and Hambo. This place and the big C19 thread kept me sane over the course of the pandemic. Best filter of info for the lay person on the ‘net, and it was right here the whole time, next to the meme thread.

Mods are still shit though.

I would like to 3rd this.

I changed my mind about getting vaccinated based on recommendations here and I convinced 4 other people that I work with (that likely would not have gotten it) to get it as well, based on what I read here.

I greatly appreciate it.

[ER_STL]

Ah, Brett is now digging up ol’ Tess Lawrie. And it looks like she is back at her old tricks of trying to turn non-peer reviewed garbage into a bullshit meta-analysis.

Here’s the deal, Tess and some of her pals pooled together a bunch of published and non-peer reviewed data to create a bullshit meta-analysis. The problem with a meta-analysis is that it’s only as strong as the studies behind it. Well, all of the high-quality studies of ivermectin suggest no benefit, and only the smaller studies or ones with methodological concerns suggest a small benefit. Of course, an unscrupulous scientist can skew the impact of the weaker studies by ignoring their bias. It is a big clue that the drug probably doesn’t work when the well conducted studies show no benefit. However, that is not the real reason for why it’s bullshit - that comes from the fact that they falsified their conflict of interest statement by claiming they had no competing interests. In reality, all of the authors are members of a European ivermectin interest group called BIRD that is dedicated to spreading ivermectin around the globe as if it were Mormonism or some shit. Yeah, it’s kind of important when the scientists studying a drug are members of the drug’s cult. However, that’s not a problem for journals that nobody reads like The American Journal of Therapeutics (Impact Factor of 2.6) that is willing to publish this garbage.

If you want a meta-analysis of ivermectin and covid, then here: https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciab591/6310839
This on come from Clinical Infectious Disease (Impact Factor of 8.3)

And this is why there is so much distrust and confusion today. It's becoming increasingly difficult to get accurate information on just about any issue, topic or concern. I'd have to spend thirty minutes across five different sites on the Internet just to get to get a recipe for a PB&J sandwich that I'd trust.

[Yung]

https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7bdak/novavax-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-new-covid-vaccine

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/novavax-covid-19-vaccine-works-things/story?id=78265207

[Maple Syrup Actual]

Ah, Brett is now digging up ol’ Tess Lawrie. And it looks like she is back at her old tricks of trying to turn non-peer reviewed garbage into a bullshit meta-analysis.

Here’s the deal, Tess and some of her pals pooled together a bunch of published and non-peer reviewed data to create a bullshit meta-analysis. The problem with a meta-analysis is that it’s only as strong as the studies behind it. Well, all of the high-quality studies of ivermectin suggest no benefit, and only the smaller studies or ones with methodological concerns suggest a small benefit. Of course, an unscrupulous scientist can skew the impact of the weaker studies by ignoring their bias. It is a big clue that the drug probably doesn’t work when the well conducted studies show no benefit. However, that is not the real reason for why it’s bullshit - that comes from the fact that they falsified their conflict of interest statement by claiming they had no competing interests. In reality, all of the authors are members of a European ivermectin interest group called BIRD that is dedicated to spreading ivermectin around the globe as if it were Mormonism or some shit. Yeah, it’s kind of important when the scientists studying a drug are members of the drug’s cult. However, that’s not a problem for journals that nobody reads like The American Journal of Therapeutics (Impact Factor of 2.6) that is willing to publish this garbage.

If you want a meta-analysis of ivermectin and covid, then here: https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciab591/6310839
This on come from Clinical Infectious Disease (Impact Factor of 8.3)

You're the first person I've encountered who had prior knowledge of Tess Lawrie so can I ask you: prior to this, was she already seen as a bit unreliable?

I listened to her interviewed the other day and being as she's an apparently legitimate source, credential-wise, I was fairly interested until the last few minutes when she started talking about the group she's in that you mention, at which point all my BS detectors went off and I began to wonder: did you do this research, then join this group? Or were you an Ivermectin advocate, who did research that just happened to support your pre-existing beliefs?

Just the way you phrase "digging up ol' Tess Lawrie" I'm assuming you were familiar with her and her work from before covid? Was she already a bad source of info, would you say?




I totally agree with the people who say that this experience has been super frustrating from a layperson's research perspective, because SOME information has clearly been suppressed...by the very people who run the tools I would usually use to research this. I don't know if I can trust google's search results anymore. I don't know to what degree the information that counters the narrative is being suppressed so it's hard for me to tell if "failure to appear in a major journal" is indicative of an actual data problem, or if it's "man, nobody can touch this right now, just stick with the program."

That's why I was so happy to read your account of "where the fuck are they" in regards to the vaccine reactions (not that I ever really thought there were reactions at all comparable with covid risks). I don't trust the research tools available to me, but I trust in your range of experience in terms of what you and other people in your field that you trust are seeing.



So if you knew all about Tess Lawrie before this and seeing her name brought up is, for you, a moment where you go "yeah, of course they brought that crank in" then to me that's pretty much the tipping point on Bret Weinstein and his position. I'm a huge believer in skepticism (lol) but just because something is counter-narrative doesn't mean it's right. Lab leak, OK, pretty sure that was always right, and it was suppressed. But not everything the people who suppressed it are pushing would have to be wrong just because that probably was.

So...long post...executive summary:

Could you maybe give a quick rundown on Tess Lawrie from the perspective of pre-covid you, if that makes sense?

[45dotACP]

Double tap

[45dotACP]

A couple of points that I believe may undermine your analysis. First, the original trials of the mRNA vaccine boasted a whopping 0.3% serious adverse outcome rates. While that may seem shockingly high, it was identical to placebo - yes, a saline injection had a 0.2% serious adverse event rate. That is because the studies are required to go overboard in describing adverse events to the point that a case of appendicitis was logged as a vaccine serious adverse event. The CDC is doing the same now.

Second, you are comparing unequal outcomes. A serious vaccine event that rarely if ever results in death or permanent organ dysfunction is nothing comparable to a disease that uncommonly but significantly results in death or permanent organ dysfunction. For example, the are still 10 patients in my ICU with severe COVID; 5 are on CRRT, 3 are on ECMO, and 2 are college age. There are 2 kids in our PICU with COVID or lingering COVID complications. There are no cases, not one, in my hospital for a serious adverse vaccine reaction. I do not know an intensivist who can say they have managed a significant number of vaccine complications despite us vaccinating 162 million people. On the other hand, every intensivist that I know has taken care of a few early twenty cases.

Bottomline, we have immunized half the population. Where the fuck are all these serious vaccine reactions? If they exist, they ain’t coming to my ICU or any of my colleague’s shops.

I feel like this post needs to be bumped.

I too, have not yet seen a "serious COVID vaccination effect".

Zipped the bag on more than a few unvaccinated dudes younger than myself though. And sure, they had comorbidities, but hey, this is America y'all. You let out a fart in church and one of the people who smells it will be someone with an underlying health condition.

Never seen a single vaccinated person hospitalized for a vaccine side effect. My sister had the worst side effects I've ever seen and was aching/sore for a month or two. But I shudder to think how she would have done with COVID. I am grateful to never need find out.

Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

[MickAK]

Bottomline, we have immunized half the population. Where the fuck are all these serious vaccine reactions? If they exist, they ain’t coming to my ICU or any of my colleague’s shops.

I'll preface this by saying I think the only concern with the various Covid vaccines is they may not work as good as people hope and distributing them this widely could be a bad idea.

That's a disingenuous way to talk about serious vaccine reactions, especially with a new vaccine. Whether SV40 causes a higher rate of cancer in humans or not is still debated. What isn't is that it could and millions had vaccines contaminated with it.

It's interesting to see people tear down others advocating magic covid beans because their data is shit then claim certainty with the same flaws in their own.

[Sensei]

You're the first person I've encountered who had prior knowledge of Tess Lawrie so can I ask you: prior to this, was she already seen as a bit unreliable?


I first became aware of her when she hooked up with America’s Frontline Doctors which is the group that included that crazy, alien DNA doctor named Stella Immanuel (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stella_Immanuel). Their founder’s past times also include storming the Capital. Most of us ignored Tess Lawrie until a couple of months ago when she started claiming that the covid vaccines were dangerous and shouldn’t be used in humans.

Tess Lawrie aside, my question to members of this forum is why would anyone trust anything that comes out of Brett Weinstein’s mouth. Keep in mind that this is a guy who is a liberal Democrat and became famous when the nuts at Evergreen State ran him out of the asylum for being too white. Those students were his own Frankenstein’s monster that he helped to create, but nobody cares about that. Apparently, being not radical enough for Evergreen State is enough street creds in conservative circles as long as he backs their anti-vax conspiracies.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

I can't speak for anyone else but personally I wouldn't TRUST anything he says but he has a legitimate claim on evolutionary biology knowledge and the fact that he's politically really different from me doesn't bother me when he's talking about evolutionary biology, which I think is interesting so I started listening to his podcast a couple of years ago. I think I heard him talking to Sam Harris, who I also don't agree with, but who also has some interesting ideas, so I listen to him too. That's where I ran across the guy, anyway.

I wouldn't agree with lots of stuff he might think but I don't need to agree with people on everything and I don't really use their political allegiances to sort them on topics not directly related to political stuff.

I would never think "Bret Weinstein says the vaccine is bad so it's bad."

But I can totally see why anyone might say "Bret Weinstein had a point about bat evolution in the context of this virus that really makes sense."

Tess Lawrie, I don't know anything about beyond her claimed credentials, so it's really hard for me to say "as a layperson, this MD-PHD who allegedly does meta-analysis for the WHO is just some whack job."

That's why I was hoping you had maybe run across her in 2015 or something and she'd been kicked off of WHO study status and everyone in the business knows this, something like that. If she was a crank pre-covid, it's easy to sort.

If her crank status doesn't begin until after ivermectin...man, then how as some dude with no MD, no PHD, half a boat and a history of pretty well-earned distrust of groups like the WHO, am I supposed to tell the difference between Chicken Little, and Pompeii's only vulcanologist?

It's hard. It's very hard to tell if someone notices something real, that conflicts with something dominant. That's the problem that I think a lot of skeptics have here.

[45dotACP]

I'll preface this by saying I think the only concern with the various Covid vaccines is they may not work as good as people hope and distributing them this widely could be a bad idea.

That's a disingenuous way to talk about serious vaccine reactions, especially with a new vaccine. Whether SV40 causes a higher rate of cancer in humans or not is still debated. What isn't is that it could and millions had vaccines contaminated with it.

It's interesting to see people tear down others advocating magic covid beans because their data is shit then claim certainty with the same flaws in their own.

They work as well as I thought they would.

Just my experience...I went from working in a 36 bed medical ICU to working in a 72 bed COVID ICU. We often had to stack two intubated patients to a room so the engineering department retrofitted the unit to take two patients per room...what fun.


This time last year and we were damn near full. We opened five COVID specific units in my hospital and carried a census of 100+ COVID patients this time last year. The HCQ/AZT/ZN that was being used was ineffective based off data our intensivists had collected and researched of their own accord. Our findings were well in line with those of the scientific community.

I did education and data collection on COVID management and oxygenation strategies. I've seen the raw data myself.

This year, we have less than ten COVID patients on the hospital. All of them are unvaccinated people.

So...what changed? Decadron? Remdesivir? My badass strategies to prevent intubation?

Occam is over here shaking his head and saying "bitch please" because OF FUCKING COURSE it was the vaccine. The key difference made by the vaccine is the reduction of critical illness and our only critically ill COVID patients are unvaccinated. No judgement...some folks can't get it, some folks think Bill Gates is trying to microchip them, others are worried it'll make them sick in the long run.

I've seen exactly three fully vaccinated patients in the COVID ICU over the past year and a half. Two of whom were on anti-rejection meds for organ transplant and one of whom was HIV+ and it was later determined they did not have COVID, but actually Pneumocystis pneumonia common in AIDS.

There is a SUBSTANTIAL difference between the data being presented for the efficacy/safety of Ivermectin/HCQ/Zinc/whatever other bullshit and the efficacy/safety of the vaccinations for COVID. That data ain't even sort of the same. And it plays out in the real world, where guys like Sensei work.

But sure....I took the vaccine and maybe 60 years from now I'll get cancer and die...maybe my 90 year old ass can take it to Twitter or Parler or whatever and find Bret Weinstein and tell him he was right.

And one more thing. If you're afraid of long term side effects, shouldn't you be worried about the long term side effects of COVID? I mean, It's a novel illness. What makes you think it won't make you more likely to get cancer, asthma, heart problems or suffer early onset dementia? Because there is real concern about that dementia part for some folks and the long hauler symptoms are a bitch, with more than a few of my colleagues who are now disabled because of COVID.

Food for thought.

Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

[Crow Hunter]

They work as well as I thought they would.

Just my experience...I went from working in a 36 bed medical ICU to working in a 72 bed COVID ICU. We often had to stack two intubated patients to a room so the engineering department retrofitted the unit to take two patients per room...what fun.


This time last year and we were damn near full. We opened five COVID specific units in my hospital and carried a census of 100+ COVID patients this time last year. The HCQ/AZT/ZN that was being used was ineffective based off data our intensivists had collected and researched of their own accord. Our findings were well in line with those of the scientific community.

I did education and data collection on COVID management and oxygenation strategies. I've seen the raw data myself.

This year, we have less than ten COVID patients on the hospital. All of them are unvaccinated people.

So...what changed? Decadron? Remdesivir? My badass strategies to prevent intubation?

Occam is over here shaking his head and saying "bitch please" because OF FUCKING COURSE it was the vaccine. The key difference made by the vaccine is the reduction of critical illness and our only critically ill COVID patients are unvaccinated. No judgement...some folks can't get it, some folks think Bill Gates is trying to microchip them, others are worried it'll make them sick in the long run.

I've seen exactly three fully vaccinated patients in the COVID ICU over the past year and a half. Two of whom were on anti-rejection meds for organ transplant and one of whom was HIV+ and it was later determined they did not have COVID, but actually Pneumocystis pneumonia common in AIDS.

There is a SUBSTANTIAL difference between the data being presented for the efficacy/safety of Ivermectin/HCQ/Zinc/whatever other bullshit and the efficacy/safety of the vaccinations for COVID. That data ain't even sort of the same. And it plays out in the real world, where guys like Sensei work.

But sure....I took the vaccine and maybe 60 years from now I'll get cancer and die...maybe my 90 year old ass can take it to Twitter or Parler or whatever and find Bret Weinstein and tell him he was right.

And one more thing. If you're afraid of long term side effects, shouldn't you be worried about the long term side effects of COVID? I mean, It's a novel illness. What makes you think it won't make you more likely to get cancer, asthma, heart problems or suffer early onset dementia? Because there is real concern about that dementia part for some folks and the long hauler symptoms are a bitch, with more than a few of my colleagues who are now disabled because of COVID.

Food for thought.

Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

I wish I could double like this post.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

.

And one more thing. If you're afraid of long term side effects, shouldn't you be worried about the long term side effects of COVID? I mean, It's a novel illness. What makes you think it won't make you more likely to get cancer, asthma, heart problems or suffer early onset dementia? Because there is real concern about that dementia part for some folks and the long hauler symptoms are a bitch, with more than a few of my colleagues who are now disabled because of COVID.

Food for thought.

Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk
That's a really, really good point.

[MickAK]

They work as well as I thought they would.

Just my experience...I went from working in a 36 bed medical ICU to working in a 72 bed COVID ICU. We often had to stack two intubated patients to a room so the engineering department retrofitted the unit to take two patients per room...what fun.


This time last year and we were damn near full. We opened five COVID specific units in my hospital and carried a census of 100+ COVID patients this time last year. The HCQ/AZT/ZN that was being used was ineffective based off data our intensivists had collected and researched of their own accord. Our findings were well in line with those of the scientific community.

I did education and data collection on COVID management and oxygenation strategies. I've seen the raw data myself.

This year, we have less than ten COVID patients on the hospital. All of them are unvaccinated people.

So...what changed? Decadron? Remdesivir? My badass strategies to prevent intubation?

Occam is over here shaking his head and saying "bitch please" because OF FUCKING COURSE it was the vaccine. The key difference made by the vaccine is the reduction of critical illness and our only critically ill COVID patients are unvaccinated. No judgement...some folks can't get it, some folks think Bill Gates is trying to microchip them, others are worried it'll make them sick in the long run.

I've seen exactly three fully vaccinated patients in the COVID ICU over the past year and a half. Two of whom were on anti-rejection meds for organ transplant and one of whom was HIV+ and it was later determined they did not have COVID, but actually Pneumocystis pneumonia common in AIDS.

There is a SUBSTANTIAL difference between the data being presented for the efficacy/safety of Ivermectin/HCQ/Zinc/whatever other bullshit and the efficacy/safety of the vaccinations for COVID. That data ain't even sort of the same. And it plays out in the real world, where guys like Sensei work.

But sure....I took the vaccine and maybe 60 years from now I'll get cancer and die...maybe my 90 year old ass can take it to Twitter or Parler or whatever and find Bret Weinstein and tell him he was right.

And one more thing. If you're afraid of long term side effects, shouldn't you be worried about the long term side effects of COVID? I mean, It's a novel illness. What makes you think it won't make you more likely to get cancer, asthma, heart problems or suffer early onset dementia? Because there is real concern about that dementia part for some folks and the long hauler symptoms are a bitch, with more than a few of my colleagues who are now disabled because of COVID.

Food for thought.

Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

I'm not sure how that response relates to what I posted, but I think any further discussion belongs in the Politics sub-forum. Happy to continue the discussion there.

[RevolverRob]

That's a disingenuous way to talk about serious vaccine reactions, especially with a new vaccine. Whether SV40 causes a higher rate of cancer in humans or not is still debated. What isn't is that it could and millions had vaccines contaminated with it.


Given the number of mutagens humans are exposed to on a daily basis, exposure to potential cancer causing agents is absolutely unavoidable, period. You can't even live in your own house without being exposed to a potential cancer causing agent.

However, another variant, of a virus whose initial variants has killed more people than cancer did in 2020, is rolling through. The vaccines show marked efficacy at preventing either the acquisition of the virus or reducing the strength of effects in the event of a breakthrough infection.

Point being in a very broad sense, your chances of being exposed to a potential cancer causing agent is absolutely 100%. So, do you roll the dice and take a vaccine that might give you cancer in another 30-years or do you roll the dice on being killed by a virus?

You take your pick. Since I'm already exposed to mutagens regularly in my work and we all are daily, a little extra cancer risk isn't bothering me in the least. It is, what it is.



No idea which ones are truthful and which are pushing a plan but taking experimental gene therapy because of numbers on CNN is not in my plan.

Just to make this very clear, a messenger RNA vaccine is not gene therapy. Gene therapy involves the transfer of genetic material from one cell to another and is designed to cure a disease that originates in a cell, for instance a cancer, not a viral infection.

The mRNA vaccines mimic aspects of the virus (mainly the structure of the spike protein that makes Covid-19 so virulent) and serve to activate the immune system response. It's actually a very brilliant form of vaccine that is much more effective than innoculation with low dose versions of a virus. Because it's using the virulent structural component of the virus to activate the immune system, not just a variant of the virus. As a result, the reason why the vaccines are effective for the Delta-variant, is because those variants still have the same/highly similar spike protein structure. It's why these vaccines will remain effective, at least to some degree, against emerging variants of the virus.

___

I, personally, would love to see the numbers of breakthrough infections that are delta vs. other variants. I'd guess that it's mainly new variants. Given the numbers of people who are experiencing hospitalization with breakthrough infections are rounding errors on rounding errors, I remain confident that the best course of action is vaccination.

[MickAK]

Given the number of mutagens humans are exposed to on a daily basis, exposure to potential cancer causing agents is absolutely unavoidable, period. You can't even live in your own house without being exposed to a potential cancer causing agent.

However, another variant, of a virus whose initial variants has killed more people than cancer did in 2020, is rolling through. The vaccines show marked efficacy at preventing either the acquisition of the virus or reducing the strength of effects in the event of a breakthrough infection.

Point being in a very broad sense, your chances of being exposed to a potential cancer causing agent is absolutely 100%. So, do you roll the dice and take a vaccine that might give you cancer in another 30-years or do you roll the dice on being killed by a virus?.

The point has nothing to do with cancer. I'm using it as an example of unknown vaccine contamination and long term side effect. A more recent non-cancer example would be Rotarix or certain batches of Anthrax vaccine. There are others.

The point is that 'I haven't seen any serious vaccine reactions' has about the same weight as 'Me and my buddies all took Ivermectin and we're just fine'. There's better science (to put it mildly) behind the former but they're both anecdotal.

I think the intent of this thread as opposed to the other one prohibits further discussion so I'll keep any more thoughts there.

[Sensei]

I can't speak for anyone else but personally I wouldn't TRUST anything he says but he has a legitimate claim on evolutionary biology knowledge and the fact that he's politically really different from me doesn't bother me when he's talking about evolutionary biology, which I think is interesting so I started listening to his podcast a couple of years ago. I think I heard him talking to Sam Harris, who I also don't agree with, but who also has some interesting ideas, so I listen to him too. That's where I ran across the guy, anyway.

I wouldn't agree with lots of stuff he might think but I don't need to agree with people on everything and I don't really use their political allegiances to sort them on topics not directly related to political stuff.

I would never think "Bret Weinstein says the vaccine is bad so it's bad."

But I can totally see why anyone might say "Bret Weinstein had a point about bat evolution in the context of this virus that really makes sense."

Tess Lawrie, I don't know anything about beyond her claimed credentials, so it's really hard for me to say "as a layperson, this MD-PHD who allegedly does meta-analysis for the WHO is just some whack job."

That's why I was hoping you had maybe run across her in 2015 or something and she'd been kicked off of WHO study status and everyone in the business knows this, something like that. If she was a crank pre-covid, it's easy to sort.

If her crank status doesn't begin until after ivermectin...man, then how as some dude with no MD, no PHD, half a boat and a history of pretty well-earned distrust of groups like the WHO, am I supposed to tell the difference between Chicken Little, and Pompeii's only vulcanologist?

It's hard. It's very hard to tell if someone notices something real, that conflicts with something dominant. That's the problem that I think a lot of skeptics have here.

The best source of information still comes from the mainstream healthcare sources like the CDC, IDSA, and FDA. If people do not trust those sources, fine. Just keep in mind that those organizations form the backbone for all of the guideline-based care that is performed in the hospital.

[RevolverRob]

The point has nothing to do with cancer. I'm using it as an example of unknown vaccine contamination and long term side effect. A more recent non-cancer example would be Rotarix or certain batches of Anthrax vaccine. There are others.

The point is that 'I haven't seen any serious vaccine reactions' has about the same weight as 'Me and my buddies all took Ivermectin and we're just fine'. There's better science (to put it mildly) behind the former but they're both anecdotal.

I think the intent of this thread as opposed to the other one prohibits further discussion so I'll keep any more thoughts there.

Yes, there is better science than 'it hasn't been seen by me an my buddies', but it isn't needed in the case of common sense.

162,000,000 vaccines have been given in the United States alone. There have not been 162,000,000 serious vaccine reactions, nor 16.2 million, or 1.62 million, or even 620,000. Those numbers would be more than the number of people who have died of covid-19 and thus would generate serious concern from the medical and molecular biology community without regard to politics.

The science is forthcoming, the wheels of progress turn slowly on large analyses for many reasons.

And while you draw the note 'there is better science than we haven't seen it' - I counter with, "Have you seen it?" - Because the prevailing methodology in science is to first observe a phenomena then seek to understand it. If the phenomena has not been observed it is exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to study it.

In other words the burden is not to prove there hasn't been serious vaccine reactions it is to prove the opposite: That in the face of 162 million vaccinations in this country and the global numbers of 1.04 billion fully vaccinated and 2.04 billion one-dose received individuals that there are serious side effects or vaccine reactions. And most importantly that there is a significant number of people who had such reactions and that there is a common denominator among them that could be viewed as causal.

I believe the discussion of legitimate concerns of side effects, efficacy, reactions, etc of the vaccine is absolutely available for discussion in this thread, as is the science behind those concerns and/or how that work is done to address those concerns.

___

ETA: To clarify, I'm not saying it can't happen or it hasn't happened or the potential for serious effects isn't there. Currently, the numbers are pretty staggering and they point in the opposite direction, that are few side effects and serious reactions to vaccine. I don't know the typical size of clinical trials in a medical sense, but I'll tell you that the typical size of a genomic study for single variation is: (40 individuals) / (% of effect of the variation). Typically, this results in <100 individuals and for complex studies it could be as few as 10 individuals used due to other methodological issues. 162,000,000 and 1,040,000,000 are HUGE numbers for statistical power, far far greater than most scientific studies could ever muster.

[45dotACP]

Ah nevermind

[Joe in PNG]

Good news- the local hospital has received a new batch of AZ. I'm going to go ahead and move dose #2 up by a week, and get mine Wednesday.

[Hambo]

The point is that 'I haven't seen any serious vaccine reactions' has about the same weight as 'Me and my buddies all took Ivermectin and we're just fine'.

You don't work in medicine or science, correct? So you've read or heard some stuff and you are concerned about it. The doctors here spent more than a decade in school, residency, and fellowships. Based on the numbers they've talked about, they've each seen hundreds of Covid patients, and there is validity in their observations. I don't understand why you would be dismissive of that.

[TGS]

"Meet the new Covid thread....same as the old Covid thread."

Good try, Clusterfrack

[Crow Hunter]

Good news- the local hospital has received a new batch of AZ. I'm going to go ahead and move dose #2 up by a week, and get mine Wednesday.

I am not a medical professional nor did I stay in a Holiday Inn last night, but I did read several articles that mentioned the time between shots being a component to their effectiveness. I remember reading that getting the shots too close together reduced the protective effects and suggested if you couldn't keep your 2nd shot appointment you should try to get a later shot, even several weeks later than to go early. This was in relation to the Moderna and Pfizer.

You may want to check on the AZ recommendations or with some of the med guys here.

[Tensaw]

Have we covered which vaccine we like the best?

[YVK]

Have we covered which vaccine we like the best?

We haven't and we won't have an RCT. Because of that my professional statement to inquiring patients is to get whatever, with a very small risk of side effects.
That said, based on gender and age distribution of those reported rare side effects and having a young man going through our facility with a myocarditic injury equal to that of a good size heart attack, my personal advice is Janssen for younger men and mRNA for everyone else. My parents were vaccinated with Sputnik V, I am giving them Pfizer on top of that.
We've seen breakthroughs cases (again, positives, not hospitalized) with all of them.

[Joe in PNG]

I am not a medical professional nor did I stay in a Holiday Inn last night, but I did read several articles that mentioned the time between shots being a component to their effectiveness. I remember reading that getting the shots too close together reduced the protective effects and suggested if you couldn't keep your 2nd shot appointment you should try to get a later shot, even several weeks later than to go early. This was in relation to the Moderna and Pfizer.

You may want to check on the AZ recommendations or with some of the med guys here.

Third world problems. Do I take it a week under the recommended schedule, or do I take the risk of not getting it at all?
Based on my 21 years working here, better if I get it while I can.

If I was in the USA or Australia, then I would be more confident about the availability.

[Hemiram]

IMHO, legit info about Covid is pretty easy to find. IF you trust mainstream medical sites. IF you don't, and go to what I personally feel are pretty much "kooksites", you will find all kinds of bizarre claims about horrible vaccination side effects, designed, IMHO, to "stir the pot", not really inform anyone of anything useful. I don't understand the politicizing of Covid and the policies on it at all, it's kind of insane. Some of the stuff on Fox borders on insanity, as the people that will be hurt mostly by their disinfo and spin are the core of their viewers. Cutting their own throats. And the attempted demonization of D. Fauchi is just totally insane, and the people doing it should be ashamed of themselves.

Yes, there are SOME people who will have bad side effects from any medication. My mother had bizzare reactions to an amazing amount of them. Some were inverse, where she would be all jazzed up from something that normally had the side effect of making them sleepy, and others were that they had no effect at all. She and I both are pretty much immune to intravenous morphine. I had 3 vials of it after I had knee surgery, and it didn't even make me slightly drowsy. My roomate had 2 of them after knee replacement(mine was much more minor), and was out for 14 hours. Orally, opioids do work, but mom and I both had/have a huge tolerance of them to the point where many people are unconcious and we were able to function pretty much fine. The point is, most people, by far the vast majority will not have bad side effects to the vaccines, and your risk of problems from them are very low. Things you do every day without a care are much more risky. Eating bad stuff, driving a car, walking your dog and possibly falling, etc, are much riskier than getting the vaccines. You've already had a bunch of them, why are you scared of them now? Because of fringe groups basically making stuff up/amplifying a very slight risk? It seems this kind of stuff started with the thimerosol in vaccines nonsense. If you ate a Tuna sandwich, you ate more mercury than was in the whole damn vial of vaccine. People's lack of basic science and math skills, lack of common sense, fear of basically totally insignifcant risks, and just plain gullibility makes me wonder about the future. I'm about to be 65, so I won't see it anyway.

I had the J&J vaccine in April. Zero point zero issues. If legitimate experts say I need a booster, I will get it without any hesitation. I drove for over an hour yesterday, and felt much more at risk than I have ever been from Covid itself, let alone a vaccine. There are some very stupid drivers out there. I know firsthand, I've been in two major wrecks in my 49 years of driving.

[Bio]

If her crank status doesn't begin until after ivermectin...man, then how as some dude with no MD, no PHD, half a boat and a history of pretty well-earned distrust of groups like the WHO, am I supposed to tell the difference between Chicken Little, and Pompeii's only vulcanologist?

It's hard. It's very hard to tell if someone notices something real, that conflicts with something dominant. That's the problem that I think a lot of skeptics have here.

You're definitely right in that is is hard. It's so easy to come across single articles that seem entirely reasonable, but with more information are revealed to be extremely misleading. The only answer I have is that you have to look at consensus. The scientific process in the western world is unfortunately contaminated with culture, emotion, and politics, but it is still probably the best its been in most of history. It isn't perfect, but it is pretty damn good at finding answers to things. If the vast majority of scientists doing work on a proboem think one thing, there's a good chance that they're going in the right direction. Scientists are not prone to agreeing with colleagues just because.

Read a lot of articles from a lot of sources, do your best to learn the science and ask experts you can trust. It's a crummy answer, but it's akin to the question "what handgun do I buy to make consistent 25 yard hits?" when the answer is education, training, and ammo.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

You're definitely right in that is is hard. It's so easy to come across single articles that seem entirely reasonable, but with more information are revealed to be extremely misleading. The only answer I have is that you have to look at consensus. The scientific process in the western world is unfortunately contaminated with culture, emotion, and politics, but it is still probably the best its been in most of history. It isn't perfect, but it is pretty damn good at finding answers to things. If the vast majority of scientists doing work on a proboem think one thing, there's a good chance that they're going in the right direction. Scientists are not prone to agreeing with colleagues just because.

Read a lot of articles from a lot of sources, do your best to learn the science and ask experts you can trust. It's a crummy answer, but it's akin to the question "what handgun do I buy to make consistent 25 yard hits?" when the answer is education, training, and ammo.

In general I think this is totally true and in the past I've rarely found myself being at odds with any mainstream scientific consensus. For example, I think you could probably find posts on this site where I've argued that climate change is a pressing problem. I know you weren't accusing me of anything (and also that this thread isn't about me or anything) but I'm just trying to illustrate that I agree with the normal scientific process, I'm not a "whatever Fox says" team player, I'm not USUALLY someone going "hang on, this is hard to figure out."

What is tripping me up in this instance, and again I say this not because I think I'm important to the equation but because I think people who are looking at this the way I am are more common than it looks, what is tripping me up is that if there's any field in which people will lie to your face if it gets you to modify your behaviour in the way they think is best for you, it's public health. AND we're in this bizarrely polarized climate in which team allegiance has completely short-circuited the normal critical thinking process for lots of people who should know better, AND the big tech companies have come down on one side of things and have been keeping a thumb on the scale even when they've been wrong.

There's no way I'm going to the batshit sites for info, I trust them way less than the CDC... it's just that my own experience with this stuff really leads me to believe that even with the CDC you might trust but you should absolutely verify. That's why I'm often here hunting for some kind of smoking gun on someone's credibility or something.

I'm genuinely not trying to be a pain and I find the posts from Sensei and 45dotACP, pangloss and a couple of others super informative and I don't doubt their expertise.

I am just waiting and hoping to see something really crushing re: ivermectin etc so all of the arguments that there could be a good alternative to the vaccines will be shown to be false in some conclusive manner.

Once that's the case, then whatever misgivings I might have about a relatively new technology, I'd be more inclined to believe that the benefits outweigh the risks.

Of course you have to remember, also, that I live in a tiny town with no cases, I work from home, my wife doesn't work, and my kid isn't in school. In the entire province since day one we've had about 1750 deaths. I live on an island with a million people on it and this is what our cumulative case count looks like, starting from last March:

74732

You can't even plot the hospitalizations or deaths, there's only been a couple.

So my situation is such that I can really afford to wait. My risk level is extraordinarily low.

If I was a Walmart greeter in Chicago, I'd have trampled ten people to get the shot. But I'm comparing a very different baseline risk than most people.

That's why I'm able to concern myself with minutae.


Oh, I guess the x axis isn't labeled there. That first line that we make it about a third of the way to on the south island is 10,000.

The whole island, in this whole thing, has had about 5000 cases. A few people were hospitalized and I don't think anyone died.

It's a pretty different ball game.

[Sensei]

You're definitely right in that is is hard. It's so easy to come across single articles that seem entirely reasonable, but with more information are revealed to be extremely misleading. The only answer I have is that you have to look at consensus. The scientific process in the western world is unfortunately contaminated with culture, emotion, and politics, but it is still probably the best its been in most of history. It isn't perfect, but it is pretty damn good at finding answers to things. If the vast majority of scientists doing work on a proboem think one thing, there's a good chance that they're going in the right direction. Scientists are not prone to agreeing with colleagues just because.

Read a lot of articles from a lot of sources, do your best to learn the science and ask experts you can trust. It's a crummy answer, but it's akin to the question "what handgun do I buy to make consistent 25 yard hits?" when the answer is education, training, and ammo.

I’d say that the scientific consensus has been incredibly fucking consistent and clear. From the CDC to the AMA and everything in between that includes IDSA, AAFP, AAP, SCCM, etc. and every single large organization that existed before the pandemic, the message has been remarkably harmonious - get your vaccine and probably wear a mask indoors if your going to be unvaccinated. Keep in mind that I’m philosophically opposed to half of these organizations that I see as progressive, but even I must admit the consensus and scientific rigor of my usual opponents is impressive. As a practicing physician for the past 20 years, I’ve not seen this level of agreement spread across this many government AND independent healthcare organizations. Amazingly, these organizations were saying the same thing no matter who controlled the White House and Congress - get your vaccine and probably wear a mask if your going to be unvaccinated. Moreover, when the recommendations to change around the margins, it is generally in response to specific, new information such as outstanding vaccination rates or the emergence of a new strain.

The only healthcare organizations contradicting this messaging are fringe elements (usually less than 100 doctors) who popped up AFTER the pandemic to offer their alternative view. These include BIRD, America’s Frontline Physicians, et al. To the letter, almost all of these organizations mix politics with their recommendations with a prime example being America’s Frontline Physicians getting mixed up in the Jan 6 bullshit. Many weave praise for their favorite politician in with their recommendations.

So, the only way someone is getting a mixed message is if they are turning the dial to some obscure channel and seeking out a fringe view point. They will insist that these fringe elements be given a robust platform, only to then complain about the mixed message. In the end, they sound a lot like this guy: https://twitter.com/Phil_Lewis_/status/1418210466656972808?s=20

[Bio]

I’d say that the scientific consensus has been incredibly fucking consistent and clear. From the CDC to the AMA and everything in between that includes IDSA, AAFP, AAP, SCCM, etc. and every single large organization that existed before the pandemic, the message has been remarkably harmonious - get your vaccine and probably wear a mask indoors if your going to be unvaccinated. Keep in mind that I’m philosophically opposed to half of these organizations that I see as progressive, but even I must admit the consensus and scientific rigor of my usual opponents is impressive. As a practicing physician for the past 20 years, I’ve not seen this level of agreement spread across this many government AND independent healthcare organizations. Amazingly, these organizations were saying the same thing no matter who controlled the White House and Congress - get your vaccine and probably wear a mask if your going to be unvaccinated. Moreover, when the recommendations to change around the margins, it is generally in response to specific, new information such as outstanding vaccination rates or the emergence of a new strain.

The only healthcare organizations contradicting this messaging are fringe elements (usually less than 100 doctors) who popped up AFTER the pandemic to offer their alternative view. These include BIRD, America’s Frontline Physicians, et al. To the letter, almost all of these organizations mix politics with their recommendations with a prime example being America’s Frontline Physicians getting mixed up in the Jan 6 bullshit. Many weave praise for their favorite politician in with their recommendations.

So, the only way someone is getting a mixed message is if they are turning the dial to some obscure channel and seeking out a fringe view point. They will insist that these fringe elements be given a robust platform, only to then complain about the mixed message. In the end, they sound a lot like this guy: https://twitter.com/Phil_Lewis_/status/1418210466656972808?s=20

I totally agree with you.

[Sensei]

I totally agree with you.

I know and I apologize if it seems like I’m directing any vitriol at you. I’m really tired of people like the dude in the Twitter feed that I linked in my last reply to you. Be sure to watch it if you haven’t already because this is what floats as conservatism now - make stupid choices, and the hospital, insurance company, or even fellow co-workers paying into the insurance pool handle the tab. And thanks to ObamaCare, they can’t raise the premiums or kick this fucker out of the plan for his pre-existing condition of stupidity. Yeah individualism.

[Joe in PNG]

I do have a friend here who's reluctant to get the vaccine here, as she has a lot of health issues, and believes she has a chance of going into anaphylactic shock from the shot.
So, she'd rather wait until her next visit to the US and not get it in a 3rd world hospital.

[Snapshot]

I know ... kick this fucker out of the plan for his pre-existing condition of stupidity. Yeah individualism.

Genius. Stolen. Many applications.

[Nephrology]

I do have a friend here who's reluctant to get the vaccine here, as she has a lot of health issues, and believes she has a chance of going into anaphylactic shock from the shot.
So, she'd rather wait until her next visit to the US and not get it in a 3rd world hospital.

FWIW the odds of anaphylaxis are extremely low, substantially lower than the complications associated with COVID-19 infection


I know and I apologize if it seems like I’m directing any vitriol at you. I’m really tired of people like the dude in the Twitter feed that I linked in my last reply to you. Be sure to watch it if you haven’t already because this is what floats as conservatism now - make stupid choices, and the hospital, insurance company, or even fellow co-workers paying into the insurance pool handle the tab. And thanks to ObamaCare, they can’t raise the premiums or kick this fucker out of the plan for his pre-existing condition of stupidity. Yeah individualism.

My new, recent favorite phenomenon are the young hippie/progressive women from Boulder with pre existing mood disorder & comorbid personality pathology who come down with unsubtle pseudoseizures (engaging in tremulous but obviously volitional movement) after the vaxx and then post it all over social media as a warning about the dangers of the vax.

I can't deny it, there does seem to be a high association of anti-vaxx borderlines developing conversion disorder after inoculation. My MS3 A/P is d/c with referral to outpatient psych

[Joe in PNG]

FWIW the odds of anaphylaxis are extremely low, substantially lower than the complications associated with COVID-19 infection


Indeed. But she's one of those people that if there's a chance of it happening, it has happened.

I've offered to bring an epipen and hit her with it should something happen, but she doesn't trust me for some reason.

[Nephrology]

Indeed. But she's one of those people that if there's a chance of it happening, it has happened.

I've offered to bring an epipen and hit her with it should something happen, but she doesn't trust me for some reason.

Generally speaking people of this disposition have thought/belief structures that make this a fixed feature of their world view. I've long since given up trying to dissuade people of their beliefs for this reason. If I wanted to get paid to argue I would've gone to law school.

[Totem Polar]

What is tripping me up in this instance, and again I say this not because I think I'm important to the equation but because I think people who are looking at this the way I am are more common than it looks, what is tripping me up is that if there's any field in which people will lie to your face if it gets you to modify your behaviour in the way they think is best for you, it's public health. AND we're in this bizarrely polarized climate in which team allegiance has completely short-circuited the normal critical thinking process for lots of people who should know better, AND the big tech companies have come down on one side of things and have been keeping a thumb on the scale even when they've been wrong.


Absolutely. This. Concur.


I’d say that the scientific consensus has been incredibly fucking consistent and clear. From the CDC to the AMA and everything in between that includes IDSA, AAFP, AAP, SCCM, etc. and every single large organization that existed before the pandemic, the message has been remarkably harmonious - get your vaccine and probably wear a mask indoors if your going to be unvaccinated. Keep in mind that I’m philosophically opposed to half of these organizations that I see as progressive, but even I must admit the consensus and scientific rigor of my usual opponents is impressive. As a practicing physician for the past 20 years, I’ve not seen this level of agreement spread across this many government AND independent healthcare organizations. Amazingly, these organizations were saying the same thing no matter who controlled the White House and Congress - get your vaccine and probably wear a mask if your going to be unvaccinated. Moreover, when the recommendations to change around the margins, it is generally in response to specific, new information such as outstanding vaccination rates or the emergence of a new strain.


And, this helps, thanks. I would say that the consensus seems to be clear now.

That said, I think it’s fair to say that the CDC and some of the public-facing figures in this (eg. Faucci) have been guilty of some of what MSA notes, above, very early on. And that colors things for the lay person who’s been paying attention.







I've offered to bring an epipen and hit her with it should something happen, but she doesn't trust me for some reason.

Up the ante, and see if that sways her; offer to bring this:

https://www.rescue-essentials.com/h-h-emergency-cricothyrotomy-kit/

I mean, what do you have to lose?

:D

[Borderland]

Generally speaking people of this disposition have thought/belief structures that make this a fixed feature of their world view. I've long since given up trying to dissuade people of their beliefs for this reason. If I wanted to get paid to argue I would've gone to law school.

I think most doctors feel that way. I know mine does. He just recommends a treatment for whatever he sees as a problem. He's trying to keep me heathy but it isn't his job to persuade me to follow his advice. That's my job if I want to stay heathy. He gets paid the same no matter what I decide to do.

[Joe in PNG]

To paraphrase Neph, if I wanted to do medical stuff, I'd gone to school for it.

[Nephrology]

I think most doctors feel that way. I know mine does. He just recommends a treatment for whatever he sees as a potential problem. He's trying to keep me heathy but it isn't his job to persuade me to follow his advice. That's my job if I want to stay heathy. He gets paid the same no matter what I decide to do.

Any doctor you see in an office is relying on you to take care of yourself per their advice. This is America - your health is your responsibility. We value individual liberty above all else and there are a lot of upsides to that. I am totally happy that my doctors don't get to exert literal authority over my body. It's mine. Especially given that I am now apparently seeing "providers" who did a 2 year masters degree vs the ~10 years of formal training that goes into making a subspecialty medical doctor.

That said I don't always love that from the professional side and am probably going to go into anesthesiology because at least in the OR I am 100% in control of exactly what drugs do and do not go into my patient's body. that's part of the contract. The rest can be filed under "not my problem"

[Caballoflaco]

Just some interesting numbers. Here in the least vaccinated state in the country, Alabama (pop. 5.1 million) we just hit the hospital numbers we had back in February. We currently have 700 people in beds being treated for covid spread across 94 hospitals. I think my prediction of a second winter like the one we had last year is looking pretty good right now. At a little over 6,000 deaths for the first year of the pandemic I think we’ll likely meet or even beat that number this time around.

(I know folks are skeptical on the number of covid deaths reported, but the overall death rates for 2019 and 2020 reported covid deaths vs normal expected number of deaths match up to within a few hundred so it doesn’t seem like a major or widespread problem here)

[YVK]

https://www.ksl.com/article/50210374/st-george-police-officer-39-dies-of-covid-19

Reported as unvaccinated. I have no words.

[JAD]

I do have a friend here who's reluctant to get the vaccine here, as she has a lot of health issues, and believes she has a chance of going into anaphylactic shock from the shot.
So, she'd rather wait until her next visit to the US and not get it in a 3rd world hospital.

To the point already made, what does she figure her chances of surviving a good run of covid are? And how is she avoiding contracting it until she gets back to the States?

Thing I love about the vaccine is that it turns covid into a first world problem. Sure I might still get it, but I am no way going to be more than inconvenienced, as opposed to finding out I’m the kind of guy that COVID puts in the dirt.

[Doc_Glock]

Our 34% vaccinated county’s hospital just closed to elective surgery due to Covid over capacity.

I know five cases in my close social circle one of those vaccinated two children. Luckily all doing okay so far.

Here we go again.

[pangloss]

My state is only ~35% vaccinated, and numbers have sky rocketed over the past week or two. I heard at work that the Delta variant has a reproductive rate of ~7 compared with ~3 for the Wuhan strain. Interestingly, we have our on sub-lineage of Delta that just received its official designation today. It's identical to Delta on the outside, but has three mutations in the non-structural proteins that must do something. I spent all last weekend trying to figure this out, so I have theories, but the kind of science needed to test my hypotheses is not really my kind of science.

Sent from my moto e5 cruise using Tapatalk

[Joe in PNG]

To the point already made, what does she figure her chances of surviving a good run of covid are? And how is she avoiding contracting it until she gets back to the States?

Thing I love about the vaccine is that it turns covid into a first world problem. Sure I might still get it, but I am no way going to be more than inconvenienced, as opposed to finding out I’m the kind of guy that COVID puts in the dirt.

She knows that- she's been here for 20 years after all, and has had to make the trip to the first for medical stuff before. But, she's got her reasons, and I'm not going to be able to talk her into it.

[Kirk]

They work as well as I thought they would.

Just my experience...I went from working in a 36 bed medical ICU to working in a 72 bed COVID ICU. We often had to stack two intubated patients to a room so the engineering department retrofitted the unit to take two patients per room...what fun.


This time last year and we were damn near full. We opened five COVID specific units in my hospital and carried a census of 100+ COVID patients this time last year. The HCQ/AZT/ZN that was being used was ineffective based off data our intensivists had collected and researched of their own accord. Our findings were well in line with those of the scientific community.

I did education and data collection on COVID management and oxygenation strategies. I've seen the raw data myself.

This year, we have less than ten COVID patients on the hospital. All of them are unvaccinated people.

So...what changed? Decadron? Remdesivir? My badass strategies to prevent intubation?

Occam is over here shaking his head and saying "bitch please" because OF FUCKING COURSE it was the vaccine. The key difference made by the vaccine is the reduction of critical illness and our only critically ill COVID patients are unvaccinated. No judgement...some folks can't get it, some folks think Bill Gates is trying to microchip them, others are worried it'll make them sick in the long run.

I've seen exactly three fully vaccinated patients in the COVID ICU over the past year and a half. Two of whom were on anti-rejection meds for organ transplant and one of whom was HIV+ and it was later determined they did not have COVID, but actually Pneumocystis pneumonia common in AIDS.

There is a SUBSTANTIAL difference between the data being presented for the efficacy/safety of Ivermectin/HCQ/Zinc/whatever other bullshit and the efficacy/safety of the vaccinations for COVID. That data ain't even sort of the same. And it plays out in the real world, where guys like Sensei work.

But sure....I took the vaccine and maybe 60 years from now I'll get cancer and die...maybe my 90 year old ass can take it to Twitter or Parler or whatever and find Bret Weinstein and tell him he was right.

And one more thing. If you're afraid of long term side effects, shouldn't you be worried about the long term side effects of COVID? I mean, It's a novel illness. What makes you think it won't make you more likely to get cancer, asthma, heart problems or suffer early onset dementia? Because there is real concern about that dementia part for some folks and the long hauler symptoms are a bitch, with more than a few of my colleagues who are now disabled because of COVID.

Food for thought.

Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

My God I'd upvote this post 100 times if I could. I really appreciate the information and I also have enjoyed the other input from medical professionals.

[Kirk]

Edit

[Hambo]

https://www.ksl.com/article/50210374/st-george-police-officer-39-dies-of-covid-19

Reported as unvaccinated. I have no words.

As of yesterday, my wife's hospital has Covid patients wherever they can find space. Among those patients are some unvaccinated staff. Younger staff aren't really resistant to getting it, they're just apathetic. A commonly heard reason for not getting it is "the hospital doesn't require it, so I didn't think it was important." :rolleyes:

She did convince one or two to get the vaccine, not that it will do them much good at this point.

[luckyman]

I’m hoping someone can help me… I have a person very close to me that watched the ~3 hour “dark horse podcast” video including Robert Malone and Brett Weinstein. She was really scared by this subject: “On the “Dark Horse Podcast,” Dr. Robert Malone, creator of mRNA vaccine technology, said the COVID vaccine lipid nanoparticles — which tell the body to produce the spike protein — leave the injection site and accumulate in organs and tissues.”
She also came away thinking they also said there was substantial long term risk of leukemia, and possibly other types of cancers and of stroke, but I couldn’t find a good quote and I don’t want to spend 3 hours listening to the podcast. (I did listen to quite a bit of a 1 hr edited version of it)

Is there any competing science I can point her to that can explain why the above is highly unlikely? Even comments by the SMEs on this forum would be valuable.
The person in question has a BS in biology from a respected school and is not an anti-vaxxer, she is actively soliciting counter information at this point.

[TGS]

I’m hoping someone can help me… I have a person very close to me that watched the ~3 hour “dark horse podcast” video including Robert Malone and Brett Weinstein. She was really scared by this subject: “On the “Dark Horse Podcast,” Dr. Robert Malone, creator of mRNA vaccine technology, said the COVID vaccine lipid nanoparticles — which tell the body to produce the spike protein — leave the injection site and accumulate in organs and tissues.”
She also came away thinking they also said there was substantial long term risk of leukemia, and possibly other types of cancers and of stroke, but I couldn’t find a good quote and I don’t want to spend 3 hours listening to the podcast. (I did listen to quite a bit of a 1 hr edited version of it)

Is there any competing science I can point her to that can explain why the above is highly unlikely? Even comments by the SMEs on this forum would be valuable.
The person in question has a BS in biology from a respected school and is not an anti-vaxxer, she is actively soliciting counter information at this point.

Robert Malone?

Here's a primer on his bullshit: https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/library/3aa2eefd

[LorenzoS]

... Dr. Robert Malone, creator of mRNA vaccine technology, said the COVID vaccine lipid nanoparticles — which tell the body to produce the spike protein — leave the injection site and accumulate in organs and tissues.”

https://www.rwmalonemd.com/mrna-vaccine-inventor

This guy's own website smacks of so much bullshit, he's the Uncle Rico of the vaccine world. Spends a lot of time spinning a research assistant job at a lab 30 years ago into a claim he invented the technology and hawking his consulting services.

[Caballoflaco]

https://www.rwmalonemd.com/mrna-vaccine-inventor

This guy's own website smacks of so much bullshit, he's the Uncle Rico of the vaccine world. Spends a lot of time spinning a research assistant job at a lab 30 years ago into a claim he invented the technology and hawking his consulting services.

This is on the front page of his website. It doesn’t sound like he has any axes to grind at all....


But skepticism around RNA and a never-filed patent will crush his hopes and waste years. Robert Malone today has the bitterness of those who were right too early....

[luckyman]

This is on the front page of his website. It doesn’t sound like he has any axes to grind at all....

This is all somewhat helpful, but it is all attacking the man and not his statements on this subject. If anyone has any verbiage on why his specific claims are probably bullshit I would be much obliged.

[Doc_Glock]

I’m hoping someone can help me… I have a person very close to me that watched the ~3 hour “dark horse podcast” video including Robert Malone and Brett Weinstein. She was really scared by this subject: “On the “Dark Horse Podcast,” Dr. Robert Malone, creator of mRNA vaccine technology, said the COVID vaccine lipid nanoparticles — which tell the body to produce the spike protein — leave the injection site and accumulate in organs and tissues.”
She also came away thinking they also said there was substantial long term risk of leukemia, and possibly other types of cancers and of stroke, but I couldn’t find a good quote and I don’t want to spend 3 hours listening to the podcast. (I did listen to quite a bit of a 1 hr edited version of it)

Is there any competing science I can point her to that can explain why the above is highly unlikely? Even comments by the SMEs on this forum would be valuable.
The person in question has a BS in biology from a respected school and is not an anti-vaxxer, she is actively soliciting counter information at this point.


This podcast was very good in addressing all those points.

https://samharris.org/subscriber-rss/?id=8s0uwo

[idahojess]

This podcast was very good in addressing all those points.

https://samharris.org/subscriber-rss/?id=8s0uwo

The link didn't work -- this one?

https://samharris.org/podcasts/256-contagion-bad-ideas/

[LorenzoS]

This is all somewhat helpful, but it is all attacking the man and not his statements on this subject. If anyone has any verbiage on why his specific claims are probably bullshit I would be much obliged.

You need more than the obvious fact he's a bullshit artist?

Seems a lot of strain to give the benefit of the doubt to a crackpot. Others here like Sensei articulated better than I the vast consensus among scientific and health organizations that the vaccine is safe. Then when an obvious crackpot with an axe to grind and a product to sell comes along, you want it to be up to everyone else to prove beyond a doubt why he's wrong?

There are plenty of folks who believe the Earth is flat despite the overwhelming consensus that it is not. Is it possible that there really is a conspiracy of governments, NASA, airline pilots, sailors, scientists and astronauts to falsely claim the Earth is round? Sure, there might be a 0.0000000001% possibility. Just understand that when you take the position that this crackpot might, just might, be right about the vacccine, you're coming from the same place as those flat Earthers. Free choice and all that, but I know which group I am going with. Pick your team.

[YVK]

This is all somewhat helpful, but it is all attacking the man and not his statements on this subject. If anyone has any verbiage on why his specific claims are probably bullshit I would be much obliged.

The verbiage is that he doesn't know one way or another. Neither do I. He can talk up any theories he wants but it takes post-market longitudinal large scale analysis to establish cancerogenic cause-effects. If we see higher leukemia incidence 10-20 years from now in mRNA recipients who otherwise didn't have higher cancer risks, he's right. If we don't, he's wrong.
FWIW, mRNA vaccines been tested in humans for about 5 years now, nobody has reported anything terrible.

[luckyman]

You need more than the obvious fact he's a bullshit artist?

Seems a lot of strain to give the benefit of the doubt to a crackpot. Others here like Sensei articulated better than I the vast consensus among scientific and health organizations that the vaccine is safe. Then when an obvious crackpot with an axe to grind and a product to sell comes along, you want it to be up to everyone else to prove beyond a doubt why he's wrong?

There are plenty of folks who believe the Earth is flat despite the overwhelming consensus that it is not. Is it possible that there really is a conspiracy of governments, NASA, airline pilots, sailors, scientists and astronauts to falsely claim the Earth is round? Sure, there might be a 0.0000000001% possibility. Just understand that when you take the position that this crackpot might, just might, be right about the vacccine, you're coming from the same place as those flat Earthers. Free choice and all that, but I know which group I am going with. Pick your team.

Hey bud, *I* already have been vaccinated, appreciate the substantial risks involved with contracting Covid, and think that everyone else should get vaccinated also (with those under 22 staying away from mRNA vaccines and taking one of the other options). I’m just trying to help out someone who keeps hearing from others close to her how risky the vaccines are. If I came back to her with the attitude you just came to me with, she’s just going to shut down and stop listening.

[LorenzoS]

Hey bud, *I* already have been vaccinated, appreciate the substantial risks involved with contracting Covid, and think that everyone else should get vaccinated also (with those under 22 staying away from mRNA vaccines and taking one of the other options). I’m just trying to help out someone who keeps hearing from others close to her how risky the vaccines are. If I came back to her with the attitude you just came to me with, she’s just going to shut down and stop listening.

I apologize Lucky, I was out of line.

This anti vax nonsense is fatiguing, and I'm sorry for misdirecting my frustration at you. Before 2020 we already had outbreaks of goddamned Measles in the 21st century United States because people would rather listen to any bonehead with a podcast instead of real scientists. And here we are close to eliminating this pandemic but we might slip backward again for the same reason.

Good luck with your friend.

[Hot Sauce]

and think that everyone else should get vaccinated also (with those under 22 staying away from mRNA vaccines and taking one of the other options).

???

[TheNewbie]

You need more than the obvious fact he's a bullshit artist?

Seems a lot of strain to give the benefit of the doubt to a crackpot. Others here like Sensei articulated better than I the vast consensus among scientific and health organizations that the vaccine is safe. Then when an obvious crackpot with an axe to grind and a product to sell comes along, you want it to be up to everyone else to prove beyond a doubt why he's wrong?

There are plenty of folks who believe the Earth is flat despite the overwhelming consensus that it is not. Is it possible that there really is a conspiracy of governments, NASA, airline pilots, sailors, scientists and astronauts to falsely claim the Earth is round? Sure, there might be a 0.0000000001% possibility. Just understand that when you take the position that this crackpot might, just might, be right about the vacccine, you're coming from the same place as those flat Earthers. Free choice and all that, but I know which group I am going with. Pick your team.


Teams shouldn't be based on who is vaccinated, who is not, who trusts the experts, who questions the experts, etc. It should be based on the appreciation of liberty.

Hopefully that's what you mean by "free choice and all that".


Bret Weinstein has multiple podcasts that all should listen to.

[HCM]

Teams shouldn't be based on who is vaccinated, who is not, who trusts the experts, who questions the experts, etc. It should be based on the appreciation of liberty.

Hopefully that's what you mean by "free choice and all that".


Bret Weinstein has multiple podcasts that all should listen to.

COVID and COVID vaccines are well outside Bret Weinstein's area of expertise. Regardless, he is no longer a scientist, he's a podcaster whose initial fame waned. He needed new drama to drive traffic and he found it in COVID, COVID Vaccines and Ivermectin.

[pangloss]

I’m hoping someone can help me… I have a person very close to me that watched the ~3 hour “dark horse podcast” video including Robert Malone and Brett Weinstein. She was really scared by this subject: “On the “Dark Horse Podcast,” Dr. Robert Malone, creator of mRNA vaccine technology, said the COVID vaccine lipid nanoparticles — which tell the body to produce the spike protein — leave the injection site and accumulate in organs and tissues.”
She also came away thinking they also said there was substantial long term risk of leukemia, and possibly other types of cancers and of stroke, but I couldn’t find a good quote and I don’t want to spend 3 hours listening to the podcast. (I did listen to quite a bit of a 1 hr edited version of it)

Is there any competing science I can point her to that can explain why the above is highly unlikely? Even comments by the SMEs on this forum would be valuable.
The person in question has a BS in biology from a respected school and is not an anti-vaxxer, she is actively soliciting counter information at this point.I've never heard of Robert Malone or that podcast, but tell your friend that the lipid nanoparticles won't accumulate in her organs simply because lipids are biodegradable. Secondly, for the vaccine to elicit antibodies, the lipid nanoparticles have to deliver the mRNA to cells and the cells have to translate the RNA into protein. B cells see the protein and make antibodies. If all the lipid nanoparticles were clogged up in the kidney or the liver, people wouldn't mount such a good response to the vaccine because the RNA would still be trapped inside them and not translated into protein by the cells.

Sent from my moto e5 cruise using Tapatalk

[luckyman]

I've never heard of Robert Malone or that podcast, but tell your friend that the lipid nanoparticles won't accumulate in her organs simply because lipids are biodegradable. Secondly, for the vaccine to elicit antibodies, the lipid nanoparticles have to deliver the mRNA to cells and the cells have to translate the RNA into protein. B cells see the protein and make antibodies. If all the lipid nanoparticles were clogged up in the kidney or the liver, people wouldn't mount such a good response to the vaccine because the RNA would still be trapped inside them and not translated into protein by the cells.

Sent from my moto e5 cruise using Tapatalk

This is perfect!!! Thank you so much, I really care about this person, and this might help.

[Sensei]

This is perfect!!! Thank you so much, I really care about this person, and this might help.


I’m hoping someone can help me… I have a person very close to me that watched the ~3 hour “dark horse podcast” video including Robert Malone and Brett Weinstein. She was really scared by this subject: “On the “Dark Horse Podcast,” Dr. Robert Malone, creator of mRNA vaccine technology, said the COVID vaccine lipid nanoparticles — which tell the body to produce the spike protein — leave the injection site and accumulate in organs and tissues.”
She also came away thinking they also said there was substantial long term risk of leukemia, and possibly other types of cancers and of stroke, but I couldn’t find a good quote and I don’t want to spend 3 hours listening to the podcast. (I did listen to quite a bit of a 1 hr edited version of it)

Is there any competing science I can point her to that can explain why the above is highly unlikely? Even comments by the SMEs on this forum would be valuable.
The person in question has a BS in biology from a respected school and is not an anti-vaxxer, she is actively soliciting counter information at this point.

It is interesting that she has a BS in biology went searching for information on vaccine safety and somehow landed on Brett Weinstein’s website. That would be like someone with a BA in history wanting to learn about 9/11 and settling on InfoWars as an authority. It usually takes a little effort to get that far into the bullshit. You know what I’m saying?

I’d be careful with this person if I were you. She sounds a lot like a hot, redheaded, hairdresser named Amber that I once dated (or some other verb). Be sure to use a condom. In fact, double wrap that thing. ;)

[luckyman]

It is interesting that she has a BS in biology went searching for information on vaccine safety and somehow landed on Brett Weinstein’s website. That would be like someone with a BA in history wanting to learn about 9/11 and settling on InfoWars as an authority. It usually takes a little effort to get that far into the bullshit. You know what I’m saying?

I’d be careful with this person if I were you. She sounds a lot like a hot, redheaded, hairdresser named Amber that I once dated (or some other verb). Be sure to use a condom. In fact, double wrap that thing. ;)

[emoji1787]
Hah. It’s not that kind of situation at all, I’m in a Godfather type situation. And she didn’t go searching for that particular info, other people important in her life are pushing that on her hard and she is trying to figure out who to believe.

But you aren’t entirely wrong, although very good-hearted she is probably in the upper right quadrant of the hot/crazy matrix.

[HeavyDuty]

[emoji1787]
Hah. It’s not that kind of situation at all, I’m in a Godfather type situation. And she didn’t go searching for that particular info, other people important in her life are pushing that on her hard and she is trying to figure out who to believe.

But you aren’t entirely wrong, although very good-hearted she is probably in the upper right quadrant of the hot/crazy matrix.

“It's an old habit. I spent my life trying not to be careless -- women and children can be careless, but not men.”

[pangloss]

This is perfect!!! Thank you so much, I really care about this person, and this might help.

You're very welcome. I hope it helps. If she has any other specific concerns, I'd be happy to try to address them.

[Welder]

Teams shouldn't be based on who is vaccinated, who is not, who trusts the experts, who questions the experts, etc. It should be based on the appreciation of liberty.

Hopefully that's what you mean by "free choice and all that".

It's kind of silly that you're *telling* someone what to base their 'team' on, and you're *telling* them that it should be 'based on the appreciation of liberty.'

Shouldn't they have the liberty to decide what's most important to them?

:p but not really

[Welder]

It's kind of silly that you're *telling* someone what to base their 'team' on, and you're *telling* them that it should be 'based on the appreciation of liberty.'

Shouldn't they have the liberty to decide what's most important to them?

:p but not really

PS I'm basing my team on people who like the color Admiral Blue. Everybody else, get off my team.

[Nephrology]

It is interesting that she has a BS in biology went searching for information on vaccine safety and somehow landed on Brett Weinstein’s website. That would be like someone with a BA in history wanting to learn about 9/11 and settling on InfoWars as an authority. It usually takes a little effort to get that far into the bullshit. You know what I’m saying?

To quote my grandfather, a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.

[Hot Sauce]

and think that everyone else should get vaccinated also (with those under 22 staying away from mRNA vaccines and taking one of the other options).


???

Lest it be misunderstood what I was asking, luckyman why would a 21 year old want to avoid mRNA vaccines?

[Kirk]

Lest it be misunderstood what I was asking, luckyman why would a 21 year old want to avoid mRNA vaccines?

I believe lucky man might be going by what YVK (MD) said somewhere around here that he might recommend J&J for younger individuals due to a lower risk of adverse events. I may be butchering what he (YVK) said though and am on mobile, making it harder to find the quote.

[luckyman]

I believe lucky man might be going by what YVK (MD) said somewhere around here that he might recommend J&J for younger individuals due to a lower risk of adverse events. I may be butchering what he (YVK) said though and am on mobile, making it harder to find the quote.

Yep that was it. Mind you, by happenstance everyone close to me is either over 25 or younger than 13, so I didn’t analyze it super close. But I like YVK’s analysis.

[Baldanders]

You're definitely right in that is is hard. It's so easy to come across single articles that seem entirely reasonable, but with more information are revealed to be extremely misleading. The only answer I have is that you have to look at consensus. The scientific process in the western world is unfortunately contaminated with culture, emotion, and politics, but it is still probably the best its been in most of history. It isn't perfect, but it is pretty damn good at finding answers to things. If the vast majority of scientists doing work on a proboem think one thing, there's a good chance that they're going in the right direction. Scientists are not prone to agreeing with colleagues just because.

Read a lot of articles from a lot of sources, do your best to learn the science and ask experts you can trust. It's a crummy answer, but it's akin to the question "what handgun do I buy to make consistent 25 yard hits?" when the answer is education, training, and ammo.


I first became aware of her when she hooked up with America’s Frontline Doctors which is the group that included that crazy, alien DNA doctor named Stella Immanuel (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stella_Immanuel). Their founder’s past times also include storming the Capital. Most of us ignored Tess Lawrie until a couple of months ago when she started claiming that the covid vaccines were dangerous and shouldn’t be used in humans.

Tess Lawrie aside, my question to members of this forum is why would anyone trust anything that comes out of Brett Weinstein’s mouth. Keep in mind that this is a guy who is a liberal Democrat and became famous when the nuts at Evergreen State ran him out of the asylum for being too white. Those students were his own Frankenstein’s monster that he helped to create, but nobody cares about that. Apparently, being not radical enough for Evergreen State is enough street creds in conservative circles as long as he backs their anti-vax conspiracies.

As I have mentioned before, the "far left" Naked Capitalism is full of doublethink on covid, and quick to push "alternative" narratives.

Many right and left sites spew the same garbage these days. Basic doubt of scientific research and modern medicine seems to be the goal. The central technique: keep raising questions, with no serious attempt to answer any of the factual claims they raise.

My basic rule of thumb has served me well: is someone pushing a miracle cure ("the results are so good, doing a double-blind study would be murder!"--Critical Care of Covid-19 folks on their refusal to do good science)?

Then they are lying or mistaken. There is a reason why we don't use individual clinical experience as the primary guide to determining what works in medicine. It doesn't work at all. Bloodletting was a "proven" treatment for anemia at one time.

[Baldanders]

To quote my grandfather, a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.

I knew a guy in college who never should have read a chart that showed the bioavailablity of cocaine by various routes. He was real impressed by the "100%" of IV use.

[Nephrology]

I knew a guy in college who never should have read a chart that showed the bioavailablity of cocaine by various routes. He was real impressed by the "100%" of IV use.

Ha, well the bioavailability of effective all drugs is 100% by IV, glad he stopped at cocaine :P

[RoyGBiv]

Covid-19 immunity wanes, but third shot still rarely needed, BioNTech CEO says (https://www.foxbusiness.com/healthcare/covid-19-immunity-wanes-but-third-shot-still-rarely-needed-biontech-ceo-says)

(emphasis mine)


But even as antibody levels are dropping seven months after immunization among some vaccine recipients, most of them will remain protected against severe disease and might not yet need a third dose, according to Ugur Sahin, CEO of the German company that invented the vaccine and partnered with Pfizer to develop the product for the global market.

"The antibody titers are going down," Sahin said, referring to the unit of measurement for antibodies against the virus. "The vaccine protection against the new variant is considerably lower."

Sahin made the comments after preliminary data emerged from Israel showing that people who had received the shot in January were three times more likely to get infected than those who were vaccinated in May.

[entropy]

To quote my grandfather, a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.


Too much knowledge on the other hand, combined with the wrong personality, even more so.

I’ve always believed that upper academia was populated by quite a few borderline (if not beyond) sociopaths.

One should always be careful who we hitch our wagons to.

[Baldanders]

Ha, well the bioavailability of effective all drugs is 100% by IV, glad he stopped at cocaine :P

Oh, he got adventurous when he couldn't score blow one night and stuck the hypo in a shot glass of whiskey and pulled up a few mLs and fired it up.

Based on my conversations with a grad student who was getting off an IV heroin habit, I would say the pleasurable associations with injection become very powerful. She also used to look at my pale forearms and big visible veins with envy. :(

[Joe in PNG]

Plan is to head to town for AZ #2 today.

[Paso Quito]

It has been a very, very long time since I took classes where we learned about the body's immune system. In all the hubub about the vaccines (who has taken it, who hasn't, why/why not, etc) I just don't see much discussion about those of us who have had Covid-19, survived it and should be immune. If I remember my earlier schooling correctly, we get sick & the body responds in several ways but eventually we create antibodies that kill the bugs. The level of antibodies will be high initially but will taper off over time unless we are exposed to the same (or very similar) bug again.

While as this internal bug control is being done, our immune system creates an instruction packet for how to create the antibodies that we worked so hard to create when we got sick initially. Therefore we have an expedited response to an exposure to the original bug.

As I understand it, the different variant of Covid-19 are nearly identical and that our natural immunity will almost certainly be triggered by exposure to the different variants. We will probably get sick but it shouldn't be bad (unless there is an underlying condition).

I realize that this is extremely simplified and it may be completely wrong. But it is what I understand happens to our body.

Assuming this is even close to true, why would I want to take a vaccine for anything I've already had?

When businesses and/or government makes having a vaccine (any vaccine) mandatory, regardless of previously acquired immunity (as described above) are we not painting with a much larger brush than necessary?

Am I incorrect in my understanding that part of standard vaccine testing (prior to approval) is to study where the vaccine (and its byproducts for lack of a better term) end up over time and that this has not been done on the current vaccines? I think this kind of testing is required and I assume that it was added to the approval process for a good reason. I hope that the approval process is not being short changed for expediency.

I have seen articles that say the H1N1 (I think) vaccine killed 53 people (if I remember correctly about 45 million vaccinations) before it was taken off the market. What has changed in society that more than 6000 deaths from vaccines is acceptable today?

I am just an old coot who remembers saccharine (perfect sugar substitute until it killed you) that was promoted and eventually buried. Thalidomide is another example of something that started well but ended very badly. I guess that my experiences in life have taught me to be very wary of people and organizations that push too hard and brook no questions. I am an engineer who lives day to day science. I am not anti science nor anti vax. I am anti coercion and I don't trust big government or big business to be honest and up front, especially where it impacts control/power and profits respectively.

This is probably the wrong place for this but where is all the research for treatment? If Covid-19 is as bad as made out in the media why are there no ongoing updates for early/mid/late treatments? If the goal is to reduce deaths wouldn't a good, early treatment option be something to pursue?

Like I said earlier, I may be completely off base here but I am asking these questions in good faith.

[Nephrology]

Too much knowledge on the other hand, combined with the wrong personality, even more so.

I’ve always believed that upper academia was populated by quite a few borderline (if not beyond) sociopaths.

One should always be careful who we hitch our wagons to.

No more than any other career that attracts high achievers but I guess it depends on what you mean by "academia" as that term means lots of things to different people

At the end of the day, in my world, academics offers the opportunity to develop unparalleled, specific professional expertise in advanced areas of practice. It probably does mean that on some level the "bread and butter" suffers, but if I needed a Whipple or a liver transplant, I know the names of exactly which surgeons I would go to, because they do more of them per year than just about anyone else in our time zone with correspondingly good outcomes.

Not a surprise - practice makes perfect.

[Nephrology]

Assuming this is even close to true, why would I want to take a vaccine for anything I've already had?

Like I said earlier, I may be completely off base here but I am asking these questions in good faith.

You're not wrong that your body will generate antibodies against COVID-19 if you are infected with it. Your immune response to infection (which usually includes antibody production) can be somewhat variable and depends a lot on the competency of your immune system.

My basic understanding is that the immunity generated by the vaccine is a little more 'broad' in the sense that it creates antibodies against epitopes (the "pieces" of the virus that your immune system can "see") that are a little more consistent between the different strains of the virus. Also, for reasons I honestly don't fully understand, the evidence seems to suggest that immunity generated by the vaccine is more potent and longer lasting than immunity generated by viral infection. I just got home and have to prepare for tomorrow but I can dig up some of the primary literature on this if I get a moment later tonight

[Paso Quito]

You're not wrong that your body will generate antibodies against COVID-19 if you are infected with it. Your immune response to infection (which usually includes antibody production) can be somewhat variable and depends a lot on the competency of your immune system.

My basic understanding is that the immunity generated by the vaccine is a little more 'broad' in the sense that it creates antibodies against epitopes (the "pieces" of the virus that your immune system can "see") that are a little more consistent between the different strains of the virus. Also, for reasons I honestly don't fully understand, the evidence seems to suggest that immunity generated by the vaccine is more potent and longer lasting than immunity generated by viral infection. I just got home and have to prepare for tomorrow but I can dig up some of the primary literature on this if I get a moment later tonight

Thanks for the reply. I thought that the vaccine was actually making the body create the spike protein but that is did not really convey immunity (creat antibodies for the virus) like a weakened or dead virus would.

[Clusterfrack]

Reluctance to be vaccinated seems to be due to a combination of misinformation and the very rapid creation of the vaccines. mRNA vaccines are novel, and the J&J adenoviral vax is relatively new as well--so it's not surprising that many people are concerned.

However, it seems clear that these vaccines keep people out of the hospital, and significantly reduce the risks from Covid-19. My SME sources think it is likely that most healthy people who are vaccinated with Pfizer or Moderna are likely to have significant immunity for years. We don't know what the duration of protection is, but getting a higher quality vaccine (Pfizer or Moderna >> J&J) may yield the best results.

Safety: My sources think the mRNA vaccines are as safe or safer than the flu vax. Flu vax contains components that irritate the immune system and can cause side effects. COVID-19 mRNA vaccines don't have that, and because mRNA disappears quickly, long term effects seem less likely.

No vaccine is 100% safe. Based on my read of the literature and from information from subject matter experts, I and everyone in my family were enthusiastic to be vaccinated ASAP. The risk of serious Covid-19 complications appear to be vastly greater than the risk of a serious reaction to the vaccine.

Edit: just to be clear: I expect to get Covid of some type sooner or later. Eradication of the disease or vaccination immunity do not seem likely in our lifetimes. I hope the vaccines are sufficient to make Covid as or less severe than a bad cold or mild flu.

[MickAK]

Thanks for the reply. I thought that the vaccine was actually making the body create the spike protein but that is did not really convey immunity (creat antibodies for the virus) like a weakened or dead virus would.

There's a user here pangloss that works in a lab of some sort and measured his antibody levels regularly after his vaccination and reported them here, if you're curious about how that works and how long it takes and such.

[Clusterfrack]

Ivermectin is a neurotoxin that targets Cl- channels in invertebrates, and under most circumstances does not adversely effect humans except in high doses. High doses of Ivermectin may help treat SARS cov2, but are inconclusive against COVID-19.

Risk of high dose ivermectin seems much greater than for mRNA Covid vaccines, for much lower (possibility zero) value.

[Nephrology]

for much lower (possibility zero) value.

It's definitely zero IMO. If it was my sibling/parent in the ICU for COVID I would not want them to be wasting space on the IV pole with stupid bullshit like that.

[Sensei]

As I understand it, the different variant of Covid-19 are nearly identical and that our natural immunity will almost certainly be triggered by exposure to the different variants. We will probably get sick but it shouldn't be bad (unless there is an underlying condition).

This is may very well be incorrect. Nobody can make that statement with any degree of certainty. What little knowledge we had about re-infection was based on non-Delta strains from last Summer and Winter. Delta is the predominant strain now and the best course is to probably get immunized - especially if you’re over the age of 40.

[BobM]

What’s the current thought on vaccine for young women who might want to have children in the future? I thought earlier on there were questions about the risks associated with pregnancy or conception.

[Clusterfrack]

What’s the current thought on vaccine for young women who might want to have children in the future? I thought earlier on there were questions about the risks associated with pregnancy or conception.

My read is: safer than Tdap and Flu vax. Pregnant: get vaccinated ASAP with an mRNA vaccine so baby receives antibodies.

[entropy]

Looking for medical advice on a gun forum is not the best of ideas.

Just sayin’.

I’d personally consult a (real) ObGyn (not online accredited) or a trusted Pediatrician.


Would you ask your wife’s box doctor what the best 9mm factory SD round is?


People need to stop viewing the world thru a damn soda straw.



......I’m out.

[Joe in PNG]

After a bit of a wait, got AZ #2 this morning.
There was also a bit of a line, which is a good thing.

[pangloss]

There's a user here pangloss that works in a lab of some sort and measured his antibody levels regularly after his vaccination and reported them here, if you're curious about how that works and how long it takes and such.

The vaccine encodes the mRNA for spike protein. The body makes the spike protein and then immune cells mount a response to the spike, i.e make antibodies that recognize spike.

I've looked at antibodies in maybe three dozen seriously sick people (about a third of whom died), quite a few people who were infected and had relatively mild illness, and about 200 vaccinated people. The ballpark number is that vaccinated people make about 8-10x as much antibody as people who are infected but not hospitalized. People that end up in the ICU make a lot more antibody than people who aren't hospitalized. We're bleeding people this week and last week who were vaccinated in December/January and bled in March. There's a really significant decline in antibody levels since March. At the same time, about 20% of COVID cases in the state are among vaccinated individuals. Very few of these people are critically ill. I really hope I'm wrong, but I'll be surprised if immunity from the vaccine lasts for much over a year. I can't imagine it lasting several years. We don't have an effective vaccine for any respiratory virus that has an infection limited to the mucosa, and we've known for decades that humans are subject to reinfection with respiratory viruses. (The flu vaccine is arguably and exception, but that's not a particularly good vaccine.)

Several things are happening at once that will keep the pandemic running for a while. The first is vaccine hesitancy among a significant portion of the population. These people will be fuel for the fire for months to come. The second are the changes in the virus. In and of itself, I don't think these changes are that immunologically significant, but my understanding is that the changes have increased the spike proteins affinity for the receptor, so it takes fewer viral particles to successfully infect an individual. Now overlay the decline in immunity among vaccinated people, and you can start to see how it ends. It ends with essentially everyone being infected at some point. Kids will be naturally infected and have mild illness. Adults who have been vaccinated will have mild illness. Unvaccinated people who survived one infection already will have mild illness. Unvaccinated people with first infections will show the same spectrum of disease that we've seen up to this point.

What I'm struggling with now is the concept of "correlate of protection." This term refers to which component of the immune response confers protection against challenge. For the vast majority of pathogens, antibodies are the correlate of protection. However, I think the term is couched too much in the mouse literature and the experiments that led us to use this term are so artificial that they have little relevance to human health. The concept is overly reductionist. This last point is just me complaining, but it's something that I'm thinking about a lot after seeing the antibody data from last week.

[MickAK]

My read is: safer than Tdap and Flu vax. Pregnant: get vaccinated ASAP with an mRNA vaccine so baby receives antibodies.

There's significantly more data on TDAP during pregnancy so I'm curious what you're basing that statement on.

[Kanye Wyoming]

This is pretty impressive.

1419000103575109632?s=21

[Clusterfrack]

There's significantly more data on TDAP during pregnancy so I'm curious what you're basing that statement on.

Agreed about data. However there is a significant body of empirical research and theoretical understanding that helps us make predictions.

I’m passing on info I received from a Covid researcher I know and respect.

[Joe S]

I listened to Sam Harris's podcast about it. Long, but some really good info in it: https://samharris.org/podcasts/256-contagion-bad-ideas/

[HCM]

I listened to Sam Harris's podcast about it. Long, but some really good info in it: https://samharris.org/podcasts/256-contagion-bad-ideas/

Same one from posts 104/105 in this thread but very good info.

[Joe in PNG]

After a bit of a wait, got AZ #2 this morning.
There was also a bit of a line, which is a good thing.

Post shot 2 report- unlike the first one, no real side effects other than a mildly sore arm.

[Joe S]

Same one from posts 104/105 in this thread but very good info.

I figured there was a good likelihood it had been posted, but didn't have time to go back and check, and thought it could use a bump either way.

[Spartan1980]

Post shot 2 report- unlike the first one, no real side effects other than a mildly sore arm.

Was pretty much the same for me.

Shot 1: Felt like the big bearded EMT dude punched me in the arm with brass knuckles. Seriously. Two different times I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror to see if my arm was bruised that evening. That's it.
Shot 2: Felt like little nurse boi hit me in the arm with his fist. That's it. All the horror stories of the 2nd shot didn't pan out for me.

[Joe in PNG]

Was pretty much the same for me.

Shot 1: Felt like the big bearded EMT dude punched me in the arm with brass knuckles. Seriously. Two different times I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror to see if my arm was bruised that evening. That's it.
Shot 2: Felt like little nurse boi hit me in the arm with his fist. That's it. All the horror stories of the 2nd shot didn't pan out for me.

From talking to others who had the AZ vaccine, the bad side effects usually happen at shot one, and shot two is mostly a sore arm.

[Spartan1980]

From talking to others who had the AZ vaccine, the bad side effects usually happen at shot one, and shot two is mostly a sore arm.

Oh I see. I had Moderna. Had heard that actual symptoms occurred with the Moderna and Pfizer 2nd shots. Didn't for me at all.

[Bergeron]

I got my Pfizer shots back in spring, had arm soreness, and mostly slept through feeling crummy for the rest of the day and the day following, with both shots.

I’ll be in line for a booster, if it becomes available.

[idahojess]

http://youtu.be/EnB_uqDP4nk

Straightforward info, but with pretty good detail.

(As with most podcasts/youtube talking videos, best played at 1.5 speed)

[RoyGBiv]

Oh I see. I had Moderna. Had heard that actual symptoms occurred with the Moderna and Pfizer 2nd shots. Didn't for me at all.

For me, Moderna #2 was ~24 hours of unpleasantness, starting about 12 hours post vax. Not bad considering the benefit.

[Spartan1980]

For me, Moderna #2 was ~24 hours of unpleasantness, starting about 12 hours post vax. Not bad considering the benefit.

It's really interesting how different people get differing reactions. I've heard so many people say the same as you. For me and my sister it was sort of backwards between #1 & #2.

For my sister she had such issues with #1 that she wasn't going to get #2. I was able to convince her since our mother is just through cancer treatments and my son-in-law who had COVID lasting about a month before he recovered found out that he's going to have to get a kidney transplant due to the COVID. She also has only one kidney, having to have one removed when she was only 6 weeks old. She went ahead and didn't have near the problems with #2 as #1 and she's now glad she went ahead with it. She's also been exposed several times, once just last week and so far, so good.

[Spartan1980]

http://youtu.be/EnB_uqDP4nk

Straightforward info, but with pretty good detail.

(As with most podcasts/youtube talking videos, best played at 1.5 speed)

That's a pretty good video, thanks for posting it.

[Baldanders]

Post shot 2 report- unlike the first one, no real side effects other than a mildly sore arm.

Good to hear!

[Crow Hunter]

It's really interesting how different people get differing reactions. I've heard so many people say the same as you. For me and my sister it was sort of backwards between #1 & #2.

For my sister she had such issues with #1 that she wasn't going to get #2. I was able to convince her since our mother is just through cancer treatments and my son-in-law who had COVID lasting about a month before he recovered found out that he's going to have to get a kidney transplant due to the COVID. She also has only one kidney, having to have one removed when she was only 6 weeks old. She went ahead and didn't have near the problems with #2 as #1 and she's now glad she went ahead with it. She's also been exposed several times, once just last week and so far, so good.

Completely anecdotal but my wife caught Covid in Sept'ish of last year, I quarantined in the house with her and she sneezed on everything, every few minutes. I got bored with counting at 35 times on the first day. We shared a bathroom and she cooked quite a few meals that we ate together. I never had any Covid symptoms, so I never bothered getting tested since I was going to be quarantined anyway. She was pretty miserable, mostly body aches, sneezing, diarrhea, and feeling really run down. No coughing or breathing problems.

She got the Moderna vaccine a couple of weeks before I did and she was miserable after both shots, especially the 2nd one but felt better within 24 hours. She said it was like she had caught it again with a much faster recovery.

I got the Pfizer, other than feeling like someone "frogged" my arm, I felt fine.

She was discussing with her doctor and they were commiserating on how bad it was and she mentioned me, he said that I must have "a good immune system". I don't know if I believe him.

[Hemiram]

FWIW the odds of anaphylaxis are extremely low, substantially lower than the complications associated with COVID-19 infection



My new, recent favorite phenomenon are the young hippie/progressive women from Boulder with pre existing mood disorder & comorbid personality pathology who come down with unsubtle pseudoseizures (engaging in tremulous but obviously volitional movement) after the vaxx and then post it all over social media as a warning about the dangers of the vax.

I can't deny it, there does seem to be a high association of anti-vaxx borderlines developing conversion disorder after inoculation. My MS3 A/P is d/c with referral to outpatient psych

I have a friend who totally bought the faked "seizures" videos. I spent some time with him Monday, and I just sat there and tried to keep from laughing at his endless claims of what the vaccine supposedly did to him, and why he totally regrets getting it, etc. His gullibility when a claim is made about a lot of stuff makes me wonder how much his bypass surgery in early spring messed up his head. He's always been sort of an easy sell on kookery, but now, he's like my dog when a woman wore too much perfume, he's totally sold on it.

[pangloss]

Yesterday I stopped by the lab that runs the RT-PCR tests for our institution. Last January they got up to ~2,500 tests per day, and this week they are running ~1,000 tests per day. The test is declared positive when the signal generated by the amplified DNA sequence crosses a certain threshold, which is called the cycle threshold, "CT" for short. Each cycle of the test roughly doubles the signal because you are making a copy of the target DNA with each cycle. A CT of 28 cycles is a reasonably strong positive. A CT above 35 could be questionable. I think some places run the test all the way to 40 cycles. In any case, as I said, each cycle doubles the signal, so a positive sample that had a CT of 28 has about 2x as much starting target material as a positive sample that had a cycle threshold of 29. Last January there were a lot of positive samples with CT values in the 20s and low 30s. Currently lots of positive samples have CT values in the teens. To put this in perspective, a positive sample with a CT value of 18 has ~2,000x as much viral sequence as a sample with a CT value of 28. Anyway, my point is that the news reports that the delta variant makes 1000x as much virus as the older strains are likely not an exaggeration. I'm also hearing more reports of fully vaccinated people who had symptomatic illness. Be careful and don't take unnecessary risks. The virus circulating now looks to be much more capable than the one from last year and early this year. I hope any of us that haven't been vaccinated yet will carefully reconsider.

[YVK]

I hope any of us that haven't been vaccinated yet will carefully reconsider.

Those who haven't taken the shot had all the time in the world to do it. Horse and water kind of deal. I am more interested in when we get a decent science and hopefully timely guidelines about boosters for those who do want protection.

[0ddl0t]

I'm also hearing more reports of fully vaccinated people who had symptomatic illness.

The CDC released a report today making headlines: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm?s_cid=mm7031e2_w


Cliff notes:

69% of the Massachusetts population was vaccinated when a series of summer events occurred in 1 county.
74% of these COVID infections happened to the fully vaccinated. (346 out of 469 cases)
79% of these "breakthrough infections" were symptomatic (274 out of 346)
80% of those hospitalized were vaccinated (4 out of 5 - roughly 1% of vaccinated & unvaccinated)
Of those vaccinated infections: 46% had pfizer, 38% Moderna, & 16% J&J (vs Massachusetts vaccination base rates of 56% pfizer, 38% Moderna, & 7% J&J).
89% of these infections were confirmed Delta variant, 10% could not be determined
87% of infections were male, median age was 42
PCR CT counts were essentially the same for vaccinated (22.77) and unvaccinated (21.54) which is why the CDC now recommends the vaccinated wear masks

[MickAK]

I'll preface this by saying I think the only concern with the various Covid vaccines is they may not work as good as people hope and distributing them this widely could be a bad idea.


The CDC released a report today making headlines: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm?s_cid=mm7031e2_w


Cliff notes:

69% of the Massachusetts population was vaccinated when a series of summer events occurred in 1 county.
74% of these COVID infections happened to the fully vaccinated. (346 out of 469 cases)
79% of these "breakthrough infections" were symptomatic (274 out of 346)
80% of those hospitalized were vaccinated (4 out of 5 - roughly 1% of vaccinated & unvaccinated)
Of those vaccinated infections: 46% had pfizer, 38% Moderna, & 16% J&J (vs Massachusetts vaccination base rates of 56% pfizer, 38% Moderna, & 7% J&J).
89% of these infections were confirmed Delta variant, 10% could not be determined
87% of infections were male, median age was 42
PCR CT counts were essentially the same for vaccinated (22.77) and unvaccinated (21.54) which is why the CDC now recommends the vaccinated wear masks

Huh

[Bio]

I've got a couple extended family members who were both vaccinated and recently both got symptomatic cases. Nothing terrible, thankfully, because they tick a few risk group boxes.

[Nephrology]

I have a friend who totally bought the faked "seizures" videos. I spent some time with him Monday, and I just sat there and tried to keep from laughing at his endless claims of what the vaccine supposedly did to him, and why he totally regrets getting it, etc. His gullibility when a claim is made about a lot of stuff makes me wonder how much his bypass surgery in early spring messed up his head. He's always been sort of an easy sell on kookery, but now, he's like my dog when a woman wore too much perfume, he's totally sold on it.

If you ever have this conversation again you can always show him what a real generalized tonic clonic (GTC) seizure looks like.

They are very unmistakable and hard to accurately fake. They are characterized by rhythmic non-purposeful non-coordinated motor activity that starts in one motor region of the brain and generalizes to the rest of the brain. For this reason many people who have a GTC will stop breathing effectively or entirely and will often be pale/cyanotic/etc until the seizure breaks. Sometimes GTC seizures can be so powerful that you can dislocate joints.

In the video below, the teen's seizure starts in the face/upper extremities with rapid blinking, forceful gaze deviation, flexion at the R. shoulder elbow and wrist before spreading (generalizing) to the rest of his bodys motor circuits. Definitionally if you have a GTC you will lose consciousness and experience a "post ictal" period of confusion and stupor afterwards that lasts at least 15-30 minutes or longer.

Video may be a little disturbing to some as it is hard to watch but it is work safe.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEmTQhlHfFc

[Borderland]

With regards to general information about covid, I think this forum does a pretty good job of posting valid information from credentialed health care professionals to the members. I haven't seen my doc in about 6 months and I'm not going to schedule an appointment to ask him a bunch of questions I can get answered someplace else. There are websites on the internet that can provide general information if you just look for it. Obviously I'm not going to use this forum to replace my PCP but the information here can be just one more source to help a person formulate an opinion about a certain issue.

I use my doctors staff via an online account I have with my health care provider to answer most of my questions. Sometimes it takes a few days to get a reply when my doc does the one on one communication.

I don't see any harm in posting medical advice on a gun forum. Everyone has to sift through so much BS on a daily basis anyway it's just something else to consider. If you want to avoid the covid discussions there's an easy way to do that. I think it's clearly defined in the thread title.

[JohnO]

I hear lots of people talking about COVID and now the Delta variant. Yesterday my wife had a friend visiting. She has 9 kids, yup 9. All 11 people in the house had COVID in January. Everyone came through fine, none required medical intervention. I heard my wife say, "good your family won't need to get the vaccine". She is vaccinated but concerned about the safety of the vaccine especially for young women. My oldest daughter a teacher has been vaccinated. My younger daughter a grad student, I'm not certain of her status. The rational was a concern for the girls and how the vaccine may effect their child bearing capability. (Apparently that concern rings true with the mother of 9, no matter if there is any substance behind the concern.) A one point I heard my wife's friend say one of her daughters is in the Marines now. Of course my wife said, "well she will undoubtedly be required to get the vax."

My wife tells me about a couple friends she has who after going through menopause have experienced periods since receiving the vaccine.

I have a friend (late 50's) who a few weeks after his second Pfizer shot started experiencing shortness of breath. He ended up needing a Cardioversion. His heart rate was north of 120 resting. Now he has returned to normal in the 60's resting after the procedure. Of course he is saying that logic dictates that there are no coincidences and the vaccine is the culprit. His sedentary lifestyle, nightly 2 martinis followed by "a few glasses of scotch and a cigar", nope that doesn't enter into the equation.

I guy I work with, 26ish, says he is done with the vaccine. No boosters ever and he said he regrets getting the shots. He said he temporarily experienced some issues effecting his endurance post shots. He keeps citing that he isn't at risk of dying from COVID if he gets it, quotes the 90%+ survivability rate and thinks there is way too much hype about the virus. I also have a coworker who echoes the same statistics about how he isn't in jeopardy, in his late 30's and unvaccinated.

Another friend has been knocked into Guillain-Barré syndrome from the vaccine. That appears to be undisputable because he has had Guillain-Barré before from Flu shots. This time it is much worse. They are saying he has Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP). He had been knocked for a loop this time. He was advised by his doctor that even with his prior bad experiences with flu vaccines he should go ahead and get the COVID vaccine. Two M.D.'s I know both said, "no way a guy with his past history should get the COVID vaccine". But he did and is not very happy nor well since he got the vaccine.

Then I have a friend who keeps sending me conspiracy theory stuff about COVID, the vaccine, big Pharma and the government. Example: https://spiritdaily.org/blog/news/video-no-variant Scary if real! I only listened to half while driving. This guy in the beginning was quarantining his mail for 8 days. Also took him mom out of a convalescent home right before the facility was decimated and has been caring for her at home himself.

[idahojess]

The CDC released a report today making headlines: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm?s_cid=mm7031e2_w



You've probably read it, but the WSJ has a good article on that:




Among the 469 cases linked to the Barnstable outbreak in the CDC report, nearly 75% were fully vaccinated. For people with breakthrough infections, almost 80% had symptoms of cough, headache, sore throat or fever. Four were hospitalized and no deaths were reported, the CDC said. Infected people reported attending densely packed indoor events and outdoor events at bars, restaurants and houses.


It is unclear how many people at the festivities might have been exposed or what proportion were vaccinated. Cases, especially those that were asymptomatic, were likely missed, and some people might not have gotten tested, said Mary Jo Trepka, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Florida International University. That makes it hard to interpret rates of infection and symptoms or apply them to the population at large.



https://www.wsj.com/articles/cdc-says-new-mask-mandate-informed-by-cape-cod-outbreak-11627664465

[0ddl0t]

Similar breakthrough infection & hospitalization rates just reported at UCSF medical center: 183 infections, 84% of which were from the fully vaccinated. There were 2 hospitalizations among the fully vaccinated, meaning 1.3% of breakthrough infections resulted in hospitalization.

[RoyGBiv]

Similar breakthrough infection & hospitalization rates just reported at UCSF medical center: 183 infections, 84% of which were from the fully vaccinated. There were 2 hospitalizations among the fully vaccinated, meaning 1.3% of breakthrough infections resulted in hospitalization.

That's 1.3% of those feeling ill enough to seek medical attention. It does not account for those who got the virus but remained asymptotic or had only mild symptoms.

[0ddl0t]

That's 1.3% of those feeling ill enough to seek medical attention. It does not account for those who got the virus but remained asymptotic or had only mild symptoms.

1.3% of those who were caught by hospital symptom screeners (https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/physicians-nurses-ancillary-staff-how-hundreds-of-sfgh-and-ucsf-staff-got-infected-with-covid/ar-AAMM0MU) like temperature checks, yeah. If you assume another 20% were asymptomatic like in Provincetown, you'd get a 1.04% hospitalization rate.

UCSF estimates they would have 4x more infections if everyone was unvaccinated, though they did not detail how they came to that number.

[OlongJohnson]

The CDC released a report today making headlines: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm?s_cid=mm7031e2_w


Cliff notes:

69% of the Massachusetts population was vaccinated when a series of summer events occurred in 1 county.
74% of these COVID infections happened to the fully vaccinated. (346 out of 469 cases)
79% of these "breakthrough infections" were symptomatic (274 out of 346)
80% of those hospitalized were vaccinated (4 out of 5 - roughly 1% of vaccinated & unvaccinated)
Of those vaccinated infections: 46% had pfizer, 38% Moderna, & 16% J&J (vs Massachusetts vaccination base rates of 56% pfizer, 38% Moderna, & 7% J&J).
89% of these infections were confirmed Delta variant, 10% could not be determined
87% of infections were male, median age was 42
PCR CT counts were essentially the same for vaccinated (22.77) and unvaccinated (21.54) which is why the CDC now recommends the vaccinated wear masks

One must contemplate behavioral patterns. Logically, anyone who is still unvaccinated and has a lick of sense would avoid crowded indoor events. So it seems likely that a much greater percentage of attendees would have been vaccinated than in the population at large. Which would be relevant when thinking about these numbers.

[TGS]

One must contemplate behavioral patterns. Logically, anyone who is still unvaccinated and has a lick of sense would avoid crowded indoor events. So it seems likely that a much greater percentage of attendees would have been vaccinated than in the population at large. Which would be relevant when thinking about these numbers.

This might be getting into the dumpster-fire thread's territory, but I think the majority of individuals in America still unvaccinated as of July 2021 don't care and don't practice any sort of mitigation measures.

If they did, the vast majority would be vaccinated.

[Sensei]

1.3% of those who were caught by hospital symptom screeners (https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/physicians-nurses-ancillary-staff-how-hundreds-of-sfgh-and-ucsf-staff-got-infected-with-covid/ar-AAMM0MU) like temperature checks, yeah. If you assume another 20% were asymptomatic like in Provincetown, you'd get a 1.04% hospitalization rate.

UCSF estimates they would have 4x more infections if everyone was unvaccinated, though they did not detail how they came to that number.

I suspect that the 4X number is an extrapolation of data.

Here are the statewide numbers for VA. The vaccines are working impressively well to prevent severe illness:
75109

75110

Also, while initial viral load (based on cycle threshold Ct) in vaccinated breakthrough infections is similar to the unvaccinated, the vaccinated tend to have a more rapid decline in viral load compared to the unvaccinated:
75111

Bottom line, the mRNA vaccines offer some protection against mild and symptomatic infections, but are very effective at preventing the severe infections that fill up our hospitals. They may also shorten the period of infectivity although it remains to be seen of reductions in viral load translate to clinical outcomes.

[Clusterfrack]

I suspect that the 4X number is an extrapolation of data.

Here are the statewide numbers for VA. The vaccines are working impressively well to prevent severe illness:
75109

75110

Also, while initial viral load (based on cycle threshold Ct) in vaccinated breakthrough infections is similar to the unvaccinated, the vaccinated tend to have a more rapid decline in viral load compared to the unvaccinated:
75111

Bottom line, the mRNA vaccines offer some protection against mild and symptomatic infections, but are very effective at preventing the severe infections that fill up our hospitals. They may also shorten the period of infectivity although it remains to be seen of reductions in viral load translate to clinical outcomes.

Thanks for this excellent post. It’s encouraging to see these data.

[0ddl0t]

75110


Thanks good post.

And this obviously isn't a knock on you, but I do have to admit being extremely frustrated by the selective denominator neglect, not just here but throughout delta variant coverage nationwide. I don't think it weakens the position of public health officials to say 0.3% of unvaccinated were infected vs 0.007% vaccinated (so the vaccinated are 42x less likely to be infected) and 0.01% of unvaccinated were hospitalized vs 0.0004% for vaccinated (25x less likely to be hospitalized).

Selective data presentation reeks of dishonesty which only contributes to vaccine hesitancy.

[luckyman]

Thanks good post.

And this obviously isn't a knock on you, but I do have to admit being extremely frustrated by the selective denominator neglect, not just here but throughout delta variant coverage nationwide. I don't think it weakens the position of public health officials to say 0.3% of unvaccinated were infected vs 0.007% vaccinated (so the vaccinated are 42x less likely to be infected) and 0.01% of unvaccinated were hospitalized vs 0.0004% for vaccinated (25x less likely to be hospitalized).

Selective data presentation reeks of dishonesty which only contributes to vaccine hesitancy.

Seriously, it’s like the people who designed that dashboard were purposely trying to make it as difficult as they could to accurately compare vaccinated vs nonvaccinated rates… and the numbers aren’t even bad, there was no reason to try and obfuscate them!

[Borderland]

I think there might be a vested interest by a state to selectively present the data to bolster the position of getting more people vaccinated. I think a lot of that has to do with the money the state will spend to take care of unvaccinated covid patients. They probably see it as an unnecessary money drain on their budgets. Not everyone has health insurance.

[Robert Mitchum]

This might be getting into the dumpster-fire thread's territory, but I think the majority of individuals in America still unvaccinated as of July 2021 don't care and don't practice any sort of mitigation measures.

If they did, the vast majority would be vaccinated.

unvaccinated and I do care.

My Wife and I are still on the fence ..has nothing to do with politics.
We go shopping early morning and wear a mask and don't have much contact with others ..which is fine with me.. I hate most people these days .. just leave me the FUCK alone !
We watch what we eat and live a healthy life style .. we are truly mixed up on the possible bad effects of the shots.

I was 99% not going to get the shots but now am 50/50.
rant over.

[Sensei]

Seriously, it’s like the people who designed that dashboard were purposely trying to make it as difficult as they could to accurately compare vaccinated vs nonvaccinated rates… and the numbers aren’t even bad, there was no reason to try and obfuscate them!


Thanks good post.

And this obviously isn't a knock on you, but I do have to admit being extremely frustrated by the selective denominator neglect, not just here but throughout delta variant coverage nationwide. I don't think it weakens the position of public health officials to say 0.3% of unvaccinated were infected vs 0.007% vaccinated (so the vaccinated are 42x less likely to be infected) and 0.01% of unvaccinated were hospitalized vs 0.0004% for vaccinated (25x less likely to be hospitalized).

Selective data presentation reeks of dishonesty which only contributes to vaccine hesitancy.

It takes a Google search on the population of VA (8.5 million) and grade school math to use the slide to derive various percentages of the population that were vaccinated, infected, etc. The fact that the State didn’t spoon feed people all of the various subpopulations of vaccination status the way that some people want it doesn’t mean that some bureaucrat was trying to hide or obfuscate the data.

In other words, people who look at those slides and feel frustrated or obfuscated have issues that aren’t going to get fixed on the internet.

[karandom]

We watch what we eat and live a healthy life style .. we are truly mixed up on the possible bad effects of the shots.

I was 99% not going to get the shots but now am 50/50.
rant over.
What side effects are you and your wife concerned about and what would you need to see to make the juice worth the squeeze? I ask honestly as there are a few people in my life that probably share similar concerns and it would make me feel better if I could help them feel more comfortable about getting the shot. I'd also like to see you vaccinated despite you being an internet stranger as I think the vaccine eliminates the nasty tail risk of COVID.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

The virus circulating now looks to be much more capable than the one from last year and early this year. I hope any of us that haven't been vaccinated yet will carefully reconsider.

I have as a result of this post - it's been so rare here that so far I've felt pretty comfortable just waiting to see how things shake out.

Just based on this I'm guessing that situation won't last and exposure will be much more likely.

I've never thought the vaccines were likely to pose much risk but with a case rate here of 500/100,000 I just haven't been concerned about getting it in the first place, so even a minimal risk from the vaccine, I could afford to skip.

But if the variant is that much more aggressive, then I don't think I can play the wait and see game nearly as safely, so I'd rather be vaccinated.

[pangloss]

I have as a result of this post - it's been so rare here that so far I've felt pretty comfortable just waiting to see how things shake out.

Just based on this I'm guessing that situation won't last and exposure will be much more likely.

I've never thought the vaccines were likely to pose much risk but with a case rate here of 500/100,000 I just haven't been concerned about getting it in the first place, so even a minimal risk from the vaccine, I could afford to skip.

But if the variant is that much more aggressive, then I don't think I can play the wait and see game nearly as safely, so I'd rather be vaccinated.

I'm glad to hear this, and I really think you made the right decision!

[TGS]

just leave me the FUCK alone !

Well, for what it's worth I didn't tag you into the conversation or otherwise try to do anything to you. Kind of odd to chime in on a conversation out of left field and tell me to leave you the fuck alone...

[luckyman]

It takes a Google search on the population of VA (8.5 million) and grade school math to use the slide to derive various percentages of the population that were vaccinated, infected, etc. The fact that the State didn’t spoon feed people all of the various subpopulations of vaccination status the way that some people want it doesn’t mean that some bureaucrat was trying to hide or obfuscate the data.

In other words, people who look at those slides and feel frustrated or obfuscated have issues that aren’t going to get fixed on the internet.

Eh I think you’re missing the point, which is basically that misleading graphics are one of my pet peeves[emoji1]

Creating analytics dashboards is a small part of what my team does. A person went to the trouble of designing that dashboard…. There really isn’t any excuse for it, that was unprofessional. Does shit like that happen all the time? Yes, but not from my team, and I reserve the right to be irritated by it [emoji1]

[Sensei]

Eh I think you’re missing the point, which is basically that misleading graphics are one of my pet peeves[emoji1]

Creating analytics dashboards is a small part of what my team does. A person went to the trouble of designing that dashboard…. There really isn’t any excuse for it, that was unprofessional. Does shit like that happen all the time? Yes, but not from my team, and I reserve the right to be irritated by it [emoji1]

Nah, I doubt that I’m missing much. The graphic is not misleading, unprofessional, or inaccurate. It very effectively illustrates a reality that doesn’t comport with the anti-vax, conspiracy theory mindset that some people have. That mindset doesn’t seem to tolerate anything that suggests the vaccines are effective, and will invent fake criticisms of data (it’s presented the wrong way, it doesn’t include X, the slide’s background is missing rainbows, etc.) in order to avert attention from reality.

Anyway, carry on. My ignore list grows.

[farscott]

I have been trying to keep up with the published research, and everything I have read, as a whole, suggests the vaccines are very effective. The flip side is the large pool of unvaccinated people mean the probability of mutations/variants against which the vaccines may not be as effective is higher and that we will be dealing with new variants for some time. As such, I suspect we will see annual inoculations for COVID variants, much like the flu shot.

But there is some data that is confusing. The delta variant is supposed to be very contagious. As such, we would expect high infection rates until we see a change in behavior. But that is not the case. Places with high incidents of the delta variant suddenly stop having new cases, and I cannot see any correlation between human behavior and the drop in infection rates. That suggests our understanding is not complete.

[Borderland]

I have as a result of this post - it's been so rare here that so far I've felt pretty comfortable just waiting to see how things shake out.

Just based on this I'm guessing that situation won't last and exposure will be much more likely.

I've never thought the vaccines were likely to pose much risk but with a case rate here of 500/100,000 I just haven't been concerned about getting it in the first place, so even a minimal risk from the vaccine, I could afford to skip.

But if the variant is that much more aggressive, then I don't think I can play the wait and see game nearly as safely, so I'd rather be vaccinated.

Yep, it's high stakes game you don't need to play.

People buy lottery tickets with far greater odds of losing.

[Joe in PNG]

From what I'm reading, and seeing IRL, the good of the vaccine far outweighs the bad. Any potential bad effects from the vaccine are far, far, far less bad than the bad effects from getting the virus.

As JAD said upthread, "Thing I love about the vaccine is that it turns covid into a first world problem." Disarming the body's potential tendency to freak out & overreact at catching a totally new virus and putting you into ARDS, or turning what could have been weeks in the ICU into a few days of something like a medium cold- that's all worth it.

[MickAK]

The flip side is the large pool of unvaccinated people

I am tired of seeing this. There was nothing in the trial data that suggested that the various vaccines would provide sterilizing immunity and stamp out the virus.

The vaccines are not working as good as people hoped. They're still saving a lot of lives. There's something really fucked up about blaming people that chose not to participate in a medical experiment for that medical experiments failures without any supporting data, and it's really disturbing to continually read that here.

[Kanye Wyoming]

75143

[MickAK]

75143

75145

[luckyman]

Nah, I doubt that I’m missing much. The graphic is not misleading, unprofessional, or inaccurate. It very effectively illustrates a reality that doesn’t comport with the anti-vax, conspiracy theory mindset that some people have. That mindset doesn’t seem to tolerate anything that suggests the vaccines are effective, and will invent fake criticisms of data (it’s presented the wrong way, it doesn’t include X, the slide’s background is missing rainbows, etc.) in order to avert attention from reality.

Anyway, carry on. My ignore list grows.


Nah, I doubt that I’m missing much. The graphic is not misleading, unprofessional, or inaccurate. It very effectively illustrates a reality that doesn’t comport with the anti-vax, conspiracy theory mindset that some people have. That mindset doesn’t seem to tolerate anything that suggests the vaccines are effective, and will invent fake criticisms of data (it’s presented the wrong way, it doesn’t include X, the slide’s background is missing rainbows, etc.) in order to avert attention from reality.

Anyway, carry on. My ignore list grows.


Nah, I doubt that I’m missing much. The graphic is not misleading, unprofessional, or inaccurate. It very effectively illustrates a reality that doesn’t comport with the anti-vax, conspiracy theory mindset that some people have. That mindset doesn’t seem to tolerate anything that suggests the vaccines are effective, and will invent fake criticisms of data (it’s presented the wrong way, it doesn’t include X, the slide’s background is missing rainbows, etc.) in order to avert attention from reality.

Anyway, carry on. My ignore list grows.


Nah, I doubt that I’m missing much. The graphic is not misleading, unprofessional, or inaccurate. It very effectively illustrates a reality that doesn’t comport with the anti-vax, conspiracy theory mindset that some people have. That mindset doesn’t seem to tolerate anything that suggests the vaccines are effective, and will invent fake criticisms of data (it’s presented the wrong way, it doesn’t include X, the slide’s background is missing rainbows, etc.) in order to avert attention from reality.

Anyway, carry on. My ignore list grows.

Eh, this is probably a lost cause, but keep in mind I’ve been vaccinated myself and am a huge proponent of vaccines.

You’re absolutely correct that looking up the population of Va and some simple math would fill in the main missing data, ignoring some of the formatting / data arrangement issues that you would certainly find trivial. I’ll point out there seems to be a small data inconsistency on the chart, as it has 12784 unvaccinated cases plus 303 fully vaccinated cases but at the bottom says 13133 total cases where I was expecting 13087. But in any case if they would have shown a Covid Infection rate of ~.32% for un-fully-vaccinated people to compare to the .007% for vaccinated people, that and similar math in the second cell of the row would have addressed the main shortcoming.

I care about the population getting mostly all vaccinated, and hate to see anything go out that doesn’t do as well as it could in furthering that goal; I know way to many people who are math-shy and not analytical, to the point where I do want to spoon feed them when I can. And yes I realize some of those same people will see the .32% number and say “well that’s not much, I probably won’t get sick anyway” and use that as an excuse to skip the vaccine.

Edited to add: and I sure hope one of the primary target audiences of this chart is the group of people who are vaccine hesitant.

I was frankly semi-mindlessly ranting amongst an audience that I thought would understand I was coming from a viewpoint of wanting to best convince people who are vaccine hesitant.
But if your point was “we shouldn’t show that .32% number, people are too dumb to put it in context”, then we do fundamentally disagree.

Anyway, I will shut up now so we can get back to the more important conversations.

[Kanye Wyoming]

75145
Well played. :)

[pangloss]

That suggests our understanding is not complete.

Amen to that!



Sent from my moto e5 cruise using Tapatalk

[Borderland]

We're all spreaders now. Vaccinated or not. I get a short term flu like illness and the unvaccinated gets a stay in the ICU.

Good luck with that amigos. I hope everyone has insurance because if you don't I'm paying for it. You're welcome. Ain't America great?

[Yung]

You guys should really all wait until someone opens the politics thread again or else you'll have made this thread another slog too.

[Sensei]

But there is some data that is confusing. The delta variant is supposed to be very contagious. As such, we would expect high infection rates until we see a change in behavior. But that is not the case. Places with high incidents of the delta variant suddenly stop having new cases, and I cannot see any correlation between human behavior and the drop in infection rates. That suggests our understanding is not complete.

I agree that our understanding of most things in medicine are incomplete. However, the only places that I know of that have declining cares are places that have already gotten slammed, have high vaccination rates, draconian lockdowns, or some combination of these factors.

[Robert Mitchum]

Well, for what it's worth I didn't tag you into the conversation or otherwise try to do anything to you. Kind of odd to chime in on a conversation out of left field and tell me to leave you the fuck alone...

That was not directed at you in any way shape or form.
Meant that I want the Government out of my life .

I was just blowing off steam ..

[pangloss]

You guys should really all wait until someone opens the politics thread again or else you'll have made this thread another slog too.

I wholeheartedly agree!

[Robert Mitchum]

What side effects are you and your wife concerned about and what would you need to see to make the juice worth the squeeze? I ask honestly as there are a few people in my life that probably share similar concerns and it would make me feel better if I could help them feel more comfortable about getting the shot. I'd also like to see you vaccinated despite you being an internet stranger as I think the vaccine eliminates the nasty tail risk of COVID.

Doctors almost killed my Son he was 9 years old at the time.. he had a blood clot they where treating him for childhood arthritis.
The Connecticut Children's Medical Center had him in a pool and other forms of physical activity .. Took him to a blood guy they found out he had other issue.

"Fran Drescher Says the “Worst Part” of Her Uterine Cancer Diagnosis Was Being Misdiagnosed by Doctors for One Year"

I am so torn because the medical people on here are not puppets for the State .. I truly believe they are sincere !!!!!
I have also listened to people I trust that they have seen bad results from the shots.

This is my problem that I will not inflict on anyone else ..I don't have COVID ..my house is paid for .. my cars are paid for.
I have the means to hide out in comfort for a long time and see how things go.


Stay safe and thanks for your post !!!!!!!!

[karandom]

Doctors almost killed my Son he was 9 years old at the time.. he had a blood clot they where treating him for childhood arthritis.
The Connecticut Children's Medical Center had him in a pool and other forms of physical activity .. Took him to a blood guy they found out he had other issue.

"Fran Drescher Says the “Worst Part” of Her Uterine Cancer Diagnosis Was Being Misdiagnosed by Doctors for One Year"

I am so torn because the medical people on here are not puppets for the State .. I truly believe they are sincere !!!!!
I have also listened to people I trust that they have seen bad results from the shots.

This is my problem that I will not inflict on anyone else ..I don't have COVID ..my house is paid for .. my cars are paid for.
I have the means to hide out in comfort for a long time and see how things go.


Stay safe and thanks for your post !!!!!!!!
I can understand how having bad medical experiences would shape your view here. I would say diagnosing is hard and not always done correctly as your experience shows, but vaccine safety is a different game then diagnosing illness in my opinion.

I won't ask you to say exactly who is telling you they have seen bad experiences with vaccines, but I'd keep considering anecdotal comments like these relative to the much larger pool of patients the doctors and nurses on this board have seen.

For what it is worth, my anecdotal experience is that those who are vaccine hesitant seem to hear about a large number of adverse events relative to those that aren't. In my life there are less then a handful of people not interesting in vaccinating, but otherwise every single friend, family member, co worker and secondary acquaintance is vaxxed and I haven't hear of a single bad event other then feeling like crap for a day or two. I am not a doctor, but fiance is and she and every single one of their colleagues has been vaxxed since Jan with no issues. Also over 96% of doctors are vaccinated https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-survey-shows-over-96-doctors-fully-vaccinated-against-covid-19 so keep that in mind if you hear "medical professionals" are not getting vaccinated.

[Isaac]

Study Suggests Lasting Immunity After COVID-19, With a Big Boost From Vaccination

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2782139

[Clusterfrack]

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.21261295v1

Summary: The mRNA vaccines are highly effective at preventing symptomatic and severe COVID-19 associated with B.1.617.2 infection. Vaccination is associated with faster decline in viral RNA load and a robust serological response. Vaccination remains a key strategy for control of COVID-19 pandemic.

——

My comments: current mRNA vaccination does not prevent breakthrough infection by the delta variant. These infections are highly likely to be asymptomatic or mild. And most importantly, breakthrough infection may be equivalent to a variant-specific vaccine booster.

[WDR]

We're all spreaders now. Vaccinated or not. I get a short term flu like illness and the unvaccinated gets a stay in the ICU.


We are. No doubt about that at all in my mind. Short of vaxxing everyone on the planet for perpetuity, this crap isn't going away. Ever. Masks. Vaccines. Distancing. None of those really will slow it down, IMHO.

Your third sentence is a bit over the top though. Not everyone that is vaxxed avoids complications, though it seems the vast majority do. And not everyone who isn't vaccinated ends up in a hospital ICU either. Hell, a good portion of folks are probably spreading it without ever getting sick or only having minimal symptoms, easily written off as something else. Without widespread surveillance of the population as a whole, no one really knows how many asymptomatic carriers are out there.

I have so far chosen not to be vaccinated, as I don't work with the general public, and my personal "bubble" is pretty small. I've been working throughout this whole pandemic (essential don't ya know), and honestly resigned myself to the fact that I was likely to be exposed at some point. I'm fairly healthy, without any major known comorbidity, and not in a highly risky age group.

I may have actually had covid at the very beginning (late Feb/earl March 2020), as there was a bug that went around work that had a lot of similar symptoms. I never lost taste or smell, but I did have 2-3 days of zero energy, fatigue, chills, and maybe a mild fever. I never got tested when I was first sick, because I didn't meet the testing requirements/presenting symptoms at that time. Afterwords I had a good 6-8 weeks of a dry, non-productive cough, and a general feeling of fatigue, and some shortness of breath/rapid heart rate. 3-4 weeks after my original sickness, with my dry cough persisting, I went to urgent care (really, a heated tent in the parking lot), was given some antibiotics, and sent, with a doctors order, to get a covid test. That whole process, even with an order from a doc for the test, was a giant Charlie Foxtrot. At first they wouldn't test me. Eventually I did get swabbed, and waited 3 days for a negative result, before I was allowed to come back to work. I figure if I did have it, after almost a month I probably wouldn't have shown a positive result at that time. I never have bothered to get tested for antibodies. Whatever it was, sucked for a good long while.

I had recently been considering getting the shots, because I'd like to get back into physical therapy for my shoulder ( I had surgery back in January, PT'd like hell in March/April/June, and still ended up with a "frozen shoulder"). When I was going before, masks were required, vaxxed or not. I don't care for wearing a mask all the time, but I've worn them where asked/required, particularly in places like a hospital or doctors office. They lifted the restrictions for vaccinated patients just before I chose to take a break from therapy to allow the frozen shoulder to resolve itself. I was assuming that they'd ask me to mask up if I went back, and being able to go without, was looking better all the time. That in and of itself would be a dumb reason to get the shots, so I have still been in a holding pattern. With the CDC recommending even vaccinated people wear masks indoors again, I don't think having the shots will matter if I go back to PT in a month or so. The risk of new strains etc bothers me slightly, but I mostly just figure its never going to go totally away at this point, unless it somehow burns itself out ( which seems unlikely).

Back on the fence I go... I may eventually get the shots. I don't normally get a flu shot (I've felt like I had the flu a couple times after, and had a rough bout with H1N1 despite a shot that year), but I've always been fine with other vaccinations. Something about this one just seems overly forced, which makes me suspicious. It seems to have obvious benefits, but I do wonder about long term effects, and the reported side effects, which are, admittedly, probably not outside the norms of most other vaccines. The fact that the makers of the shots haven been given immunity to liability, bothers me a bit, though I can understand why that would be put into play, when trying to ramp up a new vaccine in short time frames.

Long rambling post coming to and end here soon: I feel like the vaccine and covid has been politicized by all sides, propagandized by all sides, and I just don't trust anything at this point. The CDC has flip-flopped on things too much for my taste. I feel like if folks want to get it, they should. I feel like the push/shame/propaganda effort in the media has backfired, and brought about much of the pushing back and "anti-vaxxer" attitude. Plenty of DNA changing 5G nanomachine baloney muddying the waters too. I'd rather err on the side of risky freedom, than a locked down "safe" state... that isn't, and harbors other dangers, of greater threat than a mere virus.

Straying a bit into the politics there, so I hope that can be forgiven. I just wish folks would be less of a nosy neighbor/Karen, and live and let live. I've enjoyed reading the opinions of everyone, and also some of the data points and articles that have been presented. Particularly those in the medical field with first hand experience. I think we here on P-F do a better job talking things out, and presenting the facts of the issues at hand, than a lot of the other corners of the internet.

[TiroFijo]

I see the people that have the chance to get vaccinated and don't and shake may head...

But it may benefit us in countries fighting to get enough vaccines for all, as you may know not all the world has access to them now, at any price.

[Borderland]

Delta Variant Surge May Make Unvaccinated Americans Less Likely To Get The Shot, Poll Finds

https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/07/15/delta-variant-surge-may-make-unvaccinated-americans-less-likely-to-get-the-shot-poll-finds/?sh=136f91746e33


The Harris poll, conducted July 9-11 among 2,003 U.S. adults, found 62% of unvaccinated respondents believe “the Delta variant makes me second guess whether I should even get vaccinated.”

Those fears appear to be driven by concerns over how well Covid-19 vaccines protect against the variant—even though all three approved vaccines are broadly effective against the Delta strain—and 51% of vaccinated respondents said the variant makes them question the efficacy of their vaccine.

My apologies if that's behind a pay wall.

[psalms144.1]

Delta Variant Surge May Make Unvaccinated Americans Less Likely To Get The Shot, Poll Finds

SNIP My apologies if that's behind a pay wall.During my time in the Pearl of the Antilles, I had plenty of opportunities to spend time on the street, just chatting with the local Haitian population. As we were coming into an election cycle, the Embassy wanted to know the level of public support for the upcoming elections, and the feeling on the street about how "legitimate" they would be.

The most frequent response I got was "I voted last time. Nothing changed. Why vote again?"

Editorial comment: "last time" was the first vaguely free election held in Haiti in, I don't know, forever?

Moral of the story is: people who don't want to take the vaccine and don't trust the government are NEVER going to take the fucking vaccine or trust the (current) administration. I chalk part of this up the the public health systems absolutely fucking abysmal communications strategy on this issue, the the current administration's predilection towards heavy handed, Stalinist type responses. BUT, the vast majority of this is based on personally held beliefs that will NEVER change on this issue, because it's become emotional and political, no science or logic involved.

I can't believe I'm even typing this response, frankly, I'm so fucking fed up with both extreme sides of this debate. Here's the truth: as stated by President Trump's head of the WARP SPEED initiative, if you're not vaccinated, you WILL get the Delta variant. That's a pretty strong fucking prediction. If you get it, you might shrug it off, or you might die. If you are vaccinated, you might get D, but your chances of a bad outcome are VERY small.

So, basically, if your mind is made up that you're NEVER getting the vaccine, DON'T. JUST STOP FUCKING TALKING ABOUT WHY OTHER PEOPLE SHOULDN'T.

If you're already vaccinated, or in the process, great. JUST STOP FUCKING TALKING ABOUT WHY EVERYONE ELSE SHOULD.

Let those who refuse the vaccine roll the dice and live or die. Everyone I care about is vaccinated, or I've given up trying to convince them, and will pray like a mother fucker if they get D.

[TiroFijo]

I know I'm not going to change anybody's mind, and don't intend to do so.

But getting vaccinated not only has an effect on the individual that "rolls the dice", but also on the spread of the epidemic and thus general welfare.
The vaccines prevents you from getting infected at all in a significant percentage, and in the case you do get infected (symptomatic or not) they also prevent you from spreading the virus as much as without vaccination, lowering the viral loads and the period of time you are contagious.

Every sick person is a small loss for us all, due to economic contraction, government help, etc., even if he/she recovers fully.

Every sick person that gets to the hospital drains it from much needed resources. Every person that stays in ICU for a few weeks is lots of $$$$ down the drain.

In countries like mine, the economic burden has been tremendous.

[Baldanders]

We are. No doubt about that at all in my mind. Short of vaxxing everyone on the planet for perpetuity, this crap isn't going away. Ever. Masks. Vaccines. Distancing. None of those really will slow it down, IMHO.

Your third sentence is a bit over the top though. Not everyone that is vaxxed avoids complications, though it seems the vast majority do. And not everyone who isn't vaccinated ends up in a hospital ICU either. Hell, a good portion of folks are probably spreading it without ever getting sick or only having minimal symptoms, easily written off as something else. Without widespread surveillance of the population as a whole, no one really knows how many asymptomatic carriers are out there.

I have so far chosen not to be vaccinated, as I don't work with the general public, and my personal "bubble" is pretty small. I've been working throughout this whole pandemic (essential don't ya know), and honestly resigned myself to the fact that I was likely to be exposed at some point. I'm fairly healthy, without any major known comorbidity, and not in a highly risky age group.

I may have actually had covid at the very beginning (late Feb/earl March 2020), as there was a bug that went around work that had a lot of similar symptoms. I never lost taste or smell, but I did have 2-3 days of zero energy, fatigue, chills, and maybe a mild fever. I never got tested when I was first sick, because I didn't meet the testing requirements/presenting symptoms at that time. Afterwords I had a good 6-8 weeks of a dry, non-productive cough, and a general feeling of fatigue, and some shortness of breath/rapid heart rate. 3-4 weeks after my original sickness, with my dry cough persisting, I went to urgent care (really, a heated tent in the parking lot), was given some antibiotics, and sent, with a doctors order, to get a covid test. That whole process, even with an order from a doc for the test, was a giant Charlie Foxtrot. At first they wouldn't test me. Eventually I did get swabbed, and waited 3 days for a negative result, before I was allowed to come back to work. I figure if I did have it, after almost a month I probably wouldn't have shown a positive result at that time. I never have bothered to get tested for antibodies. Whatever it was, sucked for a good long while.

I had recently been considering getting the shots, because I'd like to get back into physical therapy for my shoulder ( I had surgery back in January, PT'd like hell in March/April/June, and still ended up with a "frozen shoulder"). When I was going before, masks were required, vaxxed or not. I don't care for wearing a mask all the time, but I've worn them where asked/required, particularly in places like a hospital or doctors office. They lifted the restrictions for vaccinated patients just before I chose to take a break from therapy to allow the frozen shoulder to resolve itself. I was assuming that they'd ask me to mask up if I went back, and being able to go without, was looking better all the time. That in and of itself would be a dumb reason to get the shots, so I have still been in a holding pattern. With the CDC recommending even vaccinated people wear masks indoors again, I don't think having the shots will matter if I go back to PT in a month or so. The risk of new strains etc bothers me slightly, but I mostly just figure its never going to go totally away at this point, unless it somehow burns itself out ( which seems unlikely).

Back on the fence I go... I may eventually get the shots. I don't normally get a flu shot (I've felt like I had the flu a couple times after, and had a rough bout with H1N1 despite a shot that year), but I've always been fine with other vaccinations. Something about this one just seems overly forced, which makes me suspicious. It seems to have obvious benefits, but I do wonder about long term effects, and the reported side effects, which are, admittedly, probably not outside the norms of most other vaccines. The fact that the makers of the shots haven been given immunity to liability, bothers me a bit, though I can understand why that would be put into play, when trying to ramp up a new vaccine in short time frames.

Long rambling post coming to and end here soon: I feel like the vaccine and covid has been politicized by all sides, propagandized by all sides, and I just don't trust anything at this point. The CDC has flip-flopped on things too much for my taste. I feel like if folks want to get it, they should. I feel like the push/shame/propaganda effort in the media has backfired, and brought about much of the pushing back and "anti-vaxxer" attitude. Plenty of DNA changing 5G nanomachine baloney muddying the waters too. I'd rather err on the side of risky freedom, than a locked down "safe" state... that isn't, and harbors other dangers, of greater threat than a mere virus.

Straying a bit into the politics there, so I hope that can be forgiven. I just wish folks would be less of a nosy neighbor/Karen, and live and let live. I've enjoyed reading the opinions of everyone, and also some of the data points and articles that have been presented. Particularly those in the medical field with first hand experience. I think we here on P-F do a better job talking things out, and presenting the facts of the issues at hand, than a lot of the other corners of the internet.

Just a thought: getting caught up in the politics of the messaging of covid isn't a good way to make decisions about it.

I am pretty obviously supportive of the idea of near-universal vaccination. But I have viewed CDC messaging with truckloads of salt for at least a year. I don't really depend on their input on my decision making. There is plenty of good info from other sources. Like pangloss, Sensei, and Neph. Too bad I can't point non-PFers to somewhere with a discussion as accessible and intelligent as the PF one.

We lucked out with our member mix during this epidemic.

[WDR]

Just a thought: getting caught up in the politics of the messaging of covid isn't a good way to make decisions about it.

I am pretty obviously supportive of the idea of near-universal vaccination. But I have viewed CDC messaging with truckloads of salt for at least a year. I don't really depend on their input on my decision making. There is plenty of good info from other sources. Like pangloss, Sensei, and Neph. Too bad I can't point non-PFers to somewhere with a discussion as accessible and intelligent as the PF one.

We lucked out with our member mix during this epidemic.

For sure. I'm not basing my reluctance to be jabbed on what some politician (or the media, or some goober on social media) has to say about it. I'm skeptical and distrusting of a lot of things, by nature. Maybe that makes me a fool. I just think folks should talk to their own doctors if they wish, do some research and decide for themselves what they should do. All of my closer family have chosen to get it. I am the lone holdout. I had my brother basically attacked me, and called me "Jenny McCarthy" when I conveyed my reasons for reluctance... And he's normally pretty level-headed. Meanwhile, I didn't bash or criticize anyone around me who chose to get the shots.

I was concerned about my stepson, being a young teen, and having pectus excavatum (a condition in which a person's breastbone is sunken into his or her chest, and can impact lung/heart function) and hearing about the heart inflammation issues with younger men/boys. My wife spoke with his primary doctor, and he suggested the boy be vaccinated. He wanted the shot, and my wife took him and had him get the Pfizer shot. I have not seen much info about his condition, and how covid or side effects from the shots might impact him. Luckily, so far, his case seems to not be impacting his health to a great degree. He may eventually have surgery to correct it, which is a pretty major/risky undertaking.

Unfortunately, there will never be universal vaccination. And that means this crud will continue to be around for a long time. I'm skeptical that it will ever go away, even in places that have high vax rates. From a medical perspective, I think its been proven that they are effective, and are generally safe, but I do still worry about (seemingly unlikely) long term effects, since there simply hasn't been all that much time passed to study those. I think that is my biggest holdup, besides the mass propagandizing from both sides.

Having folks like the ones you've mentioned here on P-F has swayed me to considering the shots more carefully, and I greatly appreciate them being here and willing to share, even in the face of some irrational arguments.

[LorenzoS]

... but I do still worry about (seemingly unlikely) long term effects, since there simply hasn't been all that much time passed to study those. I think that is my biggest holdup...


WDR, thank you for a thoughtful point of view. I respectfully note that COVID does seem to have long term and even permanent effects in some victims. I would weigh that risk against the potential of unknown long term risks of the vaccine, which so far seem to be very unlikely. I am personally glad for the vaccine and for the decision I made to get it.

[Spartan1980]

There is plenty of good info from other sources. Like pangloss, Sensei, and Neph. Too bad I can't point non-PFers to somewhere with a discussion as accessible and intelligent as the PF one.

We lucked out with our member mix during this epidemic.

Can't really express how much I agree with this. I had the unfortunate experience of having my mother's medical team's ear. GP, a surgeon, two oncologists and their staff, plus my daughter whose a NICU RN plus all the most excellent info on P-F. It made my decision a whole lot easier, I can promise that at least. I even shared some stuff posted here with my daughter and even got to converse with a member here in regards to damage from COVID that my son-in-law suffers from. It's greatly appreciated!

[Joe S]

So, basically, if your mind is made up that you're NEVER getting the vaccine, DON'T. JUST STOP FUCKING TALKING ABOUT WHY OTHER PEOPLE SHOULDN'T.

If you're already vaccinated, or in the process, great. JUST STOP FUCKING TALKING ABOUT WHY EVERYONE ELSE SHOULD.


I really like this. What weighs heavily on my mind, though, and why I wish more people would get the shots, is several loved ones of mine who use to genetic conditions, both cannot get the vaccine, and are not good candidates for coming out of a bout with COVID unscathed. Those people are really in a tough spot.

[Sensei]

I really like this. What weighs heavily on my mind, though, and why I wish more people would get the shots, is several loved ones of mine who use to genetic conditions, both cannot get the vaccine, and are not good candidates for coming out of a bout with COVID unscathed. Those people are really in a tough spot.

What genetic conditions? To the best of my knowledge, there are no genetic conditions that are contraindications to immunization.

[Clusterfrack]

Moved a bunch of posts to the Politics Discussion thread (https://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?49006-COVID-Politics-vaccines-lockdowns-et-al) in an attempt to keep this thread focused on medical concerns and recommendations.

[0ddl0t]

"They say" a significant mutation occurs once every ~1,000,000 infections which would suggest there should be 199+ significant variants, but we only hear about the dozen or so that have been deemed of interest/importance enough to get Greek letter names. But it turns out there are ~240 named strains:

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This gives credence to those cautioning about the dangers of breakthrough infections & advocating booster shots and a return to masking/distancing. Every ~1 million or so breakthroughs is an opportunity for a vaccine defeating mutation...

[Hemiram]

Another friend of mine has moved into the "Magical Mystery Tour" of vaccine nonsense, and I'm the reason! He's gone to crazytown.

No, I don't have Covid. I probably did in Feb of '20. A friend and his wife did for sure, and I was sick for a couple of days about the same time, and we had spent a lot of time together. But since then, I've been tested a couple of times before I had my cataract surgeries and I do not have a cold, flu, etc. What do I have? Allergies. And for some reason, they have been worse than usual this year. But they have been worse than usual several years before, too. No vaccines in the picture at all.

For about a month, I've had a come and go cough, with a runny nose, etc. The stuff goes down my throat and I cough. It comes and goes sometimes several times a day. My friend believes it's from the J & J vaccine that I took in APRIL. So he agrees I was fine from April 19 to about July 1, and then the vaccine has given me the damn cough. So we were in my car and when I got in, I was coughing, and after about 15 minutes, I stopped completely and said to him, "See, it's gone for now!". He said, "I still think it's the damn shot, I wish I had never gotten it!". What symptoms did he have after getting it? Just a minor sore arm. He says he read "Someplace" that the J & J shot has done.....whatever, and I'm getting frustrated with his basic ignorance of science and his buying into all the crazy stuff. We had made an agreement to not talk politics a long time ago, his total cluelessness about, well, almost everything to do with the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany is both amusing and annoying as hell at the same time. He seems to mix up Stalin and Hitler a lot, and he has no clue about Soviet vs. Nazi politics. He sometimes says "I think they are the same sometimes". He admits history is not his favorite subject. He also is totally unaware of many celebrities, not the Kim Kardasian/Paris Hilton airheads, he sees a standup comic he likes on Youtube and asks me almost daily, "Have you heard of him/her?", and my answer is usually something like, "Uhh, yeah, I've been seeing him for 10, 20, 30, or more years. His latest one was Bill Burr, and before that it was Dave Chappelle. It seems if they came up after Johhny Carson left the Tonight Show, he has no idea who anyone is. It's just odd that he can not have seen some of these people he claims that he has never heard of. His "discovery" of Kevin Pollock LAST YEAR was too funny. He swore he never saw him on TV with Carson before doing Shatner or Columbo. It's just weird.

[Joe S]

What genetic conditions? To the best of my knowledge, there are no genetic conditions that are contraindications to immunization.

I should have been more careful with my words. 2 people I was thinking of most specifically, it's not genetic, but is severe cases of Crohn's, and they were both advised by their doctors (history of multiple hospitalizations for both) to not get the shot. Do you think that's bad advice? It seemed funny to me, but didn't feel that I was in a position to argue.

Another I'm not sure exactly what it is, but he mentioned it to me as "like the worst case of bronchial asthma you could possibly imagine", and I know it's been present since at least early childhood. I'm not sure that he was advised by a doc not to get vaxxed, but is generally a pretty level-headed guy, and when we were talking about it, I didn't have a lot of time/opportunity to dig deeper. I was planning on following up more with his wife to see if I could find out more.

Thanks for your time.

[pangloss]

This gives credence to those cautioning about the dangers of breakthrough infections & advocating booster shots and a return to masking/distancing. Every ~1 million or so breakthroughs is an opportunity for a vaccine defeating mutation...

Without going into too much detail, I have antibody titer data from a blood sample collected from a fully vaccinated individual within a couple of days of a vaccine breakthrough infection. Breakthrough infections are definitely real, and people can get infected despite having antibody titers well within the range of what we see in convalescent samples. Delta strain is slightly antigenically different from the vaccine strain, which was likely a factor in this case. Titers in individuals who were vaccinated soon after Pfizer and Moderna's EUA are now mostly in that titer range, so the incidence of breakthrough cases will almost certainly increase significantly from here out.

[0ddl0t]

Without going into too much detail, I have antibody titer data from a blood sample collected from a fully vaccinated individual within a couple of days of a vaccine breakthrough infection. Breakthrough infections are definitely real, and people can get infected despite having antibody titers well within the range of what we see in convalescent samples. Delta strain is slightly antigenically different from the vaccine strain, which was likely a factor in this case. Titers in individuals who were vaccinated soon after Pfizer and Moderna's EUA are now mostly in that titer range, so the incidence of breakthrough cases will almost certainly increase significantly from here out.

My assumptions regarding the efficacy of booster shots is based of Israeli data showing a gradual decline in the pfizer vaccine's ability to prevent delta infections:


Over a 4-week period (20 June to 17 July 2021), Pfizer's general effectiveness decreased as the time before exposure increased: efficacy was 79% for those who received their second dose in April, 69% for March, 44% for February, and 16% for people who were fully-vaccinated back in January.
75324

So I wouldn't expect a non-delta specific booster to be 100% effective, but I'd hope it would decrease infections dramatically while waiting on the delta-specific clinical trials to conclude...



*Note: The Israeli data is skewed in that those who were first vaccinated tended to be older and presumably have weaker immune systems

[pangloss]

My assumptions regarding the efficacy of booster shots is based of Israeli data showing a gradual decline in the pfizer vaccine's ability to prevent delta infections:


75324

So I wouldn't expect a non-delta specific booster to be 100% effective, but I'd hope it would decrease infections dramatically while waiting on the delta-specific clinical trials to conclude...



*Note: The Israeli data is skewed in that those who were first vaccinated tended to be older and presumably have weaker immune systems

I've not seen that graph before. Very unfortunate data, but I won't blame you. Thanks for sharing.

[0ddl0t]

I've not seen that graph before. Very unfortunate data, but I won't blame you. Thanks for sharing.

The graph comes from this report (in hebrew?): https://www.gov.il/BlobFolder/reports/vaccine-efficacy-safety-follow-up-committee/he/files_publications_corona_two-dose-vaccination-data.pdf


Also potentially of interest to you are Pfizer's titers after dose 3 (from their quarterly report):
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[Sensei]

Do you think that's bad advice? It seemed funny to me, but didn't feel that I was in a position to argue.

That makes no sense. Who is their doctor, Jill Biden?

[idahojess]

I hear she's a hell of a doctor, an amazing doctor.

[pangloss]

That makes no sense. Who is their doctor, Jill Biden?

I'm not a clinician, but I was reading a little about ulcerative colitis (UC) last week--not exactly the same thing as Crohn's, but in my mental map of stuff, these two get lumped together. I wasn't reading carefully, but my take was that patients with UC often respond less well to vaccination than healthy individuals. However, individuals with some forms of autoimmunity experience autoimmune flares after immunization. That's about all I can think of. Thankfully, I don't have any personal experience with autoimmune flares, but suffering through a flare strikes me as better than dying of COVID.

[Robert Mitchum]

Good trusted friend .. I use to work with him .. got a call the other day.
COVID-19 came up .. Friend is 70 years old 280 pounds very strong still trains heavy.
He had COVID-19 along with his Wife Daughter and one Son.
Daughter's Husband also had it.

None required a trip to the Hospital ..fast forward they all got the vaccines.

Wife took Pfizer
My Friend took Moderna
Daughter Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine

I did not take notes during the phone call and don't remember what the others took.
All seem to be ok .. A female Officer we worked with died from it .. she was 60 something never in good health.

First time we talked in about 11 Months.
This happened about 2 months ago.
My writing skills suck .. so sorry for the 3rd grade level info.

[Hambo]

Deleted myself to save shit-mods the trouble.

[Totem Polar]

One of my career nurse moms called me from work to let me know her kid couldn’t make this week’s lesson. Since mom was at work, I asked her about C19 and current hospitalizations. 91 people in our hospital beds as of a day ago—the majority are unvaccinated. Her opinion is that these numbers will likely double in the next couple of weeks.

For what it’s worth.

[0ddl0t]

Another CDC report showing vaccines' decreased protection against Delta, this time using data from Mesa, CO from April, May, & June: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e2.htm?s_cid=mm7032e2_w

Of note was that vaccine efficacy appeared proportional to overall vaccination rates with ~89% vaccine efficacy in counties with "high" rates of vaccination (44% vaccinated) vs ~78% efficacy in Mesa County with its "low" rate of vaccination (36% vaccinated)

[JohnO]

My neighbor told me yesterday his dad was just hospitalized for 4 days with COVID. His dad had received the Pfizer vaccine (X2) months ago. His mom was also vaccinated and tested positive for COVID but was not hospitalized.

My neighbor said his dad had a touch of pneumonia in one lung and was not on a vent. I sounded like he was having mild trouble breathing and was admitted. Going by my neighbor's age his dad must be 70 - 80.

He didn't not have anything definitive about this being the Delta variant but he speculated it was.

[pangloss]

One of my career nurse moms called me from work to let me know her kid couldn’t make this week’s lesson. Since mom was at work, I asked her about C19 and current hospitalizations. 91 people in our hospital beds as of a day ago—the majority are unvaccinated. Her opinion is that these numbers will likely double in the next couple of weeks.

For what it’s worth.

The number of COVID ICU patients in this state has roughly tripled in the last three weeks. If the number triples again over the next three weeks, we'll be about 500 ICU beds short. I hope my math is wrong.

[CCT125US]

https://fox8.com/news/coronavirus/no-vaccine-needed-for-those-whove-had-covid-19-cleveland-clinic-study-says/

The study finds that anyone who previously tested positive for a SARS-CoV-2 infection did not get additional benefits from the vaccine, which suggests the vaccines should be prioritized to people who haven’t gotten the infection.

[37th Mass]

https://fox8.com/news/coronavirus/no-vaccine-needed-for-those-whove-had-covid-19-cleveland-clinic-study-says/

The study finds that anyone who previously tested positive for a SARS-CoV-2 infection did not get additional benefits from the vaccine, which suggests the vaccines should be prioritized to people who haven’t gotten the infection.

I don't think we are in a situation now where we need to 'prioritize' who to give vaccines to in the USA. We have plenty of vaccines for everyone. If you already have antibodies from a previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, great! But get the vaccine anyway.

[0ddl0t]

https://fox8.com/news/coronavirus/no-vaccine-needed-for-those-whove-had-covid-19-cleveland-clinic-study-says/

The study finds that anyone who previously tested positive for a SARS-CoV-2 infection did not get additional benefits from the vaccine, which suggests the vaccines should be prioritized to people who haven’t gotten the infection.

Ideally the vaccines should be prioritized to those who haven't gotten them yet. But since vaccines are widely available in the US, the previously infected might as well get poked to more than double their resilience against covid19:

The CDC just released a study ( https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm?s_cid=mm7032e1_w ) using Kentucky data from May 1 through June 30 (as Delta was taking hold) showing the unvaccinated previously infected were 2.3x more likely to get reinfected than the previously infected who got vaccinated.

That Cleveland Clinic study ( https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176v2.full-text ) in your article used data ending in mid May so it was before the Delta variant was really widespread.

[Sensei]

I'm not a clinician, but I was reading a little about ulcerative colitis (UC) last week--not exactly the same thing as Crohn's, but in my mental map of stuff, these two get lumped together. I wasn't reading carefully, but my take was that patients with UC often respond less well to vaccination than healthy individuals. However, individuals with some forms of autoimmunity experience autoimmune flares after immunization. That's about all I can think of. Thankfully, I don't have any personal experience with autoimmune flares, but suffering through a flare strikes me as better than dying of COVID.

https://journals.lww.com/ajg/Fulltext/2021/08000/Adverse_Events_After_SARS_CoV_2_mRNA_Vaccination.3 1.aspx

This study has been available for over 2 months in pre-print. A Google search of “COVID vaccine and inflammatory bowel disease” produces this study and multiple consensus statements from various medical societies noting the safety of these vaccines in patients with inflammatory bowel disease. Moreover, the CDC has a very good section on vaccine safety and contraindications designed for the non-medical public. IBD has never been listed as a contraindication. Any primary care doctor recommending against vaccination simply because someone has bad IBD runs a good chance of entering the defendant zone when one of those patients gets bad COVID.

[Joe S]

https://journals.lww.com/ajg/Fulltext/2021/08000/Adverse_Events_After_SARS_CoV_2_mRNA_Vaccination.3 1.aspx

This study has been available for over 2 months in pre-print. A Google search of “COVID vaccine and inflammatory bowel disease” produces this study and multiple consensus statements from various medical societies noting the safety of these vaccines in patients with inflammatory bowel disease. Moreover, the CDC has a very good section on vaccine safety and contraindications designed for the non-medical public. IBD has never been listed as a contraindication. Any primary care doctor recommending against vaccination simply because someone has bad IBD runs a good chance of entering the defendant zone when one of those patients gets bad COVID.

Gents, thanks for this. I have a couple conversations to have.

[DDTSGM]

https://scontent.fmci1-3.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/220563507_4254319001272878_8609118275999645566_n.p ng?_nc_cat=1&ccb=1-4&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=BkPIWsKm_GkAX9_qPY4&_nc_oc=AQmdDCIJER11n4wdvIqYBdz_hwINL6zgz4XFf_2l-pm3Cx-uUm8w_HgYRe73w1fYLcnvquQIpkMFGbx4RwqBNZ7N&_nc_ht=scontent.fmci1-3.fna&oh=9d06546e6667699dd1b3f92c8a268ec2&oe=61367B69

Grady Memorial Hospital & Five Oaks Medical Group - Chickasha, OK

Dr. Jesse O'Shea, an infectious disease physician, posted this x-ray showing the difference between two of his patients; one with and one without the vaccination. Very telling and compelling visual, and we wanted to share. To follow his page, please visit: https://www.instagram.com/jesseosheamd
"A Story of Two Chest X-Rays. One patient with a vaccine and one patient without. Version 2—for the crowd that wants specifics without violating patient privacy (these are published cases).

The top picture is a 47-year-old man who received Pfizer vaccine (1) and developed COVID19 2 weeks after. He was overweight (BMI = 29), but without any known comorbidities. He had runny nose, mild body aches, mild cough. His chest X ray is relatively normal.

The bottom picture is a 50-year-old active female patient without obesity and not on medications. Her chest X-ray shows diffuse opacities, consolidations in both lungs with lung damage (all the fluffy white) and a pattern that looks like the worst feared complication of COVID19—acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). She needed intubation, mechanical ventilation, and ECMO (extra-corporal membrane oxygenation) – the most life support we can offer.

The mRNA vaccines are effective at preventing severe disease and death— even with the Delta variant. Our ICUs are starting to fill up with unvaccinated COVID19 patients again.

[ccmdfd]

Our ICUs are starting to fill up with unvaccinated COVID19 patients again.

We've are now have the same # of hospitalized and ICU cases as we had at the previous peak.

[TGS]

We've are now have the same # of hospitalized and ICU cases as we had at the previous peak.

How many of the patients had been fully vaccinated? What about partial vaccinations?

[Doc_Glock]

How many of the patients had been fully vaccinated? What about partial vaccinations?


We've are now have the same # of hospitalized and ICU cases as we had at the previous peak.

We are about the same.

20:1 non versus immunized for inpatients.

I just drove by the hospital and there are 200 anti vax, anti mask protesters on the sidewalk in front, while the patients, docs and nurses are inside suffering and offering care for the infected. What the fuck is wrong with these people?

Edit: just found out those protestors were actually hospital employees protesting against possible mandatory vaccinations for staff. Up is down. I just can’t even process this entire thing!!??

[ccmdfd]

How many of the patients had been fully vaccinated? What about partial vaccinations?

I don't honestly know.

I am the outpatient guy in my practice. I don't see the ones in the hospital but do get to look at the list everyday when I sign on to the computer.

I'll ask some of my partners when I next see them.

[45dotACP]

My unit, which was slammed with COVID inpatients last year, has a much lesser number right now. Don't know about the ICU side, there are definitely some, but our stepdown unit has no COVIDs at all, when just a few months into 2021 we were half and half.

Cook County, IL has a pretty high vaccination rate. I have seen precious few vaccinated patients

Last week I participated in a Code Blue however. It was 30 minutes long and manual CPR with full PPE on is gawdawful. ICU COVID patient. Unvaxxed 60yo with comorbidities. Died within three days of admission, one day after a similar case that was brought in the day before. Also unvaxxed.

Last thing they did was try to sit at the edge of the bed. O2 SATs dropped into the 50% range, and the last thing the patient said before cardiopulmonary arrest was "man, this COVID thing is no joke."



Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

[Joe in PNG]

A former coworker, who's in the USA right now got wiped right out from Covid- lung damage, ICU time, and so on.

Not that old of a guy either- early 40's, skinny, pretty healthy, no comorbidities.

Happily, he's home, but wiped out.

[Sensei]

How many of the patients had been fully vaccinated? What about partial vaccinations?

I’m in the medical ICU this month. We had 9 in the unit Friday before I left for vacation. All were unvaccinated. I’ve been told that there have been a couple on the general medical floor recently who were vaccinated, but I’ve yet to meet a fully vaccinated patient with an intact immune system in the ICU.

Having said that, we are doing pretty well. We currently have 20 in-patients with COVID; 19 adults, 1 child, 9 adults in the ICU. In the first wave that began in March 2020 we got destroyed with over 270 in the hospital and more than 1/3 in the ICU. Our second wave from Fall to Spring 2021 was almost as brutal.

For perspective, my city now has one of the highest vaccination rates in the country- about 70% of adults are fully vaccinated…

[ccmdfd]

How many of the patients had been fully vaccinated? What about partial vaccinations?

Per my partners, all are unvaccinated in the ICU. Can't speak for the general floor patients.