Apologies in advance for getting on my soapbox, but this has been on my mind for a while. The way in which the media has gotten everyone to say "the unvaccinated" is a 'disease' against basic science (not even getting into the divisive nature of this). I would go as far as saying if you read any paper, study, or other that refers to the "unvaccinated" as a single cohort, you are reading vaccine propaganda, not scienc…
Zeynep Turfekci talks about this in this thread, and about why she thinks prior infection offers less protection than the vaccines, to the point that she supports vaccinations for those who have already caught COVID. https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1484930583214100481?t=UDTW...
> to the point that she supports vaccinations for those who have already caught COVID
It's so ridiculous now they're requiring vaccination for the vaccinated too.
Something from the NYT mailing list yesterday: > The Covid vaccines are remarkably effective at preventing serious illness. If you’re vaccinated, your chances of getting severely sick are extremely low. Even among people 65 and older, the combination of the vaccines’ effectiveness and the Omicron variant’s relative mildness means that Covid now appears to present less danger than a normal flu. > For the unvaccinated,…
> With COVID becoming endemic everyone is going to get antibodies, with the only choice being whether you get your first antibodies by vaccination or by getting COVID.
Apologies in advance for getting on my soapbox, but this has been on my mind for a while. The way in which the media has gotten everyone to say "the unvaccinated" is a 'disease' against basic science (not even getting into the divisive nature of this). I would go as far as saying if you read any paper, study, or other that refers to the "unvaccinated" as a single cohort, you are reading vaccine propaganda, not scienc…
I'd like to make sure I understand your underlying position before proceeding. I think what you're trying to say is that you believe there is an adequate enough case for people who had prior infection to avoid what they believe is an unnecessary medical procedure which may have some risk. And, scientifically, you believe it's absolutely certain that in this specific situation, prior infection immunity provides very g…
I think you hit the nail on the head when you said the vaccines are less efficacious than initially reported (~94% decrease in the probability of disease incidence). I just don't understand how you square that with your conclusion, just keep getting boosted some indeterminate number of times by vaccines we know are 1) not as good as advertised, and 2) seem to be providing less and less protection over time as new variants emerge.
The best protection based on my knowledge of biochemistry would be natural immunity to the current variant in circulation.
> The people you elect to represent you (for those of us with a democracy-like government) The problem is that so many elected officials don't abide by the rules that they push. Joe Biden, Gavin Newsom, Nancy Pelosi, London Breed, etc. When the powerful can ignore their own rules, they're more likely to enact sweeping mandates.
> When the powerful can ignore their own rules, they're more likely to enact sweeping mandates. The sweeping mandates are for our public health. These folks aren't asking us to mask up or vaccinate for their own benefit. And they can only sorta ignore their own rules, because aren't they being roasted in the media when they mess up? The fourth estate at work. It will affect their re-election chances. > The problem is…
> nor did he conduct himself in the way a public servant held to a higher standard should
No one is asking for a higher standard.
> aren't they being roasted in the media when they mess up? The fourth estate at work
Was there any coverage in NYT/CNN/WaPo of Biden shopping maskless? I only heard about it because I happened to read some news from a right-leaning site.
> It will affect their re-election chances.
I'm pretty sure Nancy Pelosi is safe. This only affects politicians in purple districts.
You are proportionately about as bad as the United States is in deaths right now.
False. The US has had 2,687 deaths per million population since coronavirus began. Australia has had 128. In the last 7 days the US has had 46 deaths per million population. Australia has had 17. See for yourself: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
(Australia is starting from near-zero natural immunity, too.)
> “The only way to get compliance from people and get accommodation [is] if we demonstrate the ability to withdraw these [mandates] in the same manner in which we put them in,” Gottlieb added. Nope. That line was crossed a long time ago. I can't imagine people suddenly regaining trust in pharma companies and health care agencies now because they backed off at this point.
Do you really think Republicans are not getting vaccinated because they “don’t trust” pharma companies?
> why are they so adamant to vaccinate those with prior infection Because the data shows they don't matter. This is the same thing as deaths due to covid vs. deaths while positive to covid. Sure some people might have been miscounted as covid deaths but actually died due to cancer/car accident/whatever. Despite this the excess deaths over the past two years is much higher than the number of covid deaths; thus showing…
The assumption that excess deaths can be attributed to any single cause is simply not based on data and/or science. What is the age breakdown of these excess deaths? If the distribution doesn't mirror the age distribution of known COVID deaths, that's an immediate indicator that it's factoring in multiple sources. Drug overdoses, attempted suicides and actual suicides are way up, for example. Drug abuse is way up. Ch…
In case you haven't seen it before, https://euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps has graphs of excess data for most of Europe (plus Israel) by age groups.
I find it a great resource to cross-check the misinformation of the mainstream media. For example, I challenge anybody to look at the 0-14 and 14-44 graphs and tell me when covid actually occurred.
Note that excess is not defined as a deviation from a typical year, but as a deviation from a typical year when no diseases are circulating. The goal of the euromomo website is to detect things like flu outbreaks, so the number of excess deaths is usually greater than 0, capturing the flu, heat waves, and presumably other disasters.
> It's not likely to increase my immunity and it comes with risks. Can you explain what risks you're referring to here?
my first 2 shots were fine, but my booster f'ed me up. I was in lots of body pain for 36 hours. 5 weeks later I caught omicron. I imagine by some point this year Ill be considered not fully vaccinated, but right now my desire to get another booster is very small. right now we know that even the booster provides little ability to stop you from getting omicron. likely by the next mandated booster the variant of the tim…
> right now we know that even the booster provides little ability to stop you from getting omicron
This is true, but the data is showing that being boosted means that catching Omicron when boosted means you are much, much more likely to have a very minor illness. Refusing future boosters comes at the risk of your own health, as well as the health of the people around you.
Yes, exactly. The world is dangerous and full of risks. Freedom is literally worth sacrificing lives for. This is a fundamental founding idea of the US.
Other people's lives, you mean.
You choose to leave your house. Isn't that your choice?
Dude go to a hospital in a populated area during this surge. My wife sat in the waiting room for 3 hours with SEVERE abdominal pain, DURING A PREGNANCY and was unable to be seen. We went home. If she’d had an ectopic pregnancy, she would probably not be here anymore.
Ugh, I'm so sorry you had to go through that. For other folks reading this: yes, three hours doesn't sound like that long a wait. But I'm willing to be those felt like the three longest, most stressful hours of your life when your mind is racing with possibilities and fears about the future of your wife and/or baby.
If it's anything like my Dad's recent trip (I went with him—kids who haven't had to deal with hospitals, always make sure someone else is with you to watch out for you if you have to go in, there is a good chance you'll have a bad time if you don't) the waits are super-long even for people who are obviously in a lot of distress, and they also don't communicate at all about where you are in the triage pool, so you're looking at people who you overheard saying they've already been there three hours when you got there, and they do seem like they need help, and you're like... how fucking long am I going to have to wait? And there's no answer, which I get, but if they could at least tell the ones who definitely aren't getting in "you're low-priority and we have no hope of seeing you today, we're just waiting until you get frustrated and leave" (this was the end result for like 50% of the people in the ER that day, from what I could tell, some of whom really did seem like they needed to get in) exactly that, it'd relieve some stress to know you're not in that group. The lack of communication bordered on abusive, for that reason, and I get they can't give an exact wait time, but at least saying "yes we do actually intend to get you in at some point" would be nice.