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Pfizer submits Covid vaccine to FDA for approval, to distribute in December

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Re: Pfizer submits Covid vaccine to FDA for approval, to distribute in December

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll let you test it for me and find out what the long term effects are.

I'll take my chances. My sister-in-law is dead. A brother-in-law is still unsure if we can talk across a room without fainting (6 months ago he was running several miles a day). This is just in my tiny circle of close family. Thousands in a much larger sample of had the vaccine with no side effects anywhere near that bad.

I'm so sorry to hear about your loss. I know we all have different personal beliefs. But you might find some comfort reading this: https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/awake-no2-2020-jul-a...

Re: Pfizer submits Covid vaccine to FDA for approval, to distribute in December

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take my chances. My sister-in-law is dead. A brother-in-law is still unsure if we can talk across a room without fainting (6 months ago he was running several miles a day). This is just in my tiny circle of close family. Thousands in a much larger sample of had the vaccine with no side effects anywhere near that bad.

n=1 is irrelevant I don't care about one persons experiences.

N is not 1. N is 14: all of my or my wife's siblings and their spouses. If you run the statistics based on what we know about COVID my anecdotes are well within the expected range (though higher than average, not high enough to be outside of the normal standard deviation). A large portion of the world has a similar set of personal statistics.

Re: Pfizer submits Covid vaccine to FDA for approval, to distribute in December

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about 35% of respondents in n=292 ( https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6930e1.htm?s_cid=mm... )? "Interviews were conducted 14–21 days after the test date. [...] Among 292 respondents, 94% (274) reported experiencing one or more symptoms at the time of testing; 35% of these symptomatic respondents reported not having returned to their usual state of health by the date of the interview (median = 16 days fro…

Is this a surprising statistic? Even with milder illnesses such as the flu, it's common to experience cough, fatigue, or shortness of breath for weeks.

It’s not common for 35% of flu patients to experience those symptoms after 14-21 days have passed, as it is with Covid.

Re: Pfizer submits Covid vaccine to FDA for approval, to distribute in December

#224
post #103
post #29

Well just like I don't immediately update to the latest OS I think I'll wait for the beta testing to happen :)

Few key facts: • In the entire history of vaccines, only one has been recalled because the vaccine itself caused long term side effects (a rotavirus vaccine that had rare complications and no deaths for those under 1yr). If you can't find any papers about it, that's why. It's like finding a paper on death by lava lamp explosions. It's happened ( https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-dec-01-na-brief... .), but…

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Re: Pfizer submits Covid vaccine to FDA for approval, to distribute in December

#225
post #67

Well done President Trump!

Wrong vaccine. This one was developed in Germany with no money from "Warp Speed". There was a Warp Speed commitment to by 100m doses after it is approved which you might argue is some encouragement, but Japan did the same thing with 120m doses, and the EU did it for 300m and provided upfront money for R&D. The US did also do the upfront money + commitment to purchase after approval for some vaccines, such as the Mode…

All on President Trump's watch. Very inspiring stuff!

Re: Pfizer submits Covid vaccine to FDA for approval, to distribute in December

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also depends on the known safety profile. With AstraZeneca some people already have to take pain medications after taking the vaccine...I wouldn't be comfortable putting using that vaccine without much wider testing. Fortunately I don't need to though, because soon we'll probably have 2 great vaccines to choose from.

> Fortunately I don't need to though, because soon we'll probably have 2 great vaccines to choose from. Indeed! And I'll be going with the adenoviral route which has been used for more than fifty years, rather than the brand new, first time ever mRNA product.

What are your main concerns with the mRNA product? Are you afraid of long term side effects? We already know that it has less short term side effects than the adenoviral vaccine. Actually I'd like to see deeper thinking about it from professionals.

Re: Pfizer submits Covid vaccine to FDA for approval, to distribute in December

#227
One question I have about mRNA vaccines that I haven't been able to find the answer to through my own searching: how is the mRNA delivered to the cell?

All the articles I read say that the mRNA is "taken up by the cell", but what is the mechanism? Do cells naturally just absorb free-floating mRNA? Or is a modified virus used to inject the mRNA?

Re: Pfizer submits Covid vaccine to FDA for approval, to distribute in December

#228
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've read ~20% of COVID cases end up with some long term affect, some of which are quite bad and could be permanent. While the vaccine also probably has risks, I personally would rather take my chances with the vaccine instead of infection. At the very least, the vaccine seems less likely to kill me in the very short term.

Where have you read that?

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Re: Pfizer submits Covid vaccine to FDA for approval, to distribute in December

#229
post #29

Well just like I don't immediately update to the latest OS I think I'll wait for the beta testing to happen :)

Its likely, that, like the flu jab, those most at risk will get it first. The vast majority of diligent users here will not be beta testers. Depending on how it works that is. It might be more effective to jab those most likely to transmit the disease first. (E.g. medical workers, children before Christmas meeting the family) or it might be better to jab those most at risk first.

Medical workers will get it first, as without them we can’t vaccinate the rest of us.

Re: Pfizer submits Covid vaccine to FDA for approval, to distribute in December

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the enemy is charging my base and someone offers me armor I'm not going to wait for all my fellow soldiers to try it out and see what happens.

Sounds like a reasonable position, until you extend the analogy: there is a slight, but nonetheless real chance that said armor has seriously adverse health effects on you. Maybe it spontaneously grows spikes and punctures your insides. Additionally, you also have, as an individual, the option to just stand further back in the line. You don't have to get in immediate contact with the enemy, you can just go to the bac…

>"Sounds like a reasonable position, until you extend the analogy: there is a slight, but nonetheless real chance that said armor has seriously adverse health effects on you. Maybe it spontaneously grows spikes and punctures your insides."

Maybe it does. And maybe it will also turn me into a frog. But we can only deal with known knowns and known unknowns. You have to weigh that against the risk of COVID infection, multiplied by the misery of not being able to live a normal life.

I'll take the small, abstract, unknowable chance of something bad that has no known mechanism of action versus the empirically quantifiable reality of living in fear of COVID. These are unprecedented times, and we have to trust in science. It's gotten us this far.

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