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More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

theatlantic.com

861–870 of 1001 posts

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#861

Between the 2nd dose putting me in the ER with myocarditis which no one warned me about the risk of, and a $3500 medical bill due, being told I could be maskless and free if I got the "vaccine"[1], getting covid anyways and it being nbd, and then learning that the CDC redefined the meaning of "vaccine" for this treatment[2] (imo "immunotherapy" would be a more understandable word) -- yeah I'm done. I'm not risking an…

85% of COVID-19 hospitalizations were among those not fully vaccinated.[0]

90% of people who are dying from covid are unvaccinated.[1]

10 in 100,000 people in your likely age range experience myocarditis.[2]

However, yeah, if you have had a bad reaction before, you are likely to have another bad reaction. I'm sorry you went through that.

> Yes it's 80% effective at eliminating _hospitalization_ but vaccinated people still get Covid, still go through fever & long covid symptoms (loss of taste/smell anyone?), and still must quarantine else infect others.

I would argue 80% effective at eliminating hospitalization is not a trivial number. That is extremely effective. I will take those odds vs the chance of having an extremely rare myocarditis episode.

0: https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/characteristics-of...

1: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/covid-omic...

2: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2110737

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#862

Vaxxed and I caught Cov19 a couple weeks ago (likely omicron). Same with the wife. I've had allergies that were worse. It was a 3 day event with a very mild fever and a bit of a cough the last day. It was extremely mild, and if I hadn't decided to take a couple days off to catch up on my reading after getting tested, I would have probably just eaten a couple advil and continued on as though nothing happened. So now I…

> But now, I suspect I might be doing myself a disservice by not exposing myself to all the variants and things floating around.

Honest question: do you know of any source that indicates natural exposure to C19 and variants provides stronger (or equally strong) protection than vaccinations/boosters? Thanks!

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#863
post #368

Of course people are done with it. Vaccinations were sold as the solution to the pandemic. Yet worldwide infections are going up at the same speed if not faster than before vaccinations. But no policy maker acknowledges this. They refer to the lowered death rate, or blame a new variant. But it means that policy that gave people more freedom because of their vaccination status are not having any significant effect on…

Vaccines were never expected to stop the pandemic. They were expected to stop people from dying from the pandemic. They are doing that. So far, vaccines have saved 1.1M Americans from dying from covid and saved 10.3M Americans from needing hospital treatment for covid [0]. Preventable Covid-19 cases can lead to higher health and life insurance rates. Firing employees who refuse the vaccine is smart business. Vaccine…

"Vaccines were never expected to stop the pandemic."

That's complete bullshit. You can find many examples of experts, governments and politicians claiming that's exactly what was likely going to happen.

That was the message people were sold.

For good reason, there are many diseases that have been wiped out by vaccination.

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#864

I feel like COVID has become like a marshmallow test for adults, where those who can manage their emotions and make rational decisions can set themselves up for greater long-term rewards. It looked for a while there like this could be a thing that gets “done”—that we would get a good vaccine into enough people, then incidence would decline so far it just goes away. That didn’t happen. We’re stuck with it for a forese…

Quoted post unavailable.

> What if it turns out the vaccines do have negative long term effects

This is like the inverse of Pascal's Wager [1]!

"What if taking some action results in negative long term effects that we don't yet know about? Better not do anything new just to be safe."

That reasoning could be applied to anything novel, and yet folks seem most ready to apply it to COVID-19 vaccination. The flu vaccine changes every year, but I've never heard folks expressing concern of the long-term effects of this year's new formulation. Let me rattle off a few more off the top of my head:

* Was there a large cohort of the population that refused microwave ovens in the 1970's?

* What if a doctor prescribes you a new medication that was developed in the last 5-10 years?

* VR headsets?

* Social media!

* Sitting at a desk in front of a computer working 8 hours a day

* Getting a smartphone

Is there some reason why we would expect a priori for the COVID-19 vaccine to have a particularly high risk of adverse affects that only show up long-term?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#865

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the children in this trial part of high risk groups? I guess I am quite surprised to hear that there are drug trials for healthy children that young. In this case, the risk/reward seems very imbalanced almost to the point being unethical.

It’s interesting to read your viewpoint because I can see your logic but happen to weigh the risks differently. I am personally more concerned about the long-term risk of disease than the risk of vaccination. As a parent with children I wish could be vaccinated earlier, I have actually wondered if (a) I should have volunteered them for the trials and (b) if as a society we would be willing to start trials for childre…

Man…that sounds like a scary future.

Pharma is a business. Children are just another demographic for them to expand into. In the aggregate, they have shown that they care very little about the long term negative effects of any drug.

Maybe that is OK when we’re testing MS drugs or on people with shortened life spans, but children need to be protected. They are stuck with any damage that is done for the long, long term.

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#866
post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the long term of effects of the vaccines are still very unclear. For adults and children. There are concerning reports regarding serious complications that tend to not get talked about very much in the media I chose to vaccinate myself. I don’t have kids, but I’m not sure it would be a given that I would vaccinate them yet. I think I would want to have a better understanding of the risks. Sorry you’re in…

According to [1] Mr Malone said "mRNA vaccine technology I created" which is not true as far as I can find tell. He did work on mRNA technology decades ago but didn't invent mRNA vaccines. He also states that "The first is that a viral gene will be injected into your children's cells. This gene forces your child’s body to make toxic spike proteins.". What does that even mean, a "viral gene"? Toxic spike proteins? Sou…

> which is not true as far as I can find tell. He did work on mRNA technology decades ago but didn't invent mRNA vaccines.

It was removed from wikipedia, but here's an archived version:

https://web.archive.org/web/20210614140319/https://en.wikipe...

He invented the initial platform and performed the first mRNA vaccine experiments in 1989.

There's 9 patents in his name for the platforms and his name is all over the original experiments.

I don't think the powers at be can memory hole him that easily.

> What does that even mean, a "viral gene"? Toxic spike proteins?

What he's getting at is, the spike protein the vaccine makes you generate enters the heart and other organs easily and causes damage.

The spike protein itself is potentially toxic to us and causing myocarditis. There is evidence of that, how widespread is disputed.

Whether "long covid" is a symptom of this spike protein toxicity, vaccine induced or natural, is unclear.

Many many things related to covid, some taboo, some not, are yet to be determined.

> Should we trust this person?

Should we trust media reporters and random people slinging mud on the internet, I doubt it.

In this field, we should listen to him, yes, not shun him, as he has relevant domain knowledge which is clearly verifiable.

Trust implies faith, why are you "trusting" scientists? You should listen and verify.

The fact you are attacking him and not trying to disprove what he is saying is suspect.

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#867

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all know that most people get COVID and then get over it, but using a few neutral anecdotes to deny the other issues is like trying to invalidate global warming because the weather isn’t hot where you live. It’s not about comparing all of our anecdotes.

As they say, the plural of anecdote is data. Many many many people are getting omicron and having relatively mild infections. It is not the same variant. That doesn't mean it's 100% safe, obviously, but it certainly appears to be safe er .

Random anecdotes aren't data - at least not useful data. An offhand comment from the 1960's aside, collecting data to ensure it's usable is the subject of a lot of research.

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#868

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vaccines were never expected to stop the pandemic. They were expected to stop people from dying from the pandemic. They are doing that. So far, vaccines have saved 1.1M Americans from dying from covid and saved 10.3M Americans from needing hospital treatment for covid [0]. Preventable Covid-19 cases can lead to higher health and life insurance rates. Firing employees who refuse the vaccine is smart business. Vaccine…

"Vaccines were never expected to stop the pandemic." That's complete bullshit. You can find many examples of experts, governments and politicians claiming that's exactly what was likely going to happen. That was the message people were sold. For good reason, there are many diseases that have been wiped out by vaccination.

Exactly! What was all that talk about using the vaccine to achieve herd immunity and reduce the R0? That was SO the narrative.

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#869

I'm vaxxed. I'm boosted. I'd very much like to be done. But my children cannot be vaccinated. As a parent of a young kid it kind of feels like everyone has just moved on. I know folks in here will tell me that statistically speaking my children are unlikely to be hospitalized and so on, and I agree. But I know enough kids who got COVID and suffered the symptoms (e.g. a months-long scratchy cough) that I'm not going t…

No post body was provided.

Re: More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

#870

I feel like COVID has become like a marshmallow test for adults, where those who can manage their emotions and make rational decisions can set themselves up for greater long-term rewards. It looked for a while there like this could be a thing that gets “done”—that we would get a good vaccine into enough people, then incidence would decline so far it just goes away. That didn’t happen. We’re stuck with it for a forese…

It's interesting that you phrase it that way, because I was thinking exactly the same thing, but from the opposite direction. I caught covid early, and while (for me) it was a nasty bug, I recovered with nothing more than a lingering cough for several weeks. Against enormous pressure I decided not to get vaccinated. Everything I read supported that natural immunity is at least as protective as the vaccine, and most s…

Look, if science made an error, then that is a huge opportunity for an army of other scientists to point it out. That's how science works. Don't make the mistake to think that an armchair scientist can outsmart them all with just some basic reasoning perhaps based on personal anecdotes.
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