The Vaccine

[Bruce]

Pic deleted, does anyone really need to see my boat

Is that what the big negative sign was in your signature?

 

[Jmorris195]

Not getting it.

 

[swatski]

Swat, Do you know how I can get a T-Detect" test by Adaptive Biotechnologies. Im game

Evil - I talked to another colleague there who is one of their VPs, and here is a bit more info for you:

They are active in longitudinal vaccine studies but readout is a ways out, still.

After two vaccinations they don’t have longitudinal data yet.
But, in general everyone who's vaccinated tests positive with the T-detect. Some people who have had confirmed infection test positive with t-detect, too.

It is thought that with a positive test result with T-detect one could feel pretty confident about their covid immunity. (he did say his sister in South Africa is trying to get the test done as she has no access to the vaccine and wants to travel; he feels if he can get her the t-detect test and she tests positive she would be safe to travel)

So many questions and special situations though.

--

 

[Bruce]

Not getting it.

With delta going around you might want to call 800-273-8255 and talk it through.

 

[Betik]

On the positive side of things....we are headed to Roatan within the next few weeks. I just read on the Hondurus site that proof of Covid vaccine means you don't have to show a negative Covid test prior to entry. I don't know whether to rely on this or not. Part of me thinks I should still get a negative Covid test even though I have vaccine proof?? Anyone else travel to a country that is allowing proof of vaccine vs negative Covid test 72 hrs prior to entry?? Any hassles?

My family was in korea and back and my parents just flew in and out of Greece. If i were you I would get a negative test done. It is cheap, gives you peace of mind and makes sure the airline does not turn you around.

 

[2kwik4u]

Thanks for your candor. I'm staying unvax'd for religious reasons, personally. Vaccine seems to work for those that are at risk the most, however my personal opinions on where this fits with scripture puts me in the "illogical" bucket, apparently.

I do think you should consider this statement, though: "A vast majority of people took it upon themselves to take the government mandates as facts rather than the "stop gap, best we know, do this for now" measures they were."

I don't remember anyone in the media, government, or at the state or federal level saying "these are stop gap measures." Quite the opposite, these were laws to be followed and worshipped, from the moments they left their lips.

But maybe that's the difference between a skeptic and a believer when it comes to something so divisive.

Well......I wrote a novel again...grab your popcorn........ A few notes I'm pulling and putting up front.

• I'm using laws as a catch all, it can include mandates, policies, edicts, whatever word you like for a government issued guidance that has a penalty attached to be called
• Below I'm going to use the words "You" and "I". I don't mean personal attacks, just merely using those as basic language to assign "sides of the debate".
• This started as a quote, and again, I don't mean personal attacks, it's just an easy way of keeping track how we got here.
• TL;DR at the bottom

Onward!

So what we have here is a philosophical difference in the basic premise of laws . From my seat, no law should ever be worshiped, or abided to so closely that the overall landscape of any given situation isn't given the due gravity it deserves. Laws are merely guidelines for what our society has deemed to be the minimum level of appropriate behavior, and what the consequences are for dropping below that minimum. We've decided these laws by way of electing officials to carry our water through the process. If you are to worship these laws, then you are placing far heavier weight on them than they deserve. A simple case of this is running a left turn red light at 2am with nobody around after waiting some period of time. It's not going to change, you're being held back from progress by blindly obeying, so you run the red light. No harm, no foul to anyone, however you've broken a law. Is it a large impact or small? As the impact grows, the policing, enforcement, and penalties grow as well, however the general premise stands. We can increase the severity of the situation a little and examine again. A few years ago there were riots around my wifes office. She asked what to do if they got close enough to approach her while in the car (the company had armed guards escorting people to cars for a few days). My response was "Do what you have to to get home, we'll sort it out later". I meant that to include running someone over. We'll work out the legality and morality of that later. Get home safe was the landscape, laws be damned. We can extend further to something like carrying a concealed weapon into a grocery store. The door clearly says not to do it. Signs all over the place saying it's again the law (or business owner wishes that are protected by law). However, if you do that, and carry in the store, THEN have a need to use it, the landscape has changed from abiding by laws, to protecting oneself or others. That current and local landscape must ALWAYS be considered when evaluating the laws that might govern ones actions.

You must to also consider the source of the laws when evaluating the purpose and reason behind them. This leads directly to your point about them being wildly inconsistent, and poorly followed. These laws were set down by elected officials, NOT scientists. The officials have to weigh many options that are often subjective. Economy vs lockdown is a primary one. Lockdown vs public desires is the second highest IMO. They are there to do what we ask, and some might actually take that to heart, and say "my constituents don't want a lockdown, I'm not doing it", and fly right in the face of what sound science and good reason would say. Florida and Texas are good examples of this. Others from more blue leaning states most likely followed doctors and scientists advice more closely as their supports are more likely to be OK with more restrictions for the greater good. New York, California, Illinois. We can trace this back further, all the way to the top actually, where we have the president of the country that is more reality TV star than critical thinker (not that they are mutually exclusive, but in this case I think we can all agree they are). So the head cheese is wavering on his position, is not well spoken when he does have a position, and gives poor advice and direction to the people below him, as well as the public in general. It becomes a case study in how to NOT handle a pandemic in terms of leadership. You can find references for days on how a "united front" amongst leadership solidifies purpose and increases efficiency in driving to an end result. We had such "helter skelter" leadership, I'm somewhat surprised we got where we are now. I don't lay this completely at the feet of the president, he was in charge of a broken system to begin with, but that's a novel for another day. SO.....to wrap all that up, I find a strong dichotomy between worshiping these laws, and not considering the source and reasoning that created them. That level of blind faith cannot be had at the same time as a serious doubt on the truthfulness of their statements. These are at logical odds with one another.

With all that said, I see the complications and confusion if you did worship these laws as they were handed out. You feel you've been lied to, and now you're tired of it. I can 100% see that. I think the issue is more that you weren't lied to before, you just trusted too deeply that they knew EXACTLY what they were doing when they set out these laws, when in reality they're just like you and I, and are trying to figure this mess out as we go, and don't really KNOW anything. So the only thing to do is a near constant re-evaluation of the situation, and real-time risk mitigation. My wife and I have talked, almost weekly, for the last year about our plans, and how the pandemic affects those plans. Do we mask or not mask at an event? Does the kid ride the bus to school, or do we car rider him to/from school? Do we hang out with this group or that group, or do we politely decline based on how they act, and what risks they're taking. It's made for some difficult conversations, and some of those have ended poorly, but it's where we're at. I've had those discussion previous with one of her friends. She was VERY anti-vax and I flat told her, as respectfully as I could, that she wasn't invited into the house with our newborn until she had her kids vaccinations. That SUCKED, but it was the risk mitigation that we needed to do. The shelter in place, social distancing, mask wearing, and hand sanitizing has SUCKED for the last 17 or so months, but it's the risk mitigation that we needed to do. I still got it, and am of the lucky ones that isn't having side effects from it. Did all of my risk mitigation work, NOPE, but it did lead me to go almost a year in before I got it, and my risk was lower. I was after the initial surge, so beds were available if I needed them. I caught it early and quarantined heavily so the other people in my home did NOT get it. I followed the best I knew at the time, to make the best decisions I could at the time, without 100% confidence they would work............All that wraps up to relevance of the vaccine coming back to risk mitigation. At no point do I think the vaccine reduces anyones risk to zero. Nothing will do that. But it certainly reduces it to a level where I can drop some of my concerns, and I can move back towards concentrating on other factors in life. It reduces the risk of major symptoms harming me permanently. I'll take the unknown risks of long term vaccine use against the slightly better known risks of virus contraction. In short, I trust our knowledge on vaccine technology more than I trust our knowledge of COVID effects, and I find it difficult (but I'm working on it) to understand deniers of that logic.

And not to open another, completely different bucket of worms, but I think you are spot on with the difference between a believer and a skeptic in terms of these very divisive issues. Your personal belief system, whatever that might be, puts you at odds with the scientific community. I'm a skeptic, by and large. I live firmly in the "trust but verify" camp on a whole slew of things, and as such, that particular belief system, or ethos if you will, leads me to stay pretty far away from organized religion in general. It's how my brain and emotions function, that the same blind belief I mention above, just doesn't work for me at any level. Again, I see where you're at, doing my best to not judge, but respectfully disagree with the position. I think there are a number of ways to reconcile, both logically and religiously, the gap between sound scientific understanding and practice and a particular belief system. I'm fairly confident that they don't have to be mutually exclusive, and that there is a middle ground where one can both protect themselves physically, and not comprise on their religious standings. I honest do.

Sorry for the novel, I've put some notes at the top.

TL;DR
Laws are not to be worshiped, but are guidelines or guardrails if you will.
The source of the laws, and flawed leadership has to be accounted for.
A lack of the first two combine to a state of mistrust and misunderstanding.
I think that religion vs science is not a dichotomy that has to exist.

 

[scbruet]

Got my second shot of Moderna back in April. No issues, feel great. I was just in Chicago 2 weeks ago for a bachelor party with full bars and no masks....it was amazing feeling "back." It's virtually impossible I wasn't exposed to covid then, but I've have no symptoms in 2 weeks. This vaccine is a medical miracle.

If we didn't have social media, we wouldn't have a vaccination problem.....but....this site wouldn't exist with all these great people helping me with my boat sooooo......even trade off? Haha

 

[anmut]

I mean, this is from yesterday, from the President. AP FACT CHECK: Biden goes too far in assurances on vaccines

Here you have someone at the highest level of 1/3 branches of government giving absolutely incorrect information to a media outlet that doesn't bother to question or correct him. I will point and scream at this constant loop of bullshit: "THIS IS WHY PEOPLE DON'T TRUST THE VAX."

 

[scbruet]

I mean, his statement was 99.5% correct haha. Not sure that qualifies as absolute incorrect information. I listen to doctors though, not politicians.

With the billions of doses that have already been given around the world, if you're concerned about your health at this point from the vaccine, you probably should never get in a car or boat again. Those are substantially more dangerous to your well being.

This story is just too sad...

‘I’m sorry, but it’s too late’: Doctor says dying COVID patients ask for vaccine before intubation

An Alabama doctor revealed in a social media post over the weekend that one of the last things she has to do before having to intubate her patients who are gravely ill with COVID-19 is often to exp…

pix11.com

 

[anmut]

I mean, his statement was 99.5% correct haha. Not sure that qualifies as absolute incorrect information. I listen to doctors though, not politicians.

With the billions of doses that have already been given around the world, if you're concerned about your health at this point from the vaccine, you probably should never get in a car or boat again. Those are substantially more dangerous to your well being.

This story is just too sad...

‘I’m sorry, but it’s too late’: Doctor says dying COVID patients ask for vaccine before intubation

An Alabama doctor revealed in a social media post over the weekend that one of the last things she has to do before having to intubate her patients who are gravely ill with COVID-19 is often to exp…

pix11.com

LOL full circle - that's the story that originally made me jump back into this thread... LOL

 

[2kwik4u]

I listen to doctors though, not politicians.

The big takeaway here in one sentence.

I don't trust the vaccine because a politician tells me to. I trust it because of the myriad of medical experts agree that it works.

 

[anmut]

The big takeaway here in one sentence.

I don't trust the vaccine because a politician tells me to. I trust it because of the myriad of medical experts agree that it works.

That's nearly foolproof. Nearly, except for doctors were the ones that made recommendations pre-vax, so... again, "please trust us this time, we have a phd."

Also, I'll just leave this here: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/medical-errors-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-america.html

(psst, your doctors kill almost as many people as cancer and heart disease... so maybe some distrust is warranted?)

 

[DRAT]

I will point and scream at this constant loop of bullshit: "THIS IS WHY PEOPLE DON'T TRUST THE VAX."

no, it isn't. people don't trust the vax because they decided not to trust it based on i don't know what. many of them didn't trust vaccines before covid, but if covid was killing children on the regular or had a 1-in-5 mortality rate rather than 1-in-50 you can bet your ass these trust issues would "magically disappear" like the virus was supposed to last summer.

 

[FTBS311]

Got both Shots (Pfizer) back in March, no issues for either. Being former Military (NAVY, GUARD) it didn't bother me to take the Vaccine since in my career they gave us ever vaccine and shot known to man. It wasn't political for me. To each there own. I wish good health to all!

 

[scbruet]

That's nearly foolproof. Nearly, except for doctors were the ones that made recommendations pre-vax, so... again, "please trust us this time, we have a phd."

Also, I'll just leave this here: The third-leading cause of death in US most doctors don't want you to know about

(psst, your doctors kill almost as many people as cancer and heart disease... so maybe some distrust is warranted?)

haha ok.....Reading this it says most of the errors weren't by doctors? How is that related to the vaccine? You probably should never go to a hospital though. Got to be safe.

 

[Julian]

Saw a Meme yesterday.....said something like:

When I was a kid it was called a Vaccination record​

Now its being called a Covid Passport​

Mixing politics/Social Media with science....we are all Fucked!​

​

Most people got a polio shot back then (it killed 5000 in one year). Now we have 300,000 dead and social media has people all wound up. Sad.

 

[scbruet]

It is sad. Russian bots have been wildly successful.

 

[2kwik4u]

That's nearly foolproof. Nearly, except for doctors were the ones that made recommendations pre-vax, so... again, "please trust us this time, we have a phd."

Also, I'll just leave this here: The third-leading cause of death in US most doctors don't want you to know about

(psst, your doctors kill almost as many people as cancer and heart disease... so maybe some distrust is warranted?)

I read the article. It mostly points at human error and lack of checks and balances in the system. Doesn't mention peer reviewed studies and publications, doesn't mention systemic issues within development of vaccines, the research into efficacy, or any other data point regarding the people who truly understand beyond a cursory level (myself included there) how and why it works. It's directly speaking to the people who are at the tip of the spear and are delivering (or practicing if you will) the methodologies, technologies, and products that are developed elsewhere through much more rigorous processes, peer reviews, and repeatable experimentation.

This is, IMO, the high level debate equivalent of saying "Yea, well they're clumsy, so take that".

Did you read the numbers and do your own math? 251,454 deaths from the 35,416,020 hospitalizations examined. That is to say that 0.7% of hospitalizations researched resulted in death from an accident, or written another way, a 99.3% chance that one WILL NOT have a medical mistake happen if hospitalized. After seeing that statistic, quite honestly, I trust the delivery teams even more than I did before. I would have guessed that number in the 2-3% range.

Learn to be a skeptic, and you won't contradict yourself.

I would like to see where the author got their 9.5% of total deaths number from, though. They don't cite that source anywhere, could be made up on the spot for all we know. From this site approximately 3,358,814 deaths occured in the us last year. Making a medical mistake (251,454) about 7.5% of total deaths. Total death count needs to drop to ~2.65mil for the 9.5% number to be accurate. According to this table, as published here, Medical Mistakes don't even make the list. Of course the article addresses this, somewhat unfoundedly (I didn't go read the study, just the article), in listing a misclassification in cause of death as the reason this doesn't appear on this chart.

<--click for larger image

Wasn't there a meme a few pages back with Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, and the text saying something to the effect of "how will be know the vaccine is working, the death rate changing from 97% to 98%"?!?! Attempting to make light of the lack of death toll (in percentages) caused by an unvaccinated populous, and then failing miserably to do so when juxtaposed with the statistic above. It shows a lack of critical thinking and a jump to conclusion attitude that has permeated the country. There have been more people killed in the first 6mo of this year due to COVID (of which something like 90-ish% *edit* I went and saw in another article just after posting, it's closer to 95% *edit* unvaccinated) than all medical accidents combined in that study you linked to. Not percentages, raw population numbers.

At this point you're grasping at straws, and IMO, purposefully raising ire to elicit responses. Further discussion is clearly unwarranted, there is no "I see your point, but what about this" coming from your side, only "NO, I'm right, look at this other thing that is only generally related" rapid fire responses with arguably snarky undertones.

I'm out.

Again.

 

[2kwik4u]

I mean, his statement was 99.5% correct haha. Not sure that qualifies as absolute incorrect information. I listen to doctors though, not politicians.

With the billions of doses that have already been given around the world, if you're concerned about your health at this point from the vaccine, you probably should never get in a car or boat again. Those are substantially more dangerous to your well being.

Even better than 99.5%......Look at the numbers. 5,492 out of 159mil vaccinated.......That's a 0.003% section that has been hospitalized after being vaccinated. I mean, statistically speaking, that's a staggering number. 99.997% effective against hospitalization but those numbers (I didn't check accuracy) is an incredible achievement IMO.

 

[scbruet]

I read the article. It mostly points at human error and lack of checks and balances in the system. Doesn't mention peer reviewed studies and publications, doesn't mention systemic issues within development of vaccines, the research into efficacy, or any other data point regarding the people who truly understand beyond a cursory level (myself included there) how and why it works. It's directly speaking to the people who are at the tip of the spear and are delivering (or practicing if you will) the methodologies, technologies, and products that are developed elsewhere through much more rigorous processes, peer reviews, and repeatable experimentation.

This is, IMO, the high level debate equivalent of saying "Yea, well they're clumsy, so take that".

Did you read the numbers and do your own math? 251,454 deaths from the 35,416,020 hospitalizations examined. That is to say that 0.7% of hospitalizations researched resulted in death from an accident, or written another way, a 99.3% chance that one WILL NOT have a medical mistake happen if hospitalized. After seeing that statistic, quite honestly, I trust the delivery teams even more than I did before. I would have guessed that number in the 2-3% range.

Learn to be a skeptic, and you won't contradict yourself.

I would like to see where the author got their 9.5% of total deaths number from, though. They don't cite that source anywhere, could be made up on the spot for all we know. From this site approximately 3,358,814 deaths occured in the us last year. Making a medical mistake (251,454) about 7.5% of total deaths. Total death count needs to drop to ~2.65mil for the 9.5% number to be accurate. According to this table, as published here, Medical Mistakes don't even make the list. Of course the article addresses this, somewhat unfoundedly (I didn't go read the study, just the article), in listing a misclassification in cause of death as the reason this doesn't appear on this chart.

View attachment 157833 <--click for larger image

Wasn't there a meme a few pages back with Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, and the text saying something to the effect of "how will be know the vaccine is working, the death rate changing from 97% to 98%"?!?! Attempting to make light of the lack of death toll (in percentages) caused by an unvaccinated populous, and then failing miserably to do so when juxtaposed with the statistic above. It shows a lack of critical thinking and a jump to conclusion attitude that has permeated the country. There have been more people killed in the first 6mo of this year due to COVID (of which something like 90-ish% *edit* I went and saw in another article just after posting, it's closer to 95% *edit* unvaccinated) than all medical accidents combined in that study you linked to. Not percentages, raw population numbers.

At this point you're grasping at straws, and IMO, purposefully raising ire to elicit responses. Further discussion is clearly unwarranted, there is no "I see your point, but what about this" coming from your side, only "NO, I'm right, look at this other thing that is only generally related" rapid fire responses with arguably snarky undertones.

I'm out.

Again.

There is so much noise in that 250k death number by doctors I don't even know where to begin. The easiest example being in that article about the death from heart arrhythmia. The Dr missed a treatment that would have saved that person's life. It's tragic, and a major mistake by the Dr. obviously, but that Dr didn't kill that person. If that person never went to the hospital, they would have died in their home. There is a substantial difference between "missing something that would have saved a life" and "the Dr caused this death." And obviously none of this is related to vaccine safety.