The Vaccine

[zipper]

I thought the vinyl comment would elicit a response. My son and his friends love vinyl. I just remember being so happy when I didn't have worry about a stylus or using a strobe to adjust the speed. That's why Baskin-Robbins has 31 flavors.

Been there. 8-tracks and cassettes eaten by the player, vinyl skipping even cd's have their issues...but I am more of a Ben & Jerry's guy, comes with the turf, lol. Cherry Garcia, Phish Food, Half Baked etc. are a few.

 

[Skierdad]

I lose the train of thought here. Masking is for others, it doesn't protect you, it protects those around you. Vaccination is for you, not for others. If you can still have and carry the virus, and spread the virus, would you rather carry it lightly or heavily? Here's a burden you are very likely to carry at some point, would you rather guarantee it to be a light burden, or risk it being a potentially life threatening burden. I just don't see the downsides when looking at the vaccine objectively from a self risk mitigation standpoint.

Great post....
If everyone around me is vaccinated, I don't need to protect them. If they have chosen not to get vaccinated, they have decided they don't need the protection. I wear a mask pretty much anywhere where I think someone might be who wants to get vaccinated but hasn't had the chance. I am not sure there is data supporting "lightly carrying the virus vs heavily carrying the virus" when it comes to vaccinated vs un-vaccinated. I just know that both can carry and transmit the virus. If you have a place to point me to, let me know. I enjoy reading in my early morning quietness before everyone wakes up.

In terms of self risk, I see a self risk towards me. My body reacted quite differently to the flu vaccine 15 years ago. Almost violently. I never got the flu shot prior to that year and haven't since that time. Getting another vaccine is in my mind dang scary given the time it has taken to develop it and not be able to study long term effects. In my mind, it is riskier to get the vaccine than it is to get COVID and build natural immunity.

I stay out of bars, keep my distance in public places, and wear a mask quite a bit of my day. I have no plans to travel out of state or out of the country. Most of my friends and family have either vaccinated or chosen not to.

 

[mwalker4]

I am not sure there is data supporting "lightly carrying the virus vs heavily carrying the virus" when it comes to vaccinated vs un-vaccinated. I just know that both can carry and transmit the virus. If you have a place to point me to, let me know. I enjoy reading in my early morning quietness before everyone wakes up.

I don't think anything is for certain yet, but most studies are showing a reduced transmission when vaccinated. It's always hard to know exactly what their saying when they are so cautious about making a definitive statement. I do understand the need for them to be cautious. From the article below.

“It looks like 90% reduction in asymptomatic transmission. So that’s really good,” Hotez said when the data was made available. Practically speaking, that means the vaccine may enable people to produce antibodies that reduce virus levels in the nose and the mouth, making them less likely to be contagious.

COVID-19 vaccines may reduce transmission, experts say, but vaccinated Americans still need to wear masks in public. Here's why.

Studies and real-world data suggest vaccinated people can’t easily spread the virus, but health experts say it’s too soon to doff the masks in public.

www.usatoday.com

 

[Julian]

This is a fascinating article (REALLY LONG) that gets into all sorts of analysis on the pandemic. I urge you all to read as much as you can (its 21 chapters). Some of my takeaways:

• Really interesting to read how they developed the vaccine so quickly-basically its been in the works for over 10 years! So it isn't brand new.
• Interesting to read the data on why minorities are exposed more, although it left out the statistic that 29% of whites can work from home while only 19% and 16% of blacks and Hispanics can (it does include the latter 2 data points - i had to look up the whites [HASH=410]#)[/HASH]
• I didn't know about Birx's state wide travel to get the word out.
• Lots of background on the inner workings of the covid task force
• I think they missed an opportunity to make it less partisan when they didn't follow up on why the national PPE stockpile wasn't replenished under the Obama administration- something we all need to know.

I'm curious to read your takeaways.

The Plague Year

The mistakes and the struggles behind America’s coronavirus tragedy.

www.newyorker.com

There was also a really good piece on the CDC testing screw up (I think I saw that on 60 minutes) - this hurt them badly - and further drove the "suspicion" around everything the CDC does/did.

And the media hypes all of this to sell commercials.

Look at the news right now - a few hundred adverse reactions in over 20 million. Yet we each get into our car every day and have a far higher risk of being killed on the way to the grocery store than from this vaccine, and this disease has now killed 560K. But is sells ads....so they hype it up.

 

[2kwik4u]

Great post....
If everyone around me is vaccinated, I don't need to protect them. If they have chosen not to get vaccinated, they have decided they don't need the protection. I wear a mask pretty much anywhere where I think someone might be who wants to get vaccinated but hasn't had the chance. I am not sure there is data supporting "lightly carrying the virus vs heavily carrying the virus" when it comes to vaccinated vs un-vaccinated. I just know that both can carry and transmit the virus. If you have a place to point me to, let me know. I enjoy reading in my early morning quietness before everyone wakes up.

I have that same 30-45min every morning. Nice to have just a small sliver of your day to yourself isn't it?

Don't really have any data to support the "heavy vs light" metaphor, I'm working of the logical premise of how a vaccine works. Sets up the body to be ready for the next attack with advanced intelligence on how the virus works. SO, when you come in contact with the real live thing, the symptoms are lessened, and the risk of serious complications significantly reduced. Perhaps it's the difference between a few days of flu like symptoms, and a few weeks on a ventilator. It hits everyone differently and quantifying that risk of complications is difficult.

In terms of self risk, I see a self risk towards me. My body reacted quite differently to the flu vaccine 15 years ago. Almost violently. I never got the flu shot prior to that year and haven't since that time. Getting another vaccine is in my mind dang scary given the time it has taken to develop it and not be able to study long term effects. In my mind, it is riskier to get the vaccine than it is to get COVID and build natural immunity.

I get a personal risk assessment based on historical data. I too have had bad reactions to flu vaccines in the past, and generally didn't get them yearly until a few years ago (maybe 5 or so). I had the flu REALLY bad one year, and decided it might be worth a try again. Got the flue shot the next fall, and was just fine. Haven't had the flu since, but get the free shot every fall from the company. Might be coincidence, might be cause an effect. It's hard to say to be honest.

I stray away again at the speed to market concern though. My understanding (which is anecdotal at best) is that this is more of an evolutionary development than a revolutionary development, and the people working on it are at the forefront of their field. Similar to how I know both the formal theory, the intricate application of that theory, and the physical workings of a multi-speed automatic transmission. I've been elbow deep in them, I've done the math and physics work to understand the founding principles, and I've studied the applications of them in great detail. I'm at that level in my chosen career, and I expect the ones working on the vaccine are at similar levels in theirs. This vaccine isn't some completely new paradigm of infection control, but rather an evolutionary change that would be akin to adjusting the packaging of a transmission. It's proven stuff on the inside, but the interfaces have been modified to fit the application. For reference, my wife has the same concern, and she ended up getting the vaccine (first shot on Monday) for other reasons that outweighed the speed to market concern. It was at the forefront of her mind though, and she had some anxiety over it. Her and I have both said we're not any more worried about the vaccine going into our bodies than we are any of the other myriad of chemicals we find on the packaging of the food we eat. That's not to say we shouldn't be worried, or we shouldn't change our diet, or any of those things; we absolutely should. It's to say we aren't taking on much, if any, additional risk from these chemicals of the others we already ingest.

I stay out of bars, keep my distance in public places, and wear a mask quite a bit of my day. I have no plans to travel out of state or out of the country. Most of my friends and family have either vaccinated or chosen not to.

Same here. I'm a pretty religious mask wearer and crowd avoider. I've been doing my grocery shopping at 6am on Sunday morning for the last year to avoid the crowds, and I pretty much have a mask on me all day at the office. It's an easy set of small changes to make to mitigate as much risk as I can for myself and my family. If I need to get a thing, it's a preplanned trip with purpose and as little exposure time as possible. No more wandering around the mall on a Saturday afternoon getting something from the snack bar and going in/out of shops lookin for something inexpensive to impulse buy. We have eaten out a few times, but it's been open air patios, or other situations that keep us from being stuffed in a building with a bunch of people we don't know the habits of. It might be an overabundance of caution, or it might be saving our lives. Again, it's hard to say, but it's more easy and small changes.

Despite those small and easy changes, I still got COVID in December and lost a week just staying alive. Then had another 4 weeks at home between the holidays and work quarantine requirements. Wife and Kids have all tested negative throughout, but we still avoid crowds, restaurants, and public places as much as possible. I don't think we're out of the tunnel just because we're vaccinated, but I think we're closer to seeing the light at the other end.

Luckily boating is a great method to stay the hell away from other people

 

[johhnyboat]

Great post....
If everyone around me is vaccinated, I don't need to protect them. If they have chosen not to get vaccinated, they have decided they don't need the protection. I wear a mask pretty much anywhere where I think someone might be who wants to get vaccinated but hasn't had the chance. I am not sure there is data supporting "lightly carrying the virus vs heavily carrying the virus" when it comes to vaccinated vs un-vaccinated. I just know that both can carry and transmit the virus. If you have a place to point me to, let me know. I enjoy reading in my early morning quietness before everyone wakes up.

In terms of self risk, I see a self risk towards me. My body reacted quite differently to the flu vaccine 15 years ago. Almost violently. I never got the flu shot prior to that year and haven't since that time. Getting another vaccine is in my mind dang scary given the time it has taken to develop it and not be able to study long term effects. In my mind, it is riskier to get the vaccine than it is to get COVID and build natural immunity.

I stay out of bars, keep my distance in public places, and wear a mask quite a bit of my day. I have no plans to travel out of state or out of the country. Most of my friends and family have either vaccinated or chosen not to.

I hope that you are aware that 15 years ago they used a "live" virus strain for Flu shots and now the are a "dead" strain. This means that you won't get the flu OR Covid from a vaccine but in years past you could. I am pretty up to speed on vaccinations as my son had a serious illness and compromised immune system and we WERE all required to have vaccines to keep him safe. Prior to that I never really though about it, but get one every year now because it WILL protect you against the most deadly strains of the flu each year. You could still get the flu, but you won't be very sick and you won't die from it.
I look at the Covid vaccine the same way.
The other thing to be concerned with is that the airlines are going to institute a Covid Vaccine passport and you won't be able to travel without it. Of course, restaurants, stores, etc... could start to require this as well as it's their prerogative as business owners.

 

[Dean P]

Probably the last reason is that I am hopeful my body will build its immunity naturally.

Is this really true? Can the body prepare to fight something it has never seen nor is setup for such a battle?

I'm asking this honestly cause, how does our immune system really work? I believe we get some protection when we're born to survive some "things". But does the body need to experience something bad before it can overcome? If it cannot, can I assume you'll die without any intervention?

 

[BigN8]

This just got better. By logging into my company health portal and updating my vaccine dates I just made an extra $100. Now I can go use this reward to vaccinate my liver with some high quality bourbon!!

 

[2kwik4u]

This just got better. By logging into my company health portal and updating my vaccine dates I just made an extra $100. Now I can go use this reward to vaccinate my liver with some high quality bourbon!!

2/3 the way to a nice bottle of Michters 10yr!

 

[BigN8]

2/3 the way to a nice bottle of Michters 10yr!

I like Michters! A buddy was just in Washington state and ran into a liquor store. They have Blanton's on the shelf. He grabbed 4 of them and gave me one at cost! So smooth!!!

 

[NewBoater]

This girl didn’t fare well with the shot

TikTok - Make Your Day

 

[AZMark]

This girl didn’t fare well with the shot

TikTok - Make Your Day

Can’t find much reference to this outside of TikTok and Infowars yet.
Based on her statements she had an existing brain aneurysm.
That’s very unfortunate for her but I’m not sure that her situation has much meaning for the people walking around without existing brain aneurysms.

Edit: not clear from the video or my comment but she has two additional videos on her TikTok page where she explains more.

 

[I_squared_r]

I am scheduled for the 1st shot of the J&J vaccine on Wednesday. Even with the vaccine, governments still require a negative test for international travel. It's not a problem in the USA because our trillion dollar tax liability makes testing super accessible. However, in brazil it costs me $115 to get the negative test. BUT if I have proof of recovering from COVID then I don't need the negative test. It seems that governments don't have a lot of faith in the vaccine.

I'm hesitant about the vaccine .. I'm 31, very healthy, live alone, and work remotely. I only worry about passing COVID to my family, who mostly have terrible health from lack of exercise, bad vices, and unhealthy eating habits.

 

[swatski]

Is this really true? Can the body prepare to fight something it has never seen nor is setup for such a battle?

To use a bunch of oversimplifications, yes, the body has natural (inborn) defenses.

Our immune system has two major parts, one called "innate", and another called "adaptive".

The former can indeed fight something it has never seen before - using an inborn (not acquired) set of tools called "TLR" type receptors that can bind PAMPs (pathogen-associated molecular patterns) - basically recognizing common infectious agents. Those TLR receptors are encoded in the germline (inherited) DNA.

The latter is a lot more sophisticated using cells that can produce surface bound and secretory (soluble in blood serum) antibody molecules (and T-cell receptors, but let's stay simple) which specifically bind only select "antigens" or "epitopes" - think of it as structurally distinct binding sites/motifs. Those receptors are not inherited in the germline DNA (not passed from parents to children), but rather somatically generated inside lymphocytes, specialized white blood cells, by a process called "VDJ recombination".

This antibody production process is incredibly cool and involves "clonal expansion" of select cells - initially, millions of B/T cells each produce a unique receptor, but upon the antigen encounter the responding cell undergoes proliferative expansion (multiplies) and gives rise to an army of cells (millions) each producing the same receptor - that clonal expansion of specific-receptor bearing cells is the basis of "adaptive immune response" (ridiculously over-simplified).

Those B cells, in cooperation with T cells further refine their armaments, the unique receptors, through "affinity maturation" and "class switching", and then some of these elite cells with refined weapons go into storage/hiding/depot becoming "memory cells" (with unique property of long half-life) - in preparation for future antigenic encounter.

That's how one becomes "immune" or "immunized".

With regards to covid virus infection, the innate immune system can prevent virus from overwhelming and killing an individual but is lousy at clearing the virus, and has no memory.

Known to be highly effective and used since 18th century, vaccines are a mainstay in modern medicine. It is baffling there are people living nowadays, on our continent, who are reluctant to use them.

--

 

[Dean P]

To use a bunch of oversimplifications, yes, the body has natural (inborn) defenses.

Our immune system has two major parts, one called "innate", and another called "adaptive".

The former can indeed fight something it has never seen before - using an inborn (not acquired) set of tools called "TLR" type receptors that can bind PAMPs (pathogen-associated molecular patterns) - basically recognizing common infectious agents. Those TLR receptors are encoded in the germline (inherited) DNA.

The latter is a lot more sophisticated using cells that can produce surface bound and secretory (soluble in blood serum) antibody molecules (and T-cell receptors, but let's stay simple) which specifically bind only select "antigens" or "epitopes" - think of it as structurally distinct binding sites/motifs. Those receptors are not inherited in the germline DNA (not passed from parents to children), but rather somatically generated inside lymphocytes, specialized white blood cells, by a process called "VDJ recombination".

This antibody production process is incredibly cool and involves "clonal expansion" of select cells - initially, millions of B/T cells each produce a unique receptor, but upon the antigen encounter the responding cell undergoes proliferative expansion (multiplies) and gives rise to an army of cells (millions) each producing the same receptor - that clonal expansion of specific-receptor bearing cells is the basis of "adaptive immune response" (ridiculously over-simplified).

Those B cells, in cooperation with T cells further refine their armaments, the unique receptors, through "affinity maturation" and "class switching", and then some of these elite cells with refined weapons go into storage/hiding/depot becoming "memory cells" (with unique property of long half-life) - in preparation for future antigenic encounter.

That's how one becomes "immune" or "immunized".

With regards to covid virus infection, the innate immune system can prevent virus from overwhelming and killing an individual but is lousy at clearing the virus, and has no memory.

Known to be highly effective and used since 18th century, vaccines are a mainstay in modern medicine. It is baffling there are people living nowadays, on our continent, who are reluctant to use them.

--

Thank you! As they say, "When you don't know, you don't know". That was definitely a mouthful, and sounds like just the tip of the iceberg. Thanks for keeping it "simple". Human body is fascinating but it's fascinating how man can help to keep it functioning. Love it and technology!!!

 

[haknslash]

We get our second Pfizer shot at 2:30pm today to be fully vaccinated. I bit apprehensive at times but the ship has already sailed so to speak so is what it is lol. If I grow a 3rd arm that just means my work is going to demand more from me.

 

[shnknapp]

I have to say I am quite impressed with how civil this thread has been. If this was one of the Yamaha Facebooks groups, pretty sure the popcorn memes would have been prevalent.

 

[Julian]

Can’t find much reference to this outside of TikTok and Infowars yet.
Based on her statements she had an existing brain aneurysm.
That’s very unfortunate for her but I’m not sure that her situation has much meaning for the people walking around without existing brain aneurysms.

Edit: not clear from the video or my comment but she has two additional videos on her TikTok page where she explains more.

Its overblown stuff like this that makes people afraid. The media (social or mass) benefits from it unfortunately....so it will continue no matter what we do.

 

[Dean P]

My son got his second shot and said everything was normal. He felt fine.

 

[haknslash]

Just got the 2nd prick. My man junk just grew 18” ?