The state of the vaccines

So YOU are unable to spare an hour of YOUR time to research and thus verify the Truth or Falsehood
of the answers to questions and claims, that may affect YOUR Life and the Lives of those YOU Love ?
And even if YOU took that time to Verify and Prove YOUR answers, YOU would forget them by the next
................................................................................................................................................................................... page !

I tell YOU True ! -
It takes personal Vigilance and Commitment to maintain YOUR Freedom & Liberty. --- Laziness,
..... ............................................. Complicity & Compliance ---- will always be found to be Insufficient


& WHO
exactly is it that YOU are prepared to give over YOUR Right to control what information YOU and
YOUR fellow citizens will be allowed to Purview ? - As that control becomes the role of Censorship
in an Authoritarian Society - It is the removal & control of content from public Purview

And to advocate for Censorship is to tacitly accept the FACT that YOU are Incompetent and
Intellectually incapable of reaching YOUR own conclusions and must therefore surrender to
Authority, -- YOUR -- Rights & Freedoms to access certain data that might offend those
............................................................................................................................................. Authorities.

The question YOU should ask yourself HWGA - Is This - WHO are YOUR Authorities ?
WHO is it that YOU will allow to decide that YOU and/or the GENERAL POP.are are NOT
Competent and should no longer have access to the rather Disturbing Conclusions that
..................................................... may offend those WHO have decided what is best for YOU ?

And for what reasons have they decided that ? - And for what reasons have YOU
thought that surrendering YOUR Freedoms to these Coprophageous Scoundrels
............................................................................................................................ was a Good Idea ?.?
.....................................................................................................................


& will YOU surrender YOUR Rights to those kind of people WHO LIED about WMD and possible
Nuclear Drone strikes against the USofA, and that YOU must comply with their decision to invade
& destroy Iraq & Kill countless Iraqis to prevent Saddam Hussein from Killing countless Iraqis ?

Or are YOU ready to take the EASY Way Out and allow MSM and their
Fact Checking Astro-Turf organizations to do YOUR thinking for YOU ?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
MSM ADMITS FACT CHECKERS WERE WRONG —
TRUTH WILL NEVER BE FOUND THROUGH CENSORSHIP

http://www.wakingtimes.com/msm-admi...truth-will-never-be-found-through-censorship/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Reasonable Questions Don't Chaa THINK ?

.
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CureVac disappointing: only 47% effective.

 

A little bit late in the game anyway by now.

 

The FDA has just fully approved the Pfizer vaccine, making it no longer experimental, and making it easier for employers to mandate it and survive court scrutiny. Also, it makes it possible for doctors to prescribe the vaccine in case someone wants a booster shot, even in advance of the date for booster shots to start in the USA (September 20th).

 

With full FDA approval, now Pfizer is allowed to use its brand name Comirnaty to describe its vaccine. Here's an interesting article on how to pronounce it and what it means:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...-approved-pfizer-biontech-vaccine/8245932002/

Generic name was also established and it is tozinameran.

 

Fake News: 'This Ends The Debate' - Israeli Study Shows Natural Immunity 13x More Effective Than Vaccines At Stopping Delta

​

This study "ends any debate over vaccines v natural immunity." The science is settled.

The vaccine pimps "Dr. Anthony Fauci and the rest of President Biden's COVID advisors have been proven wrong about "the science" of COVID vaccines yet again. After telling Americans that vaccines offer better protection than natural infection, a new study out of Israel suggests the opposite is true: natural infection offers a much better shield against the delta variant than vaccines."

As expected:

"The study was "the largest real-world analysis comparing natural immunity - gained from an earlier infection - to the protection provided by one of the most potent vaccines currently in use."

"It was remarkable that the mainstream press was finally giving voice to scientists to criticize President Biden's push to start doling out booster jabs. This study further questions the credibility of relying on vaccines, given that the study showed that the vaccinated were ultimately 13x as likely to be infected as those who were infected previously, and 27x more likely to be symptomatic."

Vaccinated "Risk of hospitalization eight times higher" than natural immunity.

Israel was "the first country to achieve widespread coverage by the vaccine, Israel is now in an unthinkable situation: daily case numbers have reached new record levels as the delta variant penetrates the vaccines' protection like a hot knife slicing through butter."

​

 

CDC VAER site

Remember, we've only been vaccinating for a little over 8 months.

ADVERSE Events related to COVID: 488,318
Deaths 6,128
Life Threatening 7,896
Permanent Disability 7,059
Hospitalized 28,174
Emergency Room 64,644
Inflammation 3,648

United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Public Health Service (PHS), Centers for Disease Control (CDC) / Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) 1990 - 08/20/2021, CDC WONDER On-line Database. Accessed at http://wonder.cdc.gov/vaers.html on Aug 27, 2021 5:56:21 PM

 

Are you suggesting that everyone should try and get infected instead of having the vaccine? Have you seen the death rate of the unvaccinated compared to the vaccinated?

Your link then goes on to say that even those that had been previously infected should have a booster vaccine.

 

The study I posted was true at the time of the Wuhan variant and the Alpha variant.
Delta has changed things. Is this too hard to understand? Your very graph says "amid a delta wave." Are you the only one who hasn't realized that Delta is different??? So, this being true for Delta doesn't make of the study I published before, on the ancestral variants, untrue.
Still, that Israeli study you are quoting has several flaws, which I addressed in a thread on this, started by Steve N.
Science evolves when new information becomes available. Delta is new.
If you want the complete picture on this study you're quoting, consult this post of mine:
http://www.politicalforum.com/index...perior-to-the-vaccine.591504/#post-1072888005

 

Everyone with a brain knew that there would be variants. COVID natural immunity has never been inferior to vaccinated immunity. Vaccinated immunity has never been as good as the claims by the vaccine lobby. And, natural immunity does not spawn dangerous variants.

 

These vaccines are not spawning dangerous variants either. The Delta's genome was first uploaded to GISAID on October 5, 2020. Vaccination in India only started on January 16, 2021. So, short of a time travel machine, the vaccine couldn't have spawned the variant. Ideas to the contrary are absurd, non-scientific conspiracy theories.

And when you talk about "natural immunity" - do understand that what is meant by that in this study is not some PREVIOUS immunity that people have against the virus so that they never catch it. It's the immunity generated by surviving the natural infection (with all its serious risks), that is, that person has ALREADY caught the virus, unvaccinated, and exposed to all the complications the virus can cause. They are comparing this to a vaccinated individual, in terms of odds of breakthrough infection versus odds of re-infection.

So, see, for the "natural" one, it's catching the virus twice, while for the vaccinated arm of the study, it's catching the virus only once (and generally, a mild case).

Me, I'd rather catch it once (and mildly) than being exposed to catching it twice, even if the odds of the former are a bit bigger than the odds of the latter, for the Delta.

You probably didn't read the post in which I explained it (despite my linking to it), or else if you did, it flew over your head.

"Everyone with a brain knew that there would be variants" - sure, but the USUAL trend in evolutionary matters is that the virus gets more infectious but less lethal as it evolves into variants. This virus though, is behaving the opposite way in terms of severity (Delta causes 1,000x bigger viral load). So, yes, it's a very unpredictable virus.

Also, you're not taking into account the following: the study you quoted never looked at booster shots. And we can tweak the mRNA vaccines to new variants. Also, your study shows that the best protection for those who got the natural infection is to ALSO get vaccinated. It's lovely when people read a study, don't understand it, and start spouting nonsense and latches onto conclusions that are not what the study is saying. Very common among clueless lay people.

------------

But hey, be my guest. Don't get vaccinated. Collect your Darwin Award. Humankind's gene pool will say "thanks."

 

Pray tell, how many of these are correlations rather than causality?
And what's the percentage of it, given that we've vaccinated what, 180 million people already? Now, put this way, very tiny, huh?
And how many deaths the virus itself has caused? 650,000. Does that compare favorably to 6,128? And have you realized that 6,128 is deaths by all causes? So, you get a guy terminally ill with cancer who for some reason still wanted the vaccine (a good reason - not to catch Covid and die alone, isolated from family, instead of dying of cancer surrounded by family) then the guy dies of cancer - have you realized that this case will also be counted? Do you actually think that it's the vaccine that killed him???
You say ADVERSE events in all caps, have you realized that they include a sore arm?
Yes, we've only been vaccinating for 8 months but we've vaccinated many more people than the people who caught the virus... still, the virus has killed and maimed thousands of times more than these deaths YOU are attributing to the vaccine. Do you realize that a reporting system is not a judgment that these deaths were CAUSED by the vaccines? People die. They keep dying, vaccinated or not.

 

Given that I'm sure people won't take the trouble of going to the other thread where I explained this study better, I'm reproducing it here.

Bear with me, I'll be long because this study necessitates careful consideration.

Oh boy, the Delta variant is changing a lot of what we used to know... it's almost like a new virus.

With the ancestral variants and Alpha, there was evidence that the vaccines conferred better immunity than the natural infection (because the vaccine induced more neutralizing antibodies against the spike protein, than the natural infection with its more diffuse reaction against additional and less important viral proteins). This study points to the opposite direction for Delta.

Now, where this study is a bit lacking, is in the fact that yes, we do know that the Delta can re-infect those who had ancestral infections, and can break through the vaccines and infect the vaccinated. We do know that immunity against Delta from the vaccines is significant lower than against the ancestral variants.

What the study did not take into account, is a booster shot. We now have significant evidence that a booster shot sort of recovers the efficacy of the vaccine against Delta. It results in more neutralizing antibodies, at least by a factor of 3, in some cases by a factor of 10.

So it would be interesting to know if the superior immunity against Delta conferred by the natural infection ALSO holds true in the case of those who had the two doses of the vaccine plus the booster. It may very well be that the superiority will reverse again, in favor of the vaccine.

Another thing to consider is how cellular immunity factors in these situations. It is possible that the infection with the whole virus confers more cellular immunity than the stimulus provided by the vaccine, although the latter also does stimulate cellular immunity. Maybe the latter would stimulate more cellular immunity after boosters.

----------

What I find very dangerous in interpreting this study in the sense that vaccines are useless, is that it isn't taking into consideration severity of illness.

Sure, OK, this study is saying that unvaccinated people who catch Covid-19 have a smaller chance of getting re-infected, than the odds of vaccinated people having a breakthrough infection.

The problem is, unvaccinated people have a much higher risk of a SEVERE infection resulting in hospitalization and death than vaccinated people. I was just reading stats showing a 29 times bigger risk of hospitalization for the unvaccinated.

Now, this changes the calculation significantly, doesn't it?

Because now the choice is:

A - I'm going for the natural immunity conferred by the natural disease, so I'm going unvaccinated until I catch it; then, I will be less likely to catch it twice, than vaccinated people to catch it once (because, see, this is interesting, situation A implies odds of catching it twice for the unvaccinated in this study, while the vaccinated are catching it only once). Well, the problem with this is that catching it only once ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE UNVACCINATED can still kill you, or land you in a hospital or an ICU, and you may come out of it with significant organ damage for the rest of your life. So going unvaccinated waiting for the natural infection doesn't seem very wise.

B - I'm going for the vaccine-induced immunity; I'll be more likely to get a breakthrough case than the odds of someone who has had Covid-19 already to get it twice. However my breakthrough case if it happens, is overwhelmingly likely to be mild and to keep me away from hospitals and ICUs and away from permanent organ damage; and hey, it's best to catch it only once than to catch it twice.

Buddy, it's a no-brainer that situation B is safer.

There is even a C choice:

C - I'm going for the 2-dose vaccine-induced immunity AND a booster; maybe I'll be even more protected than the folks with the natural immunity in situation A.

-------

So, you say, [I was talking here to the poster in another thread] you had Covid then the vaccine, and if you knew then what you know now, you wouldn't have accepted the vaccine.

But wait a moment. You're forgetting another conclusion of this study: that the best immunity was the one delivered by a THIRD group (the study has 3 groups, right?), the one that had the infection AND one dose of the vaccine (likely this would be even better for those with the infection and two doses of the vaccine, but unfortunately the study didn't include those).

So, your vaccination did add to your protection, according to this study. Why, then, you wouldn't want the vaccine? Again, sure, I understand that in your case with chest pains, it feels scary. But 999,997.5 people out of each 100,000 people will not experience the chest pains you had...

-------

To sort this out, a larger study would be needed to compare more groups (the three the study addressed, plus several more):

1 - Unvaccinated people who caught the virus

2 - Vaccinated people (2 doses) who haven't had the virus yet.

3 - Unvaccinated people who caught the virus, then took one dose of the vaccine.

4 - Unvaccinated people who caught the virus, then took two doses of the vaccine [protection might be even higher, the study didn't address these]

5 - Vaccinated people (2 doses) who haven't had the virus yet, then got a booster 3rd shot [maybe it's the best protection, the study didn't address these]

6 - Vaccinated people (2 doses) who then catch the virus in a breakthrough infection [See, maybe these would be BEST protected against a SECOND bout of the virus, maybe above group 1; this was also not addressed by the study

7 - Vaccinated people (2 doses + a booster) who then catch the virus in a breakthrough infection [might be even better protected against another bout, than group 6 and 1]

-------

Now, do you see how the study is a bit unfair to the vaccinated people? First of all, it doesn't address severity of infection. Second, it's comparing people with odds of getting the virus TWICE (groups 1 and 3) to people who might get it ONCE (group 2). That's apples and oranges.

For a really oranges and oranges comparison, one would need to compare group 6 to group 1, to look at the odds of catching the virus twice, for those who had it and just relied on the natural immunity, versus those who had it but also added the vaccine protection (your case).

--------

It's not that I am criticizing this study. It is what it is. It compared 3 groups and came up with some useful information. But what I'm saying is, the full picture would only be achieved with 7 groups, and we most definitely CANNOT interpret this study as "the vaccines are useless" - regardless of breakthrough infections, they are milder in the vaccinated, and it may very well be that a booster will still change the conclusions one might take from this study (group 5).

A study often has limitations of recruitment and budget etc., and can't always look at EVERYTHING. But what I'm saying is, only 3 groups, incomplete picture when 7 groups would be needed for a more complete conclusion.

 

I mentioned in June that I was burnt out and was abandoning this thread.

I didn't take long for the thread to get infected by anti-vaxxers...

My attitude towards anti-vaxxers, though, has evolved. I always tried to gently explain why their views are in error... lately I've rather thought "OK, be my guest, don't get vaccinated; just go and collect your Darwin Award; humankind's gene pool says thanks."

 

Gee, then what's this?

Vaccines Could Drive The Evolution Of More COVID-19 ...
https://www.npr.org/2021/02/09/965703047/vaccines-could-drive-the-evolution-of-more-covid-19-mutants
Feb 9, 2021So far, the vaccines still seem to work. Although, scientists are keeping a close eye on a variant first seen in South Africa. But the vaccines themselves could drive the evolution of more mutants....

No need to put natural immunity it in quotes.

Cross immunity is real.
Why wouldn't a vaccinated person who then catches COVID have natural immunity?

Who are you explaining this to? Why would anyone think than anything else was being compared? Natural immunity is 13 times stronger than vaccine immunity.

As long as the vaccine immunity does not compromise natural immunity, that would seem a good choice.

As long as we will keep rolling our sleeves up, they should have a very nice business model.

I'm 99.9% likely to survive COVID without the vaccine and 99.99% likely to survive with the vaccine. So your "concern" over my safety even while you launch insults seems a bit feigned. A bit more honesty would look good on you.

Vaccination could jeopardise our natural immunity to COVID-19, virologist cautions.

Please post evidence that you are a virologist.

https://www.vanguardngr.com/2021/01...ral-immunity-to-covid-19-virologist-cautions/

Rather than getting mouthy, post your bio showing why I should value your opinion over Dr. Omilabu's.

 

"Vaccines *could* etc."
Have they?
I used "natural immunity" between quotes because some people may read the title of these articles and conclude that they are sufficiently immune to the coronavirus before encountering it, which is not the case; these articles are talking about a survivor of the first bout.

Look, I can't believe you think that I'd be naïve enough to give you my specific biography and "post evidence that [I am] a virologist." Haha, nice try. Do you think I want to be doxxed? I've seen it happening and it isn't pretty. Haven't you noticed that this is an anonymous forum? Haven't you noticed that there are big interests at hand? Do you think I'd let you know who I really am in real life, under the risk of who knows what? But if you want to see evidence of expertise, there are 7,000 posts for you to browse and read. I've AMPLY demonstrated expertise, to a degree that is virtually IMPOSSIBLE to fake. Just read one of my posts, for example this one, and see if it seems to you like the work of someone faking expertise, or rather the work of someone who does possess the expertise:
http://www.politicalforum.com/index...e-pentagon-says.585751/page-2#post-1072491711
Look at the level of detail here; something that the usual person or even sources like Wikipedia wouldn't know:
http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/be-very-afraid.581537/#post-1072336237

Without specifics I can tell that I'm an MD/PhD with 41 years of experience since graduation from my Ivy League medical school, I'm a professor at one of the most prestigious medical schools in the United States, and I've authored a few hundred peer-reviewed articles, two textbooks (one of them, a best seller), and several chapters in textbooks. Now, MUCH before what you're now posting, you might want to look at one of my discussions with 557 about the concept of original antigenic sin. Here:
http://www.politicalforum.com/index...es-and-new-variants-of-the-sars-cov-2.585865/

So, you see, I'm perfectly aware of the concerns raised by colleagues, and I've raised them even before them.

Of course there's been concern about antibody dependent enhancement too. And sure, antigenic drift can happen to a virus facing a vaccinated population (but like I said, that's NOT what happened to Delta since it emerged before the vaccines). Are there risks? Of course. But what you need to understand is the emergency associated with this pandemic that has claimed 650K lives in the United States and millions around the world. The mRNA vaccines are new technology but they work, and they've saved countless lives. The risks are vastly outweighed by the benefits. That's why they earned EMERGENCY use authorization and now Pfizer has earned full approval. Also, these are *concerns* but they haven't been seen in real life. For example, we haven't really found confirmed examples of ADE. I'm actually more worried about the original antigenic sin aspect. There's a risk, but again, it's outweighed by the benefits.

Whatever you think about the infection-fatality rate, it's not 0.1%. But yes, it is smaller than the 1% people talk about. You might look at one of my recent threads where I talked about a recent model proposing 0.31% if we factor in all the undiagnosed and asymptomatic cases - it used data from a time when we had performed fewer tests; my estimate is that it might be as high as 0.54%. But even if it's just 0.31%, what all these optimistic stats fail to consider (and there's a reason why it comes from epidemiologists rather than from clinicians - I'm at a much better position to judge, being an MD/PhD and not just a PhD) is that the death toll is not all that is concerning regarding the SARS-CoV-2, given that up to 20% of survivors (including a lot of people with mild and even asymptomatic infection) come out of it with significant organ damage to hearts, lungs, kidneys, brains, beta pancreatic cells, the coagulation system... and I showed a study about the mortality by all causes associated with the first 5 months after a discharge from a hospital for a Covid-19-related hospitalization, with deaths that typically do not count as Covid-19 deaths if they occur for example due to a stroke or pulmonary embolism two months after recovery from the acute phase of Covid-19 due to undiagnosed endothelial lesions and hyper-coagulability state from the past case of Covid-19. No, this virus is best avoided...

I apologize for the Darwin Award jab. It's just that I've felt a bit burnt out and irritated with all the anti-vaxxing movement and all the denial out there. I explained in a post my changed attitude... which I also said, it's only here where I vent. In my professional life I remain compassionate, I try to explain to patients why they should be vaccinated, and if they still decline I respect their decision although I lament it.

 

So you aren't just a big mouth with a lot of insults, you are claiming actual medical qualifications of the highest order, which you chose to conceal out of an abundance of caution. Not impossible, so thanks for posting.

And yet you were so smugly dismissive.

You, with a straight face, are claiming that the claims previous that this approach was going to put COVID behind us, are still believable? Remember when 60% immunity = herd immunity?

Here is an alternative to consider: This attempt to control with mRNA will fail, and a marker on the route to that failure will be a flurry of "boosters" overcome by a virus that is producing variants more rapidly than boosters can be produced and distributed. At that point it will be clear that all this effort at vaccination should have been directed at treatment, and, if the vaccine interferes with natural immunity, that you will then live an existence wholly dependent on a continual supply of boosters, which, isn't completely unfamiliar with those that have aids, who must continue to consume a daily life long cocktail of expensive pharmaceuticals, and which just happens to be Fauci's last greatest triumph.

For every single person, in every single case? Yes or No.

No need for full caps.

No need for special characters around words, they just give a sense of childishness that damages your credibility.

Not for any group? What is it for folks under 40, robust health, no comorbidities, previously exposed to less harmful corona viruses, such as 229E, NL63, OC43, and HKU1?

Well, that's not really choice anymore. Vaccinated or unvaccinated. Further, you should also know that a "mild" case often comes with some of these same damage, and therefore could also be associated with post vaccine cases. So you really don't know that getting vaccinated takes all that off the table. You can get vaccinated, and still catch it, still spread it, still be hospitalized and still die.

I know 3 people just in my circle that lost hearing in one ear 3-8 weeks post vaccination. I'm not anti-vaxx but I'm damn sure respectful that they are powerful and to be respected. I'm in a constant state of vaccine immunity; smallpox, polio, flu and tetanus.

Yeah? Well fkn get over it. You are calling people who are in a state of vaccinated immunity, who get annual vaccines or in the case of tetanus, every decade, "anti-vaxx" you might as well scribble "I'm as dumb as Biden" on your forehead. And if you think that such bullying and wrongful mistreatment of others is going to gain their compliance, well, you haven't met many Americans, have you? If you truly want to advance your position and not just chest thump and mistreat others, then admit what you do not know, and you do not know that mRNA approach is going to work. It's plainly obvious just comparing what we were told at the start to the situation we find ourselves in, that this may not be Kabul evacuation bad, but, it sure as hell isn't going according to plan, unless these folks were previously lying, which Fauci, has admitted after being repeatedly caught.

Remember "14 days to bend the curve"? That was March 20, 2020.

9 quarters later we are at a 7 day average of 156,000 new cases a day an a 1,000 deaths/day. You are telling me this is going according to plan? It sure as hell wasn't the plan described to us, which means either they were lying or their predictions were inaccurate. And if your predictions aren't accurate, then you actually don't know what the hell you are talking about, do you? And if you don't know what the hell you are talking about, why the hell all the bullying to get compliance with your desired course of action? Here's a novel fkn idea, how about you throw all your assumptions back on the table, reconsider your course of action, and this time explain rather than demand compliance, while admitting what you don't know? But, what we will see, as we go through time, if we are on the right track? You know, gain credibility rather than demanding it.

Why in the hell is Fauci still getting a microphone shoved into his face? Who with a fkn brain trusts anything that guy says? I can predict his every position, before he states it with the proposition:

i) No matter what the evidence, or the experience, he is going to say that the solution is more vaccinations.

Look at how much effort it took Rand Paul to get this lying bastard to finally admit that he has no evidence that the state of those with natural immunity is any better if you throw a vaccine on top of it?

We have 53% fully vaccinated.
We have 30,786,368 recovered, or 9%.
2% with active cases.

Further, are you measuring risk correctly?
If you get the vaccine, you are 100% exposed to the risk of the vaccine, which is greater than zero.

If you are among the 89% that hasn't caught the disease, you're at zero risk of the harm from COVID.
If you are among the 89% of those who has not caught COVID in the last year and a half, while the pandemic has raged, what are the odds that you will not catch it over the next 3 years? If we don't have herd immunity in 3 years, we are never going to have herd immunity.

Another thing you should probably be honest about is the harm that the professional community had done to their own credibility with all the lying and pretense to knowledge that it's clear they do not have. Yet, they are not calling each other out, Rand Paul is an exception. They do not call out social media for suppressing their views. They appear far more invested into maintaining a facade of invincibility that must not be questioned. Do you have any sense of how that drives the urge to tell you to stuff it all up your nose and disregard everything that you say?

Everytime I see the vaccine pimps discount natural immunity or leave it out of their calculations, it leads me to consider that they are part of the Big-Phama hustle. And if you are who you claim you are, you have these bastards in your office, on a regular basis, pushing to push their products and you know exactly what I'm talking about.

You may claim all the reasons in the world for discounting natural immunity, but, I can more accurately predict their positions before they even state them with the following much simpler proposition:

ii) They make money by pushing jabs, and when they are done with their pitch, the message will be "more jabs! more jabs! everybody get more jabs!"

The data point I'm watching is: "does vaccine immunity interfere with natural immunity."

Think about why you hold back with them. If you view us as non person characters that you can freely abuse, should you really be surprised to find that your claims delivered in such an insulting manner aren't blindly embraced?

 

You have some good points about my insulting attitude. It's changed. For one full year I was extremely patient. At one point I got tired of it. I posted a thread explaining the change in attitude. It's regrettable but it is what it is. Still, for a long time I was super nice about it and brought useful info to people. But my patience has limits.
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I never dismissed natural immunity. It's just that the comparisons being made don't take everything into account, like I explained with the 7 groups that would be needed to sort it out. But yes, of course there is some natural immunity. Whether or not it is actually superior to a regimen of say, one booster every 6 months, we don't know yet, since the article did not address it.
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No, I don't think the mRNA technology will fail. I think it is extremely promising. Research has started already for an mRNA vaccine for HIV. It has cancer applications. As for the SARS-CoV-2, we will likely need updated shots from time to time like we do for the flu. No big deal.
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Yes, sure, the pharmaceutical companies do try to advertise directly to physicians. In the past they were more outrageous about it. There's been self-regulation that decreased it a bit, and individual hospitals and practices have their own controls. In our hospital we do not allow drug reps to visit us, period. We have zero use for them. The one thing we get in touch with them, but rather directly with the companies, is about those that offer patient assistance programs. My hospital is extremely ethical, believe it or not.
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About my credentials you adopt a sort of mocking tone, and I'll tell you this: I don't give a rat's ass if you believe me or not. Do you think I'd lose any sleep if some internet warrior doesn't believe in my credentials? The people who need to believe in them, do: my hospital, my university, my State Medical Board, my specialty board, and my patients.
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Childish, using *word*? It's one of the ways to highlight a word, simple as that. Sometimes I highlight a word with caps but people interpret it as shouting. Sometimes I wrap then in between these asterisks. Sometimes I use bold font. What I find childish, is you trying to score a point against me about such a minor issue. Get a grip.
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Fauci: I'm at no obligation to defend him. I've criticized him here many times.
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When I say the benefits vastly outweigh the risks, of course I'm talking in population terms. For the individual, sure, the few that have fatal reactions (which do exist, I never denied it), it's no consolation for them and for their loved ones that for the vast majority the vaccines are beneficial. The virus kills more, though. This is a pretty simple concept to understand, and is exactly the same for every single medication known to humankind. In clinical pharmacology, it's always a question of the balance between risks and benefits, as we say to lay people. In scientific terms we talk about "number needed to treat" and "number needed to harm." Same concept, expressed in statistical terms.
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60% = herd immunity - If you want to browse my talks with @557 regarding herd immunity you'll learn that the concept is way more complicated than people think, and there is no such thing as a fixed number. This is actually a very fascinating topic; if you want to learn more about it, do explore these discussions between him and me.
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I don't know if I addressed everything that you proposed above. Yours was a long post. I usually don't like to respond line by line, I respond more in bulk than anything-, about what I remember. If I didn't, my apologies. Have a nice day.

 

I believe you and I applaud the stance.

Not more than the dead one. You do not have a legitimate right to bully someone into a vaccine that kills them. Regardless of what you claimed the odds were when they were bullied into taking the shot, if kills them or injures them, then it's now a 100% likely that the vaccine resulted in vaccine injury or death. You cannot, legitimately, force someone into an act like that.

The State's legitimate interest was herd immunity in order to protect against the ravages of a deadly disease. Well, it's not as deadly as first feared, death for healthy individuals without comorbidities, is zero until you go to decimal points. Secondly, with the vaccinated catching and spreading the virus, achieving herd immunity may not be a possibility, which you yourself concede by shifting from vaccination plus boosters, and it doesn't look like annual "like the flu" is going to cut it.

 

Thank you.
[/quote]
Not more than the dead one. You do not have a legitimate right to bully someone into a vaccine that kills them. Regardless of what you claimed the odds were when they were bullied into taking the shot, if kills them or injures them, then it's now a 100% likely that the vaccine resulted in vaccine injury or death. You cannot, legitimately, force someone into an act like that.[/quote] If you have followed my posting, you necessarily know that I've been always against mandates. So if you are using the generic "you" as "the government" or something (I'm not a part of it), then, fine, but if you are using "you" as in me, you have the wrong target.

I won't say you are wrong, here. Yes, there will be no herd immunity which decreases the argument for the State to legitimately mandate vaccinations. By the way, I appreciate your intelligent thinking about this issue. Like I said, I got frustrated with anti-vaxxers who spout ridiculous conspiracy theories like the vaccine will change the human DNA (no, it doesn't do that) but you are different; you are thinking deeply about the issue and it is to be commended.

Now, the issue of the disease not being as deadly as first feared, I'd say it may very well be the very opposite. This disease may very well be more deadly than first feared, or at the very least, more damaging to health and limb. Again, people focus too much on the death toll, forgetting about the organ damage that the SARS-CoV-2 causes including in young, healthy, and asymptomatic individuals, as shown for example in the Ohio University study showing significant heart damage in college athletes that had asymptomatic cases. While most cases of myocarditis in this population are mild, they share with other causes of heart inflammation, some concerning markers that could result in silent and progressive congestive heart failure until people will need a heart transplant or will die without one. Buried (pun not intended) in my posting history somewhere, I posted the statements from several leading cardiologists, fearing that in a few years, with the acute phase of this pandemic far gone, we may see a pandemic of heart failure.

Also, like I said, the death rate may very well be underestimated in the sense that Covid-19 deaths so far are still only listed in relationship to the acute phase of the illness. This virus is known to seriously damage the endothelium, which is the inner layer of blood vessels, which needs to be intact for the blood to flow smoothly without turbulence that can lead to blood clots. So, the situation in which someone gets the acute phase of Covid-19, recovers nicely, but 3 months later drops dead of a stroke or pulmonary embolism, is not counted as a Covid-19 death. It should be, though, but given that the causal relationship can be rarely ascertained without an autopsy, it isn't, most of the time, given that natural deaths where no foul play is suspected rarely end up in autopsies. I also posted somewhere a study showing a sharp increase in deaths within the first five months after a hospital discharge when the reason for the hospitalization was the acute phase of Covid-19. Not to forget that even in those who don't die either in the acute phase or the convalescence phase, many may come out of it with non-fatal but significant sequelae to hearts, lungs, brains, kidneys, and pancreas. Also, one never knows with viruses. I remind you of the case of the Epstein-Barr virus, which causes in its acute phase the mostly benign and harmless mononucleosis, but becomes latent and decades later triggers fatal lymphomas. This disease is too new and we don't know the full consequences of it.

So it's best to avoid the infection. Now, you'll say, but the vaccines do not avoid the infection with Delta, and you'll be right about it; the vaccines don't do it for all people. However, while the vaccine doesn't avoid it in all cases, it does two things: one, it significantly decreases the odds of infection even with Delta. A vaccinated person with a good titer of neutralizing antibodies is still several times less likely to catch Delta in the first place than a non-vaccinated person, therefore the person is more protected against the above-mentioned dangers. One wouldn't know that, if one only looked at bombastic headlines saying "OMG of 6 people in a cruise ship who caught Delta, 4 were unvaccinated!" What these headlines never include, is that if you plot these breakthrough infections to the total number of vaccinated people, they are still a tiny minority, and they still occur in smaller percentage than the infections among the unvaccinated.

Two, even when a vaccinated person catches the Delta, the course of illness is still significantly milder in most patients. While like I said even in mild and asymptomatic cases the virus can still be damaging, that damage is more pronounced in severe cases. So if you have to have the virus, you're better off if the disease is milder. Vaccinated people clear the virus from their system faster - they mount a secondary immune response and their titers of neutralizing antibodies even if they had faded, spike up again, sooner than it would have happened if the person had never encounter the antigen before. So, having the virus cleared faster, there is a smaller opportunity for the virus to damage brains, kidneys, lungs, the endothelium, etc.

Again, despite your good points, it remains clear that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks in population terms. I continue to strongly recommend it, and when I'm nasty instead of nice like I'm being now, I continue to vent the frustration by saying (only here; not in my professional life) that the unvaccinated are candidates to the Darwin Award. Again, before you berate me too much for this attitude, do observe that for the longest time during this very thread that I started and we are using for this exchange, I was the nicest possible person, patiently explaining the ins and outs of the vaccines. But like many other Americans, and also from sheer exhaustion (the healthcare workforce is very exhausted and very frustrated), I soured at the unvaccinated. They *are*, after all, much more responsible for the continuous spread of the outbreak than the vaccinated.

About annual flu shots, and maybe a need for bi-annual Covid-19 shots - I still don't think that having a booster every six months is a significant burden. Not to forget, at this point we don't even know if this will indeed be the ultimate need. What many don't factor in when they talk about fading neutralizing antibodies, is cellular immunity. We the vaccinated may very well develop better immunity against the SARS-CoV-2 than expected when we just look at antibody titers. Also, we are only using the first generation vaccines as of now, while there is interesting research about coming up with broader spectrum vaccines that would be likely to counter a large number of variants. I remind you that this is a novel disease and the knowledge base about it is constantly evolving. Compare this to other viral diseases that have been with humankind for millennia, and against which vaccines have existed for several decades. I do not think that what we have now is the last and only response that Virology and Immunology can come up with.

I would like to introduce another aspect to our discussion, now. I sense in you significant frustration with Big Pharma's agenda of profiting from the vaccine market and the booster market. While I understand people's frustration with an industry that is abusive in many ways, as in setting prices that are too high and unreasonable for their products, and while I'm not particularly linked to Big Pharma [not directly employed by them, and like I said I don't even meet drug reps although it is virtually impossible in what I do to have zero ties with them as they do participate in the pool of research grants and even if one personally may have no disclosures to announce, one is never alone in a research group and some members of it will have those ties], I do understand that we live in a capitalist society, that capitalism is better than communism, and that without these for-profit corporations we wouldn't have the bulk of modern medications and vaccines that do a lot of good. I don't know if you have kids of your own, but I do and I am certainly thankful for living in an era when polio and measles vaccines are available. So, yeah, they do earn profits, and like for any other industry in a capitalist society, it is natural for them to have profits, although some regulation should be in place to avoid them getting too greedy and too unreasonable.

Anyway, what I wanted to say after this long introduction is this: someone gets a big time bronchitis and is miserable. The doctor prescribes a Z-pack, the person takes it, improves, heals, and feels thankful for the existence of the Z-pack. The person does not run to an online forum to complain of Pfizer's (the maker of Z-pack) profits associated with the sales of Z-pack. Then the person gets a bit older but still scores a young, hot, and eager girlfriend. The person then obtains a prescription for Viagra, and enjoys delicious sex with his girlfriend, feeling thankful for the existence of this medication. Typically that person then doesn't run to an online forum to complain that Pfizer, the maker of Viagra, is profiting from the sales of Viagra. Funny that the very same company, Pfizer, is berated for profiting from the sales of their Covid-19 vaccine, right? There is something about vaccines that seems to be more emotional in people's minds, and seems to trigger stronger feelings.

Me, frankly, I don't mind that Pfizer profits from Z-pack, from Viagra, AND from Comirnaty, their Covid-19 vaccine. I think that these are natural features of a capitalist society, and companies need the profits to recover their R&D investment and to remain in business, so that they can come up with modern medications and vaccines that benefit all of us.

 

Interesting take from a newsletter that came to my mailbox. I don't know how to link to a message in my mailbox and there is no clickable link on it, so the only remedy is to copy and past here the relevant parts about the idea that immunity from the vaccines is waning may be exaggerated (and I should add, there is also cellular immunity):

"At first glance, the Israeli data seems straightforward: People who had been vaccinated in the winter were more likely to contract the virus this summer than people who had been vaccinated in the spring.

Yet it would truly be proof of waning immunity only if the two groups — the winter and spring vaccine recipients — were otherwise similar to each other. If not, the other differences between them might be the real reason for the gap in the Covid rates.

As it turns out, the two groups were different. The first Israelis to have received the vaccine tended to be more affluent and educated. By coincidence, these same groups later were among the first exposed to the Delta variant, perhaps because they were more likely to travel. Their higher infection rate may have stemmed from the new risks they were taking, not any change in their vaccine protection.

Statisticians have a name for this possibility — when topline statistics point to a false conclusion that disappears when you examine subgroups. It’s called Simpson’s Paradox.

This paradox may also explain some of the U.S. data that the C.D.C. has cited to justify booster shots. Many Americans began to resume more indoor activities this spring. That more were getting Covid may reflect their newfound Covid exposure (as well as the arrival of Delta), rather than any waning of immunity over time.

Sure enough, other data supports the notion that vaccine immunity is not waning much.

The ratio of positive Covid tests among older adults and children, for example, does not seem to be changing, Dowdy notes. If waning immunity were a major problem, we should expect to see a faster rise in Covid cases among older people (who were among the first to receive shots). And even the Israeli analysis showed that the vaccines continued to prevent serious Covid illness at essentially the same rate as before."

 

Do you mind giving your take on the following?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-double-pfizer-covid-antibody-levels-in-study

By my math that's 2.6 times the antibody levels.

If one vaccine produces 2.6 times as many antibodies does that mean it's providing greater protection? If not, why waste the time and money on this study?

I'll take the Moderna without the metal flakes in the vials. How in God's name does a vaccine get through QC with visible metal flake contamination?

This from the University of Michigan Health System indicates that the level of antibodies in our immune system can be predictive. “If your immune system makes low levels of antibodies, you may have a greater chance of developing repeated infections.”

Yale just put out a paper listing both Moderna and Pfizer as offering 95% efficacy, isn't it clear at this point that neither are hitting that mark? Why aren't they using the most accurate and update date information? It would go a long ways toward creating trust if they showed more commitment to accuracy than "messaging".

Too bad the media is so busy hammering people for “spreading misinformation” that they fail to ask sensible questions of these "experts" who claim the now dated 95% effectiveness number and parity between Pfizer and Moderna.

 

Zorro, it's perfectly possible to foster a lower titer of antibodies and still achieve 95% efficacy, if that titer is sufficient in terms of neutralizing, sterilizing immunity. Simply, the other vaccine with the higher titers might be a bit of overkill but both would still do the same job, in all practical terms.

By the way, that's what the very comments in your article say: "Both vaccines produce high levels of antibodies, he noted, and other studies have shown even relatively low levels of antibodies are protective."

Say, you need x level of antibodies to avoid infection in 95% of individuals. Say, one vaccine produces 2x, and another one 6x. In this case, even though the second vaccine produced three times higher titers, both are above the minimum that is needed to provide protection.

Now, you'd say, "but wait a moment, the one with 3x more, maybe would get 100% protection, instead of 95%, no?" No, not necessarily. Because, see, this is a population that is being studied when we get to a 95% efficacy - that is, 19 in 20 people get protected but 1 in 20 does not. So, why did those 1 in 20 did not get protected? Maybe because those individuals have a weak immune system, or are too old, or were taking medications that suppress the immunity. Those persons may very well fail both vaccines... And also be unprotected even when taking the supposedly stronger vaccine. So a population can have similar stats, while individuals can fail even the stronger vaccine and actually for that individual the titers may fall below the protective levels (thus why that person remained susceptible). That person fell below the average for the population.

The bottom line is, titers of neutralizing antibody and populational efficacy are not the same concept and do not necessarily overlap in a linear relationship.

Pay attention to the phrasing you got from the University of Michigan: "you may have a greater chance..." or you may not. Theoretically, yes, but viruses behave differently, and individuals have different levels of immune competency.

Also, don't forget cellular immunity. If a vaccine has enough cellular immunogenicity, even in the presence of a smaller titer of circulating antibodies, the secondary immune response will jump-start massive antibody production. So a vaccine may be very efficacious once the vaccinated individual does encounter the virus, even though just by testing the person's blood before that encounter with the virus, the antibodies seemed to be at a lower titer.

The dose of the Pfizer vaccine is 30% of the Moderna's, which may be one of the reasons why Moderna is a bit more robust. The Moderna 2nd dose was also given 4 weeks later versus 3 weeks. Maybe the 3-week interval is a bit too soon (see for example how the AstraZeneca improved its performance when the Brits decided to space it out more, to 12 weeks).

Regarding the flakes in the vial, that I know (correct me if I'm wrong) this contamination only occurred in Japan, and it's been speculated that it may have to do with improper technique at a local level. So, it seems like the vials delivered to Japan were perfectly good... but got spoiled there.

But yes, accidents happen. Didn't you see the snafu in the third-party factory J&J had hired to produce their vaccine? They ended up mixing up the ingredients of the J&J with those for the AZ and spoiled 16 million doses.

About Yale, you need to give me the specific study for me to give you an opinion. See, one needs to understand what kind of "end point" is being considered. You need to see what's the definition of efficacy that is being used in that particular study.

Is the end point (which is a term for what outcome one is measuring) the complete absence of infection with the SARS-CoV-2? No, these vaccines, after Delta became prevalent, do not appear to be delivering these numbers, any longer. But is the end point, the absence of ICU care? In that case, yes, these vaccines are achieving these numbers. So I can't give you an opinion without knowing exactly what study you're talking about, and reading it.

Finally, let me give you this food for thought, too:

Scientific studies CAN and DO have conflicting results, which doesn't necessarily mean that the science is inaccurate. That's something that is often poorly understood by the lay people. They will say, for example, "Study X proves with no doubt that drug A is effective for Covid-19." Someone else will quote a different study and will say "But study Y proves with no doubt that drug A is not effective for Covid-19."

Neither study X nor study Y is necessarily wrong or lacks transparency or accuracy. For the population studied in X under the protocol they designed, the drug seems to have helped, while for the population studied in Y maybe under a different protocol, it did not seem to help.

So what do we do? We do meta-analysis. We put together a large number of studies and then we can have a clearer picture. Maybe study X was an outlier. Or maybe study Y was the outlier.

Also, those studies are not likely to be identical. Maybe, like I said, they used a different protocol. Study X used 100mg of the drug, given over 10 days, while study Y used 50 mg, given over only 5 days. Or Study X used the drug for mild disease while study Y used it for moderate or severe disease. Or Study X used it for a population of otherwise healthy subjects while Study Y used a population with significant co-morbidity. And so on and so forth.

Lay people want science to deliver one clear and unequivocal answer. But it's rarely like that. Definitive conclusions don't jump at us immediately. Science is incremental. It's made of several building blocks, several smaller studies, approaching an issue from several different angles, and especially when it's a novel disease like Covid-19 which has been with us for less than 2 years unlike other diseases that have been with us for millennia, the conclusions will take a while to reach the level of clarity that lay people expect.

So, yes, you can find a study from Israel saying something... another one from Yale saying something different... and it doesn't necessarily mean that one is right and the other one is wrong.

I hope the above helps to ease a bit the frustration you've experienced with these inconclusive and apparently contradictory findings.

 

This is what really sends the media and the public off the rails. People don't understand that one or two studies typically mean very little. Many studies and peer review are required before a consensus is reached and the studies are put into the proper perspective.

When self-publications and preprints became available on the internet things really went to hell. Now we have papers tossed around that were never published or peer reviewed. They are essentially meaningless but most people don't know the difference.

Hell, in physics it can take us half a century to reach a consensus.

 

Yes, absolutely.

Not to be too long in my answer to Zorro, I left out still another very important point: the quality of the evidence.

Different methods deliver different strengths of evidence or level of evidence.

A large meta-analysis involving a large number of prospective randomized controlled trials with sound methodology and a large total number of subjects, delivers the highest strength of evidence.

An isolated retrospective non-randomized cohort observation delivers a much lower strength of evidence.

So, I remember the debate on hydroxychloroquine.

I'd post for example the evidence from a peer-reviewed meta-analysis involving 11,000 subjects, all with prospective randomized controlled trials that were methodologically correct, showing a complete lack of efficacy.

Someone would then counter it by showing some retrospective chart analysis done at some obscure hospital involving 100 charts, published in a trade publication with no peer review, with no control group, with no information on baseline severity of illness, with no data on co-morbid conditions, with the patients having received all sorts of different treatment protocols with other simultaneous drugs, and so on and so forth, "suggesting" efficacy of hydroxychloroquine, and that poster would say, "See, your study is wrong, because this one here proves that it works." Sigh...

I mean, it's not that I actually blame the lay public. They simply don't know better, given that they lack the specific training to be able to understand the methodology and what to expect from it. I'm sure that these same people have their own areas of expertise, but they are not sufficiently knowledgeable about clinical trials. So it's up to us to try and explain... however when politics interferes with it, people tend to stop listening, so attempts to explain these differences were insufficient to change people's minds.

@Zorro if you want to explore the different levels of evidence, consult this source:

https://libguides.winona.edu/ebptoolkit/Levels-Evidence