Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

Jacksonville man in ICU with COVID-19 hoping to receive lifesaving treatment

This is the person I was talking about a few pages back.

 

This is a lie. Sure, there are things that are unknown. But we know what it is, how it works, and we have vaccines that work. They aren't perfect, but they are effective. We have many billions vaccinated so there is no lack of information on the effectiveness and side effects of the vaccine

This is largely untrue. Another lie. While biology is complicated if you try it is easy enough to know what fundamentally is going on and how to minimize it's dangers. That isn't complicated. The only complication is people like you willfully refuse to believe what is known and contemplate the issue for many with lies and disinformation

No, this is stupid. We know the vaccines are highly effective. There is ample evidence to prove that. If other drugs come along to help, and have solid evidence, that's great, they can be used for people with breakthrough or danger of breakthrough. Your continually creating this narrative that the vaccine has made it worse is a lie.

Yeah having worked with engineers, I've found it isn't uncommon that engineers think they know more than they do. They think they have some insight into areas of other sciences that they really don't. (I've seen the same thing with doctors in terms of financial knowledge). That's not to say many, perhaps most engineers know that they don't know what they don't know.

You have exhibited over and over a fundamental misunderstanding of how vaccines work, and the biology behind them. People here have tried to explain it to you, but for whatever reason you seem to prefer to lie over and over again.

(Note, by calling you a liar, I am acknowledging that the only other logical alternative, that you may be stupid, is not the case)

 

These are lies. It is logical that vaccines will "wane", because the level of antibodies the vaccines (or natural immunity) creates decreases. This always happens. It has to happen or otherwise our blood would be a sludge of antibodies from every disease that we've ever gotten.

But what also happens is our bodies develop longer term immunity mechanisms, via Tcells and others. The issue is these usually take 3-5 days to kick in. So it likely won't prevent a rapid incubating virus like covid, the flu, or cold from infecting us, but it will prevent, in most cases, the disease from making us significantly sick. This is true for any vaccine. And of course as a virus mutates it may become less effective. Everybody has always known that.

If most people had gotten vaxxed, then Delta probably would have still come around, but many lives would have been saved, and many hospitalizations avoided. At that point Delta would have mostly been like a flu, and for those that get it without significant illness would then have another layer of natural protection.

This is a lie disguised as a ridiculous and ignorant hypothetical. These vaccines were ground breaking. They are far more effective than any flu vaccine we have ever had. It's unlikely any vaccine will ever be perfect long term against rapidly incubating diseases, but they do provide signicant long term protection.

Of course vaccines will need to adapt as the diseases evolve.

"for the most part" is a relative term. 10% of healthy people could be hospitalized or die, and "for the most part" healthy people are fine. Absolutely nobody would find that acceptable, so it is a ridiculously irrelevant and intentionally misleading statement. For the most part, if I drive 100mph, after a few beers, without seat belts, for me or my kids, we will likely be fine.

 

We could. On some level a lot of folks probably do deep down. It's not as if folks want others to die--quite the opposite.

Yet, how do we empathize with those perpetuating anti-vaxxism who predictably find themselves on a respirator or dying when it was their choice in resisting protecting themselves, their families, others?

 

I have seen my own college educated evangelical brother promoting this lie online. The further along I go, the less I understand.

 

After the way you've carried on about the virus, masks, etc. right here on this board for all to see, these particular statements are . . .

 

Engineers shouldn't practice medicine. The law of physics are constants. Build two exact same airplanes with exact specs, they both will react the same. But give the same medicine to two people with the exact same disease, there's a chance they will react different. Because the laws of biology aren't set like physics. Not to mention, biological like viruses can mutate. There's no such thing as a 737 airplane variant that self mutated.

The vaccine is working exactly as hoped. We had no idea how long vaccine efficacy would remain, because you need time to test it, and time is one constant that doesn't change. We knew the vaccine would likely wane, and we knew boosters were a very likely possibility. Otherwise, why have more than 2 spots for shots on vaccine cards?

We also had no idea how variants would react to the vaccine. Doctors were saying we were in a race between vaccine and variant last April. And even though Delta is more resistant than the wild type of COVID against the vaccine, the vaccine still keeps over 95% of people out of the hospital, and 99% of them alive. And that's a win.

What's a loss is all the unvaxxed who are in the hospital and dying. The Forbes article linked last week said its costing over 1 billion a month, and could be 85% or more preventable had more people been vaccinated. It's really that simple.

 

I'm not disagreeing with any of your arguments, but there is a third alternative to "stupid" and "liar". Instead of someone being a liar or stupid, they may simply be unable to wrap their minds around something as complex as the biological interactions of viruses, vaccines, and humans, and seek to simplify this complexity in some way that makes sense to them. They open themselves to anecdotal evidence of a quack cure (like ivermectin or chloroquine) and accept "evidence" if it is presented by someone with a medical degree. The rest of us often do the same thing, except we are more finicky about who we accept evidence from. We want to know that either the best virologists recommend this path, or the vast majority of virologists promote a particular solution. Those that look for alternative answers tend to be mistrustful of authorities and the statistics they present, the "Deep State" government, doctors who may be on the take accepting money from pharmaceutical companies, etc. They also may have difficulties making sense of the risks involved by taking one path or another. (About a third of my family falls into this category of people.) We have to get through to these people to defeat Covid. Calling them idiots or liars may not be the best way to accomplish that.

 

You have said this over and over in true Trumpian fashion as though there were some great truth here. However, the only truth is, you are offering an opinion with absolutely no substance behind it other than "this is new, so it must be bad". Do you have data, or even a theory based on something that you once learned or studied? Other than an absolutely ridiculous analogy to the Boeing 737Max situation, you cannot support anything that you have suggested, or are you limited to just making "scary statements"?

I am sure that you and your anti-vaxx breathern would have shouted just as loudly against the Polio vaccine and the Small Pox vaccine in those days as well. However, what was your answer going to be to collapsing health care system with millions of dying Americans???

 

Several others responded to your comments already, but let me add this:

It's not complicated. Vaccines are working incredibly well--actually much better than anticipated before the trials started. If we had 90% or greater vaccination rates, we'd be in a very different position right now. Not out of the woods, but closer to normal and much safer.

That's a pretty simple choice. What mucks things up is mis & disinformation that has confused people, many of whom probably know little about infectious disease in the way scientists understand it. Moreover, it has been politicized by the very people promulgating that mis & disinfo and because political leaders have continued to perpetuate it. This is why we have tens of millions confused people.

Whatever complications there are have more to do with actually either (hopefully) eradicating sars-cov-2 (and variants) or keeping it contained at low levels and keeping it from being so deadly. That's for the scientists and policy makers. For the public, get the shot/s and practice good mitigation and safety measures. This is not about our freedoms being taken away. It's not about some unscrupulous *nazi* government looking to control people, it's about alleviating the suffering and death so that we can get through this pandemic.

No matter what the naysayers and anti-vaxxers say, we are all in this together and their bad decisions don't only affect them.

 

Just to add yet another response to Q. While I will never mock or ridicule people dying from covid I understand the apathy for some. It's not about a "mistake" as Tilly and others describe it. I respect Tilly's compassion but Q and some other's responses show no willingness to consider or learn from information that is out there. Saying things like "it's very complex" while disregarding the nuances and successes of vaccines, masks in certain situations etc shows a lack of critical thinking and a very simple minded confirmation bias stream of information gathering. Any actual discourse is completely disingenuous.

 

Some see influencers who encourage antivax and antimask that results in many sick and dead people as analogous to a mass murderer. They may not have shot 20 people but with their influence and willful ignorance they may end up killing more than a mass murderer (who may also have kids and a wife or be someone's brother or son). Hard for me to feel bad for them even though I do feel terrible for those they left behind

 

This is very well articulated, but I'm coming at it from another angle. Yes, there are many who just don't have the aptitude, or the background to grasp some of this. I suspect quite often this is the case. So all they have is they have to trust that the "experts" know what they are talking about. If they decide experts can't be trusted, for reasons you have well articulated, then anything is fair game.

I don't think that is the case here. For somebody to be an engineer, they have to be highly intelligent and capable of understanding complexity and scientific process. So we have someone completely capable of understanding, but willfully choosing not to. Perhaps they believe their self concocted version of reality. I don't know. But nonetheless, what they are spewing are lies. Do they know they are lying? Maybe they do, maybe they don't. Nonetheless they are lies, and they are willfully spreading them. In my view that makes them a liar.

If you take somebody, say Trump for instance, he starts out saying something I suspect he knows isn't true. But after saying it so much, and getting adulation for it, at some point he starts to believe it. Once he believes it, is it no longer lies? Is he no longer a liar?

The same thing, I suspect is going on here. There is an identity affiliation with the lies, and what is true and what isn't gets convoluted in their minds. Nonetheless what is being said are lies, and the person saying them is a liar.

At this point, I'm not trying to convince them. I've seen lots of appeals of how we need to coddle them and perhaps they will come around. They won't, for the most part. I'm not trying to change his mind. I'm posting for anybody else reading it. I want to make it clear to anybody that may be on the fence that the arguments being made are lies, and if that makes the liar embarrassed or shamed, all the better. Or more likely they double down on the lies and make themselves look even more foolish.

This isn't politics where there are typically two or more sides to an issue. It's common sense stuff that has a real impact on all of us. While there are always unknowns, much of this stuff is known. Facts vs lies.

I'm tired of these pathetic people making the world worse for everyone.

 

Propaganda affects smart people too

Discussion are difficult to follow when you drunk ignore 20 people. Ymmv.

 

The arrogance that some of these selfish people who stray so far from the intent of Christ's teachings yet feel confident they are getting into heaven shows they are truly deluded.

 

the vaccine isn't failing. you need to recalibrate your definitions. stopping infection but keeping one out of the hospital and out of the morgue and significantly reducing the time which one is infectious is not a fail. Even with delta, the vaccine is still around 65% effective at stopping infection. Lots of "healthy" people dying from delta. It seems that you are missing that point also

40, healthy, nearing death because he waited too long to get vaccinated. I hope I don't read a story like this about you or your wife. Your kids need you

Jacksonville man in ICU with COVID-19 hoping to receive lifesaving treatment (news4jax.com)

 

how comforting...someone setting policy with a "the sooner we die, the sooner we go to heaven outlook". Hey, asshole, what about the heathens & atheists? Will someone please think of the heathens & atheists. Of course, a bunch of 'em's attitude about taking the vaccine: "but, there might be a risk to me, so no." Selective faith.

 

Look man, i get alllllllllof that. I Do I understand the dynamics. But its sort of the same concept I have with capital punishment...or war...people may have sealed their fate with their own actions while even endangering others, i just feel the human response should be sadness Not because his voice was silenced, but because his life was wasted and his family is destroyed and kids are orphans.

Its ok to be angered by his "mission" but saddened by his lost life.

Remember he, just like you and I, had never even heard of this thing 20 months ago.

I dont know. I am just having a real hard time with the calloused responses.

Maybe some of the bleeding hearts here are rubbing off on me.

 

Rather than chop this post all up, I will use it to remind everyone to not call names and not toss insults.