Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

Not a surprise Omicron case numbers were higher, even among the vaccinated. There are studies that show the vaccine immunity went down from around 70% with Delta to closer to 30% with Omicron. Why would this be any different with kids?

One thing you didn't mention from your linked study is severe cases. The vaccine lowered the number of server cases in kids, just like it does with adults. From your link:

Conclusions and Relevance: In the Omicron era, the effectiveness against cases of BNT162b2 declined rapidly for children, particularly those 5-11 years. However, vaccination of children 5-11 years was protective against severe disease and is recommended.​

 

Cherry pick much? You are tenaciously fallacious.

Feel free to review the NIH's study and determine the statistical failings. I'll wait. Maybe you can again pick a screenshot of a headline from Scotland or something.

Do you agree that the death rate is higher for the unvaccinated, both here and abroad? If the answer is no, there's no use in discussing it. If yes, why is it so hard to conclude that the vaccine saved lives? If it saved lives, how is extrapolating the benefit ratio against the vax/unvax population sizes invalid?

As an aside, Alabama has the third highest death rate from Covid in the US. But I refuse to follow your trail of stinky herring guts down that path.

 

The vaccine no doubt kept a hella lot of people out of the hospital and morgue during Omicron. But given omicron's ability to elude vaccine protections, the protective ability of vaccines against infection decreased quite a bit. Still by far better than being unvaccinated.

As far as Alabama goes:

More than 2 of every 3 Alabamans were either vaccinated or had been previously infected with Covid prior to Omicron hitting. Perhaps this played a role in their low omicron death rate, that is, if they even had a low omicron death rate as you suggest?

 

Just so everyone is clear, the Fear mongers are lying to you, again. 5-11 year old healthy children are at ZERO threat of covid death. Not close to zero, just zero. And then when you add in 1% of kids being hospitalized post infection, it makes zero sense to vax your kids unless they have underlying conditions. Don't listen to the liars making up numbers. Here is the real data.

Risk of Hospitalization, severe disease, and mortality due to COVID-19 and PIMS-TS in children with SARS-CoV-2 infection in Germany

"The lowest risk was observed in children aged 5-11 without comorbidities. In this group, the ICU admission rate was 0.2 per 10,000 and case fatality could not be calculated, due to an absence of cases."

 

And here are the maskers on this site:

 

Not sure how many kids they looked at in this study. Or did they include MIS-C hospitalizations and deaths, which is caused by COVID, but often listed as a separate code, and therefore not picked up as COVID hospitalizations and deaths. But here in the states, we have different data. It too shows the risks are lowest for the youngest among us. But there are also deaths listed.

If you don't want to mill through the data yourself, this article has a good synopsis. Average hospitalization rate for kids 5-11 is less than 1 in 100,000 and 94 deaths listed in this age group through October. From the article:

“Yes, it is true that the overall hospitalization and death rate is much lower for kids than it is for adults,” said Dr. Christian Ramers of Family Health Centers of San Diego. “Nobody is going to argue about that, but it’s not zero. And it’s not just in cases of kids with underlying conditions.”

About one-third of children hospitalized from COVID had no underlying health issues. The most common underlying condition among those that had one was obesity.

Then there is the risk of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children or MIS-C. The condition typically strikes two to six weeks after the infection and results in severe inflammation. It can be diagnosed in people as old as 20.
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The risk is low in kids. Nobody is arguing otherwise. But even as low as the risk is for kids, it can be lowered with the vaccine. And why wouldn't we want to lower the risk? Again, it's like using a seat belt. The risk my kid will be hurt or killed in a accident next drive I drive him somewhere is low. But why not take the extra precaution, lower the risk even more, and buckle up?

 

Omicron leaving a mark on South Korea:

"South Korea faced its deadliest day yet of the pandemic, reporting 112 deaths in a 24-hour period, as the nation battles a coronavirus surge fueled by the Omicron variant. Health authorities reported that there were 643 patients hospitalized in severe or critical condition on Saturday, up from 408 patients a week earlier.

The surge in South Korea, currently one of the worst in the world, intensified over the last week, reaching a record of 171,452 cases in a single day on Wednesday. Since then, case numbers have remained at a high level, with the government reporting 166,207 cases on Saturday. South Korea, a nation of about 50 million people, is now reporting more cases each day than the United States, a once unimaginable development.

Despite having 86 percent of its people fully vaccinated, according to Our World in Data, South Korea has recorded a 201 percent increase in the average of daily cases over the past two weeks."



South Korea records its deadliest day of the pandemic.

 

No, it is how research works. Your research question is "do the drugs slow the spread?" You chose a population with admittedly no control. Your research method is, thus, fatally flawed. Sorry that you don't like it.

See, this is a ridiculous lie. Let's see, just in the last day, you have claimed that the vaccine produces a poison in your body, claimed that it doesn't slow the spread (despite the data that shows that you are less likely to get Covid if you have a vaccine compared to those that don't), said that they aren't vaccines, and claimed that the vaccine has 'marginal value, if any." Yeah, all of that is "trashing the vaccines." On it's face.

 

But if we had a better marketing campaign?

 

I never said they were therapeutic vaccines. I said they are more therapeutics than vaccines.

And yes your it is conjecture that models have created.

 

These drugs did squat to trigger an effective immune response with delta and omicron. They potentially provided a small therapeutic response. But with everyone taking monoclonals and the pills…we have no clue how much that is at this point.

Hence they are more of a therapeutic than a vaccine at this point.

 

A therapeutic is a drug that treats someone after they have contracted an illness. A vaccine is given before someone gets sick that sparks an immune response, so that when a person comes in contact with a pathogen, the body recognizes said pathogen, and deals with it accordingly. The body's own immune system does a great job at recognizing past pathogens and keeping a person healthy whenever that person runs into a familiar pathogen. If it didn't, then we'd never be healthy, as germs like the flu would continually make us sick.

The best outcome of a vaccine is immunity. The second best outcome of a vaccine is a quick immune response to help a person recover quickly and avoid serious illness. The COVID vaccine does both, even if the immunity is diminished with Omicron.

Another thing about a vaccine that makes it not therapeutic is a vaccine doesn't help at all if a person is currently infected and sick. If a person already has COVID, getting the jab won't help them at all.

The difference in vaccine effectiveness generally has to do with how quickly a virus mutates. The measles, for example, has been around for centuries. But to date, there are only 24 known variants, and 4 major ones that are in circulation. It's why the measles vaccine is generally very effective. In fact, we're using an attenuated strain that was isolated in 1954 still today for the measles vaccine.

COVID, unfortunately, is a virus that mutates a lot faster than measles. Just over 2 years, and already 14 COVID variants (Omicron is the 15th letter but we skipped Xi for political reasons). COVID will likely mutate as fast as the flu. Flu vaccines actually contain vaccines for 3 or 4 variants, and even then, aren't often significantly more effective than the current COVID vaccine against Omicron.

In the future, we'll have COVID boosters similar to the way we have flu shots. The Omicron vaccine trial is just over a month old, and it's possible that come this fall, we'll have a combo flu-COVID shot that contains the regular flu shot, plus a booster for Omicron. Really depends on what COVID does in the future, and whether or not another major variant pops up.

 

Do you sit around making this BS up and amuse your self by posting it over and over on message boards?

 

He's just waiting for a better marketing campaign.

 

You just created out of thin air your own definition of what a vaccine is and how they're used.

I will say that I think it's a fair point the possible effect of mabs on the numbers, but unless you think that they worked far better on unvaccinated than vaccinated or that there were far more unvaxxed who used them--and neither would be a good assumption--it's possible that they didn't significantly alter the disparities between the two groups.

 

If you really think being healthy is the best way to fight against COVID, look at the chart in this link. From Sept 2021 through Dec 2021, the unvaccinated had a 41X higher chance of dying from COVID versus those vaccinated plus a booster. Bad health cannot account for a disparity this large.

And if you think there is no benefit vaccinating kids 5-11, here's another link for you.

The CDC reported Tuesday that between April and early January there were nine deaths related to COVID-19 among vaccinated children ages 5 to 17 — compared to 121 deaths among unvaccinated children that age.

Also, the CDC examined pediatric hospitalizations in 10 states from last April to the end of January. The vaccine proved 74% effective against hospitalization in 5- to 11-year-olds. Only two vaccinated children were hospitalized compared to 59 unvaccinated children.
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Living a healthy lifestyle is a good idea. Nobody is advocating against it. But all data points to the fact that the best way to lower your risk against COVID is to get vaccinated. And considering the responses on this thread alone, I doubt there is a way this fact will ever get through to a certain percentage of the population, regardless of the message, or messenger.

 

50 million children between 5-17 and only 130 died from COVID-19. Between April and early January. .00026%
Why are children being vaccinated? It's completely insignificant.
Now if you want to vaccinate your child, have at it. But in no way, shape or form should it be mandated.

 

Because had the kids been vaccinated, the number of dead kids would have been lower than 130. Isn't saving a single child worth it?

And while death is the worst outcome, thousands of more kids have been hospitalized and recovered. The vaccine would have spared a good majority of these kids from ever being in the hospital. Would be better for the kids, and better for their parents, wouldn't have to deal with the stress of having a kid in the hospital, followed by the stress of hospital bills.

Sure, the risks are low. But two, 20-minute trips to Walgreens and the risks become even lower.

 

And that should be the parents decision not the government.

 

When there is a global pandemic to address, Public Health must be aggressive to have any chance of success. This can/should lead to parental decision taking a backseat. With a callous attitude that has already been expressed :"I'm aware of the numbers. So what. .3% of the national population. It's insignificant on a macro level. Still less than other causes of death in the US per yr. Get back to me on the numbers when they actually start decreasing the population." , it is no surprise that you'd take this stance.