Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

Fair enough. Note that I sometimes come down harder on people who I respect, but I see as off base on a issue, because I see in them the capacity to view the issue differently.

I wasn’t specifically referring to Trump, but more so Republican vaccine hesitant and other politicians like Desantis. I honestly find your fixating on the marketing campaign issue kind of odd. Sure, anything is possible, but nothing I’ve seen over the last year makes me think it would have made much difference.

Nonetheless the dead horse has been thoroughly decimated.

 

Yes. Let’s not compare a disease whose risk gradients are completely different with different drugs that have shown different efficacy. And yes unfortunately we have been terrible at providing data. That said there is data here showing similar things as other countries which do provide better data. There are organizations here showing how the new drugs are failing to slow or stop the spread.

If you get to the conclusion to take these drugs and continue boostering. I completely support your decision. Just like you should support the decision of someone who may not end up where you did for themselves.

 

What organizations would those be, specifically? Because the CDC data just showed that the vaccines lower your probability of getting Covid by a fairly substantial amount, which means that it slows the spread compared to what the rate would be without a vaccine.

 

Oh no I get what the Great Barrington Declaration and its strategy is. And we decided to put all our cards in a drug that is not a vaccine but a potential therapeutic. Which has set us back now. The damage is palpable because we did not proceed with focused protection. But instead went one size fits all. And it failed unfortunately.

 

I do. I also know that perception is embedded into social media. Sometimes by well know folks with huge followings.

Do you acknowledge that has a negative impact on keeping peoples minds open and that perhaps we need strategies to combat it?

 

Right on cue

 

Part of my job is creating visual marketing campaigns. Its why that part is sticking with me. Regardless. You are likely correct about that poor horse.

You're good people as they say, imo my friend.

 

This is now bordering incoherent babbling. SMH

 

The NHL had ONE player not vaccinated yet in the 5 weeks before January 18…60% of their rosters tested positive. 73% for since the beginning of the year (think there might have been four unvaccinated to start the year).

NHL To Change Testing Protocols After All-Star Break

 

Yeah, that doesn't provide evidence to back your claim, given that you claim it didn't slow it. What would be the background rate of hockey players infected without protocols or vaccines?

 

I'm sorry but there is truth to that statement. Nobody here really believes Q is, on the level, proposing anything to make the whole population healthier. He is just trying to trash vaccines (which makes the population healthier).

 

This doesn't in any way relate to your first post I responded to in which you casted shade at Biden and called for better messaging. Everybody acknowledges that social media is problematic.

 

The vaccines are vaccines. They're not poison. They slowed the spread of covid. They've prevented 100s of thousand of deaths. Whatever new ones on the horizon will likely improve their effectiveness. They'll never be perfect.

Vaccines are central to PH strategy for damn good reason. Even the GBD implicity recognizes this fact.

Your keep saying focused protection etc. but let me ask some questions because you never really explained what this means:

How would focused protection have been achieved prior to vaccines?

What does isolation mean in your strategy? Is it complete? Mandatory?

How would you isolate individuals over a long period of time, many of whom, you know, work for a living?

How do you keep people from bringing covid into homes of those you want to isolate when when masks are iyo useless and we didn't have a vaccine (which fwiw you call a failure) while they're free to live unrestricted and unprotected in public during a pandemic?

How do you protect the lives of those allegedly not at risk? After all, many of them have died from covid too.

How do you even know who is truly the most at risk?

And how is it ethical to isolate those allegedly at risk while letting everyone else freely live their lives?

Don't the vulnerable and elderly have freedom too?

 

Such a ridiculous lie.

I am absolutely skeptical of these new drugs. More so now than ever. I was for getting them to all the high risk groups as fast as possible. I have always been for focused protection in case we saw what we did. I have never trashed vaccines. I have trashed the policies and arrogant idea that one is wrong for being skeptical or not wanting to take the new drugs because those things have caused and will cause generational damage to vaccines with sound track records.

 

These drugs are potential therapeutics more than vaccines. They are designed to mimic a viral protein/pathogen. Something foreign to your body. Hence the immune response.

You are just using conjecture to say 100s of thousands of lives were saved by these drugs.

 

Don't worry, we will have the Vax everyone crowd in here shortly to defend giving a vaccine to kids who don't need it. We rushed this thru for kids for no reason.


https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/28/pfi...inst-omicron-in-kids-5-to-11-study-finds.html

 

The covid vaccines are not therapeutic vaccines. Therapeutic vaccines are administered after infection. Try to get your terms straight if you're going to participate in a science based discussion.

It's not "conjecture" that lives were saved by the vaccines. It's the output of statistical models. I can't go any further due to your failure to acknowledge statistics that obliterate your point.

conjecture - "an opinion or conclusion formed on the basis of incomplete information."

From last October: COVID-19 Vaccines Prevented Nearly 140,000 U.S. Deaths

 

Ya Covid models have been so accurate…
What a ridiculous thing to do. So many factors at play.
I have a question, how did Alabama, a state with low vaccine rate have a low death rate during Omicron?
I mean according to many of you, it’s the vaccine that was keeping people out of the hospital during Omicron.

 

Just to follow up on the NY Children's Covid vaccine study, The vaccine works so well that it is associated with a 41%↑ in SARCOV2 infections within 7-weeks. Not only does it not work very well, but in increases the likelihood of getting Covid. Don't worry, the Fear mongers will be along soon to say it was still good to give the vaccine to healthy kids LOL.

Effectiveness of the BNT162b2 vaccine among children 5-11 and 12-17 years in New York after the Emergence of the Omicron Variant

 

Vaccines are drugs that trigger an immune response and are given to people who aren't actually infected with Covid. Covid vaccines therefore fit the very definition of a vaccine. In any case, in the past for other diseases, vaccines have been experimented with as a form of therapeutic after people have gotten sick. But that's not what the strategy or practice has been with Covid.

Okay, I'll reframe. Millions more unvaxxed were infected & 100s of thousand more have died compared to vaxxed since April 2021. But let me point out that your preferred *focused protection* is conjecture too.

Focused protection offered a potential for even more deaths given that rest of us would have been free to go about our biz as nomal as a means of trying to achieve herd immunity. Although intended to protect the vulnerable, GBD's plan lacked specifics about how we could isolate the vulnerable while allowing covid to freely spread. Also, from the outset many*low risk* died, which begs the question how many more would have died following GBD recs? And what of preventing the heavy burden on our healthcare system?

Perhaps the best (or at least the most high profile) *natural experiment* showing a failed focused protection strategy:

Sweden changed its tune in June 2020 after over four thousand elderly died despite focused protection, which comparatively was thousands more than the hundreds in neighboring countries who temporarily locked down for the initial Covid wave.