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| Jannemann2's Most Liked Post |
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Post Date/Time |
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| RE: Of Freedom, Country and Vaccination - [split] from MAVS NEWS |
10-05-2021, 07:46 PM |
6 |
| Thread Subject |
Forum Name |
| Of Freedom, Country and Vaccination |
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R.O.T.W.: Rest Of The World
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| I spent a fair ammount of time commenting on the "20 points list" as I had the feeling I wouldn't like some of them to stand undisputed. I didn't quote any studies as the additional amount of time this would have cost me is nothing I can afford at the moment. I tried to make clear what is based on data I've seen, what is based on comments of mixed experts (kind of meta-data :)) and what is more of an opinion or educated guess. Read at your own risk. I hope it helps clarifying some points especially the benefits (but also the limits) of the current vaccines - tl;dr: from what I've seen the benefits outweigh the limits so far that my advice to everyone would be: Get your f-ing shots! A first one, a second one and a third one as soon as ethics allows it. And than we'll see. There might be a point when all off us have to face the virus itself. But doing it unprepared carries high risk for the individual, and if too many individuals chose to take that path, it's bad for the whole society.
I'm torn on vaccination mandates. A small part of me wishes to implement them and be done with it. The bigger part still thinks that's not a situation I want for multiple reasons. There's still hope we'll find batter ways to resolve our situation.
luka_skywalker_77 Wrote: (10-04-2021, 11:49 AM)
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What's silly, is this idea that you will solve this crisis by vaccinating everyone, so let me explain a few things outright so that we can put that to rest.
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Why is it silly? Vaccination reduces especially severe cases and death by at least an order of magnitude. Isn't protecting people from dying off Covid-19 or suffering long-term effects something we want?
luka_skywalker_77 Wrote: (10-04-2021, 11:49 AM)
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1. There will be no cure/vaccine for the common cold/flu/covid virus of any relatability, which is why this therapeutic is nothing more than a flu shot.
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Not sure what you're trying to say. The Common cold is not the flu is not Covid. Flu shots protect a lot of people from dying off the flu. Maybe you made the point to emphasize the word "therapeutic" instead of "vaccine" - but this isn't a terminology used by people working within the field of immunology as far as I know and I don't think it helps the discussion.
luka_skywalker_77 Wrote: (10-04-2021, 11:49 AM)
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2. This vaccine does not stop transmission and in fact, the vaccinated and unvaccinated transmit at the same or even greater rates.
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Yes, the vaccine induced immunity is not able to completely stop transmission. Neither is immunity induced by natural infection as far as we know. No, the vaccinated do not transmit at higher levels than the unvaccinated, where do you get this from? It wouldn't make a lot of sense, biologically. All data I have seen suggests the opposite - unfortunately the reduction in transmission for people with partial immunity through vaccination is not as good as we would wish. But there is a reduction which makes sense, biologically. Unfortuanelty it seems to be fading over time (which also makes sense). Not enough data to suggest what a third shot will to in respect of transmission, but experts in the field expect Sars-Cov-2 to become endemic, so we actually might not see 100% immunity and no 100% stop of transmission.
luka_skywalker_77 Wrote: (10-04-2021, 11:49 AM)
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3. The vaccine does not stop you from getting covid, but you may have a better chance at mitigating serious illness.
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Current data is good enough to strike the "may" in your first sentence. The vaccine does mitigate serious illness. Here in Germany, our RKI (function comparable to the CDC I'd say) reports per 2021-09-30 for the cases monitored through the last 4 weeks:
- protection against hospitalization: ca. 93% (age 18-59yrs), 89% (age ≥60 yrs)
- protection against requiring intensive care : ca. 96% (age 18-59 yrs), 94% (age ≥60 yrs)
- protection against death ca. 97% (age 18-59 yrs ), 88% (age ≥60 yrs)
(side note for @fifteenth: The delta variant is more ore less ubiquitous in Germany and also was over the complete reported time span)
luka_skywalker_77 Wrote: (10-04-2021, 11:49 AM)
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There is a lot to be said for humans toying with the immune process--there isn't enough data to accurate predict how a long term immune management like will affect people.
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Not sure what you mean with that. We actually have a vast amount of data generated by humans toying with the immune response. Our understanding of the process is far more detailed than it's been a few hundred years ago. Still a lot to learn. But so far nothing suggests we have to expect some terrible consequences rising from Covid-19 vaccinations. We have seen some very rare, side effects, very few of them fatal, (which is sad enough). Data suggests we would have seen many more people suffering and dying without vaccinations. Usage rules for the vaccines have been adopted as @dirksfan1998 has already pointed out. The emergence of completely new negative side effects of the known Covid-19 vaccines NOW would be something unprecedented after the amount of used doses and the time frame we already have using them.
luka_skywalker_77 Wrote: (10-04-2021, 11:49 AM)
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4. People are not only dying from the vaccine, they are also dying after contracting covid while having the vaccine. There are also close to a million documented cases of side effects.
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People have indeed died from the vaccine. Which is terribly sad. It happened very rarely (and from a vaccine which hasn't been used in the US as far as I know and to whom it may concern ...) The death rate is much, much lower than the death-rate in people catching Sars-Cov-2 unvaccinated. The use of the concerned vaccine from AstraZeneca has been adopted to avoid further fatalities.
The number of side effects from the vaccines is several magnitudes smaller than the negative effects from Covid-19. That's why we still use them.
luka_skywalker_77 Wrote: (10-04-2021, 11:49 AM)
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5. You will require twice yearly booster the rest of your life at this point, so get used to it.
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We do not have enough data to know if and how many "boosters" might be necessary. We know immunity is fading to some degree and one or two shot immunization schemas won't last forever. Data suggests a third dose after 6-12 month is a good idea medically (as soon as we have enough vaccine for the countries still waiting for their first shots ...). We don't have data on what may be after that. It might result in yearly shots like for the flu (as you've suggested earlier). Might also turn out a three step vaccination schema (which is quite common for some other vaccines) with Biontech/Pfizer will last for a long time. We don't know, what the virus will do.
luka_skywalker_77 Wrote: (10-04-2021, 11:49 AM)
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6. Natural immunity is greater than a temporary, vaccine induced immunity.
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Immunity from a Covid-19 infections lasts longer than originally thought (good!) as recent studies show. I'd like to emphasize here: both groups are in no way uniform (the vaccinated group may be more homogeneous: fewer variables concerning type, dose and timing of antigene application). So called "natural immunity" might be better in some cases, but especially in very mild cases it might be worse. The vaccines are optimized to produce neutralizing antibodies, a natural infection is not. (that's (partly) why the mRNA vaccines encode parts of the spike protein, not the nucleocapsid). A natural infection otoh, if not a very mild one, might result in longer contact with a more diverse set, and higher levels of virus antigene, producing a higher immune response (but also devasting inflammation reactions leading to severe illness and death).
If the virus turns out to produce lots of variants in the endemic phase, e.g. requiring yearly application of vaccines like the flu, we will also see immunity induced by natural infection fade over time. I haven't seen data about it, but this is my expectation as a (former) biologist :).
Note: "natural" is not automatically good. Natural infection with a replicating virus has, compared to immunity via vaccination, a much higher chance of never reaching any immunity at all, because you will be dead. Don't forget that, when praising the advantages of "natural immunity".
luka_skywalker_77 Wrote: (10-04-2021, 11:49 AM)
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7. The unvaccinated pose no threat to the vaccinated and in fact, the vaccinated shouldn't care.
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Not true. The unvaccinated pose a threat to both: other unvaccinated (inluding themselves and their families) and vaccinated. As you've pointed out before in exactly this post of yours: immunity from vaccination is neither perfect nor permanent (so far). Risk for severe cases is reduced in vaccinated people, but not eliminated, especially in older age groups and groups with underlying medial conditions.
luka_skywalker_77 Wrote: (10-04-2021, 11:49 AM)
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8. There's a reason they stopped talking about breakthrough cases.
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I don't know how it is in US. Breakthrough cases are talked about all the time were I live. They are tracked in the official statistics. Compared to infections of unvaccinated their risk of a break through infection to become life threatening is decreased a lot.
luka_skywalker_77 Wrote: (10-04-2021, 11:49 AM)
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9. This will not end with 100% vaccination rates because this leaky vaccine does not stop transmission or infection. If you want an idea about how 100% will play out, pay attention to Israel.
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Yup, we won't get to 100% in a lot of countries, unfortunately. I do not think it has to do with the vaccines not preventing transmission and infection completely. Personally I'd say "Getting the virus while being fully vaccinated increases my chances to life through it relatively unaffected a lot" should be a strong enough motivation. Looks like other factors play a major role in this - trust in science and authorities only some of them. Current questioners in Germany indicate there's a relevant group which doesn't want to be vaccinated because they have the feeling they are forced to much in that direction. I understand that feeling very well but I still think it has a bit of a teenage rebellion smell. As grown ups we should be able to do something which makes sense even if we don't like the conditions around it.
Concerning Israel and 100% vaccination rate: As of yesterday they are listed with 65% of the population fully vaccinated. Maybe your 100% were meant for a different context I didn't understand. Let me add: Israel mostly used the Biontech/Pfizer vaccine, but with a relatively short interval (3 weeks) between 1st and 2nd dose. Longer intervals have been shown to produce better immunity.
luka_skywalker_77 Wrote: (10-04-2021, 11:49 AM)
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10. They changed the definition of what a vaccine is to fit the narrative they want you to believe. It was changed from what we commonly know as a vaccine to something more of a therapeutic--which is what this vaccine is. This isn't a pox vaccine. It doesn't stop anything and they knew that months ago.
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Not sure what you're suggesting. Not all vaccines produce sterilizing immunity*. This is nothing new and has nothing to do with Sars-Cov-2/Covid-19. The most common Covid-19 vaccines actually do something: they prevent a lot of severe courses and deaths. You might think this isn't something. I respectfully disagree.
*as this might be a topic of concern: sterilizing immunity has nothing to do with hurting a persons ability to reproduce :), but actually describes a level of immunity which completely prevents a future infection with the same pathogen. (My apologies for the pun ;-))
luka_skywalker_77 Wrote: (10-04-2021, 11:49 AM)
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11. Masks have not worked in any place on earth in containing covid 19.
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Masks do a lot to lower transmission. I had the opportunity to hear a talk from Eberhard Bodenschatz (https://www.ds.mpg.de/en/bodenschatz) who is an expert for aerosols (the main transmission vehicle for Covid-19) where he presented some of his experiments and results about masks, the particles containing the virus including their size, how they are generated while we breath, talk, sing, scream, how their travel in the air and so on. His conclusion: Masks work very well if worn correctly. FFP-2/KN95 >> medical masks >> self made cloth masks. He was very confident (based on his and others results) masks (FFP2/KN95, even medical masks, to a lower degree), lead to very good protection against infection with the virus. Especially when combined with a testing strategy and good ventilation. (I didn't read publications on that).
Personally I think the flaw in all measures which require doing something actively (correctly wear a mask, keep your distance, avoid big gatherings of people, ensure good ventilation) is that people get tired of it and stop doing them correctly. Enforcement surely may help, but who wants that as a long term solution as this is something which affects people every day :-/?
luka_skywalker_77 Wrote: (10-04-2021, 11:49 AM)
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12. Lockdowns have not worked in any place on earth in containing covid 19.[/font][/color]
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I think they do work to some degree as an emergency measurement, but we probably agree lockdowns are nothing we're willing to accept as a permanent solution for mitigating the pandemic
luka_skywalker_77 Wrote: (10-04-2021, 11:49 AM)
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13. Advance/early treatment is still the best way to contain the outbreak.
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I don't necessarily disagree, but my conclusion with the available data would be the best agent to use for advance treatments are the vaccines we have. Most of other drugs which we hoped could reliably suppress acute Covid-19 have disappointed or shown mixed/unclear results in clinical tries at best (as far as I know). The beauty of the vaccines is they prevent severe cases of Covid-19 very well for probably something around 6-12 month with 2-shot immunization schemas (maybe much better with boosters; we'll know soon enough)*. Additionaly most of the other drugs require a tricky timing as they work best when applied in early stages of an infection but the max virus levels are usually reached before you even see symptoms ... You might be temped to ask "great, then lets just take X every day, as a prevention" but applying thinly tested drugs more or less on a day-to-day base will increase the chance of unwanted side effects to much higher levels and would require extensive long-time studies - we might not want to wait for the results ...
That's not even talking about the problem that some of these maybe-good, maybe-not drugs require lots of resources from medical care for their application (e.g. infusions) beneath the timing, showing that they can't be a solution for the masses.
luka_skywalker_77 Wrote: (10-04-2021, 11:49 AM)
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14. Ivermectin works and is proven to work. Limiting Doctors from prescribing it is allowing more people to die when they don't have to. It's their JOB to prescribe the best medication for the task, and that shouldn't be up to the gov't or some pharmacists to determine. If you want to talk about experts, you have no discussion here.
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I'll mainly skip this point as I don't know much beneath what has already been said on this topic, the bit I've heard and read matches what dirksfan1998 already pointed out.
luka_skywalker_77 Wrote: (10-04-2021, 11:49 AM)
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15. Limiting the shipping of monoclonal antibodies is simply evil and political. This is what was given to Trump last year, under the name of regeneron. It somehow went relatively unpublicized because "idiots".
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Monoclonal antibodies might work well in some cases, but vaccines induce a longer effects (classical active vs passive immunity). therapeutic antibodies probably also suffer from the problem of being applicated at the right time and often need to be applied via infusion (lot's of resources needed to do that). A quick glance showed there are studies about subcutan injections (easier to do), but I don't know how thoroughly tested up to know. They will most probably prevent or severely decrease the induction of active ("natural" :-)) immunity from the ongoing infection. I think they'll still add to the mix of counter measurements in case of active infections but I wouldn't expect them to be a "game changer" on their own.
I didn't look it up, but as someone who actual has created monoclonal antibodies for experiments by myself, my exception would be that these are much more difficult to mass produce and therefore much more expensive with lower availability than e.g. nucleic acid based vaccines. Techniques may have evolved since my time in a lab. I may be wrong.
luka_skywalker_77 Wrote: (10-04-2021, 11:49 AM)
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16. 99% of all people infected with covid recover fine. That has never changed. A positive result has never been an automatic death sentence.
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Lethality rate for the US is currently arround 2%, so yes: 98% of all people will stay alive and the majority will fully recover. But beware: There's Long-Covid (even if we still don't have good data on it) and having been on an ICU severly affects the health condition of a lot of people in the long term and reduces the mean expected life-span significantly. This may be not as present in the public discussions, as if someone requires ICU treatment you don't have a choice anyway in most cases.
Nevertheless: Even when ignoring health issues caused by Covid-19 down the road, 2% of 330 million people in the US would be quite a high body count (6.6 mil deaths) subtract whatever you want for 55% (?) of the polulation being fully vaccinated, some got immunity through infection, 700.000 are already dead. The number of people who will die still seems unacceptable for me, especially as there is a way to reduce this by at least a factor of ten by the vaccines we do have at hand now.
luka_skywalker_77 Wrote: (10-04-2021, 11:49 AM)
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17. 95% of all covid deaths in the US are over the age of 50 (with comorbidities). Anyone under that age should be able to make their own choices on taking a vax or not.[/font][/color]
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I agree that older groups are affected much more, data is showing that very clearly. But I'd like to emphasize that more or less everybody who stays unvaccinated will catch the virus without meaningful protection. Even in the younger groups, given the high number of affected people there's still a lot of people that will die or permanently damage their bodies (including the brain :)). And these are the age groups which might have children in a lot of cases. If I was a little boy it would be hard to cope my father or mother dying or staying in a hospital for weeks or month, maybe under ICU, in a coma, unable to react to me, making me fear for him/her every day. Because the didn't want a vaccine.
luka_skywalker_77 Wrote: (10-04-2021, 11:49 AM)
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18. Kids are NOT affected by this pandemic, apart from the measures we've taken to limit them from the rest of society and to keep them out of school. No data supports this.
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While kids are surely affected in multiple negative ways by the measurements taken to (mainly) protect their stubborn parents from killing themselves, it's not true they are NOT affeted by the pandemic e.g. the virus. To a much lower degree, sure. If you allow them to get infected by the millions unprotected, we all still won't be happy with the results :-(.
luka_skywalker_77 Wrote: (10-04-2021, 11:49 AM)
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19. We have more infections and deaths this year on a month to month basis WITH A VACCINE than we did last year without one.
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This is true (presuming you're referring to the US), but you're not really suggesting the higher number in infections and deaths is caused by the vaccine, are you? The delta variant produces much higher virus loads and has an R0 around 6 - which essentially means: it's much more "infectious" than the original Sars-Cov-2 wildtype virus. Combine this with a population which might be increasingly unwilling to stick to other protective measures like masks and lockdowns and (understandably) wants to go back to leading a normal life while 45% are not fully vaccinated and you have a good base to explain the high infection and death rates.
I'll stop here. Not sure what to comment on point 20 and below, and maybe having commented on most of your points but not all of them has its own beauty of imperfection in a pandemic where the answer to more questions than we might like still is: We don't now - yet.
@soog sorry to probably kill your scrolling completely. At least I didn't do a meaningless full quote with one additional sentence below it :-). |
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