• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

Non-Political Coronavirus Thread

Chickenpox vaccine is a great comparison. For children it was around 15,000 hospitalizations and 100 deaths a year in the US before the widespread use of the vaccine, pretty close to Covid-19. Everyone gets the vaccine, there are school requirements for the vaccine, surprise the chickenpox vaccine is overall kinda of a shitty vaccine, like probably worse than covid despite being 30+ years old. First, it’s 100% derived in multiple fetal cell lines, like no getting around it the development was straight thank you aborted babies. Second, the efficacy isn’t all that great over time, 70% range. Third, it’s a crude dirty vaccine that was made by passing a random strain back and forth between cells before it became live-attenuated. It can pass to other people, so post vaccination stay away from immune compromised, pregnant, and so forth. Ohh also I’m pretty sure, though denied, it has lead to an increase in shingles cases, though the epi studies and direct link are hard to make. Yet, not a word. Also long term consequences, I really want someone to actually say what that means. Vaccine effects are measured by weeks not even months, let alone years. There’s just no mechanism for it to work like that.
 
tigerswood said:
I quit getting flu shots because they made me feel like crap. Significantly worse than the Pfizer vaccine. Might get one this year, though.
Click to expand...

I've never missed a flu shot. Got mine for this year when my middle was getting his PFE (Dad gets one, too!). Made him feel better. I had the flu 9 years ago for Christmas and got pneumonia. That was the worst I've ever felt. I don't know why anyone would choose to increase their chances of getting the flu.
 
if the shot will make it a near certainty that your kid will not have serious covid or long term effects…I just have a hard time wrapping my head around not doing that because they might have sore arms for a couple days. It’s the same as the calculation in getting the shots myself. Kids have died from covid. Why even open that door a tiny, tiny crack?
 
WokeandBroke said:
I've never missed a flu shot. Got mine for this year when my middle was getting his PFE (Dad gets one, too!). Made him feel better. I had the flu 9 years ago for Christmas and got pneumonia. That was the worst I've ever felt. I don't know why anyone would choose to increase their chances of getting the flu.
Click to expand...

I never used to get one until I married a teacher.

I cannot recollect ever getting the flu. I probably did at some point, but I don't remember it (kinda like I don't really remember having chickenpox, but I did).
 
2&2 Slider To Leyritz said:
Do the flu and tetanus vaccines generate immune responses that, for the majority of people, are worse what that they experience from the virus itself? Especially when we're talking about this particular subset of the population that experiences virtually no symptoms from the virus itself?
Click to expand...

Getting COVID is much, much worse than the vaccine - the two don't even compare. Some people greatly overestimate the risks of the COVID vaccine and greatly underestimate the risks of COVID. I have seen hundreds of patients with COVID and hundreds (probably thousands) that were vaccinated, and they are nothing alike. At any given time over the past 9 months we have had between 50 and 200 patients in the hospital with COVID (including 2-5 kids at any given time) and 0 hospitalized because of the vaccine. I have seen nobody with a severe vaccine side effect, yet I have seen people lose legs, kidneys, have strokes and heart attacks, and die from COVID. I have also seen people with "mild" COVID that are still struggling with breathing issues and overwhelming fatigue months later. There just isn't a comparison. That's why physicians were lined up out the door on day 1 to get the COVID vaccine, and why all my colleagues get their kids vaccinated the minute they are eligible. There just is no reason to take the risks that come along with getting infected with COVID.
 
Louis Gossett Jr said:
Chickenpox vaccine is a great comparison. For children it was around 15,000 hospitalizations and 100 deaths a year in the US before the widespread use of the vaccine, pretty close to Covid-19. Everyone gets the vaccine, there are school requirements for the vaccine, surprise the chickenpox vaccine is overall kinda of a shitty vaccine, like probably worse than covid despite being 30+ years old. First, it’s 100% derived in multiple fetal cell lines, like no getting around it the development was straight thank you aborted babies. Second, the efficacy isn’t all that great over time, 70% range. Third, it’s a crude dirty vaccine that was made by passing a random strain back and forth between cells before it became live-attenuated. It can pass to other people, so post vaccination stay away from immune compromised, pregnant, and so forth. Ohh also I’m pretty sure, though denied, it has lead to an increase in shingles cases, though the epi studies and direct link are hard to make. Yet, not a word. Also long term consequences, I really want someone to actually say what that means. Vaccine effects are measured by weeks not even months, let alone years. There’s just no mechanism for it to work like that.
Click to expand...

“Long term consequences” is code for autism.
 
Rafi said:
Getting COVID is much, much worse than the vaccine - the two don't even compare. Some people greatly overestimate the risks of the COVID vaccine and greatly underestimate the risks of COVID. I have seen hundreds of patients with COVID and hundreds (probably thousands) that were vaccinated, and they are nothing alike. At any given time over the past 9 months we have had between 50 and 200 patients in the hospital with COVID (including 2-5 kids at any given time) and 0 hospitalized because of the vaccine. I have seen nobody with a severe vaccine side effect, yet I have seen people lose legs, kidneys, have strokes and heart attacks, and die from COVID. I have also seen people with "mild" COVID that are still struggling with breathing issues and overwhelming fatigue months later. There just isn't a comparison. That's why physicians were lined up out the door on day 1 to get the COVID vaccine, and why all my colleagues get their kids vaccinated the minute they are eligible. There just is no reason to take the risks that come along with getting infected with COVID.
Click to expand...

It has never made much sense to me why people would think the long term side effects of the COVID vaccine would be worse than any long term effects of COVID. I mean, unless you think your pecker is going to fall off or something. I'd be far more concerned about immediate reactions, or the body going into overreaction mode (cytokine storm or whatever it's called) to the vaccine. That hasn't happened with the 12s and up.
 
EatLeadCommie said:
It has never made much sense to me why people would think the long term side effects of the COVID vaccine would be worse than any long term effects of COVID. I mean, unless you think your pecker is going to fall off or something. I'd be far more concerned about immediate reactions, or the body going into overreaction mode (cytokine storm or whatever it's called) to the vaccine. That hasn't happened with the 12s and up.
Click to expand...

That isn't the way humans think.

Certainty, celerity, and consequence are the factors that humans typically use to assess decision making. Further, they use personal heuristics to evaluate those three factors, and those heuristics are going to be largely individually experiential.

So, they aren't making a decision like you mentioned, they are looking at things like:
(1) Well, I'm not certain to get COVID, but if I get the vaccine, it's 100% going to be shot into my arm.
(2) I have to get the vaccine right now (that requires immediate action and a decision with unknowns), but COVID exposure is some (unknown) point in the future.
Then a diiiiiiistant third is the esoteric pros and cons of vaccine protection, and you have to have a fairly sophisticated understanding of how the body works for that to be logically relied upon, instead of, "well, X said I should do it, so I will," where X is a trusted, known, individual.
 
tigerswood said:
I quit getting flu shots because they made me feel like crap. Significantly worse than the Pfizer vaccine. Might get one this year, though.
Click to expand...

This. I get a flu shot every year (I am required to) and I invariably get sick almost immediately. Happened to me once again back in September.

I was fully vaccinated for COVID (Pfizer) and nevertheless tested positive for COVID on Monday. My sorry ass is now at home quarantining for the next 10 days while my wife and remaining kid in the house have vamoosed.
 
awaken said:
Interesting 52 minute interview on the testing of the Covid vaccine for children in particular, and more broadly the ethical dilemmas that naturally occur in testing vaccines (polio mentioned prominently). Every testing option has risks and consequences.
https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101885708/paul-offit-on-the-fraught-history-of-medical-innovation
Click to expand...

This is a good listen. A couple things that stood out.

1- the trials are something like only 2300 kids (with half being placebos). I would've expected it to be larger. But he uses this point to illustrate how things like myocarditis and blood clotting largely went unnoticed because they are so rare-- well over the 1 case per every 2300. I think he said clotting was 1 in every 500,000.

2- Says that the wait and see approach with kids is perfectly reasonable. Wait until a couple hundred thousand kids are immunized or a couple million and make your call then.

3- I forgot what 3 was supposed to be, but definitely a productive listen.
 
I gotta get the deets straight, but my Uncle is an optometrist. He's seeing a ~500% increase in retinal scarring over the past year. Like, his practice typically sees 2 to 3 cases a month; over the last year 16 cases/mo. He's suspicious that it's COVID related; collaborating with other opticians.
 
Donkey Deac Doug said:
I gotta get the deets straight, but my Uncle is an optometrist. He's seeing a ~500% increase in retinal scarring over the past year. Like, his practice typically sees 2 to 3 cases a month; over the last year 16 cases/mo. He's suspicious that it's COVID related; collaborating with other opticians.
Click to expand...

He should be able to see the microchip when he looks in there, no?
 
19deac92 said:
This. I get a flu shot every year (I am required to) and I invariably get sick almost immediately. Happened to me once again back in September.

I was fully vaccinated for COVID (Pfizer) and nevertheless tested positive for COVID on Monday. My sorry ass is now at home quarantining for the next 10 days while my wife and remaining kid in the house have vamoosed.
Click to expand...

Well at least now you don't need your booster. Rafi will tell you to get it anyway, though, as it should come in handy.
 
19deac92 said:
This. I get a flu shot every year (I am required to) and I invariably get sick almost immediately. Happened to me once again back in September.

I was fully vaccinated for COVID (Pfizer) and nevertheless tested positive for COVID on Monday. My sorry ass is now at home quarantining for the next 10 days while my wife and remaining kid in the house have vamoosed.
Click to expand...

Sorry to hear that. I've seen a good number of breakthrough cases with delta, and they can be rough. I hope you feel well.
 
So much public discussion on this is "what are the odds of ME getting Covid; if I get the vaccine and then get covid later, why did I bother; etc.

The reason that highly contagious diseases prompt public health mass vaccination campaigns is because they are CONTAGIOUS! While yes, I benefit from the protection from the vaccine, EVERYONE I come in contact with benefits from my protection. There is no easy way to calculate "what is the cumulative benefit to me getting the vaccine," but since the transmission rate seems to be difficult to move significantly off of 1.0, then if I avoid Covid, probably I have directly protected another person, and that person thus doesn't have covid to pass on to their 1.0.

If we would just accept that it is the socially responsible thing to do, the reduction in risk to us and the mitigation of severe effects if we are infected are gravy.

This is why children should be vaccinated, even if they tend to have probabilistically low significant health effects, relatively speaking. I'm not aware that their R0 is different than mine, and infecting their classmate who infects their mother - preventing that is just as important as it is in adults.

The only difference is that when we choose to do the socially responsible thing, we choose. When we choose it for our children, it is not them choosing but us. So we can't be willy-nilly in our decisions. That said, vaccinating our children is still the socially responsible thing to do, if possible, despite the infinitesimal risk.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top