OT: COVID-19 thread #4

[dougthonus]

And I wish you all the best Almost Retired. I hope for anyone (vaccinated or otherwise) to remain healthy and unharmed and the vast majority of people (vaccinated or otherwise) will do just that.

[TheStig]

So I'm not going to defend the video or even watch it but there are things that are scientifically proven that turn out to kill us......like lead and asbestos and other things that at the time were scientifically shown to be harmless. We won't know the covid story till much later but a rushed vaccine that requires the vaccinated be protected from the unvaccinated doesn't inspire much confidence. To be honest if we all had n95's and used hand sanitizer regularly, it likely makes a bigger dent then just walking around with confidence in a vaccine that doesn't kill the virus and a bandana on your face. That's my 2 cents.

There has never been a vaccine that has shown to cause you harm 10 years later after a single dose. Things like lead and asbestos cause harm because of daily, regular exposure. If you had to take a vaccine every day, I'd be totally with you. It would be highly questionable what it would due over the long haul and would need years of testing to figure out what the long term impact could be. Actually taking a random set of pills like the OP suggests, is FAR more likely to hurt you long term than a vaccine because you are giving your body daily exposure and the impacts of that exposure is more questionable.

Your body more or less processes anything it gets in the short term and gets rid of it pretty quickly. Any affects from the vaccine (and there are a normal amount of htem for a vaccine) would be seen immediately. Those immediate affects may still cause long term problems, but they will be seen immediately. You won't get a mystery side effect 10 years from now because of a single dose of something. This applies to literally anything and if you think I'm wrong name a counter example of something that caused impact on a single exposure (or two exposures) a decade later but didn't cause a problem at the time. If you have long term problems they stem from something seen basically immediately or something you have significant repeated exposure to.

We have now given out 4 billion or so doses of the vaccine. That's more doses than vaccines you give your kids without even thinking twice because things like the chicken pox vaccine haven't had near that number of total doses given out. Given that mystery side effects a decade later have never happened, regardless of what you think of the trials (which by the way, weren't shorter than other trials from a number of participants level, just fast tracked through funding and paperwork for approval), there is now enough evidence where we very conclusively know the side effects of the vaccine. They do exist, the vaccine does carry real measurable risk, and if you look at actual outcomes, you can see exactly what it is.

If you want to say the 1/20000 or so risk of a significant side effect is too much for you vs the 1/10000 risk (if young and healthy otherwise much worse) that you straight up die from COVID, or the 1/100 or so risk that you have a serious side effect from COVID (if young and health otherwise much worse) then you're not doing the math right though.

If we all wore N95 Masks all the time it would do more to slow the spread, I agree, but then you'd also have to keep restaurants / gatherings to a minimum, and N95 masks are also pretty expensive and not readily available on the mass production scale we need them to be. Even if we just hard core wore normal masks all the time, it would probably keep the spread way down. From a practical perspective, people won't stop going maskless at home or when visiting people or stop visiting people and a vaccine is by far preferable for most people and allows us way more freedom in activities and a radically more normal life.

If you believe that we probably can't really put this back in the box and kill it completely, then the vaccine is a way better outcome of protecting people from severe illness and continuing to evolve the vaccine to fight the latest variants would be my choice.

If we didn't have a bunch of anti-vaxxers in this country right now (which two years ago would have put you on the same level as flat-earther in terms of perceived intelligence), then we probably wouldn't have a serious COVID problem in the country right now.

Doug, we have not used MNRA before. You simply don't know what it's long term effects are. Much like I have stated, studies have shown things safe that later turned out to be deadly. I'm not going to rehash this. If you want to take the expiremental medicine that fine. That's your choice. But I doubt the worthwhile vaccine that requires to the vaccinated to be protected from the unvaccinated. That's kind the point of a vaccine don't you think?

What are you talking about with N95's???? You prefer a vaccine that takes a nurse to administer and costs money to make and distribute over a mask with a higher rate of effectiveness that now in inflated prices is $7? Pre pandemic they costs some change to make. Mind you the mask is much more effective than the vaccine too...... It's silly that we suggest the vaccine over a mask.

[dougthonus]

Doug, we have not used MNRA before. You simply don't know what it's long term effects are. Much like I have stated, studies have shown things safe that later turned out to be deadly. I'm not going to rehash this.

Literally name anything that you have long term affects from that do not stem from short term effects and do not have regular exposure to. That is what a vaccine is in this case. I do not know of a single counter example to this of any type (medicine, chemical, environmental, whatever).

So you may not want to rehash it, but you have not actually answered the question at all. Your only examples are things that cause long term problems due to long term exposure. A vaccine isn't in the same category as that.

This is just a fundamental misunderstanding of how the human body works.

If you want to take the expiremental medicine that fine.

It is no longer experimental. It is FDA approved. It also has had more doses given to it than any other vaccine or medicine in the history of the world prior to FDA approval. It has now gone through the biggest clinical trial in human history, orders of magnitude larger than any other trial. I mean it's not even remotely close. There is very exact data through billions of doses that is out there and can be seen and has been studied. As I said, the vaccine isn't "perfectly" safe. It is acceptably safe relative to the benefits that it confers (ie, your risk of getting COVID and a severe side effect is a couple of orders of magnitude worse than getting one through vaccination).

This is also true of all vaccines, and unless you are steadfastly anti-vax for all other vaccines then this seems like an odd one to pick to be anti-vax about because the risk is extraordinarily high of getting the thing it protects you from and the number of doses given likely dwarfs the majority of vaccines in existence already. It's actually likely one of the most studied vaccines already.

But I doubt the worthwhile vaccine that requires to the vaccinated to be protected from the unvaccinated. That's kind the point of a vaccine don't you think?

People who take the vaccine get some benefits regardless of those who don't. Their risk is clinically proven to be far less to contract symptomatic cases and far less to contract severe cases if they do.

People who don't take the vaccine also get benefits from those that do. The overall risk of contraction in society is less due to the vaccinated population.

Society in general would get considerably more benefit if everyone took it as the overall COVID risks would drop tremendously.

What are you talking about with N95's???? You prefer a vaccine that takes a nurse to administer and costs money to make and distribute over a mask with a higher rate of effectiveness that now in inflated prices is $7? Pre pandemic they costs some change to make. Mind you the mask is much more effective than the vaccine too...... It's silly that we suggest the vaccine over a mask.

The theory of masks is good but the practice is difficult and so while they are absolutely helpful, as a complete solution they fall short. From a practical perspective, you cannot keep many businesses open with a mask (like restaurants/gyms), people will not wear them at private gatherings (even large ones), and people generally don't seem particularly compliant with wearing masks even when required. It requires constant compliance that even those whom believe in them seem to struggle to do in many circumstances.

Vaccines do not require any effort after taken. While the groups don't 100% overlap, the people whom are anti-vaccine have a very strong intersection with those whom are anti-mask in my experience. If all the people whom were anti-vaccine were fervently pro-mask, we also probably wouldn't have a problem as the mask + vaccine solution would likely be sufficient if everyone was consistent.

Just FYI, Vaccines cost about $1 to produce, even if you assume they cost $20 to deliver a dose after delivery/storage/administration, that's way less money than people spend on masks. I know I've spent probably $200 on masks so far. The cost isn't a big problem here.

[Dresden]

So I'm not going to defend the video or even watch it but there are things that are scientifically proven that turn out to kill us......like lead and asbestos and other things that at the time were scientifically shown to be harmless. We won't know the covid story till much later but a rushed vaccine that requires the vaccinated be protected from the unvaccinated doesn't inspire much confidence. To be honest if we all had n95's and used hand sanitizer regularly, it likely makes a bigger dent then just walking around with confidence in a vaccine that doesn't kill the virus and a bandana on your face. That's my 2 cents.

There has never been a vaccine that has shown to cause you harm 10 years later after a single dose. Things like lead and asbestos cause harm because of daily, regular exposure. If you had to take a vaccine every day, I'd be totally with you. It would be highly questionable what it would due over the long haul and would need years of testing to figure out what the long term impact could be. Actually taking a random set of pills like the OP suggests, is FAR more likely to hurt you long term than a vaccine because you are giving your body daily exposure and the impacts of that exposure is more questionable.

Your body more or less processes anything it gets in the short term and gets rid of it pretty quickly. Any affects from the vaccine (and there are a normal amount of htem for a vaccine) would be seen immediately. Those immediate affects may still cause long term problems, but they will be seen immediately. You won't get a mystery side effect 10 years from now because of a single dose of something. This applies to literally anything and if you think I'm wrong name a counter example of something that caused impact on a single exposure (or two exposures) a decade later but didn't cause a problem at the time. If you have long term problems they stem from something seen basically immediately or something you have significant repeated exposure to.

We have now given out 4 billion or so doses of the vaccine. That's more doses than vaccines you give your kids without even thinking twice because things like the chicken pox vaccine haven't had near that number of total doses given out. Given that mystery side effects a decade later have never happened, regardless of what you think of the trials (which by the way, weren't shorter than other trials from a number of participants level, just fast tracked through funding and paperwork for approval), there is now enough evidence where we very conclusively know the side effects of the vaccine. They do exist, the vaccine does carry real measurable risk, and if you look at actual outcomes, you can see exactly what it is.

If you want to say the 1/20000 or so risk of a significant side effect is too much for you vs the 1/10000 risk (if young and healthy otherwise much worse) that you straight up die from COVID, or the 1/100 or so risk that you have a serious side effect from COVID (if young and health otherwise much worse) then you're not doing the math right though.

If we all wore N95 Masks all the time it would do more to slow the spread, I agree, but then you'd also have to keep restaurants / gatherings to a minimum, and N95 masks are also pretty expensive and not readily available on the mass production scale we need them to be. Even if we just hard core wore normal masks all the time, it would probably keep the spread way down. From a practical perspective, people won't stop going maskless at home or when visiting people or stop visiting people and a vaccine is by far preferable for most people and allows us way more freedom in activities and a radically more normal life.

If you believe that we probably can't really put this back in the box and kill it completely, then the vaccine is a way better outcome of protecting people from severe illness and continuing to evolve the vaccine to fight the latest variants would be my choice.

If we didn't have a bunch of anti-vaxxers in this country right now (which two years ago would have put you on the same level as flat-earther in terms of perceived intelligence), then we probably wouldn't have a serious COVID problem in the country right now.

Doug, we have not used MNRA before. You simply don't know what it's long term effects are. Much like I have stated, studies have shown things safe that later turned out to be deadly. I'm not going to rehash this. If you want to take the expiremental medicine that fine. That's your choice. But I doubt the worthwhile vaccine that requires to the vaccinated to be protected from the unvaccinated. That's kind the point of a vaccine don't you think?

What are you talking about with N95's???? You prefer a vaccine that takes a nurse to administer and costs money to make and distribute over a mask with a higher rate of effectiveness that now in inflated prices is $7? Pre pandemic they costs some change to make. Mind you the mask is much more effective than the vaccine too...... It's silly that we suggest the vaccine over a mask.

I can't understand why anyone would risk getting Covid when there is such an easy, cheap and harmless way to prevent it by getting a shot. What sort of long term effects from a vaccine could be worse than getting Covid? There have been numerous cases in the news recently of people who refused to get vaxed, then get Covid, and on their death beds announce they were sorry they didn't get the shot.

I would have to ask myself who to believe- the countless doctors and health authorities who are telling us the vaccines are safe and effective (not to mention all the data we have on this), OR whoever it is who is out there saying there may be some hidden long term effects from the vaccine? I would guess the latter is a very fringe minority, usually with a political agenda. Are you going to trust those people with your life?

[jc23]

Seems like the problem has always been icu beds, if we had enough of those and the personnel to work them then i see no issue with covid in a post vaccine world. Nothing would need to be shut down and there would not need to be any restrictions.

[dougthonus]

Seems like the problem has always been icu beds, if we had enough of those and the personnel to work them then i see no issue with covid in a post vaccine world. Nothing would need to be shut down and there would not need to be any restrictions.

If everyone got vaccinated, you wouldn't need to worry about ICU beds.

If there was no vaccination at all, and the risks were of those that are unvaccinated, then COVID would be the biggest killer in the world, well beyond things like cancer and heart disease (by a factor of 10), if there were no restrictions and it'd still be a massive problem.

[jc23]

Seems like the problem has always been icu beds, if we had enough of those and the personnel to work them then i see no issue with covid in a post vaccine world. Nothing would need to be shut down and there would not need to be any restrictions.

If everyone got vaccinated, you wouldn't need to worry about ICU beds.

If there was no vaccination at all, and the risks were of those that are unvaccinated, then COVID would be the biggest killer in the world, well beyond things like cancer and heart disease (by a factor of 10), if there were no restrictions and it'd still be a massive problem.

im mostly with you on the first sentence, dont see the point of your second since there are vaccines.

[transplant]

Seems like the problem has always been icu beds, if we had enough of those and the personnel to work them then i see no issue with covid in a post vaccine world. Nothing would need to be shut down and there would not need to be any restrictions.

If everyone got vaccinated, you wouldn't need to worry about ICU beds.

IF EVERYONE GOT VACCINATED, THIS THREAD WOULDN'T BE NECCESSARY...

...because we'd've beaten this f'in disease!!!

My God! I always knew there was a lot of stupid out there, but I clearly underestimated how disastrous it could be.

[Michael Jackson]

There has never been a vaccine that has shown to cause you harm 10 years later after a single dose. Things like lead and asbestos cause harm because of daily, regular exposure. If you had to take a vaccine every day, I'd be totally with you. It would be highly questionable what it would due over the long haul and would need years of testing to figure out what the long term impact could be. Actually taking a random set of pills like the OP suggests, is FAR more likely to hurt you long term than a vaccine because you are giving your body daily exposure and the impacts of that exposure is more questionable.

Your body more or less processes anything it gets in the short term and gets rid of it pretty quickly. Any affects from the vaccine (and there are a normal amount of htem for a vaccine) would be seen immediately. Those immediate affects may still cause long term problems, but they will be seen immediately. You won't get a mystery side effect 10 years from now because of a single dose of something. This applies to literally anything and if you think I'm wrong name a counter example of something that caused impact on a single exposure (or two exposures) a decade later but didn't cause a problem at the time. If you have long term problems they stem from something seen basically immediately or something you have significant repeated exposure to.

We have now given out 4 billion or so doses of the vaccine. That's more doses than vaccines you give your kids without even thinking twice because things like the chicken pox vaccine haven't had near that number of total doses given out. Given that mystery side effects a decade later have never happened, regardless of what you think of the trials (which by the way, weren't shorter than other trials from a number of participants level, just fast tracked through funding and paperwork for approval), there is now enough evidence where we very conclusively know the side effects of the vaccine. They do exist, the vaccine does carry real measurable risk, and if you look at actual outcomes, you can see exactly what it is.

If you want to say the 1/20000 or so risk of a significant side effect is too much for you vs the 1/10000 risk (if young and healthy otherwise much worse) that you straight up die from COVID, or the 1/100 or so risk that you have a serious side effect from COVID (if young and health otherwise much worse) then you're not doing the math right though.

If we all wore N95 Masks all the time it would do more to slow the spread, I agree, but then you'd also have to keep restaurants / gatherings to a minimum, and N95 masks are also pretty expensive and not readily available on the mass production scale we need them to be. Even if we just hard core wore normal masks all the time, it would probably keep the spread way down. From a practical perspective, people won't stop going maskless at home or when visiting people or stop visiting people and a vaccine is by far preferable for most people and allows us way more freedom in activities and a radically more normal life.

If you believe that we probably can't really put this back in the box and kill it completely, then the vaccine is a way better outcome of protecting people from severe illness and continuing to evolve the vaccine to fight the latest variants would be my choice.

If we didn't have a bunch of anti-vaxxers in this country right now (which two years ago would have put you on the same level as flat-earther in terms of perceived intelligence), then we probably wouldn't have a serious COVID problem in the country right now.

Doug, we have not used MNRA before. You simply don't know what it's long term effects are. Much like I have stated, studies have shown things safe that later turned out to be deadly. I'm not going to rehash this. If you want to take the expiremental medicine that fine. That's your choice. But I doubt the worthwhile vaccine that requires to the vaccinated to be protected from the unvaccinated. That's kind the point of a vaccine don't you think?

What are you talking about with N95's???? You prefer a vaccine that takes a nurse to administer and costs money to make and distribute over a mask with a higher rate of effectiveness that now in inflated prices is $7? Pre pandemic they costs some change to make. Mind you the mask is much more effective than the vaccine too...... It's silly that we suggest the vaccine over a mask.

I can't understand why anyone would risk getting Covid when there is such an easy, cheap and harmless way to prevent it by getting a shot. What sort of long term effects from a vaccine could be worse than getting Covid? There have been numerous cases in the news recently of people who refused to get vaxed, then get Covid, and on their death beds announce they were sorry they didn't get the shot.

I would have to ask myself who to believe- the countless doctors and health authorities who are telling us the vaccines are safe and effective (not to mention all the data we have on this), OR whoever it is who is out there saying there may be some hidden long term effects from the vaccine? I would guess the latter is a very fringe minority, usually with a political agenda. Are you going to trust those people with your life?

Simply because there has been a great divide in what people trust anymore and it has become so senselessly polarized. Every side of the issue claiming the other side is fake news. Complete lack of empathy for anyone else thoughts etc... this shouldn't be so complex but it is. the conspiracy theories have only ramped up, it is if the Q'Anon lesson had no impact. That being said I also empathize with those that have fear of the government and the perceived agenda. Plenty of people are ripe for the fear mongering that is out there. To be honest it seems like in general especially on the internet and social media people are being herded into 2 camps. It's crazy. Personally, I can see no logic to a long term agenda from the vaccine, I've tried to skin that cat and I can't come up with what the advantage is to a controlling power. If it is depopulation (yeah you Bill Gates) are there not many way easier ways to come about this, without so many moving parts that would be far more efficient and less chance of failure? To me isn't it more logical that they would give a vaccine in that case to protect the ones who "obey" and release something to wipe out the non vexed who disobey? In general isn't that what an evil government would do, protect their loyal servants and wipe out the dissenters? To be honest though who knows what the illuminati really have planned and have been planning for a long time. Now believe me this is a hyperbolic rant I am presenting, and I am not mocking anyones thought process on either side about this at all. I do know there are a lot of people really really afraid and emotions run high and intelligent discussion seems to be over run by endless rabbit holes of curated propaganda. That noise from technology has truly eroded our senses IMHO and proper discussion turns into angry attacks.

To explain my jumbled rant, I grew up in an apocalyptic cult and I have seen personally what skillfully tailored indoctrination can do to the human mind. It seems like we are a place where this really has drilled down into our psyche on every level with technology subtlety influencing our every viewpoint and emotional triggers dominate over civil discussions. To the point families are absolutely no longer talking to each other over these beliefs. AI is filling out inbox and feeds with reinforcement of what ever idea we looked at last and driving it down, so that our ability to normally communicate is hampered. Perhaps this is the bigger threat than the virus is long term?

Alright now let me get back to posting more things on social media and websites because clearly I am immune hahahaha - I never claimed to not be a hypocrite.

[Dresden]

Simply because there has been a great divide in what people trust anymore and it has become so senselessly polarized. Every side of the issue claiming the other side is fake news. Complete lack of empathy for anyone else thoughts etc... this shouldn't be so complex but it is. the conspiracy theories have only ramped up, it is if the Q'Anon lesson had no impact. That being said I also empathize with those that have fear of the government and the perceived agenda. Plenty of people are ripe for the fear mongering that is out there. To be honest it seems like in general especially on the internet and social media people are being herded into 2 camps. It's crazy. Personally, I can see no logic to a long term agenda from the vaccine, I've tried to skin that cat and I can't come up with what the advantage is to a controlling power. If it is depopulation (yeah you Bill Gates) are there not many way easier ways to come about this, without so many moving parts that would be far more efficient and less chance of failure? To me isn't it more logical that they would give a vaccine in that case to protect the ones who "obey" and release something to wipe out the non vexed who disobey? In general isn't that what an evil government would do, protect their loyal servants and wipe out the dissenters? To be honest though who knows what the illuminati really have planned and have been planning for a long time. Now believe me this is a hyperbolic rant I am presenting, and I am not mocking anyones thought process on either side about this at all. I do know there are a lot of people really really afraid and emotions run high and intelligent discussion seems to be over run by endless rabbit holes of curated propaganda. That noise from technology has truly eroded our senses IMHO and proper discussion turns into angry attacks.

To explain my jumbled rant, I grew up in an apocalyptic cult and I have seen personally what skillfully tailored indoctrination can do to the human mind. It seems like we are a place where this really has drilled down into our psyche on every level with technology subtlety influencing our every viewpoint and emotional triggers dominate over civil discussions. To the point families are absolutely no longer talking to each other over these beliefs. AI is filling out inbox and feeds with reinforcement of what ever idea we looked at last and driving it down, so that our ability to normally communicate is hampered. Perhaps this is the bigger threat than the virus is long term?

Alright now let me get back to posting more things on social media and websites because clearly I am immune hahahaha - I never claimed to not be a hypocrite.

Kudos to you for extricating yourself from a cult. That can't be an easy thing to do. I watched that Netflix series on NXIVM cult, and it is so difficult to break away from something like that. Of course any sort of organized religion can also be seen as a cult, too.

In any case, it's a sad situation indeed when people's judgements are so distorted by their political biases and choice of information outlets that it results in them dying by the tens of thousands, which is what is happening right now. IMO, it is the same problem we are in with doing something about climate change- it's impossible to take the actions that are needed to keep us from a major catastrophe until we are united in the belief that a problem does actually exist. By the time that happens, it will likely be too late.

[coldfish]

Doug, we have not used MNRA before. You simply don't know what it's long term effects are. Much like I have stated, studies have shown things safe that later turned out to be deadly. I'm not going to rehash this. If you want to take the expiremental medicine that fine. That's your choice. But I doubt the worthwhile vaccine that requires to the vaccinated to be protected from the unvaccinated. That's kind the point of a vaccine don't you think?

What are you talking about with N95's???? You prefer a vaccine that takes a nurse to administer and costs money to make and distribute over a mask with a higher rate of effectiveness that now in inflated prices is $7? Pre pandemic they costs some change to make. Mind you the mask is much more effective than the vaccine too...... It's silly that we suggest the vaccine over a mask.

Take J&J then.

Regardless, I know several antivaxxers and have heard the spiel. The vaccine delivery chemicals are the same that are used in other vaccines and have been for a while. Hell, the thing people might be allergic to is polyethylene glycol, which is just miralax. The only thing unique about the mRNA vaccines are the mRNA. My question is always relatively simple: If you think the spike protein is dangerous, wouldn't you assume that the *actual* virus loaded with infinitely more self replicating spike proteins attached to immune suppressing rna inside the virus is significantly more dangerous?

Shouldn't the people who are afraid of mRNA vaccines be the ones who are most afraid of what the mRNA actually codes for?

Last note: I know several people who have had bad bouts with the mRNA vaccines. If you read deep in the literature, its possible that they overdid the dose. The child dose that Pfizer just put out data on is 10mcg. Their normal vaccine is 30mcg and Moderna is 100mcg. That said, Doug is correct that any long term effect is going to be an extension of the short term effects. I'm not particularly worried about something showing up in 10 years. I strongly suspect that covid is going to do a lot more damage to you in the long term as we now know that everything from cancer to dementia to MS has a viral aspect to it.

I wonder, do anti vaxxers know this?
https://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/news/20030818/viral-infections-dementia
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/771891
https://www.mdanderson.org/publications/focused-on-health/7-viruses-that-cause-cancer.h17-1592202.html

If antivaxxers knew that viruses frequently sit in your body for an extended period of time triggering immune and inflammation responses which constantly causes damage, would they be so willing to get a virus?

Edit add: As a side note, everyone is getting covid. Its endemic now. People are getting exposed over and over and over. Your choice is to get 30mcg of spike proteins or get absolute flooded with the actual virus. There is no getting out of this one.

[Stratmaster]

Both my wife and I are vaccinated, but I can understand why even medical professionals were/are not comfortable with MRNA vaccines.

The technology has been around for 30 years and going, and until COVID-19, the medical community itself viewed them with a huge dose of skepticism. These vaccines are NOT anything like what we have 70 years of data on. The method of operation is entirely different and quite frankly, nobody knows what the long-term effects on the body are.

In my anecdotal case, I had a full blown autoimmune response for almost a month after the second dose. Haven't been in this much pain and that miserable for that long, ever. Every effin' joint--toes, fingers, feet, ankles, knees, hips, elbows, shoulders, neck--horrible headaches out of the blue (That I've never had before--still come and go)... which as it turns out, are fairly common side effects of the vaccine I took, if not as severe as mine.

The big pharma corps got one big assumption wrong--that when they stick you in the shoulder, the only cells that will be trained to produce the spike protein will remain in the shoulder. Hence, your immune system will react and inflame the entry point only... except, they now find cells producing that spike protein everywhere in the body. And, given that the immune system is trained to attack everything that looks like that protein, for all we know, we might have all given ourselves some variation of MS. Or maybe not. We won't know for a decade probably.

New medical technologies are usually tested over a decade before the tech is allowed in the general public and every medical professional knows that. The ones who took the vaccine judged that the risk is well worth it, or had to. But I can see how a ton of healthcare workers, especially doctors, thought otherwise.

We're the guinea pigs for an entirely new vaccine paradigm. I just hope the guys who designed these were not brilliant idiots.

Would be interested in seeing links to some of the claims you are making about the lack of safety of mrna vaccines, or of scientists skeptism of them.

I found this article just published today:

https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/israeli-experts-analyze-if-mrna-covid-vaccines-be-dangerous-in-long-term-678171

"However, Tal Brosh, head of the Infectious Disease Unit at Samson Assuta Ashdod University Hospital, told The Jerusalem Post that while he cannot claim to know what is going to happen in 10 years, “there is no true reason to think there are any significant long-term effects” of the vaccine.

He explained that there is no other vaccine that was evaluated for a decade before approval and that there is not an example of another vaccine – although no other vaccine is an mRNA vaccine – that has been linked to any significant long-term effects.

“There is no evidence of something happening unless it happened in the first two hours, two weeks or two months,” said Michal Linial, a professor of biological chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “We do not know of any other examples in which the immune system decided to suddenly react to a vaccine that was given 15 years prior.”"

It seems like any possible side effects of the vaccine are far, far outweighed by the dangers of getting Covid itself, in the short term, and the long term. So I would be interested in seeing any references to scientific evidence pointing to the dangers of mrna vaccines, and these in particular, or even any theories as to why they might be the case.

I'm not claiming they're not safe--I'm claiming that nobody else knows either (yet), because it's the first time in history they've been deployed on a huge scale. Again, they're not your usual vaccine where they inject you with a dialed down or dead version of the virus. These MRNA vaccines hijack human cells just like any virus would, except the genetic code is directly injected into the body, and train the cells to "manufacture" the specific spike protein of, in this particular case, COVID.

One group I remember actually suing was some association of German doctors because they were concerned that one of the building blocks of the spike protein also happens to be the main building block of the placenta. They didn't know if it would cause any harm long-term, because they had no data to go by, but they were concerned nonetheless that you may accidentally train the female body's immune system to attack the fetus. That's the first thing that I read that got my antennas up because their argument revolved about the lack of proper testing to see if something of that nature could actually happen, and if it did, in what frequency. Not relevant in my case, but something to keep in the back of my head.

In theory MRNA vaccines work just as well, but the statements above don't tell much and I'll explain why, IMO. For the Pfizer jab, nearly 80% of the people in the trial had systemic reactions, that were not related to pain at the injection site.

I knew they had issues with side effects because I read the results of the clinical study for the vaccine I was about to take on the CDC's website. If I remember correctly, nearly 40% of the test subjects had new or worsening muscle pain and almost a quarter had the same for the joints. Over a quarter had bad headaches.

So, I knew that going into it. I just happen to be unlucky that I got the worst of it, it seems.

So, the doctor saying that there is no evidence of long-term effects because they usually manifest in a couple of months should better look at the data and realize that 80% of people that took the Pfizer vaccine had a systematic response to the vaccine with over a quarter to half having some form of a major side effect.

I have a pre-existing condition (gout), so I know plenty about arthritis. My side effects were like a full blown Rheumatoid Arthritis + major headaches out of nowhere. And both lasted for almost a month. The headaches are still pretty frequent months after. You know the saying that stats don't matter, because if you're the one that got it, to you it's 100%, not some random figure online.

The only thing that I found that made sense to me personally was discussed by Bret and Heather (both Phd biologists) on their Dark Horse podcast where they said that in a regulatory filing in Japan, (I think) Pfizer disclosed that post jabs they were finding the spike protein all over the body, not just in the shoulder, with very high concentrations in certain parts, depending if the test subject was a male or female. That was not supposed to happen, at least by design, and it meant that the immune system would go after everything that makes it, like it should; but, it was definitely not only in the shoulder.

So, that to me explained why I'd have RA symptoms out of nowhere.

I have a couple of anecdotal pieces of data, including from "the Fauci" of my home country, who happens to be a personal friend of my parents, but they are irrelevant.

So, while I'm not a doctor, don't pretend to be one, and I'm definitely not an anti-vaxxer of anything of the sort, I can read numbers and stats independently of what people bark at me online or on TV. I also happen to work in investments, both early stage and public equities, and I am fully aware of all the hoops EVERY pharma and biotech firm have to jump through by law to get anything to market and how even the tiniest pebbles sometimes can overturn the cart. These are usually 10-year, $1B multi-stage clinical trials where something may not pop up until stage 3 or 4, years into it.

The Pfizer vaccine may be safe, it probably is, but the CDC itself published the data that it has bizarre side effects, that are uncommon for any vaccine. Again, I'm hoping because I don't know, that these are nothing but short-term because the alternative would really suck for me on a personal level.

I would have to repeat the request for you to link to the studies that back up your statements.

These types of vaccines have been under development for 10 years. Here are links and quotes:

Regarding timeline of development:
https://www.bjc.org/Coronavirus/Covid-19-Vaccines/COVID-19-Vaccines-Articles/ArtMID/6435/ArticleID/4617/Timeline-of-the-COVID-19-vaccine-development

“This vaccine strategy was explored in the original SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and MERS (Middle-East respiratory syndrome) virus outbreaks,” Dr. Dunagan says. “So, it’s not unprecedented for use in people.”

Regarding long term effects:
https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/blog/covid-19-vaccine-long-term-side-effects

"Going back at least as far as the polio vaccine, which was widely released to the public in the 1960s, we’ve never seen a vaccination with long-term side effects, meaning side effects that occur several months or years after injection."

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[Michael Jackson]

Kudos to you for extricating yourself from a cult. That can't be an easy thing to do. I watched that Netflix series on NXIVM cult, and it is so difficult to break away from something like that. Of course any sort of organized religion can also be seen as a cult, too.

Completely veering off topic here but man I could go on forever breaking down NXIVM. They are such a prime example of how cults aren't religious based different place for this discussion though.

[Stratmaster]

So I'm not going to defend the video or even watch it but there are things that are scientifically proven that turn out to kill us......like lead and asbestos and other things that at the time were scientifically shown to be harmless. We won't know the covid story till much later but a rushed vaccine that requires the vaccinated be protected from the unvaccinated doesn't inspire much confidence. To be honest if we all had n95's and used hand sanitizer regularly, it likely makes a bigger dent then just walking around with confidence in a vaccine that doesn't kill the virus and a bandana on your face. That's my 2 cents.

There has never been a vaccine that has shown to cause you harm 10 years later after a single dose. Things like lead and asbestos cause harm because of daily, regular exposure. If you had to take a vaccine every day, I'd be totally with you. It would be highly questionable what it would due over the long haul and would need years of testing to figure out what the long term impact could be. Actually taking a random set of pills like the OP suggests, is FAR more likely to hurt you long term than a vaccine because you are giving your body daily exposure and the impacts of that exposure is more questionable.

Your body more or less processes anything it gets in the short term and gets rid of it pretty quickly. Any affects from the vaccine (and there are a normal amount of htem for a vaccine) would be seen immediately. Those immediate affects may still cause long term problems, but they will be seen immediately. You won't get a mystery side effect 10 years from now because of a single dose of something. This applies to literally anything and if you think I'm wrong name a counter example of something that caused impact on a single exposure (or two exposures) a decade later but didn't cause a problem at the time. If you have long term problems they stem from something seen basically immediately or something you have significant repeated exposure to.

We have now given out 4 billion or so doses of the vaccine. That's more doses than vaccines you give your kids without even thinking twice because things like the chicken pox vaccine haven't had near that number of total doses given out. Given that mystery side effects a decade later have never happened, regardless of what you think of the trials (which by the way, weren't shorter than other trials from a number of participants level, just fast tracked through funding and paperwork for approval), there is now enough evidence where we very conclusively know the side effects of the vaccine. They do exist, the vaccine does carry real measurable risk, and if you look at actual outcomes, you can see exactly what it is.

If you want to say the 1/20000 or so risk of a significant side effect is too much for you vs the 1/10000 risk (if young and healthy otherwise much worse) that you straight up die from COVID, or the 1/100 or so risk that you have a serious side effect from COVID (if young and health otherwise much worse) then you're not doing the math right though.

If we all wore N95 Masks all the time it would do more to slow the spread, I agree, but then you'd also have to keep restaurants / gatherings to a minimum, and N95 masks are also pretty expensive and not readily available on the mass production scale we need them to be. Even if we just hard core wore normal masks all the time, it would probably keep the spread way down. From a practical perspective, people won't stop going maskless at home or when visiting people or stop visiting people and a vaccine is by far preferable for most people and allows us way more freedom in activities and a radically more normal life.

If you believe that we probably can't really put this back in the box and kill it completely, then the vaccine is a way better outcome of protecting people from severe illness and continuing to evolve the vaccine to fight the latest variants would be my choice.

If we didn't have a bunch of anti-vaxxers in this country right now (which two years ago would have put you on the same level as flat-earther in terms of perceived intelligence), then we probably wouldn't have a serious COVID problem in the country right now.

Doug, we have not used MNRA before. You simply don't know what it's long term effects are. Much like I have stated, studies have shown things safe that later turned out to be deadly. I'm not going to rehash this. If you want to take the expiremental medicine that fine. That's your choice. But I doubt the worthwhile vaccine that requires to the vaccinated to be protected from the unvaccinated. That's kind the point of a vaccine don't you think?

What are you talking about with N95's???? You prefer a vaccine that takes a nurse to administer and costs money to make and distribute over a mask with a higher rate of effectiveness that now in inflated prices is $7? Pre pandemic they costs some change to make. Mind you the mask is much more effective than the vaccine too...... It's silly that we suggest the vaccine over a mask.

The vaccine is out of your system in roughly a week. There has NEVER been a documented case of ANY vaccine having long term effects. NEVER.

I mean, sure. I guess anything is possible, but this is so highly unlikely.

Yet we know what contracting Covid does both short term and long haul (at least to the 2 year point). 1 out of every 490 Americans have died. Millions of others are still not 100% MONTHS after being sick with the virus. We just passed the death total from the Spanish flu.

And now, 25% of the new cases are children. So, at this point, there is no more room for patience and understanding of unsupported opinions and fear, like the idea that a mask is more effective than the vaccine. We as a society are making our children sick, and respectfully that pisses me off..

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[Wingy]

Doug, we have not used MNRA before. You simply don't know what it's long term effects are. Much like I have stated, studies have shown things safe that later turned out to be deadly. I'm not going to rehash this. If you want to take the expiremental medicine that fine. That's your choice. But I doubt the worthwhile vaccine that requires to the vaccinated to be protected from the unvaccinated. That's kind the point of a vaccine don't you think?

What are you talking about with N95's???? You prefer a vaccine that takes a nurse to administer and costs money to make and distribute over a mask with a higher rate of effectiveness that now in inflated prices is $7? Pre pandemic they costs some change to make. Mind you the mask is much more effective than the vaccine too...... It's silly that we suggest the vaccine over a mask.

Take J&J then.

I cut out a much longer post in this quote (for those not reading earlier posts), but this line to me is the easiest, most succinct answer to anyone concerned about the mRNA vaccines.

What’s the rational rebuttal against J&J?

[TheStig]

Doug, we have not used MNRA before. You simply don't know what it's long term effects are. Much like I have stated, studies have shown things safe that later turned out to be deadly. I'm not going to rehash this. If you want to take the expiremental medicine that fine. That's your choice. But I doubt the worthwhile vaccine that requires to the vaccinated to be protected from the unvaccinated. That's kind the point of a vaccine don't you think?

What are you talking about with N95's???? You prefer a vaccine that takes a nurse to administer and costs money to make and distribute over a mask with a higher rate of effectiveness that now in inflated prices is $7? Pre pandemic they costs some change to make. Mind you the mask is much more effective than the vaccine too...... It's silly that we suggest the vaccine over a mask.

Take J&J then.

I cut out a much longer post in this quote (for those not reading earlier posts), but this line to me is the easiest, most succinct answer to anyone concerned about the mRNA vaccines.

What’s the rational rebuttal against J&J?

I'll be honest that I was very close to taking the J and J. Then it got pulled. And at this point, I'm not mortified about the virus and with all the break through cases don't feel it to be a real solution. To me, these imperfect vaccines will end up making a much stronger virus. But my issue was with the MNRA portion.

[Stratmaster]

Take J&J then.

I cut out a much longer post in this quote (for those not reading earlier posts), but this line to me is the easiest, most succinct answer to anyone concerned about the mRNA vaccines.

What’s the rational rebuttal against J&J?

I'll be honest that I was very close to taking the J and J. Then it got pulled. And at this point, I'm not mortified about the virus and with all the break through cases don't feel it to be a real solution. To me, these imperfect vaccines will end up making a much stronger virus. But my issue was with the MNRA portion.

What makes you think that vaccines make viruses stronger? Where did you hear that?

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[Dresden]

What makes the virus stronger is having new hosts to infect. So the more people that don't get the shot, the more opportunities for the virus to mutate into a more potent form. So anyone who is not getting vaxed is contributing to the possibility of an even more lethal strain being generated.

[chifan1798]

Appreciate your response and experience as a physician. Thanks for serving in such a crazy time.

As for the population above that you are highlighting… what is the age of these people
And the health profile? Obese? Comoribities?

Most of those people were somewhere from their 40’s-70’s. It was a lot of variability with the patients. I would say the majority of the people that I knew of were not obese, however did have some type of underlying condition such as COPD, diabetes, HTN, chronic kidney disease stage I, etc.

However, I wouldn’t breathe a sigh of relief just yet, because those people were diagnosed with COVID in 2020 or early 2021, when the older population was the demographic taking the brunt of the illness and subsequent sequelae. With this delta variant, we are indeed seeing the younger population dealing with it much more than before, and many of these young people are healthy. One recent case that exemplifies all of the debate that is going around, is a family that lives in a state where there are no mask mandates for their child’s school. The child got infected, and brought it home to the parents. The parents are in their mid 30’s. The mother was vaccinated, and is at home with her child. The father was not vaccinated, and in desperate need of an ECMO machine to help him breathe, and unfortunately we don’t have that capability at our hospital. The staff have tried and called numerous hospitals to see if they can transfer the patient with no luck. This guy is likely going to die without it. The nurse is in tears after each rejection from the other hospitals. Hopefully they can find him somewhere before he succumbs to the illness. If he does survive, we won’t know until many months from now, what long term effects that he may have, and whether his quality of life has changed. In general, we won’t know the long term effects of the young and healthy until months from now, because it just started hitting this demographic a couple of months ago.

Thanks for your story and input. Very helpful.

All of COVID is a series of managing risks. As a physician how are you treating the mental health side of things due to lockdowns, distancing etc. I’m having lots of convos with doctors and nurses that are close friends and neighbors.

We treat people the same way as we usually would...refer them for therapy, or start the appropriate psychotropic medications (eg. antidepressants or antipsychotics). It becomes difficult to encourage them about the future though, because we don't really know how long their symptoms will continue, or if they would ever get better. We're all stressed from this situation...some more stressed than others unfortunately.

[chifan1798]

Here's a nurse who may have figured delta out
By Leann Horrocks September 21, 2021

As the big picture begins to sharpen on the COVID pandemic, a few things become clear to me.

The "vaccine" isn't even a vaccine. It is a radical gene therapy currently being tested on the human race.
The vaccine doesn't work for its stated purpose. It doesn't prevent infection.
The vaccine is very risky — far more so than getting the disease. The VAERS system for recording vaccine injuries shows breathtaking statistics despite being undermined by erasures, denial of reports, and failure to count eligible reports.
Natural immunity from those who have recovered from the disease is far superior to the vaccine for prevention.
The vast majority of the information outlets in America have been enlisted to join the government in a fiercely aggressive effort to force every living person to get the vaccine. This does not square with the above facts. Perhaps that is why, as of last May, 40% of the people in Fauci's NIAID had declined to be vaccinated. A Forbes article noted that "[t]he unvaccinated include nearly 1 in 3 workers at the nation's 50 largest hospitals."

One of the administration's blunt force tools is total hysteria about the delta variant. There have been many "variants" identified so far — plenty of supply to keep things going if this maneuver works politically. Another weapon deployed against American citizenry is the withholding of information about efficacious treatment (HCQ and ivermectin) as well as any statistic that counters the favored narrative. I am still trying to get to the "why."

Sadly, the upper echelons of the medical profession have also sold out to the effort — including doctors. Whatever happened to the "first do no harm" part of their professional oath? They have become cowed employees of big marketing conglomerates and hospitals. Medical professionals at every level can blast out support for the policy and they will be heard; the press especially loves to quote doctors. A few brave souls speak out against the jab, but being egocentric doctors, they always identify themselves when they speak. Not so with nurses.

Nurses share a fact of life with paralegals. They may be respected and beloved by their co-workers, but they will never rise to the top of their profession in terms of prestige or actual power within the organization. This makes them free to speak anonymously. Nurses witness suffering and treatment up close. They get it. So I tend to read nurse testimonials with interest — I am inclined to believe them.

Not all nurses are against the jab. Some are true believers in it, but many are not. I noted an article called "COVID ICU Nurse Admits She No Longer Trusts Doctors' Care." In it, a nurse notes the total buy-in by doctors of refusing to talk about problems with the vaccine. Not only that, but they actively pursue everyone, even the ones with a bad first shot, to get the full vaccine.

Here's some of what she had to say:

[I]n her experience there is no testing available for the Delta variant, she has not seen the word Delta on any patient charts, and the only time she's dealt with the word "Delta" is from her administration directing staff to get the jab due to this mystery variant. ...

"This is horrific. This vaccine rollout is a nightmare and the media is completely not telling the public any truth of what is going on with the vaccines."

This brave nurse also said something that struck me like a bolt of lightning. It was so true, and it answered a lot of questions. She said, "The delta variant is the vaccine-injured."

I am beginning to wonder if the self-declared "elites" have even gotten the actual vaccine. That may account for their cavalier way of not following restrictive rules when they think no one is watching. Maybe all of these jabs are not equal — Japan got a very big bad batch. I pray that Israel has not been conned into committing mass suicide. There is way too much we are not being told, all of which makes the idea that the delta variant is the locus of vaccine injuries credible.

Keep reading, and make up your own mind. If you don't want to get the jab, don't. You are not alone. I will die one day, as we all will; nonetheless, I am not letting them kill me to serve their ghoulish experiment, or worse, some grand eugenics plan.

Any credibility was lost with this sentence. The 670,000+ (and counting) deceased people from the virus trumps anything you may think the vaccine is going to do. If you can't realize that, then there is nothing that is going to change your mind. You can continue to have that fixed delusion if you want, but there is absolutely nothing that has shown that the vaccine as killed anywhere close that amount of people.