Semi-OT: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread

[michaelm]

Just a brief wrap-up on something touched upon a few pages ago in this thread. I'm putting this here to shoot down the more radical interpretation of events that was being considered. This is a new report on the investigation of the origins of the virus.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-officials-investigation-coronavirus-wuhan-lab

U.S. officials and the intelligence community have confirmed to Fox News that they have taken the possibility of the coronavirus being man-made or engineered inside China as some sort of bioweapon off the table and have ruled it out at this point.

Sources point to the structure of the virus, in saying the genome mapping specifically shows it was not genetically altered. The sources believe the initial transmission of the virus was a naturally occurring strain that was being studied there -- and then went into the population in Wuhan.

So, the bioweapon hypothesis (and, apparently, the "altered virus structure" hypothesis) is now firmly returned to the conspiracy theory corner. It's official.


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Interesting study out of Stanford (Covid antibody testing in California):
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1.full.pdf

Summary:
- Number of actual infected persons may be 50-85 times higher than known
- CFR (mortality rate) of Covid (at least in California) may be around .12% to .20%


This data is similar to what a German study found (0.37% CFR):
https://reason.com/2020/04/09/preliminary-german-study-shows-a-covid-19-infection-fatality-rate-of-about-0-4-percent/

It's also not so far off of the current figures in Iceland. Iceland is the most tested nation per capita in the world on the virus. That makes them possibly the best "not antibody researched" study of what the Covid CFR may be.

Iceland ----------> 9 deaths/1754 cases = 0.51% CFR

A virus with a .1% CFR will kill 1 in 1000 people who catch it. A virus with a .5% CFR will kill 5 in 1000 (1 in 200) people who catch it.

As many have suspected, there are likely a lot more people who have, or have had, the virus in the USA than we know about. The current "known" CFR of the virus in the USA is around 4.6% (30,449 deaths from 666,573 cases). Data from here:
https://covidtracking.com/data

Picking a number between 0.1% and 0.5%, let's just say that the virus CFR is 0.3%. That would make the virus about 15 times less deadly than it currently appears to be based on the known numbers. That's a welcome thought.

Of course, the CFR for the virus is a lot higher for certain populations (elderly, those with per-existing conditions).


Comparisons:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic_severity_index#Guidelines
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1957%E2%80%9358_influenza_pandemic
https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=208914

Average flu ----------> 0.1% CFR (or less; kills roughly 291,000 to 646,000 globally per year)
1957 flu --------------> 0.3% CFR (in the UK; killed 1-2 million people globally)
Spanish flu ----------> 2.0%+ CFR or higher (killed 17-100 million globally)

People usually differentiate between CFR (case fatality rate) and IFR (infection fatality rate). CFR uses confirmed cases as the denominator, while IFR uses all infected. So you can't really be wrong about the CFR. IFR is the more interesting and difficult question, but scientists believed it to be a lot lower than some of those CFRs for a while. For example the Imperial College Study (the one that predicted 2.2 million deaths in the US without intervention) was published a month ago and assumed an IFR of 0.9% and a study focused on estimating IFR published in late March found a 0.4 %- 1.3% confidence interval for IFR.

As far as the Stanford Study goes, ideally you would want a random sample of a population. But this is how they found their participants:

We recruited participants by placing targeted advertisements on Facebook aimed at residents of Santa Clara County.

The problem with an approach like this is that you might introduce a bias, for example you end up getting more people that are worried about having covid, because they had symptoms. That could lead to the prevalence being overestimated and the IFR being underestimated.

Also, I was kind of shocked to see those CIs on the sensitivity of the used test:

Our estimates of sensitivity based on the manufacturer’s and locally tested data were 91.8% (using the lower estimate based on IgM, 95 CI 83.8-96.6%) and 67.6% (95 CI 50.2-82.0%), respectively. Similarly, our estimates of specificity are 99.5% (95
CI 98.1-99.9%) and 100% (95 CI 90.5-100%).

At this point we can be pretty certain that the IFR is above 0.2% just by looking at the fatalities in NYC and some of the hard hit regions in Italy.


Imperial College Study:https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
Estimates of the severity of coronavirus disease 2019: a model-based analysis Ji in: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30243-7/fulltext

Reassuring in general and seems quite reasonable/plausible. It doesn’t really explain (imo only) NYC and the places in Europe where the disease became widespread, in these places the disease looks to be significantly more lethal. It doesn’t appear on the basis of what I have read to be due to the virus mutating,with the various described strains of the virus apparently not being significantly different, and to me anyway is not completely explained by the capacity of the medical systems in these places being overwhelmed. I am attempting not to speculate overly but clusters and super spreaders do seem to be important in the disease in general and and I wonder whether this applies to outcomes as well as contracting the disease.

[NY 567]

If the infection rate is 50+ times higher than reported, that means the death rate is very low. If that's the case, I think we need to start opening up the country before our economy totally collapses.

[michaelm]

Thats an odd question. Im not sitting here coming up with weird, hypothetical future scenarios. Point is, the virus is no where near dangerous enough for me to take a vaccine that has no long term rigorous data to confirm it's safety.

It’s not an odd question. A vaccine is realistically 18 months to 2 years away. And that 18 months to 2 years will be spent in clinical trials assessing the efficacy of the vaccine, identifying side effects and recalibrating the vaccine. That’s why i asked about the negative effects of the vaccine based on the rigorous testing.

In the UK, they're producing vaccines while tests are ongoing to cut time. The idea is that if the vaccine tests ineffective, they toss the whole batch, but if the vaccine works, they'll already have loads of it ready to go by the end of the year. I'm not medically literate enough to know if that's a genius plan or a stupid one, but I'm hopeful that shots will roll out by the end of the year. Schools could then open up for Spring Semester.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-17/oxford-vaccine-veteran-lays-out-coronavirus-immunization-plans

I believe that they got an Ebola vaccine up very quickly and it was used much earlier than would normally be the case on special conditions/with exemptions. That is definitely a highly lethal disease though.

[spacemonkey]

Local government officials covered up a SARS-like epidemic without notifying the central government and Chairman Xi?

You're naive at how an authoritarian government works. These officials will face death penalties if they try that.

I know you want to believe this, but if you think China has stamped out all incompetence and imbecilic behavior from their local governments, then not only are you thinking what they probably want you to think, but you are way off. It was only just recently that Xi started his purge of 'corruption' (read, political opposition, too), and if you think a legacy of face-saving buck-passing and corruption deeply entrenched in the roots of a political system has simply just vanished, uh... The CCP wishes they had that kind of total control. They don't yet, but they'll get there probably.

the only deflection going on here is from you as you not so cleverly try and deflect the origin story by focusing on "lab-made" while completely ignoring the theory of "virus being studied in lab escaped and was then covered up by China" which is obviously the most plausible explanation to this whole thing.

If Trump was here he would ask you if you worked for China.

If I was in China I'd have been re-educated for some of the things I've posted merely here on this very forum, within the last 6 months alone. Nice try, but a complete miss.

My keying in on 'lab made bioweapon' is just because I was directly responding to HotRocks34's post, which quoted: "U.S. officials and the intelligence community have confirmed to Fox News that they have taken the possibility of the coronavirus being man-made or engineered inside China as some sort of bioweapon off the table"

I never said it couldn't have escaped from a lab. I was directly responding to a post. So don't strawman me, please, many thanks.

good points

I agree with basically all of your post. But I'm not willing to discount sheer incompetence and face-saving at a local level as much as others are. To me, that is basically the main preventable reason why this virus has hit the severity level it has. Like, if we're ranking blame, it's Wuhan officials first on the podium.

I already had doubts when they officially chastised Wuhan officials for censoring the whistleblower doctor. But at the same time, I think it's exceedingly likely that the 'heaven is high and the emperor is far away' culture in local governance led to them making this stupid decision.

The WeChat group is a very good point, but it's just as likely somebody anonymously reported him, as telling-on-your-neighbors is very much promoted behavior in the Glorious Motherland. But a good point nonetheless.

As for your point #4, denying "foreigners" access to the lab and records is simply China doing it's flexing thing. Whether or not the virus was engineered, originally a bioweapon, being studied in a lab, or crossed into humans because somebody ate bat droppings on a drunken college baiju dare, China would do the very same thing. They will always obfuscate as much as possible, and never allow themselves to be judged, if they can help it, by outside parties.

You'll recall that Hong Kong scientists from HKU were given quite large access to the wet market, strains of the virus, etc very early on. That's because China's obfuscation machine hadn't fully revved into gear yet, and it was before popular theories of China bioweapons were being circulated. Now? No western country (not even those very same Hong Kong scientists which, remember, China dictates are also from 'China') has any hope of getting into China. It's bad, yes.

As to your point number 5, well, I've been outspoken against their Uighur camps on this forum in multiple threads for a while now, which you've presumably read and forgotten since we've likely been active in the same threads. So... that's a mistarget, but I can't disagree with the sentiment.

[Neutral 123]

If the infection rate is 50+ times higher than reported, that means the death rate is very low. If that's the case, I think we need to start opening up the country before our economy totally collapses.

A painful lesson for humanity. The exploitation of animals has and still continue to cripple the world. Something has to change.

[dhsilv2]

If the infection rate is 50+ times higher than reported, that means the death rate is very low. If that's the case, I think we need to start opening up the country before our economy totally collapses.

That's me over 30 million americans have had it....which actually once they're over it, might be enough to start with a good buff all be it not really herd immunity. That said, we can't really speculate given that what the death rate is as people will have this for weeks, and in some cases it seems upwards of a month before passing away AND that's without accounting for those who have serious damage caused by this who could die from those complications. Or in other words...we're still not sure about much of anything. Other than we still can't test enough people, now 4 months into this mess.

[dhsilv2]

There are multiple medications that were released and had been in stock for years before we found they were unsafe or caused damage we couldnt predict. Regardless of what the medication does or how it should theoretically work, the only way to know if something is safe long term is to reach the long term. Its a risk. The risk is fine if the vaccine is treating a virus that presents a more dangerous situation today than the possible harm it may have in the future, and people can do that kind of risk/benefit math.

I dont think the possible benefits outweigh the risk for me. And i get im putting myself in the anti-vaxxers group, but there's nothing unscientific about my decision.

How long do you need you need a vaccine to be tested to feel comfortable taking it?

What do you think the risks are?

Probably until i become part of an at risk group or we have a decade+ of data. Like i get all the structural problems that COVID has caused to the world, but on an individual level, the risk of any real harm is extremely low to those young and healthy individuals.

Conversely those who are generally at risk from a new drug are NOT young and healthy individuals.

[lakerz12]

If the infection rate is 50+ times higher than reported, that means the death rate is very low. If that's the case, I think we need to start opening up the country before our economy totally collapses.

That's me over 30 million americans have had it....which actually once they're over it, might be enough to start with a good buff all be it not really herd immunity. That said, we can't really speculate given that what the death rate is as people will have this for weeks, and in some cases it seems upwards of a month before passing away AND that's without accounting for those who have serious damage caused by this who could die from those complications. Or in other words...we're still not sure about much of anything. Other than we still can't test enough people, now 4 months into this mess.

"We can't really speculate" and yet we shut down key portions of the entire country based on speculation.

While I agree with social distancing and staying at home to a large degree, there's not actually any data or evidence that opening things up (with precautions in place) would noticeably increase infection or death.

Point being, the "not sure about much of anything" works both ways. If you want people to remain at home, you're basing that order/opinion on the same ignorance.

[Zenzibar]

No, that's not what vaccines do, or how antibodies work.

https://ijme.in/articles/deaths-in-a-trial-of-the-hpv-vaccine/?galley=html
No all vaccines are created equal.

Deaths in a trial of the HPV vaccine
The death of girls who were a part of a Human Papilloma Virus vaccine trial has raised an alarm about the nature of research in India as well as the value attached by the state to the lives of its citizens.

The trial was being conducted in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat by the NGO PATH with support from the Indian Council of Medical Research and local health authorities. They were funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The vaccine is supplied by two companies, Merck Sharpe & Dohme and Glaxo Smith Kline.

When the government stopped the trials, three doses had already been administered to 30,000 participants, mostly tribal girls aged between 9 and 14.

That's a trial, and not talking about infecting other people. Having a trial is exactly why this is taking 12-18 months, because in trials you find out if there are adverse and extreme side effects.

A vaccine is a small/weakened dose of a virus. That causes your body to react by producing antibodies. Those antibodies are able to fight off the stronger version of the virus (this is a basic explanation but good enough for the time being).

So you can't infect someone because you had a vaccine. And antibodies don't infect people with the virus, they're your defense from it.

Not being a virologist I'm not qualified to agree or disagree with you my man. What I do know is that my body doesn't react well to weakened versions of even the common flu vaccine. Yet I can be around others with the annual flu and not catch it.

Fortunately, my body is pretty strong, given up all meats, milk, eggs and garbage foods has helped a bunch.

So while not advocating to everyone to disregard the Covid vaccine, my personal past experiences tells me to best avoid and not fk around with any of it.
To each their own my brother.

[Clay Davis]

Local government officials covered up a SARS-like epidemic without notifying the central government and Chairman Xi?

You're naive at how an authoritarian government works. These officials will face death penalties if they try that.

I know you want to believe this, but if you think China has stamped out all incompetence and imbecilic behavior from their local governments, then not only are you thinking what they probably want you to think, but you are way off. It was only just recently that Xi started his purge of 'corruption' (read, political opposition, too), and if you think a legacy of face-saving buck-passing and corruption deeply entrenched in the roots of a political system has simply just vanished, uh... The CCP wishes they had that kind of total control. They don't yet, but they'll get there probably.

the only deflection going on here is from you as you not so cleverly try and deflect the origin story by focusing on "lab-made" while completely ignoring the theory of "virus being studied in lab escaped and was then covered up by China" which is obviously the most plausible explanation to this whole thing.

If Trump was here he would ask you if you worked for China.

If I was in China I'd have been re-educated for some of the things I've posted merely here on this very forum, within the last 6 months alone. Nice try, but a complete miss.

My keying in on 'lab made bioweapon' is just because I was directly responding to HotRocks34's post, which quoted: "U.S. officials and the intelligence community have confirmed to Fox News that they have taken the possibility of the coronavirus being man-made or engineered inside China as some sort of bioweapon off the table"

I never said it couldn't have escaped from a lab. I was directly responding to a post. So don't strawman me, please, many thanks.

good points

I agree with basically all of your post. But I'm not willing to discount sheer incompetence and face-saving at a local level as much as others are. To me, that is basically the main preventable reason why this virus has hit the severity level it has. Like, if we're ranking blame, it's Wuhan officials first on the podium.

I already had doubts when they officially chastised Wuhan officials for censoring the whistleblower doctor. But at the same time, I think it's exceedingly likely that the 'heaven is high and the emperor is far away' culture in local governance led to them making this stupid decision.

The WeChat group is a very good point, but it's just as likely somebody anonymously reported him, as telling-on-your-neighbors is very much promoted behavior in the Glorious Motherland. But a good point nonetheless.

As for your point #4, denying "foreigners" access to the lab and records is simply China doing it's flexing thing. Whether or not the virus was engineered, originally a bioweapon, being studied in a lab, or crossed into humans because somebody ate bat droppings on a drunken college baiju dare, China would do the very same thing. They will always obfuscate as much as possible, and never allow themselves to be judged, if they can help it, by outside parties.

You'll recall that Hong Kong scientists from HKU were given quite large access to the wet market, strains of the virus, etc very early on. That's because China's obfuscation machine hadn't fully revved into gear yet, and it was before popular theories of China bioweapons were being circulated. Now? No western country (not even those very same Hong Kong scientists which, remember, China dictates are also from 'China') has any hope of getting into China. It's bad, yes.

As to your point number 5, well, I've been outspoken against their Uighur camps on this forum in multiple threads for a while now, which you've presumably read and forgotten since we've likely been active in the same threads. So... that's a mistarget, but I can't disagree with the sentiment.

I personally feel like measures to chastise local officials were done under extreme public pressure. Remember, Dr. Li Wenliang had become a martyr very early in the spread of the epidemic. They had to do something. However, I think that if it were mere incompetence, we would see a much more stringent punishment than just public shaming, but that is a mere opinion and isn't based on any episodes.

From what I understand, the CCP was very strict on controlling any sort of scientific investigations on the issue, to the extent that they were ordering the destruction of samples (sequenced outside of Wuhan and then ordered destroyed by Beijing) of the virus and that the genome was only first made available because of a leak by a researcher (who was then punished). I was not aware of many researchers from non-mainland research centers being given access to Wuhan, but I'm sure that they were not completely obfuscatory at all times.

I wasn't trying to target you but was a general statement regarding anyone who has a stance on this debate. My apologies if you felt that way since it was because I wasn't extremely clear (I would not consider your stance to be giving the CCP the benefit of the doubt -- the difference between our stances is a mere splitting of hairs on the degree of their incompetence.).

[BadMofoPimp]

The vaccine will prohibit you from developing the systems of Covid, perhaps true. But if you get the vaccine and sneeze on an elderly or compromised with your antibodies will you infect them?

As you know, most who get the flu vaccine go to a period of 1-2 weeks with the flu reaction anyway. Will an elderly or health compromised person be able to withstand the initial body reaction?

You make it sound like a Flu vaccine isn't a vaccine, but they infect you with the flu so your body creates antibodies for the flu!

You can laugh. But I haven't been vaccinated for 10 years. The last time? Got vaccinated and developed flu-like systems that lasted 2 weeks and couldn't even go to work. And I NEVER miss work.

10 years + no vaccine = 0 flu. It's my math.

I have never ever been vaccinated for the flu. I got it one time about 5 years ago and it was super brutal. Other than that, no issues.

[bondom34]

https://ijme.in/articles/deaths-in-a-trial-of-the-hpv-vaccine/?galley=html
No all vaccines are created equal.

Deaths in a trial of the HPV vaccine
The death of girls who were a part of a Human Papilloma Virus vaccine trial has raised an alarm about the nature of research in India as well as the value attached by the state to the lives of its citizens.

The trial was being conducted in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat by the NGO PATH with support from the Indian Council of Medical Research and local health authorities. They were funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The vaccine is supplied by two companies, Merck Sharpe & Dohme and Glaxo Smith Kline.

When the government stopped the trials, three doses had already been administered to 30,000 participants, mostly tribal girls aged between 9 and 14.

That's a trial, and not talking about infecting other people. Having a trial is exactly why this is taking 12-18 months, because in trials you find out if there are adverse and extreme side effects.

A vaccine is a small/weakened dose of a virus. That causes your body to react by producing antibodies. Those antibodies are able to fight off the stronger version of the virus (this is a basic explanation but good enough for the time being).

So you can't infect someone because you had a vaccine. And antibodies don't infect people with the virus, they're your defense from it.

Not being a virologist I'm not qualified to agree or disagree with you my man. What I do know is that my body doesn't react well to weakened versions of even the common flu vaccine. Yet I can be around others with the annual flu and not catch it.

Fortunately, my body is pretty strong, given up all meats, milk, eggs and garbage foods has helped a bunch.

So while not advocating to everyone to disregard the Covid vaccine, my personal past experiences tells me to best avoid and not fk around with any of it.
To each their own my brother.

Yeah that's not how viruses work. There's no 100% rate of contraction. Someone could sneeze in your face and you might not catch it, someone else might be a foot away and you do. Its more likely you got something other than the flu right after the vaccine. Vaccines are incredibly helpful and during a pandemic they're even more valuable.

[13th Man]

My brother is an anti-vaxxer but not me. He's a Deep State, Bill Gates population control believer (lets not get into that here).

I'll be getting vaccinated for sure since I still see my elderly mom and hope that she will get vaccinated as well. Of course I'll be getting the vaccine for me too as you never know with this one...

[azcatz11]

Has anyone had swine flu? I had it in 2009. It was literally horrible and the worst experience I've ever gone thru

[michaelm]

Local government officials covered up a SARS-like epidemic without notifying the central government and Chairman Xi?

You're naive at how an authoritarian government works. These officials will face death penalties if they try that.

I know you want to believe this, but if you think China has stamped out all incompetence and imbecilic behavior from their local governments, then not only are you thinking what they probably want you to think, but you are way off. It was only just recently that Xi started his purge of 'corruption' (read, political opposition, too), and if you think a legacy of face-saving buck-passing and corruption deeply entrenched in the roots of a political system has simply just vanished, uh... The CCP wishes they had that kind of total control. They don't yet, but they'll get there probably.

the only deflection going on here is from you as you not so cleverly try and deflect the origin story by focusing on "lab-made" while completely ignoring the theory of "virus being studied in lab escaped and was then covered up by China" which is obviously the most plausible explanation to this whole thing.

If Trump was here he would ask you if you worked for China.

If I was in China I'd have been re-educated for some of the things I've posted merely here on this very forum, within the last 6 months alone. Nice try, but a complete miss.

My keying in on 'lab made bioweapon' is just because I was directly responding to HotRocks34's post, which quoted: "U.S. officials and the intelligence community have confirmed to Fox News that they have taken the possibility of the coronavirus being man-made or engineered inside China as some sort of bioweapon off the table"

I never said it couldn't have escaped from a lab. I was directly responding to a post. So don't strawman me, please, many thanks.

good points

I agree with basically all of your post. But I'm not willing to discount sheer incompetence and face-saving at a local level as much as others are. To me, that is basically the main preventable reason why this virus has hit the severity level it has. Like, if we're ranking blame, it's Wuhan officials first on the podium.

I already had doubts when they officially chastised Wuhan officials for censoring the whistleblower doctor. But at the same time, I think it's exceedingly likely that the 'heaven is high and the emperor is far away' culture in local governance led to them making this stupid decision.

The WeChat group is a very good point, but it's just as likely somebody anonymously reported him, as telling-on-your-neighbors is very much promoted behavior in the Glorious Motherland. But a good point nonetheless.

As for your point #4, denying "foreigners" access to the lab and records is simply China doing it's flexing thing. Whether or not the virus was engineered, originally a bioweapon, being studied in a lab, or crossed into humans because somebody ate bat droppings on a drunken college baiju dare, China would do the very same thing. They will always obfuscate as much as possible, and never allow themselves to be judged, if they can help it, by outside parties.

You'll recall that Hong Kong scientists from HKU were given quite large access to the wet market, strains of the virus, etc very early on. That's because China's obfuscation machine hadn't fully revved into gear yet, and it was before popular theories of China bioweapons were being circulated. Now? No western country (not even those very same Hong Kong scientists which, remember, China dictates are also from 'China') has any hope of getting into China. It's bad, yes.

As to your point number 5, well, I've been outspoken against their Uighur camps on this forum in multiple threads for a while now, which you've presumably read and forgotten since we've likely been active in the same threads. So... that's a mistarget, but I can't disagree with the sentiment.

I personally feel like measures to chastise local officials were done under extreme public pressure. Remember, Dr. Li Wenliang had become a martyr very early in the spread of the epidemic. They had to do something. However, I think that if it were mere incompetence, we would see a much more stringent punishment than just public shaming, but that is a mere opinion and isn't based on any episodes.

From what I understand, the CCP was very strict on controlling any sort of scientific investigations on the issue, to the extent that they were ordering the destruction of samples (sequenced outside of Wuhan and then ordered destroyed by Beijing) of the virus and that the genome was only first made available because of a leak by a researcher (who was then punished). I was not aware of many researchers from non-mainland research centers being given access to Wuhan, but I'm sure that they were not completely obfuscatory at all times.

I wasn't trying to target you but was a general statement regarding anyone who has a stance on this debate. My apologies if you felt that way since it was because I wasn't extremely clear (I would not consider your stance to be giving the CCP the benefit of the doubt -- the difference between our stances is a mere splitting of hairs on the degree of their incompetence.).

As a counterpoint it is still the case that SARS and MERS were fairly definitely not due to laboratory accidents, and that bats carry viruses other than corona viruses that have caused zoonotic disease in humans. You also don’t have to take the bats to Wuhan, just a person infected by one as this whole pandemic demonstrates.

[My Main Man]

I don’t get flu shots every year for myself. I get one so that I don’t get the flu and pass it onto children and elderly people. All of you anti-flu vaccine people are selfish as hell.

[TMU]

For those who are basically saying that they don't believe in the flu vaccine therefore they won't be getting the Covid-19 vaccine, are you insinuating that the Covid-19 is just another variant of the seasonal flu? Still in denial of how potent this virus is?

[13th Man]

Unless they're forcing me to get chipped of some sort, I'll be getting vaccinated. I also believe in having the right to decide what gets injected into my body. I will never endorse mandatory vaccinations.

[michaelm]

I don’t get flu shots every year for myself. I get one so that I don’t get the flu and pass it onto children and elderly people. All of you anti-flu vaccine people are selfish as hell.

Absolutely.

It is also pretty much an ethical responsibility for health care workers to get vaccinated as has been the case for Hepatitis B for many years, and I consider it likely that will be the case for Covid-19 unless there are compelling individual reasons or significant scientifically based doubts about a vaccine. I believe however that the early use of the Ebola vaccine was because that disease had such a high case fatality rate, and where it was occurring being in a constant state of civil war which made the standard public health measures which clamped down the previous outbreak in Africa difficult, and with the acknowledgement of/proviso that it hadn’t as yet gone through all the usual steps.

[michaelm]

Has anyone had swine flu? I had it in 2009. It was literally horrible and the worst experience I've ever gone thru

I rarely get respiratory tract infections but did I believe get that, possibly related to a plane flight to the USA, as it was the prevalent strain at the time, and was quite symptomatic, but it was annoying rather than debilitating in my case.