Pretty impressive, if true that it can stop infection, and potentially then transmission. Nasal vaccines have the ability to do this because of the potental for neutralizing activity along the nasal muscosa.
They make the claim so we'll have to see. I currently use a nitric oxide nasal spray as the nose is the major area to protect (and also use probiotic lozenges of the k12 strain for the throat).
---
“The vaccine offers potent protection against transmission, prevents reinfection and the spread of the virus, while also reducing the generation of new variants,” Dr Liu said.
“Unlike the mRNA vaccine which targets only the spike protein, CDO-7N-1 induces immunity to all major SARS-CoV-2 proteins and is highly effective against all major variants to date.
“Importantly, the vaccine remains stable at 4°C for seven months, making it ideal for low- and middle-income countries.”
---
Even better is to wear a mask (not to prevent virus from coming in that's silly air gets around it) but to keep your nasal passages moist during a high altitude flight. Japanese have known this for years and why they wear masks so much.
On this topic, I recently got officially fit-tested for N95 masks (specifically 3M 9210+). They put a cover over your head and spray in a bitter substance; if you taste it, the mask fit fails. (You can also do this test at home if you have the supplies.)
I started wearing N95s on flights since KF94 ear loop masks would hurt my ears after a few hours. Inadvertently realized during fit-testing that the KF94s let so much air around the edges that they were much less effective than I had assumed, so I basically just use my N95 when needed indoors anywhere. Also found that other 3M mask models didn't fit my face as effectively (failed the test almost immediately).
Highly recommended to go with fit-tested N95s (if not already using something even better like a respirator).
Edit: I should mention I've flown SF to Toronto a few times since the pandemic started and air quality on planes is quite terrible despite what airlines say. Lowest CO2 concentration around 1800 ppm, and highest I've seen has been 3000+ ppm (during boarding). (420ppm outdoor average at sea level, and anything about 1000ppm I'd wear a mask indoors.)
co2 levels are an inverse proxy for incoming fresh air fraction. this is of course inversely correlated with pathogen concentration (presuming that fresh incoming air from outside is relatively pathogen-free).
they aren’t directly correlated, it’s just a proxy. ventilation reduces both.
aranet4 CO2 monitor that I bring with me. 2xAA batteries allow it to go for a year or more, and I can pull the readings via Bluetooth to my phone to look at historical data.
As sneak also replied, it's just a proxy: higher CO2 correlates to higher chance of breathing in pathogens, but doesn't take into consideration filtration.
Physically, the probability that an aerosolized particle enters your body is lower with a mask than without one, as at least some airflow will go through the mask and carry particles onto the mask surface. How much lower, of course, is difficult to predict.
I wear masks on planes for this reason, also with goggle-style glasses. Through inadvertent A/B testing, I have some support that they are effective. I also use eye and nose moisturizers rather than just rely on covering up. I used to catch a bug every time I flew but have now mostly eliminated that.
For a high altitude flight, going straight for the N95 would make sense to me. In such a situation one probably paid good money for the flight and spent time organizing the trip to wherever it was, having it be all for nothing because of catching something would be a waste.
From a cost/benefit perspective, it's definitely slanted towards wearing the N95.
Given all the other discomforts of flying, wearing a respirator is a minor problem. Passengers are not likely to have long, emotional conversations during a flight where a mask might be uncomfortable or inhibit communication. But there is the food/drink issue, if someone considers those to be important.
Fit-tested respirators - not masks - do not allow unfiltered air in, which helps prevents the virus from entering your system at all. People need to differentiate between the generic term "mask" and "respirator".
Airplanes have about 12-15 air changes per hour they are flying, and the air that is recycled, less than half, is going through standard HEPA filters and are rated to capture virus and bacteria particles.
My less empirical info is that airflow in a plane mostly goes from being input above your head, and exhausted from the pressurized cabin at your feet, meaning you have less exposure to anyone not in your row.
Remember that aircraft pressurization systems were designed to be smoked in, other than the newest designs. They needed enough airflow to not totally choke out passengers on a cross country or cross atlantic trip.
Are you able to square the levels of CO2 on planes, which are 1000-1800 ppm, so over 2-3x atmospheric air, with the 12-15 ACH? I don't understand how those two things can be true.
ACH often refers to filtration and not ventilation; that is, recycled air counts for ACH calculations but won't decrease CO2 because that's not scrubbed by the filters. So it's possible you can have high CO2 levels but also no virus or particulate matter in the air; this is why some places will report PM2.5 as well as CO2, as a proxy for filtration. To make it more complicated, you can also use UV-C to inactivate pathogens, which may not decrease PM2.5 and won't decrease CO2.
I'm not saying this is the case necessarily for planes, but I'm just trying to provide context for how proxy measures of air quality may not tell the full story.
IIRC the airlines did improve filtering of air in the cabin, but I think this is basically moot - you’re stuck in a hermetic, pressurized can with hundreds of other people and some percentage of them is exhaling viral droplets into the air that’s force circulated through the cabin. Unless you’re wearing a hazmat suit, you’ll be exposed.
I'm not talking about viral/bacterial factors here, clearly a better filter with a better humidity system doesn't cause you to end up with a dry throat.
I'm not talking about exposure to people your in the same goldfish bowl as, that's a guaranteed to happen when you bump into people getting your bags outside...
In summary, while wearing a face mask might offer minimal benefits in terms of retaining some moisture around your nasal passages due to breath capture and reduced airflow exposure to dry cabin air, it does not effectively keep them moist during high altitude flights. The primary concern remains that airplane cabins are inherently dry environments that can lead to discomfort regardless of whether one wears a mask.
Thus, wearing a face mask will not effectively keep your nasal passages moist during a high altitude flight.
Is there evidence for this? The typical theory is that during winter, you get more people indoors, in close proximity with poor ventilation- similarly planes is just about a large number of people sitting in close proximity for an extended period.
Its common knowledge in regions with stronger winters that indoor humidity needs to be well managed (aka avoid too dry air) since upper breathing tract is more prone to infections. I've experienced it myself numerous times, so did my family and literally everybody in that region I know. Nobody ever bothered to look for peer-reviewed study of something one experiences every winter during ones whole life (just like ie eating raw strong garlic works very well as prevention of infections, not so much once sick).
Now that's not the sole reason for transmissions of course, but weakened outer defenses help infections a lot.
> The typical theory is that during winter, you get more people indoors, in close proximity with poor ventilation
Covid by far is no longer a "winter only" thing. The US has a record covid wave [1], so does Germany [2] and the UK [3].
Unfortunately politicians worldwide have pretty much given up preventing Covid transmission, mostly due to the serious backlash from shortsighted large employers and the far-right - some places like Nassau County (NY, US) even ban people from wearing masks [4] to protect themselves. Not to mention large parts of the population itself - try wearing a mask in public these days, people will either look at you like you're some sort of madman or they'll just outright assault you [5].
And all of that despite serious indicators that even minor measures like air filters in kindergartens and schools massively reduce sick times... it's truly maddening, air filters don't impact anyone, they're cheap to operate. But people don't want any kind of reminder of the lockdown era, they sometimes even violently respond to that.
We regulate literally everything needed for survival... our water gets tested to make sure it's free of contaminants, food and medicine production of all kinds has to comply with very strict requirements, noise polluters such as cars, trucks and heavy machinery get regulated... but the air we breathe? Nothing except particulate emissions from cars and industry gets regulated. Children have to learn in schools no matter how hot, humid, CO2-overloaded or moldy it is. Workers enjoy barely any protection as well. And it takes a massive amount of mold for a residential building to be declared unfit for living, maintaining air-condition installations (especially filters) isn't a requirement, which means landlords can get away with a lot of shit... It's a disgrace how far we have all fallen.
The “record Covid wave” in the US is not evenly distributed across the country.
According to the CDC, “As of August 16, 2024, we estimate that COVID-19 infections are growing or likely growing in 27 states, declining or likely declining in 4 states, and are stable or uncertain in 17 states.”
> They just implemented authoritarian measures such as lockdowns that had little to no effect, but simply served those politicians' own self-serving purposes
Had all states had restrictions/"lockdowns" in 2020-2022 that were as strict as the strictest state's mitigation measures, we would have saved ~360k more lives[1].
Maybe. That's far from certain, though. What's more, this would have come at a tremendous cost - and not just in the strict economic sense of the word. Lockdowns and other restrictions do have severe side effects.
You moved the goal posts. Your claim was that "lockdowns" did little or nothing, and I provided a study that shows that simply isn't true. You're now disagreeing (without any evidence) but have shifted to arguing they have side effects that you find too severe.
That's a completely different argument, and one that really can't be objectively measured (e.g., how do you value a life saved?). But lockdowns were effective at saving lives in 2020, and since we knew nothing about SAR-CoV-2 and had limited treatment options there was basically no other option. Nobody (other than you) has mentioned reinstating lockdowns.
> Your claim was that "lockdowns" did little or nothing
I still stand by that claim. Compared with alternative, less restrictive measures, lockdowns achieve very little, especially when considering the massive downside they come with.
Like you said, lockdowns were justified in early 2020 when we knew very little about COVID-19. Later, though, they amounted to nothing more than authoritarian virtue signalling.
> Nobody (other than you) has mentioned reinstating lockdowns.
Not explicitly. More often than not that's what people mean when they're saying that politicians have given up on fighting Covid.
Multiple citations needed here, but your response suggests science isn't driving your beliefs here, so I'll just point out one thing and then will leave this thread:
> More often than not that's what people mean when they're saying that politicians have given up on fighting Covid.
I know a lot of people in public health and disability spaces, and every person I know that talks about the failure of public health around the covid pandemic is referring to the dismantling of surveillance (e.g., testing), the lack of investment in next generation vaccines and treatments, the failure to upgrade ventilation and filtration, and removing mask mandates in targeted places (like emergency rooms). I haven't heard anybody in the US discuss lockdowns in years. I haven't even heard people talk about broad (i.e., outside healthcare) mask mandates in over a year. You need to get "mitigations = lockdowns" out of your head, that's not what people are "implying" when they discuss fighting covid.
> but your response suggests science isn't driving your beliefs here
I find this kind of argument - which indeed seems to have become quite fashionable during the pandemic - to imply that dissenting opinions aren't supported by science to be pretty offensive, particularly when recent revelations (e.g., in Germany, since that country has been mentioned in this thread) have shown that quite often mandates were driven by politics rather than being supported by science.
> targeted places (like emergency rooms).
While ERs aren't the first places that come to mind, because for the most part they don't treat patients with communicable diseases, there's nothing that keeps hospitals from implementing such mandates. I'd welcome that, because as should have become obvious from this this thread I'm very much in favour of wearing masks.
> that's not what people are "implying" when they discuss fighting covid.
While they don't have any actual expertise on the matter, there still is a small but very vocal #ZeroCovid bubble (e.g., on the social network formerly known as Twitter) that quite literally implies that - and little else - for fighting COVID-19 today.
> to imply that dissenting opinions aren't supported by science to be pretty offensive
Unless I missed something, you have yet to share the science that supports your view. I'm not bowing out of discussing this because we have different opinions, I'm bowing out because I shared a study (and could provide more) and you responded by shifting goal posts and standing by your claim, not by responding in kind with similar studies or different interpretations of the data. There's not much discussion to be had if we're not working from a shared understanding of data and facts, and those data and facts aren't driving our opinions and beliefs. Anyway, best of luck out there!
> Anyway, what do you suggest? Lockdowns and civil rights restrictions forever?
I literally wrote what I suggested and what you're asking: mandate air purifiers (and ventilation/AC in general...) for public and educational buildings. Additionally to that and specially for the US: introduce unlimited paid sick time, just like every other Western country already has.
And maaaaybe introduce by law a ban on knowingly sending sick kids to kindergarten/schools. It's utterly insane to watch every year how the weeks after major holidays are filled with "colleague X is out sick, caught a bug from their kids". If there is one thing every parent in my social circle is cursing about, it is all the tons of bugs their kids bring home from school because other parents can't be arsed to let their kid spend a few days at home watching TV - and it's not just covid. Lice, ordinary flu, hand-foot-mouth or whatever it's called in English, measles, ordinary fever, vomit/diarrhea...
> For trying to avoid an illness at all costs that not only wasn't particularly dangerous to begin with for the general population
In the US alone, 1.2 million people died of COVID. That's far from "wasn't particularly dangerous".
> but also is very much manageable today, particularly considering that most people are vaccinated now (or at least have the opportunity to get vaccinated).
Vaccines aren't perfect, even including them about 3-5% of the infected have a risk for debilitating long-covid (i.e. ME/CFS). It's not a gamble I want to take part in.
I'm very much in favour of using (or even mandating) air purifiers and dissuading (or banning) people from going to work or sending their kids to school with a communicable disease (including any respiratory illness, not just COVID-19; people seem to think "It's not Covid. So, it doesn't matter.").
Implementing such highly useful measures hasn't been tried, though, at least not at any meaningful scale. Everything politicians tried was about more restrictions and ever more severe lockdowns.
> Vaccines aren't perfect, even including them about 3-5% of the infected have a risk for debilitating long-covid (i.e. ME/CFS). It's not a gamble I want to take part in.
Again, I'm totally fine with that. I'm myself still getting vaccinated once a year with an updated vaccine and I occasionally still wear masks depending in the setting (cramped indoor spaces, particularly during cold season).
If people personally want to avoid that risk that's perfectly ok. Demanding others behave in a certain way (e.g., by enforcing restrictions on their freedom of movement) is not, though.
> Implementing such highly useful measures hasn't been tried, though, at least not at any meaningful scale. Everything politicians tried was about more restrictions and ever more severe lockdowns.
Oh it has been tried, at least here in Germany the federal government gave financial aids to schools and kindergartens. And public offices like parliaments have had them ever since... but in schools? Parents demanded they be taken offline as "the pandemic ended", or schools bought the loud-ass versions...
> If there is one thing every parent in my social circle is cursing about, it is all the tons of bugs their kids bring home from school because other parents can't be arsed to let their kid spend a few days at home watching TV
Viruses spread prior to any indication of infection. By the time any kid in daycare has a fever, the class is already infected and spreading to others. A huge proportion of viral infections just result in runny noses.
One of my kids’ classes got hand foot mouth a few months ago, and I don’t think even a single kid had a fever, or even any painful spots. Just some red spots for a few days, but otherwise unaffected. Not to say that it should intentionally be spread or ignored, but just providing perspective on how non problematic the vast, vast majority of viral infections could be, especially relative to the cost of preventing them.
Also, schools serve as daycare taking on the legal liability for handling kids, allowing parents to work. The changes you seek would crater the economy of any developed country, and especially so with aging demographics. And I don’t think any country offers unlimited paid sick time. Not to mention that efforts to prevent abuse of this unlimited paid sick time would be another huge resource sink.
It doesn’t sound like a country wide universal benefit (at least as of 2013).
> Florence currently provides support to about 2,000 working families in 23 wards and four cities in Tokyo, Kawasaki, and Yokohama cities in Kanagawa Prefecture, and Urayasu and Ichikawa cities in Chiba Prefecture.
I have read tons of articles on these types of benefits, but never seen them successfully implemented on a national, universal level. The main problem being voters not wanting to prioritize spending on kids, or at least prioritizing spending on older population groups rather than kids (since that is who the voters are).
> Viruses spread prior to any indication of infection. By the time any kid in daycare has a fever, the class is already infected and spreading to others.
Sure but pretty much any daycare worker you ask can tell you stories about a kid barely able to stand that just got dumped on their front door, or ones that have been obviously given quite the hefty dose of medication and "suddenly" get worse in a matter of 2-3 hours once the medication wore off.
And that is frankly anti-social behavior, for me it would be grounds to yeet the parents from the daycare effective immediately.
> Also, schools serve as daycare taking on the legal liability for handling kids, allowing parents to work.
In Germany we have "Kinderkrankentage" - sick days for your child that you as a parent take to care for your kids.
> Not to mention that efforts to prevent abuse of this unlimited paid sick time would be another huge resource sink.
EVERY Western country has such a policy and survives just fine. If the US fears it being abused, well, maybe do the decent thing and give them a similar amount of vacation PTO?!
This wikipedia article is out of date ("There is no federal or state statutory minimum paid vacation or paid public holidays. Paid leave is at the discretion of the employers to their employees."). Illinois law now mandates paid leave: https://labor.illinois.gov/faqs/paidleavefaq.html
So, the ground is shifting on this in the USA, at least at the state level.
Ppp would have been a perfect time and mechanism to employ mandatory universal sick time; only forgive the loans if employers could post a "bond" showing they had accounted for sick time per employee.
It couldn't, structurally not. In the EU a lot is already harmonized by EU law, but in the US? Congress has been gridlocked for decades now thanks to (predominantly Republican) obstructionism and the states can't be arsed to work on constitutional amendments either.
Damn, which countries offer that? And do they actually, in reality, and not just on paper? I live in Europe and while theoretically you can have paid sick time, in reality your employer will just fire you (sometimes), you literally cannot be sick without such dire consequences (so I have heard from the mouth of employers).
Germany, for one. Your employer pays the first 90 days, after that the health insurance takes over (IIRC) 70% of your wage, and many employers that value their employees pay the remaining 30%.
Firing someone is very hard in Germany unless it's about closing up shop or intentional action against the employer (shit like theft or vandalism).
There are other possibilities beyond the two you gave. For example, I read of an n=1 study where a doctor was self-administering nasal heparin and was yet to get sick.
You might have a genuine question but it was rude to frame it has an assumption or accusation. Furthermore your follow up is dismissive of the whole community. Please reflect on your behaviour and try to do better in future.
I only got upity after communal negative response which I think is justified. That's cause and effect.
For sake of being nice I'll assume you're being nice rather than condescending.
Again, no this is not an accusation but let's rephrase,
RFC:
Given above information.
If I interpret it one way I understand you to be imunocopromised which is missing,
Or if I interpret it another way I find your actions to be as one might describe as extreme hypocondrea aka non sensical unless I'm missing some detail.
The reasonable responses from a normal person are;
Yes, I am I forgot to mention;
I just don't want to get sick, this is my level of risk assessment which may differ from yours;
No, see third or fourth alternative you didn't consider.
There is no subconscious bias here, other than to explain my clear bias in understanding. I'm explaining why it makes no sense to me and asking if they can clarify. Again I'm not saying a person is behaving a certain way other than the community is deciding to read heavily negatively into a short paraphrased question. This is the attitude as to why things like irc died...
It sounds like your intention, as stated, was to give an opinion and follow up question. The downvotes suggest that an innocent observation and question was not received.
When I read what you wrote, I see an accusation and a pithy open window. "Are you broken or dumb?" -- and moreso the comment you replied to said "exciting development; i keep my nasal passages and throat moist for the same reasons." Like, your comment barely follows. Except to say that taking preventative measures that appear backed by studies is a form of delusion.
At this point I'm going with a poor cultural difference and an assumption of being aggressive. I'm fed up of this. "Be excellent to watch other" was and is not difficult.
I'm going with nice, but you do seem to be pushing that I'm a bad person. Which is disappointing after engaging in good faith.
A sensible action based on a sensible observable short term impact is sensible behaviour. I.e. dry throat or not having dry throat, is sensible.
I fail to see a problem with logic or opinion here, this is cut and dry and goes no further.
Deciding to take actions which amounted and contributed directly to social calls to shut down schools, damaging economy, making politics even more toxic under the banner of "latest study shows". Is clearly extremely bad think.
This has damaged the lives of an entire generation of children because of "what if" fear... I know I'm busy seeing the fallout in teaching.
The daily mail is famous for citing bacon will kill our cure you citing bad latest statistical/biology papers. The BBC in the UK is now just as bad. US media is hitting this low regardless of bias or ownership. All selling the same "worry that an undefined chance of a badly defined thing may kill you if...". This is extremely damaging.
Why did the entirety of society end up like their comment sections?
> “Unlike the mRNA vaccine which targets only the spike protein, CDO-7N-1 induces immunity to all major SARS-CoV-2 proteins and is highly effective against all major variants to date.
> “Importantly, the vaccine remains stable at 4°C for seven months, making it ideal for low- and middle-income countries.”
This being a more traditional vaccine, I wonder if any vaccine hold outs will be more receptive
I think there is a large percentage of people who got the original mRNA vaccine but don't plan on getting it again, due to being sick for several days or from other "long covid" or vaccine injury fears. So I wonder if that group would be more receptive.
Assuming they actually mean that it would stop you from getting and transmitting covid with high probability, and that they're correct, thats a pretty attractive selling point.
But like with any other pharma innovation, I'm not gonna be a part of the first commercial wave, or even the second or third unless I'm incredibly worried about the alternative, which I'm not at the moment (although let's see how hard this thing is "marketed" - am I going to be able to live life without it?).
I didn't want the mRNA jab (and didn't get it), but I WOULD definitely take this intranasal vaccine as its a classic (live attenuated) vaccine. That class of vaccine technology is not flawless, but it has decades of successful deployment and study.
The lowest risk option for the herd is that everyone get vaccinated. The lowest risk option for healthy young individuals may or may not be.
The parent is publicly admitting that they chose the more selfish of the two options. This rubs the rest of us (who considered the greater good more important than the incredibly small personal risk) the wrong way.
It's sometimes ok to be selfish, but it's never going to be the most popular decision and don't expect the herd you are a part of to respect your disdain for the well being of the larger group.
> The lowest risk option for the herd is that everyone get vaccinated.
If the vaccine was very good at stopping infection and transmission, this would be true. It's not though, is it?
Are you aware of the numbers needed to treat in order to prevent hospitalizations and deaths in the younger cohorts (especially in those who had already recovered)? It's quite a lot. Like numbers you probably wouldn't ever guess if you didn't already know them.
We destroyed a lot of faith in public health in the meantime, adding more to the negative side of the ledger for whatever future infectious shit storm comes our way.
Is it better for the herd to hear these people and try to convince them through talking, or to push them away/hiding/ridiculing them, potentially causing the Streisand effect?
If you want to chastise those who elected against having mRNA injections, you'd better be sure you have the correct information on how the mRNA jabs prevented transmission (or not).
For one, it's NOT too new, biology has been using mRNA forever. mRNA is well characterized, and well understood. mRNA for use in vaccines has been rolling around in research for a decade or so as well.
What "unknown" are you concerned about? Why do you believe we don't have a good understanding of how mRNA works in the body?
I'm not sure "biology" uses a synthesiser to build nucleic acid into a man-made sequence, and then injects it into the muscles (or accidentally injects it into a blood vessel) of billions of people within the space of a few months.
> What "unknown" are you concerned about? Why do you believe we don't have a good understanding of how mRNA works in the body?
Dr Robert Malone is one of the founding fathers of mRNA vaccine technology. You can read his impressive body of research on the subject here:
He made a video statement regarding the Covid mRNA vaccines which I found very alarming. He described negative effects on the heart, brain, lungs and reproductive system. I won't post links here in case I am cancelled for doing so.
For whistleblowing about the mRNA vaccines he was made an instant pariah online, and there was a swift campaign to cancel and silence him, with media outlets instantly refuting his statements (interesting how media "factcheckers" deemed themselves more qualified to opine on mRNA vaccine technology than Dr Robert Malone himself).
I'm not a scientist (at least, not a scientist of biology), and I don't know if Malone was right or wrong about the jabs.
However, the Malone episode made it clear to me that society is NOT "doing science" correctly, while politicians and the media suppress any inconvenient scientific opinions while rolling out their policies and lucrative Big Pharma contracts.
I don't know what Dr. Malone was like before COVID, but afterwards he was kind of wacky (by anyone's standards).
He made claims about the vaccine killing some kid who died in 2013, talked about how the vaccine causes a form of AIDS, and tried to cure it with Pepcid (the anti-acid) and horse-paste. All of that was despite the fact that he took the Moderna vaccine himself, because he had long-COVID. Honestly, I wonder if COVID didn't' damage his brain somehow.
Either way, you probably shouldn't believe some fringe guy from the internet more than mainstream science. If your mind is too wide open the flies will get in.
*EDIT* I should also add that he didn't even come close to "inventing" the MRNA vaccine. He was one of many people who worked on a a similar concept and contributed to the field. No one person could be said to have invented it, but if there was one person it would not be him. His name was not even listed as one of the main authors of the paper he most frequently cites as proof of his claim.
The claim about the kid who died in 2013 was a poor choice of retweet on Twitter. Anyone who's used Twitter would understand that at 2am after a few beers it's easy to retweet something silly. That single act shouldn't destroy a man's entire scientific credibility, any more than Musk's "pedo guy" tweet should destroy his status as a titan of sustainable travel and space technology.
Malone's discussion around "a form of AIDS" was in reference to the negative efficacy of the Covid mRNA injections recorded by some studies.
Annecdotally my wife (tripled mRNA jabbed) has caught symptomatic Covid twice since being jabbed. I tested positive for it only once (I tested as she had it), I had no symptoms. [Obviously the usual caveat applies. Just one data point, etc].
I don't think the science is "done" yet when it comes to understanding the long term side-effects on the immune system of the Covid mRNA injections.
I used the term "horse paste" because people in my country were literally going to "farm and feed" stores to purchase paste made to treat horses for parasites and then eating it, rather than taking the free and safe vaccine that had been tested for human safety and effectivness. Some of the horse paste eaters died of COVID, and many experienced side effects from the unapproved drug.
A lot of people are bad at evaluating risk. The internet makes it worse.
As to the "long term side-effects on the immune system of the Covid mRNA vaccine", I think it's safe to say that we would know them by now.
It's years later now, and most/all of the effects from the first round have long faded to a memory. Hence most folks have been boosted at least once. Millions upon millions of people have taken those vaccines, and some of us have taken them several times now. There hasn't been any uptick in all-cause mortality among those people that rose above the noise floor of the reports. In fact the vaccinated cohort tends to have died less often (as one would expect).
They're safe, they're effective, and they're cheap. They aren't perfect, but nothing is. Even if they do prove to be dangerous, the numbers show that the difference would have to be so minimal that your limited attention would be better spent installing new sticky things in the bathtub to prevent you from slipping and falling. Your death by those means are many tens of thousands of times more likely.
Seeing as at first they said any unexpected reaction would be impossible because "science" and then reports of myocarditis came in and people said "impossible" which then became "maybe" which then became "yeah, in some cases, but the disease is worse!"
The tech was new enough we didn't know about the myocarditis potential side effect. Everyone was so sure, just like you seem to be. "It doesn't work like that" -- except it does cause myocarditis in some patients
All the while forgetting that benefit is heavily skewed.
Those that would really benefit from its protection are often the same group that would be knocked sideways by its side effects (the very old, infirm, already sick or otherwise vulnerable).
The majority get nothing much in terms of side-effects, but also nothing much in terms of protection over what our bodies could already do for us.
There’s only a small group that are vulnerable enough to benefit significantly, while also being strong enough to tolerate it.
Believe it or not, most people who simply question the safety of mRNA vaccines have nothing against vaccines in general. The people who are skeptic with regarding to the mRNA vaccines (or COVID vaccines in general, whatever) are not your typical anti-vaxxers, and it is unfortunate that they are perceived to be.
Mostly because of them not being totally honest to the public from the start with the COVID vaccines, stating that it would be 100% safe (something that's _never_ true about vaccines) and would prevent spreading.
It made me distrust my government, something I've never done before, only to be fueled by backlash people received for asking questions, including having 0 TV time. If they would've taken it seriously and were able to answer some simple critical questions, even repeatedly (because it's their goddamn job), then I would not think like this. But they STILL don't want to really talk about it in any "real" media, and in my country you get called a "Wappie" for even asking some questions. They tried (effectively) to turn the general population against critical thinkers, which is something you never do, right?
So a big no from me, they messed it up.
Respectfully, i'm not sure you can both claim to be a critical thinker and make a falacious argumentum ad logicam argument at the same time. You kind of have to choose one.
Sure, you're right. Maybe I should've asked more questions, even though I was being vilified, unfriended, and hated for it. It's just so incredibly weird to me that even in the Tweede Kamer (I guess the Dutch House of Representatives?) they just wouldn't seriously answer questions some people had. I watched every debate, every new item, everything (in the Netherlands). They have NEVER done this as bad as this before.
Either we were being lied to, or they chose the path of "let's make them sound crazy so nobody will think like this" for actual good. I'm not sure, and leaning more to the first (for the first time in my life, mind you), and it has served me well this time. Will keep betting on my own body's ability.
In my experience, if you give the conspiracists a foot they take a mile.
If we're all being a little more honest, I think many of those "just asking questions" types aren't just asking questions. They're working in bad faith and already have an anti-vax position, and so they're prodding hoping for a "yes, but..." so they can say "aha! Exactly!"
Is it the right thing to assume all those asking questions are of this variety? No. Is it the right thing to just lie to these people? Also no. But will they respond well to honesty? no. Does being honest pose a danger in the context of these people that will manifest as real lives lost? I think, yes.
So I think that's how this sort of thing came to be. It's a legitimately hard problem because of the stakes.
"Many of those asking questions" is using a weasel word: many. What is many? It allows hand wavy arguments.
Pre covid, I knew about half a dozen anti vax "it causes autism" people; esp my cousin/neighbors as they blame vaccines for their son's autism despite the information available. Post covid, I knew only a couple more similar people. I also know probably closer to 150 people who are/were "this is a new thing being too aggressively pushed" who otherwise take vaccines. Nearly 10x in my circles.
It is fallacious to group these two together. A common question was, "if I already caught it and developed immunity, why would I want to additionally vaccinate?" And people shut them down as nutcases. Nobody was asking that question in bad faith and even if they were it was a fair question. However, when you are told to shut up and take what we are telling you, it is a normal human reaction to be skeptical. People were actively pushed to the fringe as those were the only people willing to even entertain "these evil thought crimes of not blindly towing party lines."
I don't know because I actually can't read minds. However anecdotally, most (almost all) the people I knew who didn't take the Jab did so because they listened to some alex jones type podcast with a quack talking about crazy conspiracies. This INCLUDES my family, so I am being generous with my descriptions. No I'm not misrepresenting them.
> It is fallacious to group these two together.
They are separate, but it is fallacious to claim they share no commonalities. The entire reason the Covid vaccine was under any skepticism is because the idea of vaccine skepticism had already broken the mainstream. It was, 25 years ago, accepted as a position people could have.
Some of the people you describe here:
> this is a new thing being too aggressively pushed
Are now FULLY 100% anti-vax. Is that a coincidence? No, it's not, and you know that.
Where is the logical fallacy? Actually, where’s the argument? His post is just a few reasons he doesn’t trust his government; he’s not trying to argue that you shouldn’t trust your government (you probably shouldn’t, though, for reasons I won’t go into).
Respectfully, I'm not sure that you can both press enter after putting together this string of words and be taken seriously as somebody that isn't full of themselves or in the "I am very smart" camp.
Humans are mushy and can hold opposing views at the same time. They say they lost trust. I would say that even a critical thinker should be suspicious when a liar says even obviously true things.
Of course, losing trust is a completely human thing. Like most emotional reasoning, its a heurstic that works pretty well in most cases. Nothing wrong with that.
My only objection is to the term "critical thinker". It literally means the opposite of what you are talking about. To quote the dictionary: "the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment.". If you allow emotions to cloud your judgement, than you're not thinking critically, by definition. That would be true if you got the covid vaccine primarily because you thought the gov PR person was pretty. Its just as true if you don't because you don't think the PR person is trustworthy. Either way you are jumping to conclusions based on your personal opinions about some random gov employee who had nothing to do with the vaccine and is reading a statement that they probably didn't even write themselves. Like maybe it would be different if the gov is the one making the vaccine, but they basically have nothing to do with the actual manufacture of it. You can get much more relavent data by actually going closer to the source.
It’s not “some random gov employee” btw. It’s our Minister of Health, Hugo de Jonge. He was on stage weekly (sometimes multiple times a week) to inform the population.
What I’m saying is that he didn’t do that correctly, knowingly or unknowingly. And for that, I lost trust in him (and Mark Rutte, who was always next to him).
I would expect the Minister of Health of my country would at least know that no vaccine is 100% safe. But alas.
Now Rutte is Sec. General of NATO, as a side note.
It was not a formal argument that could be easily dismissed due to a logical fallacy, it is a critique of communication and trust. There is no logical fallacy in the OP's comment. Do you trust the Government with your life? If you do, great, but do not silence ("cancel") people who ask fair questions (i.e. have critical thinking).
It was _never_ claimed that it would "prevent" the spread of the disease or that it would even prevent _you_ from catching it. If you thought that, you weren't reading anything. It was always claimed that it lowered the likelihood of catching it and _most importantly_ reduced the severity of the disease if you did catch it.
If anything, what you should mistrust is your own ability to read and comprehend.
They weren't lying, they just weren't being pedantic. It does limit the spread, it just doesn't prevent it "completely". Only someone looking for a reason to be upset would interpret what they said literally.
I’m sorry, but a press conference televised to everyone in a country that disrupts the default programming, every week, when most people were watching, by a government official about a novel virus that’s spreading around the world and the medication for it… and I shouldn’t take it literally?
What moment in the world would be a better moment to be as clear and pedantic as possible, with as little reason to doubt as possible? And when is it better to keep the talking point open to even the most “dumb” questions, even if it’s over and over again?
To be clear again, I’m Dutch and was watching the Dutch news.
Whichever of the many sides you believe, they dropped the ball there. They should’ve been informed and should’ve informed us correctly. They didn’t.
You're right. They should have spoken more directly, and with greater attention to the words literal meanings. The issue was too important to be imprecise with the language.
Still, in English when someone says "seatbelts prevent automobile accident related deaths" it doesn't mean that ALL automobiles will magically cease to crash once you've buckled up, nor does it mean that your odds of death fall to zero. It only means that SOME deaths will be prevented.
I really don’t care; they should have known the truth. And if they didn’t, they should have informed us on that, too.
The whole issue to me is that they acted like the authoritative figure who you could trust. Turns out, we could not. So why should I trust them from now on? They damaged it, and didn’t try to “fix” it. They just called everyone that asked questions conspiracy theorists, combining everyone into one word “wappie”. The officials did. They actually used that word multiple times on TV.
So I don’t know if they knew, but it’s besides the point.
I wasn't talking about what I read, I was talking about what they said on TV. I'm going to find the original clips soon (at work at the moment), but I clearly remember Hugo de Jonge telling us all, on national television, that we would be protected by the vaccine, and would stop the spreading of it. I'm not the only one that heard it.
I'm SPECIFICALLY talking about the Dutch news coverage here - I have no experience with others.
So this:
> It was _never_ claimed that it would "prevent" the spread of the disease or that it would even prevent _you_ from catching it.
Is just not true; they told our entire country on television.
And, the government officials and politicians got a lot more press with their dogmatic-but-false claims than the scientists did with their hedged-but-more-true ones.
Absolutely not. I have lost almost all trust (faith?) with medicine. FYI - I'm not doing/using anything wacky like homeopathy. I'm just simply not interested in anything related to medicine anymore.
Hopefully another perspective is interesting.
I’m on anti-epileptic medication that allows me to drive again, and to basically be a human again (Carbamazepine). Medicine in and of itself, nothing wrong with it, and we should absolutely NOT disregard it.
However I did lose trust in this one, and I’ll be keeping my eyes open much wider than before. See my other comments on this page if you want to know why.
> I'm just simply not interested in anything related to medicine anymore
My mother is this way now and I'm dreading the day it finally kills her. You can't smoke for 40 years then suddenly be anti-doctor. But she doesn't listen to me. Guess she trusts me as much as medicine.
You can't manage your health yourself. You just can't. You don't run your own blood tests. You don't know anything about diseases or disorders. Have some humility. Being anti-medicine is suicide.
There might be a small number but when the major problem is misinformation I just don't have much faith in it really moving the needle as much as is necessary.
Given that we are seeing serious problems with people even getting traditional vaccines right now.
For the record: I would love very much to be wrong in everything I said above. But the last few years just don't have me holding out any hope.
From my observations, the relentless and heavy-handed censorship of "misinformation" created more skeptics than "misinformation" itself, especially in cases where the squashed sources were credentialed medical practitioners and researchers.
> especially in cases where the squashed sources were credentialed medical practitioners and researchers.
Every profession has its quacks and those borderline educated people. You can get a 70% in school (or whatever your school's almost failing grade is) and still become a doctor.
The only reason things are more "heavy-handed' today against misinformation (also for the record, putting quotes around a word doesn't change it from being lies) is there being so many people pushing those lies for certain reasons. Largely political (control) and fear mongering. In an attempt to themselves build mistrust against something to further their own goals.
This misinformation is causing serious problems that are being pushed to the side.
Unlike those that are pushing this misinformation, the scientific method is willing to admit when it is wrong. It is entirely how it is built to work.
Maybe instead of being so worried about the "censorship" (which again, to be clear they can continue to say whatever they want but they are also not free from the repercussions), you should ask why there is so much passion behind fighting the misinformation and the damage that misinformation is causing.
> created more skeptics than "misinformation" itself
I highly doubt it, because all of this started from misinformation itself. The only reason anyone had any reason to distrust vaccines is because they "cause autism". Which is entirely made-up, by the way. Like not even close to true. A 25 year old lie that has snowballed to something so extreme and so crazy.
If you give these conspiracists even a hint that there might not be a perfect solution, they WILL run with it. I mean, it was one obviously false study and here we are - vaccines cause autism.
So no, from where I'm sitting the misinformation is because of the misinformation. And because people want to believe it. I mean, you can just lie and people will eat it up if it's vaguely anti-establishment. That's dangerous. I'm talking thousands, if not tens of thousands, of lives dangerous. It's a legitimately difficult problem to address and I think some level of "censorship", or fact checking, is necessary.
> The only reason anyone had any reason to distrust vaccines is because they "cause autism
With the covid vaccine specifically the reason to distrust appears to be totally different. It was the extreme rush "to production" with a new piece of biotechnology without a long term track record, mandating its administering to the public, and at the same time the total suppression of any discussion of the risk-benefit balance and the side effects. This was precipitated also by the mask communication fiasco (they are "useless" first, then they are suddenly required). I hope you can see that distrust is a very expected outcome in people who tend to think critically.
At the time, a friend asked why I didn’t want the vaccine. I’d done my research, and I knew my benefit was marginal and that my risk from COVID itself was close to nil.
But best I could articulate at the time was that it was too tied up with letting us visit public places (remember passports?). It seemed manipulative, too much about theatre and very little about public or individual health.
Didn’t want to ruin a friendship by being too honest, although I wish I had been now.
Right, but the only reason this even became a discussion is because a seed of doubt was planted 25 years ago. Otherwise, people wouldn't care about a rush to production because vaccines wouldn't be perceived as having the ability to cause harm.
> I hope you can see that distrust is a very expected outcome in people who tend to think critically
How very slick, implying I'm stupid. No, I am able to think critically I'm just also able to see the writing on the wall and string together events.
The Covid distrust did not happen in isolation and anybody who thinks so must be blind and deaf. It was a long time coming, as conspiracists increased in radicality and reach. Before Covid MANY MANY new technologies and treatments were already beginning their spiral of distrust. 5G, MMR vaccine, therapy...
As soon as Covid began I knew there would be a select group of people who will oppose the largest narrative, regardless of what that narrative is. It was obvious to me that people would refuse to wear masks. They had no reasons of course - wearing a mask is hardly difficult. But because you tell them to wear it, it's a problem. Because that's how these people operate. They don't care about outcomes, they care about authority.
Even if the masks are barely effective or might not work, there's no harm in wearing them. But to the conspiracists it doesn't work that way. They fear becoming sheep, so they oppose for the sake of opposition.
> communication fiasco (they are "useless" first, then they are suddenly required)
Something I think people don't understand about Covid is that it was a NOVEL disease. Have you ever had a circumstance like Covid in your life before Covid? No, right?
So what does that tell you? That clearly these were new waters. Yes, what is true DOES change because people actually don't know! People's understanding of Covid over time changed because they learned new things.
To be clear, I don't think distrust is a bad thing. But I do think that the particular brand of distrust around Covid was largely not legitimate. And I think everyone knows that.
I myself am a skeptic. But for the right reasons. Not because I enjoy being difficult, or because I'm inherently opposed to authority. The majority of Covid "distrusters" are anti-science, radical conspiracists - more along the lines of flat earthers. These are not critical thinkers, quite the opposite.
Just like blindly following advice makes you a sheep, blindly distrusting advice makes you a sheep too, just in the opposite direction. You need to analyze the situation and your sources. For Covid, that largely meant understanding Covid is a unique situation with therefore unperfect solutions.
This seems like an easy one to guess - your immune system has been developed over a very long time, is highly complex and has layers of defences everywhere that are all a little different. Training it to look for coronavirus in your muscles is less effective against coronaviruses than training it to look for infections in nasal mucus where said virus is actually trying to enter and exit the body.
There's a nasal flu vaccine as well. Theoretically, it's supposed to induce immunity in mucous membranes and prevent infections in the first place, rather than merely reducing symptom severity. As for how effective it actually is at those goals, we'll have to see.
Your immune system has different "compartments." The mucosal immune compartment produces its own antibodies and its own immune response. The "jab" did not immunize the mucosal immune compartment, so people could and did catch and spread Covid - but they were protected from developing a serious infection because the virus was unable to spread in their body further. As it invades through your respiratory system, vaccinating the mucosal immune compartment means its stopped at the point of entry and does not spread to others or develop into even a mild case.
IIRC there were several nasal vaccines at this same stage in development before. Apparently the bottleneck is getting acquired to get enough funding to do the big expensive trials for regulatory approval.
It sure would have been nice if there was a quality intranasal vaccine that the government could have shipped to each household instead of the insane goose chase that was trying to get vaccine appointments.
There’s some theory that this would have been the best approach so everyone has a lot of immunity all at once and the virus dies out (barring some other non-human reservoirs).
It’s possible an entire population with varying immunity allowed there to always be some reservoir out there.
But good luck immunizing everyone, especially at the same time.
I suspect the excessive emphasis on fomite transmission of covid-19 was caused by too many decision-makers (re-)watching Contagion as their “Idiot’s Guide To Handling a Pandemic”.
Some would, but it definitely is a bigger ask of people to have something injected into their bloodstream by a medical professional rather than to just spray something in their nose. I think it'd win over a substantial chunk of the vaccine-hesitant.
Have you spoken to any vaccine-hesitant? Almost none of them are vaccine-hesitant because they don't like the idea of a needle in their arm; a nasal delivery method would have almost no measurable effect on voluntary uptake.
It IS a more traditional vaccine, though, and less scary because of that. And this is not being pushed to the fullest extent of the law (and a bit above it I think, but nobody can really prove that).
I don't think they'd say it's because they don't like the idea of a needle in their arm, but for a lot of them, I think it's a significant contributing factor.
There was talk about intranasal vaccines against Covid in 2020 already. But there was a catch: they need to be tested really, really well.
Anything that gets snorted into your nose has a pretty short path to the brain, with potentially "interesting" results (cocaine, Naegleria fowleri etc.). So you have to be extra sure that your intranasal medication is harmless.
As the article mentions, this particular vaccine has been developed for four years. That seems to be long enough to be sure. But I wouldn't be taking it back in 2021 or 2022.
So given that this is an attenuated live virus vaccine, and the way that one gets covid and other viruses is often through the nose/mucous membranes in the nose, what would be the fear above and beyond getting a virus?
I'm not advocating for not testing it obviously, I just don't quite see why we should have an especially high vigilance in this case.
What experiment? Unlike medicine, vaccines use the body's own mechanism just the way the body itself uses it. By exposing the body to something potentially dangerous, the only difference to "natural" infection is that in the latter case the body will take damage, sometimes incurable damage, before figuring out which proteins belong to the enemy. Vaccines do the same just without, or with way less risk of damage.
Experiments on unconsenting, let alone non-consenting, randoms are bad.
Telling people they have to obey health rules of society in order to be part of that society, is universal.
Consider why we wear clothes, and that even nudist colonies want members to have a towl for where they sit, in order to prevent what is for everyone else a "just you" problem: skidmarks.
Yep, a random one, and one where a) you take damage before the body figures it out, and b) it's pretty random which protein the immune system manages to identify (basically: The first one which identifies the virus), which may as well be one which changes widely so that even if you get immunity to your current infection you may not be immune to the variant someone else harbors. Whereas vaccines try to expose the body to the most stable proteins, for longer protection.
Agreed. But it IS there, and we (at least in the Netherlands) were told it was 100% safe, and you would become unable to spread it. Which were bold-faced lies, and we weren't allowed to talk about that online (literally; read up on the facebook statement yesterday or the day before, about government pressure to "delay" the story).
Also, on television nobody was allowed to ask critical questions about it, or they would just get cut off.
That's what I don't like, and why I didn't go with it. If they would've been honest, I'd have no problem. But they messed that up, and my trust in the officials of my country is 0 now.
One million, two hundred thousand dead from COVID and counting in the U.S. alone. Nearly 2% of all deaths in this past week were caused by COVID infection. This doesn’t even begin to touch the people who have suffered lifelong consequences from it.
Find me any statistic that puts any COVID vaccine within three orders of magnitude of these numbers or (maybe not so) kindly see yourself out.
Oh the piles of bodies. Please check the details behind such claims before trotting them out.
By the same US federal data COVID brought someone back to life. I'm not joking the obvious mistake is recorded and is a wonderful example of how the data needs to be cleaned checked and examined more closely.
Hundreds of millions of entries of data input by a large group of people across a wide region will always have errors and inconsistencies. This is true of data related to COVID-related deaths, homicides, car accidents, daycare enrollment rates, and everything in between.
Showing that individual data points are inconsistent or wrong does not by itself indicate that conclusions gleaned from a data set as a whole are incorrect.
Read the accounts from funeral home staff some time. We were very literally running out of places to put the actual, physical bodies. It turns out when you have a mortuary system that’s set up to process a reasonably consistent and predictable number of deceased humans, adding an sudden, unexpected, and sustained additional load of 10–15% (with spikes up to 33% and 45%) system stretches it beyond its limit.
No but it's a glaring example of referring to a non consistent dataset.
The data should be cleaned first to remove such problems which impacts totals.
Such work then has to look at labelled as having COVID at time of death Vs sole cause which is _missing_ from most Western datasets. And I'd be willing to believe it's missing from totals that large, unfortunately raising a question as to how many actually were killed by despite the fact we know >80% were likely over 80yr...
Not to forget the nice example, if you died from a heart attack due to a racy TV advert did the TV kill you?
I'm surprised (in a bad way) when people display limited ability to compare magnitudes. We see this all the time in discussions like clean energy and stuff. Sure, sometimes it is malicious or misinformed.
But in general it seems like some people can't do it (hence leading to things like payday loans, failure in managing finances, etc)
I am finding it very hard to reply to this post within the HN commenting guidelines, as it is essentially 100% unsubstantiated misinformation.
The COVID vaccines did not and do not cause deaths that are recorded as COVID deaths, full stop. A simple and obvious test of this is that there would have been a clear and obvious spike in COVID-related hospitalizations and deaths in locations where the vaccine began to be mass-administered. There is zero evidence of this in the data. In fact, the exact opposite is true.
> Plus everyone says it's safe but there was a vaccine that caused some condition 1-2 years post-vaccination, and it was by pure luck they found the connection to the vaccine.
This would be a lot more compelling if you could even name this condition.
When you manage to figure that out, I will be happy to engage in further critical discussion.
> This would be a lot more compelling if you could even name this condition.
Pandremix vaccine against H1N1 influenza (swine flu).
> The link between Pandemrix and narcolepsy was identified after epidemiological studies were conducted in these countries. It was largely by chance that researchers noticed a higher incidence of narcolepsy among children and adolescents who had received the vaccine.
> The exact mechanism linking Pandemrix to narcolepsy is not fully understood, but it is suspected to involve an autoimmune response possibly triggered by the adjuvant used in the vaccine (AS03), or by some components in the vaccine itself.
> Cases of narcolepsy were reported primarily in Finland and Sweden in 2010 and 2011, about 1-2 years after the mass vaccination campaigns.
You think it can only happen with Pandemrix? It is known that mRNA vaccines cause an autoimmune response. I have also seen a massive influx of patients with newly diagnosed autoimmune disorders post-vaccination. You could call it a coincidence all you want. On top of that, Pandemrix is a vaccine is supplied in separate vials, one containing the adjuvant, and the other the inactivated virus, so it is not even as relatively new as the mRNA vaccines.
Perhaps ask family or friends around who work in healthcare, I don't know.
I would also like to add another condition, which is far more known: Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS), which is a rare autoimmune disorder that has been associated with some vaccines in rare cases.
Actually, while we are at it, there have been several instances where rare adverse events or long-term conditions were discovered years after the introduction of a vaccine.
So, apart from narcolepsy caused by Pandemrix (again, made the association by luck), and GBS which is associated with most if not all vaccinations (albeit rare), there are a couple more:
- Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) and Vaccine-Derived Poliovirus (VDPV)
-- Type: live attenuated vaccine
-- Discovery: *years* after initial widespread use
- Rotavirus Vaccines
-- Discovery: within a year after mass vaccination but took time to confirm causation
- HPV Vaccine and POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome)
-- Discovery: concerns emerged years after widespread use
So, given our history, do you think an mRNA vaccine is completely safe and there is no way it could be associated to any conditions down on the line? To me that sounds like either denial or wishful thinking. It took years after mass vaccination with some vaccines, you simply cannot deny that, it is a fact. If you think mRNA vaccines are completely safe (which is highly doubtful, call it healthy skepticism), good for you, but do not threaten to take away people's jobs (among other things) because they care more about their life than you do. If you do care about your life, where is the skepticism given our history of some vaccines? We have never had an mRNA vaccine that we administered on a massive, global scale before.
---
> The COVID vaccines did not and do not cause deaths that are recorded as COVID deaths, full stop
We literally do this in my country, and I know this because I worked in healthcare, and I have family and friends working in healthcare (doctors, nurses). It is not limited to COVID, FWIW.
So as far as "100% unsubstantiated misinformation" goes, yeah, no, I have first-hand experiences with such practices. You do not have to believe me, it makes no difference to me personally, and it seems like you already made up your mind about it.
Nothing is “completely safe”, but several orders of magnitude more people have died and suffered from COVID than have from any of the vaccines.
That you are having to reach for “well this other vaccine for this other condition caused a thing that was rare enough it took a lot of luck to link it back” is an unambiguous consequence of this. You know what we don’t have to search that hard for? The 7+ million actual deaths from COVID which reduced dramatically once the vaccine became available.
Deaths from COVID does not imply that the mRNA vaccines are not harmful and that there may be no dire consequences a year or two later because of it. It does not minimize the harmful impact of COVID either, no one (well, I surely did not) claimed this.
> rare enough
>> Studies showed that the risk of developing narcolepsy was about 5-13 times higher among those vaccinated with Pandemrix compared to the unvaccinated population, particularly in children and adolescents.
>>> The incidence rate of narcolepsy in vaccinated individuals was estimated to be about 1 in 16,000 to 1 in 50,000 doses, depending on the country and the age group.
>> In Finland, for instance, it was estimated that around 1 in 16,000 vaccinated children and adolescents developed narcolepsy.
Well, it may be "rare" in this particular case. What's not rare is the influx of people with MS (supposedly) in the country where I am located. It is OK though, no one is going to ever suspect the vaccine, we can blame everything on "long COVID", after all. That is not to say that long COVID does not exist.
Regardless of it being rare or not, it is besides the point. The point is that people should not be silenced and ridiculed and called a conspiracy theorist just because they brought up fair concerns. Those concerns do not invalidate nor minimize the harmful effects of COVID, and I feel like people think that when someone questions the safety of the vaccines, they somehow claim that COVID is all fun and sunshine. I personally never meant to claim that.
> The covid vaccine I had to take to as a condition to travel and employment has been banned from the market for safety reasons.
Which one? If you're talking about the Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine, you should be gald to know that the suspension was short lived, and around April 2021 it was in the market again.
They stopped selling it in 2024, but that's because:
1. we are collectively burying our head in the sand about covid (in the UK it seems we don't even monitor the wastewater covid levels anymore)
2. there are a bunch of other vaccines available, and due to the earlier suspension, people trusted the other vaccines more (and thus it was struggling in the market)
> requested the voluntary withdrawal of the EUA for this vaccine. Janssen Biotech, Inc. informed the FDA that the last lots of the vaccine purchased by the U.S. Government have expired, there is no demand for new lots of the vaccine in the U.S., and they do not intend to update the strain composition of this vaccine to address emerging variants
I'm not well acquainted with practices in the pharmaceutical industry, so it looks a bit weird to me that they would request to withdraw authorisation. I suppose that it might be simpler for them to do so if they know that all remaining doses have expired, rather than risk lawsuits in case that someone might accidentally administer expired doses?
A pandemic and war have a lot in common. There's an information gap and an urgency of action needed, so people make the best decisions they can with the information they have at the time.
I didn't doubt history will show a lot of best-guesses based on available information were untrue. But I'd rather people take it seriously and follow the guidance of the folks who prepared for this kind of disaster than do what we did in the 1920s. Even with a knowledge gap and errors, it lengthened most people's lives to lock down, mask up, and get vaccinated.
You should be grateful that you've been able to get a vaccine when you could, and quit being so arrogant and know-it-all.
You typed 3 replies, and you didn't corroborate a single one of your posts, all the while projecting your ignorance onto others
You'd have a more sympathetic argument if you could talk about non-covid induced blood clots, that despite being reported didn't get accounted properly in statistics. I'm sure the numbers might be a bit worse than in official statistics, because of deficiencies in our covid19 first-line response, and in the lack of trust that people like you have in the medical establishment (which means that issues might go unreported, or dismissed if reported by cranks without evidence)
What will I do with that 99.97% survival rate? Add more 9s for my age and fitness. But yea ok, better take the experimental drugs now because the screen said to.
From my anecdotal experience, I think I'll take my chances with COVID, thanks.
Never got a cardiovascular condition from COVID, yet did (and it continues to worsen) from the vaccines.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
At a certain point, "oh but statistically more people are worse off from COVID!" doesn't matter much to us as individuals, I think it's okay to act on behalf of my own self-preservation sometimes.
If the vaccine has caused you heart damage, that updates the Bayesian priors on whether you would have survived contracting the disease itself.
It is entirely possible the vaccine warded off a virus that would have killed your heart if your body had to respond directly to the unattenuated disease. I don't think we have enough information to be able to tell (how do you do an analysis of that kind when you don't even know precisely why COVID or the vaccine can cause heart damage?).
None of the covid vaccines are gene therapies. The mRNA utilizes your cell's machinery to produce proteins. Gene therapy alter's your cells DNA.
Having said that, the vaccine in the article is an attenuated virus vaccine, which is even more traditional than J&J (which utilizes a different virus as its delivery mechanism)
Sinovac is an inactived vaccine, which probably makes it the most traditional of the set.
Moderna (2018) [1]: "Currently, mRNA is considered a gene therapy product by the FDA. Unlike certain gene therapies that irreversibly alter cell DNA and could act as a source of side effects, mRNA based medicines are designed to not irreversibly change cell DNA; however, side effects observed in gene therapy could negatively impact the perception of mRNA medicines despite the differences in mechanism."
Pfizer-BioNTech (2019) [2]: "Currently, mRNA is considered a gene therapy product by the FDA. Unlike certain gene therapies that irreversibly alter cell DNA and may cause certain side effects, mRNA-based medicines are designed not to irreversibly change cell DNA. Side effects observed in other gene therapies, however, could negatively impact the perception of immunotherapies despite the differences in mechanism."
Also worth noting that the study was in a rather particular cell line that may not be reflective of the average person:
> According to the web site huh7.com, it is "a well differentiated hepatocyte-derived carcinoma cell line, originally taken from a liver tumor in a 57-year-old Japanese male in 1982."
>The mRNA utilizes your cell's machinery to produce proteins
Does it? I thought the immune response was purely based on the free floating mRNA (which give a high immune response because that also happens during a highly active viral infection)
No: mRNA is the intermediate transcription stage of protein synthesis: mRNA molecules are synthesized from DNA in the cell nucleus, exit the nucleus and interact with ribosomes which synthesize proteins from them - there's also a suite of modifications and moderating systems (i.e. the short interfering RNA system which marks mRNA for destruction within the cell).
mRNA injections are based on the observation that with stabilisation, you'll get limited synthesis of an injected RNA strand by cellular machinery, and then the resultant protein will be presented on the cell surface - this is how the immune system detects active viral infections, since it's the same process: the virus dumps it's payload into the cell and gets its proteins copied up (+ an RNA or DNA polymerase to replicate the genome of the virus, which a vaccine does not have).
The magic of this process is that you don't have to handle bespoke proteins for new vaccines: you "just" change the delivered mRNA sequence, and use the same manufacturing line to make it, keeping the chemistry consistent and considerably simpler.
It's a refined version of attenuated or live virus vaccines, where you shoot the whole viral system in and it does the same thing - but then you've got to keep a bunch of custom proteins intact and you can't make it as easily.
No, the mRNA are templates for Covid-19 spike proteins, and the body learns to recognize (and develop an immune response) to said proteins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRNA_vaccine
It’s been a few years now, has it not? We have seen no large-scale adverse reactions to the mRNA vaccines. It would be headline news if true, and impossible to suppress.
Many (especially) Western countries deal with excess deaths, when comparing figures, especially compared to pre-COVID [0][1][2].
For example, I know for The Netherlands the excess deaths compared to pre-COVID have been hovering around 15%. Actually, due to the persistent excess deaths, the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics will set the baseline to the current level I think starting either this year or next year. This means, from next year on, there should be no more excess deaths in The Netherlands, but mortality will be higher than prior to COVID.
Yet, for whatever reason, these excess deaths don't seem to be a big concern in mass media, it's something rarely talked about. But during COVID every death was one too many and supposedly everything was done to prevent as many deaths as possible (e.g. social distancing, vaccinations, remote working, etc...).
> It would be headline news if true, and impossible to suppress.
Are you sure it would be impossible to suppress? Why are you so sure about this? It seems in Thailand the government and media have been quite effective at suppressing such news, at least according to some authorities at Thai universities [3].
This first sentence isn’t really coherent, but I assume what you’re referring to are live attenuated virus vaccines like the oral polio vaccine, and implying that the virus used in this vaccine will end up like cVDPV (circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus). Last year there were ~500 cases of polio worldwide from circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus. That is indeed a problem. But the vaccines have beaten back regular polio (wild-type poliovirus, WPV) to 23 cases total worldwide in 2023. If only we could have problems like that with this covid vaccine.
It is coherent enough if you aren't so habituated to mental gymnastics. I stopped trying to convince people online a while ago. Stopped reading when I started seeing what I assume to be WHO statistics. We live in different realities and the pandemic has made us make our peace with it. So there is no discussion to be had. I'll be at the CryFreedomGhetto. [0]
> “This is a live attenuated intranasal vaccine, called CDO-7N-1, designed to be administered intranasally, thereby inducing potential mucosal immunity as well as systemic immunity with just a single dose,” Professor Mahalingam said.
Is COVID-19 still an issue considering that there has been only 1151 new cases in the US, and 68 in India, and 73 in Germany yesterday? "Only" 7 people died out of these 1151 people in the US, and we do not know the details, I am assuming old age, compromised immune system, comorbidity, etc.
Should we devote any time or effort on what to do about the 400 million people affected by long COVID worldwide, with an economic impact of $1 trillion annually?
Is death the only symptom of concern? If the risk of developing long COVID rises with each new infection, is it clear that we can socially and economically afford to ignore it as new variants continue to spread?
How might we reconcile the push to move on, with the reality of millions experiencing debilitating symptoms, some lasting years or even a lifetime? If long COVID can hit anyone, even the young or those with mild initial infections, should we be carrying on under the otherwise useful presumption it's not an ongoing threat?
Whose interests does it serve for governments to be acting as if this problem has gone away, or the opposite?
They make the claim so we'll have to see. I currently use a nitric oxide nasal spray as the nose is the major area to protect (and also use probiotic lozenges of the k12 strain for the throat).
--- “The vaccine offers potent protection against transmission, prevents reinfection and the spread of the virus, while also reducing the generation of new variants,” Dr Liu said.
“Unlike the mRNA vaccine which targets only the spike protein, CDO-7N-1 induces immunity to all major SARS-CoV-2 proteins and is highly effective against all major variants to date.
“Importantly, the vaccine remains stable at 4°C for seven months, making it ideal for low- and middle-income countries.” ---