Will you take the mRNA Vaccine Immediately When Available?

[NITRAS]

I assumed as much. If you look back I've been pretty critical of them as well during all of this.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply anything. I agree it would be something utterly stupid for teacher’s unions to demand. It wouldn’t surprise if they did demand it.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[turkeyjerky]

Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply anything. I agree it would be something utterly stupid for teacher’s unions to demand. It wouldn’t surprise if they did demand it.

Yeah, I'm about as far left as you can go but F the teachers unions through this whole thing. (that said it' not exactly like taking to twitter demanding schools open is appropriate governmental policy)

 

[thegenius]

30% of Ohio State student athletes with Covid had myocarditis. It's not just the death rate.

really?!?!?!

 

[thegenius]

Let's compare apples to apples here. This constant moving of the goalposts within a single post is dizzying.



Let's not pretend you have years of data on COVID-19. How do the outcomes from the vaccine compare to the outcomes from the disease at similar time-points?



What is the vaccine fatality rate for yourself, in your age group and lack of comorbidities?




If you get the vaccine ,there is published evidence that you will suffer no significant debilitating symptoms either. You will also further decrease your risk of contracting covid and will play a strong part in preventing the spread of the pandemic.




No, I don't fail to realize there are unknown long-term risks of the vaccine--I said as such in my original post. You are the one who seems to fail to realize that there are equally unknown long-term risks of the viral infection. This paragraph is the closest you ever come to acknowledging that fact and you basically dismiss it with a glib "heh, I guess I could get tired."



It's not just about you, man.

As best as I can see, your arguments boil down to this:

- Man-made vaccine with published short- and medium-term safety data: "too risky over the long term"
- Bat-made virus with known short-term and medium-term morbidity and mortality to self and contacts: "natural things can't be bad for you over the long term, right?"

this is why I have wamcp on ignore...the vaccine is too risky, everything we do to stop transmission doesn't work (distancing, masks), so just let the virus run amuk. excellent plan.

 

[GeneralVeers]

really?!?!?!

If I recall correctly they had positive tests for myocarditis but most were sub-clinical with no symptoms. Another story about how scary COVID is by exaggerating clinical data.

 

[thegenius]

Again, I'm all for high risk people getting this vaccine. I just don't really like the FB propaganda campaign supported by healthcare workers. There's simply no reason we should rush to vaccinate children, and young, healthy adults.

There isn't a rush. who says there is a rush. they are the last cohort of people to get the vaccine.

 

[thegenius]

Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply anything. I agree it would be something utterly stupid for teacher’s unions to demand. It wouldn’t surprise if they did demand it.

Yes they will demand it and win. terrible how our society works.

 

[thegenius]

If I recall correctly they had positive tests for myocarditis but most were sub-clinical with no symptoms. Another story about how scary COVID is by exaggerating clinical data.

well that's a terrible way to put it....you are totally wrong on that point.

 

[WilcoWorld]

If I recall correctly they had positive tests for myocarditis but most were sub-clinical with no symptoms. Another story about how scary COVID is by exaggerating clinical data.

This is not a knock on EP's - I'm an EP - but I think that we just don't actually see the bad side of COVID in the ED. It takes a couple weeks to see what this disease can do to people, and death is far from the worst of it.

I encourage any EP who has decided, based on his clinical experience, that COVID is no big deal to go take a walk through your ICU and see at least one patient that you admitted over 2 weeks ago who is still on the vent. It may give you some perspective.

And before someone posts "what about stroke and out of hospital cardiac arrest patients!?" I agree, you should go see a couple of those as well.

 

[GeneralVeers]

well that's a terrible way to put it....you are totally wrong on that point.

Results
We performed CMR imaging in 26 competitive college athletes (mean [SD] age, 19.5 [1.5] years; 15 male [57.7%]) from the following sports: football, soccer, lacrosse, basketball, and track. No athletes required hospitalization or received COVID-19–specific antiviral therapy. Twelve athletes (26.9%; including 7 female individuals) reported mild symptoms during the short-term infection (sore throat, shortness of breath, myalgias, fever), while others were asymptomatic. There were no diagnostic ST/T wave changes on electrocardiogram, and ventricular volumes and function were within the normal range in all athletes by transthoracic echocardiogram and CMR imaging. No athlete had elevated serum levels of troponin I. Four athletes (15%; all male individuals) had CMR findings consistent with myocarditis based on the presence of 2 main features of the updated Lake Louise Criteria: myocardial edema by elevated T2 signal and myocardial injury by presence of nonischemic LGE (Figure).4 Pericardial effusion was present in 2 athletes with CMR evidence of myocarditis. Two of these 4 athletes with evidence of myocardial inflammation had mild symptoms (shortness of breath), while the other 2 were asymptomatic. Twelve athletes (46%) had LGE (mean of 2 American Heart Association segments), of whom 8 (30.8%) had LGE without concomitant T2 elevation (Table). Mean (SD) T2 in those with suspected myocarditis was 59 (3) milliseconds compared with 51 (2) milliseconds in those without CMR evidence of myocarditis.

Please see bolded.

 

[GeneralVeers]

This is not a knock on EP's - I'm an EP - but I think that we just don't actually see the bad side of COVID in the ED. It takes a couple weeks to see what this disease can do to people, and death is far from the worst of it.

I encourage any EP who has decided, based on his clinical experience, that COVID is no big deal to go take a walk through your ICU and see at least one patient that you admitted over 2 weeks ago who is still on the vent. It may give you some perspective.

And before someone posts "what about stroke and out of hospital cardiac arrest patients!?" I agree, you should go see a couple of those as wel

It is a big deal, and causes death/disability in people of advanced age and with medical conditions. My point has always been that this was not worth setting off a nuclear bomb on our economy and suspending constitutional rights.

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

It is a big deal, and causes death/disability in people of advanced age and with medical conditions. My point has always been that this was not worth setting off a nuclear bomb on our economy and suspending constitutional rights.

You've consistently taken the libertarian but rational approach to this.

Not everyone can hit both of those points at the same time.

 

[wamcp]

There's a lot of projection in your post regarding data analysis and "feelings".

I'm not sure why you think this review article is some big gotcha--it isn't. The article raises some important concerns that can and should be evaluated with clinical trials. Have you read those, or did you stop your literature search at this review from October?

You ask "tell me how a couple months of new vaccine data is sufficient to quash the concerns encountered in past vaccine trials".

Ok, to borrow your phrasing, it is time for you "use your doctor brain and logic rather than feelings". What event could accelerate the number of cases in a trial? Perhaps something that rhymes with "shmandemic"? Does that ring a bell?

Let me quote from the Pfizer study:

"Of note, the trial was designed for an infection attack rate of 0.75%, which would have necessitated a follow-up period of 6 months after the two vaccine doses to accrue 151 cases in 30,000 participants. The pandemic trajectory accelerated in many U.S. regions in the late summer and fall of 2020, resulting in rapid accrual of 196 cases after a median follow-up of 2 months. "

The data for both the Pfizer and Moderna trials show that severe infections in vaccinated individuals are exceedingly rare. This is the opposite of what one would expect from the high-ADE scenario you have fixated on.

Am I saying we should call it a day and stop safety monitoring of the vaccines? Absolutely not. Am I saying it has been proven that these vaccines have no long-term side-effects? Absolutely not.

What I am saying is that you shouting "NO ONE IS THINKING ABOUT ADEs!" and "WE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT SEVERITY OF COVID ON VACCINATED INDIVIDUALS!" is absolutely false and 100% based on your uninformed feelings.

I will restate my original points:
1. From a short- and medium-term perspective, receiving the vaccine is preferable to having COVID.
2. Both COVID and the vaccine have unknown long-term effects.
3. Data has started to come out that begins to shed light on your main concern about the vaccines (ADEs and the severity of illness on vaccinated individuals).
4. Implying that the long-term effects of COVID are likely preferable to the long-term effects of the vaccine is the "feelings"-based conclusion.

Again- you fail to turn on your brain logic and continue to operate on your feelings on what you believe is right. Time is necessary to fully uncover risks to a new vaccine for proper analysis of data. A couple months doesn’t cut it, no matter how hard you shut your eyes, bear down, and wish for it to be true. Risk benefit calculus at this point only makes sense to the elderly, the comorbid and vulnerable to death from covid.

It’s pretty disappointing you underwent all this medical training and theoretically retain strong critical thinking abilities yet believe a few months of data with only 11 infected cases (moderna) or 8 infected cases (pfizer) to analyze in the vaccine arm is sufficient to declare risk to ADE or risk of severe responses to infection by other potentially changed coronavirus is minimal.

Follow the science - don’t handwave things away with your emotions.

 

[wamcp]

this is why I have wamcp on ignore...the vaccine is too risky, everything we do to stop transmission doesn't work (distancing, masks), so just let the virus run amuk. excellent plan.

This is the problem with people having emotional knee jerk responses to hearing things they don’t like to hear. Seems a lot of people don’t take the time to read opposing views or critically think.

I have said repeatedly:

Risk benefit calculus for vaccination at this point only makes sense to the elderly, the comorbid and vulnerable to death from covid. Never said vaccine is “too risky so no one should get it.”

lockdowns cause immense harm without actual net benefits and should not be done.

I have said masks do work if used properly. But mask mandates likely do not work as a public policy, no one adheres to them indoors at home or when visiting other peoples’ home where risk of transmission is actually high, but because there is little to no harm in mandating them it should still be enacted

i never said to let the virus run amok. I have said the virus will virus, i.e. spread as it does despite lockdowns, and therefore we should not shutdown the economy unnecessarily.

I have pointed out that successful countries like Japan, SK, Taiwan never had lockdowns. They did contact tracing at the start. We failed that but that was the only thing that would have worked in America

1. Lockdown states faring no better than less restricted states What the data show about COVID-19 lockdowns as cases surge across the country

Hospitalizations per million in Florida vs restrictive states

Cases continue to rise in UK despite lockdowns

Peru enacted MILITARY ENFORCED lockdowns since March yet have among the highest cases and deaths per capita https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...b30960-44c3-11eb-ac2a-3ac0f2b8ceeb_story.html

2. Mask adherence in households is low and fails at blocking transmission Face mask use and control of respiratory virus transmission in households - PubMed

Mask recommendation trial did not work Effectiveness of Adding a Mask Recommendation to Other Public Health Measures to Prevent SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Danish Mask Wearers : A Randomized Controlled Trial - PubMed


3. Japan had no full lockdowns Subscribe to read | Financial Times

SK no full lockdowns needed How South Korea Avoided a COVID-19 Lockdown

Taiwan no full lockdowns How Taiwan beat Covid-19

 

[wholeheartedly]

update on the scumbag

Aurora pharmacist arrested after Grafton police say he sabotaged more than 500 COVID-19 vaccine doses

The Advocate Aurora pharmacist left out vaccines on purpose, Wisconsin police say, knowing the more than 500 doses would be "useless."

www.jsonline.com

 

[thegenius]

update on the scumbag

Aurora pharmacist arrested after Grafton police say he sabotaged more than 500 COVID-19 vaccine doses

The Advocate Aurora pharmacist left out vaccines on purpose, Wisconsin police say, knowing the more than 500 doses would be "useless."

www.jsonline.com

I hope they chop off his balls and penis and he has to live with a suprapubic catheter for the rest of his life.

 

[wamcp]

Results
We performed CMR imaging in 26 competitive college athletes (mean [SD] age, 19.5 [1.5] years; 15 male [57.7%]) from the following sports: football, soccer, lacrosse, basketball, and track. No athletes required hospitalization or received COVID-19–specific antiviral therapy. Twelve athletes (26.9%; including 7 female individuals) reported mild symptoms during the short-term infection (sore throat, shortness of breath, myalgias, fever), while others were asymptomatic. There were no diagnostic ST/T wave changes on electrocardiogram, and ventricular volumes and function were within the normal range in all athletes by transthoracic echocardiogram and CMR imaging. No athlete had elevated serum levels of troponin I. Four athletes (15%; all male individuals) had CMR findings consistent with myocarditis based on the presence of 2 main features of the updated Lake Louise Criteria: myocardial edema by elevated T2 signal and myocardial injury by presence of nonischemic LGE (Figure).4 Pericardial effusion was present in 2 athletes with CMR evidence of myocarditis. Two of these 4 athletes with evidence of myocardial inflammation had mild symptoms (shortness of breath), while the other 2 were asymptomatic. Twelve athletes (46%) had LGE (mean of 2 American Heart Association segments), of whom 8 (30.8%) had LGE without concomitant T2 elevation (Table). Mean (SD) T2 in those with suspected myocarditis was 59 (3) milliseconds compared with 51 (2) milliseconds in those without CMR evidence of myocarditis.

Please see bolded.

Myocarditis is rare in COVID-19 autopsies: cardiovascular findings across 277 postmortem examinations​

“closer examination of additional reported information revealed that most cases were likely not functionally significant and the true prevalence of myocarditis is likely much lower (<2%).” Myocarditis is rare in COVID-19 autopsies: cardiovascular findings across 277 postmortem examinations

Past flu pandemics for comparison:

“autopsy-based studies on fatal cases revealed a complication rate of focal to diffuse myocarditis of 39.4% during the 1957 Asian influenza pandemic and 48% during the Spanish influenza pandemic. All of these fatal cases with myocarditis also had severe pneumonia and multiple organ involvement. Thus, myocarditis is likely to be a terminal complication of pandemic influenza infection.”

Sources:

Cardiovascular manifestations associated with influenza virus infection - PubMed

Influenza accounts for 3 to 5 million cases of severe illness and up to 300,000 deaths annually. Cardiovascular involvement in acute influenza infection can occur through direct effects of the virus on the myocardium or through exacerbation of existing cardiovascular disease. Epidemiological...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Clinicopathologic study of thirty-three fatal cases of Asian influenza - PubMed

Clinicopathologic study of thirty-three fatal cases of Asian influenza

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Influenza pandemics: past, present and future - PubMed

Influenza A virus is well known for its capability for genetic changes either through antigen drift or antigen shift. Antigen shift is derived from reassortment of gene segments between viruses, and may result in an antigenically novel virus that is capable of causing a worldwide pandemic. As we...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Franzd'Epinay]

Again- you fail to turn on your brain logic and continue to operate on your feelings on what you believe is right. Time is necessary to fully uncover risks to a new vaccine for proper analysis of data. A couple months doesn’t cut it, no matter how hard you shut your eyes, bear down, and wish for it to be true. Risk benefit calculus at this point only makes sense to the elderly, the comorbid and vulnerable to death from covid.

It’s pretty disappointing you underwent all this medical training and theoretically retain strong critical thinking abilities yet believe a few months of data with only 11 infected cases (moderna) or 8 infected cases (pfizer) to analyze in the vaccine arm is sufficient to declare risk to ADE or risk of severe responses to infection by other potentially changed coronavirus is minimal.

Follow the science - don’t handwave things away with your emotions.

It's interesting that you are quick to label people as being in denial or hand-waving things away based on feelings when you don't realize this is what you have already done.

You are quick to point out that we don't have data on the long-term effects of the vaccine. That's a good point and one that everyone (myself included) has accepted from the beginning of this discussion, despite your insistence on claiming the opposite.

Your intellectual curiosity about long-term outcomes, however, doesn't seem to extend to COVID itself. You act as if you understand COVID perfectly--this is a disease of the elderly because that's who it has affected over the short term. Where have your concerns about unknown long-term outcomes gone?

All I am asking of you is a bit of intellectual consistency. You are very worried about the unknown long-term effects of the vaccine? That's fine. But why are the hypothetical long-term effects of the vaccine worse than the hypothetical long-term effects of the virus? Why have you decided that they are bad enough to overcome the known short-term benefits of the vaccine over the virus?

You talk about the risk-benefit calculus but don't realize how half-baked your own calculus is. You are factoring in unknowns on only one side of the equation to push a bizarre agenda of public health nihilism.

 

[wamcp]

It's interesting that you are quick to label people as being in denial or hand-waving things away based on feelings when you don't realize this is what you have already done.

You are quick to point out that we don't have data on the long-term effects of the vaccine. That's a good point and one that everyone (myself included) has accepted from the beginning of this discussion, despite your insistence on claiming the opposite.

Your intellectual curiosity about long-term outcomes, however, doesn't seem to extend to COVID itself. You act as if you understand COVID perfectly--this is a disease of the elderly because that's who it has affected over the short term. Where have your concerns about unknown long-term outcomes gone?

All I am asking of you is a bit of intellectual consistency. You are very worried about the unknown long-term effects of the vaccine? That's fine. But why are the hypothetical long-term effects of the vaccine worse than the hypothetical long-term effects of the virus? Why have you decided that they are bad enough to overcome the known short-term benefits of the vaccine over the virus?

You talk about the risk-benefit calculus but don't realize how half-baked your own calculus is. You are factoring in unknowns on only one side of the equation to push a bizarre agenda of public health nihilism.

You say lots of fluff and puff without actually addressing what I have repeatedly pointed out.

Potential vaccine risks are unknown unknowns, along with long term covid problems as unknown unknowns. It’s also not equivalent to try to assume one over the other, particularly when an individual can directly mitigate contracting covid with mask wearing and distancing. The virus doesn’t just teleport into your lungs.

Risk benefit calculus at this point only makes sense to vaccinate the elderly, the comorbid and vulnerable to death from covid, rather than young healthy individuals.

Especially with limited vaccine supplies available, they should be given priority to those actually at risk of dying from covid. That would not include young healthy persons. Seems selfish to not even acknowledge at least that point.

Not to mention we risk massive public health disasters with antivaxxers if it does turn out one of the vaccines is bad yet we blindly encouraged them at the start.

 

[thegenius]

It's interesting that you are quick to label people as being in denial or hand-waving things away based on feelings when you don't realize this is what you have already done.

You are quick to point out that we don't have data on the long-term effects of the vaccine. That's a good point and one that everyone (myself included) has accepted from the beginning of this discussion, despite your insistence on claiming the opposite.

Your intellectual curiosity about long-term outcomes, however, doesn't seem to extend to COVID itself. You act as if you understand COVID perfectly--this is a disease of the elderly because that's who it has affected over the short term. Where have your concerns about unknown long-term outcomes gone?

All I am asking of you is a bit of intellectual consistency. You are very worried about the unknown long-term effects of the vaccine? That's fine. But why are the hypothetical long-term effects of the vaccine worse than the hypothetical long-term effects of the virus? Why have you decided that they are bad enough to overcome the known short-term benefits of the vaccine over the virus?

You talk about the risk-benefit calculus but don't realize how half-baked your own calculus is. You are factoring in unknowns on only one side of the equation to push a bizarre agenda of public health nihilism.

Epinay it's a waste of time - wamcp is a troll.

 

[southerndoc]

My wife and daughter have both tested positive for COVID. I received the vaccine 2 weeks ago. I got a bunch of Abbot BinaxNOW rapid antigen tests from the fire department where I'm medical director. I also have a bunch of Healgen rapid antibody tests that I was periodically testing myself for.

The Healgen tests have always been negative since we got them in March. I was doing one/month. I did one before I got the vaccine and it was negative. Since my wife/daughter have gotten COVID, I've done a total of 5 Abbot BinaxNOW nasal antigen tests. All have been negative. Last night I did another Healgen antibody test -- positive (slightly). So I'm starting to get antibodies from the vaccine unless it's a false positive or I've had 5 false negative Abbotts.

Hopefully it prevents me from getting COVID from my family. Have to say it's very challenging keeping distance from your family, sleeping in another room, and watching your daughter open Christmas gifts >6 feet away.

 

[RustedFox]

Wife is now on day 10 of Covid.
Continues to feel like trash; though symptoms are confined to myalgias/fatigue. Barely a cough anywhere. Still sleeping most of the day; getting up every 3-4 hours to eat some soup before going back to bed. Funny; for the first 4-5 days, she was like: "This is a cold. Sure; I'm a little tired, but its not half as bad as the flu was."

 

[GeneralVeers]

Wife is now on day 10 of Covid.
Continues to feel like trash; though symptoms are confined to myalgias/fatigue. Barely a cough anywhere. Still sleeping most of the day; getting up every 3-4 hours to eat some soup before going back to bed. Funny; for the first 4-5 days, she was like: "This is a cold. Sure; I'm a little tired, but its not half as bad as the flu was."

The same with my significant other. About 2 weeks of intense fatigue and not much else in the way of symptoms. I had some fatigue with it, mild shortness of breath and a low grade fever.

 

[RustedFox]

The same with my significant other. About 2 weeks of intense fatigue and not much else in the way of symptoms. I had some fatigue with it, mild shortness of breath and a low grade fever.

Couldn't tell if the "fever" that I subjectively had was covid, or that I had forgotten sunscreen before my bike ride.

 

[greatnt249]

It’s also not equivalent to try to assume one over the other, particularly when an individual can directly mitigate contracting covid with mask wearing and distancing. The virus doesn’t just teleport into your lungs.

Risk benefit calculus at this point only makes sense to vaccinate the elderly, the comorbid and vulnerable to death from covid, rather than young healthy individuals.

Especially with limited vaccine supplies available, they should be given priority to those actually at risk of dying from covid. That would not include young healthy persons. Seems selfish to not even acknowledge at least that point.

Not to mention we risk massive public health disasters with antivaxxers if it does turn out one of the vaccines is bad yet we blindly encouraged them at the start.

1. Individual mask wearing/distancing only works to the extent that the greater population is willing to adhere to these practices consistently; I think we've all borne witness to how well we, as a population, managed to do that over the past year. I'm all about personally liberty, but there has to be a line where the mentality of "someone else can follow the rules but I'm 'special'" has to go.

2. Death is not the only adverse long-term outcome to consider from contracting COVID.

3. Personally developing the illness is not the only consideration to be taken when discussing whether to be vaccinated or not. If a healthcare worker becomes ill with COVID, how sick that individual becomes is not the only thing that needs to be taken into consideration. That single individual has now become a single point of contact for many people over the course of their infection (at least, until they know they're infected) who otherwise did not have the option to socially distance themselves from that worker. The mentality has to extend beyond how getting sick with COVID personally affects you and only you.

4. If we practiced medicine on the basis of whether fringe anti-science groups would seize upon any mishaps (real or perceived) to further their own agendas, medicine, or even science for that matter, would never advance. The discussion we should be having with patients should be based on what we know based on the available evidence, and beyond what is published is all speculation. Now would be a really good time to get comfortable with using the phrase "I/we don't know" with your patients. Not in a "deer-in-the-headlights" sense of the phrase, but in stating the honest truth about the information that is actually available to us.

 

[24858]

Everyone getting the vaccine now is in the long-term study cohort. I think the chance that there are significant long term consequences is low, but not zero. We also don't have long-term morbidity data from the virus, so saying with certainty that the vaccine is safer long-term is foolish.

Again, I'm all for high risk people getting this vaccine. I just don't really like the FB propaganda campaign supported by healthcare workers. There's simply no reason we should rush to vaccinate children, and young, healthy adults.

I agree with you 100%.
The IFR for me is 0.009%, let alone I am taking vitamins and a zinc ionophore which may in fact drop that IFR number even lower. I am being crucified in the anesthesia forum for not taking the vaccine. My basis for not taking the vaccine is simple. I know with hard data my risk from COVID, I have a greater risk of dying (while seat belted) in a car accident. I have zero data on my risk of taking this vaccine. What is my risk long term? Back in 2005 the vaccines that were attempted to be developed for SARS back then the vaccines caused ADEs, pathogenic priming. So I know there have certainly been long term risks with vaccines for SARS in the past, could that be the case here? I have no idea. And yet there are a large number of physicians who belong to this group think that know for a fact demand that I be vaccinated as I could infect by patients by not getting the vaccine (again this is unproven and the chief medical officer of the WHO just said as much)

 

[greatnt249]

I am being crucified in the anesthesia forum for not taking the vaccine.

You were not "being crucified" solely for choosing not getting vaccinated. What is the risk of the vaccine long-term? No one knows, just like we don't know long-term risk about a lot of things in medicine.

 

[GeneralVeers]

1. Individual mask wearing/distancing only works to the extent that the greater population is willing to adhere to these practices consistently; I think we've all borne witness to how well we, as a population, managed to do that over the past year. I'm all about personally liberty, but there has to be a line where the mentality of "someone else can follow the rules but I'm 'special'" has to go.

So you are going to jail people? That's about all you can do at this point. Was out on NYE. Definitely no one cared about precautions.

2. Death is not the only adverse long-term outcome to consider from contracting COVID.

True, but not a reason to be fearful, or take any more precautions than for influenza or any other respiratory virus. I'm actually more afraid of influenza as it has higher death rate in my cohort.

3. Personally developing the illness is not the only consideration to be taken when discussing whether to be vaccinated or not. If a healthcare worker becomes ill with COVID, how sick that individual becomes is not the only thing that needs to be taken into consideration. That single individual has now become a single point of contact for many people over the course of their infection (at least, until they know they're infected) who otherwise did not have the option to socially distance themselves from that worker. The mentality has to extend beyond how getting sick with COVID personally affects you and only you.

I disagree. Questions about long-term risks associated with the vaccine are legitimate. If masks work, then it's reasonable to not take the vaccine if there is low personal risk. If this was a regular vaccine with good studies which showed no long term adverse effects then I'd have no issue with it at all.

4. If we practiced medicine on the basis of whether fringe anti-science groups would seize upon any mishaps (real or perceived) to further their own agendas, medicine, or even science for that matter, would never advance. The discussion we should be having with patients should be based on what we know based on the available evidence, and beyond what is published is all speculation. Now would be a really good time to get comfortable with using the phrase "I/we don't know" with your patients. Not in a "deer-in-the-headlights" sense of the phrase, but in stating the honest truth about the information that is actually available to us.

Unfortunately we have to take this into consideration in a polarized age where every nut gets to have their voice heard. The anti-vaxxers have done tremendous damage, and have allowed the resurgence of once-abolished diseases. They will latch onto any evidence they can find that this vaccine causes autism, etc. and use that to further their agenda.

 

[24858]

So you are going to jail people? That's about all you can do at this point. Was out on NYE. Definitely no one cared about precautions.

True, but not a reason to be fearful, or take any more precautions than for influenza or any other respiratory virus. I'm actually more afraid of influenza as it has higher death rate in my cohort.

I disagree. Questions about long-term risks associated with the vaccine are legitimate. If masks work, then it's reasonable to not take the vaccine if there is low personal risk. If this was a regular vaccine with good studies which showed no long term adverse effects then I'd have no issue with it at all.

Unfortunately we have to take this into consideration in a polarized age where every nut gets to have their voice heard. The anti-vaxxers have done tremendous damage, and have allowed the resurgence of once-abolished diseases. They will latch onto any evidence they can find that this vaccine causes autism, etc. and use that to further their agenda.

A small randomized VitD3 study in Spain showed a significant decrease in ICU admission/death in hospitalized COVID patients that received VitD3.
I posted this, and the immediate response is, well that is a small data set, and hasn't been reproduced.
My response is, ok, but you all are insisting that this COVID vaccine is as safe long term as a glass of water and we should all get the vaccine regardless of circumstance so we don't infect/kill people. The standard for other potential treatments is exceedingly high, but the standard for the vaccine, there is no standard, we are all supposed to rush into the line to get it and never question anything and always assume the risk benefit heavily favors a benefit, and if the risk is high for the individual, well that is not of any concern, in that instance the individual must think of the group. I am not heavily libertarian, I am a collectivist, but not a collectivist that rushes into anything that a group suggests with unclear risk

 

[greatnt249]

So you are going to jail people? That's about all you can do at this point. Was out on NYE. Definitely no one cared about precautions.

True, but not a reason to be fearful, or take any more precautions than for influenza or any other respiratory virus. I'm actually more afraid of influenza as it has higher death rate in my cohort.

I disagree. Questions about long-term risks associated with the vaccine are legitimate. If masks work, then it's reasonable to not take the vaccine if there is low personal risk. If this was a regular vaccine with good studies which showed no long term adverse effects then I'd have no issue with it at all.

Unfortunately we have to take this into consideration in a polarized age where every nut gets to have their voice heard. The anti-vaxxers have done tremendous damage, and have allowed the resurgence of once-abolished diseases. They will latch onto any evidence they can find that this vaccine causes autism, etc. and use that to further their agenda.

1. I never proposed "jailing people"; that shouldn't be the takeaway from what I was saying. What I'm saying is that I disagree with this perception that any one individual is completely within their power to avoid getting infected/spreading infection on the basis of masking/social distancing alone. If that's all it took, we wouldn't need a vaccine for anything and, ostensibly, this pandemic should be over and done with. Either that, or we're too dumb/proud for our own good and doing simple things is too much to ask the population at large due to "inconvenience."

2. I wasn't saying to be fearful to a paranoid degree; I was pointing out that death seems to be the only statistic anyone throws around making these arguments regarding risk.

3. I didn't say that long-term risks of vaccination shouldn't be considered. What I was saying was that a healthcare worker becoming infectious shouldn't be viewed in the same way as any random public encounter. This isn't an argument for mandatory vaccination; it's an appeal to the basic understanding that we live in a world where, as much as we like to fool ourselves, the choices we make for our own individual well-being are rarely limited in impact to our own personal bubble.

4. You say living in a pandemic shouldn't be a reason to be fearful of going about our daily lives, but pandering to extremist viewpoints who will have an agenda regardless of what science actually says or shows sounds an awful lot like "living in fear." Should we stop research just because someone might misconstrue the data? I agree that we have to be careful about how we carry ourselves when we talk about risk versus benefit, but I haven't seen anybody promising that there would be no long-term side effects to the vaccines. The most chatter I've seen is the uninformed public continuing to stumble over this notion that "correlation does not imply causation" when it comes to side effects.

 

[greatnt249]

you all are insisting that this COVID vaccine is as safe long term as a glass of water and we should all get the vaccine regardless of circumstance so we don't infect/kill people.

This is a strawman. What people have been saying is that they've weighed their personal risk/benefit and chosen to get the vaccine. You clearly don't feel comfortable with getting the vaccine, which is fine. But don't go filling in the gaps by making the people that got the vaccine sound reckless by stating people said it's as safe as drinking a glass of water.

Part of the problem is demanding long-term data where there's none to be had and calling that a flaw in the process. It isn't a flaw; the data simply doesn't exist because it can't exist now. I can't possibly imagine how these vaccines won't be one of the most heavily scrutinized products of modern medicine to date in terms of safety and longitudinal follow-up. Unfortunately, a current and ongoing pandemic has forced our hand to come up with something with the science we have available to us, and here we are.

 

[24858]

This is a strawman. What people have been saying is that they've weighed their personal risk/benefit and chosen to get the vaccine. You clearly don't feel comfortable with getting the vaccine, which is fine. But don't go filling in the gaps by making the people that got the vaccine sound reckless by stating people said it's as safe as drinking a glass of water.

Part of the problem is demanding long-term data where there's none to be had and calling that a flaw in the process. It isn't a flaw; the data simply doesn't exist because it can't exist now. I can't possibly imagine how these vaccines won't be one of the most heavily scrutinized products of modern medicine to date in terms of safety and longitudinal follow-up. Unfortunately, a current and ongoing pandemic has forced our hand to come up with something with the science we have available to us, and here we are.

Exactly and I am fine with that. If it was left at that, I would be fine. But it wasn't.
It isn't a strawman because the argument was that the risk of the virus is greater than the risk of the vaccine, which can not possibly be known, but they insisted that it most definitely is the case. Where is the strawman?

 

[24858]

Excuse my ignorance on mRNA vaccines, but what cells actually take up the mRNA and express the spike protein? What’s the fate of the cells that express it? How long does the foreign mRNA float around in cytoplasm of cells it’s taken up into prior to being degraded? Is there variance in that based on what cell type absorbs it? How long do antibodies produced from vaccination last? Will the vaccine prove effective against different mutations of coronavirus?

excellent questions

 

[24858]

1. I never proposed "jailing people"; that shouldn't be the takeaway from what I was saying. What I'm saying is that I disagree with this perception that any one individual is completely within their power to avoid getting infected/spreading infection on the basis of masking/social distancing alone. If that's all it took, we wouldn't need a vaccine for anything and, ostensibly, this pandemic should be over and done with. Either that, or we're too dumb/proud for our own good and doing simple things is too much to ask the population at large due to "inconvenience."

2. I wasn't saying to be fearful to a paranoid degree; I was pointing out that death seems to be the only statistic anyone throws around making these arguments regarding risk.

3. I didn't say that long-term risks of vaccination shouldn't be considered. What I was saying was that a healthcare worker becoming infectious shouldn't be viewed in the same way as any random public encounter. This isn't an argument for mandatory vaccination; it's an appeal to the basic understanding that we live in a world where, as much as we like to fool ourselves, the choices we make for our own individual well-being are rarely limited in impact to our own personal bubble.

4. You say living in a pandemic shouldn't be a reason to be fearful of going about our daily lives, but pandering to extremist viewpoints who will have an agenda regardless of what science actually says or shows sounds an awful lot like "living in fear." Should we stop research just because someone might misconstrue the data? I agree that we have to be careful about how we carry ourselves when we talk about risk versus benefit, but I haven't seen anybody promising that there would be no long-term side effects to the vaccines. The most chatter I've seen is the uninformed public continuing to stumble over this notion that "correlation does not imply causation" when it comes to side effects.

Number 3, there is no data that suggests that the vaccine prevents spread, Pfizer has specifically stated as much. The only claim is that it decreases the severity of infection

 

[GeneralVeers]

This is a strawman. What people have been saying is that they've weighed their personal risk/benefit and chosen to get the vaccine. You clearly don't feel comfortable with getting the vaccine, which is fine. But don't go filling in the gaps by making the people that got the vaccine sound reckless by stating people said it's as safe as drinking a glass of water.

Agreed, it should be a risk/benefit and shouldn't be made mandatory. I'm all for anyone getting who has assessed the risk and wants it.

Part of the problem is demanding long-term data where there's none to be had and calling that a flaw in the process. It isn't a flaw; the data simply doesn't exist because it can't exist now. I can't possibly imagine how these vaccines won't be one of the most heavily scrutinized products of modern medicine to date in terms of safety and longitudinal follow-up. Unfortunately, a current and ongoing pandemic has forced our hand to come up with something with the science we have available to us, and here we are.

You are right. The data can't exist now and I an accept that. I'm concerned that there is no liability for these companies. Is the government going to pay up if there are long-term consequences? Will employers have to pay if they force employees to get vaccinations? There are so many unanswered legal questions with this beyond the scientific ones.

 

[GeneralVeers]

Number 3, there is no data that suggests that the vaccine prevents spread, Pfizer has specifically stated as much. The only claim is that it decreases the severity of infection

The vaccine probably does prevent spread. I don't think that's really in doubt. Pfizer has to be very cautious with regards to the claims it makes.

 

[24858]

The vaccine probably does prevent spread. I don't think that's really in doubt. Pfizer has to be very cautious with regards to the claims it makes.

Top WHO scientist says vaccinated travelers should still quarantine, citing lack of evidence that COVID-19 vaccines prevent transmission

Scientists are warning people not to change their behavior until more evidence about coronavirus vaccines is available.

www.businessinsider.com

 

[greatnt249]

Exactly and I am fine with that. If it was left at that, I would be fine. But it wasn't.
It isn't a strawman because the argument was that the risk of the virus is greater than the risk of the vaccine, which can not possibly be known, but they insisted that it most definitely is the case. Where is the strawman?

The strawman was where you said people were saying it was as safe as drinking a glass of water. Maybe you were using that phrase as an exaggeration and I missed the tone, but that's not what I've been seeing people write.

 

[GeneralVeers]

Top WHO scientist says vaccinated travelers should still quarantine, citing lack of evidence that COVID-19 vaccines prevent transmission

Scientists are warning people not to change their behavior until more evidence about coronavirus vaccines is available.

www.businessinsider.com

I think people are just being cautious. Everything that's been put out says that people vaccinated should still wear masks and social distance. If that's REALLY the case, then it makes the vaccine pointless.

 

[24858]

I think people are just being cautious. Everything that's been put out says that people vaccinated should still wear masks and social distance. If that's REALLY the case, then it makes the vaccine pointless.

Not necessarily, it could help prevent severe cases from happening which would cause less overall mortality.

 

[24858]

The strawman was where you said people were saying it was as safe as drinking a glass of water. Maybe you were using that phrase as an exaggeration and I missed the tone, but that's not what I've been seeing people write.

Yes it just a rhetorical device

 

[greatnt249]

Number 3, there is no data that suggests that the vaccine prevents spread, Pfizer has specifically stated as much. The only claim is that it decreases the severity of infection

This is a clear example of how framing the discussion can influence perception. The way you write this makes it sound like the study was performed to answer this question, when, in reality, there's probably no way to actually obtain data to answer this question. As you write it, the inference, or at least how it could be perceived what you're writing, is that it doesn't stop spread, when in reality, I don't know if we could possibly know or how we would go about studying that. How do you prove that you didn't give COVID to somebody after receiving the vaccination? Better yet, how would you prove that you did?

 

[GeneralVeers]

Not necessarily, it could help prevent severe cases from happening which would cause less overall mortality.

Not what we were promised. For a year we've been told a vaccine is the only way to return to some sort of normalcy. Now they've moved the bar again. Everyone gets vaccinated AND we still have to have business limits, masks, and precautions. Not okay.

 

[24858]

This is a clear example of how framing the discussion can influence perception. The way you write this makes it sound like the study was performed to answer this question, when, in reality, there's probably no way to actually obtain data to answer this question. As you write it, the inference, or at least how it could be perceived what you're writing, is that it doesn't stop spread, when in reality, I don't know if we could possibly know or how we would go about studying that. How do you prove that you didn't give COVID to somebody after receiving the vaccination? Better yet, how would you prove that you did?

I think the major point is, is that with vaccination there is a genuine concern that laxity will set in, and that laxity may be devastating. We don't know. Many voices are trying to ensure that laxity doesn't set in. I am not saying I agree with that viewpoint, I am just reiterating what is available for public knowledge.

 

[24858]

The strawman was where you said people were saying it was as safe as drinking a glass of water. Maybe you were using that phrase as an exaggeration and I missed the tone, but that's not what I've been seeing people write.

Read this, and ask yourself, and answer for me, what has changed since March? Asking from a stance of genuine conversation with you, not a gotcha type of discussion. Lets keep this a nice talk, lets agree together to try to arrive at a place of knowewlge and agree not to attack one another here. Here’s why we can’t rush a COVID-19 vaccine

 

[greatnt249]

Agreed, it should be a risk/benefit and shouldn't be made mandatory. I'm all for anyone getting who has assessed the risk and wants it.

You are right. The data can't exist now and I an accept that. I'm concerned that there is no liability for these companies. Is the government going to pay up if there are long-term consequences? Will employers have to pay if they force employees to get vaccinations? There are so many unanswered legal questions with this beyond the scientific ones.

I don't see how these companies would be protected from liability if it was later found that they had intentionally hidden results or had knowledge that there were problems and still insisted on pushing the vaccine to market without making knowledge of said problems public; that doesn't seem legally defensible. As for the unknown risks? As it stands now, Pfizer and Moderna would have no way of knowing about that now either. I'm not carte blanche defending pharmaceutical companies, but we all agreed to waivers when we got the vaccine, or at the very least, I did. Maybe I'm wrong, but it would seem what they meant by "no liability" for these companies that they can't be held liable for potential harm/adverse reaction from our current understanding of the known risks of taking the vaccine.

 

[GeneralVeers]

I don't see how these companies would be protected from liability if it was later found that they had intentionally hidden results or had knowledge that there were problems and still insisting on pushing the vaccine to market without making knowledge of said problems public; that doesn't seem legally defensible. As for the unknown risks? As it stands now, Pfizer and Moderna would have no way of knowing about that now either. I'm not carte blanche defending pharmaceutical companies, but we all agreed to waivers when we got the vaccine, or at the very least, I did. Maybe I'm wrong, but it would seem what they meant by "no liability" for these companies that they can't be held liable for potential harm/adverse reaction from our current understanding of the known risks of taking the vaccine.

You are correct. I don't believe they are hiding any short term complications from the vaccine. My problem is that with the waiver, we are basically absolving them of liability for long term complications. Yes I understand they don't have long term data.

 

[greatnt249]

I think the major point is, is that with vaccination there is a genuine concern that laxity will set in, and that laxity may be devastating. We don't know. Many voices are trying to ensure that laxity doesn't set in. I am not saying I agree with that viewpoint, I am just reiterating what is available for public knowledge.

Laxity has already set in with just the simple request of mask wearing and social distancing; let's not kid ourselves here.

 

[greatnt249]

You are correct. I don't believe they are hiding any short term complications from the vaccine. My problem is that with the waiver, we are basically absolving them of liability for long term complications. Yes I understand they don't have long term data.

Are we truly absolving them of that liability? I feel like it would be pretty reckless of the government to say there would be no long-term liability when we're only a few weeks into vaccinating people beyond when the studies were performed, especially when we can't even speculate what the long-term effects would be. Also, the further out we get from vaccination, the harder it's going to be to establish an adverse event's relationship directly to being given the vaccination.

 

[GeneralVeers]

Laxity has already set in with just the simple request of mask wearing and social distancing; let's not kid ourselves here.

Right. So there's a certain point where we have to lift restrictions. Once the vaccine is available at CVS to anyone who wants one, like the flu shot, then all COVID restrictions need to go. At that point if the at-risk-people can't take it upon themselves to get vaccinated, then it's their own fault.