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The vaccine has not failed, but nor was it ever going to eradicate the virus or give us herd immunity. COVID-19 is an upper respiratory virus, of the same family as the flu and common cold (or which many are also caused by coronaviruses). The vaccine was never going to do more than the flu vaccine has ever done - which is make it less likely a person gets symptoms when encountering the flu and less likely symptoms get really bad when they do occur - but not eliminate either. I knew this in the Spring of 2020, when it was clear a vaccine was forthcoming at some point. This is because the human body does a poor job fending off viral infections that enter into, and effect, upper respiratory areas. The human body does this poorly because it can. These infections are but a mere nuisance, and never had to be eradicated from an evolutionary prospective. What the human body does well is stop the virus from marching into other areas and causing real damage.
COVID-19 was a problem because it was new. As such, it presented more of a challenge to the human body, especially for the elderly. But this has happened before to the human race - all of the already existing coronaviruses that cause common colds started out rather bad for us and caused havoc - until they didn't. But this happened years ago, before mass media and politics on the level we have today.
COVID-19 will spread, and spread, and spread ... forever. At some point, it will become common cold-is, as the human race improves its defenses, both in terms of antibodies and its generic responses. As a society we need to understand this and allow it to happen. Masks actually don't help this.
Increased numbers/deaths are unavoidable. But there also needs to be a realization that we have nothing to compare it to. We have never before tested people on this scale for an upper respiratory virus, and we have never before gone to these lengths to identify people (mostly elderly) who have dies "with" a virus. If someone died of heart failure at age 80 in 2019, I am fairly certain no one did a flu test on the guy. And before 2020 no one without symptoms ran off to get a flu test simply because someone at their office got the flu. So all of these "numbers" are useless.
The recipe for success is simply this - take the masks off of everyone, and live your life. Get the vaccine if you want - no mandates. But for people who say no to the vaccine, understand that you are trading greater risk of severe illness/death from covid for no risk of long term negative effects from the vaccine itself.
No quarrel here. But that's not how the vaccines were sold to the public, and faced with the virus being a virus, they're still pushing vaccine mandates, restrictions, etc. Incredibly, it seems that their response is to double down. I keep thinking about Bill Maher repeatedly pointing out that a majority of Democrats think this disease is far deadlier than it is - he recently cited a poll showing that they believe 50% of people who get it have to be hospitalized. These are the people setting our public policies.
No quarrel here. But that's not how the vaccines were sold to the public, and faced with the virus being a virus, they're still pushing vaccine mandates, restrictions, etc. Incredibly, it seems that their response is to double down. I keep thinking about Bill Maher repeatedly pointing out that a majority of Democrats think this disease is far deadlier than it is - he recently cited a poll showing that they believe 50% of people who get it have to be hospitalized. These are the people setting our public policies.
Yes, it was oversold to the public. Mostly because politics has long ago devolved into one extreme or the other, and there is no room for reasonable nuance.
And like the vaccine being oversold to the public, so were the dangers of the virus itself.
As to my previous post, scientists are now convinced that a certain flu pandemic that occurred in the 1800s (early I think) in Russia was a coronavirus that eventually just settled into a cold-producing virus. It didn't spread world-wide (as far as we can tell) due to lack of travel back then in and out of Russia.
There is just no avoiding the fact that every once and a while, a new upper-respiratory virus will come on scene and be a big problem for old people and certain other unhealthy adults. And "once and a while" should be viewed on a very large scale - for instance I don't think another one has come on scene in any of our lifetimes.
My personal belief is that the helpfulness of the vaccine outweighs its risks, so I got it. I hope that as time goes by people will see that it is not causing problems and more and more people get it.
I also hope that it helps us as to other coronaviruses (the ones that cause colds). Intellectually, it seems like it should. Anedoctically, I think is has been because I know of almost no one who is getting a cold, and most people I know have gotten the vaccine.
The vaccine has not failed, but nor was it ever going to eradicate the virus or give us herd immunity.
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The article I posted from September 2020 has quotes from epidemiologists regarding herd immunity. If the virus can’t create herd immunity then why is the federal government mandating it as if our very society depends on it being eradicated through vaccination? If you say we have to vaccinate people in order to keep it from mutating then how do we do that if vaccinated people can still catch it and be symptom free, making them unaware they are spreading it? Viral loads are similar between vaccinated and unvaccinated people; vaccinated people appear to spread the Delta variant more readily.
If kids aren’t getting very sick from COVID then why do we need to vaccinate them? To protect others? Do we really want to give a vaccine for which there is no long term data to an entire generation who has not yet reproduced? What if there is a long term side effect that hasn’t been detected? By all means, allow people to opt in if they want to get their children vaccinated. But mandating it does not make sense.
I am not a doctor but there are some inconsistencies in what we are being told and the data that has been published about this virus.
Not true. The vaccinated are far less likely to become infected in the first place, thus less likely to spread it than the unvaccinated.
Actually, vaccinated folks are infected rather routinely with the Delta variant nowadays. A separate issue is how readily they then spread the disease. The CDC wants vaccinated folks to mask up in certain situations:
Fully vaccinated people who do become infected can transmit it to others. Therefore, fully vaccinated people can further reduce their risk of becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2 and transmitting it to others by wearing a mask indoors in public in areas of substantial or high community transmission. CDC Website.
Importantly, these vaccines wane in effectiveness. Sometimes rather dramatically (varies from person to person) and sometimes in a matter of months. In a literal sense, an unboostered (yet ‘vaccinated’) person may quite readily become infected and then spread the disease.
That is why scientists are now telling us that Covid is going nowhere (despite the vaccine). We’re going to treat it like flu (voluntary annual or semi-annual shots and meds). At some point that’ll happen in NY and in some states that has happened already. (Whether or not the little kids get vaxxed. )
Last edited by Quick Commenter; 11-16-2021 at 03:29 AM..
The biggest problem is that world-wide, we test both the living and the dead for COVID-19 on a scale never before seen for any upper respiratory virus. For the common cold (many of which are caused by other coronaviruses), I don't think a test even exists. So no one has ever tested positive. For the flu, only people who get sick enough to go to a doctor get tested, and even then, they are not always tested. As for the recently deceased, I don't believe people have been routinely tested for the flu if they died of heart failure, stroke, heart attack, etc.
But with COVID, the amount of testing, even for people without any symptoms, is ridiculously high compared to the flu and the common cold (which was zero), and it seems every time someone dies they are tested for COVID-19. In the past, how many asymptomatic people went out of their way to get a flu test? Probably near zero.
This creates the "numbers" everyone talks about, and freaks out about. But no politician or talking-head wants to say "compared to what exactly".
What has happened year after year after year is that asymptomatic people have been spreading the flu and the common cold all over the place. People are walking around "with" the flu and common cold all the time and have no idea. Because they would never in a million years get tested if they weren't sick, and indeed, there is no common cold test.
If we went back in time to some random year (lets say 2003) and tested people (both living and recently dead) for the flu on the scale we test for COVID-19 today, we would all be shocked at how "high" the numbers are.
The biggest problem is that world-wide, we test both the living and the dead for COVID-19 on a scale never before seen for any upper respiratory virus. For the common cold (many of which are caused by other coronaviruses), I don't think a test even exists. So no one has ever tested positive. For the flu, only people who get sick enough to go to a doctor get tested, and even then, they are not always tested. As for the recently deceased, I don't believe people have been routinely tested for the flu if they died of heart failure, stroke, heart attack, etc.
But with COVID, the amount of testing, even for people without any symptoms, is ridiculously high compared to the flu and the common cold (which was zero), and it seems every time someone dies they are tested for COVID-19. In the past, how many asymptomatic people went out of their way to get a flu test? Probably near zero.
This creates the "numbers" everyone talks about, and freaks out about. But no politician or talking-head wants to say "compared to what exactly".
What has happened year after year after year is that asymptomatic people have been spreading the flu and the common cold all over the place. People are walking around "with" the flu and common cold all the time and have no idea. Because they would never in a million years get tested if they weren't sick, and indeed, there is no common cold test.
If we went back in time to some random year (lets say 2003) and tested people (both living and recently dead) for the flu on the scale we test for COVID-19 today, we would all be shocked at how "high" the numbers are.
All good points.
Let me add ALL hospital systems, in NY, test their patients (in-patient setting) at least once a day for Covid and if a single positive Covid test is determined they are designated "Covid", regardless of the results of further testing. The designation allows the hospital to obtain government funds to off set the cost of care.
Looks like its the next phase of enforcement thats gonna come around sooner than later.
CA Gov already announced he will mandate vaccinations for kids to attend school as soon as FDA approves it for the smaller children.
Curious if this happens in NY state, will LI be able to avoid it in any way.
Kid already are under vaccine mandates, a COVID19 is just one more. I don't see the problem
Kid already are under vaccine mandates, a COVID19 is just one more. I don't see the problem
New vaccine technology not tested long term for a virus that has almost no risk for healthy kids that has an uncommon but too frequent risk of myocarditis. In the latter case I know people who had severe side effects include one teenager who nearly died after the first shot. I know literally dozens of children who had covid none of whom had more than a rough night or 2. Not a single hospitalization. For kids, it is the flu for the most part.
If having the vaccine meant no on would spread the virus, that would be a valid reason, but it has been proven the vaccine is only a prophylactic against bad outcomes and only lowers the chance of spread.
I don't think it's worth the risk towards kids to simply slow the spread. Hospitals are not overwhelmed, and treatment for the disease has improved. I'm vaccinated, as is my wife. I don't see how that any of that can be viewed as anything other than reasonable, but it's "anti-science" to the true believers. Nothing I've said goes against "the science".
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