What I’ve learned is that this isn’t an issue in a disparity in knowledge. But a disparity in epistemology - an understanding of how we come to know things and what needs to be present to determine that you can be confident in knowing something. You cannot have discussions with these people based on the basics of science, emerging knowledge from the literature and the value of Real World Evidence. To these people there is a belief that forms and any point that be used to support it, regardless of its context or other explanations, is used as such.
I can understand their frustration to a degree. less than 2 years ago, governments around the world were pushing the rhetoric that vaccinations would stop people from getting covid, and spreading covid. This was the basis of their arguements. both of those points are now known to be untrue. and to a degree, I don’t blame their outrage as the public has been mislead whilst they have been ostracised socially.
now they’re watching the massive uptick in health issues associated with vaccinations (myocarditis and a huge rise in unexplained deaths) which are being pushed under the rug by the media circus.
my problem is this…what would you have had the government do? none of them have answers to the tough questions…
Both the vaccination and the infection increase the risk of myocarditis in certain groups. Infection does so in those groups by orders of magnitude. Treating these things as being because of the Vax rather than because the emergence of a novel pathogen that has killed tens of millions people is the sort of epistemological breakdown I was talking about.
As for the role of the vax breaking the chain in transmission it was true at the point it was being said. It was an important part of the message of the importance of the getting the shot. It is the central part of why vaccination is a public health issue (the effect of collective action) not of personal health and why the counters about it being a personal choice were wrong. Not misguided. Flat out wrong. It was the justification for removing abstainers from society.
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that’s not true at all, getting vaccinated doesn’t stop anyone from transmitting it, or carrying it, or even becoming sick from it. what broke the chain was social distancing and masks and people staying home. vaccinations just lessened the effect of the virus on the body. I had Covid early on in Feb 2020 so was exposed to it probably in its most original iteration, and even with two jabs afterwards I still managed to get sick again nearly 3 years later. Wife had two shots and a booster and still got sick. my son at 8yo only had one shot (he won’t get a second) and has managed to avoid getting sick for the past 3 years.
They were never able to test that the vaccines properly because they didn’t have time. they saw what happened in Italy and panicked. the drug companies did some small tests in a few months of around 80,000 people and used that data to get their offerings in front of the FDA which approved for special emergency use.
I’m of the opinion that the governments did what they thought was the best course of action, at an insanely high financial cost to society as a whole. now we’re able to look back in retrospect, I’m sure a lot would have been done differently
hopefully lessons are learned. I don’t think we’re out of this yet.
This goes into the part about it being true when it was said. If you want to argue about whether they should have been clearer that it is unlikely to always offer such robust protection then that’s fair, but as that reality has changed so too has the messaging. One of the issues is that the way a virus affects a population and interacts with our medicines and policies changes over time and so the right message changes with it. Too many people have spent far more energy playing gotcha with the experts as the circumstances change that they have in just doing the right things
The main difference between the Emergency Use Authorization and the subsequent full authorizations was not the amount of data, or the outcomes documented, but the completeness of the paper trail that makes up the application, and a slightly different standard on risk-reward. The BLA application, what is used to grant full authorization for a vaccine, is an enormous undertaking. In a situation like this the data was largely good enough to have got full BLA approval, but it would get shots in arms literally months quicker by doing an abbreviated application for emergency use.
As for the studies, vaccines are not normally (I’m not sure if ever) tested on their ability to cut transmission. There was some viable criticisms that the studies weren’t doing enough to measure this as a secondary outcome, but it wasn’t the expectation of what the studies would be based on. However, it is a biological truism that the same response that gives people better clinical outcomes also helps it reduce the chain of transmission. So before there was data on it people were confident in saying it was an important part of the public health measure to protect communities. Then the RWE data became available and it supported exactly that. But it was always the open question of how long that would last given uncertainty in the permeance of the effect and with the impact of variants.
He almost certainly hasn’t. This goes back to the central misunderstanding of the “kids dont catch it” argument. The presence of observable symptoms in kids is a really bad marker for whether they’ve ever caught it.
I clearly stated that my son has managed to avoid getting sick for 3 years. I never said whether or not he “caught it” and even that statement is misleading. the more correct term is “exposed to it” as he most certainly has been exposed numerous times. But he didn’t get sick from it because he has a healthy immune system not degraded by poor food and adult vices.
when I caught Covid in Feb 2020 we were in Seattle in a hotel for 3 days whilst touring the city. he was exposed there, highly exposed. When my wife brought it home from Spain in April 2022 he was exposed to it as well. and we just spent 5 days together in Ontario where he was sleeping in our room (for lack of better options) and he was definitely exposed again then.
Ok, terminology aside, that is the point i was arguing against. It isn’t the presence of a healthy well functioning immune system that has seen kids see so rarely suffer observable symptoms, but the opposite - the fact their immune system is too undeveloped to raise a big response.
that statement contradicts itself
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The majority of familiar sickness symptoms are not because of the infection, but because of the immune response to the infection. That part of the immune system takes years to develop and so most kids would get exposed to it and not be able to mount that part of the response that sees them get observably sick.
so in this instance, because my 8yo son isn’t showing symptoms of being sick even though he’s been heavily exposed to the virus… is because his immune system isn’t developed?
With the important caveat that for whatever reason, the infection probably didn’t cause him much discomfort if any. Given the exposure that he has had, it is very unlikely that he remained uninfected, and was quite likely contagious at some point.
No 8 year old has a well developed immune system.
It’s a gross over generalization but think of an immune system as having a general component and a component consisting of a large collection of specific attackers of specific bugs. Over time, as you gain more exposure to more bugs, your gain greater specific immunity to a larger number of bugs at the expense of that generalized component of the immune system. You trade off a slow responding, but moderately effective and wide ranging defensive strategy for a comprehensive collection of individual specific responses that are each quicker and better at responding to the specific bug its designed to fight.
Kids are forced to rely on that more generalized immune response because they havent had exposures to the wide variety of bugs adults have. That response when its activated doesnt produce the same sort of textbook cold and flu symptoms that the targeted “adult” response does because its that response not the infection that makes you feel like shit.
This is the same explanation for why there was so much asymptomatic infection in adults early on as well - if its novel to a population then none of us have specific immunity to it and we are all forced initially to respond to it the same way an 8 year old responds to most bugs they encounter
Myocarditis. Tell me more.
I haven’t discussed Covid for a long time with anyone, as it has been so divisive. But months ago a colleague who is unvaccinated and very much in that camp cited myocarditis as one of his reasons. A mutual friend was vaccinated and got it.
I thought it was a bit exaggerated at the time, but it was used as evidence to justify not getting a vaccine, because this is one of the things it can do to people.
So my question is:
How many people get myocarditis due to Covid vaccine?
And how many people get myocarditis due to the virus, and not the vaccine?
I would imagine many more due to the latter, but I don’t have a data point.
Any help would be most appreciated.
The vax does raise the risk, but in absolute terms it is still a change from really low risk to really low risk. The increase in effect is greater after the second dose (I dont think it’s been documented with boosters but not sure), and may be more associated with the mRNA versions. But infection does so orders of magnitude more. It also does so with qualitatively worse cases, something that is often missed in the raw comparison of numbers.
It’s less clear in younger men (<40 years). There are now several well done analyses of this and there is wide variation among them and that makes it hard to state anything with certainty. This is typically an artifact of trying to calculate ratios on rare events where 1 additional event massively increases a ratio, and that is what appears to be happening here. But if we take the worse case scenario, in this demo the second shot of an mRNA may carry a higher risk than infection for this one outcome. I dont think that is the right conclusion based on the totality of evidence. But even it was, it is one outcome among possible effects of catching covid, and it doesnt factor in the severity of the observed myocarditis which is significantly worse when associated with infection.
All in all, very few if any people are justifiably avoiding the vaccine because of risk of myocarditis. This is just the most justifiable excuse they have found for a decision they already made.
Tested positive for the first time this afternoon after showing all kinds of different symptoms the day before (knew I had it but all pharmacies around me were shut yesterday). I really do sympathize with everyone that’s suffered from this “mild but deadly” virus if that even makes sense…& I don’t think you can truly fully sympathize unless you’ve been through it yourself.
I’m not one for injecting my body with all kinds of god knows what hence the reason I’ve only had the single jab (was always against it) as I believe in natural healing…before yesterday I can’t recall the last time as to when I had a headache, I trust my body to shut down all types of bacteria, viruses, flu etc before I start to show signs but as well I understand the older you get the less likelier this becomes.
Yesterday was as bad as it got…pretty much laid to rest all day couldn’t even enjoy the games if I wanted to as I was passed out on my sofa, headache (not the banging type but the type that takes over control), sore throat (very distasteful acidic like taste), the shivering was probably the worst of it and then the constant toilet trips in the middle of the night…you name it I’ve had it…thankfully today feeling a whole load better, not quite 100% but the headache is gone, the shivering is gone and all I’m left with is the irregular chesty cough followed up with some nasty flem spitting.
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sounds about right.
3yrs ago next weekend (V-day 2020) I had it. there were no tests available but I was in Seattle, medicated to the tits with Cold/Flu meds and fruit smoothies for three days. was sooo sick, it lasted for months afterwards with the phlegm and sinus congestion and body aches. was terrible feeling.
You will probably get cure suggestions from everyone…I treated it like flu, take lemsips, honey n lemon in hot water…paracetamol…I lost my appetite for 3 days…but eventually checked the tests and after about 10 days…back to normal…hope this helps…keep fighting it…
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On contrary I took my fourth shot 2 weeks ago, this one the bivalent vaccine. I got covid last year but the 5 days I was positive, I felt nothing except the need to sleep felt more pronounced. No fever, cough or sore throat. Strange thing, I suddenly started coughing after turning negative and then kept getting coughing bouts for 6 months. Guess that’s long covid. Even now, once a while, the cough comes back but nothing of concern.
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Not had covid 
so far.
Get well soon