And while vaccination is safe and easy to get, both me and a lot of my friends were basically as sick as a regular flu for a day or two from it. Some people have no reaction, which is wonderful, but a lot of people need to take a sick day or two, or intentionally get the vaccine on a Friday and lose the weekend.
It's obviously worth it to get the vaccine if you never had COVID, but if we can show that existing antibodies protect you just as well, then it would be a huge improvement for people not to have to suffer through the side effects.
Patients who receive a negative antibody test after a suspected COVID-19 case might want to get a T cell test since that is another way to confirm previous infection.
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavi...
The half-life of antibody levels has been estimated at 73 days. Good, commonly available antibody tests are quite sensitive, and they're accurate besides (99%), and time has not been enough of a factor yet to produce false negatives for this reason. In a year or two it might be.
As far as I'm aware, there's currently no evidence of people having "weak" antibody responses such that tests don't pick it up in a way that they fall below 99% accuracy.
The only time concern is that you need to wait 2-3 weeks until after you recover from COVID to ensure you test positive, as they take time to build up.
First you claimed antibody tests are inaccurate, which is totally false.
Now you're worrying that there are too many antibody tests...? Just like there are 3 vaccines, at least in NYC there are/were only 3 or 4 main antibody tests administered by the city.
It's super easy. Basically nobody's anti-antibody test the way there are anti-vaxxers, so it's actually a significant proportion of the population. And you know what? Being sick and useless for a day or two is actually a big impact on people's lives, I don't know why you're so uncaring.
It would obviously be beneficial if the commonly recognized antibody tests carried the same weight as a vaccine card, i.e. an equivalent standardized "antibody card".
>I’m sure a small number of people like that exist but it’s not really worth carving out complex exceptions to vaccination rules (specifying which kind of antibody tests administered by who and when, etc.) to accommodate their preferences.
You might as well be saying this about accessibility rules for disabled people.
"Be kind. Don't be snarky.... Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." [1]
If you want to participate here, please don't make comments like this one.
Go check my profile all you want. The science is crystal clear, and you don't even have an argument against it aside from trying to attack me as an anti-vaxxer (which I am certainly not).
There are countless vaccines with varying safety profiles, unknowns, and underlying risks for the diseases they prevent.
People who make informed decisions about specific vaccines based on the risk/reward (and unknowns) are not "anti-vaxxers". It is not an all-or-nothing proposition.
If I offered you a chance to skip rope or play Russian roulette with revolver with a bullet in one chamber and you opined about the danger of breaking your hip while skipping rope I would strong suspect you didn't understand the question.
Well, that's complete BS. The list of people expressing concerns about the mRNA / spike protein based injections includes the inventor of the PCR test (Nobel Prize winner), the guy who invented Ivermectin (Nobel Prize winner), the guy credited with inventing mRNA vaccines, the guy who discovered that HIV causes AIDS (another Nobel Prize winner), and countless other famous researchers.
These people are typically pro-vaccine in general, but have reservations about the new spike protein based mRNA vaccines. They are anything but "not smart enough to evaluate such a question".
Here, give this a read: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/9/7/693/htm
Virtually doesn't mean entirely. You can find strict creationist biologists too if you ask enough despite it being a crank view that inherently discredits it's holder.
It doesn't mean biologists give substantial credence to creationism. 99.9% of vaccine hesitant are intellectually limited or letting their politics overrule their intellect.
0.1% are people with relevant expertise who are wrong.
If you want to know what experts of a particular stripe think about a technical topic you identify the most qualified via their peers and accomplishments and synthesize a theory of how the world appears to work from the points of contention and consensus.
What you do not do is cherry pick from the minority who support your pre chosen view and declare your prior bias justified. You might as well have skipped a step and just patted yourself on the back and put in earplugs as it would leave you more time to recline in the shade.
The journal is issuing this expression of concern to alert readers to significant concerns regarding the paper cited above [1].
Serious concerns have been raised about misinterpretation of the data and the conclusions.
The major concern is the misrepresentation of the COVID-19 vaccination efforts and misrepresentation of the data, e.g., Abstract: “For three deaths prevented by vaccination we have to accept two inflicted by vaccination”. Stating that these deaths linked to vaccination efforts is incorrect and distorted.
We will provide an update following the conclusion of our investigation. The authors have been notified about this Expression of Concern.
I'll list my "expression of concern" about their "expression of concern": their "expression of concern" contains no evidence refuting the study. In fact, it contains no substance at all, other than being a political statement.
View the full text here and see for yourself: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/9/7/705/htm
"The journal is issuing this expression of concern to alert readers to significant concerns regarding the paper cited above [1].
Serious concerns have been raised about misinterpretation of the data and the conclusions.
The major concern is the misrepresentation of the COVID-19 vaccination efforts and misrepresentation of the data, e.g., Abstract: “For three deaths prevented by vaccination we have to accept two inflicted by vaccination”. Stating that these deaths linked to vaccination efforts is incorrect and distorted.
We will provide an update following the conclusion of our investigation. The authors have been notified about this Expression of Concern."
The major claim of the study was based on data from a 1m+ person field study in Israel, but the retraction was based on a technicality in the Netherlands.
Yet they let the completely fraudulent Surgisphere study go into the Lancet for months and change world health policy discouraging therapeutics?
Big pharma narrative control and censorship in action, folks.
It's entirely possible that we can vaccinate and eradicate or suffer from multiple waves that ultimately kill a few million in the shorter term and potentially a lot more over the next few decades. In the long run considering the cost of not destroying covid now might only require 100 vaccinations per life saved.
It's statistics. They calculated the NNTV (number needed to vaccinate) to save one life as between 9,000 and 50,000 with a 95% confidence interval. The point estimate (or best guess) between those two numbers based on the data set is 16,000.
>One should assume that like the seasonal flu that nearly everyone including those that have been infected will eventually get it with a fatality rate that cannot reasonably be fully predicted by looking at prior data because the virus will mutate and get better or worse and treatments may get better as well.
The point of the study is NOT to make assumptions like this. There are studies hinting that a large percentage of the population may be immune to COVID because of previous infection with unrelated coronaviruses. There are too many unknowns to make broad assumptions like "everyone will be infected". The study is based on real-world data and absolute risk reduction, not relative risk reduction. This same relative risk reduction fallacy is how we arrived at the highly marketed "95% efficacy rate", which is turning out to be false. There are many problems with the real-world data itself... not surprisingly problems that erroneously favor vaccination over therapeutics, but it's the best we have to work with.
>This also doesn't fully cover the decrease in lifespan from damage sustained by people who aren't immediately killed.
Nor does it address the decrease in lifespan from dosing 100% of the population with pathogenic spike proteins from the original Wuhan strain from the injections, versus letting the virus naturally become less lethal and more contagious. Nor does it address the very real risk of pathogenic priming/ADE, or that the mass vaccinations during an ongoing pandemic could force dangerous mutations in COVID that would not have occurred naturally.
>It's entirely possible that we can vaccinate and eradicate or suffer from multiple waves that ultimately kill a few million in the shorter term and potentially a lot more over the next few decades. In the long run considering the cost of not destroying covid now might only require 100 vaccinations per life saved.
There's no data I'm aware of that suggest these mRNA vaccinations will "eradicate" COVID. They are incredibly leaky. From the study:
"In the Israeli field study, 4460 persons in the vaccination group became infected during the study period and nine persons died, translating into an infection fatality rate (IFR) of 0.2% in the vaccination group. In the control group, 6100 became infected and 32 died, resulting in an IFR of 0.5%, which is within the range found by a review [11]."
If you read the source Israeli study on google scholar, the control and vaccinated groups were equal, at a little over 500k people each, yet the number infected in each group was roughly the same.
The fatality rate was reduced by a bit more than half in the vaccinated group. These vaccines aren't going to "eradicate" COVID based on this data, not by a long shot. What the data does show is that 41 people died of COVID out of over 1 million people in the study, vaccinated or unvaccinated. What that indicates is that we are epically overreacting.
There is evidence to suggest that the virus is mutating around the Wuhan strain vaccinations, however. When you prime the immune system of the majority of people exactly the same way with a leaky vaccine, the chances of a new strain emerging that escapes immunity is far higher than if you let peoples' natural immunity deal with different strains of the virus as they emerge. This is a well known fact in virology and epidemiological circles that we ignore at our own peril. What we are doing with vaccines is, in fact, extremely dangerous, and when you factor in that the real-world threat of COVID is mild based on the data, it's lunacy.
Untrue
> Nor does it address the decrease in lifespan from dosing 100% of the population with pathogenic spike proteins from the original Wuhan strain from the injections
There is no reason to believe there is any effect beyond a microscopic percentage with bad reactions initially.
>versus letting the virus naturally become less lethal and more contagious.
We have no reason to believe that this is certain or even likely to happen in the near term. For example the Delta variant isn't less deadly even though it is more contagious.
You can argue that virus may tend to over time adapt to their environment and it can be true in aggregate over time but that doesn't mean this particular virus wont be killing just as many people 10 years from now.
> What that indicates is that we are epically overreacting.
Tell that to all the dead people in the US. I think we are done here.
You’re not on Reddit anymore friend
If everyone who can get vaccinated does, then it fundamentally changes how dangerous the world is for those who are immunocompromised, or are too young to receive the vaccine.
I wish that the number of people too selfish or foolish to receive the vaccine was small enough that we could protect them with herd immunity as well, but given the area around me seems to be stalling out at about 70% vaccinated, it is clear that we cannot.
Being anti-vaccination or anti-medicine seems particularly foolish to me. Has anything else we've ever done in all of history come close to the positive humanitarian impact that the development of vaccines has? Aside, perhaps, from the development of antibiotics or sanitation or irrigation?
Being able to vaccinate ourselves has to be one of the major legs up we've developed as a species in general. And people are choosing to discard it. I find it deeply frustrating.
> Being able to vaccinate ourselves has to be one of the major legs up we've developed as a species in general. And people are choosing to discard it. I find it deeply frustrating.
I think along similar lines and I share your frustration.
Other creatures advantage themselves through brute strength, or flight, or some other physical characteristics. But Man is special: Man's advantage is his brain. Our unique ability to think; to reason; to read, write, and remember; to explore the rules of the universe gives us the prerogative to understand and alter our environment.
All of those achievements you mention are expressions of Man's ability to apply his intellect to alter his condition in his environment. Here, with these vaccines, we have a nearly pure example of the fundamental advantage we humans have against a new unthinking, uncaring, endemic adversary of all humanity.
We have done the hard work. We have used our advantage, endowed by our Creator, to build the weapons that will defeat this new enemy. Now our biggest obstacle to final victory is not the virus itself--it's other humans.
It's deeply, deeply frustrating.
There are folks who cannot be vaccinated (or who are not able to develop immunity from the vaccine). It is dangerous for them to be around unvaccinated people.
So no, it is not just up to the individual to do what is best for them.
If I can provide a past positive Covid test or a positive antibody test, that is just as good as a record of being vaccinated. There is no scientific evidence to point to for believing otherwise.
Immunity from non-symptomatic infection differs wildly from symptomatic infection. It's also less flexible with new variants.
I agree that there should be a way to document this. But there are still benefits to keeping certain spaces for the vaccinated only, to allow for denser mixing et cetera.
Florida and other states have been open for a long time and the numbers have been consistently improving same as anywhere else, without any need for documentation or such mandates lol.
This is a regional thing. Most large events in New York have been mandating and verifying vaccination. Most major offices are tracking vaccination status--you're not barred, but you need to wear a mask if you aren't. (Though some are refusing the unvaccinated.)
In dense, urban environments this is sort of necessary. In Jackson, Wyoming it's not.
When in Arizona, I went to a rodeo that wouldn’t dare check vaccination after a museum fundraiser that required it but didn’t verify. As someone who would like to go to both types of events, a single document would be helpful. If others prefer to constrain themselves, that’s fine. We are discussing privileges, not rights.
Doesn't matter if someone dislikes it - it will never be the law of the land here. Basically everywhere I've been including deep blue cities are moving beyond this idea of needing "proof" of something for months now. What you're advocating for is creating two societies.
If we're going to create two separate classes of people, one of which does not enjoy the same freedoms and abilities as the other, I think there needs to be actual data to back it up instead of it just "feeling like" it's the safer thing to do.
I'm not saying this is a world I want to live in, but how do you decide where to draw the line?
Generally you're right though. On their logic if pushed to its conclusion, all the totalitarianism in the world could be justified if it saves one person from dying of the flu or from dying of obesity.
Ha, I like the wording. As if there's a point to a public health crisis. I mean, yeah this is _the_ point if the powers that be are orchestrating this.
I just find the phrasing funny.
Whenever someone tries to justify something with "but the collective" alarm bells should really start going off. You know that in Florida and other states where there are no mandates like those, cases have been declining since last year and things are back to normal right?
And you ignored what I said about Florida and the other states where people have been going maskless for a long time without the numbers changing the trend.
So do I, but you say I shouldn't because you're afraid.
The material on both sides of the mask are the same, no? A mask can prevent a virus from leaving your nose/mouth but not enter?
https://www.sandandsteelfitness.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/...
