India was completely devastated by COVID-19.
One reason was that India failed to focus their care on actually vulnerable elderly people and they instead had 30-something dudes demanding intensive care and taking up oxygen cylinders for themselves and their families.
I myself predicted there will be a run on oxygen concentrators and had one rented for my mom in case. But when delta hit I couldn’t in good conscience keep it and returned it back to the hospital. I know many rich families did not do that and hoarded cylinders and concentrators like this when people were dying. However I’m not convinced that this was the reason for the massive suffering caused in india. It’s just another facet of the cruelty that happened during this time.
Either way, the elderly have already lived their life, isn't it better to focus on the younger people when a choice must be made?
[edit] also, do things for whom? To what end if not to build experience?
In other words I'm saying that's a silly analogy
Worshipping youth in its ignorance and speed while discarding the wisdom of elders is called fascism. The right question would be what can civilization hope to achieve besides a reversion to barbarism and "Lord of the Flies" if it doesn't hold its oldest, most vulnerable and most wise members, and their experience, in the highest regard?
The young have always been proud and disposable. And if they don't die young, they get old. Then maybe they have something more interesting to say.
You're putting the wrong lens on this. My argument is that we are to deliberately harm the young to possibly protect the old and ill (which in this case isn't so as the vaccines don't guarantee prevention), rather than leaving them alone in the hope of protecting the old and ill as-is. Not 'let the old die for the young.'
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.30.21264376v...
In line with many first world countries: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-deaths-cumulative-...
Notably, sub-Saharan Africa did not suffer greatly from Covid.
Neither did China. How stunning. It must be due to their fantastic public health systems.
You don't have to arbitrarily trust some authority. Everyone in the country could see from their own experience that spread of the virus really was being effectively controlled.
The question is, do you think it is easier or harder to spot the lies of Western journalism, and what problems does that cause in forming a base to judge others?
No, it's not 'the question' whether it's easier or harder to spot the 'lies' of Western journalism. That has no bearing whatsoever on the obvious, cut and dry reason for the underreporting of covid deaths in China.
But it is worth pointing out that, unlike the "news" propaganda organs of dictatorships, Western journalism is in no sense a monolith that speaks with one voice. Not even mainstream media in the US speaks with one voice (because yes, Fox is the MSM too). So while it may require a bit more sophistication to pick out truths, it is at least not a one-sided distortion of history in favor of the rulers.
No, finding the flaws in western journalism takes more effort because it's not as obvious. Which means the rulers can get away with propoganda and manipulation much more easily than one who provides a direct, complete and obvious propoganda.
I think people would be wise to be equally critical of left and right MSM, not just assume they aren't propoganda because they are on different 'sides' (hint, they're not really)
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If you keep the virus out of the country, you don't need great hospitals.
«Rather than an ‹African paradox,› the far simpler explanation is that COVID-19 has affected African countries just as the virus has everywhere else, but has gone undocumented.»
https://www.bu.edu/sph/news/articles/2022/morgue-data-reveal...
In countries with a younger population, less deaths from acute COVID-19 are expected, although the number of additional direct deaths from COVID-19 is still substantial. The disease burden burden, i.e., morbidity, also remains high, maybe even more given the sub-par health infrastructure.
Of course they do. If they suffered dramatically from Covid, it would be documented, just as it was for Ebola, Malaria, etc.
> SARS-CoV-2 does not behave differently in Africa than in other regions of the world, especially not in low-vaccination (or even no-vaccination) countries.
The statistics for Covid are all over the map with regards to vaccine status [2].
Some countries with high mRNA distributions did well (Canada, Australia). Some countries with high mRNA distributions did not do well (Brazil, US, Russia, Italy, Cuba). Some countries with low mRNA distribution did well (sub-Saharan Africa, Haiti, DR, Jamaica, Egypt, Papa New Guinea) [1][2].
> In countries with a younger population, less deaths from acute COVID-19 are expected, although the number of additional direct deaths from COVID-19 is still substantial.
A lot of these countries are showing 50-100 excessive deaths per 100K. That's on par with a bad flu season. Sub-saharan Africa has suffered far worse disease outbreaks than Covid. And unlike Covid, diseases like Malaria affect children [3].
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations#what-share-of-... [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-deaths-cumulative-... [3] https://ourworldindata.org/malaria-introduction
By and large, the Covid-19 mRNA vaccines have probably been some of the most extraordinary accomplishments in medicine, with unthinkably low risks given the speed with which they were developed. We took a gamble, but the magnitude of evidence we now have that they are safe is incredible, they are up there with some of the most common OTC medicine.
Fortunately, the vaccines still seem to offer some protection to make sure that vaccinated people are less likely to have a severe form of Covid-19.
Against earlier variants of the virus the vaccines were also very impressive in preventing infections. Far higher than the 50% minimum standard that was set when the development started.
Below 50's were never even close to high risk and as soon as it was known (which was very) the vaccines didn't prevent spread they should have immediately been halted for all low risk age groups.
The chance of death is low for those up to 50. But vaccines even further reduce that.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.scientificamerican.com/arti...
Here's another one with a bit more of a specific breakdown
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...
Unfortunately at this point there is no way to see if the vaccines have actually saved lives because a) they don't stop the virus or its spread, it is not confirmed that the vaccines haven't caused significantly more covid infections by being leaky (look up 'Leaky Vaccines,'[1] or OAS (original antigenic sin)) and they have encouraged high risk behaviour in the false belief the vaccines provide sufficient protection. I mean I don't even see any ads or posters around any more advising on hygiene improvements like not shaking hands, getting out in the sun, eating healthily, look after the weak and elderly, etc. People just take the vaccine as their safety blanket and worse, are signing their kids up for it when they were never a risk vector (until mid-covid the 'science' changed on that).
If you can point me to a study that conclusively shows vaccines absolutely saved lives over the longer term (that aren't based on models full of positive assumptions on efficacy and effectiveness), I'm happy to read it.
[1] example: https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/theres-something-antigeni...
The results are clear: the rate of severe or fatal cases was many times higher for unvaccinated people in all age groups.
For people aged 20-59, three doses (of either mRNA or inactivated virus vaccines) reduced the chance of severe or fatal disease by nearly 99%. Efficacy actually drops with age: for >80-year-olds, there's only a 97% reduction in risk (though because the starting risk is much higher, they get a larger overall benefit).
This was with Omicron, by the way. In an unprotected population, Omicron is still very destructive.
0. "Vaccine effectiveness of one, two, and three doses of BNT162b2 and CoronaVac against COVID-19 in Hong Kong: a population-based observational study", The Lancet Infectious Diseases, July 2022: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(22)00345-0
There were 39 new deaths in Hong Kong today, of which
37 died in public hospitals and 2 were reported by
public mortuaries.
There are 37 newly reported deaths of patients infected
with the new coronavirus, including 23 males and 14
females, aged between 50 and 104 years old.
Among the newly reported deceased patients, 14 were
from institutions.
As for vaccination, 5 had no injection information, 3
received 4 left injections, 25 received 3 left
injections, 2 received 2 left injections, and 2
received 1 left injection.
Of the 39 deceased, all of whom were 50+ and 14 of whom were care home residents, only 5 were unvaccinated, 3 had received 4 shots, and 33 of the 39 had received at least 2 shots. That matches or exceeds the vaccination rate for their age demographics.
I cited a study that does a rigorous statistical analysis.
Yes, you've linked a study.
I've shared a typical daily report of covid-attributed deaths and the victims' levels of vaccination and, as I told you, the vaccination levels of those who die of covid are as high or higher than the rates for their age groups.
In other words, please link a study. Or something else i can trust actually wants to get at the bottom of this, not win some argument.
If your response to being shown government-announced covid deaths with details of the vaccination levels of the deceased (available on a daily basis from that and other news outlets) and, for comparison, age-bracketed vaccination levels reported by the same government is that you want to be shown a study, then I suspect what you truly want is reassurance or reaffirmation of your current set of beliefs rather than a grasp of what's currently going on.
> If your response to being shown government-announced covid deaths [..]
Well, that's what you are trying to promote. That you linked some raw data, not a conclusion-statement from this government, is all i need to know. I'm not calling you a liar. I just assume there to be another angle you might be missing (the motivated reasoning part), but this is something for experts in the respective area. And if not, it will change consensus accordingly. Unless, ofc, you believe in some grad conspiracy of all the governments all around the world. I don't.
(I agree with the rest of what you say.)
When all is said and done, the mRNA vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna) saved a lot of lives. Moreover they showed that the technology is safe and viable, so expect to see a lot more of that type of in-body, self assembling vaccine for everything from influenza to cancer in the next decade. Of course any formula can have unwanted side effects, whether it's generated in your body or not, but doing nothing and waiting to see how a virus treats you isn't safe, either. You could get pretty fucked up either way, but you're less likely to get fucked up from the vax, and less likely to get fucked up from covid if you had the vax. There's risk in everything. Do the math and take the route with best survival rate. In this case, even the AZ vax was a clear winner over getting covid unvaccinated in 2021.
On a real-life level, things can be different. As I would have expected given my age and health profile, my pre-vaccine Covid case was extremely mild, practically asymptomatic. I would not have even thought I was sick if it wasn't for other members of my household being very sick, and then both of us testing positive.
On the other hand, after my first vaccine dose, I got extremely ill and then had a mild stroke. I deeply regret getting the vaccine. I feel very strongly there was no real point since I'd already had Covid. I just did it because of the mandates. The whole ordeal has soured me a lot on the whole issue.
Are personal observations be good enough, or will they be dismissed as mere anecdotes?
The mRNA vaccines worked to improve immunity and reduce the effects once infected; and to your point about mutations, the mRNA encoding the spike can be modified accordingly as this is a very quick and scalable method of delivery.
Given the hundreds of millions of people that have received mRNA vaccines I think generally we have an understanding of their safety.
The only insanity I see is people still now trying to deny vaccine efficacy, either as government conspiracy theories or through poor scientific understanding.
No, I haven’t noticed this. Do you mean reported in the media? I was never looking there for safety trial results. Do you mean in journals? Then that’s the just wrong—as is the claim that they stop at 3 months. You can look up phase 4 trials, for instance [0]:
> In addition to the standard ongoing (phase 4) trials, people who took part in the phase 3 trials of approved vaccines are continuing to be followed up (up to 2 years after their second dose) to collect more data – for example on safety, asymptomatic infection, and how long protection from the vaccines lasts.
Even the original BioNTech(Pfizer) clinical trial reports it’s methodology of surveying serious side effects for up to 6 months after second dose, which makes it a 7+ month study overall [1]
[0] https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-maga...
That Pfizer trial ended at 3.5 months because 97% of the control group got vaccinated.
The conclusion does not follow from the premise.
Five months following a covid infection in which I had 4-6 weeks of neurological deficit, I received the bivalent mRNA booster, which seemed to somehow reactivate the neurological issues for a few days or a week. Doctors told me this is not uncommon.
These are not "safe" in the same way we mean that MSG or acetaminophen are "safe".
Corners were necessarily cut in the trials of these during development to accelerate time to market. They saved lives, the gamble paid off. But the trial protocols are in place for a reason and we do not fully understand these drugs as yet.
> dubious mRNA treatments with unknown compounding risks for unknown numbers of people
If that was the case, after 100s of millions of doses given out shouldn’t these have surfaced in sufficient numbers?
Sorry about your condition, but there’s nothing there that suggests it is related to the mRNA formulation; you could just as easily experienced the same with a viral vector formulation or even without any booster (long covid, if that’s what you had, is not without relapses)
Development corners were not cut, that’s the point of the mRNA formulation, it is incredibly faster than conventional methods to create a brand new product. I assume what you meant was the regulatory requirements for safety, which yes were accelerated and reduced because of the emergency use case. Two years ago. Those trials are tests on large populations , phase 3 being the largest then phase 4 a post-marketing surveillance period [0].
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phases_of_clinical_research
What "corners" were "cut"? And if your answer is "they were rushed", don't bother replying.
After a real infection you develop anti-bodies. Why then get the vaccine which would be less good protection and have risks?
What do you think happens to the cells in question? That they live out the remainder of their lifespans unmolested? They are destroyed.
Much of the promise of safety at the outset rested on the belief that the contents of the vaccine doses would remain localized at the injection site (muscle in the arm in most places afaik, but the jabs are also given to some people in some places in their thighs). For the mRNA covid vaccines, at least, we know that the doses do not stay in the arm but travel throughout the body and even, in some cases, into breast milk. When the data about dissemination of the mRNA shots contents began to raise alarm bells, there was a period where some medical professionals blamed it on a failure to aspirate the needle before injecting and hoped that those who'd been injured had simply been unlucky and the person administering their dose had hit a blood vessel.
We've gone from, at the beginning, recognizing that wide distribution of the mod-spike-producing covid vaccine dose contents throughout the body was dangerous but believing that it wouldn't be an issue (because we're administering into muscle tissue in the arm) to knowing that the dose doesn't stay in the arm but completely forgetting why we hoped that it would stay there in the first place.
Even if trace amounts are found, they are no longer functional [0]. And it’s important to consider the percent of dosage when looking at biodistribution post injection, not just the amount of lipids [3], so it’s really much less significant amounts found outside the site of injection. Most is taken care of via hepatic clearance.
UTR sequences, which regulate transcription and sub cellular localization, can be tailored for specific cell types [1].
There is no evidence of spike protein toxicity [2]. And while the covid spike protein has potential to cause damage for example to the cells lining the small vessels of the heart following infection, there is no evidence that this is also the case with vaccinations [4]
[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK565969/
[1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-vaccine-safe-idUSL...
[3] https://medium.com/microbial-instincts/biodistribution-and-s...
[4] https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/news-from-the-bhf/news-arc...
Any answer that is not a variation on "They are destroyed." is incorrect.
You're changing the subject and copy-pasting canned "How to refute spike protein toxicity content online" stuff at me.
I'll add, this study is not comprehensive, there could be other risk factors as well, the other vaccines could have issues, majority of the general population has already contracted Covid at least once, etc etc but some people insist on quadrupling down on dubious mRNA treatments with unknown compounding risks for unknown numbers of people. It's the definition of insanity. It might be worth revisiting alternative therapeutic treatments including monoclonal antibodies and antiviral drugs, rather than continue on this ignorant path. Just a thought.