covid-19

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

I have to admit that I'm somewhat 'vaccine shy' (I like that term).

I'm not anti-vax in any way, shape or form, but the speed that these were pushed through is a bit concerning.

I fully understand that delay will cause more death. And, so far, the side effects aren't very severe or common. 
But the stuff that longer term, more thorough testing would have found will be found by the public. 

So the fact that I'm nowhere near the 'front of the line' doesn't bother me at all.
My life is pretty low risk for infection. 

So I'll let a whole lot of others get vaccinated, and see what all happens to them.

I don't know of anything that I'll be doing before next summer that would require it, so that's not that big of an issue. 

[JerryBaumchen 1,046]

Hi folks,

Just saw this:  'Oregon suspends license of doctor who refuses to wear mask'

Oregon suspends license of doctor who refuses to wear mask - OPB

Seems pretty stupid to me.

Jerry Baumchedn

 

[gowlerk 1,902]

19 minutes ago, wolfriverjoe said:

And, so far, the side effects aren't very severe or common. 
But the stuff that longer term, more thorough testing would have found will be found by the public. 

My thinking is quite different. Vaccines do often have side effects. But they are nearly always short term, or at least present themselves quickly. There is some concern that sometimes they may be implicated in diabetes, but no real strong proof. The new mRNA vaccines are an unknown, but the concept is looking unlikely to be causing harm. They do though have a fairly high rate of causing short term symptoms (12-18 hours) that are fairly unpleasant. I am assuming I will suffer those. The second shot is generally worse than the first I'm hearing.

On the other hand there is a strong reason to believe that everyone, including you and I will eventually be exposed to the novel virus.  Which is known to cause long term "side effects" (damage) in a far larger percentage of people than are going to have a problem with the vaccine. Therefore it is a hard to justify having more fear of the vaccine than concern about the consequences of getting the virus. Not a hard choice for me, not even a little.

[billvon 2,380]

53 minutes ago, wolfriverjoe said:

I fully understand that delay will cause more death. And, so far, the side effects aren't very severe or common. 
But the stuff that longer term, more thorough testing would have found will be found by the public. 

Consider that every other vaccine out there has had a six month phase 3 trial - and history has demonstrated that that's enough to catch major side effects.  The COVID-19 trials were shortened to two months.  By the time it's available to people like us, they will have had that six month trial period.  (They are, of course, still following up with the people in the trial.)  So we'll get that longer term testing anyway.

 

[TriGirl 268]

47 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

The second shot is generally worse than the first I'm hearing.

Sounds like a similar experience as I had with the last couple of anthrax shots.  The final one I got some pretty severe flu symptoms from late afternoon until the following day (aches, chills, fever, fatigue).  Just your standard histamine reaction -- but that's how you know it's working!

[Baksteen 84]

3 hours ago, billvon said:

 The COVID-19 trials were shortened to two months.  

 

....but patient groups were much larger, not to mention that a crapload of money has been pumped into developing these vaccines.

Time <--> money.

[wmw999 2,116]

I was with Wolfriverjoe; gonna wait a little (even though I am in a target group). I don't much like buying cutting-edge complicated safety equipment, either. But I have three sisters-in-law in the healthcare world (one retired, the other two active). One was career with the CDC, though not in vaccines. They all do understand testing well enough that when they said they'll get it, I reassessed.

Kind of like how I reassessed RSLs when I got back into skydiving. What good is a brain if you can't use it to reassess?

For one thing, a vaccine will allow me to go back to spending time with my brother and his family, including teenaged nieces who are feeling the isolation.

Wendy P.

[kallend 1,620]

I will get it at the first opportunity.  

Unfortunately that looks like June 2021 thanks to Operation Warp Speed failing to pre-order enough doses for the USA.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/us/trump-covid-vaccine-pfizer.html

[gowlerk 1,902]

7 minutes ago, kallend said:

I will get it at the first opportunity.  

Unfortunately that looks like June 2021 thanks to Operation Warp Speed failing to pre-order enough doses for the USA.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/us/trump-covid-vaccine-pfizer.html

Its a funny thing. We get press stories here in Canada criticizing the government for not have more Pfizer vaccine access as well. Completely ignoring the fact that other vaccines including the even better in many ways Moderna one is just around the corner. These stories also give estimated dates for how long it will take to cover the nation. Even though these guesses are completely irrelevant.

[gowlerk 1,902]

Gearing up for the coming massive push to get the public to accept vaccinations and by far the largest public health initiative in our lifetimes. Look for an unprecedented rollout and campaign to begin in the next few weeks. It will be unlike anything any of us have seen before. The pressure that will be put on people will be immense. And the pushback to it from some will be just as fierce. 

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/12/04/943151549/and-now-for-an-important-message-convincing-you-to-get-the-coronavirus-vaccine

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/04/politics/hhs-ad-campaign/index.html

 

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/covid-collaborative-ad-council-launch-vaccine-education-campaign/

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

11 hours ago, billvon said:

Consider that every other vaccine out there has had a six month phase 3 trial - and history has demonstrated that that's enough to catch major side effects.  The COVID-19 trials were shortened to two months.  By the time it's available to people like us, they will have had that six month trial period.  (They are, of course, still following up with the people in the trial.)  So we'll get that longer term testing anyway.

 

I understand that my concerns aren't entirely rational.

And I certainly wouldn't argue that other people should delay getting it.

I'm just not comfortable being an 'early adopter' of anything.

I'm far enough down the 'risk scale' that I likely won't be seeing it anytime soon.
I'm good with that.
It just means that I have to keep taking precautions.
I'm good with that too.

[headoverheels 291]

51 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

And the pushback to it from some will be just as fierce. 

 

Good. That means that I will have access to the vaccine sooner than I otherwise would.

[billvon 2,380]

8 hours ago, Baksteen said:

....but patient groups were much larger, not to mention that a crapload of money has been pumped into developing these vaccines.

Well except for the Oxford/AZ vaccine.  They didn't have a single Phase 3 trial.  They had a bunch of different, smaller trials that they combined into a "phase 3 meta-trial."  Some got different doses, some even got the wrong doses (which is how they discovered that the lower dosing might work better.)  The FDA is currently looking into whether that's sufficient.

 

[ryoder 1,380]

And yet another of Trump's bullshit-spreaders has COVID-19:

https://www.axios.com/jenna-ellis-trump-lawyer-covid-2bab2624-0b25-4f47-a532-079fd2c392da.html

Edited December 8, 2020 by ryoder

[kallend 1,620]

If you look carefully at this photo taken a week ago you will see the superspreaders in action.

 

[gowlerk 1,902]

This is what complacency has brought to Canada. We have not caught up to the US yet, and we still may not. But after we did so well in the first wave we totally dropped our guards and more or less blew it. The premier featured in the story is from my province, which is doing particularly poorly.

 

 https://us.cnn.com/2020/12/08/world/canada-covid-second-wave/index.html

 

Edit to add.... we have been under some pretty heavy restrictions for the past three weeks and it is just beginning to pay off with a substantial cut in new daily cases. But of course hospitalizations are still going strong as they lag by about 10 days and deaths by about 15 days.

Edited December 8, 2020 by gowlerk

[Phil1111 908]

7 hours ago, ryoder said:

And yet another of Trump's bullshit-spreaders has COVID-19:

https://www.axios.com/jenna-ellis-trump-lawyer-covid-2bab2624-0b25-4f47-a532-079fd2c392da.html

Spreading BS and spreading covid, yep thats the trump WH.

[Phil1111 908]

Meanwhile in the NFL:

"A half hour prior to Tuesday night’s kickoff in Baltimore, the Ravens wide receiver tweeted that he was pulled from pregame warmups and had received a positive COVID-19 test." This is tonight's game

The game goes on because... well in the NFL the game must go on!

[ryoder 1,380]

4 minutes ago, Phil1111 said:

Meanwhile in the NFL:

"A half hour prior to Tuesday night’s kickoff in Baltimore, the Ravens wide receiver tweeted that he was pulled from pregame warmups and had received a positive COVID-19 test." This is tonight's game

The game goes on because... well in the NFL the game must go on!

Well, apparently, men giving each other Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, are considered essential workers.

[Baksteen 84]

14 hours ago, billvon said:

Well except for the Oxford/AZ vaccine.  They didn't have a single Phase 3 trial.  They had a bunch of different, smaller trials that they combined into a "phase 3 meta-trial."  Some got different doses, some even got the wrong doses (which is how they discovered that the lower dosing might work better.)  The FDA is currently looking into whether that's sufficient.

 

Thanks, I missed that one.

[billvon 2,380]

Today - 3243 deaths in the US.  More than 9/11.  In one day.

And I am still seeing people on Facebook calling it a hoax, that it's not that bad, that it's all media hype because only .001% of the US died today.

[kallend 1,620]

9 hours ago, billvon said:

Today - 3243 deaths in the US.  More than 9/11.  In one day.

 

Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941. 2,403 US dead. 

Omaha + Utah beaches, 6 June 1944.  2,501 US dead.

 

 

 

Edited December 10, 2020 by kallend

[wmw999 2,116]

A friend posted this on FB the other day -- it's probably already out of date:

Wendy P.

[billvon 2,380]

14 minutes ago, wmw999 said:

A friend posted this on FB the other day -- it's probably already out of date:

Wendy P.

New list:

Galveston hurricane: 8000 deaths
Antietam: 3600 deaths
Yesterday: 3243 deaths
September 11: 2977
Last Thursday: 2861
Last Wednesday: 2762
Last Tuesday: 2461
Last Friday: 2439

Pearl Harbor isn't even on the list any more.

[SkyDekker 1,120]

1 hour ago, billvon said:

New list:

Galveston hurricane: 8000 deaths
Antietam: 3600 deaths
Yesterday: 3243 deaths
September 11: 2977
Last Thursday: 2861
Last Wednesday: 2762
Last Tuesday: 2461
Last Friday: 2439

Pearl Harbor isn't even on the list any more.

How come Benghazi and emails aren't on this list?