I identify as vaccinated

[The_Doc_Man]

I wouldn't think so. Do antibodies decay in strength over time? Do they protect from new variants? Good questions to ask.

Edit: What level of protection do your naturally acquired antibodies provide compared to having a jab as well?

To the best of my knowledge, not all antibodies are created equal. Some vaccines are reputedly lifetime doses. Others? Not so much. The current theme I am hearing about the Pfizer doses (which is what wifey and I got) is two doses then one year later, one more "booster" and it will be good for permanent protection.

 

[Jon]

I am thinking that permanent protection would be tricky for a mutating virus. My thinking is it will become like the flu jab, with a new jab every x months/years. It will be great when they can create a vaccine for HIV.

 

[Isaac]

Tucker Carlson: Young people are being forced to get COVID vaccine, but it may harm them more than COVID

Tucker Carlson asks whether young people should get COVID vaccines, and investigates the data of vaccine side effects.

www.foxnews.com

Israeli health officials released a report showing that vaccinated young people, particularly young men, were developing a potentially fatal complication — a heart inflammation called myocarditis — and they were developing it at extremely high rates. Researchers determined that the incidence of myocarditis in vaccinated young men was fully 25 times the usual rate. Some of them died.

In Germany, authorities concluded the same thing. The German government just announced that healthy young people should avoid the vaccine. It’s too dangerous.

Just today, the FDA’s advisory panel met to discuss the rise in cardiac emergencies in healthy young people who’ve been vaccinated. So far, the rate of myocarditis is more than twice what authorities anticipated. As one Tufts Medical School professor who sits on the panel put it: "before we start vaccinating millions of adolescents and children, it’s so important to find out what the consequences are."

Studies in medical journals around the world — the Lancet, for example, as well as the Journal of the American Medical Association — have shown that COVID is not a grave threat to children and that young people don't play a significant role in spreading COVID.

 

[NauticalGent]

 

[Saphirah]

My opinion is similar to Jon. But let me maybe describe it in another way.
To make a logical decision about if you should take the vaccine or not one needs to evaluate the risks.
In a country with a good medical infrastructure like germany the death rate of covid is around 2%.
That means 1/50 people would die after getting infected with covid. Around 30% of heavy course suffer from Post Covid Symptoms, including but not limited to damaged internal organs, internal scars, asphyxia, ongoing tiredness.
So covid does cause a potential thread to my life and health. We are not saying black or white, just potential.

The vaccination is effective for 80-90% of the people, depending on the vaccination.
In addition to that the death rate of vaccinated people is lowered by around the same percentage.
So if you add the 80-90% chance of the vaccination being successfull and the 80-90% decrease in deathrate for vaccinated people your risk of dying by covid after a vaccination goes down by 98-99%. 98-99% decrease of 2% is around 0.02% if i am not mistaken.
So we would go from a deathrate of 1/50 to 1/5000.

In germany after 1 million people got vaccinated 12 had the described heart failure everyone is talking about. I do not know recent numbers but because there has not been an outcry from the media since then i assume the rate stayed the same.
12/1.000.000 is 0.000012%.
Those medicines a few people mentioned above which proved to be fatal were mostly in times where people had no computers and only basic understanding of medicine. In addition to that these medicines were in fact medicine, but not vaccines. That is because it is really hard to make a vaccine lethal, if you have no bad intent. Vaccines are basically dead virus components. Because of the amount the body has to deal with you can see a small reaction sometimes and people will feel tired. But vaccines are not harmfull to our bodies.
When talking about the new type of vaccine, it does not alter the DNA, as quite a few people think. It provides the body with specific instructions on how to produce the covid antibodies. The RNA can not harm the body by itself.
And as long as your antibodies do not damage the body, the vaccine won't either.

In addition to that we need to consider our health system. If people do not vaccinate there are 2 options. Either we do a lockdown again to reduce the spread which would cost the industry billions or the health system will crumble, which would significantly increase the percentage of death.
Of cause the world is not black and white, and most of the people are getting a vaccine.
So what about it if a few people do not vaccinate? I think ignoring responsibility is a flaw in human nature. Let us take climate change for example. If every country says they will reduce their carbon dioxite emissions, why can't my country say that they don't?
The others will improve the climate anyway, so there is no point right?


So all in all i think it is irresponsible to say that you do not wish to receive a vaccine. The fatal risk of not taking the vaccine is much higher than the risk of taking the vaccine and you are risking to harm you and the people around you.

 

[Saphirah]

So let's talk about my own experience.
After over 1 years of constant lockdown even during the lockdown our local index was at 150-200.
I do not know if you have a different system for indicating the infection rate, but 150 is high.
Now after they started vaccinating people the mortality rate is at constant 0 for my city and the new infection rate is around 18.
And my local government just started to hand out the vaccines to the masses 1 week ago.
(Before they had people over 60, nurses and system relevant people.)

So i can definitely see the effect of the vaccines. And we had no deaths of covid vaccines in our surroundings.

 

[Jon]

@Saphirah How you reasoned your argument out is exactly how I think and try to calculate the risks to form my conclusions. Nice to see someone else do the same.

I would like to add that we are talking about a kind of binary situation here: death or no death. But it is non-binary (I just had to get that phrase in there!). We are on a continuum of health. 100% healthy to 100% unhealthy (i.e. dead!). Covid can take your life, but it can also give you long term adverse effects, some of which are irreversible. And I think we shouldn't underestimate the impact of mutations further down the line. If we just think of what Covid is today, we are not preparing for what Covid could mutate into tomorrow. In just a year, the virus has already become way more infectious. My fear is in several mutations time, it becomes even more infectious, more deadly and more resistant to vaccination. The end of the world is nigh.

 

[Isaac]

That means 1/50 people would die after getting infected with covid. Around 30% of heavy course suffer from Post Covid Symptoms, including but not limited to damaged internal organs, internal scars, asphyxia, ongoing tiredness.
So covid does cause a potential thread to my life and health. We are not saying black or white, just potential.

The vaccination is effective for 80-90% of the people, depending on the vaccination.
In addition to that the death rate of vaccinated people is lowered by around the same percentage.
So if you add the 80-90% chance of the vaccination being successfull and the 80-90% decrease in deathrate for vaccinated people your risk of dying by covid after a vaccination goes down by 98-99%. 98-99% decrease of 2% is around 0.02% if i am not mistaken.
So we would go from a deathrate of 1/50 to 1/5000.

Help me understand your way of thinking about those numbers.

You mentioned 1/50 death rate but I think you forgot that's if you get infected with COVID.
The number I would find more interesting to the 'risk calculation' is the death rate from COVID for anyone - not just anyone already infected with COVID. (Since it is very possible that I never get infected with COVID).

I think you will find the "death rate" to be MUCH lower than 1/50....

It's also interesting to me that you agree with Jon, who used--as a big part of his argument--the following:

all governments are advising us to take the vaccine. Why? Because they have teams of virologists and medical experts working on the risk vs rewards.

and

It isn't just my position, but the position of all governments throughout the world and most scientists who specialise in this area.

...... But once Germany has now said "do not give the vaccine to children, it's too dangerous and not worth the risk", we are now told to switch the logic. "Don't listen to that - they're wrong".

First, maybe Germany is using the more meaningful number of Rate of Covid Deaths vs. all people (which is what you should be using), not "given that someone is already infected with COVID". (You should take into account that many people won't get covid at all).
But there's even more! You need to take into account the rate of CHILDREN getting covid, and CHILDREN'S DEATH RATE.

I believe that number will be.....significantly less than 1 out of 50........
According to here, the COVID mortality rate of children in FL 1-15 is 0.009%. However, that (just like your 1/50 number) is "given that they already have COVID" - I could not readily find the % of children who BECOME INFECTED with COVID--which makes sense, since we have no way of actually knowing everyone who gets infected unless we were testing people every day. However, this site indicates that children seem to make up about 13% of all COVID cases to the best of their knowledge. That's one out of 8.

So maybe the percent of ALL CHILDREN who will DIE OF COVID is something roughly along the lines of, maybe, 0.00117.

I may have done some calculations a little bit wrong, but you get the point - the death rate of children for COVID is FAR LESS than 1 in 50.

And you're only considering myocardial infarctions in Germany--don't forget about the blood clots from Astra Zeneca.

Lastly, remember that it takes time to discover negative impacts from the vaccine. Time. It took about 40 years to realize that Ranitidine was causing many people to die of cancer. 40 years. You have 3-5 months of vaccine data.

The fact that they are just now discovering some of these fatal effects shouldn't cause you to conclude "Oh, great! It's only those!". Rather, it should cause a person to conclude "They keep discovering new side effects. What will they discover next month?"

Relying on 3 mo. of data without factoring in the likelihood of more impacts being discovered (since they keep finding more), isn't REALLY an accurate assessment of the risk, IMHO.

That's why I respect people who decided either way..........And, thankfully, COVID is being successfully beat down with about half of any population receiving the vaccine. Those who decided to be in the Test Group. (Including me, by the way).

 

[Minty]

@Isaac - I think they can only base the numbers on who has been tested positive for covid for these numbers, as they don't know who hasn't had it or has been asymptomatic?

I understand that it sort of skews the numbers, but the underlying message and stats seem very clear at least in the UK where we have had a massive vaccination take up. The number of people (Over 25 as that is where the vaccinations and seriousness of illness seem to tail off) having to be hospitalized when definitely infected has plummeted. When hospitalised the numbers dying have also dropped to virtually none.

The areas we have the worst rates for, are where the vaccine take-up has been very poor.
This is not a coincidence.

 

[Isaac]

The areas we have the worst rates for, are where the vaccine take-up has been very poor.
This is not a coincidence.

Of course it is not a coincidence. The vaccine is preventing people from becoming seriously sick with COVID.

No denying that.

The remaining question has more to do with what we don't know yet about the vaccines.

To me, just my rational mind sees them coming out with 1) problem, then 2) problem, and it takes a while (in some cases a month or three months) to find them.

Is it rational at all to think to yourself "They won't find any more. That's the end of it".
Or is it more rational to think to yourself "They probably will find more problems"

Keep in mind I totally agree with what you just said. I have no argument that the vaccine seems to be preventing people from getting seriously sick with COVID. Where disagreement lies is those who assume - for no particular reason, and against overwhelming evidence to the contrary from centuries of medical treatments histories--assume that no other serious negative impacts from the vaccine will be discovered, and thus, the brand-new numbers that we have now for vaccine efficacy vs. vaccine harm, are "the end of the story"--That just makes no sense at all to assume, and in fact, makes a LOT more sense to assume the opposite, based on history.

 

[Jon]

Let us take the unvaccinated child. The risk of death for children is currently low. However, this child can spread the disease, which can then kill others. I think they are saying that an infected Covid person can spread the disease to 2 or 3 others. This is for, I assume, an unvaccinated population. However, if you have had one Astra Zenica jab, it is only 33% effective against the new Indian variant. By effective, I mean the ability to catch it, not death. And the new Indian variant is about 50% more transmissable than the previous Kent variant that would infect 2 o 3 others. Factor in that not everybody is getting the jab and you have an exponential viral spread on your hands.

So, for the younger generation who are unvaccinated, they become the main spreaders. And while their risk of death is low, it is ignoring the future consequences of more lethal variants as the virus constantly mutates.

We can all take the decision to not get vaccinated because we don't have the long term data. That is a personal choice. But there are consequences. You can argue that there could be unforeseen consequences by taking the vaccine, but to my mind the known consequences of not taking it is catastrophic for society.

 

[Jon]

Where disagreement lies is those who assume - for no particular reason, and against overwhelming evidence to the contrary from centuries of medical treatments histories--assume that no other serious negative impacts from the vaccine will be discovered,

Who assumes this?

Edit: Medicine has evolved considerably from centuries ago, as have safety protocols.

 

[Jon]

It's also interesting to me that you agree with Jon, who used--as a big part of his argument--the following:

all governments are advising us to take the vaccine. Why? Because they have teams of virologists and medical experts working on the risk vs rewards.

and

It isn't just my position, but the position of all governments throughout the world and most scientists who specialise in this area.

It wasn't a big part of my argument. It was just a part. To say it was a big part is to misrepresent my case. I just tagged it on to say that many scientists have a similar opinion of the risk vs reward to myself. If you look at my argumentation on the reasons for why I think it is irrational to not take the vaccine, you will see that this point was hardly ever mentioned. Yet you are claiming it is a big part. If you want to attack my argument, at least do it on the pivotal points I am making, not on one of the most minor points. If you want to create a straw-man argument, then continue to say it was a big part of my argument.

To attack some of my key points, how about these:

1. How do you address the certain risk of future mutations and what impact they might have?

2. How do you deal with the unvaccinated increasing the spread of disease to others, and thus feeding into these future mutations?

Edit: In fairness, you can attack any part of my argument. But the point you raised is not a big part of my argument, that's all.

 

[Saphirah]

Of course it is not a coincidence. The vaccine is preventing people from becoming seriously sick with COVID.

No denying that.

The remaining question has more to do with what we don't know yet about the vaccines.

To me, just my rational mind sees them coming out with 1) problem, then 2) problem, and it takes a while (in some cases a month or three months) to find them.

Is it rational at all to think to yourself "They won't find any more. That's the end of it".
Or is it more rational to think to yourself "They probably will find more problems"

Keep in mind I totally agree with what you just said. I have no argument that the vaccine seems to be preventing people from getting seriously sick with COVID. Where disagreement lies is those who assume - for no particular reason, and against overwhelming evidence to the contrary from centuries of medical treatments histories--assume that no other serious negative impacts from the vaccine will be discovered, and thus, the brand-new numbers that we have now for vaccine efficacy vs. vaccine harm, are "the end of the story"--That just makes no sense at all to assume, and in fact, makes a LOT more sense to assume the opposite, based on history.

Isaac I see 2 main arguments in your posts.
First is the potential side effects of the vaccines. While i do understand that medicine has different effect on people the side effects on the vaccine are minimal.
You took the blood clots for example. In the UK from 23 million first doses 309 had a case of blood clots, and 56 died. So the probability to get these blood clots is around 0,0013% if i calculated that right. The mortality rate is even less. In my opinion this still outweigths the advantages of ending the pandemic by far.
When you take a look at the frequency information of side effects in medical prescriptions the rarest frequency says 1 in 10.000, which is still more than the side effects of this vaccine. So taking ANY medicine will potentially have more side effects than this vaccine.

Your second argument states, that we do not know the potential harm the vaccine can cause after a few years.
So i ask you this, and i am really interested in this fact, because i have not found any reliable informations about the topic yet.
Is there any vaccine that caused harm after years of applying it? Is there any recorded death of a flu vaccine for example?
Because you need to keep in mind that vaccines and every day medicine differ very much. Medicine is supposed to change the state of your body by applying external substances. Vaccines make the body produce antibodies that protect against a specific virus.
And you need to be carefull mixing those 2 up, because they simply can not be compared.

 

[Jon]

I think Isaac's concern is that this is a new type of DNA based vaccine (did I get that right?) and therefore that comes with more inherent risk. Since I am not a medical scientist and just some dude arguing on forums, I do not know enough about the risks associated with this sort of thing. Yet I believe the scientists themselves would know more than most of us.

There is a philosophical argument to some of this. If an individual has little risk of dying themselves from infection (e.g. a child), but are likely to pass this infection onto others who then die, should the child be vaccinated? Some will argue the rights of the individual trump those of the group, others will argue the other way around. But if the individuals rights prevail, what happens when the shoe is on the other foot? i.e. a virus spreads that kills children but not adults. The pro-individual stance may come back to bite you.

And one more angle...Covid is likely to be here to stay. When you are a child, you are not at risk. But this child is likely to meet future mutations of this virus when they become an adult. And then perhaps they will start arguing that the children should be vaccinated too.