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Do COVID-19 vaccines cause heart attacks and cardiac death?

A week ago, I wrote about how antivaxxers had resurrected an old trick to weaponize the VAERS vaccine safety database to demonize COVID-19 vaccines. They’re still at it, this time trying to blame the vaccine for heart attacks and cardiac deaths.

As the vaccines for COVID-19 continue to roll out and tens of millions more doses get into tens of millions more arms, I’m coming to the reluctant conclusion that I could, if I so desired, do nothing but blog about the antivaccine misinformation about these particular vaccines being spread by antivaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his organization Children’s Health Defense through its online house organ The Defender. When last I visited RFK Jr. and his antivaccine disinformation machine, he was deceptively using the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) database to impute causation when there is not yet evidence of it to the reports of adverse events reported there. That time, he was trying to imply that the deaths reported to VAERS had been caused by COVID-19 vaccines, with, of course, plausible deniability that that’s what he was doing. Unsurprisingly, he soon followed up with another post that used updated figures for adverse events reported to VAERS in the same deceptive way. (They were just larger, because a wider range of dates were included.) It’s basically the same article, with the same obligatory cut-and-pasted anecdotes of specific cases of death after the vaccines that were probably not related. A computer could generate these posts, at least until yesterday, when RFK Jr. decided to drill down with an article entitled What VAERS Data Reveal About Cardiac-Related Reactions to COVID Vaccines. It’s the same schtick, just about one subtype of adverse event.

Actually, this article probably could have been generated by computer, with just a little bit of reprogramming. Still, let’s take a look at the claim:

We looked at the data we have so far to see if we could identify any emerging patterns. What immediately stands out is that the 12,697 reactions reported as of Feb. 4 are not limited to injection-site reactions. These appear to be serious reactions reported by medical personnel from all over the country.

One trend worth noting is the number of reported cardiological reactions, including myocardial and tachycardia disorders. We found 1,171 cases using the more common symptoms reported, including 134 cases where the patient died — or 21% of the total COVID vaccine deaths reported to VAERS.

According to VAERS data, of the 1,171 serious cardiac-related cases reported, 1,021 (87.2%) occurred within 48 hours of receiving the vaccine. Of the 134 cases where the patient died, 50% occurred within 24 hours and 60% within 48 hours.

Here, once again, we see the technique of providing numbers without context. This will become apparent when I go to the Bloomberg COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker, which, as of today, states:

The biggest vaccination campaign in history is underway. More than 181 million doses have been administered across 79 countries, according to data collected by Bloomberg. The latest rate was roughly 6.19 million doses a day.

In the U.S., more Americans have now received at least one dose than have tested positive for the virus since the pandemic began. So far, 56.1 million doses have been given, according to a state-by-state tally. In the last week, an average of 1.67 million doses per day were administered.

Using the interactive graphs on the Bloomberg site, I determined that by February 4, 2021 roughly 37 million doses of vaccine had been administered, or 11.2/100 people. Again, by now we’re vaccinating close to 1.7 million people per day. It’s not clear to me how many people have received both doses or just one, but what is clear is that, with a population of 328 million in the US, likely by February 4, over 20 million people, possibly as many as 25 million, had been vaccinated with the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna. I’ll use the lower number, to give RFK every bit of the benefit of the doubt that he doesn’t deserve. I also note that it is true that RFK Jr. did use a different site to come up with an estimate of 35 million doses administered by February 4, but that number was mentioned almost in passing, with no effort to do the calculations that show what a tiny number the VAERS reports represent. So I’ll do it.

From that perspective, 12,697 reactions of all kinds translates to 63/100,000 people, or 0.063%. Again, this is a rough calculation based on the estimated number of people vaccinated by February 4. In any event, that’s not a very big number, is it, particularly when it includes all adverse events, including less severe ones.

What about cardiac events? Again, RFK Jr. notes 1,171 serious cardiac-related cases reported to VAERS, with 1,021 within 48 hours of vaccination. Let’s do the math again, again with 20 million as the number of people vaccinated. (Again, if I used the total number of doses given, whether 35 million or 37 million, it would only look worse for RFK Jr.; as a benevolent cranky box of blinking lights I’m bending over to be nice to him.) That’s 0.0059% or 5.9/100,000 people. As for deaths, 134 deaths is roughly 0.7/100,000, a very tiny number. Of course, as is always the case, what is the comparator? How many people in the US die of cardiac events on a give day?

This is a little trickier because CDC death statistics show that heart disease claims around 650,000 people a year in the US, but that’s all heart disease, including heart attacks, congestive heart failure, etc. Let’s start with sudden cardiac death, defined thusly:

Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is a sudden, unexpected death caused by loss of heart function (sudden cardiac arrest). Sudden cardiac death is the largest cause of natural death in the United States, causing about 325,000 adult deaths in the United States each year. Sudden cardiac death is responsible for half of all heart disease deaths.

Sudden cardiac death occurs most frequently in adults in their mid-30s to mid-40s, and affects men twice as often as it does women. This condition is rare in children, affecting only 1 to 2 per 100,000 children each year.

Let’s translate that to the number of sudden cardiac deaths per day. 325,000 sudden cardiac deaths per year works out to around 890 deaths per day, each and every day, on average. That means, from December 14, 2020 (the first day COVID-19 vaccines were available outside of clinical trials in the US) and February 4, 2021 (a total of 53 days), we would expect roughly 47,710 sudden cardiac deaths just due to the natural baseline rate of this particular form of death. Here’s another comparator. In any two day period, we’d expect to see 1,780 (because I’m uncharitable right now, I’ll round up to 1,800) sudden cardiac deaths. Even if we counted all the sudden cardiac events within 48 hours of vaccination that were reported to VAERS, we don’t even come close to the baseline background rate of sudden cardiac deaths. I know I’m comparing apples to oranges here, all cardiac events to sudden cardiac death, but I’m doing it just to show that RFK Jr.’s numbers are not a concerning safety signal. He’s recording 134/53= 2.5 deaths from cardiac causes per day since the COVID-19 vaccination program began, and we know that just under 900 people a day die sudden cardiac deaths, considerably more if you count the “less sudden” forms of cardiac deaths.

Now here’s where RFK Jr. does something clever, something that tells me that he (or whoever wrote this article for him) knows he’s lying and misrepresenting statistics, rather than making an innocent error:

If we compare the 653 COVID-19 vaccine death reports to flu vaccine deaths reports, a shocking statistic emerges. There have been only 20 flu vaccine-related deaths so far in the 2020/21 flu season when more people received the flu vaccine than ever before — 193.6 million doses, and only one of those reported deaths was related to a cardiac disorder.

This means that so far, with only 35 million COVID-19 vaccine doses administered (as of Feb. 4), numbers of total reported deaths and also cardiac-related reported deaths are already exponentially higher than deaths reported following flu vaccines.

Did you see what they did there? No? Consider again that VAERS is a passive reporting system, as RFK Jr. loves to repeat over and over again. Also consider that the flu vaccine has been around for decades and has been recommended on a yearly basis for a long time. It’s in the background. People don’t even think much about it when they get it. Compare that to COVID-19 vaccination, and the unprecedented scale of the vaccine rollout in the middle of a pandemic. Consider also that everyone who receives a COVID-19 vaccine is given literature that explains how to report an adverse event to VAERS, as well as a pamphlet telling them how to sign up for V-Safe, a system that sends a text message periodically to ask vaccine recipients about their health and how they are feeling. I’m still getting weekly V-Safe texts two months after my first dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. Basically, RFK Jr. is comparing apples to oranges in terms of reporting, given how much more intense the safety monitoring has been for COVID-19 vaccines.

Then, of course, RFK Jr. can’t resist going on in the same deceptive vein:

The U.S. is not the only country to report these symptoms following the vaccine. The UK government’s “Yellow Card” system has so far reported 590 cardiac disorders for Pfizer and 12 fatalities, and 212 reports for the Astra Zeneca vaccine, including one death.

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) vaccine injury reporting system, “Vigiaccess” has recorded 3,234 reports relating to cardiac disorders. Vigiaccess is a database of reactions of reports from 142 countries, but so far the 67,277 COVID 19 reports are mostly from Europe (81%), the U.S. (19%) and Asia (1%). It is unclear if there is duplication with VAERS and Yellow Card system.

Both the UK’s and the WHO’s systems are not accessible by the public, so further scrutiny is difficult without assistance from the respective agencies. As with VAERS, there is always a causality disclaimer which usually serves to dismiss all reactions despite temporality or association between exposure and disease.

Again, these are small numbers in comparison to the now 180 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines that have been administered worldwide. One can almost sense the desperation in the last paragraph, where RFK Jr. includes the grudging disclaimer that a report to VAERS does not imply causation, characterizing that observation as an excuse for the CDC to dismiss all reactions as “coincidence.

Then there’s this passage, which brought me back to a topic I first wrote about a couple of weeks ago:

Is it possible that the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine contribute to heart problems?

Some doctors think so. We know that the mRNA vaccines program cells into producing the spike protein to arm the immune system against an infection. What if the spike protein the body generates is also contributing to heart problems the same way that the virus would?

We know from recent research that the COVID-19 spike protein alone, without the virus, appears to be the culprit that triggers a cascade of events that results in inflammation and the formation of microthrombi (small blood clots) in vessels throughout the body. So it makes sense that many of the adverse reactions that we will see from the mRNA vaccines will parallel the injuries we also see from the COVID-19 infections.

When RFK Jr. says “some doctors think so,” what he’s really saying is that one doctor does. (Actually, there’s a doctor named Dr. J. Patrick Whelan who’s been making similar claims, but I’ll have to deal with him in another post at some point.) And who is that doctor? I’m referring to Dr. Hooman Noorchashm. whose idée fixe is that it’s dangerous to vaccinate those who have COVID-19 or have recently recovered from the disease because in patients who have been infected before there could still be spike protein in the endothelial cells lining blood vessels that could be the target of the immune reaction provoked by a vaccine based on the coronavirus spike protein, the protein used as the antigen in both the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines. It was a hypothesis that I didn’t consider totally unreasonable when I first heard it but that I now consider quite implausible, both from a basic science standpoint and from the lack of a safety signal predicted by it after 35-37 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines administered.

Unfortunately, Dr. Noorchashm has been utterly resistant to disconfirming studies and evidence and is still out there using anecdotes as evidence for his idea and getting increasingly annoyed that people other than antivaxxers are no longer paying attention to him:

He’s even looking for adverse events to use to promote his idea:

An excerpt:

Have you or a loved one recently undergone vaccination with one of the COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer or Moderna, currently being administered across the nation?
Have you or a loved one experienced any health problems, complications or death following such vaccination?

If so, please write me to report your problem at [email protected].

As a physician, immunologist and public health advocate I am very seriously concerned that the FDA and CDC’s surveillance systems are not capturing vaccine associated problems, complications and deaths with sufficient clarity and detail.

Basically, Dr. Noorchashm is still out there doing what antivaxxers have been doing, looking for reports of adverse events after COVID-19 vaccination. At this point, no matter how “pro-vaccine” he proclaims himself, he is continuing to help antivaxxers do their dirty work spreading fear about vaccines.

Finally, RFK Jr. tries to sound all “science-y”:

Temporality and strength of association are major contributors to causality according to the most robust diagnostic criteria used by doctors, the Bradford Hill Criteria:
“Temporality is perhaps the only criterion which epidemiologists universally agree is essential to causal inference.” and “the larger an association between exposure and disease, the more likely it is to be causal.”

Here’s the problem. The numbers cherry picked by RFK Jr. don’t even show an association, much less a strong association, between COVID-19 vaccination and cardiac events, including sudden cardiac death, nor do they even come close to showing a temporal association. For that to hold, at the very least one would have to demonstrate that cardiac events occur well above the expected baseline rate within a certain timeframe after vaccination, and certainly the numbers used by RFK Jr. don’t even come close to showing that people receiving the COVID-19 vaccination are suffering cardiac events at anywhere close to the expected baseline rate. True, some of this could well be underreporting, but, even so, there isn’t even a whiff of a safety signal from these numbers.

Antivaxxers gonna lie, and grifters gonna grift, and RFK Jr. is nothing if not an antivax grifter.

By Orac

Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski.

That this particular surgeon has chosen his nom de blog based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights that he originally encountered when he became a fan of a 35 year old British SF television show whose special effects were renowned for their BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction ever televised, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.)

DISCLAIMER:: The various written meanderings here are the opinions of Orac and Orac alone, written on his own time. They should never be construed as representing the opinions of any other person or entity, especially Orac's cancer center, department of surgery, medical school, or university. Also note that Orac is nonpartisan; he is more than willing to criticize the statements of anyone, regardless of of political leanings, if that anyone advocates pseudoscience or quackery. Finally, medical commentary is not to be construed in any way as medical advice.

To contact Orac: [email protected]

231 replies on “Do COVID-19 vaccines cause heart attacks and cardiac death?”

“Tell me you never took a statistics class without saying you never took a statistics class.”

Just to add two points to your excellent analysis:
A. As you pointed out in your previous posts, we knew this was coming. Here, as you shared before, is Derek Lowe on this: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/12/04/get-ready-for-false-side-effects

B. If we are talking about cardiac problems, has RFK Jr. looked at what COVID-19 – or for that matter, influenza – does to your heart? It’s not good. https://www.heart.org/en/news/2020/09/03/what-covid-19-is-doing-to-the-heart-even-after-recovery

What’s his argument for not wanting this prevented? That if he can’t blame it on vaccines, it doesn’t matter?

I’m still getting weekly V-Safe texts two months after my first dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.

V-safe, per CDC, tracks out to 12 months:

How long do v-safe check-ins last?

During the first week after you get your vaccine, v-safe will send you a text message each day to ask how you are doing. Then you will get check-in messages once a week for up to 5 weeks. The questions v-safe asks take less than 5 minutes to answer.

If you need a second dose of vaccine, v-safe will provide a new 6-week check-in process so you can share your second-dose vaccine experience as well. Finally, you’ll receive check-ins 3, 6, and 12 months after your final dose of vaccine.

I’m surprised RFKjr hasn’t been clamoring for access to V-Safe data, which best as I can see is not published, unlike VAERS.

I’m surprised RFKjr hasn’t been clamoring for access to V-Safe data, which best as I can see is not published, unlike VAERS.

Truth, data and accuracy do not suit his purpose.

RFKjr opines:

Temporality and strength of association are major contributors to causality

From the paragraph he is quoting, I have the impression it’s the other way round – If something is the cause of some event, of course we are very likely going to find a relation of “temporality and strength of association” between this thing and the event. If we are missing those, then we could more-or-less safely reject the hypothesis.

Or to put in in simpler terms, he is belaboring the obvious and obfuscating correlation and causation.

“the larger an association between exposure and disease, the more likely it is to be causal.”

Larger association / more likely.

Eh, as we all know, there are hundred of thousands of corpses lying around, the vaccine needle still stuck in, and no-one bothering to report these deaths to VAERS. /s

@ Athaic

I found online someone found a strong correlation between increase ownership of cell phones and ASD. Also found another correlation between increase sales of organic foods and ASD. So, if one combined increases in cell phones and sales of organic foods, yikes, would we finally have “proof” what causes ASD? ?

Don’t forget Somalian pirates. Also on the rise along autism rates.
It’s all connected, man!

According to Dr. Heidi Larson (2020 WHO global vaccine safety summit), “doctors are lucky if they get a half a day of education on vaccines”. I have yet to find any evidence to the contrary. In fact, the President of the American Academy of Pediatrics admitted doctors don’t learn about vaccines in her recent testimony after being unable to answer nearly every question posed to her. Dr. Andrew Zimmerman is arguably the most qualified expert on autism, and he released a sworn affidavit stating “vaccines do cause autism in a certain subset of children”. Hannah Polling’s family won her lawsuit. The CDC’s own senior scientist, Dr. Thompson, has made numerous statements about manipulation of studies and how Thimerosal causes “autism-like features”. Doctors have been wrong about a lot of things they were sure about at one time (Vioxx, trans fats, etc.). Before you go on fueling the hatred and vilification of the parents of vaccine-injured children, can you at least admit you aren’t an expert when it comes to vaccines? It’s funny how doctors only criticize RFK Jr. when they want to be keyboard warriors. I’m sure he will happily debate you. Why don’t you do what no other doctor has the guts to do, and debate him?

I’m sure he will happily debate you.

Go complain to him about failing to drag his sorry ass over here, then. Might as well have a professional taking care of the privileged whining.

Both the UK’s and the WHO’s systems are not accessible by the public,….

Using the name “Vigiaccess” it took me over 30 seconds to access the Who database and check a drug for adverse impact reports.

Sounds like Dr Hooman’s already got his messianic martyr complex down pat.

(“Lookitme! Lookitme! Lookitme!” Here’s a better idea: stay in your lane. Ass.)

Still, he’ll fit right in with Jr &co should he choose to go full antivax—plus you just know he’ll blame Gorski and Reiss for making him do it too.

Yeah, it’s coming. I fear that it is, and I’m probably right. You know, when I first encountered Dr. Noorchashm, I should have gone with my first instinct, which was that he was definitely leaning antivax. Instead, I bent over backwards to take him at his word that he wasn’t and to try to educate him that the sorts of tropes he was repeating and his whole schtick of finding anecdotes of people who died after COVID-19 vaccination to use to fear monger about the vaccine was exactly the same thing antivaxxers do. None of it worked. If he were truly “provaccine” (or at least “not antivaccine”) he should have been very concerned that he was echoing antivaccine messages, but repeated attempts to educate and persuade him failed utterly.

Orac’s ‘friend’ wondered elsewhere how medically educated doctors could fall into the anti-vax morass; Orac sometimes comments, “That’s Bio 101!” about a misinformed statement a researcher has made..

As readers may know, I’ve been accumulating studies about what variables contribute to anti-vax and/ or CT beliefs ( two separate introductory synopses by Jan van Prooijen and Karen Douglas- easy to find), ( less) education, intelligence, SES are certainly relevant BUT there are personality variables as well: seeking closure, wanting to be unique, valuing freedom and purity, rejecting expertise/ authorities, being suspicious, anxious, not agreeable, less analytical, more intuitive and other predictable descriptors and speculation about why subjects resort to them. People who believe in one CT are more likely to endorse others

From my perspective, acceptance of these ideas amounts to a virtual rejection of a reality based worldview and should alert us to other possible anomalies in thought.
Because of RFKjr’s stance on vaccines, I wouldn’t trust him much on other subject matter** because it shows he probably has problems assembling evidence, rejecting irrelevant material, reaching conclusions etc

** his environmental work often includes experts in that field

@ Mongrel

Yep, where I got one or possibly both. I have the website bookmarked.

My all-time favorite is correlation found between number of children and storks in France. Storks found mostly in countryside and farm families were larger. Oh well. I sort of like idea I was delivered by stork, though born in city.

I think in the Netherlands all children are delivered by storks. And storks are living in the city as well.

Due to the abysmal quality of anti-vax leaders’ ( RFKjr) and trolls’ input recently, I think we may need to create an RI equivalent to Scopie’s Law and cut to the chase:
.. if you persist in attributing autism. SIDS, Alzheimer’s or SMI to vaccines**, you are automatically dismissed and ” laughed out of the room”
Also:
if you claim that there are heart attacks, paralysis, strokes, death etc following a Covid vaccine and cite numbers without the denominator ( total number vaccinated), you are summarily dismissed and laughed out of the room AS WELL.

What shall we call it? Orac’s Rule?

** because there is no data to support these claims AND NEVER WAS!
..

So our government spent TRILLIONS of dollars, took Millions of hours to study the Covid issue thousand of researcher worked the issue. Millions of people are out of work., businesses are closed for good The best minds at the CDC,NIH, Dr Fauci etc all told us to “follow the science” and the best the “science” has to offer on why:

“Contrast states like Florida and California, California basically in lock down, and their numbers aren’t that different from Florida,” which had a 1 month limited lock down and no mask mandate “The rate of cases is also similar in both states, with 8,635 per 100,000 in California and 8,399 per 100,000 in Florida.”

and the best answer is

“THAT’S JUST A LITTLE BEYOND OUR EXPLANATION”

that’s answer from the SENIOR adviser for the White House Covid response team.

https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/feb/18/andy-slavitt-biden-adviser-beyond-our-explanation-/

So tell me again why I have to wear 2 face masks and how I am suppose to “follow the science” when the best answer from government science after a year of research is “we don’t know”

“So tell me again why I have to wear 2 face masks”

You don’t. That is more for self protection than source control. Still, if I were you, I’d take advantage of the excuse because nobody wants to see that … stuff. Keeps the little children from pointing and saying “eww”.

“THAT’S JUST A LITTLE BEYOND OUR EXPLANATION”

Well, It should not be. The simplest explanation is that the droplets have to be caught by the mask while they are still big. Once evaporated, concentrated, and small it is like a ball of mosquitos through a chain link fence.

One infected maskless person may be capable of wiping out an entire room of regular ‘maskers’ not equipped with top-o-the-line respirators {and possibly goggles}.

So tell me again why I have to wear 2 face masks

You don’t. Though in your case it might help to wear 2 diapers.

HTH

“Coronavirus pandemic to cost Americans $16 trillion, study finds”

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-pandemic-cost-americans-16-trillion/

and that was back in October, estimate. and this study didn’t even cover the cost of government payments to persons and businesses.

this is the original study

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2771764

Sweden at 120 per and is just about in the middle for Europe, Great Britain (lock down) stands at 186 per.

https://covid19.healthdata.org/sweden?view=total-deaths&tab=compare

And seriously my post was about the CDC etc. not having a better answer then a Homer Simpson answer of “dono”. and lock down states of California and non lock down state of Florida.

@ Narad:

I always had trouble keeping millions, billions, trillions straight in other languages so I just looked at an instant multi-lingual translator. I assume Aarno is probably using the English version because of his demonstrated proficiency.

OT:
How’s your cat?.

OT:
How’s your cat?.

Storm just rolled through, so he took the opportunity to zoom from one end of the house to another (with two sharp turns in the process). Expects unlimited wet food. Keeps losing his toys. Is very squeaky, especially when he wants out (which isn’t happening). Flops over and stretches all the way out when he’s up for a belly rub.

I’ve finally gotten him airborne while playing string toy during Jeopardy! in the evenings; that can go on for a couple of hours, after which he sits next to me on the comfy chair and watches for armadillos out the window or something. During the impeachment hearings, he kept walking up to the TV, sitting down for a bit, and then correctly deciding it was too boring.

Good guy.

^ Almost forgot: Sometimes we get geckos on the outside of the “lanai.” Complete mayhem ensues.

You have to wear a mask because the vast preponderance of evidence shows masking is the most effective mitigation against COVID, the best way to prevent another 500,000 deaths in the US. If you weren’t an anti-masker troll, you might apply a little critical thinking and consider that many other factors might figure into the case rates of large states other than the mask and lock down policies. The reason science doesn’t know why CA and FL have similar rates despite different policies is because it hasn’t investigated, and it hasn’t investigated because CDC et. al. know enough to know the explanation is basically “noise” and they have more important work to do.

Andy Slavitt is not a good public spokesperson, and The Washington Times is engaged in exactly the kind of cherry-picking propagandizing you’d expect from a Trumpy right-wing rag infamous for science-denial on just about every topic.

I addressed the California and Florida numbers on the second Noorchashm thread.
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2021/02/05/dr-hooman-noorchashm-and-screenb4vaccine-revisited/#comment-440075

The current numbers are the same, but they got there by very different paths, and are progressing differently as well.

Last summer, with about half the population, Florida had more cases than California. California had a slower rise in cases in the fall but a much worse peak in December and January from the holiday exposures. Which makes continuing to rely on masks and distancing not reliable as a long term strategy. However better compliance has helped California reduce cases by 51% in the last two weeks vs. 34% for Florida. Vaccination rates for the two states are about the same (12%).

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, we have lots of epidemiological evidence now that masks work to protect other people and the wearer. You can read more here.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/one-more-time-masks-work/

I take the 2 mask recommendations with a grain of salt. I have masks I made for myself and some commercial masks. The commercial masks are a single layer of fabric and probably don’t filter very well. Wearing a disposable surgical mask under one of them is probably an excellent idea. My best homemade masks have 3 layers in accordance with WHO recommendations. Adding a surgical mask under those wouldn’t be as much of an upgrade. It might also make fitting the nose clip wire more difficult.

I think the multiple vaccines we have developed with very good effectiveness and an extraordinarily good safety record so far are the best that science has to offer.

Admitting we don’t know everything is a part of good science. It doesn’t always put us in Jon Snow land.

and lock down states of California and non lock down state of Florida.

Something tells me you’re failing to take into account population distributions. Miami didn’t fare so well, for example, and much of Florida is sparsely populated.

Do your own homework.

@ Narad:

re airborne
If you sharply launch a plastic straw at approximately 70 degrees at 5 feet or more, so that it sails in front of the cat, he may leap after it which will improve greatly with practice so that he will continue his flights to increasing height despite his eventually large adult size: my cat would do this until I got tired. He could also fetch small rubber balls endlessly.

Florida has a population of 371 people per square mile.
California has a population 249 people per square mile.

Narad

something tells me your google search, it ain’t working

Florida
average persons per square mile 371

California
average persons per square mile 249

My best homemade masks have 3 layers in accordance with WHO recommendations. Adding a surgical mask under those wouldn’t be as much of an upgrade. It might also make fitting the nose clip wire more difficult.

Why am I so alone here?? Is not a sealed facepiece with rolled-up HEPA filter (Widely available ORECK vacuume bags) superior? It breaths so easily. NASA has praised the technology. They sell alot of them, it’s just that I don’t see anyone else around here wearing it.

Florida has a population of 371 people per square mile.
California has a population 249 people per square mile.

About 10 seconds’ thought should have told you that those are averages.

“Coronavirus pandemic to cost Americans $16 trillion, study finds”

But that’s not what you said, now is it?

So our government spent TRILLIONS of dollars, took Millions of hours to study the Covid issue thousand of researcher worked the issue.

You seem to use more full caps later in the evening, BTW.

Oo, breaking news:

The Santa Barbara County coroner’s office has announced that after exhaustive investigation, it’s determined that the December 7th death of antivax activist Brandy Vaughan was due to natural causes.

“According to the Coroner’s report, Vaughan died of bilateral pulmonary thromboembolus, otherwise known as a blood clot in an artery. Emergency medical responders tried to revive Vaughan after her 9-year-old son discovered her body, but without success.”

“Police investigators determined there was no sign of foul play, but due to Vaughan’s high profile in the anti-vaccination movement, Coroner’s officials opted to give her death more careful scrutiny to head off the potential proliferation of conspiracy theories*. Her remains were subjected to an autopsy, “an in-depth panel of toxicology screenings, interviews**,” and a review of her medical record.”

http://independent.com/2021/02/18/santa-barbara-coroner-concludes-anti-vaxxer-brandy-vaughan-died-of-natural-causes/

Vaughan reportedly also suffered from severe cholecystitis.

Expect her supporters to declare these findings a conspiracy to conceal the culpability of Big Pharma, noting that Vaughan claimed she was being harassed/threatened prior to her death, had her home invaded and stuff moved around, because Pharma does that stuff to intimidate obscure antivaxers.

*they proliferated wildly anyway.
**investigators interviewed the corpse? Now _that’s_ hardcore.

“**investigators interviewed the corpse?”

A forthcoming blockbuster from the pen of Anne Rice.

Her remains were subjected to an autopsy, “an in-depth panel of toxicology screenings, interviews,” and a review of her medical record.”

The reporter for The Independent might indeed be that bad a writer, but a more plausible explanation is a text entry error that slipped through sloppy proof-reading by a page editor who was too busy or just didn’t care.

I don’t yap along with sights or sounds of dead people as I more so smell dead people. I think I’m psychic; not so much. Little kid saying, “I smell dead people” doesn’t make for an Emmy, though.

Oh, the poor kid! That’s heartbreaking. I hope the boy gets all the help he needs dealing with the trauma.

“Let’s translate that to the number of sudden cardiac deaths per day. 325,000 sudden cardiac deaths per year works out to around 890 deaths per day, each and every day, on
average. ”

All deaths involve cardiac death. In fact if you heart hasn’t died; you technically aren’t dead yet. I don’t see how you can use this as context. These sudden cardiac failures after vaccination have to be assessed separately. Cardiac failure after vaccination can’t be lumped into expected cardiac deaths per day; that’s willfully ignoring a signal.

Maybe she thinks only 890 people die on an average day? It would be on par with her general understanding of every other topic she’s tried to lecture us on.

I think the “s” was in cursive.

The rules for the long ess can be tricky to remember, but ‘ſudden’ is mamesh.

(Caveat: It might not render here despite its being in a common Unicode block.)

I was childishly pleased to find that I actually ‘got’ Dorit’s joke. It’s the little things…..

No they don’t. It’s not a signal if the rate is no different to normal. Why is that so difficult to understand? If 1/1000 people experience X, in any particular time frame, in normal circumstances and 1/1000 people experience X in the same time frame after vaccination then its hardly likely that the vaccination made a difference. You’d have to see 2/1000 or 3/1000 experience X after vaccination (while the unvaccinated population maintained a 1/1000 rate) for it to be suspicious. Even then you’d have to calculate if this was a mathematically significant change.

“In fact if you heart hasn’t died; you technically aren’t dead yet. ”
I’m pretty sure this isn’t true, otherwise how would heart transplants work.

Death is measured by brain death. A person can be dead and still have a beating heart (for a little while, with mechanical support).

Today’s PSA to all: be an organ donor, save lives!

From the Department of Utter Shamelessness:

Joe Mercola’s consort Erin Elizabeth (of Health Nut News fame), who was pushing Brandy Vaughan’s death as part of her Holistic Healer Death Conspiracy series, is now piously disavowing her role and instead attacking a mysterious Vaughan “inner circle” for supposedly promoting a false narrative about gallbladder disease. This, coming from the same person who initially had this to say about Vaughan’s death:

“Brandy had written me over the years stating that she was fearful for her life and asked me if I was and even said she was afraid of being poisoned. I have all this in writing although usually the authorities don’t come to me when my friends and holistic doctors are found dead on a regular basis.”

“Alas, I don’t think they’ve ever come to me although I’ve had some good conversations with the authorities contacting them about the continued deaths that don’t seem to stop.”

Erin is continuing to hype the hiring of private investigators to look into the case “as there has been suspicious activity surrounding her sudden death”.

Nice to see that there’s still money to be made off this affair from the gullible.

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) vaccine injury reporting system, “Vigiaccess” has recorded 3,234 reports relating to cardiac disorders. Vigiaccess is a database of reactions of reports from 142 countries, but so far the 67,277 COVID 19 reports are mostly from Europe (81%), the U.S. (19%) and Asia (1%). It is unclear if there is duplication with VAERS and Yellow Card system.

Orac, I am not much interested in debating you guys about whether covid vaccines are causing carnage, but getting an opinion about that cited claim. Why is Vigiaccess reporting so few cardiac reactions for the US?

Gerg’s thread-switching is like clockwork.

Not thread-switching, Narad, but multi-tasking. I am a talented antivaxxer, you know.

And speaking of Covid vaccine adverse reactions, why exactly have the cases not exactly plummeted in the countries leading the rollout? Israel reports a quarter of its population has received two doses and how effective they are (a point as I explained to Dangerous One that I am not inclined to dispute), yet as of yesterday, they are reporting the same amount of new cases as us (Canada) and even though they have a third of our population.If it’s new strains accounting for this, why are they just hitting the UK and Israel in particular?

Could another explanation be that vaccine injuries and hospitalization in those countries are being misreported as covid cases. Could this fact also account for India’s plummeting cases relative to more vaxxed countries? Maybe if we are serious about ending the pandemic even quicker, not only should we reconsider lockdown and social distancing but also the vaccines!

Not thread-switching, Narad, but multi-tasking.

Which, of course, is why you’re just repeating the same shit with nothing to say about the post itself.

I suppose “multitasking” means being able to troll while having one hand in your pants.

@ Greg

“VigiAccess” system

“This database allows you to browse and view data on SUSPECTED SIDE-EFFECTS from various medicinal products (also known as suspected adverse drug reactions (“ADRs”)). All data contained herein is sourced from VigiBase®, the World Health Organization’s (the “WHO”) global database for ADRs, maintained by the Uppsala Monitoring Centre (the “UMC”).

The data contains reports of SUSPECTED ADRS, so called Individual Case Safety Reports (ICSRs), collected by national drug authorities in over 110 countries and span over more than 100 000 different medicinal products. Thus, this database is only a repository of ICSRs provided for VigiBase®, and shall not be considered as a systematic register of ADRs that have occurred or may occur.

INFORMATION ON SUSPECTED ADR SHOULD NOT BE INTERPRETED AS MEANING THAT THE MEDICINAL PRODUCT IN QUESTION, OR THE ACTIVE SUBSTANCE(S), GENERALLY CAUSES THE OBSERVED EFFECT OR IS UNSAFE TO USE.The balance between benefit and risk of a specific medicinal product also varies between individual patients.”

Available at: http://www.pharm.am/index.php/en/vigiaccess-system

Same problem with VAERS. Reports are investigate and some indeed are valid, but most aren’t. The rapid withdrawal of the first rotavirus vaccine because of cases of intussusception was based on VAERS.

I don’t assume that a newspaper article referring to a “suspect” or, nowadays, “person of interest” means they are guilty. Do you???

You can find something I wrote about WHO databases and VAERS:

Joel A. Harrison, PhD, MPHsays:
February 18, 2021 at 6:40 pm
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2021/02/16/latest-antivaccine-lie-about-covid-19-vaccines-theyre-gene-therapy/#comment-440591

@Aarno

COVID cases are dropping in Israel

Aarno, your argument isn’t entirely addressing my point. Yes, cases and hospitalizations are starting to drop in Isreal, but for a while we saw huge surges with their numbers around the time that the vaccine was introduced.

I am thinking we are witnessing a mirroring of the trials. During those trials there were huge surges in adverse reactions right after vaccination, but because testing was delayed — with Pfizer’s trial, 21 days after the second dose — they weren’t registered. The testing that came later would go on to show the vaccine to be highly effective, but, as Bigtree pointed out, that’s only in the context that we ignore the immediate adverse reactions.

With the real world rollout, what I suspect is going on is those immediate adverse reactions are occuring, but they are being misreported as covid cases due from different circulating ‘strains’. I would wager that every country that starts seriously pushing the vaccine, in the short-term will see spike in cases or just moderate reductions — likely moderate because of the positive contribution of natural immunity — before witnessing serious reductions. Countries such as India, however, that do not push the vaccine as aggressively may actual yield the best numbers for reduced cases.

In sum, with covid vaccination we may actually be injuring and killing people to save them.

India has administered over 10 million doses of Covid vaccines so far. That is only 0.8 per 100 people, which is well behind China and Turkey for instance. But it is well ahead of Pakistan and Myanmar for comparison.

More importantly, India is the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world and likely to be second in Covid-19 vaccine production behind the U.S. There is no reason to expect that they won’t develop a more ambitious vaccination program as this year progresses.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/15/covid-india-could-play-an-important-role-in-producing-vaccines.html

For instance, Biological E is planning to produce 1.2 billion doses of Peter Hotez’s low cost protein-based vaccine, which is being tested in India.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/11/24/938375308/vaccine-expert-once-a-covid-vaccine-is-available-dont-overthink-it-dont-wait

@Greg You speak about what happened in trials ? So cite a trial or at least serious side effect you mean. Then I can check followup data.
Del Bigtree certainly does not know anything, so a more reliable source is needed.

@Greg
COVID cases are dropping in Israel
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/israel/
And Pfizer vaccine works there:
Mallapaty S. Vaccines are curbing COVID: Data from Israel show drop in infections. Nature. 2021 Feb;590(7845):197. doi: 10.1038/d41586-021-00316-4. PMID: 33547434.
“Close to 90% of people aged 60 and older in the country have received their first dose of Pfizer’s 2-dose vaccine so far. Now, data collected by Israel’s Ministry of Health show that there was a 41%drop in confirmed COVID-19 infections in that age group, and a 31% drop in hospitalizations from mid-January to early February. In comparison,for people aged 59 and younger — of which justmore than 30% have been vaccinated — cases dropped by only 12% and hospitalizations by 5%”

@ Kay West

You write: “Narad

something tells me your google search, it ain’t working

Florida
average persons per square mile 371

California
average persons per square mile 249

The problem, as a Californian, is that over half of the state is sparsely populated, the Northern part, the Mountainous part, and the desert part, whereas, Florida is more evenly distributed. I’m not going to try to estimate; but if one assumes 80% of California’s population in less than half the state, i think the density will be much higher.

That was not very scientific.
Florida is about 1/3 the size of California. 55,000 square mile vs 155,000 square miles.
Florida has about half the population of California and like California are confined to about 10 areas (Miami,Orlanda,Tampa, Ft. Meyer etc) with the comparable populations/density as California’s metro areas.
About 15% of Florida’s square miles of size is either lakes or uninhabitable swamps.
The median age of California is about 36 while the median age of Florida is about 42.
Florida should by all statistical measure should have a higher death rate, (due to age, secondary conditions etc.) a higher infection rate based on limited lock down and no mask mandate.
My point to all this was, with all the money, resources, researcher etc. we have thrown at this issue and the best the “science” can tells us is “we don’t have a clue”………

@ Kay West

No, your right, it wasn’t very scientific. So, let’s try again.

Population Density is just one variable in a pandemic
Mask wearing is another variable; but, mask wearing depends of type of mask, some more protective than others, and wearing properly. I’ve seen people go into Costco with mask on, the pull down over nose.
Physical Distancing. 6 feet was an arbitrary number. Out-of-doors without a strong wind, probably OK; but indoors, if not proper ventilation, not good. One positive with Costco is very high ceilings

No, back to density. South Korea is a very population dense nation; but implemented early on measures that resulted in a very low hospitalization and death rate. Sweden had a high death rate; but, actually inaccurate. Sweden, like the U.S. allowed various strategies at local levels. Some reasonable size cities had very low hospitalization and death rates; but some had extremely high.

And all of the above means little if one doesn’t take into account whether people are following guidelines of not. I haven’t been following Florida; but here in California we have mayors, Sheriffs, Police Chiefs that state they won’t enforce guidelines. We have had mass protests, e.g., Proud Boys, without masks and no physical distancing. When I walk my dog in the evenings, I have seen groups as high as 25 or so having barbecues without masks and no physical distancing (tenants in apartment complex).
Florida also differs from California in humidity and whether you have a mask mandate or not, depends on if people still decide to use.

The only way to actually judge would be to collect data on hospitalized cases and deaths, including if they had been wearing a mask (including type of mask), practices physical distancing, spent time indoors among non-family members, etc.

The research on masks in irrefutable. They reduce risk. In 1969 I purchase my first car, a used 1966 car. It had lap seatbelts and I immediately used them and required of anyone riding in my car to put them on. They thought I was nuts. This was long before any public messages to use seatbelts and even longer before they were mandated. My next used car had separate lap belt and shoulder belts, still I used them. The latest statistics shows that current seatbelts and airbags reduce deaths and serious injury by about 50%. But if I’m on freeway and drunk driver speeds and hits me, I probably won’t survive; but if doing 25 mph and drunk driver hits me going 35 mph, seatbelts and airbag may just save my life, and reduce serious injury.

The bottom line is seatbelts and airbags do reduce deaths and serious injury; but not always, same with masks and even physical distancing. If one, for instance, is wearing even an N95 mask and there is someone sneezing and coughing with active COVID in room, or even someone who is asymptomatic, risk reduced; but no guarantee.

So, does the above make things a bit clearer. It isn’t just population density. It isn’t just having a mask mandate. In California, people and even authorities ignore mask mandates, and restaurants have served indoors, even getting cited; but continue.

You make the same mistake that most who don’t understand public health, namely, that one variable is explanatory. And, yep, I was tired and gave a poor answer. Mea culpa

you still have only given, your personal observational and personal (one person observations, and not very good ones, (Proudboys, ….. what about Black Lives Matter, both states had protests) you appear to grasping at straws.
Research has shown that California has over 90% of mask wearing, while Florida has about an 84%
https://delphi.cmu.edu/covidcast/?sensor=fb-survey-smoothed_wearing_mask&level=state&date=20201026&signalType=value&mode=overview&region=WY&compare=WI
And again my post only covered Florida and California and the Government “science experts” tell us they have no clue as to why.
You blame me “You make the same mistake that most who don’t understand public health, namely, that one variable is explanatory.” You have not sourced any of you “facts” but just repeat opinions and personnel observations and obfuscate. I don’t want to get into a discussion about seat belts etc. You probably want to look at the peltzman effect as to traffic deaths.
You have failed to address my first question……….Again why hasn’t our science people (CDC, NIH etc.) conducted this research with the million and billions of dollars given to this task? and their best answer is “we don’t know”….. very sad.

As I said before California has Los Angeles and San Francisco. Their CSA have more people than Miami CSA, which is Florida’s biggest. Concentration of population help to spread the virus.

Kay keeps harping back to the fact that Andy Slavitt didn’t have a good immediate answer to a somewhat specific cause/explanation question at a press conference and insisting that his admission that we don’t know the answer (which is SOP in science) was the be-all and end-all of scientific knowledge on the subject.

As I noted before, California and Florida took very different paths to get to similar current case incidences of Covid-19. (8926 vs. 8677) But their results were nevertheless somewhat different. Florida has a 12% higher death rate.

And their paths are diverging Florida has 28 cases per 100K compared to 17 in California. Cases are dropping 28% in Florida compared to 51% in California!

And those numbers are dropping because people are wearing masks, social distancing and businesses are limiting occupancy while we continue to vaccinate. This is what Greg continues to pretend is “on its own”.

Also, Andy Slavitt noted Friday that there is a backlog of vaccine distributions, but shipments began again yesterday and should be ramping up.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/19/politics/andy-slavitt-vaccine-distribution-cnntv/index.html

“Starting tomorrow, Saturday, we’re going to be shipping more doses than states have ever received before,” Slavitt said. “Because we’re going to be shipping this week’s doses and next week’s doses.”
Slavitt said it means that “for all the governors and all the states that have said we want more vaccines, they’re going to have to be ready, they’re going to have to make more appointments, they’re going to have to extend their hours.”

here is the answer for Joel and the squirrelelite.

“New optimism that COVID-19 is finally dwindling as L.A. gains some herd immunity”

“UC San Francisco epidemiologist Dr. George Rutherford said one of the reasons why cases are dropping so fast in California “is because of naturally acquired immunity, mostly in Southern California.” He estimated that 50% of Los Angeles County residents have been infected with the virus at some point.”

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-02-20/covid-19-pandemic-herd-immunity-vaccinations-plummeting-cases

Both states reached herd immunity in different ways but with the same results. As I pointed out Florida has an older population thus more deaths.

when a 27 working for free, can build a better model for covid then a 500 million dollar model at a leading university something is seriously wrong.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-19/covid-pandemic-how-youyang-gu-used-ai-and-data-to-make-most-accurate-prediction

Research has shown that California has over 90% of mask wearing, while Florida has about an 84%

Polling data? Clap, clap, clappity clap. What are the error bars? Are the data sets commensurable?

Not very scientific, deary.

“UC San Francisco epidemiologist Dr. George Rutherford said one of the reasons why cases are dropping so fast in California “is because of naturally acquired immunity, mostly in Southern California.” He estimated that 50% of Los Angeles County residents have been infected with the virus at some point.”

Let’s check him in his own words:

Do you expect a fourth wave of infections before we can get enough people vaccinated to achieve herd immunity?

‘While we all desperately hope to avoid a fourth wave, it’s unlikely that a sufficiently large proportion of the population will be vaccinated to prevent one in the spring.

‘Earlier, in the Bay Area, we saw that there were periods of about five to six weeks between the first and second surge and the second and third surge. If this current third wave does indeed peak in mid-January and starts to decline due to shelter-in-place interventions, expanding vaccination, and naturally acquired immunity, experience tells us that we’re likely to see an increase again by later March. In particular, the gains we’ve made could potentially be offset by schools reopening, students returning to college residences, and businesses reopening.

‘Unfortunately, that means that we’ll likely be relying on our current mitigation methods well into the late spring or early summer. So keep your masks on, continue physical distancing, and keep gatherings confined to members of your household.

‘GEORGE RUTHERFORD, MD
‘Professor of epidemiology and biostatistics, Lucia Professor of Preventive Medicine'”

squirrelelite, I am not harping on the question. it is simply no one has addressed his vague, very meaningful answer. ‘we don’t know’! My question that I keep repeating is “WHY?”

I have received many replies, from tales of people walking their dogs and seeing people not wear masks, to well I had a 1966 car that had seat belts. to the trends in some other country, to vaccines, (really too early to tell), people talking about their cat toys and how they played with their cats (is this facebook?), Trump conspiracy (I don’t think they know he lost the election), the reasons why we have to wear a mask, know the difference between million-billion-trillion (this is a mixed lot on this site) California cases are dropping by 58% compared to Florida 18%. (California has high infections numbers to drop that far).

Squirrelelite, I understand science is uncertain (how ever I would not repeat that, as it might get me/you labeled as a science denier or a conspiracy believer on this site, I mean science is settled except when its not.)

Now given the population of each state (California has about double the numbers) California has had 3,435,136 infections and the seven day average is up 1.3% and 48,825. Florida has had 1,829,773 cases and a seven day average up 2.3% and 30,339 deaths. California is seeing over 400 deaths per day and an upward trend (they were averaging about 50 deaths per day as late as the first week in November, and will easily double Florida’s deaths with in 2 weeks ). Florida has about 180 deaths per day with a slight upwards trend as well, but not what should be expected in a no lock down, no mask mandate state.

The question still stands, after millions/billions of dollars of research we still don’t have the answer to the MSNBC reporters question “why the same outcome/”

https://covidtracking.com/data/#state-ca

@Kay West: “ My point to all this was, with all the money, resources, researcher etc. we have thrown at this issue and the best the “science” can tells us is “we don’t have a clue”………”

Here’s the thing, you dissembling jaqoff: “We don’t know” is a perfectly correct answer. Because once science admits that, it can start learning the problem space and figuring out the complete answer over time.

What you do is misrepresent that initial, honest “we don’t know, yet” as an admission of weakness and failure, weaponizing it against its propounders in order to advance your own unsubstantiated bullshit as “fact”. Because your putty brain seems to believe that if the other party’s answer is wrong then yours must therefore be right, which is such pathetically defective thinking that any real debate club would laugh you out the room.

You are a malicious, mendacious sack of crap, attempting to put folk here on the backfoot so they’ll make tactical debating errors which you can then attack. So here’s a better proposition for you: how about you piss off out of here and go spend the next several years earning yourself a degree in Epidemiology; and then you can come back and be the one who provides us the right answer first. If nothing else the experience might teach you an ounce of humility, which would be an excellent start.

@Kay West San Francisco COVID cases are here:
https://data.sfgov.org/stories/s/dak2-gvuj
About 10%, as usual. 50% procent is very far away.
As I have said many times, Los Angeles amd San Francisco are bigger than Miami. There are densely packed population pockets.
If you want know how research money is used, read papers. Some interview comment is quite irrelevamt

I have received many replies, from tales of people walking their dogs and seeing people not wear masks, to well I had a 1966 car that had seat belts. to the trends in some other country, to vaccines, (really too early to tell), people talking about their cat toys and how they played with their cats (is this facebook?)

Not every comment here is a reply to you, O self-important one. In the old days, we’d talk food at night (no dill!). Many members of the commentariat have been here for far, far longer than your sorry ass.

Florida also differs from California in humidity and whether you have a mask mandate or not

You can’t go into the Publix grocery store without one.

Both states reached herd immunity in different ways but with the same results.

I’d love to see your worked-out calculation that a putative 50% reaches herd immunity, but I’m not holding my breath.

Here’s another vast coincidence, reported in today’s Lexington (Kentucky) Herald-Leader.

“…analysis of state data shows that active (Covid-19) cases in nursing homes, personal care homes and other long-term care facilities hit their peak in mid-December at more than 4,100 cases, just as residents began receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.

Since then, the numbers have plummeted…

Long-term care facilities were a top vaccination priority for the state and federal government…That coincides with a drop in the COVID-19 incidence rate among people older than 70 in Kentucky, a group prioritized for vaccine distribution. The weekly incidence rates for Kentuckians in their 70s and 80s hit their peak in the first week of December and have dropped ever since.”

Nah, couldn’t have had anything to do with vaccination.

Must’ve been due to more nutritious meals and upgraded bathrooms at the nursing homes.

Look! Someone agreeing with me that covid will be gone in a few months and largely due to natural immunity. Dangerous One — shame that folks won’t get to see how ‘awesome’ Pfizer’s vaccine is.

There is reason to think the country is racing toward an extremely low level of infection,” Makary wrote. “As more people have been infected, most of whom have mild or no symptoms, there are fewer Americans left to be infected. At the current trajectory, I expect COVID will be mostly gone by April, allowing Americans to resume normal life.”

https://www.foxnews.com/health/johns-hopkins-expert-says-covid-19-pandemic-could-end-by-april

@ Greg

Watch PB Firing Line with guest Michael Osterholm, one of our most respected epidemiologists. Available at: https://video.kpbs.org/video/michael-osterholm-kigtv4/
ACTUALLY ANYONE MONITORING THIS SITE THAT CAN GET PBS, WATCH IT!

And read about his credentials and achievements on Wikipedia. Michael Osterholm. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Osterholm

One of the things he explains is that several times during the current pandemic it has peaked, then went down significantly, only to explode again and he explains why, with the new more transmissible and severe variants, we may be in for a nightmare. As opposed to idiots like you, he also says he can’t be certain; but based on his immense experience and knowledge of pandemics and what we currently know, he thinks highly likely we are in for horrible weeks ahead.

As for Fox News, they supported Trump and still support right-wing Republicans, both who downplay the pandemic. We are just about at 500,000 deaths and probably half as many again who were hospitalized and are now suffering long term, if not permanent problems, e.g., reduced lung function, cardiac arrhrymias, brain fog, etc.

And so far everything that we’ve learned is that had Trump acted early on and followed through we would not have had to implement such drastic measures. South Korea, a densely populated nation received enough intel in early January from China, implemented measures and has had very few deaths. And other nations as well.

I realize that you don’t read, have a short attention span, and probably are just a very unhappy moron who posts comments not to learn in a civil exchange but to see if you get a rise out of people.

I wonder how you will feel if someone you care about, grandparent, parent, aunt, uncle, brother, etc..develops a severe case of COVID???

I wonder how you will feel if someone you care about, grandparent, parent, aunt, uncle, brother, etc..develops a severe case of COVID???

Narcissistic types don’t care about anyone but themselves. I think Gerg’s shitposting here speaks volumes to just how empty and worthless his real life is.

I don’t pity Gerg; I pity those who think they can change him. You can’t. Make a note for the record and move on. If you really must respond directly to his fresh trolls, post a #DNFTT hyperlinked to the last time you schooled his ass, thereby demonstrating he can not and will not learn, and is not here to do so. It is unproductive to keep on biting the same old rotten bait he reels out every time. Gerg is not acting in good faith and by continuing to engage you only feed it further till it chokes every discussion with its vomit.

(I know the rationalization is we’re not engaging for the troll’s benefit but for the fencesitters but, trust me, they’ll learn just from seeing it throw its feces in the wind.)

@ has:

I agree with most of what you say.
I too am seeking ways of decommissioning trolls without directly engaging with them which is what they want so I’ve tried to understand them and their activities .
I’ve observed that amongst repeaters here and anti-vax / woo leaders/ followers:

–they advocate for ‘science’, posting studies YET they categorically reject some of the strongest SB research that exists: vaccine safety, no link between autism and vaccines and modern research about autism actually originates ( genetics, prenatal)
how can you advocate for science and cling to myth/rumour, unsupported by data?

–trolls like Greg or scot may only be in it for contrarian thrills and interaction BUT a few of the others most likely have agendas that involve education of the masses, i.e. scaring parents away from vaccination ( and now, Covid vaccines for all ages).
Dedicated internet sites and Facebook pages are used for this purpose: I’ve read hundreds of vaccine horror stories. Similarly, in their uninformed self-certainty, they come to a SB site, run by a famous vaccine supporter to educate him and his readers: blinding us with their ‘science’. They cherish the foolish notion that they can convert Orac et al. HAH!

I imagine that we can talk around them: discussing SB data , how CTs spread, how alties operate generally, what’s in it for them.
Of course, commenters may have other plans or creative insults as well.

I don’t pity Gerg; I pity those who think they can change him.

The language we use in the workplace is so tremendously important. It can either inspire or create resentment. How does Has’ coworkers feel about being pitied?

On another note, what has happened to F68? Haven’t heard from him in awhile.

The language we use in the workplace is so tremendously important. It can either inspire or create resentment. How does Has’ coworkers feel about being pitied?

Leaving aside the fact that this remark is somewhere well past non sequitur, I can’t wait to hear Gerg regale the commentariat about the times his mellifluous speech has led his coworkers to inspiration.

Heh. That was my first exposure to The Greatful Dead, as a child. My aunt in Indiana would always invite us to pick one item from her basement of stuff that she collected in ‘rummage sales’. I picked a portable 8-track player.

At a rest stop in Kentucky, there was this bin of $.50 tapes. I picked out Terrapin Station for it’s cool looking cover (and I liked turtles).

Back Muddy River: https://youtu.be/sGq1ShJqf_k?t=1

I place more credence in an ongoing detailed analysis like this one from McKinsey than in a simple “if this continues” projection from a WSJ op-ed.

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare-systems-and-services/our-insights/when-will-the-covid-19-pandemic-end#

McKinsey is projecting for late in the 3rd or early in the 4th quarter this year. But there is a significant probability we might not get there till 2022 if we run into significant problems like variants that make our vaccines less protective.

I read the WSJ Opinion piece, and like just about every other WSJ Opinion piece I’ve read in the past two decades, it’s a pile of fetid dingo kidneys. His whole argument revolves around this paragraph:

“But the consistent and rapid decline in daily cases since Jan. 8 can be explained only by natural immunity. Behavior didn’t suddenly improve over the holidays; Americans traveled more over Christmas than they had since March. Vaccines also don’t explain the steep decline in January. Vaccination rates were low and they take weeks to kick in.”

What utter BS. If Americans traveled during the holidays more than at any other time, and then stopped travelling after the holidays, you would expect new cases to peak a week or two after the holidays and then plummet. Which exactly correlates to the observed peak on Jan 8, followed by a precipitous drop in cases. People visiting family during the holidays, and then stopping afterwards, leads to this entirely predictable observation. (I do suspect that there is more to the drop than just that, but the claim that we’re at 2/3rds natural immunity is simply absurd – and his math is incompetently naïve)

Thanks, Kevin. I rather suspected as much. I did an estimate based on case numbers and some serological data from late last summer and got about 21% immunity from infection plus about 12% from vaccination for California and several other states. New York was above 50% but there was more uncertainty in the serological estimate.

For an example of how public health measures do work, look at the daily case curve for New Mexico and compare it with California or some other state. New Mexico put a hard clamp on restaurant dining and shopping in stores for 2 weeks around Thanksgiving. As a result, the case load hit its peak on November 20 and declined steadily for the rest of the year. There was a smaller bump in January from Christmas and New Year related exposures.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/new-mexico-coronavirus-cases.html

Indeed, squirrelelite, my own (and Orac’s) home state of Michigan had a similar lockdown right after Thanksgiving. The daily cases is much like what you described, with a peak in early December (because it takes a week or two to see results, of course), a steady decline, a bit of a bump after Christmas, peaking on…

Jan 8!

Nebraska imposed statewide Covid-19 restrictions effective November 11.

https://omaha.com/news/local/ricketts-unveils-new-covid-19-related-restrictions-pleads-for-people-to-take-virus-seriously/article_de943dd2-2f8f-59d5-9b9b-0914ebe86d2c.html

Also, Omaha has had a local mask requirement since August 11 and it has been extended to May 25.

https://www.douglascountyhealth.com/109-covid-19/752-face-masks-mandate

So they adopted a similar policy to New Mexico with similar results.

Like the other states that never imposed statewide restrictions in the first few months of the pandemic, Nebraska has had a significantly number of cases than the U.S. average.

They benefited from the second lowest CFR in that group. Only Utah was better.

Whereas New Mexico suffered a horrible outbreak on the Navajo Reservation, which includes parts of Arizona and Utah. Living conditions are primitive and it’s a long drive to local hospitals which were quickly overwhelmed. Eventually that got under control, but there was a second wave later in 2020.

https://nativenewsonline.net/currents/covid-19-cases-surpass-27-000-on-navajo-nation-death-toll-rises-to-966

And on the population density issue, the State of Wyoming has fewer people in the whole state than Bernalillo County in New Mexico, which includes Albuquerque.

But Wyoming has 9295 cases per 100K versus 7623 for Bernalillo County. Bernalillo County had a slightly higher death rate. Some of those deaths were undoubtedly from people transferred to Albuquerque hospitals due to bed shortages in Gallup and Grants.

As my cursory analyses show, these situations are complicated by many factors. Epidemiologists will undoubtedly be picking over the data for many years.

Comparing changes in cumulative case numbers with changes in 7-day averages doesn’t clarify the issues. Instead of continually asking “Why?”, I suggest people like Kay try to read and learn more about what we do know.

So you lock down with the very people who are going to give you Covid. as the CDC says the most common source of Covid infections is family.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6926e3.htm?s_cid=mm6926e3_w

you were wearing the face mask in the wrong places
https://gh.bmj.com/content/5/5/e002794.abstract?subId3=xid:fr1603482786609aai

Nebraska did not lock down You need to reread the article, it just limited social gatherings to 25% (out door dining was not stopped) no churches were stopped, wedding and funerals were allowed, even youth games were allowed, parks were not closed.Only the city of Omaha had a mask mandate. Not the whole state not even the whole county.

New Mexico closed businesses, bars, restaurants even to the point of closing grocery stores. New Mexico had a mask mandate since June-July
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/new-mexico-closes-grocery-stores-in-lockdown-reset-as-food-insecurity-grows

@Kay West Actually read the paper. It says this:
“Overall, approximately one half (46%) of patients reported known close contact with someone with COVID-19 during the preceding 2 weeks. This was most commonly a family member (45%) or a work colleague (34%). Approximately two thirds (64%, 212 of 333) of participants were employed; only 35 of 209 (17%) were able to telework.”
45% of 46% is 20%. So your own link says that family members are not the main source.

Another sub 400Gs day and I am reflecting on my rap for tonight, haven’t presented one in the last two days. It wasn’t because cases slipped slightly over 400Gs, but because I have been busy. Still, I know many of you are waiting for these raps, so I am thinking it’s unfair to deprive you. Ok — just this last one:

Some of you may have noticed that Narad scolded me for bringing nothing new to this post, just my usual ‘shit’. I am left wondering, is there really anything new to be added to this never ending argument? Antivaxxers cry foul about vaccine reactions, and you guys respond that there is nothing to see and correlation does not prove causation. Seriously — people could explode into burning balls of flames mere seconds after vaccines and you guys would say, ‘so what?’, and then come back with claims that you checked into things and there hasn’t been excess cases of people bursting into balls of flames over the period.

After reflecting further, I have to say that my ‘shit’ is what’s actually new. We are on the verge of a pandemic withering out on its own and without anyone being able to make a reasonable claim that it’s due to vaccines. I am encouraged that this scenario may spark fresh conversations and perhaps amongst the public at large. Let people consider whether it’s even necessary to risk vaccines and the many unpleasant ‘correlations’ that often accompany them.

@ Greg

First, you are dead wrong when you say: “you guys respond that there is nothing to see and correlation does not prove causation.” What we say is that correlation does not prove causation, then we investigate. Just one example is VAERS reports of the first rotavirus and intussusception, which led to a rapid removal of vaccine. And I won’t repeat; but CDC and other websites list both mild adverse events and rare albeit serious adverse events with each vaccine.

as for your world odometer, the total number so far is 1/40th of world’s population, not even close to herd immunity and as I mentioned above, check out PBS Firing Line interview with Dr. Michael Osterholm and check out his biography on Wikipedia. Dr. Makara, who you think agrees with you on Fox News is a cancer surgeon, Dr. Osterholm is a well-respected epidemiologist. Dr. Makara isn’t expressing any science, just his own biases.

Though, except for “geniuses” like you, the rest of us can’t make absolute claims; but if Osterholm is right, which I happen to agree, and we have an explosion of cases starting in March, perhaps, even doubling the now 500,000 deaths, I doubt you will post a comment admitting you were wrong.

And once more, though I know you have a short attention span and don’t like reading, you can find something I wrote about WHO databases and VAERS:

Joel A. Harrison, PhD, MPHsays:
February 18, 2021 at 6:40 pm
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2021/02/16/latest-antivaccine-lie-about-covid-19-vaccines-theyre-gene-therapy/#comment-440591

And despite what you choose to believe, the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are quite safe, doesn’t mean some people won’t have bad reaction to them; but some people have been injured by seatbelts in collisions where they probably would have escaped harm without the belts; but for every such rare event, seatbelts save lives and prevent serious injury.

So, if instead of COVID cases continuing their decrease, what will you say if they explode again???

Did you even read my recent comment above???

Lear, it’s not that I am being rude and ignoring you. All I will say is my bet with Narad extends to you.

All I will say is my bet with Narad extends to you.

You don’t have a bet with me, shithead.

Orac often explains that we are finding more autism because we are searching. Though I dispute this, I definitely feel it’s the case with covid. I can also see this contributor to the virus disappearance.

As the cases continue to plummet and countries feel the virus is beaten, more and more will let up on their testing, and — voila! — covid will also disappear in those countries that had loose lockdowns and social distancing, and even vaccination. That most cases of covid are mild will also feed into this.

more and more will let up on their testing, and — voila! — covid will also disappear in those countries that had loose lockdowns and social distancing, and even vaccination.

see: squirrelelite, W. Kevin Vicklund, and Joel A. Harrison, PhD, MPH above and consider that.

Wouldn’t it be nice, though, if you were right? It would also be a mystery*. Testing has slacked off in the US due to resources going into vaccination and I don’t think that is a good thing — can’t do like South Korea and contact-trace small popups. My own novice guess for a major resurgence would be ~3 weeks after Easter. My second pick would be after spring break if they “party on, dudes” like last year.

*if it mysteriously goes away then I’d like to offer a thought that there may have been mass variolation going on with partial effectiveness of masks and groups of masked and unmasked mingled together. I also would not trust to what level protection that would incur and for how long.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variolation

I want the vaccine but can’t get it yet. Perhaps, if masking continued long enough with long-term exposure but not enough to cause illness, we might eventually get there without smoldering hospitals anyways.

@ Greg

You dispute Orac’s explanation on increases in cases of Autism Spectrum Disorder. So, what do you base this on? Your in-depth study of history of diagnosis of ASD? HINT: In 1994 they added Asperger’s to ASD and, guess what, the numbers increased. Just one example.

As for your believing COVID is plummeting, this was in today’s newspaper: “The COVID-19 numbers are still higher than they were during the surges in the spring and summer.” AND “The current CDC director, Rochelle Walensky, also noted the declining numbers but said cases are still “more than two-and-a-half-fold times what we saw over the summer.”

You ignore that original March prediction was about 250,000 deaths, now 500,000. You ignore that hospitals reached breaking points, that many who were hospitalized now suffer long term, if not permanent damage, e.g., reduced lung function, etc.

And you obviously refuse to even watch PBS Firing Line with Dr. Michael Osterholm.

In any case, I’ll ask you for the umpteenth time, if we see a surge in cases because of the more transmissible and virulent COVID variants, especially if people drop their guard, will you even admit you were wrong? Would you care if deaths possibly exceed one million?

As I’ve already written, I would bet you are a very unhappy individual and the only recognition you can get is to irritate people by anonymous blog comments. Not once have you ever really developed any of your claims in a logical and scientific way, together with more than one credible reference.

You are pathetic. And as I’ve written to Natalie White on other exchanges, I could care less about you as an individual; but you represent a large portion of our population; that is, people who really don’t understand the basics of science or critical thinking; but are ready to attack. By the way, were you supporting the January 6 assault on the Capitol? Wouldn’t surprise me.

I have a hypothetical population of 100 people. 35 of them live right on top of one another. 65 live away from this population center. I introduce a totally novel, contagious pathogen. Predictably, I get a huge spike right at the outset as it rapidly spreads and infects those 35 and a couple others. I foolishly think the worst is over even though it still has about 2/3rds of my population to sicken. Get the picture?

“Get the picture?”

I’m aphantasic. But the hash table says that those crammed together were passing around a joint hand-to-mouth whilst the country bumkins are just now learning of the benefits of chrystal meth and starting to share it with their cousins.

Still, though. Most do live in large population centers. Perhaps it is sputtering out “on it’s own”. Then along comes a B.1.429 and it is no longer a mystery as to why California is having a similarly bad day compared to Floriduh; all else considered.

@ EVERYONE

BELOW IS AN OUTLINE OF A POSSIBLE PAPER I MIGHT WRITE ON DEVELOPMENT OF AUTISM SPECTRUM DIAGNOSES AND THE ALLEGED EPIDEMIC

HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT
The late Autism researcher Lorna Wing (2005). wrote: “Nothing exists until it has a name.” As an example, in 910
treatise, the Persian/Arab physician, Al-Razi, noticed that a disease, up to then considered one, actually was two
separate diseases, smallpox and measles (Cliff, 1993, p.52). So, did smallpox or measles suddenly develop in
the 10th Century?.
Contributing Factors to Diagnoses of Autism Spectrum Disorders:

Leo Kanner’s 1943 article introduced the diagnosis of Autism and gave estimated statistics (based only on his
own office practice); but in 1971, at a conference, he admitted that he rejected minorities and working class
whites, believing it only a diagnosis for children of educated whites.

A number of journal articles and other reports, going back to early 1900s, used mental retardation and childhood
schizophrenia diagnostic categories; but if I gave the listed symptoms without the source, they would definitely
be categorized as Autism Spectrum Disorders.

A few described cases from various sources from the 19th Century and earlier would similarly be today
diagnosed as ASD.

Psychiatry was a relatively new profession, only developing the last two decades of the 19th Century, so nearly
impossible to know how people with problems would have been diagnosed earlier.

Prior to World War II, there were few to no social services in the U.S., the age required for school attendance
was lower and children with problems were either just kicked out, some finding menial jobs, some
institutionalized.

After World War II, with the rise of America’s middle class and family politics, more attention was paid to
children. After the 1957 Soviet launch of Sputnik, more funds and programs and emphasis on public education
was developed and the minimal age for leaving school increased.

Psychology became a popular degree in American universities and we began churning out psychologists, school
counselors, and more psychiatrists and, of course, this led to more work needed for them.

Originally ASD was diagnosed by psychiatrists using various techniques; but gradually standardized diagnostic
instruments were developed, allowing for easier and quicker diagnoses by others.

In 1986 the Federal government passed legislation for grants to local schools for special education, dealing with
children with problems. In the early 1990s this was extended to include ASD.

Studies have found as the number of cases of ASD increases, the number of cases diagnosed as mentally
retarded or childhood schizophrenia have decreased, at least, partially a response to availability of funds.
What was originally classical autism cases, became Autism Spectrum Disorders. Asberger’s wasn’t added until
1994 and there are cases of men in their 70s who have been diagnosed with Asberger’s.

ASD includes kids with a variety of different signs and symptoms; but with some in common. As an example, in
the 19th Century, high levels of white blood cells were originally thought to be signs of infectious disease; but then
discovered to be cancer, so they were included in the category Cancer. Certainly doesn’t mean that cases of cancer were
increasing, just another group was added. Blood cancers differ in many respects from solid tumor cancers; also
have signs and symptoms in common. Another example, imagine that medicine begins looking at respiratory
diseases, first including just asthma and pneumonia, then later emphysema, chronic obstructive disease, cancer,
etc. Imagine the government creates a separate institute with lots of funding and grants, both for research and education,
ending up with more and more respiratory therapists, pulmonologists, and researchers and, of course, diagnosed cases.
Increased awareness/screening/surveillance.

Childhood mortality has been decreasing over the past century. Children who would have died at birth or early
on, e.g., low birthweight, especially very low birthweight, and genetic disorders, now can live long lives; but
often have physical, cognitive, and emotional problems.

A relationship has been found between ASD and children born to older parents, more mutations in eggs and
sperm.

We live in the age of a therapeutic society. More and more people are being diagnosed with something. If this
continues, no one will exist who doesn’t have some medical/psychiatric label (e.g., Brownless, 2007; Hadler,
2007; Payer, 1988, 1992; welch, 2011).

Since World War II over 85,000 new chemicals have been introduced into our environment with little to no
oversight. Before then, despite overwhelming medical science, lead was added to gasoline. A mass of studies
has found that HIGH levels of lead in the blood of fetus and children results in lowered intelligence, behavioral
problems, etc. And studies have found some post-war chemicals “cause” ASD when fetus exposed. High levels,
not the minuscule levels of various additives in vaccines. So, yes, one can attribute some increase in ASD to the
environment, either interaction with genes or by itself; but this doesn’t change that the vast majority of cases can
be explained by the above.

I believe in community and wish a society where all human beings are treated with dignity and resources
provided for them to obtain whatever potential they have, so I support evermore funding for children and adults
labeled with ASD; but also cerebral palsy, Down’s Syndrome, etc. All lives are precious.

And we can “easily” afford this if our governments didn’t continuously lie to us about threats from abroad, while
acting on behalf of corporations (access to raw materials and selling of weapons), resulting in CIA, MI6, and
military spending trillions of dollars, risking our loyal military, and killing, crippling and impoverishing people in
developing nations who were NEVER a threat to us. Of course, by killing them, we become the enlistment
stimulus for terrorist groups, which we then claim the need to defend against, a vicious circle. Trillions of dollars
that could have benefited us and used for real foreign aid (Blum. 2003; Butler, 1935; Gaffney, 2019; Schlessinger,
2005).

REFERENCES:

Blum W (2003). Killing Hope: US Military & CIA Interventions since World War II. Available at:
https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/13/130AEF1531746AAD6AC03
Butler, Major General Smedley (1935). War Is A Racket. Available at: https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabadcompound
[Butler is the most decorated Marine in history]
Brownlee S (2007). Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer.
Cliff A, Haggett P, Smallman-Raynor M (1993). Measles: An Historical Geography of a Major Human Viral
Disease. Blackwell.
Gaffney M (2018 Mar). Corporate Power and Expansive U.S. Military Policy. American Journal of Economics and
Sociology; 77(2): 331-417. Available at: https://www.globalresearch.ca/corporate-power-and-expansive-u-smilitary
Hadler NM (2007). The Last Well Person: How to Stay Well Despite the Health-Care System.
Harrison JA (2018 Nov 9). Wrong About Polio: A Review of Suzanne Humphries, MD and Roman Bystrianyk’s
“Dissolving Illusions” Part 1. Science-Based Medicine. Available at: https://n1s1t23sxna2acyes3x4cz0hwpengine.
netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uplo…“Dissolving-Illusions”-long-version.pdf
Payer L (1988). Medicine & Culture: Varieties of Treatment in the United States, England, West Germany, and
France.
Payer L (1992). Disease-Mongers: How Doctors, Drug Companies, and Insurers are Making You Feel Sick.
Schlesinger SC, Kinzer S (2005). Bitter Fruit: The Untold story of the American Coup in Guatemala (revised
version). Harvard University Press.
Welch HG, Schwartz LM, Woloshin S (2011). Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health.
Wing L (2005 Apr). Reflections on Opening Pandora’s Box. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders;
35(2): 197-203.

Joel, pedantry: Please turn the ‘b’ upside-down before submitting the paper, which I’m sure will be comprehensive should you proceed with it.

Sorry, editor by trade.

@ Joel:

Really, really good! I expect nothing less from you.
.
Maybe sometime you can write about deinstitutionalisation
And what we do know about autism causation..

You are pathetic. And as I’ve written to Natalie White on other exchanges, I could care less about you as an individual

C’mon, Lear! You sounding like an angry ex is starting to get ridiculous. What – do my comments amount to Cordelia not telling you how much she loves you!

Lear, elsewhere I made the point that it’s the significant gradual decline that’s important and not the actual cases. This suggests that natural immunity is taking hold with the virus starting to whither out. This is a different circumstance from before when not enough people were immune, and cases rebounded sharply after lockdowns were lifted.

Lear, I am just the messenger, and did not instruct covid to mess up the plans for vaccine heroics. There is no reason to be angry with me.

@ Greg

It’s hard to believe anyone could be as stupid as you seem. I pointed out that the stats you linked to represented about 1/40 of world’s population currently having been infected by COVID, far from natural immunity. I also pointed out that twice before during pandemic following high levels, COVID cases began diminishing; but, if you actually watch Dr. Michael Osterholm, he explains why the new variant which is much more transmissible and virulent is on the rise and we could see a huge increase in cases. Plus, the most recent case load is still higher than last summers.

Fuck you and your “Lear”. You are just a pathetic asshole who wants to irritate people and there is every reason to be angry with you, simply you ignore reason and continue to spout bullshit.

@Joel: “I pointed out [detailed evidence]”

Rest assured that Gerg has seen all of your detailed evidence and gleefully jizzed all over it prior to finding the next way to bait you.

“A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?”

“A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?”

Greg is a grandmaster of pigeon chess.

“I could be wrong, but I don’t think we’re going to see a big fourth surge,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “I think we’ve seen the worst of it.”
“While 12% of Americans have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, far more people — approximately 35% of the nation’s population — have already been infected with the coronavirus, Offit estimated”
“UC San Francisco epidemiologist Dr. George Rutherford said one of the reasons why cases are dropping so fast in California “is because of naturally acquired immunity, mostly in Southern California.” He estimated that 50% of Los Angeles County residents have been infected with the virus at some point.”

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-02-20/covid-19-pandemic-herd-immunity-vaccinations-plummeting-cases

But this comes from a Proud Boys/Trump group.

@Kay West

Is there some reason other than attention-seeking that you’ve felt obligated to post the same thing for a second time?

@Narad, perhaps Kay is running out of new material.

I had replied to that above, but I’ll add this comment.

https://bao.arcgis.com/covid-19/jhu/county/06037.html

LA County has had 11.7% of the population with known cases at a cost of almost 20,000 deaths. And there may be 100,000 long haulers in the county alone.

https://health.ucdavis.edu/coronavirus/covid-19-information/covid-19-long-haulers.html

Based on serology studies from last fall, there are probably 3-4 times that many people who had been infected, which would be about 47%. That immunity combined with vaccinations and protective measures is undoubtedly helping keep the replication number below 1 and bring down the case numbers.

But antibody levels from these infections vary a lot and people can be reinfected, especially if the newer variants get going out there.

So we need to continue vaccinating and other measures like masks and social distancing.

And, are you pointing out a contradiction? Where?

The only thing I am a little unsure about is the likely order of things. Before, I was thinking — cases drop, vaccination interest drops, governments rethink, Pfizer bails… Yet, will a shewrd pharma company invest in supply sensing reduced demand. Pfizer might just rethink before governments, and making the decision so much easier for governments.

Let us see what happens. My prediction is that vaccinations will continue until herd immunity is achieved.

Let us see what happens. My prediction is that vaccinations will continue until herd immunity is achieved.

Which, judging by how the cases are going, might be next week. I guess you are even more optimistic than me.

Taken from Kay West’s artiicle…

But the biggest factor, paradoxically, is something the nation spent the last year trying to prevent.

While 12% of Americans have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, far more people — approximately 35% of the nation’s population — have already been infected with the coronavirus, Offit estimated. Studies have found that people who survive COVID-19 have immunity for several months, though it likely lasts even longer.

So, all the containment measures amounted to fighting nature — and, in the end, nature still won, and to our benefit? Yet, you guys still persist!

Autism parents complain about what a kick in the gut it is to trust ‘experts’ and then get burned. I suppose adults trust experts considering them our knowledgeable parents. The deflation comes when you realize that your ‘parents’ are idiots, and they should’ve been the last ones you trust with your well-being.

@ Greg

I realize you are posting just to irritate people; but for others following this dialogue:

1/3 of population already infected and, of those, 500,000 died, another several hundred thousand with long COVID;
2/3 not infected, 12% vaccinated, so, ballpark estimate, about 60% of population still vulnerable. So, if 1/3 infected led to 500,000 deaths and several hundred thousand cases of long COVID, one could estimate twice that above as the rest become infected, that is, if not vaccinated.

So, I guess you either don’t understand simple math or don’t care if the number dying and suffering increases dramatically. However, you are right that eventually, if COVID doesn’t mutate too much, we will reach herd immunity. Only question is how many lives should be sacrificed to let nature do its thing?

As for your take on parents of kids with ASD, back it up with some references. And the fact that some parents of children with ASD reject current science because it hasn’t been able to help, except expensive intensive cognitive behavior therapy, says only that desperate people, people who don’t understand science, are angry and frustrated.

I’ll repeat the same question again: If COVID surges once more and many more lives are lost or disabled, will you post a comment admitting you were wrong?

Now, I expect you to just keep posting same comments and not answering; but everyone else monitoring this site knows what you are and it ain’t positive.

Goodness me Greg. How old are you? Haven’t you realised yet that everything we do is fighting nature? Wearing clothes, taking medicine, building houses, generating power, planting crops. If you think you can pop out to your local wilderness and survive without fighting nature then give it a try. Nature usually wins in the end but that brief moment before it does is called life.

If the disease eventually burns itself out, rather than lingering while continuously mutating, then the vaccine can only hasten this. Meaning fewer deaths.

Haven’t you realised yet that everything we do is fighting nature?

Or as I like to say, we humans cheat.
But let’s not be too hard on Greg, this is a common misconception.

Vercors, a French author (1) wrote in 1952 a little philosophy book on the topic, under the title “Les Animaux Dénaturés” – in the sense, the animals who put themselves outside of Nature.

(1) yes, that Vercors

Haven’t you realised yet that everything we do is fighting nature? Wearing clothes, taking medicine, building houses, generating power, planting crops.

Is this not a good point from, Numb? Did he not land one squarely on Greg’s chin. I would say, no.

A distinction needs to be made between fighting nature and working with nature. Consider some of the above examples: Where is the clothes or building materials coming from? Nature! What is generating the power or growing the crops? Nature. All the examples can be seen as working with nature.

Engineering and manufacturing, on the other hand, are examples of fighting nature and where we often get into trouble. The covid pandemic serves as a perfect example. Here we have an artificial virus created and released from lab and wreaking such havoc.

@ Greg

Do you actually read articles you referred to or just skim to find confirmation for your beliefs?

From the article:

“But health experts warn India is far from herd immunity. And many worry that people not taking vaccines seriously might not bode well for India, given that other countries’ later waves of COVID-19 were even more severe than those early in the pandemic. Already, Maharashtra, the worst-hit state in the country, has seen a COVID-19 spike in recent days, with daily cases above 5,000 on Feb. 18 for the first in two and a half months. . . On a global level too, the tendency to let the guard down might hamper efforts to bring the pandemic under control. Experts say vaccination is necessary not only to get long-term immunity but to also reduce the potential for new mutations, which are largely behind recent surges in cases in the U.K and Brazil.

“High vaccination coverage rate reduces the potential for new variants,” says Griffin of the University of Queensland. “The more cases we have in circulation, the more chances there are of generating mutations that confer some kind of benefit to the virus.””

Again ASSHOLE: if there is a surge in deaths and disabilities will you admit you were wrong? Of course not because you are mainly posting just to be a pain in the ass. Probably because you are an extremely unhappy individual whose probably lacks many friends and, thus, gets his thrills out of anonymously posting to annoy people.

I am an old man with lots of time on my hands, so, knowing that the vast majority of people who follow this blog do so to learn and exchange ideas, not a complete waste of my time.

Probably because you are an extremely unhappy individual whose probably lacks many friends and, thus, gets his thrills out of anonymously posting to annoy people.

Not agreeing that I am an ‘asshole’, but why are people always assuming someone has to have issues to be one?! I will never get that. Aren’t there people that are just plain happy and comfortable being assholes?

I think he may be channeling a dead psychic who wrote about a pneumonia-like illness sweeping the globe in 2020 and then suddenly vanish.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sylvia-browne-coronavirus/

But he keeps citing evidence that what we are doing (control measures and now vaccinations) is working and claiming we don’t need them.

I looked up numbers on the JHU website. India has had a 30% rise in cases in the last two weeks, but the numbers are still well below their peak from last fall. The UK numbers continue their steady overall drop from the start of the year, with only minor day-to-day variations.

And, file these under, ‘This crap can’t be real’. Checking today’s worldometer numbers (which is another ridiculously depressing day for you guys), UK has been a vaccine rollout leader for a long time now but has more cases than Spain, Italy, France, and even Germany which has a larger population. Isreal, the most vaccinated country in the world, has more cases than Germany. Yes — it’s all because of new ‘strains’!

Greg This side effects mimicking COVID is interesting. What side effects you have in your mind ? Be more specific.

Covid symptoms….

People with these symptoms may have COVID-19:

Fever or chills
Cough
Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
Fatigue
Muscle or body aches
Headache
New loss of taste or smell
Sore throat
Congestion or runny nose
Nausea or vomiting
Diarrhea

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/symptoms.html

Covid vaccine adverse reactions…..

Most frequently reported side effects (VAERS)

Headache
Fatigue
Dizziness
Chills
Nausea

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/19/cdc-says-these-are-the-most-common-side-effects-people-report-after-getting-covid-vaccine.html

Sorry, Aarno, that last post was in response to your comment.

So, if in some areas 50% of the population has already been infected, what is the possibility that 80yro gramps who has just been vaccinated and shortly after finds himself landing in hospital with chills, headache, and fatigue will also be found to have the virus circulating in his system and being counted as another covid case? I would say it’s entirely possible.

Sure the vaccine may protect in the long-term, but that is likely not offset by the sickness it causes in the short-term. This is the reason why testing was delayed in the trial, and it could very well be the reason accounting for Israel and UK’s high cases relative to less vaccinated countries.

@ Greg You will notice that vaccine side effects will be like a mild inflammation, and more to point, they should not be long. If this is not happening, it is COVID.
Ah those side effects, never specified. Interesting thing is that COVID seems not to cause autoimmune diseases:
Murtas, R., Andreano, A., Gervasi, F. et al. Association between autoimmune diseases and COVID-19 as assessed in both a test-negative case–control and population case–control design. Autoimmun Highlights 11, 15 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13317-020-00141-1
“During the outbreak, the Milan AHP endured, up to April 27th 2020, 20,364 test-positive and 34,697 test-negative subjects. We found no association between AIDs and being positive to COVID-19, but a statistically significant association between AIDs and being negative to COVID-19 in the CC-NEG.”
How this happens ?Read the paper.

the G troll said

what is the possibility that 80yro gramps who has just been vaccinated and shortly after finds himself landing in hospital with chills, headache, and fatigue will also be found to have the virus circulating in his system and being counted as another covid case?

As the vaccine is virus-free, if the SARS-Cov2 virus is found circulating in gramps’ system, then gramps does have the virus. And thus he is a Covid19 case.

Now, if the way to detect the virus was done by detecting the presence of the spike protein, or if the staff just rely on symptoms, without any confirmation test, you may have a point.

So, hospital staff, don’t do that. Get a confirmation. Greg is paying the bill.

Last time I checked, PCR tests were still run to confirm Covid cases. Those won’t get fooled by the vaccine.

Over here in the UK they are only just starting to roll vaccines out into the more active portions of the population. I only know a handful of people who’ve had it. Certainly only one of the people that I work with. The new strains seem to be a bit more infectious and the population most likely to spread the disease has hardly been touched by vaccination yet.

Also, make up your mind. Either the cases are dropping and the vaccine isn’t needed, or cases are high and the vaccine is ineffective. I realise that you swap between those viewpoints depending on mood but it doesn’t improve your credibility.

Also, make up your mind. Either the cases are dropping and the vaccine isn’t needed, or cases are high and the vaccine is ineffective.

You didn’t catch my drift. That being the third possibility that it’s the vaccine causing some of the cases or symptoms at this point.

That being the third possibility that it’s the vaccine causing some of the cases or symptoms at this point.

Bruh? Millions and millions have got it and only a few managed to admit or claim unwanted uncontrollable urges for relations with your sister/brother. It did not help science that she was a willing, err, control.

totally unrelated but:

The vaccine can’t cause the disease. Don’t you understand that the vaccine doesn’t contain any virus at all? If you’re gonna go down that route then at least say that you think the vaccine is causing false positives in Covid antibody tests.

The vaccine can’t cause the disease. Don’t you understand that the vaccine doesn’t contain any virus at all? If you’re gonna go down that route then at least say that you think the vaccine is causing false positives in Covid antibody tests.

The vaccines cause side-effects that can mirror covid symptoms. It also does not prevent covid infection. It’s possible then that a vaccinated person could end up in the hospital from the side-effects, but the person also testing positive for covid and that erroneously blamed for his sickness.

@Greg This side effects mimicking COVID is interesting. What side effects you have in your mind ? Be more specific.

@ Greg

I forgot to thank you for linking to an article about India that actually contradicts you. You really are an intellectually dishonest moron.

Again, a simple question: If a surge develops that kills and causes long COVID in a huge number of people, will you admit you were wrong? Simple question ASSHOLE!

@ Greg

You make a typical mistake, called an ecological fallacy. Quite simply you assume that nations with high vaccine rollout will have fewer cases; but ignore the possibility that the cases are among those not yet vaccinated or, some who only have received the first dose. Since some of the new variants are much more transmissable, one dose isn’t enough.

How much is the pandemic whimpering out? Picture it as an Independence Day movie. The climatic music plays. The humans are desperately readying their defenses as they brace for the aliens’ final attack. With absolute dread, they look to the sky at the message that the aliens have just streamed: ‘We had enough of this crap — we are going home!’ How anticlimactic is that??

far more people — approximately 35% of the nation’s population — have already been infected with the coronavirus, Offit estimated

Well, 35% isn’t all that much, and even if we go with a generous %50 as some claim, that still leaves a significant portion that haven’t been infected and are not immune. Why are cases dropping so sharply then?

I believe Dr Bhakdi’s account serves as an explanation. He argues that a significant portion of the population have cross immunity from previous coronavirus exposures and are protected. Add these folks to the 35% or 50% cases and indeed we may very well be close to herd immunity.

@ Greg

So you “believe” Dr Bhakdi’s account. First, Dr Bhakdi has said that COVID-19 is no worse than flu. Yep, average year in U.S. flu deaths 35,000, year of COVID-19 500,000. Vast majority of flu patients hospitalized who don’t die return to whatever state of health they had, 20% or more of COVID-19 suffer long COVID. As for cross-immunity from previous coronavirus exposures, 4 coronavirus serotypes cause run of the mill colds. Studies show that overwhelming majority of Americans have had colds from probably more than one of them, so, how do you explain so many who suffered coronavirus colds have so far suffered COVID-19? Also, I won’t bother giving references; but studies have found that the cold causing coronavirus, at best, have a weak relationship with SARS-Coronavirus-2 and antibody tests confirm this, so NO viable cross-immunity. In a world of almost 9 billion people, one can also find someone who confirms ones beliefs.

In any case, who cares what you think? The next couple of months will tell and they will NOT be based on beliefs! ! !

Again ASSHOLE, if there is a significant surge in COVID deaths will you post a comment admitting you were wrong???

Above, I made the point of how we often get in trouble when we opt not to work with nature by pursuing unnecessary interventions. With this thought in mind, I will ask a question that I am amazed no one at this point is asking: If it’s possible that over half the population have contracted covid and are now immune, what is the point of the current mass covid vaccination program that aims to vaccinate everyone? Is this not giving the finger to nature, saying, ‘You can do your thing nature, but we will do ours. Our interventions are so ‘safe and effective’ that we can ignore you. Seriously — what can go wrong?:

As I said before Greg. EVERYTHING we do is fighting nature. If you want to leave it all to nature then I assume that you dont want ANY medicine? No broken leg repairs, no headache tablets and the families of people who’ve died so far and will die in the future need to stop whinging and look on the bright side?

I’m so embarrassed to be a member of a tool-using species right now.

As I said before Greg. EVERYTHING we do is fighting nature

Numb, and I have countered your pessimistic take by explaining that for the most part nature is not our enemy but our friend, and much of our successful interventions involved working with her. It’s when we truly seek to fight her with artificial, fake remedies that we get ourselves into trouble.

“nature is not our enemy but our friend”

Good grief.

“Nature” is neither our friend nor our enemy. “Nature” just is. Nature doesn’t care if you pass on your genes or not. Nature doesn’t care how long you live, how well you live, when you die or how well you die.

“Nature” is an Enlightenment personification of the universe in which we live and all the laws thereof. It’s not a person. It doesn’t care.

@Greg:

If it’s possible that over half the population have contracted covid…

“If”

…and are now immune…

Assumes facts not in evidence. There are reports of reinfections.

…what is the point of the current mass covid vaccination program that aims to vaccinate everyone?

Herd immunity is typically only reached at 90% or above. THAT’s the point.

…what can go wrong?

We can’t say for certain, but we have a pretty good idea of what could go wrong if we don’t roll out a vaccination programme for COVID. And it’s not pretty.
Antivaxxers like you don’t get it, Greg. You look around and see a World free of vaccine preventable diseases, and you moan about the risks of vaccination, ignoring the far worse outcomes we would have without vaccines. Already, COVID-19 has killed millions. If we don’t vaccinate and just let it sweep through the World to gain herd immunity, millions more WILL die.
I’ve written this before but it bears repeating. Catching a disease to gain immunity to it is like burning something to fireproof it.

How immunitiy by catching the disease works can be seen in Manaus, where there are a lot of re-infections. I prefer being vaccinated and if it has to be done every year again, I’m fine with it. It beats catching the disease.

There has been a lot of speculation about what our relationship with the SARS-CoV-2 virus is likely to be after we get the pandemic under control and vaccinate enough people to achieve community protection. The most optimistic scenario has it becoming essential another cold coronavirus which practically everyone catches as a child, acquires immunity to, and then can catch again later when immunity wanes but with only mild effects. The recent case of a newborn child who had a very tough fight with Covid-19 suggests that this virus will not be as benign as the usual cold viruses. And the high incidence of long-term effects, probably at least 10% and maybe more than 20% makes protection a much better strategy.

A New York Times article today gives new insight into what our new normal is likely to be like.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/24/briefing/tiger-woods-daniel-prude-death-illinois-bail.html?smid=url-share

(sorry about the extraneous material)

We aren’t going to eradicate this virus like we can with measles and rubella because, like the hantavirus we struggle with here in New Mexico, it can harbor in deer mice and other wild animals like mink. But with vaccination, it will be more like the seasonal flu that we have been living with for years. But we will probably have better protection from vaccination.

Israel, the country that has vaccinated the largest share of its population, offers a case study. One recent analysis looked at 602,000 Israelis who had received Covid vaccines and found that only 21 later contracted the virus and had to be hospitalized. Twenty-one is obviously not zero. Vaccines are almost never perfect. But the Covid vaccines are turning it into the sort of risk that people accept every day.

Here’s a useful way to think about Israel’s numbers: Only 3.5 out of every 100,000 people vaccinated there were later hospitalized with Covid symptoms. During a typical flu season in the U.S., by comparison, roughly 150 out of every 100,000 people are hospitalized with flu symptoms.

And yet the seasonal flu does not grind life to a halt. It does not keep people from flying on airplanes, eating in restaurants, visiting their friends or going to school and work.

And I thought I’d offer this as a second comment.

I’ve been a bit behind on my TWiV listening, but I recently finished episode 717.

https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-717/

It covers

the antibody response to infection and its durability, and the emergence of variants with increased resistance to neutralization.

People who are interested in chimeric viruses should pick up the discussion at about 55 minutes where they discuss “Escape from neutralizing antibodies by SARS-CoV-2 spike protein variants”
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33112236/

While naturally acquired immunity is helping us reduce the spread of this virus, it also contributes to the evolution of variants that may resist current antibodies, give higher viral loads, and may cause more severe effects. Studies of convalescent plasma show a significant variation in the strength of the antibody response, whereas vaccines elicit a more consistently strong level of antibodies and other immune protection such as memory B-cells. And studies of previously collected serum samples show that some of these significant variants have actually been around for many months.

But, having a significant population with some immunity but not sterilizing immunity provides an environment with a selection benefit for mutations that can avoid that protection. But, our current vaccines and those likely to be approved soon (J&J, Novavax) offer good protection against several of those variants. And the mRNA vaccines can easily be modified to target the more resistant variants.

And our experience this winter suggest that wearing masks during the early and peak flu season (November-February) would probably help reduce incidence of influenza, colds, and maybe even norovirus!

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20201201/COVID-19-restrictions-have-led-to-86-percent-drop-in-norovirus-infections-in-US-finds-study.aspx

Reflecting on this…

Here’s a useful way to think about Israel’s numbers: Only 3.5 out of every 100,000 people vaccinated there were later hospitalized with Covid symptoms.

I also remember Israel reporting one dose of the vaccine was found to be over 80% effective. Again, I am not inclined to dispute these claims.

Considering then that Israel has vaccinated over half its population with at least one dose, and, throw in some natural immunity, they should have a highly immuned population. Why then haven’t cases exactly plummeted there despite everyone expecting and waiting for it. Yesterday, Isreal reported over 4,000 cases. That was larger than every European country with a relative population size. That was larger than us (Canada) and they are a mere third of us.
What exactly can account for this enigma?!

I believe I have already provided an answer to this puzzle. Whatever argument can be made about vaccination being a better alternative to natural immunity, in this specific case it is mooted by the vaccine appearing to be quite dangerous. I believe it is indeed creating a lot of immediate reactions and hospitalization that are overwhelming its long-term benefits. I said I expect governments around the world will start rethinking the vaccine; at this point, I don’t see where they have any choice.

Antivaxxers like you don’t get it, Greg. You look around and see a World free of vaccine preventable diseases, and you moan about the risks of vaccination, ignoring the far worse outcomes we would have without vaccines.

Julian, I think you are missing my point. Throughout this vaccination campaign, we have repeatedly heard how short supplies are. If over half the population have contracted the virus and are now immune, why waste the ‘awesome’ vaccine then on them? Why not target instead those without natural immunity. Given ‘scarcity’, wouldn’t that be the best way to maximize the ”awesome’ vaccine?!

The replication number in Israel is still below 1, although it is creeping upward.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/coronavirus-r-rate-raises-to-09-as-govt-fights-over-hotel-isolation-660002

Resistance from ultra-conservative Jewish communities might have something to do with that.

Also, I really think they should be assisting Palestine in its vaccination effort instead of using vaccines to garner diplomatic support for moving the capitol to Jerusalem.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/23/world/middleeast/israel-palestinians-vaccine-diplomacy.html

I said I expect governments around the world will start rethinking the vaccine; at this point, I don’t see where they have any choice.

And you have just under three weeks for your “prediction” to be demonstrated to be a haggis stuffed with shit. Too bad you were too cowardly to bet actual money.

Resistance from ultra-conservative Jewish communities might have something to do with that.

Also, I really think they should be assisting Palestine in its vaccination effort

Excuses, excuses, Squirrel. Would you have us believe other countries do not have their groups that are resistant of vaccines?

We can try to deny reality all we want, but we know from the trials that the safety problems were there, and they were only masked by delaying reporting. Consider that with Moderna’s phase 1 trial, a mild/moderate reaction was reported for over 80% of participants. Are we to believe those reactions would’ve just miraculously disappeared with the real life rollout, and especially now that we are giving the vaccine to much older and sicker people?

I also think it’s indicative of the safety problems by how few people have gotten a second dose. In the US it’s 4%. Why would people who took the first shot not be so keen for a second go around?

@ squirrelelite and Greg

Olivia Burke (2021 Feb 21). Israel reopens for business after half the nation has Covid jab – but you need ‘vaccine passport’ app to visit the gym. The Sun.

“The good news keeps on coming too, as the double dose of the Pfizer vaccine was found to have reduced infection rates by 95.8 percent. . . . Data from the Health Ministry showed it was 98 percent effective in preventing breathing problems or fever, and 98.9 percent successful in preventing hospitalisations and death. The number of vaccinated over 60’s attending hospitals for coronavirus has also drastically fallen by 57 percent.”

Yep, Israel is re-opening based on both number vaccinated and number who already infected; but, as opposed to Greg, Israeli’s value human life and choose to develop herd immunity by vaccinating together with those already infected as opposed to Greg who doesn’t give a shit how many die and/or suffer long-term COVID in order to let nature do its thing.

Once more let me make it absolutely clear that I could care less about Greg as an individual; but he represents a large segment of our population who don’t understand science, don’t understand critical thinking; but act on predetermined biases, supporting with confirmation bias, that is, one can always find a few doctors, scientists, etc. who ignore science. I am currently reading a fascinating book on history of genetics. Lynn Margulis is a key figure, though not discoverer, major force in acceptance that organelles, e.g., mitochondria are endosymbiotic former bacteria with separate DNA, that is, sometime in distant past bacteria invaded other cells. She did excellent research on a number of topics; but never accepted that HIV caused AIDS. So, wrong about one thing. But if this fit with Greg’s unscientific world, he would refer to her position on HIV, ignoring that even at the time there were already electronic microscopies of HIV entering cells.

@ Greg

From Our World in Data (available at: https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=~USA )

As of Feb 23, in U.S. 20 million of population has received both shots. 44 million have received one shot. Where in hell did you get 4%???

In addition, you, in your immense stupidity, fail to realize that one has to wait between 3 and 4 weeks between shots, so many who received their first dose in second half of January or beginning of February need to wait required time. Also, due to shortage of vaccines and inclement weather, there have been delays. And finally, as more data emerges as to the effectiveness of first shot, some centers are opting, due to shortage, to give a first shot to as many as possible, delaying the second shot.

And the data show that severe adverse events to the first shot are rare. I felt almost nothing except slightly sore left deltoid. However, 2nd shot left deltoid did hurt and later in evening I suffered a few short rounds of chills. Temperature elevated for a few hours. But I did not take ibuprofen or aspirin as studies have shown that they dampen part of immune system so that level of antibodies from vaccine, while still adequate, lower.

So ASSHOLE, again you display your immense ignorance.

“So ASSHOLE, again you display your immense ignorance.”

Hmmm…ignorant and an asshole. Time to to coin a new word: ignoranus.

Yes, but that’s merely evidence from an expert. I will continue to believe that it’s my invention.

“You get a reaction to the vaccine.” GOOD. It works as intended. I know a couple of commentators here are refusing to let go of their core belief that vaccines, all vaccines, are inherently bad. To do so would mean they would cease to have any meaning in life. It’s who they are. It’s the core of their being. It must be a sad, angry life. They are that person that the “idiot” doctor maimed or whose child was harmed by the same. They are that person who is allergic to everything under the sun, has that strange set of symptoms that are meaningless but every “idiot” doctor can’t fix, that you run away from at a bar or airport waiting area once they start in.

Don’t be one of these people. I got sick for about half a day the day after the second shot. It was like a bad cold and, just as quickly as it came on, it was gone. A very small price to pay to protect myself, my family, my patients, and my neighbors. Be a part of the solution so we can move forward. Ignore the naysayers who thrive like psychic vampires on your doubt and fear. Be someone people want to talk to at a bar.

Be someone people want to talk to at a bar.

That would not be Davy Jones from the Monkees in the Woodlawn Tap, just by the by. It was an odd night. Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!

I believe it is indeed creating a lot of immediate reactions and hospitalization that are overwhelming its long-term benefits

And, if the hope was after sufficient amount were vaccinated then the long-term benefits would kick in for everyone to see, that is being undermined by the reality coming out of Israel and UK. After getting off to a great vaccination starts with their older, mainly care homes citizens, they’re finding their younger general population not so agreeable. There’s a lesson for other countries.

Again, natural immunity is proving to be the best and only solution. Whether intended or not, India got it right with their poor vaccination campaign. Lear brags that Israel is coming out of lockdown? That’s with more cases than other comparable countries that never implemented as stringent lockdowns or vaccinated as aggressively. Yeah — such a success story, Lear!

@ Greg

You ignore what my comment on India above: Joel A. Harrison, PhD, MPHsays:
February 22, 2021 at 3:34 pm

or squirrelelitesays:
February 23, 2021 at 9:51 am

I won’t bother citing Israelis statistics because you will ignore and continue to dissemble.

And, in your immense ignorance, you fail to understand that it is various combinations of vaccination, physical distancing, mask wearing, limiting large gatherings, testing and tracing, and, yes, natural infection that one can attribute various stats to, so, some nations early on implemented policies that significantly reduced caseloads; but for anyone who understands vaccines, they make a major contribution, with the eventual reduction or elimination of the other approaches, and, all together or some combination reduce the number of deaths and sufferings that you so desire from natural immunity. And, by the way, natural immunity doesn’t always confer longterm protection, some microbes yes, others no, so without vaccination and boosters, even those who already suffered once and survived could suffer again.

And not even addressing me by my name, just one more example of what an ASSHOLE you are!

BTW — still hoping someone here will answer. Why are we trying to vaccinate everyone if half the population has been infected and those folks are likely immune? Is the answer, what the heck –:we can’t tell who they are, so what’s the difference? Yes — the more ‘medicine’, all the merrier!

@ Greg

We are trying to vaccinate as many as possible because:

It would be costly to run antibody tests, wait for the results, and get people to come in again.
The risk of a serious adverse event to the vaccine is minuscule
The vaccine works as a booster, that is, even if someone has antibodies, the vaccine can increase them. In fact, various childhood diseases in the past, before vaccines basically eliminated them, periodically received natural boosters as epidemics arose. Whether these boosters were necessary, that is, was the level of antibodies from the original disease sufficient or not, not known and those who had originally experienced the disease, e.g., measles, experienced no suffering as result of booster natural infection exposures.

Why do you keep asking stupid questions? Why not try to learn the literature yourself? Of course, your questions are actually rhetorical questions, your idiotic attempt to make a point, not to learn anything.

I DID answer your question, jerkoff! I pointed out you were making an assumption that was by no means confirmed, and that Herd immunity typically only occurs at 90%. So we need to vaccinate.

I also don’t mean to just harp on Israel’s amazing vaccination ‘success’. Guys, do you realize the UK has one if the highest worldwide infection rate?

K — let’s set aside accusations that I am an antivaxx troll or you guys are shills. Let’s pretend we were having this conversation somewhere else in the universe. Under what pretext would we not agree that these results are disastrous for the vaccine?

@ Greg

You continue to ignore what I and others have written. The infection rate relates to level of vaccination, compliance with mask usage, physical distancing, limited social gatherings, testing, etc. One could vaccinate 80% of population and if just a few superspreaders attended indoor church gatherings where no one wears a mask, etc. and they, in turn, infected others, we would have a high number of infected. Plus, a few of the infected would be among vaccinated because vaccines don’t always take; but, these would in all likelihood experience a less severe case. Google: Ecological Fallacy.

Perhaps, not the best analogy; but let’s look at seatbelts and airbags. Latest stats find reduce death and serious injury by about 50%; but they don’t break accidents down by in town 25 or 35 mph collisions vs freeway, 65 – 70 mph collisions, nor if one of the drivers was speeding and drunk. I guess since only 50%, if it wasn’t a law, you wouldn’t wear a seatbelt? Oh, and the stats don’t always take into account some accidents where people weren’t wearing seatbelts.

As for UK’s high infection rate, so does U.S. and we know that wearing of masks, physical distancing, testing, etc. very from local to local, inconsistent. One of the problems is the inconsistency. The public health message is the same; but politicians and others in various states and communities contradict. Despite this, many are lining up for the vaccine. Others NO; but there are still people who don’t wear seatbelts and people who drink and drive, believing they can hold their liquor.

Let’s pretend we were having this conversation somewhere else in the universe.

Gethsemane?

@ Narad

somewhere else in the universe.

I was going to suggest Sagittarius A, but your idea is not bad either.

Silly question but do you ever bother reading what is going on? The UK has only vaccinated the old and vulnerable so far. The people most responsible for spreading the disease haven’t been vaccinated at all. People still working, kids ignoring social distancing etc etc. The old people who’ve been vaccinated may now be protected by the vaccine but they were never big spreaders anyway.

Heh.

I’m totally confused about the #pandemic now and trying to listen to a variety of views. Here’s the latest from @MTOsterholm of @CIDRAP, who says the variants make it a whole new ballgame.

I’m disappointed he won’t engage, publicly, with @RobertKennedyJr

I engaged with Roberty Kennedy Jr. once. He said he did not like the extra voltage novelty and used a safe word so I would stop ‘engaging’ him. It was a remote session and there was lag {as I’m connecting from Saturn} so there may be a lawsuit in the offing.

Totally unrelated but, like some other gamers, this monkey looks on path to cultivate a lot of mass in a short time: https://youtu.be/rsCul1sp4hQ?t=97

Wanna take a ride??

If you read the article, you notice that ACIP relied clinical data. It did not show excess blood clots.
About transmission after vaccination, there is this preprint:
Decreased SARS-CoV-2 viral load following vaccination
Matan Levine-Tiefenbrun, Idan Yelin, Rachel Katz, Esma Herzel, Ziv Golan, Licita Schreiber, Tamar Wolf, Varda Nadler, Amir Ben-Tov, Jacob Kuint, Sivan Gazit, Tal Patalon, Gabriel Chodick, Roy Kishony
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.06.21251283
Vaccination reduce viral load and thus transmission.
About arguing with Robert Kennedy Jr: He would lie. Just saying that is not enough, internet search of evidence must be done. Would listeners wait for that ? Even worse, he would pick one sentence from a paper, one that contradicts the conclusion. In this case, the whole paper must be presented. Now listeners would definitely drop.

You know, I am not an antivaxx here too – but: let’s be honest. Those statistics can’t be interpreted YET. Simply because it’s too early (as simple as that) and because it is not a “vaccine” by definition (and you all know that). I know stance of antivaxxers (and many stupid things they say) and I know stance of “sheep” people, who does not take their time to do the research (it fits any variable, like in Poland people who took credit in banks in swiss franks instead of polish zloty, when there was a temporary super drop in it’s value compared to polish zloty – they saw commercials in TV and up they go cry till now after ten years their credits are still like 100% more to pay :).

Stupid people learn from smart people (or at least that would be perfect!) but smart people learn from smart AND STUPID. There is a lot about amantydine and other stuff going on, why there was no sign of strengthening immune system from gov? To get healthy, take supplements (ok, now I see, this isn’t big phama, natural substances:P)? Instead – blind belief that there is nothing wrong in taking a jab that is not even tested? “It was tested!” – you will say. No, it wasn’t. It was injected and tested for how long? How long was the health monitored? Today we have tens/hundreds of thousands new drugs for same number of new illness. That is a good thing – med tech develops and it’s great. Yet you cannot guarantee that during present times the effects of vaccinattion would be the same like 50 years ago. Simply because many people take drugs on a daily basis for YEARS.

So to be honest I am very sceptical to both sides and what my instinct says me – I will wait. Were big pharma lying anytime in history to you? Yes, that is a fact. Do they do it now? It’s hard to say because the vaccine is “free to take”. The percentage of death cause by vaccine is very low when compared in numbers (and yes, today we have instant information across the globe – more less;) but it doesn’t say anything about long run and people with other diseases. Because how it would be possible? It isn’t now, it is obvious. But They run a death narration on every mainstream media and I have witnessed 3 times the doctors were providing “covid” as first factor of death or a diagnose where in reality it was abviously not (you don’t have to believe me of course). But they do get money for “covid” – I have like 5 doctors in family and I know it’s true. So that is strange enough.

Needless to say that COVID-19 passports are like a carrot for a donkey – this is red flag for me. Why? Because this “vaccine” doesn’t give immunity. It doesn’t stop the virus transmission. So what’s with all that passport institution? It doesn’t make you better in any way – well on a paper it says it can in the way you may go through the COVID with “ease”. So can people who weren’t vaccinated (yup, +- 99,86% COVID recovery rate, is that a bad thing?) decide that they can also go to places cuz the risk is on their own?

That’s what boggles me. I wish we could all talk about doubts and how to solve them from both sides. During current times – when we have all those information (good, bad, misinformation) it’s not about doing the same thing others do (because we all know that majority will do what TV says and it just sits there plain in sight you cannot identify yourself with mass midnless decisions) but it’s about doing them aware and willingly. Those can be done if a certain volume of the right and trusted/certified information in delivered. Do we have more info chaos around covid and vaccines? I think yes. So I will wait.

Have a good day all and help each other, that is the universal language :D!

A. Reading sites online is not research.

B. I know the stance of people who do vaccine research. They got the vaccine right after the first EUA.

C. If you think it’s not a vaccine, you’ve been misled. It teaches your body to create an immune response to a germ. That’s classic vaccine. Orac has addressed this in the past.

D. There is currently data from over a hundred million vaccinated people on mRNA vaccines.

E. Following the data is not blind belief.

F. There is increasing data the vaccine substantially reduces transmission. Orac does cover much of that.

Your points have been addressed in this post and others. There’s a search option in the blog. I hope you read and actually look at the data.

Sounds like you bought into the Russian disinfo hook, line, and sinker. That’s what they want and that’s what they spread. “There’s no consensus.” “You can’t trust either side.” Whatever it takes to cripple our societal bonds.

Actually, it doesn’t validate antivaxxers. If anything, it demonstrates how seriously the CDC and FDA take reports of adverse events and how vigorously they investigate them, contrary to antivax claims that the CDC, FDA, medical profession, etc. are “covering up” such reports.?

And today the CDC convened an emergency meeting to discuss the high number of cardiac deaths related to the vaccine. What’s it like demonstrating to the world in one post how ignorant and misinformed you are? ?

ACIP has had emergency Meetings practically every month this summer, and several times since. A pandemic is an emergency, and these meetings are not routine meetings.

Here is a good discussion of the myocarditis issue. Orac hasn’t actually said anything in tension with it that I’ve seen. https://youtu.be/PyZSDT4DIwU

Yeah, I need to do a post about the myocarditis findings, either here or at my not-so-super-secret other blog.

You may want to wait for ACIP’s meeting on Friday. They will have several presentations with more information.

Is it permanent? does it hurt any thing?The virus does stuff. Stuff I’m embarrassed to talk about… so… much… stuff.

They can just get a heart transplant. Right? Right?

Prof Reiss writes, “ACIP has had emergency Meetings practically every month this summer, and several times since.”

Really? Summer just started. Several times since? Uh, no. The ACIP meeting re: myocarditis was even postponed due to the Juneteenth holiday. Please stop lying Prof. Reiss.

OT – Paul Offit looks ill.

My dad got the 1st shot and a week and a half later, cardiac arrest. Unrelated? I dk. Creepy coincidence? You bet.

Roy, very sorry about your dad! I hope that he is doing better and makes a full recovery.

@ Narad – Hi Cheeky. Your comments were missed.

Did you get the Covid vaccination? If yes, which one?

How are you getting along? How are your legs?

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