coronavirus

[cherrypoptart]

I wonder if technically and factually the President is correct about the pandemic being over. I just looked something up out of curiosity. The WHO declared Covid a pandemic on March 11, 2020. U.S. Covid deaths on that day were 6 with a seven day average of 4. A few days ago on September 16, 2022 the U.S. Covid deaths were 743 with a seven day average of 518. I'm not seeing how the math adds up to the Covid pandemic being over.

https://www.google.com/search?q=covid+deaths+us+11+March+2020&rlz=1C1ONGR_en__1000__1000&oq=covid+deaths+us+11+March+2020&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i160l3.8192j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

[Grant]

I wonder if technically and factually the President is correct about the pandemic being over. I just looked something up out of curiosity. The WHO declared Covid a pandemic on March 11, 2020. U.S. Covid deaths on that day were 6 with a seven day average of 4. A few days ago on September 16, 2022 the U.S. Covid deaths were 743 with a seven day average of 518. I'm not seeing how the math adds up to the Covid pandemic being over.

RNGezus, Cherry. 

First off, when WHO declares a pandemic is has nothing to do with the number of deaths or the average number over a 7 day trend in the United States itself. 

It has to do with a fatality rate.  Which is your total fatalities divided by your total morbidity. 

It's about RISK, which is severity TIMES probability. 

The RISK is much lower now because the severity has dropped.  Your fatality rate is lower.  Probably MUCH lower since I suspect massive underreporting BECAUSE the fatality rate is lower.

Now, if you want to make an argument that the United States could be doing MUCH better when it comes to dropping it's fatality rate or it's transmission rate NOW, or in the past two years, I'd probably agree with you.  But between the wackos and the Libertarians there wasn't much room to maneuver in the United States.  The noise to signal ratio was extremely high, and the signal was never that strong to begin with. 

And just to clarify, in case you havn't figured it out yet, the total fatalities and total morbidities that the WHO is tracking has to do with the fatalities and morbidity in THE ENTIRE WORLD.  Which includes CHYNA.  That's why they're the WORLD Health Oganization, not the "Cherry's Backyard Health Organization". 

$$^&!!!

[TheDrake]

Because it transitioned to endemic. Over 60% of Americans have already had covid. From a policy perspective, it is really about funds. There are a lot of deaths annually from influenza, but it is not considered a pandemic partly because it is seasonal. Covid doesn't appear to be seasonal, but strains may be. They are anticipating the WHO, whom you cited, but they are not so far off from WHO assessment.

"Last week, the number of weekly reported deaths from COVID-19 was the lowest since March 2020," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of the World Health Organization said. "We have never been in a better position to end the pandemic. We're not there yet, but the end is in sight."

The WHO outlined six key actions for countries to take in order to reduce the threat of COVID. Their recommendations include continued testing, treatment and vaccinations, infection control in health care facilities, steps to combat misinformation and clear public communication.

Unclear how much more of that could get traction in the US. I think we know that most of our conservative pals are going to avoid getting tested for COVID until they have to get treated at a medical facility. They're not likely to quarantine, or wear a mask, and they'll continue to spread misinformation. So you might want to save your handwringing for them, and not Biden. You know, the people banning mask mandates.

Meanwhile, I just got my Omicron booster and bought a fresh pack of N95 masks for when I travel. I probably had a little extra urgency thanks to you, cherry, so thank you.

Meanwhile -

Overall, 1 in 13 adults in the U.S. (7.5%) have “long COVID” symptoms, defined as symptoms lasting three or more months after first contracting the virus, and that they didn’t have prior to their COVID-19 infection.

The infection dies but the health effects live on forever, but don't try convincing the crowd spreading memes about chicken soup and bed rest.

[cherrypoptart]

Not giving up that easily on calling off my pandemic so soon.

So again looking at the math I wonder how what we have now with Covid compares to the 2009 H1N1 Pandemic.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-h1n1-pandemic.html

"From April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010, CDC estimated there were 60.8 million cases (range: 43.3-89.3 million), 274,304 hospitalizations (range: 195,086-402,719), and 12,469 deaths (range: 8868-18,306) in the United States due to the (H1N1)pdm09 virus."

So we had 12,469 swine flu deaths during that one year period and that was considered bad enough to be a pandemic.

At 400 deaths a day, doing the math, that takes us about 31 days, one long month, to hit that previous pandemic number for an entire year.

When you've got 400-500 deaths a day, it doesn't make a lot of sense to say that's low enough to declare that the pandemic is over. You can crunch all the numbers you want factoring in morbidity, risk, probability, fatality, and whatever other variables you can find to throw into the mix but in the end if the final number comes out to 400-500 per day, that seems like it's very well into the pandemic range no matter how you slice and dice it. Just because it's lower than the all time highs of this pandemic doesn't matter if it's still multiples higher than the previous all time highs of a recent pandemic like swine flu.

I also would like to quibble again with Biden's proclamation that “If you notice, no one’s wearing masks." Well I'm still wearing masks. I guess that makes me no one. And all the other people still wearing masks are nobodies too in Biden's estimation. Not only is he wrong but he's rude.

Here's some more of that pushback I mentioned earlier so it's not just me who thinks Biden is delusional.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/health-experts-dismayed-by-president-bidens-view-that-the-pandemic-is-over-hell-no-not-even-close-11663596394

"@EricTopol
Wish this was true. What's over is @POTUS's and our government's will to get ahead of it, with magical thinking on the new bivalent boosters. Ignores #LongCovid, inevitability of new variants, and our current incapability for blocking infections and transmission"

"@DrEricDing
Is the pandemic over?⚠️Hell no—Not even close.
🔹 Excess mortality still exceeds THIRD global cause of death!
🔹#LongCOVID itself is a pandemic crisis
🔹Evolution of new virus variants not done yet
🔹Transmission still very high

4) Damnit… we have seen the “it’s over” dismissive nonsense before. Remember in May 2021 when CDC dropped mask mandate? Remember how many died in the subsequent August-September 2021 #Deltavariant wave and then the Dec-Feb first #Omicron wave??? ➡️Hundreds of thousands died.

⚠️I’m doubling down—@CDCgov most definitely made a *grave mistake* in May dropping mask rules for vaccinated & lending momentum to anti-maskera. I said it before, and I’ll say it again —@CDCDirector needs to reinstate the mask rules to fight #DeltaVariant ASAP!"

-------------------------------------------------

And on and on from the experts basing their opinions on science the way Biden said he would but clearly isn't.

[TheDrake]

cherry, do you think there's any realistic way to lower the current transmission, hospitalization, and death rates in the US? I mean, you can look at the number of deaths, sure, and say "that's still a lot", but it doesn't really matter if there's no way to get it down. Otherwise the "war on covid" works out like the "war on drugs" and the "war on poverty" and the other endless fights against things that kill people that we never got rid of. We missed our chance at containment a long time ago, and that's not on Biden. I think we might have still had a chance to avoid the future we're in '21 if people had committed to vaccines before the mutations, kept their mask mandates, and tested and traced. That's no longer possible. I think the death rate we have now is likely to persist, at least until we develop better treatments.

If Biden hadn't suggested the pandemic was over, would any additional people be getting vaccinated, wearing masks, or isolating?

[cherrypoptart]

I don't know of a pandemic definition that states the pandemic is over when you've gotten the death and transmission rates as long as you're going to even if they're still absurdly high.

I did see one tweet that seemed to sum up how it's over that plays right into the war on drugs, on poverty, and in Afghanistan.

The Biden approach.

The war on Covid is over. We surrender. Everybody drop your masks.

[cherrypoptart]

Do I think there's anything we can still do?

Yes.

Wear quality masks when indoors in crowds.

Mandates?

No, the mandates aren't going to happen. But what would be helpful is the truth from our government, CDC, and powerful politicians like Biden along the lines of yes there is still a pandemic with a 9-11's worth of dead Americans every week and what you can do to help your fellow citizens is get vaccinated and wear a mask indoors in crowds. Nobody is going to force you to do either but the science says that will help keep you alive and free of long covid along with your fellow citizens including the elderly, immuno-compromised, and those with comorbidities who are most at risk. If you don't care about any of that enough to wear a mask then hey it's a free country but the science says that's the best play right now so you have the information you need to make your choice and for everyone who chooses to wear a mask well I salute you.

What do we get instead?

The pandemic is over. No one is wearing masks.

[cherrypoptart]

And if vaccines are the answer including the boosters well Biden just sabotaged that effort along with masks.

Why get the vaccines if the pandemic is over?

https://www.ft.com/content/c6fcbde9-9575-4c9c-a6eb-2c8796c2c5cb

"Investors ditch vaccine stocks after Joe Biden says ‘pandemic is over’

Top jab makers lose combined $10bn of market value amid fears over growing public apathy"

------------------------------------

"I did that!"

- Joe Biden

[cherrypoptart]

The White House had words for those including some here who seem to believe that the President was accurately referring to epidemiological reality when he said that the pandemic is over.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/09/fauci-addresses-the-pandemic-is-over/671507/

"According to Politico, Biden’s remarks caught senior administration health officials off guard, and indeed, in the following days, the White House clarified that the president was referring to public sentiment, not epidemiological reality."

By public sentiment Biden is obviously referring to wearing masks and many will extend that to getting vaccines and boosters and social distancing. He's telling people to relax and let their guard down.

And Fauci basically slapped Biden upside the head saying that "easing up on our efforts to fight the pandemic now, he said, would be like saying, “Just because I see what the finish line is, I’m gonna stop and get a hotdog. No, you don’t want to do that.”

-----------------------------------

But that's exactly what Biden's saying. Just like he said before. Stop wearing masks. No one is wearing masks. Everyone seems to be in pretty good shape. It's over. Biden is doing the same thing he did before and expecting a different result.

One of the experts familiar with the science says Biden is wrong.

https://fortune.com/well/2022/09/20/biden-the-pandemic-is-over-omicron-covid-is-the-pandemic-over/

"Declaring a public health emergency over too soon could very well be a mistake, because we know COVID to be “like a fire, where the embers are still smoldering,” he said.

There’s a potential for it to really reignite. I would prefer to continue to prepare for the worst, but hope for the best.”

[TheDrake]

Pandemic over! Says Canada.

Canada has said it is dropping all remaining Covid border restrictions, including vaccine requirements for travellers.

As of 1 October, travellers will also no longer need to provide proof of Covid vaccination, to undergo any testing or to isolate and quarantine.

The mask mandate on planes and trains will also be lifted.

The ArriveCan app - used to upload health documents when entering Canada - will become optional.

[msquared]

The Cayman Islands are also open. They had a very strict lockdown for a few years but are open again.

[cherrypoptart]

People seem to have this misconception that pandemic equals masks and vaccines and travel restrictions. We've had pandemics before without any of that so Covid could still be a pandemic without any of those things too.

"It's not as bad as it used to be" isn't the criterion for ending a pandemic. Covid is still ten times worse right now than the swine flu pandemic ever was. There's more transmission, more deaths, a higher death rate, more hospitalizations, and long covid on top of all of it. If the Covid pandemic is over then the swine flu pandemic never was and it would need to be retconned out of existence like Pluto was as a planet.

Now if someone were to say the Covid pandemic is ongoing but we're going to treat it more like most of the previous pandemics that we've had over the last hundred years with the exception of the Spanish Flu pandemic, that might make some sense. People could agree or disagree about whether it's the right approach, but at least it wouldn't be another effort at redefining words. Words like inflation, recession, victory in Afghanistan, bipartisan, infrastructure, vaccine, man, woman, and on and on and on.

Just looked it up and sure enough someone already wrote an article about it and I added some of their words to my own list.

 https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/how-biden-administration-redefines-words-reshapes-facts-serve-its-purpose

[TheDrake]

And when the WHO says the pandemic is over, are you going to gainsay them as well? They are moving in that direction.

[cherrypoptart]

They're the authority so when they say it's over then officially it is by definition over.  But Biden's wishful thinking is likely to end up making things worse just like his celebrating too early did last time.

[DJQuag]

I feel the pandemic is over in that the people who were really vulnerable, to this completely new disease, died early, and now there's a vaccine the people who aren't particularly vulnerable but still get sick, if they die, it's their own fault.

At this point it's the flu. It wasn't when it started, it was killing a whole lot of people, but now it isn't. And just like the flu it'll evolve a little year to year and then it's time for a booster.

That's not to say it can't turn deadly again. Every so often influenza takes a left turn in it's mutations and kills a whole lot of us.

[Tom]

it was killing a whole lot of people, but now it isn't

Well, that depends entirely on how you're defining "a whole lot." It's about a tenth of what it was at its peak here in the U.S., but is still around 300-400 deaths a day, which is near where it was when the country first started entering lockdowns. It's more correct, as you note, to observe that it isn't killing a large percentage of people anymore.

[cherrypoptart]

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status?country=~All+ages

I could be reading this chart wrong but...

It looks like in July of 2022, the last month that they give data for, 43% of the people dying were vaccinated.

About 18% had the primary + one booster, about 16% only primary, and about 9% with the primary plus two boosters.

If that many vaccinated people are dying, it really looks like they were given a false sense of security and they should have kept wearing masks and social distancing.

If someone has better numbers on the percentage of people dying who are vaccinated, that would be good to know. If it's as high as these numbers indicate, our government should be doing more to make people aware of the danger they're still in even if vaccinated. If that information is being hidden because "they" think it will discourage vaccination and get even more people killed, that would be par for the course for how our government has conducted itself since the beginning, with deception they figured was for our own good but which backfired in the end.

So it looks like a lot of people are dying even though they're vaccinated, up to 40% and even the 9% that have their boosters is still very high. They got their vaccinations so whose fault is it now when they die? Maybe the person who told them they didn't need to wear a mask anymore.

There is some more information and I may be looking at a base rate fallacy but even if that's the case it doesn't change the fact that a lot of vaccinated people are still dying even though they did their duty, dying because they misplaced their trust in the vaccines and more than likely dropped their masks and social distancing because they naively trusted Biden's encouragement and it cost them everything.

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths-by-vaccination

[LetterRip]

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status?country=~All+ages

I could be reading this chart wrong but...

It looks like in July of 2022, the last month that they give data for, 43% of the people dying were vaccinated.

About 18% had the primary + one booster, about 16% only primary, and about 9% with the primary plus two boosters.

The most likely to be vaccinated are old people, who are also the most likely to die.  Many of them develop little to no immunity after being vaccinated so are still vulnerable.  They also are extremely weak and thus prone to dying from anything.

So unless we know the age distribution and rates of vaccination the percentage who died who were vaccinated is fairly meaningless.

[Tom]

It's also worth noting that around 78% of the U.S. population has received some COVID vaccine, so even without knowing age distribution we can say that the vaccine -- especially with boosters, as recommended -- has a significant effect. It's nowhere near as effective as most mature vaccines for other illnesses, but it's far and away the most effective option available to people who cannot fully self-isolate. Given its experimental nature, I'm personally pretty happy with its apparent performance.

[Fenring]

You should be more concerned about RSV. People end up on respirators for it and few people seem to be talking about it. I think my family had it (didn't do a tox screen) and it was far more brutal than covid. Although to be fair some studies are showing that for 8+ months after you have covid you're super-susceptible to other diseases. So lots to be concerned about. At least monkeypox seems to have abated a bit.

[cherrypoptart]

Crossed the threshold.

https://www.stripes.com/covid/2022-11-23/vaccinated-people-majority-covid-deaths-8165574.html

"Vaccinated people now make up a majority of covid deaths"

"Fifty-eight percent of coronavirus deaths in August were people who were vaccinated or boosted, according to an analysis conducted for The Washington Post’s Health 202 newsletter, by Cynthia Cox, vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

It’s a continuation of a troubling trend that has emerged over the past year. As vaccination rates have increased and new variants appeared, the share of deaths of people who were vaccinated has been steadily rising. In September 2021, vaccinated people made up just 23 percent of coronavirus fatalities. In January and February this year, it was up to 42 percent, per our colleagues Fenit Nirappil and Dan Keating.

“We can no longer say this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Cox said."

---------------------------------------------------

A fun little trick I like to do on Covid articles is to do a Control-F search for the term "mask". Sure enough, returned results were 0/0 for this one.

Nothing reported in a story like this on Fauci, the White House, or Biden himself mentioning masks. There are little pockets of resistance around the country where the idea of a return to masking is being tentatively floated but without support from the White House, the CDC and the NIH the mask wall crumbles even in stalwart bastions of liberalism.

Trump was slow to the party but when he left office, dragging and screaming though it be, everyone was wearing masks. Biden told us it was safe to take them off if you were vaccinated.  He told us the pandemic is over. He bragged about how, "If you notice, no one's wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape. And so I think it's changing." They told us it was now a pandemic of the unvaccinated.

All lies.

Deadly Covid misinformation that has yet to be corrected by anyone in the media. Where's the Twitter ban? The Facebook ban? The Google shadow ban? We hear about how Trump's lies caused the deaths of 5 people in the Capitol riot. How many tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands have died because of Biden's lies about masks?

And just because conservatives are wrong about masks doesn't mean Biden had to join them. When Americans, particularly the elderly and infirm, needed him to hold the line he does what he always does, folded like a cheap suit.

Conservatives can't call him on it because if you gave them a choice between wearing a mask or killing grandma they'd kiss her goodbye and liberals can't call him on it because he's their guy. We're living in a country where nobody is willing to tell the truth about this. You have to fly all the way to Japan to find it.

Yeah and I know some will say hey you should go there then. Of course that would mean riding a death coffin full of maskless superspreaders. But in any case, I'm hanging in there here even if it's as the last masked man in America. I'd rather be the last one to wear a mask than the last one to die of covid. Of course I'm old and have respiratory issues so I don't matter. Where's our protests? Elderly comorbid lives matter?

Okay, I get that the vast majority of people refuse masks. But the least that should happen is the White House and health department folks should warn people that even if you are vaccinated, if you are older or with health risks you should seriously consider wearing a mask and avoiding indoor crowds. They don't even get that much. They deserve the life saving truth. They won't get it because it would mean Biden admitting he is wrong and he's worse than Fonzi. Instead it's just this Pollyanna wishful thinking that is getting thousands of them killed when a simple mask could very well have saved them if they would have just not listened to Biden and heeded the conspiracy theorists out there pushing the crazy idea that masks really do save lives.

Cultural reference of the day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbMKjLe-RFA

Somehow even funnier in Spanish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSaKpsEC6ss

[cherrypoptart]

I'm going to disagree about RSV. For one thing, as far as I know there's no "long" RSV. Never had a care in the world about monkeypox. For both of those life can go on as normal with standard common sense precautions. I'm not saying we need to live in bubbles for every little normal thing. I'm just saying that covid is a completely different animal. Eventually it will fade into the background too as one of life's usual risks but we're not there yet no matter what Biden says.

[rightleft22]

I'm going to disagree about RSV. For one thing, as far as I know there's no "long" RSV. Never had a care in the world about monkeypox. For both of those life can go on as normal with standard common sense precautions. I'm not saying we need to live in bubbles for every little normal thing. I'm just saying that covid is a completely different animal. Eventually it will fade into the background too as one of life's usual risks but we're not there yet no matter what Biden says.

I suspect your correct however its not just Biden and the pressure to say different if likely that he's listing to the information most of us want to believe.
Right or Wrong I don't hear any other country leader saying different so can't imagine if Trump were in office saying different either.
Meaning this isn't a political tribal right/left issue its something else. 

[jc44]

Cherry - The linked article is short on numbers, but does eventually get round to pointing out that once you get enough people vaccinated (and their vaccinated stats are for everyone who has ever had a single shot) then this is going to happen for any vaccine that is short of 100% effectiveness (i.e. all of them). It does eventually get around to saying that, depending on age group, the unvaccinated die at between 5x and 12x the rate per capita of the vaccinated. So this is another of those articles where the implication of the headline is mostly contradicted by the substance of the article.

[cherrypoptart]

Understood, but my main point is that masks could save a lot of these people even if they are the only ones wearing them and instead of encouraging the people more at risk to wear them the administration, the health department leaders, and the media refuse to point out that obvious fact, that obvious truth, because it means admitting that they were wrong to say it was safe for the vaccinated to stop masking.

All I'm saying is there should be a statement about how since though the vaccines have helped, for more at risk populations or just for anyone who wants another layer of protection wearing masks is still a very good idea. And if you are relatively young and healthy and you don't mind taking your chances you don't have to wear a mask if you don't want to but if it's something that would make you feel comfortable there is still a chance it could actually save your life and you shouldn't feel peer pressure not to wear a mask just because nobody else around you is wearing one because for a lot of people following that crowd is walking them right into an early grave.

Instead of this commonsense truthful approach you get Biden piling on the pressure to go maskless with his statement about how the pandemic is over and no one is wearing masks and everyone seems to be in pretty good shape. No, it's not over and not everyone is in pretty good shape. Tens of thousands of people are being gaslit to death, being made by people like Biden to think they are crazy and paranoid if they want to keep wearing their masks.

[rightleft22]

I agree that the masking messaging has been bad from the start.

All the wishing it were otherwise isn't going the change the reality that the majority of the population don't want to go back to wearing them or even believe the are helpful at reducing risk.
Any president could shout as loud as they could to try to change that but unless a lot of young people start dying it is very unlikely anyone is going to change our minds. Even then, with children dying, were at a point were asking a person to look out for another and wear a mask is 'infringing on person freedom' . Their would be major push back from both the extreme right and left.

Under these political conditions we find ourselves in. Can you say with confidence that if you were President you would make this the hill you die on? Knowing that the majority of people in your own tribe don't want it, don't care, and just want to pretend its all fine?

Many pandemics eventually become endemic, meaning the infection is still present in a region or population but its behavior is predictable and the numbers of cases and deaths no longer spike. Learning to live with a virus is a key feature of an endemic virus, however  it’s probably true that the transition from pandemic to endemic can only be recognized after it happens.

Sadly the suggestion that a pandemic is over when everyone is behaving as though it is, has taken hold. In a world where their is no truth and its all perception, its over when we perceive its over. End of story.  Its not a surprising outcome with the way we reason in this 'information' age.

[cherrypoptart]

I didn't even suggest mandatory masking at this point. Just throw a little bone to the people who still want to mask saying that it's not crazy. That's not a hill to die on. It's just a little common courtesy. Maskers get enough attitude and shade thrown our way from conservatives so it hurts when we turn to the liberals and Biden himself who used to be our gung-ho masker man and it's like, "Et tu?"

[jc44]

Masks aren't crazy, they are variably helpful depending on type and other usage precautions but certainly if you choose to wear one then that should be respected.
There is no doubt however that Covid is endemic now. We aren't going to eradicate it; we can make what is now Flu+Covid season a bit better or a bit worse by behaviour but that is all. Even the Chinese still get sporadic outbreaks, and I don't think all of them can be blamed on the outside world.

[rightleft22]

I didn't even suggest mandatory masking at this point. Just throw a little bone to the people who still want to mask saying that it's not crazy. That's not a hill to die on. It's just a little common courtesy. Maskers get enough attitude and shade thrown our way from conservatives so it hurts when we turn to the liberals and Biden himself who used to be our gung-ho masker man and it's like, "Et tu?"

Sounds reasonable to me. Then I imagine Biden making any such reasonable statements on masking and being roasted for it. Politically its a lose lose and it isn't the politicians fault its the peoples.

[msquared]

I am a conservative and I have no problem with people masking. I smile at them, wave and go on my way.  I mean, how does it hurt me if they mask? The answer is, it does not.  I don't give one fig if someone masks. I also have no problem if some place still asks me to mask when I am in their place (at least 2 of my doctors offices still require mask when there, and I gladly mask up).

[cherrypoptart]

I would love to find a doctor and dentist where they are still masking. I went to a dentist and they acted like I was crazy to still be wearing a mask. Didn't matter much since they are booked until February but I wanted to get a sense of things anyway. Obviously the patients can't wear their mask during their treatment but if a mask was worn at all other times by everyone else it would help. Wouldn't hurt anyway. And then if your appointment is the first of the day you'll probably be in pretty good shape. They have nostril filters and nose only masks and I'm looking into those for a trip to the dentist. Just have to practice breathing only through my nose even with my mouth open. Yeah, that's how far down the rabbit hole I'm willing to go. But at least if they had a mandatory mask policy I wouldn't look like a lunatic. I know a guy too who just got a very bad covid case. Recovered but you never know with long covid how much that recovery is really worth. He was wondering where he could have got it and then I mentioned my thing about how I was worried about going to the dentist and he said that's weird because he just went and came down with covid right afterwards. I told him that might not be a coincidence and that isn't helping my dental concerns any either. Other than that potential exposure I'm pretty solid.

[cherrypoptart]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/people-skipped-covid-vaccine-higher-183148392.html

"The excess risk of car crash posed by unvaccinated drivers “exceeds the safety gains from modern automobile engineering advances and also imposes risks on other road users,” the authors wrote.

Of course, skipping a COVID vaccine does not mean that someone will get into a car crash. Instead, the authors theorize that people who resist public health recommendations might also “neglect basic road safety guidelines.”

Why would they ignore the rules of the road? Distrust of the government, a belief in freedom, misconceptions of daily risks, “faith in natural protection,” “antipathy toward regulation,” poverty, misinformation, a lack of resources, and personal beliefs are potential reasons proposed by the authors.

The findings are significant enough that primary care doctors should consider counseling unvaccinated patients on traffic safety—and insurance companies might base changes to insurance policies on vaccination data, the authors suggest.

First responders may also consider taking precautions to protect themselves from COVID when responding to traffic crashes, the authors added, as it’s more likely that a driver is unvaccinated than vaccinated.

“The findings suggest that unvaccinated adults need to be careful indoors with other people and outside with surrounding traffic,” the authors concluded."

------------------------------------------------

This seemed like a stretch to me but as they say, statistics never lie. Or maybe that's the opposite of what they say. After reading the headline but before reading the article, I was wondering what the mechanism might be to account for this and thought maybe not getting the vaccine made people more susceptible to covid brain, the inflammation reducing blood flow and brain function, but they went the other way and instead of it being a physical reaction it's psychological and mental, part of the world view of the anti-vaxxers to apparently be risk takers.

And that's a bit odd too because from what I understand about many of the anti-vaxxers, they feel like taking the vaccine would be the more risky option so I'm not seeing how that mentality plays into traffic safety. I would say there are probably close to zero people who haven't gotten the covid vaccine who feel that it would be safer to get it than not and so just aren't getting it to be rebellious just for the sake of it.

I also wonder how the driving habits of people who are still masking compare to both the vaccinated and unvaccinated. By the logic of this study, makers might be the safest drivers of all. Those people don't seem to be willing to take chances. If they are dangerous drivers, it might be because they are the ones travelling closest to the speed limit while everyone else flies past them.

[cherrypoptart]

I always take my mask off as soon as I step outside but if the weather gets cold enough I may start to rethink that.

Last winter I did on a couple of occasions wear my mask outside when it was was getting into the 30F and below range, not for anything to do with Covid but just because it felt nice to keep my face warm. But usually I took it off even in the cold because I like the invigorating feeling of crisp cold air. But I also like to keep billions of my virus and bacteria-fighting cells in my nose alive. I never imagined they were so much more sensitive to the cold than I am.

https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/scientists-finally-know-why-people-get-more-colds-and-flu-in-winter/

"As it turns out, the pandemic gave us exactly what we need to help fight off chilly air and keep our immunity high, Bleier said.

"Not only do masks protect you from the direct inhalation of viruses, but it's also like wearing a sweater on your nose," he said.

Patel agreed: "The warmer you can keep the intranasal environment, the better this innate immune defense mechanism will be able to work. Maybe yet another reason to wear masks!"

[TheDrake]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/people-skipped-covid-vaccine-higher-183148392.html

"The excess risk of car crash posed by unvaccinated drivers “exceeds the safety gains from modern automobile engineering advances and also imposes risks on other road users,” the authors wrote.

Of course, skipping a COVID vaccine does not mean that someone will get into a car crash. Instead, the authors theorize that people who resist public health recommendations might also “neglect basic road safety guidelines.”

Why would they ignore the rules of the road? Distrust of the government, a belief in freedom, misconceptions of daily risks, “faith in natural protection,” “antipathy toward regulation,” poverty, misinformation, a lack of resources, and personal beliefs are potential reasons proposed by the authors.

The findings are significant enough that primary care doctors should consider counseling unvaccinated patients on traffic safety—and insurance companies might base changes to insurance policies on vaccination data, the authors suggest.

First responders may also consider taking precautions to protect themselves from COVID when responding to traffic crashes, the authors added, as it’s more likely that a driver is unvaccinated than vaccinated.

“The findings suggest that unvaccinated adults need to be careful indoors with other people and outside with surrounding traffic,” the authors concluded."

------------------------------------------------

This seemed like a stretch to me but as they say, statistics never lie. Or maybe that's the opposite of what they say. After reading the headline but before reading the article, I was wondering what the mechanism might be to account for this and thought maybe not getting the vaccine made people more susceptible to covid brain, the inflammation reducing blood flow and brain function, but they went the other way and instead of it being a physical reaction it's psychological and mental, part of the world view of the anti-vaxxers to apparently be risk takers.

And that's a bit odd too because from what I understand about many of the anti-vaxxers, they feel like taking the vaccine would be the more risky option so I'm not seeing how that mentality plays into traffic safety. I would say there are probably close to zero people who haven't gotten the covid vaccine who feel that it would be safer to get it than not and so just aren't getting it to be rebellious just for the sake of it.

I also wonder how the driving habits of people who are still masking compare to both the vaccinated and unvaccinated. By the logic of this study, makers might be the safest drivers of all. Those people don't seem to be willing to take chances. If they are dangerous drivers, it might be because they are the ones travelling closest to the speed limit while everyone else flies past them.

Significant overlap between vaccine freedom people and mask freedom people and vaccine freedom people and smoking freedom people.

I don't have a hard time believing that they are also speed freedom people. And even lane freedom people, like the ones I've seen with trump stickers that drive their trucks up over curbs and medians.

[edgmatt]

https://youtube.com/shorts/SZC2pnHnHeg?feature=share

[Wayward Son]

He's a real dummy, ain't he? 

[Fenring]

I don't think it's a ridiculous claim to make that the experts and the government lied about the effectiveness about vaccines; or at least said whatever was politically expedient absent them actually knowing for sure what the effectiveness would ultimately be. We have seen too clearly over time that modern politics is merely an exercise of means to achieve ends - the pulling of whatever levers seem to work. This is in fact how the Fed works as well, which is why "putting people out of jobs" is the catch-all solution to problems they don't understand: because it's the big lever they have. Why they have the right to determine that this should happen is a mystery to me. On the biomedical side, I have no problem believing that the government would arrange for erroneous messaging to go out in order to convince everything to get vaccinated, when in fact it was actually good that people get vaccinated. But they don't seem to understand that lying to people disintegrates society in way that can't be repaired. Over time it simply weakens everything.

[LetterRip]

They didn't lie about the effectiveness of the vaccines,

the early vaccines were 100% effective (+/-5%) for young to middle aged healthy populations (no preexisting conditions) with low exposure.
As the coronaviruses became more virulent via mutation and were used in less healthy and older populations they were going to be less effective, as people steadily disregarded guidelines they were less effective.

Also there were two measures of effectiveness - against symptomatic infection and against death; the effectiveness against death has contiuned to be extraordinarily high.

[cherrypoptart]

He's right though. Vaccines have lost their effectiveness. Predictably. Whereas the N95 masks have retained their 95 percent effectiveness throughout.

Okay I get that most people are over masks. Fine. But following the experts and the scientific evidence, Biden was totally wrong to say that it was safe for the vaccinated to take off their masks. And he was wrong to say more recently that the pandemic is over and allude again to it being safe to not wear masks by saying that nobody is wearing them and everyone seems fine.

It would have been better to just tell the truth instead of spreading dangerous and deadly covid misinformation that the vaccines were guaranteed to be so effective that it was safe not to wear masks anymore. Our government including the President should say that quality masks worn properly help reduce the chance of you getting covid, reduce the severity of it if you do get it, and are even more helpful in reducing the chances of you spreading it. They are a good idea even now even if they aren't required. Just like if seatbelts were no longer required they'd still be a good idea. Instead Biden actively discourages mask use. A conspiracy minded person might wonder if one big reason for it is to help Hollywood and the movie theater industry. People so worried about covid that they are wearing masks won't result in butts in theater seats eating popcorn and nachos. One thing I do know is that when Trump left office everyone was wearing masks and Biden is the one who lied and said it was safe to take them off. And he didn't have to lie. Nobody forced him. He could just as well have been honest and said that we're not going to require masks anymore but a lot more people are going to die unnecessarily when not as many people are wearing them but hey it's a free country so you do you. That would have been the truth and that's exactly what happened. If you want to be free then be free. But don't lie. As the saying goes, and to put a new twist on it, freedom isn't free. Acknowledge the cost. Be upfront about the price. Hundreds of thousands who died since Biden lied about masks sacrificed their lives so hundreds of millions could be mask free. As Bill Munny put it: It's a hell of a thing, killin' a man. Take away all he's got, and all he's ever gonna have. Some gave all. And Joe Biden is the one who tricked a lot of those trusting fools into it with his lies, lies the media is still tap dancing around instead of being honest about because he's their guy. Guarantee you if Trump had won a second term and pulled the same stunt Biden did at the same time with the same deadly lies he'd be getting crucified right now for it, nonstop.

[cherrypoptart]

Just to be clear on my end I'm not saying anyone lied about the vaccines but I am saying they lied about masks. At least twice.

The first time was when our government said they wouldn't do the general public any good. And the second time was when our government said that if you were vaccinated you didn't need to wear a mask to keep from getting infected or to keep from spreading it. Now I suppose it can be argued that those were lies based on incompetence more than purposeful deception but regardless those were not true statements and the simple common sense principle of erring on the side of caution until more information was available made the lies egregiously dangerous whatever their cause.

And again that's a separate issue from mask mandates. Telling the truth about masks being helpful doesn't necessarily mean forcing everyone to wear them. It's just giving honest and accurate information.

[TheDrake]

I don't think it's a ridiculous claim to make that the experts and the government lied about the effectiveness about vaccines; or at least said whatever was politically expedient absent them actually knowing for sure what the effectiveness would ultimately be. We have seen too clearly over time that modern politics is merely an exercise of means to achieve ends - the pulling of whatever levers seem to work. This is in fact how the Fed works as well, which is why "putting people out of jobs" is the catch-all solution to problems they don't understand: because it's the big lever they have. Why they have the right to determine that this should happen is a mystery to me. On the biomedical side, I have no problem believing that the government would arrange for erroneous messaging to go out in order to convince everything to get vaccinated, when in fact it was actually good that people get vaccinated. But they don't seem to understand that lying to people disintegrates society in way that can't be repaired. Over time it simply weakens everything.

The entire world was lying? WHO, CDC driven by politics to conspire to spread falsehoods about vaccination? Nearly every government in the world is in on it? Except for that one country whose leader tried to demonstrate that the tests were positive on goat's milk or something insane like that. I had no idea that the Trump administration could build a powerful international coalition like that.

Now all of these statements you have made could be true, it is just preposterous to apply it to vaccination.

[edgmatt]

Responses have been precisely as I expected.  Well done team.

[msquared]

The comments about how effective the vaccines are flash by so quickly in his video it is hard for me to determine who is making those comments and what effectiveness the comments are talking about. Are they reporters doing reporter stuff and not giving the details.

I remember Fauci and others saying the the vaccines were highly effective against death and reducing the severity of Covid in those who had risk factors as well as those who did not have risk factors. I do not remember them saying it was 100% for death and severity. And that was on the original version of Covid.

The fact that the disease has changed does not change the original numbers. It just means that things have changed.

How effective is the flu shot? I think I have heard that it is 40-60% effective and I still get a flu shot every year.

[edgmatt]

Me and some others a year to 2 years ago:
  - They cant know if its 100% effective this early
  - They are exaggerating the numbers
  - They are lying to us to get us to take this shot

The general responses at that time:

 - Yes we CAN know if it's 100% effective, and it is
 - Why would they exaggerate the numbers?
 - They aren't lying.

Me, today:

 - see?

Responses:

 - of COURSE it was 100% effective at the early stages.  As time goes on of COURSE that's going to drop.
 - You're surprised politicians lied?  Wtf?

Just so laughable.

[TheDrake]

I wouldn't think I'd have to point out that to determine a percentage, we have to consider "of what". In April 2021, early days of vaccine talk for most of the public:

Pfizer press release:

Analysis of 927 confirmed symptomatic cases of COVID-19 demonstrates BNT162b2 is highly effective with 91.3% vaccine efficacy observed against COVID-19, measured seven days through up to six months after the second dose
Vaccine was 100% effective in preventing severe disease as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and 95.3% effective in preventing severe disease as defined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Vaccine was 100% effective in preventing COVID-19 cases in South Africa, where the B.1.351 lineage is prevalent
Vaccine safety now evaluated in more than 44,000 participants 16 years of age and older, with more than 12,000 vaccinated participants having at least six months follow-up after their second dose
The companies plan to share these results with worldwide regulatory agencies soon

When some people are talking about effectiveness in preventing INFECTION, that has never been the more compelling and higher figure. It is preventing death and prolonged hospitalization where the vaccine's effectiveness was magnified. Note even there that FDA's definition led to 95.3% of the same exact wording "severe disease".

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) and BioNTech SE (Nasdaq: BNTX) today announced updated topline results from analysis of 927 confirmed symptomatic cases of COVID-19 observed in their pivotal Phase 3 study through March 13, 2021, showing the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, BNT162b2, was 91.3% effective against COVID-19, measured seven days through up to six months after the second dose.

Same press release, many numbers ranging from 90-100% based on a trial of 927 symptomatic cases. Not a changing story over time. Numbers did change when the virus mutated. And the 100% was of the trial participants, not suggesting that a full 100% of the population would be protected.

Did the news ticker put all the qualifications in the scroll? Of course not, I'm sure it just said "vaccine 100% effective" - but that's no nefarious plot, just the usual *censored*ty science reporting.

[Tom]

There is a perverse part of me that wishes I cared about any of this enough to have a particular axe to grind, but I genuinely don't.

[msquared]

So what level of effectiveness would you say there needs to be?  So far the side effects seem to be very small.  So even if the benefit was only 50%, with small side effect results, it is still a net positive.

I am not going to hold bad science reporting (either inadvertent or intentional) against the vaccine.  I have had Covid and all of the shots (got sick before the vaccines) and I can tell you for my part, Covid was much worse than any of the side effects of the vaccines.

[TheDeamon]

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status?country=~All+ages

I could be reading this chart wrong but...

It looks like in July of 2022, the last month that they give data for, 43% of the people dying were vaccinated.

About 18% had the primary + one booster, about 16% only primary, and about 9% with the primary plus two boosters.

The most likely to be vaccinated are old people, who are also the most likely to die.  Many of them develop little to no immunity after being vaccinated so are still vulnerable.  They also are extremely weak and thus prone to dying from anything.

So unless we know the age distribution and rates of vaccination the percentage who died who were vaccinated is fairly meaningless.

It's also worth noting that around 78% of the U.S. population has received some COVID vaccine, so even without knowing age distribution we can say that the vaccine -- especially with boosters, as recommended -- has a significant effect. It's nowhere near as effective as most mature vaccines for other illnesses, but it's far and away the most effective option available to people who cannot fully self-isolate. Given its experimental nature, I'm personally pretty happy with its apparent performance.

Even more. If death rates in raw numbers form are comparable between the vaccinated(43%) vs non-vaccinated(57%) when the vaccinated are:
1) Nearly 3/4ths of the population (78%)
2) Comprised largely of the highest risk factors for death by Covid19...

So to put it in different terms, if nearly 3/4ths of the populations have had at least one vaccination shot for Covid19, that means that there a 3 (partially) vaccinated people for every person who is not. And of those 3, there is a strong chance of their having underlying conditions that put them at high risk compared to that unvaccinated person.

So to say that "well, the vaccinated death rate in comparable with the unvaccinated death rate for Covid19" is to grossly mis-understand the underlying numbers. That the population of vaccinated persons is 3 times larger than the population of unvaccinated, yet they have fewer deaths(in raw numbers) than the unvaccinated is evidence on its face that either the vaccine works, or they're unusually lucky(which brings us back to pre-existing "high risk" conditions/professions being prevalent among the vaccinated).

If the vaccine didn't work, the vaccinated death rate should be closer to 70% of all covid19 deaths in recent statistics(as they're nearly 75% of the population), not less than half. Arguably, due to the high-risk population being among the vaccinated, 80% wouldn't be entirely unrealistic if the vaccine didn't work.

In any case, my back of the mental napkin math suggests that is you have "Population A" suffering fewer deaths than "Population B" while "Population A" is three times larger than "Population B" and the only difference being considered is vaccine use... Then the Vaccine reduces risk of death from Covid19 to less than one third of the risk of death suffered by the unvaccinated.

(Edit, then I look at the dates, LOL. In any case. The math stands, even if the data is months old)

[cherrypoptart]

It seems like now anytime anyone high profile and not geriatric experiences a sudden and unexpected death the anti-vaccination proponents blame the vaccines.

I'm more agnostic on the matter and just accept the fact that we'll never know if the vaccines were a factor or not. I remember a British case in which a woman died very soon after getting vaccinated and the best they could conclude was that based on the preponderance of the evidence it was more likely than not that the vaccine caused her death. In other words, there is no smoking gun. People talk about waiting until the autopsy is done and all the evidence is in but as our medical knowledge and technology stands today it doesn't matter how much you dissect and microscope and lab and study, our skill isn't advanced enough to say conclusively one way or the other. As I've brought up before that's still how things stand with multiple scleroses and the anthrax vaccine given our troops in Gulf War I.

Looking at an anti-vax debunking site though, I was amazed by their claim that 'Either way, COVID-19 vaccines do NOT cause cardiac arrest or heart attack. So Lisa Marie Presley’s death cannot possibly be caused by the vaccines.'

https://www.techarp.com/facts/lisa-marie-presley-die-vaccine/

So my question would be is that true that we know for certain that COVID-19 vaccines do NOT cause cardiac arrest or heart attack, in fact can NOT possibly cause them, not even very very rarely?

Back when the vaccines were being pushed I was careful to state that I actually wouldn't either encourage people to get them nor discourage. And that was when the risks were only a few in a million of a problem. I wouldn't want to tell someone to get it even if they were that one unlucky person to die right after but on the other hand if it helps them avoid dying of Covid I wouldn't talk them out of it either. Nobody ever died from a mask though, not even one in a million.

If the anti-vax people are right then we should know within the year. This isn't going to be one of those proving a negative cases. If they are right it will be more like The Happening and there will be bodies all over the place. There's no comfort in that but it is a welcome change when there is a metric we can use to judge whether a belief is true or not. If the anti-vaxxers are right then it will be as obvious as Thalidomide. And if they are wrong then what doesn't happen will prove that too.

[msquared]

The fact that I know of at least two cases of young healthy athletes dropping over dead from undetected heart conditions well before Covid ever hit shows that it can and does happen.

And that is just a the local college. The anti vaxxers need to show that there is a much higher rate of young people dying of cardiac arrest for this to get any ground. And from all I have found, there is no higher rate now than before the pandemic.