Serious question for saxi

[Dukasaur]

I remember way back in your anti-vax crusade, you said your main objections were to the experimental RNA vaccines, and you would consider taking the Novavax with its more traditional approach if it came to market. Well, now that Novavax is on the market, are you taking it?

Why or why not?

[bigtoughralf]

Especially given US anti-vax content has to date primarily been published by The Epoch Times, a conspiracy nut news portal funded by Falun Gong, an antiscience cult of personality that preaches against race-mixing and homosexuality, thinks modern human technology came from aliens, and says that treating people's illnesses is immoral.

Always worth considering the source.

[Lonous]

I'm anti vax.
My source of information is purely government

FDA says the authorization process for a new drug is:
Phase 1 - several months
Phase 2 - Several months - 2 years
Phase 3 - 1-4 years
Total - 1.5 - 6.5 years.
https://www.fda.gov/patients/drug-devel ... rch#phases

D.C. pushed this out in just over 6 months and then wrote the paperwork up in a way that made them exempt from any mandate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Warp_Speed

Even though it was just suspicions at the time, it has since come out that the federal agencies were working hand in hand to censor and silence anyone asking questions or being skeptical about the topic of covid and vaccines. The 'Twitter Files' released so much info, even honchos like Zuckerberg went from denying his companies cooperation with the feds, to trying to portray himself as an unwilling participant in the censorship.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1684934805027463168

And while there are other factors too numerous to list all in one post, this is by far my favorite gem. This quack said if people got infected they didn't need a vaccine.
https://img-9gag-fun.9cache.com/photo/a ... 0svav1.mp4
Ofcourse his science changed once they started giving him tens of millions to speak differently about covid.

[saxitoxin]

I remember way back in your anti-vax crusade, you said your main objections were to the experimental RNA vaccines, and you would consider taking the Novavax with its more traditional approach if it came to market. Well, now that Novavax is on the market, are you taking it?

Why or why not?

No. Because in the intervening period I had COVID-19 and it was so unremarkable that it's not worth even 90 minutes of my time to get vaccinated. Since it can't stop transmission, but can only make symptoms milder, there's no point (despite Old Joe's now-debunked lie in March 2021 that it would stop transmission).

There's literally no way my symptoms could get any milder than they were the first time around -- unvaccinated -- which involved a minor cough for two days which I efficiently treated with a roll of Halls from the corner store. In that sense, Old Joe was right that the "unvaccinated will end up paying the price." The price paid, in my case, was approximately $4, plus tax.

But if I had any concerns at all about COVID-19, I would not have a problem with Novavax.*

* Also, to be clear, if I were 65+ or as fat as Ralf or had AIDS [also probably like Ralf], I wouldnt' have a problem with Pfizer or Moderna either, which was the initial point of the mRNA vaccines. When the accelerated vaccine research program was originally announced, it was initially communicated as a targeted intervention for high risk individuals on the assumption that rewards for that group outweighed the high probability of risks that come with a super-accelerated research program using a delivery platform that had never been tested in a real world setting and in which the manufacturers have no incentive to avoid mistakes due to the removal of product liability. For political reasons (the need to differentiate pandemic response policy by the new Administration) coupled with business reasons (shareholder demand for additional revenue potential of 70% inoculation versus 25% inoculation) there was a sharp policy pivot in February 2021 from targeted to universal vaccination.

[Votanic]

Pfizer comes on like a languid dream of 'old school' China White. Moderna has more of a cokey buzz. Better for clubbing.
...but Johnson & Johnson, that stuff is just gutter meth.

[Dukasaur]

Okay thanks.

[GaryDenton]

Conservative logic - I had a mild case so a disease that has killed over a million people in the US and over 7 million worldwide is not worth taking a free shot for.

I really no longer give a f#$@ about conservatives as they are destroying this country and their ant-vax policies are just eliminating more of them, so go for it. Own the libs and die off.

Republicans' excess death rate spiked after COVID-19 vaccines arrived

from the pandemic's start in March 2020 through December 2021, "excess mortality was significantly higher for Republican voters than Democratic voters after COVID-19 vaccines were available to all adults, but not before."

More specifically, the researchers say, their adjusted analysis found that "the excess death rate among Republican voters was 43% higher than the excess death rate among Democratic voters" after vaccine eligibility was opened.

This adds to other studies

In late 2021, an NPR analysis found that after May of that year — a timeframe that overlaps the vaccine availability cited in the new study — people in counties that voted strongly for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election were "nearly three times as likely to die from COVID-19" as people in pro-Biden counties.

https://www.npr.org/2023/07/25/1189939229/covid-deaths-democrats-republicans-gap-study

I could add more about the reduced severity of the disease for most people who had the vaccines and the reduced incidence of long-term COVID, but really, my opinion stands. I want to see conservatives killing each other with their foolishness and their anti-science beliefs and conspiracy theories. I applaud your independent spirit and dying for your beliefs.

[GaryDenton]

I should add this makes me not a good liberal. But go ahead, be a good conservative, and don't get vaxed and show us libs you will die for your beliefs.

[saxitoxin]

a minor cough for two days

I applaud your independent spirit and dying for your beliefs.

[GaryDenton]

[bigtoughralf]

Hey saxi, I've got a serious question for you:

show

[saxitoxin]

Hey saxi, I've got a serious question for you:

show

the last hole ralf entered

[Lonous]

1 year of deaths, month by month, vaccinated vs unvaxxed.
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/S5Fy1/13/

[jusplay4fun]

1 year of deaths, month by month, vaccinated vs unvaxxed.
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/S5Fy1/13/

No Data since August 2022?

I think there was a shift in data gathering on COVID about one year ago, so this makes sense, once I thought about it.

As I said a long time ago, the COVID causing virus is getting more widespread and less virulent. The data supports the validity of encouraging the masses to get the vaccine. saxi will claim he is SuperHuman, but most of us know that he is nowhere near there and not much better than his PAL smallralph.

[Dukasaur]

1 year of deaths, month by month, vaccinated vs unvaxxed.
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/S5Fy1/13/

I would point out that death is a rare outcome among those without major risk factors (old age, other respiratory illness, diabetes).

Conversely, most deaths are among those high-risk groups.

Those high-risk groups were a primary target of vaccination efforts.

Death among the vaccinated is not, I think, the condemnation of vaccines that you think it is. It's not surprising considering the Venn diagram: those withing the high-risk group are most likely to die, and they are also the most likely to have been vaccinated.

[GaryDenton]

Someone grabbed a misleading chart but not the explanation they offered.

During the early rollout of vaccines, vaccinated people represented a small share of total deaths, but experts warned that the share would likely rise simply because vaccinated people were representing a growing share of the population. In other words, if 100% of people in the U.S. were vaccinated, vaccinated people would represent 100% of COVID-19 deaths. Similarly, as the share of the population with a booster rose somewhat during 2022, the share of deaths among boosted people also rose. COVID-19 vaccines are very effective at preventing severe illness and death, but they are not perfect, so deaths among vaccinated people will still occur.

Indeed, vaccinated people now make up the majority of the population – 79% of adults have completed at least the primary series – and the latest CDC data show that vaccinated people also now represent the majority of COVID-19 deaths. There are many more vaccinated people than there are unvaccinated people, and vaccinated and boosted people are, on average, older and more likely to have underlying health conditions that put them at risk for severe COVID-19 outcomes. That’s why, when CDC adjusts for some of these factors (age and population size), we still see that unvaccinated people are at much greater risk of death and other severe outcomes than people the same age who have stayed up-to-date on boosters. Older people are at greater risk for severe illness and death from COVID-19 than younger people, but vaccines and boosters still lower that risk substantially.

https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/why-do-vaccinated-people-represent-most-covid-19-deaths-right-now/

[GaryDenton]

Here is the largest study.

Patients vaccinated for COVID-19 had reduced mortality, especially for obese/severely obese and older individuals. Vaccination’s protective effect against mortality declined over time and hospitalized obese and older individuals may derive especially great benefit from prior vaccination against SARS-CoV-2.

The covariate-adjusted mortality rates were 5.1% and 8.3% for vaccinated and unvaccinated patients hospitalized with COVID-19, respectively, in the whole analysis sample.

In sum, analyses of a large, diverse sample of over 80,000 COVID-19 patients hospitalized from January 1, 2021, to January 31, 2022, in 21 US health systems demonstrated about a 40% decline in in-hospital mortality among all patients who had received any vaccination as compared with unvaccinated patients. Vaccination reduced the likelihood of mortality by more than half among patients who had three vaccine doses and who were not immune compromised or suppressed. Vaccination was associated with especially large reductions in mortality in obese, severely obese, and older patients, encouraging additional efforts to increase vaccination rates in such patient groups.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9848037/

[bigtoughralf]

Hey saxi, I've got a serious question for you:

show

the last hole ralf entered

You looked, now I hafta punch you.