The Playground

Quote from THHuxleynew

The arguments over vaccine mandates are interesting and I find myself on the fence. Not because I think "individual rights" are breached by requirements to get vaccinated in certain jobs, or to enter certain public areas. But because I am unsure when vaccine mandates help reduce vaccine hesitancy and increase overall safety. Whether they do or not depends on a whole load of behavioural science (= we don't really know).

Here is a discussion of the Alice-in-Wonderland-like US politics on vaccine mandates, from a pro-mandate viewpoint.

I just think politicians should be honest (on both sides).

• Vaccine mandates are about reducing vaccine hesitancy, which is good for society in reducing pressure on health systems (primarily).
• They can also help the economy if people feel more comfortable going places where they know others are vaccinated.
• They can also reduce (no way eliminate) risks of COVID infection in sensitive places - Care homes, Hospitals

https://sciencebasedmedicine.o…-proves-immunity-forever/

Some fun (well, also were I a Florida citizen deeply worrying) blatantly political stuff (which I know you get on both sides):

Before we move on, let me update you on Dr. Ladapo’s tenure as Florida’s Surgeon General, as he’s been in the news near-continuously since he was introduced to SBM readers in September, where his casting doubt on vaccines, cheerleading for hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, spreading misinformation about masks, and dumpster-diving in VAERS was reported. Since then, Dr. Ladapo has packed quite a bit of controversy into less than four months in office. Dr. Ladapo

• got his Florida medical license in record time (two days) and then had a complaint filed against him with the medical board speedily dismissed;
• was awarded an annual salary of $437,000 (the highest ever paid), including tens of thousands of dollars from the University of Florida’s medical school, where he was also hired, and given tenure, in record time (for teaching and research) on the suggestion of a wealthy DeSantis donor, although the press reports that Dr. Ladapo has yet to show up for work there;
• continued to spread misinformation;
• been kicked out of a state Senator’s office for refusing her request to wear a mask due to what she described to him as a “serious condition”, later identified as breast cancer, for which she was undergoing treatment. He has yet to apologize, instead making up a lame excuse about not be able to “communicate” while wearing a mask; and
• starred in a PSA that barely mentioned vaccines, left out testing and mask wearing altogether, yet promoted treatments of questionable effectiveness (again).

With that, let’s turn to the exemptions to private employer vaccine mandates created by the legislature and Dr. Ladapo’s new rules implementing those exemptions.

THH

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Do these lives matter? Not in some doctors eyes, do they in yours Thomas?

Quote from Fm1

Yes and it's easier for you to ignore the suffering of some as just a stat! A little lacking in moral integrity if you ask me, but you go have some fun!

Mom details 12-year-old daughter's extreme reactions to COVID vaccine, says she’s now in wheelchair

My stance has always been that vaccines and COVID can harm people. That is hardly ignoring suffering. And you will note that no vaccine regulator is willing to approve vaccines where the overall risk/benefit to children is negative, even if it might be convenient to society to do this. I take that as read, since doctors try hard not to kills people, it is one of their things. All I have ever done is highlighted the risk/benefit equation and pointed out when misinformation about it is being posted.

Let me give an analogy. Your child is going to buy a car. They can buy one with seatbelts, that has a lower risk of serious injury or death, or one without seatbelts.

You are saying, by highlighting the advantages of the lower risk car, I am ignoring the suffering of young adults every day who have life-changing or fatal car accidents in cars WITH seatbelts.

(I am aware also that you can argue seatbelts make care more dangerous, because they deliver a sense of false security to drivers. I'm sure that can happen but AFAIK the figures are pretty clear than even so they are helpful in avoiding car injuries).

That is a bust argument. And impugning my morality or lack of it for this reason is a reflection of your character, not mine.

US heads for the checkpot again! 572'000 infections/30th December 2021. New world record for a single country just about 40% higher than India's old record with 1/4 of the population of India....

New York 70'000 Florida 60'000, California 50'000 but a bit late... No difference with vaccines. Take a joint instead....

Most countries just doubled old records and certainly we will soon see > 1 mio./day

Quote from Wyttenbach

The immunity after an infection lasts "live long"

Just to point out this is completely unsubstantiated and would be unusual - generally, even for diseases where immunity works well, you do not get life-long protection. For RNA coronaviruses in particular, where viral evolution is part of life, immunity is short-lasting.

I'd agree the nAbs (infection) immunity from current vaccines is pretty short-lived, but the other thing to consider for both covid-survivor immunity and vaccine immunity is how much does T-cell immunity change, and how long does that last. That is what the UK is currently caring about, and we do not yet (for omicron) know. You have made strong and completely unsupported claims in this area, based on obvious misunderstanding of the data and with no balance. try and do better? It is an interesting topic and we will eventually have clear answers...

Try to make your points without such large over-exaggeration?

Quote from THHuxleynew

My stance has always been that vaccines and COVID can harm people. That is hardly ignoring suffering. And you will note that no vaccine regulator is willing to approve vaccines where the overall risk/benefit to children is negative, even if it might be convenient to society to do this. I take that as read, since doctors try hard not to kills people, it is one of their things. All I have ever done is highlighted the risk/benefit equation and pointed out when misinformation about it is being posted.

Let me give an analogy. Your child is going to buy a car. They can buy one with seatbelts, that has a lower risk of serious injury or death, or one without seatbelts.

You are saying, by highlighting the advantages of the lower risk car, I am ignoring the suffering of young adults every day who have life-changing or fatal car accidents in cars WITH seatbelts.

(I am aware also that you can argue seatbelts make care more dangerous, because they deliver a sense of false security to drivers. I'm sure that can happen but AFAIK the figures are pretty clear than even so they are helpful in avoiding car injuries).

That is a bust argument. And impugning my morality or lack of it for this reason is a reflection of your character, not mine.

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You have a way of making my day Thomas. Seatbelts haven't been an issue in the United States in 40 years, are you telling me Britain is just now catching up on social safety issues? I wasn't clear sorry, I'm saying that your experts ignore the suffering that the vaccine has done to some. The whole argument lacks any morality. Do all lives matter or not?

Quote from Fm1

You have a way of making my day Thomas. Seatbelts haven't been an issue in the United States in 40 years, are you telling me Britain is just now catching up on social safety issues? I wasn't clear sorry, I'm saying that your experts ignore the suffering that the vaccine has done to some. The whole argument lacks any morality. Do all lives matter or not?

FM1 - read what I've said, not what you think I've said, and try not to get distracted. Choosing the lesser of two evils is not ignoring evil.

I'm sure your character is better than might appear from your last two posts.

India has many advantages in the COVID stakes:

• young population
• lack of recording of cases or deaths out in the underdeveloped country areas (UP in particular). If you can call that an advantage
• weather where people are not packed into indoor unventilated spaces

Still, it has had devastating waves before and the question is whether it will similarly have an omicron wave.

Omicron: Third wave looms as India Covid cases spike

Major cities such as Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata are recording a sharp daily jump in coronavirus cases.

www.bbc.co.uk

We will find out over the next 2 months.

Clowns do not ever understand "" quotation marks. May the brain is exhausted...

We did report about India already a weak ago. And of course no under reporting is happening as this has been corrected spring 2021... But simple clowns have a live long single fart program ....

We are eager to see how Ziverdo works for Omicron!

Quote from Zephir_AWT

If vaccines work, why we aren't observing at least slightest decline in new cases?

Because omicron is very contagious and because 100 million people in the U.S. are not vaccinated. Nearly all of the new cases are unvaccinated people. There are more breakthrough cases, but as with delta most of them are mild. We have not seen much increase in deaths because older people are vaccinated at higher rates than the general population, and possibly because omicron is less dangerous.

To put it another way, if vaccines did not work, the increase in cases would be steeper, and the total number of cases and deaths would be much higher. It would resemble the 1918 influenza pandemic curves.

Quote from Fm1

Blaming everyone but the obvious!

I blame you and the other antivaxxers. The blood is on your hands.

Quote from Fm1

The vaccine failed them, get them some black seed oil and raw honey along with vitamin d vitamin c

The vaccines did not fail them. Their cases were mild, and it appears my brother was not infected. The vaccines have saved over a million lives in the U.S. alone. Black seed oil and honey would be the medieval quack cure. It would do nothing. Anyone who depends on such things is dancing with death.

Quote from JedRothwell

I blame you and the other antivaxxers. The blood is on your hands.

The vaccines did not fail them. Their cases were mild, and it appears my brother was not infected. The vaccines have saved over a million lives in the U.S. alone. Black seed oil and honey would be the medieval quack cure. It would do nothing. Anyone who depends on such things is dancing with death.

Well they say short term memory goes first in old age. I posted this study a year ago.

Honey and Nigella sativa against COVID-19 in Pakistan (HNS-COVID-PK): A multi-center placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial

SUMMARY

BACKGROUND No definitive treatment exists for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Honey and Nigella sativa (HNS) have established antiviral, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory properties. Hence, we investigated efficacy of HNS against COVID-19. wide

METHODS We conducted a multicenter, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial at 4 centers in Pakistan. RT-PCR confirmed COVID-19 adults showing moderate or severe disease were enrolled in the study. Patients presenting with multi-organ failure, ventilator support, and chronic diseases (except diabetes mellitus and hypertension) were excluded. Patients were randomly assigned in 1:1 ratio to receive either honey (1 gm/Kg/day) and Nigella sativa seeds (80 mg/Kg/day) or placebo up-to 13 days along with standard care. The outcomes included symptom alleviation, viral clearance, and a 30-day mortality in intention-to-treat population. This trial was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04347382.

RESULTS Three hundred and thirteen patients - 210 moderate and 103 severe - underwent randomization from April 30 to July 29, 2020. Among these, 107 were assigned to HNS whereas 103 to placebo for moderate cases. For severe cases, 50 were given HNS and 53 were given placebos. HNS resulted in ∼50% reduction in time taken to alleviate symptoms as compared to placebo (Moderate (4 versus 7 days), Hazard Ratio [HR]: 6.11; 95% Confidence Interval [CI]: 4.23-8.84, P<0.0001 and severe (6 versus 13 days) HR: 4.04; 95% CI, 2.46-6.64, P<0.0001). HNS also cleared the virus 4 days earlier than placebo group in moderate (6 versus 10 days, HR: 5.53; 95% CI: 3.76-8.14, P<0.0001) and severe cases (8.5 versus 12 days, HR: 4.32; 95% CI: 2.62-7.13, P<0.0001). HNS further led to a better clinical score on day 6 with normal activity resumption in 63.6% versus 10.9% among moderate cases (OR: 0.07; 95% CI: 0.03-0.13, P<0.0001) and hospital discharge in 50% versus 2.8% in severe cases (OR: 0.03; 95% CI: 0.01-0.09, P<0.0001). In severe cases, mortality rate was four-fold lower in HNS group than placebo (4% versus 18.87%, OR: 0.18; 95% CI: 0.02-0.92, P=0.029). No HNS-related adverse effects were observed.

CONCLUSION HNS significantly improved symptoms, viral clearance and mortality in COVID-19 patients. Thus, HNS represents an affordable over the counter therapy and can either be used alone or in combination with other treatments to achieve potentiating effects against COVID-19.

Quote from Fm1

I wasn't clear sorry, I'm saying that your experts ignore the suffering that the vaccine has done to some.

No, they do not. That is absurd. The experts know how to evaluate the risk/benefit ratio. As noted by THH any vaccine and just about any safety measure (such as seat belts) will have some inherent risk. Nearly everything you do has some risk, even drinking water, taking an aspirin, or eating grapes. Eating grapes is actually somewhat more dangerous than getting an mRNA vaccine, according to one estimate. More people choke and die from grapes every year than have been killed by mRNA vaccines. No public health statistician ever ignores suffering or forgets to take risk into account.

If you sincerely believe they ignore these things, you are hopelessly ignorant and not qualified to discuss this subject. You resemble an anti-cold fusion critic such as Morrison, who did not understand the difference between power and energy. You have to have some minimum level of understanding of a subject to contribute anything to a discussion. If you really think public health experts ignore risks, you fail to meet the minimum, and you should bow out of the discussion.

If you do not really think this, and you know as well as I do that public health experts take into account risks, then you lying and trying to fool stupid readers here. That would be contemptible. I cannot judge whether you are ignorant, stupid or lying, but I suggest you do your homework and stop posting nonsense.

Quote from Fm1

I posted this study a year ago.

Honey and Nigella sativa against COVID-19 in Pakistan (HNS-COVID-PK): A multi-center placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial

I don't recall that. But let's get to the point. Are you vaccinated? Even if you are, would you really risk your life taking this kind of quack cure, or ivermectin, rather than getting vaccinated? If you would not, then you are sane, but you also spreading lies about COVID, and helping to kill stupid people who take honey instead of a vaccine. Why are you trying to kill people? 800,000 dead Americans is not enough for you? How many innocent people do you want to see die in agony, and how long do you want the pandemic to ravage our society and economy?

Quote

Nearly all of the new cases are unvaccinated people.

Not true: Govt Reports 96% of Omicron Cases Are Among Fully Vaccinated, 4% Are Unvaccinated

Quote from uncertainH

Thanks for the update and glad you are ok. Along the same lines, my recent experience involved my fully vaccinated son in law ( interesting how the word "Fully" precedes the word "Vaccinated" these days but that's a topic for another day ) who got it from his FV co-worker, it then spread it to my FV daughter, my NV wife, didn't touch my NV son, and not really sure about myself (FV). Generally was fever, chills , lack of energy and gastro-intestinal woes but everyone is fine now. I also hope that the omigod is highly contagious and not dangerous to anyone FV or NV

O2 last night 93, this am: 97,

Fever & headache gone, no chills or aches, slight congestion.

Symptoms started on 12-26, they appear to be waning/gone.

Not sure if this is typical but for locals all seem similar to mine.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

Not true: Govt Reports 96% of Omicron Cases Are Among Fully Vaccinated, 4% Are Unvaccinated

Zephir,

You are not learning to check your sources.

That snippet of info seems to originate from an extreme right-wing high bias political site:

Germany: Govt Reports 96% of Omicron Cases Are Among Fully Vaccinated, 4% Are Unvaccinated

New data released today by the Robert Koch Institute, a research agency run by the German government, found that though 71% of the population is fully…

www.informationliberation.com

Information Liberation

QUESTIONABLE SOURCE A questionable source exhibits one or more of the following: extreme bias, consistent promotion of propaganda/conspiracies, poor or no

mediabiasfactcheck.com

Analysis / Bias

In review, Information Liberation is a news and opinion website with an extreme right wing bias. Virtually every article reports positively for conservative causes and negatively for liberals. Information Liberation uses loaded words to convey either positive or negative emotions such as this: Hillary Clinton Scolds Trump Over Syria, Explains Why We Need Permanent War. While Information Liberation does publish credible news that is sourced properly, it also publishes news that is sourced to right wing biased, conspiracy and questionable sources. In fact, they provide a list of sources that they link to on their side bar. This list reads like a who’s who of conspiracy and questionable sources such as InfoWars, Gateway Pundit and the Center for Immigration Studies. They also perform misleading fact checks such as this one: FACT CHECK: Hillary Said 90% of Clinton Foundation Donations go to Charity. Actual Number? 5.7%. This fact check simply is not true. Either this is a very poorly done fact check or they were intentionally trying to mislead. The actual number that goes to charity is 89%. The deception in this fact check is in the wording. 5.7% of donation go to outside charity groups, this much is true. With this fact check Information Liberation is misleading people to believe that only 5.7% goes to actual charity when in fact it is closer to 90%. See the full and proper fact check here.

In general, all stories favor the right and denigrate the left with the use of poor sources.

A factual search reveals a Pants on Fire Claim.

Overall, we rate Information Liberation Questionable based on extreme right wing bias, promotion of propaganda/conspiracies and a lack of transparency. (3/29/2017) Updated (D. Van Zandt 1/20/2019)

That does not link the Robert Koch report it claims to summarise.

https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Situationsberichte/Dez_2021/2021-12-30-en.pdf?__blob=publicationFile

That appears to be the relevant report. It has no data on vaccination status of omicron cases?

However many other countries have done this analysis, showing that a recent booster protects against infection, and serious disease, for omicron, at least a bit.

I agree there is a lot we still don't know - like how well does vaccination (or recent booster vaccination) protect against serious disease in the mots critical elderly segment of the population.

Surely you can see that posting these headlines which can't be substantiated and are surprising given the work that has been done in countries like the UK with much more relevant data is just propagating misinformation?

I should say that even if that statistic were true, as could be, it would likely be because of the "vulnerable people get vaxed and go to hospital effect". There is a subset of people who are known vulnerable, who are 100% vaccinated (told to be so by doctors with whom they have regular contact) and who are even so at much higher risk of COVID because of poor immune systems. It is easy to confuse studies on just those people with statistics for the whole population. So those statistics taken out of context showw something not true.

Here is Berenson making that (egregious) mistake

Correcting Berenson's optimally wrong take on vaccination and hospitalization risk from JAMA study

Alex Berenson is again misinterpreting/misrepresenting scientific data, this time saying this JAMA study shows vaccines “don’t stop Covid hospitalizations and…

www.covid-datascience.com

Can you give me any substantive details - and I will follow it up?

THH

PS - even without more details - the headline from informationliberation is remarkably uninformative. Without knowing the population percentage vaccinated / unvaccinated the quoted raw data means nothing anyway! A particularly bad example of statistics being quoted in a way that makes them obviously misleading.

Quote from JedRothwell

I don't recall that. But let's get to the point. Are you vaccinated? Even if you are, would you really risk your life taking this kind of quack cure, or ivermectin, rather than getting vaccinated? If you would not, then you are sane, but you also spreading lies about COVID, and helping to kill stupid people who take honey instead of a vaccine. Why are you trying to kill people? 800,000 dead Americans is not enough for you? How many innocent people do you want to see die in agony, and how long do you want the pandemic to ravage our society and economy?

You have it wrong! I am vaccinated, JJ in April not boosted, I wear an n 95 mask in public buildings and I keep my distance. My approach from the beginning was prevention by building a more robust immune response thru nutrition and supplementation. I've been very vocal about a 2 pronged approach with early treatment for all not wait till your blue and on the verge of death as well as vaccination for the immune compromised. I oppose mandates as they create more problems then they solve and as for lockdowns, they don't work. I have followed all recommendations except boosters. Because I oppose forced vaccination you call me a killer with blood on my hands. You have an ivy league education but you are still southern stupid!!!

Quote from Fm1

You have it wrong! I am vaccinated, JJ in April not boosted, I wear an n 95 mask in public buildings and I keep my distance. My approach from the beginning was prevention by building a more robust immune response thru nutrition and supplementation. I've been very vocal about a 2 pronged approach with early treatment for all not wait till your blue and on the verge of death as well as vaccination for the immune compromised. I oppose mandates as they create more problems then they solve and as for lockdowns, they don't work. I have followed all recommendations except boosters. Because I oppose forced vaccination you call me a killer with blood on my hands. You have an ivy league education but you are still southern stupid!!!

I remember that, and while I'd not follow Jed you do often say things about vaccines which would encourage other people not to get vaccinated.

And you post TSN links which are blatant antivaxxer lies. For example Steve Kirsch.

For example, you say I am immoral for pointing out that, for children, COVID risks overall are lower than vaccine risks, and therefore the personal risk/benefit equation makes vaccination smart. It varies with age, and it is difficult to get precise info for young children, but that is now very clearly true down to age 12 if you reckon everyone will get COVID.

Not sure if you realise that.

THH

Researchers estimate the growth and immune escape of the Omicron variant in England. They used data from the UKHSA and NHS for all PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 cases in England who had taken a COVID test between November 29th and December 11th 2021

The new report (Report 49) from the Imperial College London COVID-19 response team estimates that the risk of reinfection with the Omicron variant is 5.4 times greater than that of the Delta variant. This implies that the protection against reinfection by Omicron afforded by past infection may be as low as 19%. Vaccine effectiveness estimates against symptomatic Omicron infection of between 0% and 20% after two doses. See also: ‘Report 49 - Growth, population distribution and immune escape of Omicron in England’

“Quote from Wyttenbach

The immunity after an infection lasts "live long"”

Why there are then so much reinfections?

It is easy to find studies dealing with Corona reinfections of unvaccinated…here is one.

Epic Systems: Unvaccinated 44 percent more likely to be reinfected with COVID-19

An Epic Health Research Network study looked at patients who’d previously had COVID-19. It turns out those who went on to get vaccinated were significantly…

www.wpr.org