Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 172

[ecosophia]

We are now in the fourth year of these open posts. When I first posted a tentative hypothesis on the course of the Covid phenomenon, I had no idea that discussion on the subject would still be necessary more than three years later, much less that it would turn into so lively, complex, and troubling a conversation. Still, here we are. Crude death rates and other measures of collapsing public health are anomalously high in many countries, but nobody in authority wants to talk about the inadequately tested experimental Covid injections that are the most likely cause; public health authorities government shills for the pharmaceutical industry are still trying to push through laws that will allow them to force vaccinations on anyone they want; public trust in science is collapsing; and the story continues to unfold.

So it's time for another open post. The rules are the same as before: 

1. If you plan on parroting the party line of the medical industry and its paid shills, please go away. This is a place for people to talk openly, honestly, and freely about their concerns that the party line in question is dangerously flawed and that actions being pushed by the medical industry and its government enablers are causing injury and death on a massive scale. It is not a place for you to dismiss those concerns. Anyone who wants to hear the official story and the arguments in favor of it can find those on hundreds of thousands of websites.

2. If you plan on insisting that the current situation is the result of a deliberate plot by some villainous group of people or other, please go away. There are tens of thousands of websites currently rehashing various conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 outbreak and the vaccines. This is not one of them. What we're exploring is the likelihood that what's going on is the product of the same arrogance, incompetence, and corruption that the medical industry and its wholly owned politicians have displayed so abundantly in recent decades. That possibility deserves a space of its own for discussion, and that's what we're doing here. 
 
3. If you plan on using rent-a-troll derailing or disruption tactics, please go away. I'm quite familiar with the standard tactics used by troll farms to disrupt online forums, and am ready, willing, and able -- and in fact quite eager -- to ban people permanently for engaging in them here. Oh, and I also lurk on other Covid-19 vaccine skeptic blogs, so I'm likely to notice when the same posts are showing up on more than one venue. 

4. If you plan on making off topic comments, please go away. This is an open post for discussion of the Covid epidemic, the vaccines, drugs, policies, and other measures that supposedly treat it, and other topics directly relevant to those things. It is not a place for general discussion of unrelated topics. Nor is it a place to ask for medical advice; giving such advice, unless you're a licensed health care provider, legally counts as practicing medicine without a license and is a crime in the US. Don't even go there.

5. If you don't believe in treating people with common courtesy, please go away. I have, and enforce, a strict courtesy policy on my blogs and online forums, and this is no exception. The sort of schoolyard bullying that takes place on so many other internet forums will get you deleted and banned here. Also, please don't drag in current quarrels about sex, race, religions, etc. No, I don't care if you disagree with that: my journal, my rules. 

Please also note that nothing posted here should be construed as medical advice, which neither I nor the commentariat (excepting those who are licensed medical providers) are qualified to give. Please take your medical questions to the licensed professional provider of your choice.

With that said, the floor is open for discussion.

Comments

Re: Thanks, gee, my blood pressure had been a bit low...

[(Anonymous)]

What you wrote is exactly why the latest argument, for any vaccine, falls apart. The argukent is that some cildren cannot be vaccinated and have immune issues or cancer and it would be realy bad if they got the illness, therefore all children ( or possibly every person, as the vulnerable child goes to situations like the supermarket) need to be vaccinated to protect them. However, as you point out, the vaccine is never100% percent effective, so there is no way to actually make everywhere safe for them. I am usually presented with this argument with the ending " how would you feel( or want done) if it was your child ? " And I tell them that if my child was in cancer treatment and getting a disease would be potentially fatal for them I would not send them to school, because I know that even if all the children were vaccinated, someof them could stillg et sick with it. So it would be my responsibility tokeep my child safe and decide what and where would be safe for them to go

Atmospheric RIver

Re: Thanks, gee, my blood pressure had been a bit low...

[jenniferkobernik]

Well, I agree that it’s never going to be a 100% guarantee, but for a vaccine that actually is highly effective, it does make it less likely that the proverbial kid with cancer catches the disease if everyone around them is vaccinated (or naturally immune) than if they aren’t (although this change is not linear and may be negligible depending on the proportion of the population which is vaccinated or naturally immune). I also agree that for vulnerable individuals, it is better if they aren’t exposed to such situations in the first place. Of course that is not always possible, but that isn’t an excuse for infringing on the rights of others or taking unnecessary risks. Again, I don’t think this is reason to mandate any vaccination, much less the COVID vax. But more people in a population choosing not to get vaccinated (provided a vaccine is highly effective) does actually increase the risk that those who cannot get vaccinated or whose vaccines fail will become infected. So it isn’t actually an inherently stupid argument to say that other people getting vaccinated *with an effective vaccine* can help protect someone (even if that person is vaccinated themselves). It isn’t an admission that vaccines are ineffective; in fact it’s the opposite, and only holds true if the vaccines are actually effective. If vaccines (or natural immunity) are ineffective or not long-lasting, then it doesn’t matter how many people get vaccinated or catch the disease, it’s going to keep circulating regardless. How many vaccines are actually highly effective at preventing transmission and what the real side effects of those vaccines are is another question, however.

Re: Thanks, gee, my blood pressure had been a bit low...

[scotlyn]

There is a ** sort of ** logic here, but it all hinges upon there BEING a vaccine that is highly effective. Do you know of one?

And then, it also hinges upon there being a vaccine that is BOTH highly effective AND safe enough to present a null risk of causing a healthy child to become ill. Do you know of one?

Otherwise we tacitly argue that it is acceptable to cause an illness in one child in order to prevent an illness in another, and this ethic argument exists even when the existence of such an effective and safe vaccine remains a chimera. (This argument is usually couched as "the benefits outweigh the harms", considered as a statistical matter weighed up in population, not in individual, terms.)

Perhaps, before we get dragged into an unwinnable argument over which child it is acceptable to sacrifice for which other child, let us actually find a candidate vaccine that can be universally recognised as being both safe enough to cause no risk of illness in a healthy child, and effective enough to prevent the spread of illness to others.

Re: Thanks, gee, my blood pressure had been a bit low...

[(Anonymous)]

It is in my opinion also not reasonable to ask any healthy person to accept a medical intervention that has a risk to them because it might "protect" someone else. No one should be forced to accept a medical risk for someone else's sake, period. We don't even coerce people to donate blood, and that's relatively low-risk.

It's not necessarily unreasonable to ask people to do things that involve no risk to help protect someone else. For example, if one kid in preschool has a severe peanut allergy, asking everyone else to refrain from bringing peanut butter for lunch might dismay some toddler who loves pb&j, but it doesn't impose any potential risk of harm on others - but that is not true of vaccines.

One can debate the topic of how much the majority should be inconvenienced to accommodate the minority in various situations, but the bottom line is that "inconvenience" is fundamentally different from "subject to a medical risk."

Re: Thanks, gee, my blood pressure had been a bit low...

[(Anonymous)]

The peanut butter thing is more complicated, it is better to have a peanut butter free table. Peanut butter and other nuts are a main dietary component for vegan and some other allergic children. If they cant bring it, they go hungry. All the "alternate" meats or cheeses are first of all highly processed foods that arent healthy and second very expensive. I had to go thru this whole thing twice for my youngest. SHe had to be allowed to bring nuts, peanuts, to school as it was all I could afford that she could eat.