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Xx Peach xX (143363031) wrote:

Fester (126579776) wrote:

Xx Peach xX (143363031) wrote:The level of entitlement & stubbornness in anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers is insane. Just wear the mask, get the shot(s), and shut up. If they don't want to do that for whatever stupid reason they have, then it's better to also shut up about it. It's crazy how some people celebrate their idiocy and ignorance.

& This is coming from someone who is naturally extremely stubborn herself. I just don't understand these idiots.

Similar arguments can be made about those who push the vax. There's good reasons to get it, and good ones not to get it. It just doesn't make sense to me for anyone to push others either way.

In my country you’re not allowed into the main malls & most important places if you’re not vaccinated. You need to show your vaccine certificate. You can’t travel to or from my country unless you’re vaccinated. One of my aunts, who’s an anti-vaxxer, was, you can say, forced to take one. My country has its faults, but this decision sure isn’t one.

Very interesting! We don't have mandates like that. The only place I've encountered that required vaccination is bars.

Overhere in Germany we currently have the so-called 3G rule for non-essential places.
When/if covid infection numbers surpass an average 30 cases per 100,000 in population over the last 7 days in your region,
you have to be either vaccinated, recovered from a past covid infection, or tested negative (pcr test result may be up to 2 days old. Quick test maximum 1 day old). My region was very close to 30 last I checked a few days ago, when we were around 25. Watching international news that is still fairly little to many other places in the world. It's interesting to see how different countries handle this. Some already react with stricted regulations when infection numbers are going up but at a smaller point, and some don't even react at way higher numbers.

The covid reaper finally showed up in my world. I'm headed to my first funeral this Saturday.

It's a strange beast. There's some consistency to it, but it can't be cornered. It's particularly fond of people over 50 (91% of deaths) who have comorbidities, but it will also take out the occasional seemingly healthy 20 year old if it feels like it.

We have more people getting vaccinated now that a few more have seen their friends taken out by it. And there does seem to be a "leveling off" of both case counts and deaths. But there is still way too much media and politics bleeding into the public health discussion for my taste - from both slants.

I'd like to encourage everyone to respect anyone's decision to vaccinate or not to vaccinate. But I'd also like to encourage everyone who is not vaccinated to reconsider getting vaccinated. It does work, it is helpful, and it just might save your ass. Vaccines have revolutionized our world since 1957. I realize that they haven't always been right, and so caution is important. But enough people have now had their vaccines for over 6 months with minimal negative results, and it's time to start rethinking about trusting the science. Many of us are now alive because someone got vaccinated. You could be that someone for one of your descendants.

I hope you choose to do it, but I promise I won't judge you, hate you, or belittle you if you choose not to. You should have the right to decide. I hope you continue to read the science and ignore the media and politics. It could literally mean your life.

I'm at the vaccination center. I'm finally fully vaccinated

Sorry for your loss, Rod

Quarantined Mata (13429328) wrote:I'm at the vaccination center. I'm finally fully vaccinated

Sorry for your loss, Rod

Well done!

And TY. It was a great party today. He was a BBQ pitmaster who has taught me a lot. They had food from his restaurant served while people told stories about what an awesome asshole he was. He would have been pissed if it had been anything besides a party, so it was.

I'm so sorry for your loss, Rod. I'm glad you had a great party.

Nightcrawler (126579776) wrote:So my neighbor who shall remain nameless........

She's a hypochondriac. She sees covid cooties everywhere and has had it - 4 times now. She goes for testing twice a week. She was in the first wave of vaccine takers. She wears a mask inside her car.....alone. The only reasons she leaves her house are for food, to get covid tested, and to see doctors. I think she anoints the outside of her house with cleaning alcohol every Saturday night as some sort of new religious ritual.

But I absolutely love talking to her and she'll pop out on her back porch when I'm grilling and we'll chat and I'll fluff her dogs. She has showed up as a "positive" test for covid in my town about a dozen times - yes she still goes twice a week to get tested even after testing positive. I think covid loves her. Her first bout with it kept her in bed for 3 days, but now she is asymptomatic when she testes positive. I think her dogs got infected and now every time she recovers, she gets it from them again. She thinks it will eventually go away and I don't.

But my questions swirl around what she does and how they affect the numbers. If someone who knows they are positive can just go get tested over and over and over and over.........doesn't that skew the numbers? Because the positive test numbers are what seem to drive a lot of angst in people when discussing this. I'm way more interested in the numbers around hospitals filling up than I am how many people are positive who feel fine. After all, the optics that seem most important to me are when people can't get medical help - and need it. I don't really care if 20M people have covid and get the sniffles or feel nothing. Welcome to life. But I do care when it takes people down.

Am I off here? Should I care that covid is spreading again if it doesn't really move the needle on hospital beds? For background, our local hospitals have seen an increase in bed counts for covid, but are nowhere near the top end they touched at the height of the problem 7 months ago.

She would drive me nuts. That said, I tend to think these things even out in the wash. She may be increasing the number reported, but since we have no idea how many aren’t reported for difference they reasons, I still doubt the reported number is higher than the real number.

I’ll admit up front that I’m not reading every post (it’s almost 1am and I’m tired) but with so many children now getting sick, I think we should feel a higher onus to get vaccinated, especially people who don’t really have a reason not to beyond exercising a right just because they can. I’m already disgusted that so many people are effectively saying that they don’t care about those who can’t be vaccinated, those who wouldn’t be protected by vaccination, etc. But now, all children are proving to be at greater and greater risk and people are still putting themselves first. Ahead of children.

Risking horrible backlash, but PLEASE really think about my reasoning (below) first. I do think everyone should be required to be vaccinated unless they have an existing medical condition contraindicating it.

My reasoning is that we have plenty of existing laws that aren’t always fair to every individual because it is best for the greater good. If that’s the goal or priority, I think it should be exercised across the board. Example: if a person 100% against a war or war in general can still be forced to risk his life because that’s what’s best for the nation (and sometimes not even benefitting our nation directly) then a vaccine during a global pandemic should be treated the same way, IMO. I understand that people feel they have a right to avoid side effects, but compared to my example where the risk is death... Other quick examples... We can’t exceed speed limits no matter how well we drive or how empty the road is, because innocent people could be hurt. We can’t ingest whatever drug we want regardless our personal beliefs about pain control, etc., to protect “everyone” from addiction. Why do we get to exercise logic and decide for ourselves sometimes, but not others, where greater good is concerned? It simply isn’t equal in many ways.

I know I won’t always get my way and I am fine with that. In everything, though, large and small, I can’t stand the changing of the rules, back and forth, to fit agendas. Either require citizens to do what is best for the entire country or don’t ... but be consistent.

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Xx Peach xX (143363031) wrote:Someone I know had a wedding last Friday. The hotel asked each guest to show their vaccine card (through an app here, or the actual card itself). Some didn’t have it because they didn’t get their shots. Hours of makeup, hair, dress-picking gone just like that since they were sent home.

Good. Not a drop of sympathy from me.

The vaccine was available for months, my family got it before it was approved by the FDA since Pfizer got FDA approved on Aug 23. + here we get vaccinated pretty quickly. They had no excuse. Just selfishness.

I couldn’t agree more.

Cookie Monster (4327680) wrote:

Nightcrawler (126579776) wrote:So my neighbor who shall remain nameless........

She's a hypochondriac. She sees covid cooties everywhere and has had it - 4 times now. She goes for testing twice a week. She was in the first wave of vaccine takers. She wears a mask inside her car.....alone. The only reasons she leaves her house are for food, to get covid tested, and to see doctors. I think she anoints the outside of her house with cleaning alcohol every Saturday night as some sort of new religious ritual.

But I absolutely love talking to her and she'll pop out on her back porch when I'm grilling and we'll chat and I'll fluff her dogs. She has showed up as a "positive" test for covid in my town about a dozen times - yes she still goes twice a week to get tested even after testing positive. I think covid loves her. Her first bout with it kept her in bed for 3 days, but now she is asymptomatic when she testes positive. I think her dogs got infected and now every time she recovers, she gets it from them again. She thinks it will eventually go away and I don't.

But my questions swirl around what she does and how they affect the numbers. If someone who knows they are positive can just go get tested over and over and over and over.........doesn't that skew the numbers? Because the positive test numbers are what seem to drive a lot of angst in people when discussing this. I'm way more interested in the numbers around hospitals filling up than I am how many people are positive who feel fine. After all, the optics that seem most important to me are when people can't get medical help - and need it. I don't really care if 20M people have covid and get the sniffles or feel nothing. Welcome to life. But I do care when it takes people down.

Am I off here? Should I care that covid is spreading again if it doesn't really move the needle on hospital beds? For background, our local hospitals have seen an increase in bed counts for covid, but are nowhere near the top end they touched at the height of the problem 7 months ago.

She would drive me nuts. That said, I tend to think these things even out in the wash. She may be increasing the number reported, but since we have no idea how many aren’t reported for difference they reasons, I still doubt the reported number is higher than the real number.

I agree with that assessment. I think the unreported infections easily double the actual positive tests (my opinion). The most recent white paper pegs the percent of asymptomatic covid carriers at just over 35% based on 2 separate studies (there are potential issues with both, but they are the best effort based on available information). So my "double" guess is based on the fact that many people don't get sick enough to even bother with testing (I know 3 of these people). The article with the links to the studies is below.

https://www.sciencealert.com/over-a-third-of-covid-infections-are-truly-asymptomatic-says-massive-new-analysis

Cookie Monster (4327680) wrote:

Xx Peach xX (143363031) wrote:Someone I know had a wedding last Friday. The hotel asked each guest to show their vaccine card (through an app here, or the actual card itself). Some didn’t have it because they didn’t get their shots. Hours of makeup, hair, dress-picking gone just like that since they were sent home.

Good. Not a drop of sympathy from me.

The vaccine was available for months, my family got it before it was approved by the FDA since Pfizer got FDA approved on Aug 23. + here we get vaccinated pretty quickly. They had no excuse. Just selfishness.

I couldn’t agree more.

I'll never support mandatory anything that a government pushes out. Governments have proven way too many times that this kind of power is just begging to be abused. When it comes to government, I have zero faith that they are interested in anyone's best interest but their own. They do what they do to facilitate their grip on power - period. If that means poisoning the people they serve, so be it.

With that out of the way, people need to stop listening to the f*cking politicians and media and start talking to their doctors and reading the science - yes many white papers are starting to be published answering all the questions we've been guessing at for too long. Covid is real. The vaccine works for a significant amount of time. People who are unvaccinated are 11 times more likely to end up in the hospital or dead when compared to the vaccinated. The percentage of people harmed by taking the vaccine is minute compared to the risk of being harmed by catching the virus when unvaccinated. These are facts, not fairytales.

I understand that if you catch covid while unvaccinated your odds of dying are slim, especially if under 50 years old. There is merit to this argument, but it is a selfish, self centered, prideful, and arrogant stance to take. Especially when the risk of the vaccine negatively affecting people under 50 is statistically insignificant. If you're over 50, you are rolling some serious dice by avoiding the vaccine.

I don't understand how taking or not taking a helpful vaccine has become a political stance? I don't really f*cking care. What I do care about is that when people use politics as an excuse to avoid doing the right thing, they get what they get and so do the people they care about. I wish I could say that I didn't care about what happens to these people. But I can't. They matter just like all people matter. Please......

So again, if you're still unvaccinated and reading this, I strongly urge you to do some more research. Don't feed off the same sources telling you to skip covid vaccination. Branch out. I read those "don't vax" sources too. They aren't science. They are opinions - and most of them come from people who have been vaxxed - hypocrites. Not vaxxing is a terrible medical decision. Please consider getting one soon.

I have worked everyday since the pandemic first hit, interacting with other people.
Not even a runny nose
Will not inject the devils curse in me either

Just wanted to add, I'm not being selfish
You can be vaccinated and protect yourself, vaccinated people are also transmitters of the virus...

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Xx Peach xX (143363031) wrote:Soo… what do you guys think about the booster? Some people that got the 2 shots do not want the booster.

I got my 2 shots of course, and I’m planning to get the booster, as well.

It's going to happen. It's going to become the next annual "flu shot". There will be a few who get it, and many who do not. Natural immunity is actually a thing now. People will still die from covid every "covid season".

As for me, I got the vaccine towards the end of summer after the white papers around it's efficacy and side effects were vetted. There's evidence that boosters help, but as my mom said......I won't go get one every month. There comes a point where the risk of illness and dying (for anyone) becomes acceptable to people versus the alternatives of boosting up every month or locking down for infinity. Life goes on.

Prior to covid, we accepted that 30-60K people would die of the flu each year in the US. Nobody lost their minds that all those people were going to die every year. They accepted it. Natural immunity and vaccines will get the numbers down, but they will never be zero. The only that will change is how we accept it as inevitable.

Got the booster last week. Surprisingly, it had more side effects for me than either of the original two, which were zero and minor. Side effects are usually cumulative for me. (They are linear or cumulative for everyone... a factor I've not seen discussed anywhere in all of the madness.)

Because I used to coordinate clinical studies and I live in the NE Pharma belt, I got to read one of the final clinical studies before the FDA even saw it. Knowing the person who ran the study very well, I am extremely comfortable with the vaccine(s) from Pfizer and Moderna.

ibZ (187865262) wrote:You can be vaccinated and protect yourself

Not everyone can be vaccinated and not every system will accept the vaccination. People in those groups are already high-risk, and now have no protection against COVID.

Hidin Bodies (126579776) wrote:It's going to happen. It's going to become the next annual "flu shot".

Yup. I just got my booster and flu shot the same day, same arm (b/c of breast cancer on other side).

Hidin Bodies (126579776) wrote:Natural immunity is actually a thing now ... Natural immunity and vaccines will get the numbers down.

Yes, natural immunity exists. In the second instance, do you mean herd immunity? I only ask because natural immunity is binary... now or never... so technically there's no future tense ("will"). Herd immunity and vaccines will get the numbers down, but herd immunity takes longer based on the strength and breadth of a virus, as well as the number and strength of variants, so we have a long way to go before those numbers are significant.

One thing I think the general populace doesn't know or realize... the number of variants is developing very infrequently and not as varied as with most viruses. There are 200 different viruses that cause the common cold and they each have variants with assorted lineages. There are only 10 SARS-2 variants and only one (Delta) with concerning lineage. That's a feather in someone's cap. We may have botched the spreading of Covid in whatever form, but "someone" got a handle on variants quickly and effectively.

Cookie Monster (4327680) wrote:

Hidin Bodies (126579776) wrote:Natural immunity is actually a thing now ... Natural immunity and vaccines will get the numbers down.

Yes, natural immunity exists. In the second instance, do you mean herd immunity? I only ask because natural immunity is binary... now or never... so technically there's no future tense ("will"). Herd immunity and vaccines will get the numbers down, but herd immunity takes longer based on the strength and breadth of a virus, as well as the number and strength of variants, so we have a long way to go before those numbers are significant.

I use 'natural immunity' now to differentiate from 'herd immunity'. The term herd immunity is a lightning rod for politics (even though it is the correct term), and so I skip using it. But yes they are identical. The immunity gained from either contracting the virus and recovering, or being exposed to it and fighting it off before symptoms appear. The US has 47M people who have tested positive for covid as well as a good number of people (impossible to count) who have never been tested but have either fought it off or never felt anything from it. I put the number of people naturally immune at 100M (47+53), but obviously that's a guess. They say 190M people are fully vaxxed. That's 290M bodies that have some protection, and we only have 325M people. So obviously there's some overlap and some gaps, but the numbers are extensive.

The virus is sneaky, pervasive, and has been found in animal reservoirs (animal carriers with live covid - house pets). So even if we force vaxxed everyone again tonight, we'd still see covid cases popping up. It's happening in countries who are vaxxed beyond 80%. Delta is a big reason why, but it's also the nature of these vaccines to ebb in efficacy.

It's a fascinating real world plague. I've not lived through one, so the science/bio nerd in me is rabid about following the numbers. They speak louder than all the politicians ever could.