Coronavirus - potential Black Swan?

[FallingAwake]

1 hour ago, Will! said:

Let's have some evidence then.

There's not really a lot of point presenting that kind of stuff on this forum, since I don't have the desire to play endless ping-pong (not necessarily with you but with others) on which person with letters after their name, or which organisations, are more credible than others.

Besides, if you've been vaccinated, you don't need to worry about preventatives all that much. Isn't that the vaccine's job?

By the way, I didn't intend my comment to sound snippy. I just think that people should do their own research and make up their own minds.

1 hour ago, Will! said:

I'll help you out with the CDC:

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/terms/glossary.html#c

Thanks.

Edited August 10, 2021 by FallingAwake

[Riedquat]

Just now, FallingAwake said:

There's not really a lot of point presenting that kind of stuff on this forum, since I don't have the desire to play endless ping-pong (not necessarily with you but with others) on which person with letters after their name, or which organisations, are more credible than others.

Besides, if you've been vaccinated, you don't need to worry about preventatives all that much. Isn't that the vaccine's job?

By the way, I didn't intend my comment to be snippy. I just think that people should do their own research and make up their own minds.

If you're going to make controversial claims you need to be able to support them somehow. "Do your own research" is too often used to really mean "go off and spend time and effort trying to prove my point because I can't be bothered to do it myself."

Another thing to avoid is just posting a load of links in place of an argument (not saying you're doing that, but several people in this thread have done it). That's just another way of saying "I can't be bothered to make my own points" too. The post should stand up on its own right, the links being there as the source to stop people saying "you're making that up" and for further information.

Not that every post has to be a well-reasoned, referenced scientific paper of course, but a baldly stated claim and nothing more isn't going to cut any mustard with anyone.

[FallingAwake]

1 hour ago, vadst43 said:

talking of control groups

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/08/06/this-is-nuts-moderna-and-pfizer-intentionally-lost-the-clinical-trial-control-group-testing-vaccine-efficacy-and-safety/

I'm a vaccine cynic, but I also don't think this is particularly significant. However, it does raise an interesting question. Who is keeping track of the LONG TERM effects of the vaccine? Is that even possible to do?

Suppose we have a 10% uptick in cancer rates over the next 5 years due to the vaccine. Would we make the link?

[Ah-so]

5 minutes ago, FallingAwake said:

I'm a vaccine cynic, but I also don't think this is particularly significant. However, it does raise an interesting question. Who is keeping track of the LONG TERM effects of the vaccine? Is that even possible to do?

Suppose we have a 10% uptick in cancer rates over the next 5 years due to the vaccine. Would we make the link?

Why don't you wait to find out over the LONG TERM?

[Drat]

7 minutes ago, FallingAwake said:

I'm a vaccine cynic, but I also don't think this is particularly significant. However, it does raise an interesting question. Who is keeping track of the LONG TERM effects of the vaccine? Is that even possible to do?

Suppose we have a 10% uptick in cancer rates over the next 5 years due to the vaccine. Would we make the link?

Post market surveillance is mandatory for any pharmaceutical drug or device.  In the case of the large number of COVID vaccines we currently have, these will be under particular scrutiny due to their importance.  You can read more about it here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmarketing_surveillance

[Bruce Banner]

8 minutes ago, Ah-so said:

Why don't you wait to find out over the LONG TERM?

Because by then it may be too late?

My concern is that, if you're attempting to vaccinate everyone in a short space of time, even the smallest risk of serious long term effects is surely unacceptable?

[Drat]

10 hours ago, scottbeard said:

I think it *is* cumulative, because it's all about the "viral load" i.e. you need to have enough viruses passed over to you to create an infection....could be from 2 people.  So that suggests if the shop is pokey then masks might make sense.

I still don't see it as necessary in cavernous supermarkets though - the roof of my local sainsbury's and tesco must be about 30 feet high, so the volume of air in those shops must be huge.  The chances of enough COVID reaching an employee before the virus dies out seems pretty slim.  

Yes it is cumulative. The problem is, the virus can be spread by aerosol droplets. When these droplets are of small enough size they will hang round in the air, thus increasing chance of exposure.  In a big airy supermarket, with good ventilation, droplets will be swept away to the air handling units, and ether captured in filters or expelled into the outside air (where wind will disperse them).

Smaller, poorly ventilated premises are more of a problem, as these droplets will hang round for much longer.  Nightclubs are a problem because more people shouting creates more droplets. (Obviously the risk is proportional to how many people have COVID)

Mixed messages are hard for people to understand, so to keep people wearing masks in smaller shops you give blanket advice to wear masks in all shops.  As soon as people stop wearing them in large supermarkets, they will stop wearing them in small shops too. Populations also act as herds, the more people wearing masks encourages more people to keep wearing masks.

So I wear masks in all shops suffering only a very small inconvenience, because I believe it it helps keep other people wearing masks when they visit the corner shop, and thus helps protect shop workers there.

[Mikhail Liebenstein]

9 minutes ago, Drat said:

 

Mixed messages are hard for people to understand, so to keep people wearing masks in smaller shops you give blanket advice to wear masks in all shops.  As soon as people stop wearing them in large supermarkets, they will stop wearing them in small shops too. Populations also act as herds, the more people wearing masks encourages more people to keep wearing masks.

So I wear masks in all shops suffering only a very small inconvenience, because I believe it it helps keep other people wearing masks when they visit the corner shop, and thus helps protect shop workers there.

 

Most of my local shops have stopped suggesting masks. I think this better as more frequent exposure builds up resistance.

[Ah-so]

1 minute ago, Mikhail Liebenstein said:

 

Most of my local shops have stopped suggesting masks. I think this better as more frequent exposure builds up resistance.

If only there were a way to get modest exposure to the virus that didn't involve risking getting the full illness? Perhaps just enough to teach the immune system how to recognise and kill the virus but not infect you. 

Anyone who could devise such a method would truly be recognised as a hero.  But I doubt medical science will ever advance that far. 

[Bob8]

20 minutes ago, Ah-so said:

If only there were a way to get modest exposure to the virus that didn't involve risking getting the full illness? Perhaps just enough to teach the immune system how to recognise and kill the virus but not infect you. 

Anyone who could devise such a method would truly be recognised as a hero.  But I doubt medical science will ever advance that far. 

As an alternative to a vacccine!

I like your thinking Sir!

[Mikhail Liebenstein]

32 minutes ago, Ah-so said:

If only there were a way to get modest exposure to the virus that didn't involve risking getting the full illness? Perhaps just enough to teach the immune system how to recognise and kill the virus but not infect you. 

Anyone who could devise such a method would truly be recognised as a hero.  But I doubt medical science will ever advance that far. 

 

There is reasonably strong evidence that prior exposure to other coronaviruses helps.

https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-020-01887-1

Edited August 10, 2021 by Mikhail Liebenstein

[Riedquat]

Just now, Mikhail Liebenstein said:

 

There is reasonably strong evidence that prior exposure to other coronaviruses helps.

Exposure to other ones by getting the disease they cause. That's an argument for exposure to less serious coronaviruses, not exposure to the one that causes Covid-19.

[doomed]

47 minutes ago, Bruce Banner said:

Because by then it may be too late?

My concern is that, if you're attempting to vaccinate everyone in a short space of time, even the smallest risk of serious long term effects is surely unacceptable?

My worry about the vaccines are the potential for ADE as this is what has happened in previous attempts at producing a coronavirus vaccine. How can we be sure that won't happen here?

I suppose this winter we will find out.

If anyone can answer this in good faith why it isn't an issue I would be interested in hearing it.

[Mikhail Liebenstein]

5 minutes ago, Riedquat said:

Exposure to other ones by getting the disease they cause. That's an argument for exposure to less serious coronaviruses, not exposure to the one that causes Covid-19.

They protect and more socialising helps them spread. Limit social exposure make more people likely to get sick from SARsS-CoV-2.

Masks and social distancing are a big fail!

[vadst43]

https://peckford42.wordpress.com/2021/07/17/letter-to-physicians-four-new-scientific-discoveries-regarding-the-safety-and-efficacy-of-covid-19-vaccines/

[Will!]

42 minutes ago, Mikhail Liebenstein said:

 

There is reasonably strong evidence that prior exposure to other coronaviruses helps.

https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-020-01887-1

Debunked that one twice now.

[Confusion of VIs]

3 hours ago, vadst43 said:

talking of control groups

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/08/06/this-is-nuts-moderna-and-pfizer-intentionally-lost-the-clinical-trial-control-group-testing-vaccine-efficacy-and-safety/

Aren't companies both ethically and legally required to inform placebo recipients once at treatment is confirmed to be beneficial and approved. 

  

 

 

 

[Will!]

2 hours ago, FallingAwake said:

There's not really a lot of point presenting that kind of stuff on this forum, since I don't have the desire to play endless ping-pong (not necessarily with you but with others) on which person with letters after their name, or which organisations, are more credible than others.

Besides, if you've been vaccinated, you don't need to worry about preventatives all that much. Isn't that the vaccine's job?

It may be that none of the following applies to you.

There is a method of vaccine disinformation which is based on asking questions based on a false premise.  When challenged the disinformer can claim they're not making a statement (and therefore don't have to provide evidence), they're just asking a question.  (And who could argue with asking questions, isn't that what science is all about, only an authoritarian would stop people asking questions etc).  The premise of the question of the question is false though and so this is disinformation by implication.

Now anyone can make a mistake and ask a question based on a mistaken premise.  But when they repeat the question and cannot explain why they believe this premise then that's less like an honest mistake and more like disinformation by implication.

As to why I worry even though I've been vaccinated:  until recently I was an intensive care doctor (and I may have to go back if this winter is bad) so the actions of anti-vaxxers are of direct interest to me.

[vadst43]

10 minutes ago, Will! said:

As to why I worry even though I've been vaccinated:  until recently I was an intensive care doctor (and I may have to go back if this winter is bad) so the actions of anti-vaxxers are of direct interest to me.

Won't be many left according to Daily Mail

[Confusion of VIs]

2 hours ago, FallingAwake said:

I'm a vaccine cynic, but I also don't think this is particularly significant. However, it does raise an interesting question. Who is keeping track of the LONG TERM effects of the vaccine? Is that even possible to do?

Suppose we have a 10% uptick in cancer rates over the next 5 years due to the vaccine. Would we make the link?

Of course we would make the link, adverse reactions are closely monitored to the extent that most suspected ones turn out to be existing health risks that were never picked up before.

A 10%, or even 1%,  uptick in cancer rates would be a huge story, but if the vaccine caused a 10% uptick what do you think the uptick caused by catching Covid would be (almost all the adverse reactions found to date blood clots, heart inflammation etc are massively more likely to occur from people catching Covid than taking the vaccine.

       

Edited August 10, 2021 by Confusion of VIs

[MonsieurCopperCrutch]

1 hour ago, Ah-so said:

If only there were a way to get modest exposure to the virus that didn't involve risking getting the full illness? Perhaps just enough to teach the immune system how to recognise and kill the virus but not infect you. 

Anyone who could devise such a method would truly be recognised as a hero.  But I doubt medical science will ever advance that far. 

🤣🤣🤣

He walked into that one didn't he. 👍

[scottbeard]

2 hours ago, Drat said:

Mixed messages are hard for people to understand, so to keep people wearing masks in smaller shops you give blanket advice to wear masks in all shops.  As soon as people stop wearing them in large supermarkets, they will stop wearing them in small shops too. Populations also act as herds, the more people wearing masks encourages more people to keep wearing masks.

So I wear masks in all shops suffering only a very small inconvenience, because I believe it it helps keep other people wearing masks when they visit the corner shop, and thus helps protect shop workers there.

So to make sure that people wear hard hats on building sites we should ask people to wear hard hats whenever they go outdoors, because they're all too stupid to understand the "mixed message" of wearing a hard hat on a building site, but not in Tesco?

Or we could do what we do at the moment, where shops that prefer you to wear a mask have a sign on the door that says "Please wear a face covering".

If you try and say to people "you should do XXX all the time" when it is blantantly obvious that XXX in most cases has no impact that doesn't help your cause - in my view if anything it makes people just ignore you.

[Riedquat]

3 minutes ago, scottbeard said:

So to make sure that people wear hard hats on building sites we should ask people to wear hard hats whenever they go outdoors, because they're all too stupid to understand the "mixed message" of wearing a hard hat on a building site, but not in Tesco?

Or we could do what we do at the moment, where shops that prefer you to wear a mask have a sign on the door that says "Please wear a face covering".

If you try and say to people "you should do XXX all the time" when it is blantantly obvious that XXX in most cases has no impact that doesn't help your cause - in my view if anything it makes people just ignore you.

Wearing a hard hat is not a difficult thing to do and it might just save your life even in a supermarket, so really we should do it. It might happen and if it saves one life... All very well to sneer at that, but what if that life is someone close to you? Do you want people to get hurt? Just because you want to seek out risks by not wearing a hard hat everywhere doesn't mean that others should be expected to pointlessly put themselves in danger.

Edited August 10, 2021 by Riedquat

[MonsieurCopperCrutch]

3 minutes ago, scottbeard said:

So to make sure that people wear hard hats on building sites we should ask people to wear hard hats whenever they go outdoors, because they're all too stupid to understand the "mixed message" of wearing a hard hat on a building site, but not in Tesco?

Or we could do what we do at the moment, where shops that prefer you to wear a mask have a sign on the door that says "Please wear a face covering".

If you try and say to people "you should do XXX all the time" when it is blantantly obvious that XXX in most cases has no impact that doesn't help your cause - in my view if anything it makes people just ignore you.

The vast majority of the general public are stupid. Hence the need for simple messaging. The general public do not go on building sites. And out of a courtesy to those working in shops, just wear a damn mask FGS. 

[Kosmin]

13 hours ago, FallingAwake said:

Tragic though these stories of death are, what's the point of them? They just serve to confirm gotta-vaxx'ers own biases, while not even making an effort to address any of the so-called "misinformation" from the anti-vaxxers.

Perhaps the problem is that there might be a very broad spectrum of anti-vax positions. But examples of people dying seem to address at least the claims of those who claim nobody is dying. I expect they would respond that they don't believe they died of covid! 

 

14 hours ago, FallingAwake said:

Also, this comment from the guy:

"The message I want to get out is why would the government want to hurt you by giving you a vaccine? What is the purpose behind it?"

Sigh.

Let's tweak this a little...

"The message I want to get out is why would the government want to hurt you by [constantly pushing house prices up?] What is the purpose behind it?"

Governments are for the people, right?

Same with the drug companies. They only have your best interests at heart, right?

Forgive me for being cynical here.

But no, I don't believe the Boris Johnson government is out to kill me. And neither are Pfizer or Moderna, in my opinion.

It's sensible to be suspicious of claims made by people who have different interests to you.

House prices going up are bad for the vast majority of people (most people either rent and want to buy, or want to upsize, or have children or grandchildren who want to buy). It is bad for the economy generally, so even more homeowners (even those who don't have children, or whose children also own property) are possibly worse off. A small number of people (who own a lot of land/property or have a big investment in housebuilding) benefit at the expense of everyone else.

These is a similar difference of interests with regard to harmful drugs (see the opioid crisis in the USA). Drug companies make billions from selling them and I think doctors are also paid when they prescribe them. If the executives, sales reps, researchers, doctors etc. wouldn't be prepared to take these drugs, then they clearly have different interests.

I doubt the same sort of different interest exists with vaccines. Are pharmaceutical executives taking the vaccines? Are the scientists who developed the vaccines taking them? If the scientists are taking them then presumably they believe the vaccines are lower risk than the virus.

If you don't dispute the scientific understanding of the scientists and the scientists take their own vaccines, where can the difference lie? I suppose you could have a different risk tolerance to them. Maybe you are more risk averse than they are. But is there a reason to be more risk averse with regard to the vaccine and less risk averse with regard to the virus?