Thread: Covid Vaccines

When the vaccine is rolled out, I'll be first inline. I don't understand those who say they won't get the jab, perhaps they think death is a better option. Very irresponsible attitude I feel since we a need 70% vaccinated to shut down this plague.

The Chinese have a lot to answer for!

If they can get the WHO to pretend they didn't hear the word "taiwan", I'd imagine you won't see too strong of a conclusion from them about the origin.

Mutation and the lower reactivity to some strains is starting to look like an issue. If some vaccines have 90% efficacy and then 50% against a particular strain, then that strain will become dominant. shots at about 1.3 million a day here in the US - most older folks I know are already jabbed (including my parents). My spouse is, too (works in healthcare).

A couple of relatives caught the bug a week before they were scheduled to get the jab, but they're younger and are just angry and uncomfortable more than they are threatened. I suppose in a couple of weeks, they can count themselves as "vaccinated" the natural way - not ideal.

I will make it very clear that I am not an anti vaxxer. I worked in "big pharma" for years, my wife owns a pharmacy and (back a few years!) we worked with some of the people who have developed one of the covid vaccines. Please accept therefore that I am not "anti" anything, so what I am about to write is for discussion purposes only.

Drug development normally takes many years, and includes massive amounts of safety testing. Vaccines have, in the past, caused various unexpected problems down the line (no, not the now dis-proven "autism" thing), as have other pharmaceutical products. This vaccine has been developed in very short order, with no long term testing whatsoever - there simply hasn't been enough elapsed time. With that in mind, does it worry anyone that there has not been a single person who has had this vaccine and then conceived and given birth? Or gone through puberty? Obviously these things are of no impact to the older people who are the current target of most of the vaccination programs, but for younger people who are yet to have a family?

I'm not a younger person (!), but if I was, and was in good health, I think I'd be weighing up the risks of covid against the potential unknowns of a vaccine, at least until a few others have acted as guinea pigs.

Originally Posted by Warb

I will make it very clear that I am not an anti vaxxer. I worked in "big pharma" for years, my wife owns a pharmacy and (back a few years!) we worked with some of the people who have developed one of the covid vaccines. Please accept therefore that I am not "anti" anything, so what I am about to write is for discussion purposes only.

Drug development normally takes many years, and includes massive amounts of safety testing. Vaccines have, in the past, caused various unexpected problems down the line (no, not the now dis-proven "autism" thing), as have other pharmaceutical products. This vaccine has been developed in very short order, with no long term testing whatsoever - there simply hasn't been enough elapsed time. With that in mind, does it worry anyone that there has not been a single person who has had this vaccine and then conceived and given birth? Or gone through puberty? Obviously these things are of no impact to the older people who are the current target of most of the vaccination programs, but for younger people who are yet to have a family?

I'm not a younger person (!), but if I was, and was in good health, I think I'd be weighing up the risks of covid against the potential unknowns of a vaccine, at least until a few others have acted as guinea pigs.

Warbs

Thank you for a very well reasoned post.

The aspect I take from any vaccine and any drug is that there is always the potential for side effects. These effects may be immediate or they manifest themselves down the track. It is always a question of weighing up the odds. These Covid-19 vaccines have been developed in record time: A time frame that I think is hitherto unknown. The initial reason is that the product had a financial benefit for the producers: An incentive. However, as you have pointed out, the trials following development would ordinarily take much longer and I don't see how they could be rushed through.

So the question really is a person better off taking the vaccine or staying without it. Again, as you have pointed out, it will depend on your state of health and your age. People with respiratory conditions appear to be highly at risk. I too am not an anti-vaxxer and certainly would take a vaccine for any of the serious and insidious diseases, but do not take the cold flue jab. I am lucky in that generally I seem to enjoy good health, but this has not stopped a couple of nurses in the family having a go at me for not having it. My take on this is that I would rather build my own immunity and that this is a considered risk as ordinarily a cold is hardly life threatening, unless you are within a group of people never exposed to it.

Your point about the effects on the pre-pubescent, and the fertility of women in particular of child bearing age is one that had not even occurred to me.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Warb

I will make it very clear that I am not an anti vaxxer. I worked in "big pharma" for years, my wife owns a pharmacy and (back a few years!) we worked with some of the people who have developed one of the covid vaccines. Please accept therefore that I am not "anti" anything, so what I am about to write is for discussion purposes only.

Drug development normally takes many years, and includes massive amounts of safety testing. Vaccines have, in the past, caused various unexpected problems down the line (no, not the now dis-proven "autism" thing), as have other pharmaceutical products. This vaccine has been developed in very short order, with no long term testing whatsoever - there simply hasn't been enough elapsed time. With that in mind, does it worry anyone that there has not been a single person who has had this vaccine and then conceived and given birth? Or gone through puberty? Obviously these things are of no impact to the older people who are the current target of most of the vaccination programs, but for younger people who are yet to have a family?

I'm not a younger person (!), but if I was, and was in good health, I think I'd be weighing up the risks of covid against the potential unknowns of a vaccine, at least until a few others have acted as guinea pigs.

Warb, what you write is logical and, to some extent makes sense, but is flawed, I am afraid.

I could argue that the nature of the vaccines is different, but this is not the issue, and I do not want to go there (I know only enough to know I do not know enough).

The real issue is that taking the vaccine is not about you. It is not for your health, or the health of young or old. It is not self-protection. The issue of secondary or side-effects misses the point. The point is that one is being vaccinated to protect others. If the vaccine can stop the virus (debatable as it mutates), then there will not be anyone to pass it on. Young or old.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Originally Posted by derekcohen

The real issue is that taking the vaccine is not about you. It is not for your health, or the health of young or old. It is not self-protection. The issue of secondary or side-effects misses the point. The point is that one is being vaccinated to protect others. If the vaccine can stop the virus (debatable as it mutates), then there will not be anyone to pass it on. Young or old.

Derek

Surely that thinking would only be true if a vaccine could be administered simultaneously to everybody. Of course that cannot happen both from a production point of view and logistically. It will take many months before either the 70% target is met (remember we are talking worldwide) or those who want the vaccine receive it. In the meantime it must be seen as a preventative measure for those most at risk and those at risk may not be among the most healthy. Consequently we may have arrived back at the side effect question.

Ultimately I can see that ivaccineswill shut down the virus or at least I hope it will. The mutation of strains I think is a very real, but unknown quantity for the moment. The Spanish flu took about three years and several waves before it began to subside. We are now just over one year into the pandemic.

Regards
Paul

I think that the real question is are the risks/dangers associated with taking the vaccine greater than the risks/dangers associated with getting Covid.

No vaccine is perfect, some are better than others, in a few years we will know the score but for now I think that the risks for Covid far outweigh any available vaccine so it really is a no-brainer.

Except for those few amongst us that won't take the vaccine and are relying on the rest of us to hopefully create herd immunity.

The dynamic here (where there's more covid is):
* what are the risks of the vaccine
* can you still get and pass covid while on it (even if less, or even if you're asymptomatic in most cases)
* if you're in an age group where covid is a couple of days (I know a fit fellow who had symptomatic covid - he took half an afternoon off for fatigue for a couple of days - he got it over Christmas, as did everyone else in his family visiting at the same time, but the older folks in general had a rougher go), is it worth getting the vaccine to lower your chance of passing to the virus to other people

I'm not in great physical shape and age 44. I'm not sure that i care that much about getting covid or not - I may have said it early on here, but the chinese published a progression of the disease as they were closely observing it early on. If you get it in lower amounts in your nose and mouth, it doesn't get to your lungs to multiply as quickly. If you're in a saturated environment (like the WA nursing home workers), then the hospitalization rate is very high even among a cohort where it shouldn't be.

I wanted to find out what the viral load was to get the virus (the smallest reliable amount) and put it in the tip of my nose to get immunity, confirmed by antibody testing. Everyone thought that was a stupid idea except for my doctor. Obviously, that's not an option.

The last bullet point is the one for me, though - I would probably get a crappier case, but I also have had bronchitis about 75 times. I know what it is to be miserable for a couple of weeks and lose sleep and be sore all over (strained muscles from spastic cough - imagine pulling muscles in your chest, ribs or side and then having a spastic cough and a migraine that follows all of it - it's a party). I've also had unintentional medication induced SEVERE depression due to a reaction to a migraine medication, and nothing that's not terminal comes remotely close to that in the physical. Even with severe bronchitis, you can find moments of comfort - it's far less intolerable.

But, if the shot gives me a better chance of not spreading the virus, I'm getting the shot.

Spouse was down and out for a little more than a day from her second shot here - I've never seen her sit - she didn't get out of bed. Others, less of an issue than that, but the interesting part is that the reaction for seniors to the vaccine seems to be no more severe, but to the real virus multiplying in their system...obviously that's not the case.

I'm absolutely against mandatory vaccinations unless the uptake isn't high enough to do the trick. Despite stupid news stories here, the uptake rate (voluntary) for eligible classes has been about 80%. I think there is some risk mitigation value in the long term to have a group who hasn't had the vaccine and who developed immunity naturally.

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

Derek

Surely that thinking would only be true if a vaccine could be administered simultaneously to everybody. Of course that cannot happen both from a production point of view and logistically. It will take many months before either the 70% target is met (remember we are talking worldwide) or those who want the vaccine receive it. In the meantime it must be seen as a preventative measure for those most at risk and those at risk may not be among the most healthy. Consequently we may have arrived back at the side effect question.

Ultimately I can see that ivaccineswill shut down the virus or at least I hope it will. The mutation of strains I think is a very real, but unknown quantity for the moment. The Spanish flu took about three years and several waves before it began to subside. We are now just over one year into the pandemic.

Regards
Paul

We're seeing a case rate decline here for no real explained reason other than that it's not Christmas. It may be (likely is) the case that more people have developed immunity than thought and we're further along here than originally supposed. The patience for absolute shutdown has worn thin in most areas and the kids are in school. Time will tell, but the middle part of the population seems to be bearing the brunt now and the rates are dropping (restaurants, etc, still open - just reduced capacity).

I've seen some odd things, too. BIL got it at work, gave it to his wife - all three (small) kids developed fevers and showed symptoms within only a couple of days. None of them has been that sick and BIl recovered in about 4 days. His spouse is taking a little longer, but she's got plenty of energy for anger!! The kids are all fine.

On the other end, another relative in low 50s age took two weeks just to break the fever and his spouse didn't get it from him. Maybe she's already had it. Of the two, he's fit, and she's a lovely person, but with the energy of a sloth (me, too) and built like a jelly donut.

My sister's entire group got it (all tested positive), one kid had a fever for part of the day, the others asymptomatic, and my sister and her husband felt slightly off and lost taste and smell for a little less than a week and then gone.

There's a push here in some places for everyone flying to have proof of vaccination. If someone has legitimate proof of prior infection (let's say, more than a month ago), then it's pretty dopey to require them to get a vaccine. They probably have better immunity even after antibodies are gone (second infections after antibodies are gone are generally asymptomatic or very mild).

Just as we haven't been very good at actual detection rates and predicting outcome, I don't think we'll be very accurate at calling when it dies down. It'll just happen, but closed societies may have a rougher go on the tail end as it wouldn't be surprising to find community response to new variants better in places where people actually had the virus.

moderna and pfizer here have reported about 1/2 reactivity or 50% chance of transmission of certain variants, but backtracked now and said that it may actually be lower transmission (or higher immunity)

Moderna also quickly said that any variant thus far that doesn't respond to the first vaccine would be scientifically easy to defeat with a booster altered to target a new variant.

The question then is really for each new resistant variant, how long do we have to wait for such a booster shot? 6 months? A year? That's no good.

The early chinese cases of reinfection were later generally thought to be varying rates of viral load in long haulers (if the load drops below the assay detection rate and then comes up, it looks like two). Since then, there have been at least a few thousand people identified with two different versions (likely at different times, more than getting two at once) - and generally, the second case except in severely compromised folks has been asymptomatic or mild. That's encouraging.

Originally Posted by derekcohen

Warb, what you write is logical and, to some extent makes sense, but is flawed, I am afraid.
The real issue is that taking the vaccine is not about you. It is not for your health, or the health of young or old. It is not self-protection. The issue of secondary or side-effects misses the point. The point is that one is being vaccinated to protect others. If the vaccine can stop the virus (debatable as it mutates), then there will not be anyone to pass it on. Young or old.

Indeed, and I fully understand that. But.....

If it turns out that the vaccine has some horrible impact on human reproduction, then we have potentially wiped out not only the virus, but also the host......

Human history is littered with examples of ongoing disasters caused by a well-meaning attempt to fix a problem or "improve" something. Each and every such attempt used the best science and knowledge of the day, and "fully understood" the errors of the past.

Edit: oops, browser crashed and I re-posted! Sorry

Hopefully the govt will adopt a no jab, no entry plan to protect us from the idiots!

Originally Posted by sacc51

Hopefully the govt will adopt a no jab, no entry plan to protect us from the idiots!

That’s the plan. Unfortunately, a lot of people cannot have the shot due to health issues, and will be affected.