Corona Vaccine - Anyone getting it?

Scotty Con Queso said:

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

Another thing that gets me is the lack of reporting on just how bad the US is at fighting this.

We have ranked #1 in covid cases and deaths for a long time.  We are worse than India.... a country with 4 times the population, less-developed medicine, but half the cases and half the deaths.   We have 8 times the number of cases per million, and 8 times the number of deaths per million of our next closest country in the ranking... a country with less medical tech than we have.

Remember how in the beginning it was all about Italy?  They have 1/5th the population, but 1/10th the cases.

Source

 

Why do you think that is? And I don't ask that rhetorically. I mean look at India for example. That country is super crowded and you can't tell me they are doing better at staying home than we are. 

I have very strong, fact-based, science-proven, thoughts about that with references from thousands of the finest, peer-reviewed, experienced scientific minds on the planet.... which I won't share because some people will consider it a violation of their constitutional rights.

I will share that there is some unproven evidence that the virus has a more difficult time in warmer temperatures, but that doesn't explain the fact that India has done consistently better even with the climate variables of summer/winter than we have.

Scotty Con Queso said:

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

Another thing that gets me is the lack of reporting on just how bad the US is at fighting this.

We have ranked #1 in covid cases and deaths for a long time.  We are worse than India.... a country with 4 times the population, less-developed medicine, but half the cases and half the deaths.   We have 8 times the number of cases per million, and 8 times the number of deaths per million of our next closest country in the ranking... a country with less medical tech than we have.

Remember how in the beginning it was all about Italy?  They have 1/5th the population, but 1/10th the cases.

Source

 

Why do you think that is? And I don't ask that rhetorically. I mean look at India for example. That country is super crowded and you can't tell me they are doing better at staying home than we are. 

It's because you live in the land of the free and the home of the brave,and Covid was turned into a political matter, not a scientific or medical one. 

We do it here, too, but not as dramatically. Why anyone would ask for advice from a politician is beyond me.  "Hey, Mr.Prime Minister, what should we do about this disease?"  The proper answer should be, "Hell, I don't know, I'm a retired part time drama teacher."

Streetwiseguy said:

Scotty Con Queso said:

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

Another thing that gets me is the lack of reporting on just how bad the US is at fighting this.

We have ranked #1 in covid cases and deaths for a long time.  We are worse than India.... a country with 4 times the population, less-developed medicine, but half the cases and half the deaths.   We have 8 times the number of cases per million, and 8 times the number of deaths per million of our next closest country in the ranking... a country with less medical tech than we have.

Remember how in the beginning it was all about Italy?  They have 1/5th the population, but 1/10th the cases.

Source

 

Why do you think that is? And I don't ask that rhetorically. I mean look at India for example. That country is super crowded and you can't tell me they are doing better at staying home than we are. 

It's because you live in the land of the free and the home of the brave,and Covid was turned into a political matter, not a scientific or medical one. 

We do it here, too, but not as dramatically. Why anyone would ask for advice from a politician is beyond me.  "Hey, Mr.Prime Minister, what should we do about this disease?"  The proper answer should be, "Hell, I don't know, I'm a retired part time drama teacher."

What the Canadian said. ^^^

At the very least, answers from leaders could be something like "I have consulted with experts and they say [insert logical, medical advice here]"

Check out how well Africa has done against Covid. A place where safe water isn't a given. The main answer is they have had lots of practice, were as we haven't, along with the aforementioned things. 

The data says that America is one of the worst hit countries, but that assumes good data worldwide. My guess is that the worldwide number of cases and deaths is a lot worse than what is reported because America is really good at tracking the numbers, and other countries may not be.

I am getting vaccinated as soon as possible. Long term effects of the vaccine or from Covid are unknown, but the short term effects of dying from Covid are known to be bad.

edited for clarity.

barefootskater (Shaun) said:

I'm genuinely curious. What proof will folks be able to show that they have been immunized? An ID card? A stamp? Tattoo? RFID? Once that has been sorted, how will such proof be acquired? If a business* decides only to cater to those who have been immunized, what prevents folks from refusing to give personal medical info out? What prevents forged immune-cards. what about those who cannot be immunized for medical reasons?

All I'm saying is that "immunity" isn't going to be a free ticket to returning to normal life. At best, it's a small step towards that goal. At worst, a fraud-fraught bureaucratic nightmare. 
 

*I fully support the rights of any individual or business to engage in business or not engage for any reason they see fit. 

It's hard to say for sure right now.  My WAG is when you get vaccinated you'll get a receipt for it. And while from a medical POV that probably won't mean anything as far as one's ability to be a carrier, I'm fairly certain it will have a certain level of "optics".  For my situation, where I need to go to a construction site, if everyone on the site has been vaccinated, there should be some level of assurance they won't get sick.  

The "I know 10 people who got it and they just got a fever..." argument is rather ignorant. One big issue with this virus is how it randomly affects people.  While someone who would normally be considered "high risk" could get it and not show any symptoms at all, there are others who would be considered low risk, get it and die within days.  And at this time we have no way of knowing which camp someone might be in, so not getting it is the best defense. 

As far as Moderna being a start-up, this is common in the Pharma world.  That doesn't mean the people doing the work are beginners.  Most have years or decades of experience at other companies.  Like most start-ups, the general plan is someone has an idea, they get some venture capital to develop it, make a big splash, then cash out to a big-pharma firm.  I've designed a lot of pilot manufacturing facilities for these start-ups over the years.  Sometimes it works out for them. Sometimes it doesn't. Fortunately, I get paid either way. 

As far as numbers, I'd argue it's partly because we live in such a hyper-information society. Possibly more than any other country. And we polticize that information, so there is additional incentive to get as much information as possible.  And we have more resources than many to collect information. So I'm not entirely sure if comparing infection rates between the US and other countries is always an apples to apples comparison.

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

barefootskater (Shaun) said:

I'm genuinely curious. What proof will folks be able to show that they have been immunized? An ID card? A stamp? Tattoo? RFID? Once that has been sorted, how will such proof be acquired? If a business* decides only to cater to those who have been immunized, what prevents folks from refusing to give personal medical info out? What prevents forged immune-cards. what about those who cannot be immunized for medical reasons?

All I'm saying is that "immunity" isn't going to be a free ticket to returning to normal life. At best, it's a small step towards that goal. At worst, a fraud-fraught bureaucratic nightmare. 
 

*I fully support the rights of any individual or business to engage in business or not engage for any reason they see fit. 

 

While someone who would normally be considered "high risk" could get it and not show any symptoms at all, there are others who would be considered low risk, get it and die within days.  And at this time we have no way of knowing which camp someone might be in, so not getting it is the best defense. 

As far as numbers, I'd argue it's partly because we live in such a hyper-information society. Possibly more than any other country. And we polticize that information, so there is additional incentive to get as much information as possible.  And we have more resources than many to collect information. So I'm not entirely sure if comparing infection rates between the US and other countries is always an apples to apples comparison.

Agreed on the risk part.  Credible reports show some perfectly healthy people dying, and some at-risk folks not being affected.  My personal observations have supported that.  In my circle there are two who were perfectly healthy folks who died and one old, unhealthy person who breezed through it:  A 22-year old friend of my nephew and a 40-year old friend of the theater both passed away from it with no other complications, and the namesake of the building where I work just turned 96 with a multiple heart bypass 5 years ago, and in remission from bladder cancer.  He was admitted with a fever and tested positive and was discharged from the hospital three days later.

The battle will always exist between conspiracy and fact, but it seems the US has the market pretty well cornered.  We seem to live in a country where the absence of proof just means something is even more plausibly a government conspiracy.  Don't get me wrong, I love a good conspiracy theory, but it has to be presented with plausible evidence backed by science - not just theory.

wheelsmithy (Joe-with-an-L) (Forum Supporter) said:

Check out how well Africa has done against Covid. A place where safe water isn't a given. The main answer is they have had lots of practice, were as we haven't, along with the aforementioned things. 

And generally speaking, a much broader distribution of population with far less inter-population travel

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

With Covid, you can be contagious for up to 14 days before having any symptoms.  (The CDC actually just updated that to 10 days after further research with contact tracing).

I didn’t want to quote the thing, but many thanks for a exelent explanation!!! 

And you did it without all the highly political soapbox stomping, that is so prevalent, that it’s even bad on here. 

I quoted the one part, because even though we know that, all the companies (100 % that I personally know of) are so proud of themselves for helping us, by having everyone take their temperature as soon as they get on site.... um, if it’s high, it’s too late!!! But they are so proud of themselves 

Goes right with a few companies requiring there people to wear a mask... while on a phone conference... setting in a room by themselves!

i would not get fired do refusing to, just for pointing out that whoever came up with that, is too dumb to be allowed to breed  

there is so much political wrangling from the start ( yes, from all sides) that it’s hard to know what to believe. 

But someone  telling me I’m a killer and anti science if I don’t agree with every word they say, does NOT make me listen to them more

thanks again for a great few posts You always have good info., even if I don’t always agree!

Regarding India and Africa:  India is the strange one.  The rather intense population density and generally poorer living conditions would seem to imply disaster (as is generally the case in the US).  It honestly (to me at least) does not make sense that they aren't just huge infection zone.  You might think India would have a serious issue with testing, but it appears they have done rather well with that, relatively.  ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7485636/ )

Two aspects the MAY (Guessing here) be having an effect:

- As noted, temperature seems to have an effect.  Likely not simply because of the outside temperature, but the fact that cold weather tends to drive people inside, breathing the same air etc. Outside activities, sun exposure, vitamin D etc. all are helpful also.  Comparing northern with southern India could give some insight to this.

- I wonder if there may be a genetic and or environmental aspect also.  They may be genetically more resistant, and / or the fact (similar to Africa) that they generally live in s MUCH harsher environment (tends to weed out the weak etc) than a typical American.  This would certainly affect deaths and symptomatics, but should not affect transmission... so...

It will be very interesting to see analysis of all the data (which I really hope they are collecting properly) in the next few years to figure out what the critical variables where (almost certainly a combination).  Hopefully they have the data to do that analysis...

Regarding vaccination "cards":   Part of the vaccination plan in the US does include a proof of vaccination card, as well as a procedure for reminder for the second dose.  Will this be enough proof to allow entry into events etc?  The card (as shown in the article below) does not seem terribly hard to forge.  You would think the would put some sort of scannable code that could be tied to a person (so you could not use someone else's).

https://www.npr.org/2020/12/03/942294593/vaccine-cards-and-second-dose-reminders-are-part-of-warp-speeds-immunization-pla

The single dose vaccines will of course remove the reminder necessity and honestly, I hope they are ready by the time the larger masses are vaccinated because I can see an issue with the common populace not getting the second dose while people who are more tied to necessity of the vaccine (health workers etc) will almost certainly.

From the above article, a bit of a potential data point:

Between the middle of December and the end of February, Slaoui said, "We will have potentially immunized 100 million people, which is really more or less the size of the significant at-risk population," such as the elderly, front-line workers and people with health conditions that increase their risk.

03Panther said:

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

With Covid, you can be contagious for up to 14 days before having any symptoms.  (The CDC actually just updated that to 10 days after further research with contact tracing).

I didn’t want to quote the thing, but many thanks for a exelent explanation!!! 

And you did it without all the highly political soapbox stomping, that is so prevalent, that it’s even bad on here. 

I quoted the one part, because even though we know that, all the companies (100 % that I personally know of) are so proud of themselves for helping us, by having everyone take their temperature as soon as they get on site.... um, if it’s high, it’s too late!!! But they are so proud of themselves 

Goes right with a few companies requiring there people to wear a mask... while on a phone conference... setting in a room by themselves!

i would not get fired do refusing to, just for pointing out that whoever came up with that, is too dumb to be allowed to breed  

there is so much political wrangling from the start ( yes, from all sides) that it’s hard to know what to believe. 

But someone  telling me I’m a killer and anti science if I don’t agree with every word they say, does NOT make me listen to them more

thanks again for a great few posts You always have good info., even if I don’t always agree!

 

I love a good disagreement :)

My stance on this whole thing is that if I follow the science and its a hoax, then the only thing I've done is worn a mask for no reason.  If I don't follow the science and I'm wrong, I potentially will have been responsible for the deaths and/or suffering of thousands of people.

Since there are a few million scientific data points on the science side, and nothing more than conspiracy and conjecture on the non-science side, I feel pretty good about my choice.  I will not, however, shame anyone else for making their own choices regardless of what I think about them.  Discuss, convince, persuade, lead, or debate, yes.  But I try not to shame.

aircooled said:

Regarding India and Africa:  India is the strange one.  The rather intense population density and generally poorer living conditions would seem to imply disaster (as is generally the case in the US).  It honestly (to me at least) does not make sense that they aren't just huge infection zone.  You might think India would have a serious issue with testing, but it appears they have done rather well with that, relatively.  ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7485636/ )

Two aspects the MAY (Guessing here) be having an effect:

- As noted, temperature seems to have an effect.  Likely not simply because of the outside temperature, but the fact that cold weather tends to drive people inside, breathing the same air etc. Outside activities, sun exposure, vitamin D etc. all are helpful also.  Comparing northern with southern India could give some insight to this.

- I wonder if there may be a genetic and or environmental aspect also.  They may be genetically more resistant, and / or the fact (similar to Africa) that they generally live in s MUCH harsher environment (tends to weed out the weak etc) than a typical American.  This would certainly affect deaths and symptomatics, but should not affect transmission... so...

It will be very interesting to see analysis of all the data (which I really hope they are collecting properly) in the next few years to figure out what the critical variables where (almost certainly a combination).  Hopefully they have the data to do that analysis...

The genetic angle certainly has merit.  We've already seen some glimpses into its differential impact across racial lines, those with certain genotypes, genders, and chemical phenotypes.  Of course, it might be years until we have enough clean data to assemble those trends.

03Panther said:

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

With Covid, you can be contagious for up to 14 days before having any symptoms.  (The CDC actually just updated that to 10 days after further research with contact tracing).

I didn’t want to quote the thing, but many thanks for a exelent explanation!!! 

And you did it without all the highly political soapbox stomping, that is so prevalent, that it’s even bad on here. 

I quoted the one part, because even though we know that, all the companies (100 % that I personally know of) are so proud of themselves for helping us, by having everyone take their temperature as soon as they get on site.... um, if it’s high, it’s too late!!! But they are so proud of themselves 

Goes right with a few companies requiring there people to wear a mask... while on a phone conference... setting in a room by themselves!

i would not get fired do refusing to, just for pointing out that whoever came up with that, is too dumb to be allowed to breed  

there is so much political wrangling from the start ( yes, from all sides) that it’s hard to know what to believe. 

But someone  telling me I’m a killer and anti science if I don’t agree with every word they say, does NOT make me listen to them more

thanks again for a great few posts You always have good info., even if I don’t always agree!

 

I like your tone and do agree with some of the points you've made.  
Please  let me clarify something. The CDC did change it to 10 days from 14 accepting the greater risk in exchange for hopefully greater compliance.  

aircooled said:

Regarding India and Africa:  India is the strange one.  The rather intense population density and generally poorer living conditions would seem to imply disaster (as is generally the case in the US).  It honestly (to me at least) does not make sense that they aren't just huge infection zone.  You might think India would have a serious issue with testing, but it appears they have done rather well with that, relatively.  ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7485636/ )

 

I'm not sure I agree.  I'm 60, and the vast majority of doctors I've been involved with over the last 50 of those years have been Indian or South African.  A shortage of doctors and testing facilities wouldn't be an issue in India, I'd bet.

I have a question. And not I'm starting E36 M3, but how many of you heard about the "levels" of the viral load of Covid?

I listen to a lot of podcast(imho) where's there's not bias to this or that side. I've heard a lot here lately about the COVID testing  being too sensitive.

From my understanding America's testing is unlimited on how much of the strain you have. Most countries only test for certain viral load in your system and if low enough you test negative. Where as USA testing system you can have a 1% viral load and your put into the statistics.

Again not trying to start E36 M3. But if I'm allowed to walk into a store and buy cigarettes that kill more, over 500,000 in the same time period, how much is this virus more then an element of we risk ourselves to everyday life to....

Smoking is voluntary and isn't contagious.

ProDarwin said:

Smoking is voluntary and isn't contagious.

Additionally, there are policies and regulations to limit second hand exposure (aka- transmission of carcinogenic compounds to innocent bystanders)

In reply to Subscriber-unavailabile :

According to the CDC the number of actual cases could be as high as 53 million. What they are getting now is somewhere around 10% of those who go in for testing. 
    Would you go in to be tested if you didn't have any symptoms?  Many of those who actually have Covid 19  are symptom free.   So they don't go in.  Hence the potential for 53 million. 

But they've determined COVID existed in December of last year. Our country has 331 million documented people in it. We have some almost 15 million people so far that have contracted the virus for sure. 
If after a year you told me 15 people died out of 331... 

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

While someone who would normally be considered "high risk" could get it and not show any symptoms at all, there are others who would be considered low risk, get it and die within days.  And at this time we have no way of knowing which camp someone might be in, so not getting it is the best defense. 

There does seem to be a real randomness to it. I should have not done well but did while I worked with a 36 year old marathon runner who didn't last three days in a ventilator. 

I also think wearing a mask in a room alone seems ridiculous, unless you consider building HVAC systems (that) often have really awful filtration. And building owners often do a piss poor job of maintaining systems and even changing filters. 
 

I've been WFH since March and have visited my office twice in that time - to drop off some stuff and pick up some stuff. It's located on the 50th floor of a downtown Atlanta high-rise. The landlord has indicated they cannot/will not upgrade the tenant space filtration nor the fresh air and exhaust air mix. 
 

Despite a serious case of "stir crazy" (from staring at the wall in my basement) I'm not going back into that office anytime soon. I'm extremely fortunate to have that  option.... but I have no desire to go back into that environment if the MFers that I work with are free to show up and cough into the air in a closed office atmosphere.
 

Sooner we can all become immune, the better because I really do feel a serious loss from being around people. Even if I can't stand some of them. 
 

So a mask in a closed office may seem crazy but it may not be so ridiculous. 

In reply to OHSCrifle :

I was not referring to hvac (although I agree with your assessment of those problems) I was referring to while on a video call... they don’t have to wear them in the room alone... (like at home) but do on a call. 

Im blessed with not having to participate in close quarters activities, since empirical evidence has shown that masks, in and of themselves, are no where near as affective as they are touted to be by some. 

‘Course I’m odd man out, cause I like this social distancing thing!

In reply to OHSCrifle :

Oh, btw, I also need to give you a compliment. It’s easy for all of us to assume someone has not thought of something, and all info is good. But on this topic a lot of folks get very condescending about it! You came across as a very polite gentleman! Better than I could do , honestly. Just wanted to let ya know, I noticed, and appreciate it.