Vaccination Offers Better Protection Than Previous COVID-19 Infection

›

• Actually, a study from Israel, the Jewish state, reported the opposite of these findings, so they're not responsible for the study in this post:

  https://www.science.org/conten... [science.org]

  • Re:

    The researchers also found that people who had SARS-CoV-2 previously and received one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine were more highly protected against reinfection than those who once had the virus and were still unvaccinated

    So your study is about people who were infected and had a vaccine. Not a contradiction at all, just yet another different situation and a reminder that if you have been infected you should still get the vaccine.

    • No, what you quoted was only a secondary finding of the study:

      The newly released data show people who once had a SARS-CoV-2 infection were much less likely than never-infected, vaccinated people to get Delta, develop symptoms from it, or become hospitalized with serious COVID-19.

      That was several paragraphs before the quote that you fished out, so why did you ignore it?

      • Re:

        Was scan reading soon after waking up and before coffee ("has trouble reading"). My apologies.

      • • Re:

          That is great advice.

          But if the question is whether some likelihood of future infection is sufficient, then if the Israeli study is correct, then vaccination should not be mandatory for those who were previously infected, just like infection should not be mandatory for those who were vaccinated but not previously infected.

          • then if the Israeli study is correct...

            Which is a massive IF. It not only contradicts pretty much every other study on the topic; not only does so by a literal order of magnitude (warning bells should be sounding by now), but - and I quote [medrxiv.org], from the top of the article in big bold blue letters:

            This article is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed [what does this mean?]. It reports new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice.

            Seriously, anyone who thinks that past infection offers that level of protection just needs to look around. Hey Manaus, how well did having 74% of your population be infected protect you when Delta showed up [thelancet.com]? Hey Iran, how well has having many provinces with more infections than people and one with over twice as many [medrxiv.org] (caveat: not peer reviewed! But also not contradicting dozens of other studies) protect you from subsequent waves [twimg.com]? The simple fact is, immunity against S from infection tends to overwhelmingly target a single, highly mutable epitope [science.org], while from vaccination it tends to target multiple evolutionary conserved epitopes - thus making infection-based immunity more vulnerable to immune escape.

            One might want to say, "But wait, infection also gets antibodies against other proteins!". Except that there's only four proteins on the virion (S, N, E, and M); E and M are small, recessed, and poorly immunogenic; and while N is abundant and immunogenic, N was rejected as a vaccine target because having antibodies against it is associated with ADE [nature.com]. You don't want antibodies against N. S was chosen as the vaccine target by essentially everyone because it's the only practical option.

            And seriously, what is the logic here anyway, even if "natural immunity" was actually better than vaccine-induced immunity (which it isn't)? Getting infected to avoid getting infected? How can people possibly not see the logic hole in this notion?

          • • Re:

              We also have this thing called responsibility.

              I'm all for freedom, but use it wisely. Claiming "freedom!!!" as a reason to avoid vaccination is socially irresponsible and ignores historical lessons like smallpox and polio.

    • Re:

      correction: the article actually says both; In which case it's likely old data 'cos there are now lots of studies that say the opposite.

      • • • Re:

            Those are, respectively:
            - A study saying it's better to be vaccinated than unvaccinated if you were previously infected.
            - An article quoting a study that says not everyone develops antibodies.
            - A press release saying that re-infection with COVID-19 is possible.

            None of those support what you claimed, which is that "lots of studies that say" vaccination is superior to previous infection. None of them compare vaccination alone to previous infection alone.

  • Re:

    I've been scratching my head over that one.
    The database they used for the analysis shows different results than the entirety of the first world, minus them.
    One wonders if the Israelis fucked up the distribution of the mRNA vaccines.

    • Re:

      One theory is that they gave the 2 doses too close together for maximum protection. Seems waiting longer between doses gives better protection, with the ideal being closer to 16 weeks.

  • OK, there is that flawed study I had mentioned in my other post and was waiting for it to be mentioned.

    The flaw in the study? It was a retroactive study based upon covid test results. They looked at the number of positives results in each of the 3 groups (previous infected & unvaccinated, previously infected & vaccinated, and not previously infected & vaccinated). From that, they then determined the vaccinated were 13 times more likely to get an infection than the previously infects but unvaccinated.

    So what is the flaw? It is selection bias. Though the patients they selected for each group were controlled for demographics and health, they did not control for who got tested. That results in a huge selection bias.

    People who chose to get vaccinated tend to take the virus seriously. They often covid test when they get minor symptoms. They test when they know they have a close contact. And sometimes they just plain test because, although they have zero reason to suspect an infection, they're getting together with a group and want to make sure they are clean. More tests means more chance of picking up a positive for an asymptomatic or minor symptomatic infection. And they're more likely to run to the hospital if they are concerned that things aren't going well. They're more likely to seek monoclonal antibody treatments before things get bad if they think they are at risk.

    On the other hand, the people that don't vaccinate often tend to either believe covid is fake or it isn't significant. They aren't going to test for something they don't think is real. They won't test for something they believe is just a minor cold. They don't particularly care if they pass "just a minor cold" on to other people around them. They're more likely to just try and ride a more serious infection out at home. Thus they aren't going to self select themselves for testing or hospitalization in as great of numbers.

    The study could've controlled for this sort of stuff better if they followed people who got tested and matched them for frequency of testing, and then seen what their positivity rate was among the 2 groups. But that's not what they did, and their results are severely flawed as a results

    The researchers even acknowledge this in their own study:

    https://www.medrxiv.org/conten... [medrxiv.org]

    Our study has several limitations . . . Additionally, as this is an observational real-world study, where
    PCR screening was not performed by protocol, we might be underestimating
    asymptomatic infections, as these individuals often do not get tested.

    • Re:

      What about survivorship bias as well?
      Infected people included in the study are also the ones who survived the infection. Their immune response would have to be at lest better than a random group of people. The infection just selected out the weak ones.

• • Re:

    Can't wait for that film to come out! =)))

• Re: I'm the first nutjob to post...

  Ah, you beat me too it:). That was the first thing I thought as well, although you missed out Big Pharma.

  • Re:

    Ah, yes... and I forgot to mention Peter File's ring, whatever that is. Apparently, someone with a gun found it in a pizza takeaway & a lot of people got upset.

• You joke, but you are correct. This study isn't likely going to convince anyone. The people who will believe this probably already got vaccinated. The people who aren't yet vaccinated already have their (flawed) study showing that vaccinated people are something like a dozen times more likely to get infected. This new study will fly in the face of that one (even though they are studying different things, hospitalization vs infection, one would expect them to correlate), so they will continue to believe the one they already have as evidence.

  That's how those people work. The people that actually believe in science are happy to consider each new study that comes in, look for the weaknesses in each one, and go with what the preponderance of the evidence suggest. On the other hand, the ones that want to pretend they believe in science will find the one or two studies that support their beliefs, post it to facebook with as asshat "SCIENCE!!!" remark, then proceed to ignore all future criticism pointing out any flaws of that study, along with any other studies that contradict it.

• Re:

  What, no word about the reptiloids?

  What are you trying to hide?

• Re:

  The devil is in the details.

  Natural immunity provide better protection against *infection*, but vaccines provide better protection against *hospitalization*. They're moving the goal posts again.

• Re:

  What peer review has this report gotten? The CDC site labels this an "Early Release", which implies they don't think it is final.

  • Re:

    That's not necessarily evidence of a comparative (as compared to the average or median paper) lack of peer review, but also possibly of a short review period.

    • Re:

      There is also nothing that is "necessarily evidence" this study is worth anything. I asked about actuals, not maybes or hypotheticals.

      Again: What (preferably peer) review has this study undergone that would justify holding it in higher regard than the supposed "unreviewed preprint from Israeli" that the OP complained about?

      • Re:

        You also made a statement as if it were fact when it is a hypothetical, which is the part of your comment I was addressing. In short, it was hypocritical.

        • Re:

          You are making lame, wrong personal attacks instead of answering the question. Your implicit answer is "there is no meaningful review of this study" -- it is no more reliable than the Israeli study that the OP complained about.

          What part of my my earlier comment...

          ... do you think is "a statement as if it were fact when it is a hypothetical"? Do you not know what "Early Release" means?

          • Re:

            What you said is that they don't think it is final. You said this without any evidence. An early release is not necessarily a sign that the paper is not final. What you said was lame and wrong, and like I said, hypocritical.

            • Re:

              Maybe you should go read what the CDC says [cdc.gov] about things labeled "Early Release".

              And you should definitely think about five times before the next time you accuse someone of saying something "without any evidence" when they not only remind you exactly what evidence they had, but point out that you apparently don't understand that evidence.

• Peer-reviewed?

  This claim is from a study published in the CDC's publication, "Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report." I can guarantee you that anything showing up in a weekly report hasn't gotten a careful, full-blown peer review. If you want something that's gone through the full peer review process, here's one:

  A Systematic Review of the Protective Effect of Prior SARS-CoV-2 Infection on Repeat Infection [sagepub.com]

  "The weighted average risk reduction against reinfection was 90.4% with a standard deviation of 7.7% (p-value: 0.01)."

• Re:

  We have to come to an understanding that we can't fix or control stupid.

  There are people who believe all kinds of strange stuff. I guess that the one bright spot in this mess is that there are now less of them, as a strange karma-like effect seems to be removing them from the planet.

  Probably best to give them their ivermectin, their Betadine gargle, and send them on their way.

  • Re:

    Well, you've got to accept a lot a deaths among those who act optimally for that to seem a decent choice. It might, however, decrease social stresses.

    FWIW, I'm against physicians monopolizing access to most drugs. The only ones I think they should be allowed to monopolize are the antibiotics. So I'm basically in agreement with you. But there *are* drawbacks to this position.

  • Re:

    The problem is that the whole "Natural immunity" (which is a false label, they don't mean "Natural", they mean "Post-COVID") cult is prolonging this and causing needless deaths. Their "Stupid" is affecting the rest of us.

    Their "strategy" is giving COVID more chances to mutate, ensuring a strain will emerge that likely can bypass the vaccine (and any "post-COVID immunity".)

    Meanwhile it's filling the emergency rooms and at times straining the system so much that people who who need to use the ER for non

  • Re:

    If the only people they affected was themselves, sure...

    But they also increase the risk of the other people who are vulnerable as well, including even the tiny percentage of people who did get vaccinated but in whom the vaccine is unfortunately not effective.

    I'm okay with people who have legitimate medical reasons for not getting vaccinated remaining so. Their medical condition is not a result of a deliberate or willful choice they are making. But anyone else, IMO, has ZERO excuse to not become vacci

• Re:

  You will find most of the figures implying >90% unvaccinated deaths are caused by the date they begin tracking. In most cases, numbers begin in January or earlier, which is well before vaccines were widely available. If you use more recent numbers and/or other national averages, the factor has been around 50/50. Israel, Singapore, Iceland around 60/40, UK+Portugal around 50%, Spain ~40%, etc.

  https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/public-health/nearly-60-of-hospitalized-covid-19-patients-in-israel-fu

  • Re:

    If you want fine grained analysis you also need to include the ratio of properly vaccinated people to others in the population stratified by expected susceptibility to COVID indepent of vaccination.

    If you do that the numbers are no longer that simple, but they do support the claim that vaccination renders folks less likely to die or experience long COVID. (That's two independent claims.) Unfortunately, all those studies come with significant error bars, but they still support the conclusion. Just not a c

  • Re:

    https://vtdigger.org/2021/10/2... [vtdigger.org]
    Look at the graph of weekly vaccinated vs unvaccinated cases per capita. Only looking at the month of October, unvaccinated were way more likely to get infected

    https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volum... [cdc.gov]
    That study shows during June 20 to July 17, unvaccinated had 5x higher cases and 10x higher hospitalization and death

    As for your link, notice its not controlling per capita? It just says 60% of hospitalized in Israel were fully vaccinated. Yet the article says 78% of the population was

  • by dryeo ( 100693 ) on Saturday October 30, 2021 @01:07PM (#61942259)

    Yes, and if we had 100% vaccination, 100% of deaths would be in the vaccinated population.

• Re:

  Given access is not the real problem. There have always been people who just make up shit. The problem has been the endorsement of outright lies as "the real truth".

• by dryeo ( 100693 ) on Saturday October 30, 2021 @12:02PM (#61942009)

  Here in BC, for the last 2 week period, 26.2% of the hospitalized were fully vaccinated. This is a reflection on the high vaccination rates (as well as not correcting for age), if we ever get to 100% vaccinated, hospitalizations will be 100% vaccinated and you know what conclusions the anti-vaxers will draw.

• • When do we allow Americans to have their freedom back?

    You've never had any freedom. Vaccines have practically always been mandatory. [historyofvaccines.org]

    • • Re:

        To them it's one big slippery slope all the way down.
        Succumb to the vaccine today, and tomorrow they will come and take their guns. The week after they are getting their organs harvested.

        • Re:

          Well if you asked most people two years ago if there would be military and police patrolling the streets, forcing people to stay home and requiring papers to move around in Western Democracies they would have laughed at you. It is a slippery slope and you guys are falling down it fast. The next step is to require yearly flu shots, then quarantine and masks during influenza outbreaks. I am sure you guys are OK with it: after all you are narcissists and have an irrational fear of dying, to the point where you

  • Regardless freedom must come before tyrannical control and profit.

    You don't understand freedom at all.

    Sometimes we have to give up some freedoms to secure others.

    If you're not willing to give up some rights so that others can have more rights, they have no reason to respect yours. Period.

    • by burtosis ( 1124179 ) on Saturday October 30, 2021 @10:14AM (#61941631)

      If I don’t have the freedom to wildly discharge my ar-10 at a football game (fuck whoever gets hit, it’s their fault and you can’t prove it game from my gun) why do these people think they can do the exact same with covid? I’d be 100% for letting these people go unvaxxed and unmasked if they could be criminally charged with assault for every case they negligently caused to spread and with manslaughter for every death they cause then prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Since we can’t prove it these people would gladly injure and murder without abandon, like the obviously good Christian people they so often claim to be.

  • Re:

    That's a good question. According to current Supreme Court precedent, municipalities have the power to pass laws compelling vaccination.
    
    So technically, at this juncture, the line is wherever democracy puts it.

    • Re:

      The federal government does not have the general police power that states and municipalities rely on to pass that kind of law. That is one of the powers reserved to states under the USA's federal system of government.

      So the Biden administration is not only breaking the law by avoiding notice-and-comment period on vaccine mandates as required under the APA, to implement a policy on a "major question" using authority that Congress did not delegate to the executive branch, but it also is violating the Constit

      • Re:

        That's just nonsense, and completely unsupported by jurisprudence or constitutional amendment. As in the 14th.
        The states are bound by the same limitations as the Federal Government, and the Federal Government is empowered to pass laws to protect the general welfare of the nation. To that end, they are also empowered to police the laws passed for that reason. See: The Federal Bureau of Investigation.

        Huh? What law do you think they're breaking? You can't make a claim like that without citing the statute or j

        • Re:

          Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] has a high-level introduction to the general police power, including a quote from United States v. Lopez (1995) that briefly explains how wrong you are.

          I specifically listed one law I think the Biden administration is breaking. Even if you don't recognize the acronym, the context should have told you that I was referring to a law. It's probably breaking more laws, not to mention violating a federal court order [fedsmith.com].

          • Re:

            No, it does not.
            The standard for usurpation of the power is high, but exists.
            The Insurrection Act, and the fact that it still stands, is direct proof of that. Not to mention the Controlled Substances Act, or 18 U.S.C. 2251 - 2260.
            
            US v. Lopez was a bizarre case where the Government attempted to claim the ability to police a power under the Commerce Clause, and the Court called foul.
            And further, jurisprudence isn't even clear on Commerce Clause general police powers- The DEA can break down the door to y

    • • Doesn't make it wrong, either.
        
        I'll go ahead and quote jurisprudence, because I think it's quite good, and I sincerely doubt any court decision will really disagree:

        It must be conceded that some laymen, both learned and unlearned, and some physicians of great skill and repute, do not believe that vaccination is a preventive of smallpox. The common belief, however, is that it has a decided tendency to prevent the spread of this fearful disease and to render it less dangerous to those who contract it. While not accepted by all, it is accepted by the mass of the people, as well as by most members of the medical profession. It has been general in our State and in most civilized nations for generations. It is generally accepted in theory and generally applied in practice, both by the voluntary action of the people and in obedience to the command of law. Nearly every State of the Union has statutes to encourage, or directly or indirectly to require, vaccination, and this is true of most nations of Europe.

        The fact that the belief is not universal is not controlling, for there is scarcely any belief that is accepted by everyone. The possibility that the belief may be wrong, and that science may yet show it to be wrong, is not conclusive, for the legislature has the right to pass laws which, according to the common belief of the people, are adapted to prevent the spread of contagious diseases. In a free country, where the government is by the people, through their chosen representatives, practical legislation admits of no other standard of action; for what the people believe is for the common welfare must be accepted as tending to promote the common welfare, whether it does, in fact, or not. Any other basis would conflict with the spirit of the Constitution, and would sanction measures opposed to a republican form of government. While we do not decide and cannot decide that vaccination is a preventive of smallpox, we take judicial notice of the fact that this is the common belief of the people of the State, and, with this fact as a foundation, we hold that the statute in question is a health law, enacted in a reasonable and proper exercise of the police power.

        Since, then, vaccination, as a means of protecting a community against smallpox, finds strong support in the experience of this and other countries, no court, much less a jury, is justified in disregarding the action of the legislature simply because, in its or their opinion, that particular method was -- perhaps or possibly -- not the best either for children or adults.

        We are not prepared to hold that a minority, residing or remaining in any city or town where smallpox is prevalent, and enjoying the general protection afforded by an organized local government, may thus defy the will of its constituted authorities, acting in good faith for all, under the legislative sanction of the State. If such be the privilege of a minority, then a like privilege would belong to each individual of the community, and the spectacle would be presented of the welfare and safety of an entire population being subordinated to the notions of a single individual who chooses to remain a part of that population. We are unwilling to hold it to be an element in the liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States that one person, or a minority of persons, residing in any community and enjoying the benefits of its local government, should have the power thus to dominate the majority when supported in their action by the authority of the State.

        I'll summarize.
        Your idea of personal freedom does not give you the right to risk my life, precisely how driver licenses are revoked for those with diseases that may cause them to suddenly become a very dangerous entity on the road.
        
        Your only protection against compulsion in this manner is due process of law. This is of course an easy bar to reach.
        We aren't the new Segregationists, you're just a tired re-hash of the same idiots who think you have a constitutional right to not be subject to laws you don't like.

        Read the rest of this comment...

• Re:

  The study is data from 2020 before the newer variants like delta came along. So no, it does not. It is confusing and frustrating trying to piece all the information we have together properly when it keeps changing in not insignificant ways.

• Re:

  As this study is from april I would say that the Delta was not a factor in it and being so much more infectious it probably changed the (re)infection rates;
  also the lancet has fame but sincerely it has shown time and time again that their peer review process is not the best and some bad quality papers sip through, not saying it is the case, only that would take anything from them with a pinch of salt.

• Re:

  I don't understand your position. Why is getting a shot every year "forget about it"? What's the deal breaker in there? I get my flu shot every year at my employment location when I walk back from lunch. I shot by a community building, I get a shot and I am back on my way to the office.
  It takes 5 minutes. Instead of finishing my take-out coffee in my office lobby, I take it filling it a form.

  • Re:

    Vaccines normally only require a course of 2-3 doses, at most, for very long-term immunity. Flu shots are a glaring exception. They're often ineffective, and repeated use of flu shots may reduce their effectiveness over time:

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]

    It should be obvious why getting another Covid vaccine yearly should be a deal-breaker. It means we would have on our hands yet another ineffective vaccination program.

    • Re:

      No I do not understand. It is not obvious to me. If we need a yearly vaccination, it is because the virus is highly mutating. That's why we do it against the flu, it is highly mutating, extremely infectious, and can get people pretty sick or kill them.

      I would love for the vaccine to be a one time thing and we can forget about it. But that's not how it is and we don't always get what we want. And what are the options?

      You say the flu vaccine is ineffective. And in percentage it is true, only about 40% or so.

• Re:

  Kinda have to agree.
  
  People who are too stupid to see that the COVID vaccines aren't as dangerous as a lot of other people claim for them to be, after all there's already been billions of doses administered and you'd think that if something was horribly wrong we'd see it, are also likely to be so stupid to not believe in masks, social distancing, may attend infection parties just out of spite.

• Re:

  The first sentence in the study that makes that claim is this:

  Among COVID-19-like illness hospitalizations in persons whose previous infection or vaccination occurred 90-179 days earlier, the odds of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 (adjusted for sociodemographic and health characteristics) among unvaccinated, previously infected adults were higher than the odds among fully vaccinated recipients of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine with no previous documented infection (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 5.49; 95% confidence

• You need to look at Table 2, linked to in the study:

  https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volum... [cdc.gov]

  That "five times more likely" is for one scenario and one question.

  If you got the Moderna vaccine an unvaccinated person is seven times more likely to be reinfected and hospitalized than you.

  If you are considering when the Delta variant was dominant an unvaccinated, previously infected person is over seven times more likely to be reinfected and hospitalized than a fully vaccinated (with the mRNA vaccines).

  Please follow the links.

  • • Re:

      Even just from reading comments on Slashdot, there are perfectly plausible scenarios for natural immunity being less effective than the vaccine. For example, people who develop vaccines purposefully make them target a protein that doesn't mutate very much (because it's essential for the virus's ability to infect human cells). Your natural immune system has no knowledge of such things, so it may latch onto a different viral protein where mutations are not disabling so that protein will look different in each

• Re:

  In the very first paragraph of the linked study:

  Seriously did you not read the first paragraph of the study before you declared it was not there.

• Re:

  They did all that stuff during the R&D phase of the vaccine in 2020, which is how the vaccine was scientifically proven to work in the first place.

• What do you think they're putting into these things? Aircraft fuel? They have basically had unlimited money to rush these to market and were running tonnes of concurrent tests rather than back to back like they used to.

  The science is understood fairly well. It's not like they're inventing the concept of a car for the first time. They're basically putting a new car on the market. This isn't special and it isn't difficult. MILLIONS of people have taken the vaccine already and there have been very few negative cases. There were negative reactions to the flu shot in the past. It's nothing special. We know corona will likely kick your butt way harder than negative reactions and you're way more likely to get corona then be one of the unlucky people to react to the vaccine. I don't know why you think these vaccines are going to kill or disable you. You're not really hearing about that happening anywhere.

  • Re:

    There is a small but vocal group of people who believe that they can quarantine until CoVID completely disappears. They also wonder why, you won't do the same.

    • Re:

      They're welcome to spend the rest of their lives in quarantine.

      At this rate COVID will be with us for multiple lifespans. We will just keep breeding more successful strains until we have no way to combat it.

      • Re:

        The problem is that our antibodies recognize the part of coronavirus that attaches to our cells. That is the part that makes it so infectious. If that part evolves too much (enough that our antibodies can't recognize it) then it will become less infectious.

    • Re:

      Well, we did wipe out SARS 1 through quarantine so at the beginning of the spread of SARS 2, it kind of made sense.
      Since we've learned much more about how the current strain of Covid spreads and isolating the sick isn't good enough.

  • Re:

    I think a lot of people are concerned with long-term risks that might not show up right away (like ionizing radiation or DDT or asbestos or Vioxx). mRNA is a relatively new tech and the very first human drug trials only began about 18 months ago.

    Of course, the risk-reward profile is far different for someone in a high-risk category like seniors vs. a healthy young adult or child.

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/1105431/covid-case-fatality-rates-us-by-age-group/

    • Wrong. mRNA vaccines have been in human trials since 2013 for rabies, zika virus, flu, and other diseases. They have been safe and effective...no long term complications in any of those study participants. The only reason those vaccines never made it to market was that they weren't any more effective than traditional vaccinations, yet they had a higher rate of (non serious) side effects, they were newer tech and more expensive to manufacture, and they had more complicated storage and shelf life requirements. In other words, they had no market advantage over what was already established. It would be like if you invented a brand new way to design a refrigerator, and it cost $20k to make one but ended up providing no benefit over $1k model at best buy. You wouldn't bother wasting the effort bringing that to market (well for a fridge, you might market it as a luxury model to saps with too much money on their hands, but designed vaccines isn't yet any sort of status symbol)

      • Re:

        I meant to say "designer vaccines isn't yet any sort of status symbol"

      • Even further back than that

        The first mRNA vaccine trial I found a reference to was 2008: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go... [nih.gov]

        Exactly like you said: it was safe, but didn't cure cancer.

  • MILLIONS of people have taken the vaccine already and there have been very few negative cases.

    In fact, there are billions of people who have been fully vaccinated for COVID-19 worldwide. Almost four billion in fact. There have been over seven billion individual doses of the vaccines given.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/grap... [bloomberg.com]

    I don't know how big of a sample size people need to see that it's safe.

• • • Re:

      Are you trying to imply that Jews were voluntary spreaders of an infectious disease responsible for millions of deaths across the planet?
      
      Shit, man. You've got the swastika tats and everything, don't you?

      • Re:

        Best not to reply to the rsilvergun-impostor trolls. They add nothing of value and you will promote nothing of value by encouraging them.

        • Re:

          Oh, for sure. No argument there.
          I just want them to feel stupid for a second.

          • Re:

            I understand fully, but if you reply to them they will only feel superior, because that's their goal.

      • • Re:

          You did, implicitly.
          You literally took the plight of those who suffered the Holocaust and replaced them with "the unvaxxed"
          That implies you think they're the same.
          I'm applying your analogy the other direction. Perhaps you should think harder before making stupid analogies next time.

          • • Re:

              You don't know what the word projecting means.
              You're not the first troll this morning to misuse that word.
              
              lol. How many fucking accounts do you have, pond scum?

• by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 30, 2021 @09:49AM (#61941513)

  The risk of blood clotting issues is higher with COVID than the vaccine.

  • • Re:

      Lol you must be the dumbest motherfucker alive.

      Like, there is no reasoned response possible to this level of stupidity.

• Re:

  I don't know what they claimed, and I wouldn't trust a newsweek article, but, yes, the vaccines are racist.
  They weren't properly tested on a racially balanced cohort. So the predictive value of the studies varies along racial grounds. They also weren't properly tested on women, so one can also reasonably claimed that there's sexual bias.

  Guess what? This is still the best answer around. It was easier to get college students to volunteer, and women's estrogen cycles make it more difficult to do decent stu

  • Re:

    Racially and sexually biased, yes. Racist and sexist? Nope. The two things (biased and -ist) have different meanings. Bias can creep into things accidentally, as you detail, whereas the -ism is willful (whether willful action, or willful ignorance of outcome.)

    • medical testing and racism

      In this case, it's actually easy to tell why, and it's stupidly easy: Women and minorities volunteer for medical trials way less often than white men do. White men make up the medical testing groups so much that, for a drug intended to increase sexual enjoyment/desire in women(female Viagra, essentially), they ended up testing it using men instead of women.

      There are, of course, lots of explanations as to why this is.

      • Re:

        The one I favor is that they don't give a fuck about anything but money, and if the drug doesn't work but people will still pay then that's a win regardless. It's therefore not sexism in that they don't give a shit about men either.

• Re:

  Didn't think you'd get so many people taking the bait on your obvious trolling. Well done, sir!

• Re:

  What dumbfuck wrote that article?
  Of course Florida now has the lowest COVID rate.
  that's because a month ago, they had the worst rate on the fucking planet. Literally.
  
  Remember flattening the curve? They didn't. Was that better or worse? That's a legitimate debate. I think you should ask Florida's healthcare workers.

  • Re:

    While we are talking about florida:
    https://www.worldometers.info/... [worldometers.info]

    Look at the 2 death graphs. In find it interesting that, despite the fact that we now have vaccines and we now have effective monoclonal antibody treatments, somehow Florida manage to have this last wave DOULBE the daily death rate of the previous waves.

    It took them from the start of the pandemic until end of november, 2020 to rack up their first 20k deaths (roughly 9 months). It took them until end of july to get their next 20k (roughly 8

  • • Re:

      Holy shit, you're stupid.
      Like unbelievably fucking stupid.
      
      A flattened curve has a lower peak, but lasts more time.
      A non-flattened curve has a higher peak, but lasts less time.
      
      So yes, the fact that they went from the highest peak... on the planet... to the lowest in the country is entirely predictable since the rest of the country managed to flatten their curves better.
      Florida. [worldometers.info]
      New York. [worldometers.info]
      Keep staring until it clicks you mentally deficient mouth-breather.