COVID-19 vaccine discussion

[Deej 76,759]

So you don't think the last booster helped keep you from getting it the previous 7 months? The immunity from it is going to wane. 

Just now, Skipper said:

Covid shots 2 & 3 were damn near the equivalent of actual COVID, at least for me.  Flu shot have typically been zero side effects except slightly sore arm (which was about 20% of the COVID shot sore arm).  Same this year.

Wait until you get the two shingles shots. I've never felt worse in my life. 

[HouTex 1,866]

6 minutes ago, Deej said:

If you're good with an annual flu shot, why wouldn't you get an annual COVID shot?

Not being snarky, just wondering why. Particularly if you think your previous COVID shots kept you from having a bad case.

And they are different shots.  If they get the seasonal flu strain right it’s very effective.  I’m also listening to my doctor.  That might cause some of you heartburn (get another doctor!!!).  

[Deej 76,759]

Just now, HouTex said:

If they get the seasonal flu strain right it’s very effective

And that is a very big if. 

[Chopper 17,230]

I'm going to wait on the covid vaccine until I know for sure the new strain is a serious and nasty problem in my area. Then I'm going to just stroll down to Walgreens and get the damn vaccine at a day and time of my choice. That's just how I roll. I don't take out the trash until I see rats. I don't wash my hands unless I know I got a little fecal matter on them. I don't even throw away old milk until I can smell it down the hall. Some of you knead to grow a new pear.

[HouTex 1,866]

2 minutes ago, Deej said:

So you don't think the last booster helped keep you from getting it the previous 7 months? The immunity from it is going to wane. 

Wait until you get the two shingles shots. I've never felt worse in my life. 

LOL. I had shingles several years ago before Shingrix was approved.  I wasn’t eligible for the earlier vaccine which wasn’t very effective in any event.  As soon as Shingrix was approved I got both shots.  They kicked my ass—fever and body aches for about 36 hours after each one.  Still, it was worth it.  Shingles can really fuck you up.  

[Deej 76,759]

Yep. Shingrex is supposedly to most effective vaccine ever produced. 

[Deej 76,759]

The only time I felt worse than the shingles shot was when I had walking pneumonia 

[Anastasis 23,469]

1 hour ago, Deej said:

If you're good with an annual flu shot, why wouldn't you get an annual COVID shot?

Not being snarky, just wondering why. Particularly if you think your previous COVID shots kept you from having a bad case.

What is the incremental positive impact of additional shots over the primary series plus initial boosters?  If you want to keep layering more shots, I think that is great and people should go for it. Maybe it has an impact on hard endpoints, maybe it doesn't. We honestly don't know, and anybody that tells you that they do is not being honest. I think that an approach targeted to those at high risk makes sense. There is no strong basis for doing additional boosting of low risk categories and esp kids.  

[Anastasis 23,469]

Further, we have bogged down with the mRNA shots and need to be moving towards alternative strategies that may offer the promise of sterilizing immunity, i.e. nasal sprays. 

[Deej 76,759]

Are they not working on nasal sprays? Get back to me when they're available. 

[Anastasis 23,469]

1 minute ago, Deej said:

Get back to me when they're available. 

Yeah, pretty much where I am at.

[Neonmoon 38,129]

Doesn’t getting an annual Flu shot reduce the severity of the Flu over your life when you do get it? I feel like I read that somewhere or I was high 

[jimmyjazz 45,898]

I don't understand the "logic" of getting a flu shot but not a covid shot.  Your body, your choice, but I'd go the other direction.

[scottsins 1,966]

I don't understand the "logic" of getting a flu shot but not a covid shot.  Your body, your choice, but I'd go the other direction.

I don’t even think of the COVID jab a an actual “booster” anymore. I just think of it as an annual shot, like the flu shot which you just get every year. Makes sense for me too since I got a risk factor or 2.

[DDD Dad 14,332]

I will be getting both of mine this week.  

[HornOnTheBayou 8,921]

12 hours ago, Chopper said:

I'm going to wait on the covid vaccine until I know for sure the new strain is a serious and nasty problem in my area. Then I'm going to just stroll down to Walgreens and get the damn vaccine at a day and time of my choice. That's just how I roll. I don't take out the trash until I see rats. I don't wash my hands unless I know I got a little fecal matter on them. I don't even throw away old milk until I can smell it down the hall. Some of you knead to grow a new pear.

What kind? Bosc or anjou?

[Samson's Wig 3,191]

14 hours ago, Chopper said:

I'm going to wait on the covid vaccine until I know for sure the new strain is a serious and nasty problem in my area. Then I'm going to just stroll down to Walgreens and get the damn vaccine at a day and time of my choice. That's just how I roll. I don't take out the trash until I see rats. I don't wash my hands unless I know I got a little fecal matter on them. I don't even throw away old milk until I can smell it down the hall. Some of you knead to grow a new pear.

You sound like someone who lives for the moment, has no regrets, and will likely die young (and who possibly suffers from ADHD based on chronic procrastination with a lack of self-loathing). 

NTTAWWT

[Samson's Wig 3,191]

That is an insane level of flip-flopping from Dr. Offit.  Really weird.  It's almost to the point I would suspect a deep fake on that video, although I don't see evidence of that watching it.  He's throwing out talking points of anti-vaxxers and QAnon idiots, people about whose stupidity he has literally written a book.   I'm not sure if he's just chasing that attention high he received during the pandemic by switching teams, if it's fake, maybe just edited so that we're missing some of the context, or if he just fell off the old man cliff and needs to be put to pasture.  But this is a guy who was on the same hit list as Fauci for a lot of mouth breathers out there over the last few years.  What a confusing video.  He's fully in the "just asking stupid questions" camp, now, apparently.  

I don't know whether people should get this next shot or not (I haven't yet but probably will when I get my flu shot), but I'll definitely look elsewhere than a pediatrician in his 70s who appears to have shifted his entire professional viewpoint in his waning years for medical advice.  This is all especially frustrating coming at a time when we now know Long Covid is real and not psychological (which I admittedly thought it was), and this asshole is talking about myocarditis, which is almost statistically insignificant even for the only group really at risk for it (35 out of 100,000 for 12-17 yo males).  So he's worried about a side effect that at worst impacts .03% of a small group of young healthy people who will also almost all recover from it just fine when long covid, which affects somewhere between 7%-40% of people who contract Covid (of any age).  The more I think this through the more that video is just more bullshit anti-vaxxer porn.  

[Chopper 17,230]

1 hour ago, Samson's Wig said:

You sound like someone who lives for the moment, has no regrets, and will likely die young (and who possibly suffers from ADHD based on chronic procrastination with a lack of self-loathing). 

NTTAWWT

 

2 hours ago, HornOnTheBayou said:

What kind? Bosc or anjou?

The Indignity Pear, of course.

[Bevo 13,576]

3 minutes ago, Samson's Wig said:

which affects somewhere between 7%-40% of people who contract Covid (of any age)

A variance that large should make any scientist pause. Defining the condition, refining its characteristics and creating specific tests for the condition are a necessity.

[Samson's Wig 3,191]

11 minutes ago, Bevo said:

A variance that large should make any scientist pause. Defining the condition, refining its characteristics and creating specific tests for the condition are a necessity.

Completely agree.  The estimates are wide, but my point was even the lowest ones dwarf the bullshit concern of myocarditis, which is only brought up by disingenuous anti-vax types.  This was the main point of the posted video, that concerns over myocarditis are so severe that people should really not get this new vaccine until we learn more.  We already know exactly how extremely rare myocarditis is, which means the good Dr. Offit is either purposefully obfuscating or he's lost his ability to think rationally. 

 

EDIT TO ADD: Now that they've pinpointed a variance for long Covid, I suspect we'll see better data in the coming months as it will finally be easier to track.

Edited September 26, 2023 by Samson's Wig

[Samson's Wig 3,191]

2 minutes ago, Tom Il Fantastico said:

Yeah that's just a bs number. Everyone you know has gotten covid. Are 10% of the population suffering from "long covid"?  Come on.

Cognitive dissonance actually typed out on the screen. Impressive. 

I think he already explained his thinking. Weighing the risks and benefits he doesn't believe it's worthwhile for himself. You could dig deeper into what he's likely concerned about, but we can leave it at that.

lol.  Look, obvious troll, go peddle your bullshit elsewhere. Maybe there is an RFK rally somewhere.

[Brian Fantana 6,685]

Chrispy is trying a little harder, I see

[jimmyjazz 45,898]

Is there any known correlation between "long covid" and severity of covid disease?

I did think that video seemed a little bit of a change of tone for Offit, but he does make a good point about antivirals.  Me personally, I don't want covid (again, already had it twice) so I'm getting vaxxed soon, but if people test when they feel like shit and take antivirals if they're positive, that probably negates the need for the vaccine for a large percentage of the population.

['stache 21,802]

14 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

I don't understand the "logic" of getting a flu shot but not a covid shot.  Your body, your choice, but I'd go the other direction.

It's virtue signaling from people who refused to believe science then and refuse to believe it now, and its only covid, because cloak room. I suspect there are some people who had unpleasant reactions to the original shots, and a few others might have valid reasons to partake in some logical internal debate whether to get the new shot, but 95% of it is just the loonys being loony. You'll know this because they will tell you over and over and over again why they won't take the shot.

13 hours ago, scottsins said:

I don’t even think of the COVID jab a an actual “booster” anymore. I just think of it as an annual shot, like the flu shot which you just get every year. Makes sense for me too since I got a risk factor or 2.

My pediatrician said the shot that was released earlier this month is exactly this, an annual shot like the flu shot where they'll attempt to predict the strain or variant. It'll work most years, but sometimes they'll guess wrong. I recall several years before covid my daughter's elementary school had to shut down for two days because too many teachers and students had the flu. The shot obviously wasn't very effective that year. 

[Brisketexan 105,095]

10 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Is there any known correlation between "long covid" and severity of covid disease?

I don't think they know yet.

What people -- especially including the anti-vax, COVID-denier, "it's just a cold" crowd -- need to grasp is the foundational truth: COVID is a novel, serious illness that indeed kills people.  The "novel" thing is really, really important.  It means that we are on the front-end of learning about it still.  We don't get the benefit of studying it for a decade or two, and THEN it pops up in the population.  It arrived as a novel virus, and we have had to learn about it in real-time as it was killing literally millions of people.

So, what is "long COVID?"  Depends on the definition.  It's not necessarily people "still suffering from COVID" years after they got it.  It generally includes people like me: I contracted COVID in early February, was acutely ill for 4-5 days....and then had a bad lingering cough for nearly TWO MONTHS.  I don't have it anymore.  I'm fully recovered and fine.  But I had long, lingering symptoms.  Some have symptoms for longer.  And they're worse.  Others have one or two mild but weird symptoms that last for a long time (changed sense of taste).  We are still learning and gathering data -- the disease has been in the population at large for less than 4 years now.  That's nothing in terms of gathering, refining, and understanding data.

That also means that we have to make many decisions in the absence of complete data.  Which, spoiler alert, is how MOST crisis situations are handled.  Go to war.  Go to trial.  There is a need to take decisive action quickly, otherwise all is lost.  So, you have to make decisions based on incomplete data.  If you're applying solid reasoning, you often get it pretty close to right.  Sometimes, some missing data shows up later, and it turns out you were dead wrong.  But "take no action, and wait for complete data" is a fool's option.  There is no perfect path, no "fully informed" path, because we don't even have the information necessary to make one "fully informed," and we probably won't have such information for another 20 years or so.

Based on what we know, there are certain sub-populations that have a slightly higher risk of certain negative outcomes from certain COVID vaccines.  We also know that COVID is still a serious illness that carries significant long-term health implications (up to and including death) for tens of thousands of people right here in the USA, still.  So, we should continue to seek vaccines and treatments that will limit those implications.  Make balanced and reasoned decisions.  For example, my 53 yr old overweight ass will likely get the new shot targeting new variants, so that I have less of a chance of getting sick and if I do, the illness is less severe.  My 20 yr old son, who has both already been vaccinated with the first two shots, as well as had COVID, will likely not get the new shot.

By next year, we might even have a different type of vaccine that doesn't have the myocarditis risk factor.  So maybe he will want the shot then.  

People pointing out "but we just don't know everything yet about the disease or the vaccines!" to support their approach of "so....do nothing" are being illogical and unreasonable.  But then, that's our brand these days.

[jimmyjazz 45,898]

7 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

People pointing out "but we just don't know everything yet about the disease or the vaccines!" to support their approach of "so....do nothing" are being illogical and unreasonable.  But then, that's our brand these days.

I see it as somewhat like the "you can't time the market" crowd.  They don't seem to realize that "buy and hold" is timing the market, just in an incredibly basic way.  It's still a choice, and not necessarily the best choice.

No, I don't want to get into an investing discussion.

[Brisketexan 105,095]

5 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I see it as somewhat like the "you can't time the market" crowd.  They don't seem to realize that "buy and hold" is timing the market, just in an incredibly basic way.  It's still a choice, and not necessarily the best choice.

No, I don't want to get into an investing discussion.

So....you're NOT interested in becoming an independent Scentsy consultant, paving the way to your future of wealth and being your own boss?

Your loss.

[Don Johnson 4,753]

13 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

IMy 20 yr old son, who has both already been vaccinated with the first two shots, as well as had COVID, will likely not get the new shot.

 

13 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

People pointing out "but we just don't know everything yet about the disease or the vaccines!" to support their approach of "so....do nothing" are being illogical and unreasonable.  But then, that's our brand these days.

I don't know your son's motivation for not getting the shot, but does it not fall into this category?

For me, I had the first two shots - Moderna - and then nothing after.  Got omicron 9 months later.  Super mild.  Maybe I've had it since, maybe I haven't.  I've had a couple of mild colds.

My kids - now 10, 12, 14 - never had the shot.  They've all had Covid.  Two asymptomatic, the other had a cough.

I don't believe in any wild ass conspiracy theories.  But I also believe "we don't know everything" and won't for years.  So as long as Covid is a nothingburger for me and them, our current approach is "do nothing."  

[jimmyjazz 45,898]

8 minutes ago, Don Johnson said:

So as long as Covid is a nothingburger for me and them, our current approach is "do nothing."  

I'm not sure I follow.  What if your family's next covid infection isn't a "nothingburger"?

If you want to choose the potential of serious disease over the potential of an adverse vaccine reaction, that's your prerogative, but it's not necessarily grounded in science.  Obviously, age and health conditions play into that at an individual level.  Beyond that comes risk to immediate family members.  Aging certainly increases one's risk.

[Poe It Up 126]

1 hour ago, Brian Fantana said:

Chrispy is trying a little harder, I see

No, Chrispy got his shots. 

[Brisketexan 105,095]

14 minutes ago, Don Johnson said:

I don't know your son's motivation for not getting the shot, but does it not fall into this category?

I mean....quite plainly, no, it does not.  The math for him:

1) he already has some bar to serious illness due to previous vaccination.

2) add to that natural antibodies he has due to previous infection.

3) add to that the fact that he is in a very low-risk group when it comes to COVID (he's young, healthy, in great physical shape).

4) add to that the fact that he's in the group that is most likely to suffer myocarditis due to vaccination (young males).

COLLECTIVELY, those factors support a decision not to get the new shot.  That said, he's a grown-ass adult, the choice is his.  If he wants to get it when he comes home for Christmas, that'd be fine with me too.

17 minutes ago, Don Johnson said:

My kids - now 10, 12, 14 - never had the shot.  They've all had Covid.  Two asymptomatic, the other had a cough.

I don't believe in any wild ass conspiracy theories.  But I also believe "we don't know everything" and won't for years.  So as long as Covid is a nothingburger for me and them, our current approach is "do nothing."  

Yeah....you don't know whether a particular COVID infection will be a "nothingburger" or not until you get it.  I know some folks who have had COVID multiple times (2-3 times).  One of their cases was mild.  Another case was an ass-kicking.

That said, the biggest risk factor to the population at large was that it was a NOVEL virus.  We had ZERO protection against it.  Today, an estimated 97% of the population has antibodies due to either vaccination or infection or both.  Your kids have such protection.  Thus, their likelihood of COVID causing serious illness or death are much reduced from when it was novel.  The balancing of risks is yours to make.  But as you say "we don't know everything," an honest evaluation ALSO must include what we DO know.  That last part is what so many of the deniers skip right the fuck over.  We DO know that it fucking killed a lot of people.  It was a serious, deadly illness, particularly when it was novel and nobody had any protection.  That's not fake news - I was helping institutions deal with the stacks of bodies in real-time in the early months of the pandemic.  So, put the fact of "COVID isn't a joke and fucking kills people" in the hopper as well.

[DDD Dad 14,332]

@TtomTerrific is back, I see. 

[Don Johnson 4,753]

4 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I mean....quite plainly, no, it does not.  The math for him:

1) he already has some bar to serious illness due to previous vaccination.

2) add to that natural antibodies he has due to previous infection.

3) add to that the fact that he is in a very low-risk group when it comes to COVID (he's young, healthy, in great physical shape).

4) add to that the fact that he's in the group that is most likely to suffer myocarditis due to vaccination (young males).

COLLECTIVELY, those factors support a decision not to get the new shot.  That said, he's a grown-ass adult, the choice is his.  If he wants to get it when he comes home for Christmas, that'd be fine with me too.

Yeah....you don't know whether a particular COVID infection will be a "nothingburger" or not until you get it.  I know some folks who have had COVID multiple times (2-3 times).  One of their cases was mild.  Another case was an ass-kicking.

That said, the biggest risk factor to the population at large was that it was a NOVEL virus.  We had ZERO protection against it.  Today, an estimated 97% of the population has antibodies due to either vaccination or infection or both.  Your kids have such protection.  Thus, their likelihood of COVID causing serious illness or death are much reduced from when it was novel.  The balancing of risks is yours to make.  But as you say "we don't know everything," an honest evaluation ALSO must include what we DO know.  That last part is what so many of the deniers skip right the fuck over.  We DO know that it fucking killed a lot of people.  It was a serious, deadly illness, particularly when it was novel and nobody had any protection.  That's not fake news - I was helping institutions deal with the stacks of bodies in real-time in the early months of the pandemic.  So, put the fact of "COVID isn't a joke and fucking kills people" in the hopper as well.

Don't disagree with any of that.  I guess you are saying your son is making his choice not to get the latest shot based on what he DOES know, not based on what he DOESN'T know?

My kids are in the same boat (minus point #1).  All young males.  Obviously they don't have the choice, so that falls on me.  At the end of the day, IMO, for them (and your son?) it really comes down to "at this particular time, why do we really need this?"

[Brisketexan 105,095]

1 minute ago, Don Johnson said:

Don't disagree with any of that.  I guess you are saying your son is making his choice not to get the latest shot based on what he DOES know, not based on what he DOESN'T know?

My kids are in the same boat (minus point #1).  All young males.  Obviously they don't have the choice, so that falls on me.  At the end of the day, IMO, for them (and your son?) it really comes down to "at this particular time, why do we really need this?"

To answer your first question, a little of both.  The holes in our knowledge about most anything reveal their own information.

But for him, yeah, at this particular time, based on the collection of factors at play....at this particular time, does he really need it (that is, are the risks low enough for either alternative so that "do nothing" makes sense)?

[Skipper 6,133]

22 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

 

If you want to choose the potential of serious disease over the potential of an adverse vaccine reaction, that's your prerogative, but it's not necessarily grounded in science.  

Your strong opinions in this thread are based on assumptions that aren't really grounded in any science that I've seen.  Where is the evidence that T-cell immunity has decreased materially in those that only received the first round of shots or first round + a booster and/or a Covid infection?   What I have read (and granted I don't follow it near as closely as I used to) is that the expectation is that in healthy people, you remain protected from severe disease and that T cell immunity is expected to last a long time.   Your floating antibodies may be lower, and may be more susceptible to an infection, but I haven't seen any data that indicates, or really even speculates, that annual covid vaccines materially move the needle from a severe risk perspective in healthy low risk individuals.   

I think comparing the Covid and flu vaccine, both from a design and intent perspective, and a cost/benefit perspective, is apples and oranges.

[Deej 76,759]

1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said:

but if people test when they feel like shit

How dare you step all over people's freedoms by suggesting they test.

[jimmyjazz 45,898]

8 minutes ago, Skipper said:

Your strong opinions in this thread are based on assumptions that aren't really grounded in any science that I've seen.  Where is the evidence that T-cell immunity has decreased materially in those that only received the first round of shots or first round + a booster and/or a Covid infection?   What I have read (and granted I don't follow it near as closely as I used to) is that the expectation is that in healthy people, you remain protected from severe disease and that T cell immunity is expected to last a long time.   Your floating antibodies may be lower, and may be more susceptible to an infection, but I haven't seen any data that indicates, or really even speculates, that annual covid vaccines materially move the needle from a severe risk perspective in healthy low risk individuals. 

I'm all for more knowledge.  If there are data out there showing that immunization and/or prior infection guards against severe disease for year(s), bring it on.  Until I see it, I'll err on the side of caution.  For one thing, I'm a 60 year old asthmatic, so my margins are probably lower.

Until that data crosses my dashboard, I'm getting the shot(s).

Edited September 26, 2023 by jimmyjazz

[Skipper 6,133]

3 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I'm all for more knowledge.  If there are data out there showing that immunization and/or prior infection guards against severe disease for year(s), bring it on.  Until I see it, I'll err on the side of caution.  For one thing, I'm a 60 year old asthmatic, so my margins are probably lower.

Until that data crosses my dashboard, I'm getting the shot(s).

Right.  Your risk analysis is a bit different than Don Johnson's which is pretty similar to mine.

[Chopper 17,230]

operator error

Edited September 26, 2023 by Chopper

[bolverk 29,660]

1 hour ago, DDD Dad said:

@TtomTerrific is back, I see. 

No, that's @GRHorn

[HouTex 1,866]

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status

Interesting statistics from Our World in Data.  The link is to the weekly death rates in the US by unvaccinated, vaccinated but without the bivalent booster and vaccinated with the bivalent booster.  The most recent week is the week of April 1, 2023.  Interestingly, for the most recently reported weeks, by a tiny amount, those boosted with the bivalent booster had a slightly higher mortality rate than those vaccinated but without the bivalent booster (.14 vs. .17 per 100,000 for the week of April 1, 2023).  Note that for February and March 2023 the mortality rates between those boosted with the bivalent booster and not boosted with the bivalent booster are very close and they go back and forth.  The unvaccinated mortality rate was .61 per 100,000 for the week of April 1.  So, for the week of April 1, 2023, the unvaccinated were 3.5x more likely to die than those vaccinated and boosted with the bivalent booster and 4.3x more likely to die than those vaccinated and not boosted with the bivalent booster.  

I have several takeaways from this data.  First, even for the unvaccinated, the recent Covid strains are not particularly dangerous to otherwise healthy people and the death rate is extraordinarily low for those vaccinated.  I have seen nothing that changes what we've always known about Covid and co-morbidity.  Some will think I'm callous, but my view is that we are all going to die--humans have a 100% mortality rate.  So what should I fear?  Let's look at the other causes of death.  CDC's most recent cancer numbers show 146.2 deaths per 100,000 for 2019 (or 2.81 per week assuming even distribution of deaths).  For heart disease, it's 161.5 per 100,000 for 2019 (or 3.10 per week).  Comparing the numbers for the week of April 1 for Covid to the most recent cancer and heart disease deaths, I'm 20x more likely to die in a given week from cancer than Covid and I'm 22x more likely to die from heart disease than Covid.  And that's for the population at large.  I'm 61--some would say I'm getting close to a risk factor--but I'm in very good health (I exercise every day, eat fairly well, and I'm not overweight).  I suspect my Covid death risk (being vaccinated and boosted once) is far less than .14 per 100,000.  I don't lose much sleep worrying about dying of cancer or heart disease and I damn sure don't worry about Covid--especially after (1) being fully vaccinated and boosted once, (2) getting it in June 2022, (3) being exposed multiple times this summer during the recent spike in cases, and (4) observing the current hospitalization rates in SE Texas during the current spike of cases.

We all have our own concerns and risk tolerances and fears of the unknown and unknowable.  Some will look at this data and say it supports their decision to get booster number 7+.  That's OK by me.  I'm also OK with someone who is otherwise healthy who decides to avoid more shots.  Now if you are obese or have a significant risk factor then you should consider staying boosted.  

BTW, I didn't know much about OWID.  It appears to be funded, in part, by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  It purports to be non-partisan and merely data-focused.   

[Don Johnson 4,753]

9 minutes ago, HouTex said:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status

Interesting statistics from Our World in Data.  The link is to the weekly death rates in the US by unvaccinated, vaccinated but without the bivalent booster and vaccinated with the bivalent booster.  The most recent week is the week of April 1, 2023.  Interestingly, for the most recently reported weeks, by a tiny amount, those boosted with the bivalent booster had a slightly higher mortality rate than those vaccinated but without the bivalent booster (.14 vs. .17 per 100,000 for the week of April 1, 2023).  Note that for February and March 2023 the mortality rates between those boosted with the bivalent booster and not boosted with the bivalent booster are very close and they go back and forth. 

I would imagine one potential reason is that those boosted have higher risk factors to begin with.

I haven't been deep in this subject in a while, so y'all don't kill me for asking this question, but did we ever figure out how to distinguish "from Covid" to "with Covid" when it came to deaths?  

Edited September 26, 2023 by Don Johnson

[HouTex 1,866]

Just now, Don Johnson said:

I would imagine one potential reason is that those boosted have much higher risk factors to begin with.

I haven't been deep in this subject in a while, so y'all don't kill me for asking this question, but did we ever figure out how to distinguish "from Covid" to "with Covid" when it came to deaths?  

Excellent point.  I think it's hard to prove either way, but the co-morbidity issue suggests, at least to me, that the Covid death numbers are over-reported.  

[Brisketexan 105,095]

1 minute ago, HouTex said:

Excellent point.  I think it's hard to prove either way, but the co-morbidity issue suggests, at least to me, that the Covid death numbers are over-reported.  

I'm sure there's some measure of overreporting...but don't take that to contradict the truth that COVID, and COVID alone, produced a stack of bodies.  Again, I was working in real-time with institutions that had to figure out additional storage for dead bodies and additional beds for treatment on the fly during the first phase of COVID.  That wasn't just a coincidence.  There were a shitload of people hospitalized and dead who wouldn't have been that way but for COVID.

[DDD Dad 14,332]

2 hours ago, bolverk said:

No, that's @GRHorn

Well, he's sure trying to look like TTom.

['stache 21,802]

Just got my shot. It was approved and released about 2 weeks ago. It’s not a booster but what I think they’re referring to as a seasonal annual vaccine. Also I just died, should’ve asked more questions and done more of my own research.

[Anastasis 23,469]

8 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Is there any known correlation between "long covid" and severity of covid disease?

Rates of "long covid" are higher among hospitalized cases, and highest among those that end up in the ICU. A lot of long COVID, in particular among cases from inpatient settings is hard to distinguish from a post-acute care syndrome. The ambulatory cases are hard to distinguish from a general post-viral syndrome. At least in my calculus, long COVID as a unique clinical entity does not really impact my assessment of vaccination risk benefit. There is a whole disability cottage industry being built up around long covid, but in reality we have been dealing with the same phenomena for some time without recognition. Not to say that there are not some unique aspects to post-COVID sequelae that are worthy of debate and discussion...multi system impact, edge cases, etc. But there is whole lot of hyperbolic nonsense in circulation as well.  

[Anastasis 23,469]

8 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

People pointing out "but we just don't know everything yet about the disease or the vaccines!" to support their approach of "so....do nothing" are being illogical and unreasonable.  But then, that's our brand these days.

No serious people are arguing that we do nothing.  Serious people, like Offit, are arguing that we need good risk stratification to guide vax recommendations. The CDC recs are illogical. Our public health authorities have a serious credibility issue. They brought it upon themselves, and they continue to do so. I guess we can bound up Offit and throw him in the river to see if he floats. Which is basically about as science bound as our public health messaging has been over the last few years. 

Edited September 26, 2023 by Anastasis

[fattyflattie 4,639]

On 9/25/2023 at 5:29 PM, Deej said:

So you don't think the last booster helped keep you from getting it the previous 7 months? The immunity from it is going to wane. 

Wait until you get the two shingles shots. I've never felt worse in my life. 

Much, much better than shingles tho.  Fuck that sucked.