Neverending Covid-19 Coronavirus

I'm all for it. Closer we get both kids vaccinated, the closer we get to going back to Disneyland!
 
I love the Babylon Bee.

One of the biggest things that needs to be done to overcome vaccine hesitancy, is to tell people that if they get vaccinated they can start living life as normal. You’ve got a lot of messaging out there that says “get the vaccine, but nothing’s really going to change.“ Well, if that’s the case why fucking bother?

Also, the pause on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for a grand total of six complications out of 6 million doses, was a horrible fucking move.
 
From the article:
This opposition was more common among moms than dads, and was especially common among white mothers who identified as Republican/Republican-leaning, the researchers said.

"Women tend to serve as family health managers within the family so they are generally more likely than men to follow expert medical recommendations for avoiding health risks," said study co-author Jessica Calarco. She is a professor of sociology at Indiana University Bloomington.


^^^When they had the Covid-19 vaccine trials, many women complained of heavier than usual periods. These women's symptoms were dismissed and NOT put into any publication regarding the vaccine, nor were these symptoms ever looked into to see why it was happening. The problem that many women have with health research is that until recently, it was largely done on male populations and just like in this trial, the doctors didn't actually think the symptoms that these women were experiencing were even worth writing down. And now, these same doctors and researchers that ignored their symptoms, are now saying, that these symptoms aren't harmful.

What you are seeing is a lack of trust from people who get ignored when they try to raise an issue. Of course there is going to be vaccine hesitancy among moms, especially moms of girls, because we know the medical community has never been great, historically, when it comes to women's reproduction systems, and have been even worse listening to women. And with the money that is being thrown around, it's hard to trust these pharmaceutical companies to do what's right. Just look at the Opioid epidemic that was fueled by the pharmaceutical industry, these companies had no problem cashing in on people's addictions and eventual death of millions.

I get it. It's dumb not to get a vaccine, but these people aren't being illogical. This is a largely unknown vaccine using a new biotechnology that we have never done before. Could something long term go wrong that we didn't forsee or intend? Absolutely. It's daunting trying to navigate in a system that is largely predatory, and that's were people are coming from.
 
Also, this is huge:

In the face of mounting international pressure, the Biden administration on Wednesday announced support for waiving intellectual property protections for Covid-19 vaccines—which campaigners welcomed as "a transformative, hopeful event" that has the potential to save lives around the world, especially in the Global South.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai announced the move as activists gathered in Washington, D.C. for a Rally for a People's Vaccine urging President Joe Biden to back a Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waiver at the World Trade Organization (WTO) proposed by India and South Africa.

 
As an older parent I saw getting myself vaxxed as a foregone conclusion. Unless we're looking at some catastrophic side effects for my population I am pretty well willing to live with some unforeseen complication, especially one that might come to bear on my ability to reproduce. I can't say the same for my kids.
 
Also, this is huge:

In the face of mounting international pressure, the Biden administration on Wednesday announced support for waiving intellectual property protections for Covid-19 vaccines—which campaigners welcomed as "a transformative, hopeful event" that has the potential to save lives around the world, especially in the Global South.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai announced the move as activists gathered in Washington, D.C. for a Rally for a People's Vaccine urging President Joe Biden to back a Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waiver at the World Trade Organization (WTO) proposed by India and South Africa.


It's easy to do things like this to score political points when you already secured a surplus of doses for your own population. Why not do it two-three months ago when other countries, including the US's own neighbors, had a hard time getting doses and are now knee deep into their own variant-fueled third waves? Or maybe just share what they stockpiled instead of hoarding it? Or would that look bad to US voters?
 
It's easy to do things like this to score political points when you already secured a surplus of doses for your own population. Why not do it two-three months ago when other countries, including the US's own neighbors, had a hard time getting doses and are now knee deep into their own variant-fueled third waves? Or maybe just share what they stockpiled instead of hoarding it? Or would that look bad to US voters?
I've been advocating this. We should have acted sooner and it's shameful that we didn't.
 
I've been advocating this. We should have acted sooner and it's shameful that we didn't.

The fastest way forward would be for the first world to buy and secure doses and send them to COVAX for distribution around the world.

The whole suspending patents thing is too slow. It would take months at best for any generic manufacturing to be up and running.
 
As an older parent I saw getting myself vaxxed as a foregone conclusion. Unless we're looking at some catastrophic side effects for my population I am pretty well willing to live with some unforeseen complication, especially one that might come to bear on my ability to reproduce. I can't say the same for my kids.
I’ll go ahead and cop to something that’s probably not surprising to many people around here. I fall into the category of being fairly vaccine hesitant with regards to this particular case.

If I sounded a little extra salty about the pause on the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, it’s because that is the one that I feel most comfortable with. Even if it is possibly less effective than the other ones available, it is the standard vaccine technology that I have been getting hit with for over four decades.

My wife is way more hesitant than I am. I will actually most likely be the guinea pig in my family. Hell, even our doctors aren’t really pushing the issue with us or our kids. There are a lot more medical professionals out there than you would guess who are not wholly on board with it for low risk populations.
 
If I sounded a little extra salty about the pause on the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, it’s because that is the one that I feel most comfortable with. Even if it is possibly less effective than the other ones available, it is the standard vaccine technology that I have been getting hit with for over four decades.
I think the same thing. Of all the vaccines, I think I would be most comfortable giving that one to my kids.
 
I’ll go ahead and cop to something that’s probably not surprising to many people around here. I fall into the category of being fairly vaccine hesitant with regards to this particular case.

If I sounded a little extra salty about the pause on the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, it’s because that is the one that I feel most comfortable with. Even if it is possibly less effective than the other ones available, it is the standard vaccine technology that I have been getting hit with for over four decades.

My wife is way more hesitant than I am. I will actually most likely be the guinea pig in my family. Hell, even our doctors aren’t really pushing the issue with us or our kids. There are a lot more medical professionals out there than you would guess who are not wholly on board with it for low risk populations.

Chuck, I got Astra Zeneca two weeks ago because that's all that was available to me at the time. For me it boiled down to a risk calculation between the 1:100,000 serious side-effect vs the odds of getting severe COVID in the 5-6 weeks before an RNA vaccine is available to me. I did some scratch pad calculations and that ended up with raw odds of roughly 1:2,000 based on the average number of daily cases in my area. The fact that I have a daughter about to restart school increases my odds but the fact that I work at home lowers them. Either way, it doesn't approach 1:100,000. So getting AZ won out. I've had no issue so far and since I'm 15 days out, I'm pretty sure I'm ok.

I'd say the J&J probably has the same side-effect odds (although so far, it seems the side effect odds are lower than AZ). So you fudge that type of calculation for yourself, being fully aware of the side effects. Since you don't want the RNA vaccine, you'd be comparing the odds vs. not getting vaccinated at all. I'd say that weighs towards getting it sooner rather than later.

Note that for my second dose I'm hoping to mix & match with an RNA vaccine since my odds would change once I have some immunity. Plus, I like the idea of getting improved immunity from the mix (but that's me - I would not expect others to make that type of decision). Approval for mixing and matching should be given out here before I'm up for my 2nd dose (Canada is on a 16 week gap between doses because of scarcity).
 
Chuck, I got Astra Zeneca two weeks ago because that's all that was available to me at the time. For me it boiled down to a risk calculation between the 1:100,000 serious side-effect vs the odds of getting severe COVID in the 5-6 weeks before an RNA vaccine is available to me. I did some scratch pad calculations and that ended up with raw odds of roughly 1:2,000 based on the average number of daily cases in my area. The fact that I have a daughter about to restart school increases my odds but the fact that I work at home lowers them. Either way, it doesn't approach 1:100,000. So getting AZ won out. I've had no issue so far and since I'm 15 days out, I'm pretty sure I'm ok.

I'd say the J&J probably has the same side-effect odds (although so far, it seems the side effect odds are lower than AZ). So you fudge that type of calculation for yourself, being fully aware of the side effects. Since you don't want the RNA vaccine, you'd be comparing the odds vs. not getting vaccinated at all. I'd say that weighs towards getting it sooner rather than later.

Note that for my second dose I'm hoping to mix & match with an RNA vaccine since my odds would change once I have some immunity. Plus, I like the idea of getting improved immunity from the mix (but that's me - I would not expect others to make that type of decision). Approval for mixing and matching should be given out here before I'm up for my 2nd dose (Canada is on a 16 week gap between doses because of scarcity).
And this is why I am getting whatever shot is available this weekend--I think they are giving out Pfizer here. I'm no spring chicken and the risk is way to high for me not to. However, I'm really torn on new vaccine technology and my kids.
 
And this is why I am getting whatever shot is available this weekend--I think they are giving out Pfizer here. I'm no spring chicken and the risk is way to high for me not to. However, I'm really torn on new vaccine technology and my kids.

Canada approved Pfizer for 12-16 yesterday, so my daughter would be eligible in June. I think we'll go forward with it, but we won't be the first in line. Our provincial government wants to get the 12-18 that want a vaccine done with a first dose by the end of school in June (to then do dose #2 in September). Mine would only be eligible at the very tail end of that.

To tell you the truth, I don't think AZ or J&J will get approved for the young (both are only approved for 30+ in Canada and Quebec is only giving them to 45+ based on their risk calculations), so the mRNA vaccine is the only short term choice.

There will be Novovax too soon though. That's more of a traditional-ish vaccine (using expressed spike protein that assembles itself into a nanoparticle) and doesn't use an adenovirus vector so there is no indication blood clotting would be an issue. The initial trial data for it look good.
 
Back
Top