Vaccine  - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Terry Bites
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2021, 01:09:46 pm
content: I've had my vaccination for Covid. So far I can detect no 5G signals inside my body. Is there a link protocol I'm missing? I feel so stupid that I can't get any benefit from this free service.I pay my taxes and I want my 5G!I feel I've been lied to.

author: Tomorokoshi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2021, 01:21:16 pm
content: Which vaccine did you get?First dose or both doses?

author: MikeK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2021, 01:56:05 pm
content: Once they locate you with the chip they implanted all will be taken care of.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2021, 02:10:13 pm
content: A dangerous fake vaccine for a harmless fake virus, which has never been isolated. I wonder if that chip gives you free wi-fi, if you can put up with the blood clots.Of course, I'm joking. I can see this thread going downhill.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2021, 02:11:20 pm
content: This thread should be in the "Dodgy Technology" section.

author: Fred27
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 16, 2021, 02:17:07 pm
content: I had the AstraZeneca vaccine just over a week ago. There isdefinitelya chip implanted inside my body. I can see it and I can feel it. I can even detect it with my phone.Hang on. I just remembered I put it there myself about 7 years ago. Nevermind. As you were.https://0xfred.wordpress.com/2014/05/23/my-nfc-implant/

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2021, 02:39:30 pm
content: Vaccines are good. I love vaccines. Vaccines teach my immune system what to attack.Whether a specific thing sold as a vaccine has side effects that makes it not worth taking it, or is really something else than a vaccine, is always subject to discussion. Such discussion should never be extended to coverallvaccines. It varies on a case-by-case basis.There Is No Such Thing As Free Lunch.For example, if we use antibacterial detergents everywhere, and antibiotics for every bacterial and/or viral infection, then we actually provide evolutionary pressure for bacteria and viruses to evolve protection against them. Superbugs (antibiotic-resistant bacteria) didn't just appear out of nowhere; we forced bacteria to evolve that way.So, just because a tool exists, its side effects may be worse than the thing it fixes. Anything involving lots of people is a hard, hard statistical calculation of costs and benefits. The costs are mostly not money, either; we often talk about lives lost and lifelong illnesses and side effects.Whether I will get vaccinated against this bug that seems to be going around, depends on the exact vaccine available. I'm not in any at-risk group, and things are still changing. When the time comes, I'll look at the statistics, and decide based on those.I must say, I'm not at all afraid for my own life; I'm much more worried about those around me (especially elderly people) that I might infect if I was a symptomless carrier. Not just this particular bug, but the influenza virus also – a real killer that too many people ignore! –, and all the other lesser bugs that cause say common respiratory infections.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2021, 03:07:07 pm
content: Antibiotics are meant to deal with bacteria, not viruses. But it's true that we use way too much antibiotics, not just in human and veterinary medicine but also in industrial livestock farming which is possibly the larger threat. BTW, if antibiotics don't work anymore one can try bacteriophages, Some former USSR countries have a lot of experience with bacteriophages because it was hard for them to get modern antibiotics due to the iron curtain.

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2021, 03:16:50 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on March 16, 2021, 02:39:30 pmExactly.I got my first dose on Friday. I went to a different county. People in that county hadn't been signing up for it in sufficient numbers so appointments were available the next day even if you weren't officially due to receive a dose yet. Naturally, being in the US, it was a drive-through

author: greasemonkey
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2021, 03:21:46 pm
content: I wonder why would people think that our overlords would inject us with microchips when we voluntarily (including them) carry supercomputers with mics, GPS and cameras in our pockets?

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2021, 04:06:48 pm
content: Quote from: madires on March 16, 2021, 03:07:07 pmYeah, I should have used the term "antimicrobials", because the same situation applies to antibiotics and antivirals, and even to antifungals and antiparasitics to a lesser degree. Me fail English.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2021, 04:17:28 pm
content: Going forward, I hope that we can make progress on anti-viral medication, since vaccines can take a long time when a new virus appears.

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2021, 04:34:57 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on March 16, 2021, 04:06:48 pmUnfortunately, the medical profession quite happily prescribes antibiotics for viruses just to keep the parents of Little Timmy who has a viral cough happy. Over-prescription of antibiotics is a major problem.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2021, 04:55:24 pm
content: Quote from: Terry Bites on March 16, 2021, 01:09:46 pmRemote control is only in 3GPP release 17. There has been a limited test done in the UK earlier in 2016, and it showed only about 52% success rate so it has been pushed back, because they had to work on it. It's in RFC 900061 called NR_cov_enh. The lizard overlord wasn't happy.

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2021, 05:13:12 pm
content: Quote from: Fred27 on March 16, 2021, 02:17:07 pmAstraZeneca is now on hold in many countries because some receivers have had unsual cases of blood clots some of them dyingafaiu if you had it and get unusual bruising you should see a doctor

author: richard.cs
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2021, 05:44:22 pm
content: Quote from: langwadt on March 16, 2021, 05:13:12 pmWith 37 clotting events across the 17 million doses given, I would not be in the least worried about getting the AstraZenica vaccine. In fact I find it surprising that so few have been reported, given that you'd expect something like 1/1000 people to experience a clotting event in a given year. If clots within a week of the vaccine were reported you'd expect to see 17e6/(1e3*52) =~ 300.

author: mikerj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2021, 05:53:12 pm
content: Quote from: richard.cs on March 16, 2021, 05:44:22 pmExactly this, the numbers don't lie. The numbers of clotting events for the Pfizer vaccine is actually slightly higher (though still very few) showing this is uproar is purely political.

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2021, 05:57:06 pm
content: Quote from: richard.cs on March 16, 2021, 05:44:22 pmI agree the numbers doesn't look concerning, afaiu the concern is that the cases look unusual and seemingly related to a batch of the vaccine

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2021, 06:03:55 pm
content: Quote from: langwadt on March 16, 2021, 05:57:06 pmCome on. If you keep it serious, and talk about covid and vaccines, they will close this thread. Mods said several times it is not thematically fitting to an engineering forum.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2021, 06:05:09 pm
content: Quote from: greasemonkey on March 16, 2021, 03:21:46 pmBecause they didn't reach that conclusion through rational thought. They started with the conclusion and then worked backwards, connecting the dots in such a way as to lead to the conclusion they already had. They believe there's a conspiracy so they invent a story in their heads to rationalize and support it.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2021, 06:47:46 pm
content: Quote from: JohnnyMalaria on March 16, 2021, 04:34:57 pmI agree antibiotics are overused, but they do have a use here. Secondary bacterial infections are very common in viral respiratory illnesses. A colleague's 19 year old daughter got very sick with COVID-19 and had to be in ICU for over a month. What made her so sick wasn't the virus itself, or her body's inflammatory response to it, but an antibiotic-resistant secondary bacterial infection. The bacteria were probably already present in her respiratory tract, but only invaded her lungs due to the virus creating the right conditions for it to do so and weakening her immune system enough. This was a huge factor in the 1918 pandemic and hasn't been so much of an issue in the 1957 and 1968 pandemics as well the current one, because of antibiotics.I'm not in a high risk category for COVID-19 but I have a healthy respect for it. Like you, the main reason why I want to be vaccinated is to protect others, although I'm pretty sure I've already had it, but can't be sure, as I wasn't tested.We've been lucky. It could be far worse. There could be a virus with a much higher mortality rate, which is more transmissible. The main factor in this pandemic is a/presymptomatic spread, which is common in infectious illnesses which spread rapidly, such as HIV. It also removes the incentive for the virus to become less deadly over time, because most of the spread occurs, when people still feel well.I do agree we need to cut our use of antibiotics and develop new ones. It's possible the next pandemic could be caused by an antibiotic resistant bacterium.

author: 1xrtt
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2021, 07:25:09 pm
content: Did you change into an alligator?https://www.foxnews.com/world/brazilian-president-rhetorically-claims-coronavirus-vaccine-could-turn-people-into-alligatorsIf yes, please send a message to this site, they are keeping track of it:https://jacaretracker.org/en

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2021, 07:44:59 pm
content: Evolutionary biologists use the phrase "evolutionary strategy" as a metaphor, since the bugs aren't smart enough to plot strategies.The best strategy for a new pathogen is to become less lethal and more infectious, thus increasing their numbers without killing off their hosts.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2021, 08:02:22 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on March 16, 2021, 07:44:59 pmUnfortunately the less lethal part doesn't apply to pathogens which spread in a/presymptomatic people, or via a third party. For example, HIV has a 100% mortality rate, without treatment and spreads rapidly in healthy people, so it has no incentive to become less deadly. The same is true with SARS-Cov 2, which whilst fortunately is several orders of magnitude less deadly, also spreads in healthy people. Unfortunately there's mounting evidence to suggest the B1525 variant discovered in the UK, is not only more transmissible, but more deadly, than the original one. A pattern which seems to be repeated in other new variants.I know it's only wackypedia (I'm lazy) so check the references.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variants_of_SARS-CoV-2#Overview_table

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2021, 01:14:03 pm
content: Quote from: JohnnyMalaria on March 16, 2021, 04:34:57 pmThe actual reason is not to keep parents happy, it's because a lengthy viral infection often leads to a bacterial infection due to weakened respitory system. Doctors want to cure their patients; they even took an oath for exactly this. This is what they are doing.You are right though; over-prescription is a major problem. So doctors should always wait and confirm the influenza has progressed into bacterial post-symptoms that are also severe enough to warrant antibiotics before writing prescription. "Playing it safe" enters the game here; being early saves time and may even save someone's life (a tiny percentage though).It's a typical problem where doing something seems absolutely Right Thing To Do on a small scale, but when you look at the big picture, if everybody does that, it becomes a larger problem than the sum of the original problems they tried to solve.Doctors perfectly well know about this. Have known for decades. Yet they overprescribe, so having information available isn't the answer. The only workable answer is a control society with tighter laws and tighter control thereof. It really sucks.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2021, 01:53:18 pm
content: Particularly funny/weird/sad is that the most effective way to stop the spread of pandemics is to restrict human movement, drastically: no exceptions, even for the super rich or politicians.So simple, yet so costly and difficult. Proven to save lives, but how do you calculate potential losses, or how much is a single avoidable death worth? How do you balance the near-term loss of life with the long-term loss of life due to increased statistical financial hardships? It is not easy.I'm not suggesting any particular policy, either. Just pointing out how difficult the answers are even when we have some of them. We humansneedthings to beeasyandcheap; but sometimes they just aren't. Sometimes medicine and vaccines have drawbacks: just consider thalidomide, which causes horrible birth defects if taken during pregnancy. Yet, it is an essential medicine, among the 460 medications WHO considers essential, with important life-saving use cases.With money, it's a much easier calculation. When it is a person suffering in front of you, and you have the tools that might help, it is basically inhuman to deny that help because of the long-term statistical repercussions. Typical humans just don't work that way.

author: LaserSteve
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2021, 02:41:17 pm
content: I took my cell phone with me to the vaccination center. Mom's eighty-nine, so I knew we would get the longer observation hold post injection. I was reading EEV blog so the technician told security to let me keep it on while secretly calibrating each patient's implant transceiver. Wasn't that cool!Mom is griping about her 5G reception being poor, and like everything else in her life, I'm to blame. Not my fault the lizards went lowest bidder and used a front end on the chip with poor IMD performance.IN reality, they forgot to post signs, and the center was in a public atrium. So they just watched to make sure I wasn't taking photos. That way they had their HIPAA compliance. After listening to Mom babble for five minutes, they knew why I needed the phone. In my case, for sanity. . I did read EEV while waiting. :-)What really worried me was hundreds of seniors with a few family members in one place with little to no temperature screening on entry.Steve

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2021, 07:17:16 pm
content: Quote from: LaserSteve on March 17, 2021, 02:41:17 pmSounds fun. You could have put a sticker over the camera, if they were funny about you having your phone on. Temperature screening is of little use because COVID-19 mostly spreads in healthy people and many don't get a fever. Were there any other precautions: good ventilation, keeping everyone 2m apart, masks? Those other measures are far more important, especially ventilation and distance. Think: if I farted, would the nearest person to me, be able to smell it and if so, for how long? If the person would hardly smell the fart, or only briefly, then the risk of transmission is low.

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2021, 08:51:06 pm
content: @Zero999, you break me up!Next Corona risk management strategy: force people to eat baked beans, and if you smell something get out of there fast.Much simpler, cheaper and probably more effective than what's going on right now.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2021, 09:14:37 pm
content: I had both my shots at a large community hospital, where they had re-purposed areas for the vaccination process (a different area for each time; the instructions mentioned two possible locations). It was well-organized, with 6-foot markers on the floor of the corridor leading to the check-in, and separate small examining rooms for the actual shot. The recovery room was a re-purposed lounge area, where the chairs were carefully located for distancing. All in all, it went very smoothly (with friendly staff) and I had negligible reaction (only slight arm soreness). As mentioned above, there were wall postings reminding of the camera ban, due to patient privacy.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2021, 10:42:36 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on March 16, 2021, 06:47:46 pmQuote from: madires on March 16, 2021, 03:07:07 pmIndeed, they should rapidly phase out factory farming. I hope that if factory farming causes another pandemic, it would be one that decimates factory farms but cause little or no harm to humans or sustainably raised animals.Quote from: Nominal Animal on March 17, 2021, 01:53:18 pmHence why I'm strongly against reopening schools early, since school has become bloated and overpriced. In its place, we could have online learning services instead. Hands on activities (e.g. science experiments) could be done by sending kits to the students or small workshops could be opened if that's not practical, done in such a way that possible spread would be very limited.

author: Circlotron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2021, 11:40:43 pm
content: I wonder what would happen if you got the first dose of one brand of vaccine and the second does of a different brand? Would it still work? Would it cause any harm?

author: Circlotron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2021, 11:45:59 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on March 16, 2021, 02:39:30 pmI've heard some say that the above situation, rather than cause a new entity to evolve, instead wipes out all the weak versions and leaves the previously minority but very strong and therefore unaffected versions with the entire environment all to themselves so now they can multiply unchecked. Disclaimer - I have no particular understanding of these things.

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2021, 11:49:37 pm
content: Quote from: Circlotron on March 17, 2021, 11:40:43 pmIt would be less likely to work because the optimum time between first and second doses is different. The clinical trials determined the optimum time as defined by the maximum reduction in hospitalizations. (Sorry, that's a fugly word but I've lived in the US long enough...) If you get the second dose too early or too late, then its likely efficacy will be reduced.As for harm? That hasn't been tested. Some of the vaccines are mRNA-based, some aren't. In the former case, it would depend on which proteins found in the coronavirus your body has been fooled into synthesizing in order to stimulate an immune response. And, harm, in such case, would be insufficient protection rather than direct damage to your health.I'd be much more concerned about how your particular healthcare system would screw that up, though.

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2021, 11:51:21 pm
content: Quote from: Circlotron on March 17, 2021, 11:45:59 pmisn't that basically the evolve in evolution?

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 12:10:52 am
content: Quote from: Circlotron on March 17, 2021, 11:40:43 pmWe have no idea. Basically the current vaccination strategy is this way, because they tested it and it worked. And then we have stupid results, like this:https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/astrazeneca-vaccine-2/98616/where half dose works better, they could give it to twice as many people, but it's not tested.

author: gnuarm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 12:16:39 am
content: Quote from: TimFox on March 16, 2021, 04:17:28 pmGoing forward I hope we can make progress in people treating deadly diseases like they are deadly diseases and not talking about them as "fake" or whining about not being able to get a haircut or claiming they will simply "vanish".

author: gnuarm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 12:28:05 am
content: Quote from: richard.cs on March 16, 2021, 05:44:22 pmBut you need to add to those 37 cases the number who were involved in a fatal auto accident on their way to the vaccination site. In the US each day 1 in about 3.5 million die in auto accidents. That would be roughly 2.5 deaths in 17 million, so the blood clots are about 10 times worse than auto risk. I wonder how it compares to deaths due to falling down stairs or slipping in the bathtub. Those numbers are pretty scary too.I'm wondering how long it will be before there is a mass shooting at a vaccination site. Just when you thought you were safe...

author: gnuarm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 12:32:03 am
content: Quote from: NANDBlog on March 16, 2021, 06:03:55 pmOk, being retired this virus has kept me at home nearly all the time. That has allowed me to do a lot more work on electronics and FPGAs. In fact, that is why I found this group. I mainly posted in newsgroups before, but this group is MUCH betterer.A nice, supportive and reasonable bunch. :-)

author: gnuarm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 12:38:37 am
content: Quote from: Zero999 on March 16, 2021, 08:02:22 pmIf you think about the mechanics for a moment, you will realize most increases in transmissibility will also make a given infection more serious or lethal. The most likely change that improves transmissibility is to more readily invade a cell or reproduce in larger numbers or faster so that lower initial numbers of viruses are more likely to create an infection. They will also make the disease more serious and deadly. So, no surprise.

author: Circlotron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 12:40:03 am
content: Quote from: langwadt on March 17, 2021, 11:51:21 pmI would have called it Natural Selection. That is to say, nothing new is produced. Instead, certain properties of an existing organism enable it's survival and consequent domination of it's environment.

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 12:48:44 am
content: Quote from: Circlotron on March 18, 2021, 12:40:03 amthe new was produced when some turned out stronger than others

author: gnuarm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 04:04:20 am
content: Quote from: Circlotron on March 17, 2021, 11:40:43 pmThe multiple vaccines are not likely to interact at all as they target different, even if only slightly antigens.The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines provide mRNA that once inside the cell produce a protein fragment that is a portion of the virus spike. Your cells use this mRNA to make copies of this protein which your immune systems then reacts to by creating antibodies and T-cells. Once your immune system has reacted, it retains the ability to respond more quickly in the future.The second vaccine helps to boost the level of response to the presence of the COVID virus. As such, it is unlikely that one vaccine will help to boost the other since they create different antibodies for different antigens.

author: gnuarm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 04:19:20 am
content: Quote from: langwadt on March 17, 2021, 11:51:21 pmEvolution consists of two separate things, mutation and selection. There is no guiding force causing mutations. They happen randomly and constantly resulting in a genome population with variation. When these mutations result in poor performance in the environment those organisms reproduce less often and the frequency of the genes they carry are reduced. When the mutations result in better survivability in the environment the frequency of the gene increases.In a disease population that is not wide spread (no where near herd immunity numbers) there is no competition. Many strains of the disease can spread without influence on one another. There is no real competition. Once herd immunity levels are approached only a significant mutation that prevents existing antibodies from attacking the virus will be able to spread widely. That is why we need to continue to take all precautions to minimize the spread of the disease; so the disease can be brought to Australian levels where it can be tracked and traced out of existence.

author: Circlotron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 04:33:59 am
content: Quote from: gnuarm on March 18, 2021, 04:19:20 amIf we substitute the word "humans" for "organisms", from a purely logical point of view, by vaccinating ourselves it would appear we are interfering with evolution's efforts to refine the human race. Note I said logical, not ethical.

author: DrG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 05:44:57 am
content: Quote from: gnuarm on March 18, 2021, 04:19:20 amI certainly agree with your final sentence – completely, but if I can add some other information (as I see it).We can cause mutations – chemicals and radiation, for example.The virus (SARS-CoV-2) is not alive. It requires a living cell to reproduce. It binds to the cell and hijacks the cell to follow its RNA instructions, which includes making copies. Unabated, enough cells get hijacked and you are in trouble.When a copy is made, it can have an error in the sense that the newly made virus is not identical to the first one – that is the mutation. The more copies that are made, the more mutations will occur. The mutated virus has to be able to continue to make copies and those copies include the error. That’s how we get a “variant”.Many mutations have little biological significance. Some can, potentially, make it much more lethal. In fact, they can fade out because they kill the host so quickly, there is little chance to transmit to another host.Some mutations can be more transmissible (more contagious). The virus binds to a site on the cell and some mutations can make that bond stronger or easier to bind to the cell. In an evil sense, the worst case scenario is a very transmissible and very lethal virus, but slowly lethal, or lethal in only some people.A vaccine can be less effective against a variant, but it is really the immune system activation by the vaccine that is not recognizing the variant as well as the “original” – that is the thinking.This is expected to happen the longer the virus is active and the counter is to change the vaccine so that what is produced by the vaccine – that is the immune stimulation, is better targeted against the variant.The two mRNA vaccines are little more than mRNA and some lipids to get it into your cells. There, the mRNA instructs the cells to make a compound that stimulates our immune system in a way that produces antibodies that can neutralize the virus. Even when the antibodies are gone the immune system has a “memory” such that it can recognize the virus can produce more of those antibodies quickly.If they need to be tuned up, you can change the mRNA. Moderna has already done that and has requested a clinical trial for a new formulation that is designed to be more effective against variants.The J&J vaccine (the one-shot, no big cooling needed) uses a modified adenovirus (harmless and can’t reproduce) to get into the cells to have them make a substance that will stimulate the same kinds of immune response.Novovax (nearly approved) actually contains bits of harmless virus-like spikes. Again, these get recognized by the immune system and it outputs antibodies.In each case, the vaccine can be tuned to produce an immune response better targeting a variant. The big fear, however, is that we don’t get it under control with vaccination; we could end up in a whack-a-mole situation.If we don’t screw up, we will overcome this one and be better prepared for the next one. But that is a big “if”. Even though in the US we are up to some 2 million shots / day, and increasing, I worry. Moreover, it is absolutely a global situation that requires global eradication/control.Sorry to go on and on but I am trying to set up an old Linksys WRT54G router - remember those? Well, I feel like I have forgotten whatever I once knew about the $!#@ things!.

author: gnuarm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 06:18:33 am
content: Quote from: Circlotron on March 18, 2021, 04:33:59 amNot sure what you mean by "interfering". Creating and using vaccines is part of our survival process. That's perfectly natural in the context of our own evolution.BTW, evolution is not a thing and doesn't have "efforts". It just happens.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 09:03:32 am
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on March 17, 2021, 10:42:36 pmFactory farming is generally bad, as disease can spread rapidly and pathogens have plenty of opportunties to mutate, but there is one benifit of keeping animals indoors: it helps to keep them away from pathogen reservoirs in wild animals. We need lower density farming and stricter controlls of antibiotics used on livestock.QuoteI agree that the school is pretty crappy these days, but it's not just about academia, but socialising and learning to obey rules. It also negatively impacts parents who can't work from home. Here in the UK we opened schools last, after the first lockdown, but this time they've been the first thing to open, whilst restaurants, hair dressers, non-essential retail are still closed. Lots of it is political and this isn't the place for that discussion.Quote from: gnuarm on March 18, 2021, 12:38:37 amIt's not certain either way. If the virus evolves to infect the upper respitory tract, rather than the lungs, it'll be less lethal.I think in this case, with the newer variants of COVID-19, your statement is correct: it's more readily invades cells and reproduces faster, so the minimum infectious dose is lower, which also makes it more lethal.Quote from: gnuarm on March 18, 2021, 04:19:20 amWe don't need to completely get rid of it, to get life back to normal. Fortunately serious illness due to reinfection is rare, so once we have herd immunity, the number of deaths will drastically fall. It's also rarely fatal in the young, so it's highly likely it'll just become like flu, or perhaps even milder, since it doesn't mutate quite so rapidly.I doubt the US or Europe will be able to do as the Australians have done. Australia is quite well isoleted from the rest of the world and has a very low population density. People here in the UK often say we should have done what Australia did, but even through we're geographically an island, we're not really, since there's a tunnel linking us to Europe and we're too dependant on people crossing the border to completely close it.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 09:53:40 am
content: Quote from: Circlotron on March 17, 2021, 11:45:59 pmYes, but bacteria can exchange DNA "horizontally" ("horizontal DNA transfer" and "horizontal gene transfer" in literature), across different types, when in close proximity (in the same patient). This means that to get a new drug-resistant strain of bacteria, all you need is a patient with two or more bacterial infections, one of which is a drug-resistant strain. (Obviously, it does notalwayshappen, you need some bad luck too.)Viruses exchange RNA, if two different types infect the same cell.This is a major way how viruses and bacteria evolve.There are some very interesting scientific papers on this, for exampleJuhas, M. "Horizontal gene transfer in human pathogens", Crit Rev Microbiol. 2015 Feb;41(1):101-8. Not my field, but the abstracts tell pretty well what the researchers are investigating.

author: jpanhalt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 10:28:45 am
content: @Nominal AnimalThat ability to promiscuously pick up DNA from its environment was well know for the Neisseriaceae, which includes Neisseria gonorrhoea, of course. Easy to remember.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 10:40:09 am
content: Quote from: Circlotron on March 17, 2021, 11:40:43 pmAFAIK, someone is performing a study about combining two different viral vector vaccines. BTW, one vaccine is single-shot (Johnson & Johnson).

author: jpanhalt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 10:55:13 am
content: That question has been asked often. First, the J&J vaccine is a viral vector vaccine that uses a replication defective adenovirus. Moderna and Pfizer vaccines do not use a viral vector. They use synthetic liposomes. The latter two vaccines are quite similar and seem to differ mostly in the liposome.Some experts have opined that little harm would be expected by crossing between those two vaccines; however, since such studies have not been completed, no agency of which I am aware has approved doing that. Even under emergency release approval, one must still comply with the conditions of approval, unless you have an approved research study.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 11:29:17 am
content: I doubt there would be any harm caused by mixing vaccines, so long as there's sufficient gap between doeses. If there was, then previously infected people would be at greater risk of harm by the vaccine and so far that doesn't seem to be the case, other than an increased incidence of side effects.It's equally likely mixing vaccines could improve immunity to a greater range of strains, as the immune system will be exposed to different antigens, in each vaccine. On the other hand there isn't the reinforcement effect of being exposed to the same antigen again, which coulld make it less effective. Studies need to be done for each vaccine, before considering such an approach.

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 12:59:46 pm
content: Quote from: jpanhalt on March 18, 2021, 10:55:13 amThe liposomal part is just a vehicle for the mRNA that protects the mRNA and enables it to survive the journey to into our cells. Once there, our cells use the genetic information encoded in the mRNA to synthesize proteins identical to those made by the virus. By choosing the correct protein to be made, it can trigger our immune response as if it were the virus itself that was present. The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are not the same when it come to the mRNA but the concept is the same.The stability of the liposome is important and a challenge. I worked on similar products about 10 years ago. I suspect Pfizer's difficulties with storage temperature lie with the structure of the liposome and the fact that Pfizer hadn't generated any data to support storage at less extreme temperatures. This has changed.

author: Stray Electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 01:14:20 pm
content: Quote from: gnuarm on March 18, 2021, 12:28:05 amI sort of doubt that that would happen, at least on it's own. All of the vaccine sights that I've seen arewellmanned by the police in order to keep order and prevent people from jumping in line preventing traffic jams, etc. There are also usually dozens of paramedics and off duty police there to watch for possible allergic reactions as well. Hell, some of the vaccine sites in the US are even being operated by active duty US Army personnel.But now that you're brought up the idea, it would be too surprising if someone read it and decided to do as you suggested, just for the sheer notoriety of it. Just like the copy-cat school shootings, people see one on the news and then decide that they want to be infamous too and ......

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 01:51:58 pm
content: There are already dangerous idiots among us, Two week ago: Dutch Covid test centre hit by suspected bomb attack (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/03/dutch-covid-test-centre-hit-by-suspected-bomb-attack).

author: DrG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 02:28:30 pm
content: Quote from: JohnnyMalaria on March 18, 2021, 12:59:46 pmI am not a virologist, but I have probably spent 1000 hours with the literature / watching /discussing over the last year. Sadly, it has been consuming, but a fantastic story.Re: The mRNA vaccines - Agree completely (see #45 in this thread). To me, these two represent a huge breakthrough and are likely to have a huge impact on future vaccines and particularly combo vaccines.The similarity between the J&J approach and the Pfizer/Moderna approach is that they both use cells to manufacture the protein. The adenovirus approach has been around for a while (tried and true). The Pfizer/Moderna mRNA approach has also been tried for influenza and some others, but unsuccessfully. I think historically, the roots of the approach was probably in some cancer treatments.The distinction are vaccines which do not instruct the cell to make anything but instead, contain fragments/deactivated virus and the like. I think that Novovax may have some advanced ways to synthesize the substance it uses, but that general approach is the oldest as I see the situation.I don't know, but I think you are probably right about the stability and Pfizer. But, when you are out their first and the race is all-important, you do not want to risk a failure. I agree that this is changing.In fact, I believe that we will be taking another covid vaccine in ~ a year, maybe sooner if a a variant becomes dominant. And it will be an mRNA vaccine.

author: 1xrtt
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 03:30:21 pm
content: Quote from: Circlotron on March 17, 2021, 11:40:43 pmNot sure how it is done in other parts, but around here, you get a vaccination card with the brand, lot number and the date you should return for the second dose. Upon return, you present the card and you get a shot from the same brand.AFAIK, it´s working, my grandfather and my mother already got two doses and the medical team always show you the label, before.There was an intense debate as if the vaccination centers should use all doses available, to spread as much population as possible, or keep stock for the second dose and ensure whoever is vaccinate got the full coverage. Eventually, keeping he stock was favored.

author: DrG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 03:48:01 pm
content: Quote from: 1xrtt on March 18, 2021, 03:30:21 pmYes, similar situation (including the debate) in the US. As it is now clear that here we will have enough vaccine soon, the debate part has largely gone away.As far as mix and match, right now, most place (all that I know about) have only one vaccine. As we get more and more, I am sure some intentional or unintentional mix and match will happen, but not likely with dire consequences.One issue in the US is the small site vs. mass center. Right now, my state is favoring mass vaccination sites. There have been some problems ("entitled" folks cutting in line in their cars), but they are getting better.Once I became eligible, I scored an appointment at a smaller Med Clinic. They did a great job! everything was smooth - triage outside - questions at station 1 - nurse at station 2 (filled out card after injection) - off to the anaphylaxis waiting room - out the door.To get that appointment, I was searching for about an hour a day. 50-60 mile radius - registered with whomever I could - checking with sites (grocery stores and drug store chains) who had appointment software up but (as far as I can tell) no vaccine at this point. Even used browser refresh add-ons....and BTW: I am not happy that some drug stores here "say" you have to be a member of their pharmacy club to get the vaccine. Sure, you have to give a lot of info, including a consent form, as it should be, but at the time of vaccination - but join your club - what is up with that?

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 04:23:46 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on March 17, 2021, 10:42:36 pmWhile I completely agree with you on factory farming, as someone currently in school, I could not disagree more on the online learning idea. We have to do that, and it’s simply no substitute for in-person instruction. It’s less effective, and it creates a lot more work for the teachers to boot.

author: peter-h
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 04:33:54 pm
content: I was getting a connection to the chip using my S10 phone but after I cycled under some 400kV power lines, I never saw it again. Hopefully the 2nd dose will restore proper function.It was slightly unusual in that it wasn't broadcasting an SSID - presumably to reduce the power consumption.

author: Tomorokoshi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 04:52:59 pm
content: Quote from: peter-h on March 18, 2021, 04:33:54 pmWith one dose you can only achieve 2.5G. You need both doses to get 5G.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 05:00:24 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on March 17, 2021, 10:42:36 pmOn line learning, as with traditional learning purely from books, works well for those who are very smart and very motivated. For the bulk of people its a poor substitute for face to face learning. MOOC was a hot topic a few years ago. Now its a topic of much disillusion.

author: mathsquid
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 05:38:26 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on March 18, 2021, 04:23:46 pmI agree completely. I've been teaching fully online for the past year due to covid, and in many ways it has been problematic. I don't know my students very well. I only get a tiny fraction of the feedback I'd normally get. Preparation takes way longer. Cheating seems to be more prevalent. I can't wait to get back into a normal face-to-face classroom. But at the same time it has forced me to reassess how I do assignments and testing. I've learned how to shoot videos using multiple sources (camera, ipad, computer windows showing computations or graphs). And I've gotten much better at writing online assignments.So (for me anyway) this huge disruption has had some definite benefits. I'm thinking that partially online classes might become a large part of what I do in the future. I am concerned, however, that snow days may become a thing of the past.

author: gnuarm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 06:27:45 pm
content: Quote from: DrG on March 18, 2021, 05:44:57 amYou are a very wise man.QuoteIn viral replication this is not significant. In higher lifeforms using DNA, changes to the nuclear information is detected and often repaired preventing it from becoming a mutation (i.e. being expressed). Viruses have a very high replication factor and so can more easily tolerate a higher mutation rate, so there is less detection and correction involved resulting in a much higher mutation rate. No need to induce mutations from outside affects.QuoteI would debate that assertion, but it is of no consequence in this discussion.Quote<Trimmed a tour of viral replication and processing...>QuoteYes, we were probably on solid ground until the winter (Northern hemisphere) surge. Those numbers were insane and we have not recovered from that back to August levels yet! Higher rates of infection result in higher rates of mutation. With the vaccine in wide distribution we will be letting our guard down paying less attention to spreading the disease.Our response to the rate of infection is to shelter when it is on the upswing and to relax when it is on the down swing. This acts like a control loop maintaining a high level of infection. In the US we had not even dropped back to the peak levels from the two previous surges before opening up and relaxing the protective regulations. Clearly we are a nation of idiots who can't understand simple math, being led by imbeciles who can't even understand a chart.https://xkcd.com/2278/QuoteYou mean like the router I am connected to the Internet with? Which version of OpenWrt are you running? Or is it Tomato or DD-WRT?

author: DrG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 06:43:57 pm
content: Quote from: gnuarm on March 18, 2021, 06:27:45 pmYes, that is the one - a V5 and when I used it, I used whatever software it came with or that I found and I did all sorts of crazy things with it, most of which are not retrievable without some pain. Long story / new provider equipment / old XP balking at it / np with newer machines and android devices / maybe failing XP wifi card / maybe something else. Gave me a headache last night - probably dig up an old pci wifi card from somewhere (no PCIe slot) and see if that works or find a very long Ethernet cable.....or just throw out old junk.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 06:48:27 pm
content: Quote from: DrG on March 18, 2021, 06:43:57 pmNewer equipment is likely refusing to support outdated and known insecure standards. WRT54Gs should be long recycled along with the rest of the equipment of the era.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 06:50:42 pm
content: To gnuarm:I am surprised that the media don’t mention that the daily graph of new cases in the US (appearing in newspapers) shows that the current rate, far down from the last peak, is only down to the previous local maximum.

author: DrG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 06:54:14 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on March 18, 2021, 06:48:27 pmHey, what if we started substituting "old Farts" for "equipment" in your response? Then I would be in real troubleYour suspicion may be correct, which is why I wanted to attach the WTG to the newer equipment as an access point for the XP - kind of like a Senior Citizens Enter Here. Actually, the XP does connect but stops recieving after a time but does not drop the connection. Reconnecting will get it to work for a bit. I use that machine infrequently and it may have started to do that before the new equipment.

author: gnuarm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 07:04:40 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on March 18, 2021, 09:03:32 amWe do need to get rid of it. Letting this disease roam free is like a psychotic person with a gun. Even if the gun is laying on the table, it can be picked up and fired at any time. This virus is dangerous enough that a simple mutation could allow it to become much more deadly and at the same time resistant to every treatment to date. We don't want it hanging around sniping at us like the crocodiles at the watering hole, waiting for the day they become agile, fast and able to pursue victims on land before we act.QuoteThat is the sort of limited thinking I try to counter by reason. But it is hard. These disease is not rampant because of lack of border controls. The population density of Australia is not a factor because the density is dominated by the vast areas with few people while the vast majority of people live in the same conditions as the rest of us.North and South Dakota in the US have the highest infection per population numbers, yet are very lightly populated, among the lowest in the US. But in the populated areas the infection rates are high dominating the infection rate numbers. Heck, South Dakota has the second highest vaccination number in the country! You would think they'd have great infection numbers. So clearly population density is not a useful metric when calculated over a region with widely varying demographics.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 08:19:41 pm
content: Quote from: gnuarm on March 18, 2021, 07:04:40 pmNo one is talking about allowing the disease to roam freely. It's why so much time and money have been spent on developing vaccines.It would be great to get rid of it, but the consensus of opinion is it's not possible.Put it into perspective.How many children have died from COVID-19? Very few.How many people have been reinfected and suffered from severe disease? For a start, reinfection is comparatively rare and most cases of reinfection are minimally symptomatic, with severe disease due to reinfection being extremely rare.Once everyone has been vaccinated or infected, the pandemic will end, as has been the case with every other pandemic. A new pathogen emerges, causes widespread death and severe illness, then after herd immunity is reached, it continues to kill a small number of vulnerable people each year. The same happened with the 1918 influenza and it's possible the 1889 - 1890 pandemic was a coronavirus, which is now a common cold.If we do get rid of it. It will be due to herd immunity, rather than border control, quarantine, social distancing and track and trace.QuoteNow try to tell people they can't travel from South Dakota, to another state, with much lower infection figures? It's not possible to seal a US state off from the others, except for Hawaii and AlaskaIn Australia, they managed to cut-off western Australia, from the rest of the country, because there's nothing but desert separating it from the other states.

author: Syntax Error
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 09:20:43 pm
content: Never thought about this, but exactly why is the Russian vaccine called Sputnik? And Pitzer Biontech sounds a lot like bionic nano technology? Good job I've used telepathy to cancel my subscription to the Fortean Times. Or have I?Seriously, don't be a Vacnik. Get jagged

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 09:43:34 pm
content: Quote from: Syntax Error on March 18, 2021, 09:20:43 pmEtymologyFrom Russian спу́тник (spútnik, “satellite”, literally “fellow traveller”), from с- (s-, “with, together”) + пу́тник (pútnik, “traveller”), from путь (putʹ, “way, journey”) + agent suffix -ник (-nik).Also, it was the first, just like the first artificial satellite.BTW, Moderna is called Moderna to reflect its technology - mRNA.

author: Syntax Error
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 10:03:39 pm
content: A proven side effect of the Moderna vaccine is, you can turn into Dolly Parton. And you won't look a day over705021.The alt.truth is somewhere out there.

author: LaserSteve
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2021, 12:36:59 am
content: This thread has been a blast and incredibly informative.Steve

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 19, 2021, 01:17:09 am
content: Quote from: Zero999 on March 18, 2021, 08:19:41 pmIt's going to follow the usual phases:1) Epidemic2) Pandemic (if you are unlucky like with covid-19)and then3) EndemicJust like the countless variations of flu and other diseases, it will be endenic, it will always be around.Very few diseases have been completely eradiacted, the WHO only lists one human based one to be eradiacted, smallpox.https://asm.org/Articles/2020/March/Disease-Eradication-What-Does-It-Take-to-Wipe-outhavehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_infectious_diseasesSmallpox was able to be wiped out because of a very effective vaccine and it was easy to visually identify infected people and isolate them.The same can't be said for the various coronaviruses, which is why we can't edcadicate the common cold and flu variations.Covid has already mutated many times. It's here to stay.Help protect the really vulnerable with vaccines, most likely with seasonal vaccine variations like with the flu, and the rest of the population will eventually get on with life.Covid will eventually just be another a graph line on the yearly flu statistics:

author: gnuarm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2021, 05:44:09 am
content: Quote from: Zero999 on March 18, 2021, 08:19:41 pmThere is no such consensus opinion. When I talk of getting rid of it I mean getting rid of it roaming wild infecting and killing thousands a day. Look at the numbers in Australia and other places. The disease is rampaging because we won't do the simple measures that other places have done. They've shown it is possible, but in the US and elsewhere there are too many who not only don't think of others, they simply don't think. They believe in what they feel.QuoteSimply not true. Bubonic plague ravaged Europe many time over many years. Many other diseases have continued to rise and fall killing millions. If you look at the population of the world over time you will see a few downward spikes. These are all diseases ravaging the human population.As to the idea that we can vaccinate out way out of this it entirely depends on controlling the ongoing rate of infection. As I have already explained, quite clearly, it will take months for this disease to be impacted as we try to vaccinate the world. No, that's wrong. It will take years to protect the entire world. If we continue to allow the disease to roam the world infecting large numbers it will continue to mutate at a high rate and almost certainly reduce the effectiveness of the current vaccines.Yes, they can work, but they depend on the virus not changing and we are not doing what we should to minimize the chances of that happening... by not reducing the infection rate. Too many people literally make up their own facts and spread them around.QuoteAnything is possible. Why make up stuff rather than discuss facts?QuoteNonsense. Herd immunity will only protect from the virus that infected the population. When the virus changes that immunity ends as is demonstrated every year with the flu.QuoteWhat does that have to do with anything??? You aren't making sense.QuoteWhat does that have to do with anything??? More nonsense. The island has ring of cities around the periphery. How is that relevant? What they have in common is a reasonable response to the disease taking action to quarantine anyone exposed to the disease, exactly as we would do if we had an Ebola plague. But with this virus, "It's just a bad case of the flu" that is killing more people than 10 years of the flu and still killing more.

author: gnuarm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2021, 05:51:35 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on March 18, 2021, 06:48:27 pmWhat are you going on about? My WRT54G works just fine. Why would anyone care if new standards are developed? I have distance security. Two neighbors who are within range of my router and neither is technical enough to worry about. Anyone else would need a 6 foot parabolic dish to pick up my signal.I don't need no stinkin' security!

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2021, 05:59:00 am
content: Quote from: gnuarm on March 19, 2021, 05:51:35 amReality. You need not apply.

author: gnuarm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2021, 06:07:54 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on March 19, 2021, 01:17:09 amIt is very disingenuous to compare COVID to the flu and definitely misleading to talk about the mutations in this context. COVID has mutated many times, just as humans mutate every day. The vast majority of mutations are harmful and cause death of the individual. COVID has had a few mutations, or more accurately, combinations of mutations that increase it's infectiousness and possibly it's lethality. The jury is still out on this, but that is how the evidence looks so far.None of the mutations we've found appear to dramatically impact the effectiveness of the vaccines. But mostly that is being studied in regards to the mutations that appear to increase the infectiousness. As there are many, many mutations circulating, it may be that some have more resistance to the vaccine. Only time will tell us for sure as a larger percentage are vaccinated.QuoteThat is clearly not in evidence. We can draw all the parallels we like, we can whistle in the dark, but unless we take effective measures to reduce the infection rate we are asking the virus to mutate and make this round of vaccines ineffective.One of the things about this disease that I find disturbing is that not only do people not care about themselves, they don't care about others. My friend lives in a retirement community with nursing facilities. In the support staff of the general community something like 70% have been vaccinated. In the nursing facility only 50% of the staff have gotten the vaccine. It's not because of lack of availability, it's a lack of thinking or caring, I'm not sure which bothers me the most.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2021, 09:35:24 am
content: Quote from: gnuarm on March 19, 2021, 05:44:09 amGood, because that will happen, as we build up herd immunity, due to infection and vaccination.QuoteAnd look at the costs. There will always be a country where the population haven't all been vaccinated against COVID-19. It keeps getting into Australia and they have to respond with draconian measures. Once they've vaccinated most of their population, they'll have to let it in and test the vaccines.QuoteBubonic plague is totally different. I relies on third parties to spread: rats and flees. The same is true of malaria. These diseases are controlled by removing the natural reservoirs and disease vectors, rather than quarantine.COVID-19 will behave like any other respiratory virus which has caused a pandemic in the past. It is a viral respiratory disease, like influenza and other coronaviruses. The only way for it to spread is via person, to person.QuoteSorry, there's no way the enitre world will be vaccinated against this. We've only done that with smallpox and are still not quite there with polio.QuoteYes, let's discuss the facts, rather than making stuff up.Immunity isn't binary. If someone has been previously infected with one variant and the virus mutates, they might catch it again, but it's highly unlikely it will be as bad as the previous time, because their immune system will be able to deal with it more effectively. There are a few instances of people getting it worse the second time, but they're the minority.If we put the two facts together: reinfection with a different variant generally results in less severe disease and mortality is extremely low in children, the result will be declining COVID-19 mortality, as we build up herd immunity.QuoteYou've missed the point. Australia can quarantine states because they're geographically isolated from one another, whilst the contiguous US can't do the same.QuoteThis virus is more like the flu than Ebola, which doesn't spread via respiratory droplets. It's much more contagious and fortunately less deadly. Unlike Ebola, it spreads in asymptomatic people. One of the reasons we managed to contain the original SARS was because it was only spread by those who were already quite ill, making it easy to screen for with temperature checks. The very mild cases didn't spread to others.It's only possible to do track, trace and quarantine, when cases in a country are very low. It also requires strict border controls, which are difficult to maintain. The US and Europe long ago reached the point where this isn't possible and China only managed to do it because it's a big brother communist state.Just to be clear, I'm in no way trivialising COVID-19 by comparing it to influenza. At the moment, it's much more danagerous than the flu, because most people have little immunity. Influenza is also a very dangerous pathogen to those who've never been explosed to it. Together with polio, it killed more Native Americans than the Europeans did.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 19, 2021, 09:51:26 am
content: Quote from: gnuarm on March 19, 2021, 06:07:54 amThe entire point of my post is pointing out at covid is already endemic and it's not going away. We won't be able to eradicate it. It will very likely be a seasonal whack-a-mole thing forever. The vaccine isn't a magic bullet to eradicate it.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 19, 2021, 10:01:26 am
content: Quote from: Zero999 on March 19, 2021, 09:35:24 amInfluenza kills up to half a dozen people in my mum's retirement village every year alone, it's serious stuff.We used to have hugely popular TV ads telling us to "soldier on" when we have the flu. That didn't age that well I guess...

author: gnuarm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2021, 11:14:05 am
content: Quote from: Zero999 on March 19, 2021, 09:35:24 amI'm sorry that you can't understand what I'm saying. I have already explained to you why the vaccines won't be an impenetrable barrier to this disease. Rather than debate the facts you continue to make the same fallacious assertions.QuoteAgain, fallacious assertions. Australia has the virus. Some 10 to 20 people get infected each day. When they relax too much and stop taking adequate precautions or don't conduct thorough track and trace the infection rate rapidly ramps up. At that point they have had to step up efforts and return to more restrictions, but only twice. Once at the initial outbreak and again in August. At no time were they imposing "draconian" measures. None of this has to do with travel restrictions which have been in place the entire time.The comment about "testing" the vaccine isn't even worth replying to.QuoteThere is nothing in that statement that indicates we will have a permanent immunity to the disease and it will not mutate to get around that immunity.But it is very easy to prevent. Just as dysentery and other diseases are prevented by washing hands, this pandemic is prevented by avoiding contact with others who may be infected. Best practices are to trace contact and quarantine those who have had contact so that if they do become infected further transmission is prevented. This brings the spreading rate below 1.0 and the disease dissipates and dies out. That is a guarantee. Vaccines are not guaranteed to continue to work as the virus mutates.QuoteSo you are arguing with yourself about this? Above you said the disease will end when we vaccinate everyone. Or are you suggesting we just allow the world to be infected killing huge numbers?There's no reason why we can't vaccinate everyone who wants to be vaccinated. I can't imagine why you would even say that. The only problem are those who don't want the vaccine.QuoteNo, immunity is not binary, but if the virus mutates in a way that eliminates the antigen the vaccine protects against it will no longer be impacted. Being non-binary doesn't mean there is no zero.QuoteYou are not thinking about it correctly. Your conclusion is a possibility, but not a given. I'm not sure what the mortality rate in children has to do with it. As we build up immunity through infection we will see many, many more die. The total number of deaths in the US more than doubled over the holiday season because people weren't willing to take precautions. I am hoping people will see this and start taking the disease seriously. But there are still many in denial.QuoteFirst, that's wrong... Australian states are not isolated from each other. They all have common borders with people freely crossing them all the time. But even so, what doesisolatingstates have to do with anything? The states of Australia were never quarantined. I'm not even sure what that means. People are quarantined.QuoteWhat is your point? Of course the diseases are not identical. The point is about the need for quarantine for those exposed to the infection. I mention Ebola because it has a higher fatality rate, so people take it seriously unlike COVID.QuoteNo, it does not require "strict" border controls. It simply requires that people with symptoms, or testing positive or being exposed to anyone with symptoms or testing positive be quarantined, including anyone traveling. Where do you get your information? You seem overly obsessed with border control.QuoteSeveral times you have talked about allowing infections to provide herd immunity and talked as if infections in children are not significant. I don't know what to call that other than trivializing human deaths.No, we can't save everyone in the world. In reality wearing masks, washing hands and getting vaccines are not about protecting any of us 100%. The sad truth is that they are about reducing the spread of this disease and saving some lives. But by not treating the disease seriously we are costing many more lives than necessary. Very importantly, by allowing the infection rate to remain high (even if not as high as a few weeks ago), we are keeping the doors wide open to rapid mutations in the virus that put the effectiveness of the vaccines at risk. Right now people want out from under this disease and many feel they will be able to open up again even before we are fully vaccinated. Many US states are opening again so that instead of the infection rate dropping to near zero where we could effectively track and trace, the US continues to see thousands die each day and many more new infections with the numbers no longer effectively dropping.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2021, 01:09:26 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on March 19, 2021, 09:51:26 amI'm drawn back to my very first comments a year ago: that hopefully, this would be the thing to change human behaviour wrt. spreading respiratory viruses.No dice, I'm afraid.Some people sincirely believe a mask alone will fully protect them from the virus. The most egregious example I've seen with my own eyes was a person lifting their mask to lick their fingers so they could better grasp a vegetable bag from a roll in a grocery shop in the fruits-n-veggies aisle.Truth is, a very large fraction of all humans are utterlystupid. I mean that in the clinical sense, as in they do not have the mental faculties tounderstandthese things, complex mechanisms, interactions. No matter how well anyone explains the situation, they just do not have theabilityto integrate that knowledge, and have it affect their behaviour. It's not a choice, it's a limitation they cannot help.(Sometimes I wish we had religion strong enough to force a change in these peoples behaviour, but then I realize that sort of thing would be evil, even if the objective was to help people. So, I knowI'm not better than anyone else; my failures and weak points are just different.)Because of this, Dave is absolutely right: we simply acquired another endemic virus.

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2021, 01:20:48 pm
content: Many people aren't aware that the common cold is also a coronavirus. The coronavirus very successful lifeform (debates aside as to whether our definition of "life" is appropriate) that has been on this planet for billions of years longer than we have. Mammals are but a blip in that time. There's a very good reason that the common cold is, well, common.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2021, 01:52:19 pm
content: Quote from: JohnnyMalaria on March 19, 2021, 01:20:48 pmIn about 15% of cases, yes. Most cases of common cold are caused byrhinovirusvariants.

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2021, 03:41:36 pm
content: Quote from: Circlotron on March 17, 2021, 11:45:59 pmThere was something a while back about UCL (university college London) and Oxford university trialling Astra zenica and Pfizer vaccine as a mix in various ways.

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2021, 03:53:44 pm
content: Quotewill that allow my body to receive 5g from multiple network providers instead of being locked into one?

author: DrG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2021, 04:07:38 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on March 19, 2021, 01:52:19 pmAlthough you have a good point with the numbers, this is typical GIS (Google-Induced Simplification) or, if you prefer, WIS (Wikipedia-induced simplification) and also FIS (Forum-Induced-Stupidity).I am bringing it up because of your previous missive on what I would call "characteristic stupidity of humans" e.g., "Truth is, a very large fraction of all humans are utterly stupid." and "It's not a choice, it's a limitation they cannot help."I am one of those "stupid people"and so are you.At one level, people learn about rhinovirus (oh yeah, that causes the common cold) and at one level people learn about some coronoviruses (some of them only cause the common cold) and draw a conclusion and spread it.....like a virus. He said "Many people aren't aware that the common cold is also a coronavirus." and you say "In about 15% of cases, yes. Most cases of common cold are caused by rhinovirus variants.".At yet another level, people learn even more...and go look for where people studied "people saying that they had a cold" and tried to figure out what the cause was, e.g.,https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC104573/Now, you can say, with evidence, that, yes, coronavirus causes the common cold and, narowly (52%), "most colds are caused by rhinovirus". But, if I were to say, the common cold can be caused by bacteria or the influenza viruses, folks would be all over my ass correcting me and so on and so forth...but I could cite the study as evidence supporting the statement.Note also two previous studies (cited in the above study) found that rhinovirus was not the cause in over 50% of the cases (25% and 34%). I could also say that you can have a cold from multiple viruses at the same time including rhinovirus and coronavirus (Evidence of a double viral infection was found in 10 patients. Of these patients, three had both rhinovirus and coronavirus OC43...).Indeed, the idea of a "common cold" as being some kind of a well-defined condition is a simplification. It is frequently a poorly defined collection of signs (observed by other) and symptoms (reported by the person) and usually an operational definition is invoked centering around upper respratory tract issues.So, do you think that most people are too stupid to understand the concepts? I don't, but I am just happy if most people (99% or more) come to understand that 5G does not cause the common cold and I am not going to be the one to put a limit on what we can and can't understand as people (even if there are limits).

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2021, 04:21:01 pm
content: Just to clarify, the purpose of my comment was to address a misconception that coronaviruses are some new-fangled Frankenstein creation born of human stupidity and that we have been exposed to coronaviruses all our lives often in the form of what we colloquially term the common cold.

author: Tomorokoshi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2021, 04:53:26 pm
content: Quote from: themadhippy on March 19, 2021, 03:53:44 pmYes, it will*.* Roaming charges may apply. Quality of service not guaranteed.

author: jonpaul
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2021, 04:59:13 pm
content: I Predict that vax will become obligatoire in EU, UK, this year, no options will be offered.Since variants evolve and new viruses are continuously created and released, expect a repeat yearly with a new vax required each time, like flu vaccinations.In 2021 I predict a government requirement for a digital health app to track all of this, with total government rights to use and indefinitely store every movement.Bon Courage,Jon

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2021, 05:16:20 pm
content: Quote from: DrG on March 19, 2021, 04:07:38 pmHuh? Yes, common cold can be caused by bacteria or viruses. You're bashing me for what, my imaginary/invented/assumed opposition to a reasonable counterpoint? Get real.Quote from: DrG on March 19, 2021, 04:07:38 pmFully agreed. In my understanding, "common cold" ≃ "the symptoms of upper respiratory tract infection".In many cases, the exact cause for the infection is not even that important: if the symptoms indicate the person ('s immune system) can cope with it with rest and fluids, there is no need to spend resources to find out whether the infection was due to a virus (or which virus) or bacteria.Quote from: DrG on March 19, 2021, 04:07:38 pmThat's a completely different question: I referred to the complex relationships between causes and actions, and you are limiting to the concepts. You are twisting my claims into something you can attack. Don't do that. Undestanding a concept is not very important. You can catch a ball without understanding anything about ballistics, aerodynamics, fluid dynamics, et cetera. And vice versa: understanding and being able to describe exactly how a thrown ball behaves, does not mean you can catch a thrown ball.The people I've observed – and I hoped including a particularly frustrating/funny one would make it clear I am talking about observations and not predictions or assertions – are grasping for the easiest solution they can, and are actively ignoring anything that says that their chosen solution is not sufficient, and they actually need to do something more difficult/annoying/restrictive. A significant (but small, say 1 in 5 or fewer) do not even want to know anything about the causes, and are following directions blindly, based on respect for authority/celebrity.They are not looking forunderstanding, but the easiest way toavoiddealing with the underlying problems – like humans spreading viruses so well – by modifying their own behaviour.Perhaps the proper English term is "short-sightedness" or something else rather than "stupidity", but I described it as "stupid".Quote from: DrG on March 19, 2021, 04:07:38 pmDo you understand the difference between an observation and an assertion? Because mine was the former, and you seem to be attempting to describe it as the latter.

author: MadTux
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2021, 07:18:00 pm
content: Quote from: jonpaul on March 19, 2021, 04:59:13 pmNice new world of shit, I guess if EU becomes new China, we'll soon have next civil war, because of an overhyped flu....I won't play along, they stick their Wuhan flu vaccine syringes up their arses, but not into my arm.And I'm not anti-vaccine, if it's something really serious like rabit animal that bites me, I'd be at a doctor in no time, but playing along with plans for a new world order under the disguise of a pandemic, no thank you!

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 20, 2021, 08:05:15 am
content: Quote from: gnuarm on March 19, 2021, 11:14:05 amIf you are going to argue with numbers, at least get them right, we have ZERO local covid spread here.Here is a the last 3 months for the entire country.Practically all of our cases are people coming into the country and we catch them at the border.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2021, 02:30:43 pm
content: Quote from: gnuarm on March 19, 2021, 11:14:05 amWhat fallacious assertions? Reinfection is rare and generally milder than before.https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n99https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.13.21249642v1No one is saying people don't get reinfected, but the fact it's rare, even with the new variants and is generally milder, than the first time, as is the case with most viral infections, indicating it won't cause the same widespread level of severe disease and death, as we have now, throughout eternity.QuoteContact tracing and testing are only any help, when the number of cases are low. It also relies on high levels of compliance.I understand your high level of anxiety, continuously imagining the worst case scenario, but there's no evidence to suggest it will be killing millions of people a year forever. We've seen that vaccines designed for the variant a year ago are still effective against slowing the spread and preventing severe disease from the new ones. We can make new, effective vaccines every year to provide ongoing protection, in the same way we do for influenza.QuoteNo, I didn't say COVID-19 will end due to vaccination, just that it will no longer cause such widespread severe disease and death, once a certain level of herd immunity has been achieved, hopefully by vaccination, rather than infection.QuoteThere will always be places in the world where the vaccine is unavailable.QuoteIsolating states prevents the disease from spreading from an area with a very high prevalence. Last year, Australia managed to cut New South Wales off from the rest of the country, when cases were high there, to prevent it from spreading to the rest of the country. Trump talked about doing the same to New York, when it ran rampant there, but soon realised it wasn't possible.In other words: it isn't fair to say well Australia did it, so why can't we do the same in the US? The two countries are very different, both geographically and politically.QuoteMy point is that COVID-19 is much more contagious than Ebola and that it spreads in healthy people, so is vastly more difficult to contain. If it was only spread by people who feel unwell, then we would have contained it by now. This isn't a case of not taking it seriously because it has a much lower infection fatality ratio, than other diseases. It's a matter of it being more contagious and harder to contain.QuoteI'm not trivialising human deaths. My point is that COVID-19 doesn't pose a serious risk of mortality to children. It mostly kills older people.We've only had 9 children, from 0 to 14 years old, die in the UK, with COVID-19 mentioned on the death certificate, from March to 1st January 2021. Now I know that's terrible, but we need to put it into perspective. Quite remarkably the excess deaths in the UK, in the 0 to 14 year old age groups, has actually been lower than expected, from March to the end of last year. Correlation doesn't mean causation, so perhaps it's because fewer children have being run over, going to school and being killed by accidents whilst playing.https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/static-reports/mortality-surveillance/excess-mortality-in-england-week-ending-01-Jan-2021.html#sectionhttps://fingertips.phe.org.uk/static-reports/mortality-surveillance/excess-mortality-in-england-week-ending-01-Jan-2021.html#section-7QuoteThis is why the UK are being so tardy in relieving lockdown restrictions: to allow vaccines to protect the vulnerable and minimise mutations. Schools only reopened a couple of weeks ago, after being closed for nearly 10 weeks. Gyms, restaurants, most non-essential shops etc. are still closed at the moment. More is planned to reopen next month, but it will be slow.Quote from: EEVblog on March 20, 2021, 08:05:15 amHow long do you think you'll be able to keep it up for?What about the costs: tourism, business lost, quarantine hotels, the occasional lockdown, when it does escape?I don't see how it's sustainable.At the moment I gather your government is prioritising vaccines for your neighbours in Papua New Guinea, when it gets supplies. This is admirable, but I suppose there is some level of self-interest, as it will help keep Australia safe. Hopefully the vaccination in Australia will ramp up when domestic production starts.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2021, 03:17:42 pm
content: Quote from: jonpaul on March 19, 2021, 04:59:13 pmFor a few people a vaccination is quite risky because of their medical condition. So you can't enforce that.Quote from: jonpaul on March 19, 2021, 04:59:13 pmHard to say, It depends on how much COVID-19 mutates.Quote from: jonpaul on March 19, 2021, 04:59:13 pmFree smartphones for everyone?

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2021, 03:27:32 pm
content: Do note that measuring the awfulness of this disease simply through number of deaths gives the wrong impression it's only dangerous to elderly and some specific risk groups.Being dangerous doesn't require a death. Traffic accidents result in larger number of injured than deaths and nobody thinks it's all well as long as you don'tdie.It's true younger population and those not in risk groups are extremely unlikely todie, but it seems much more common to have a near-death experience, being weeks to months in ICU, then leave severely injured for months to a year, possibly the rest of your life, nobody knows yet if they can ever work again due to symptoms such as extreme fatigue or paralysis so now you are in a wheelchair, in extreme pain, sleeping all day long and nobody counts you as a number anywhere because you are not dead.This is now clearly visible even in Finland because we finally have managed to vaccinate the most obvious risk groups (but practically no one else yet), and you can already see the result of that: the ratio ofdeathsvs.caseshas gone down significantly (by about 5x), but the ratio ofhospitalizedvs.cases, or evenin ICUvs.caseshavenotgone down almost at all, suggesting that a significant part of those in really bad condition arenotin the obvious risk groups.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2021, 04:06:04 pm
content: There are also long-term sequelae, even suffered by young people. Yep, the numbers of infections, fatalities and ICU utilisation aren't sufficient to describe the whole situation.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2021, 04:06:45 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on March 20, 2021, 03:27:32 pmQuite right. There are still people in Hong Kong suffering the after effects of SARS in 2003. SARS2 seems to be showing all the same qualities as SARS1, although they are less aggressive with SARS2. I assume many people's health (e.g. lung performance) will be affected for decades, and the health services will be carrying a financial burden for just as long.

author: Habropoda
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2021, 04:44:47 pm
content: Plus we don't know the possible very long term effect like HPV causing cancer or chickenpox causing shingles.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2021, 06:15:37 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on March 20, 2021, 03:27:32 pmYes, you're right. The person I mentioned in theother postwho was hospitalised with COVID-19, at the tender age of 19, back in early summer 2020, still hasn't fully recovered. Long term damage due to COVID-19 is a definite concern, which is why it shouldn't be allowed to infect everyone. Children also can suffer from long term health problems, albeit to a lesser degree than older people, even if the initial disease was mild. Fortunately vaccination should minimise the risk of long COVID.Just to be clear, I'm not trivialising the disease, as some do. It's killed millions, injured many more and will continue to do so, for awhile yet. It's just that all of the evidence seems to point towards it getting better, in the long term. It's highly unlikely it will be harming millions of people in 10 years time. Unlike the other coronaviruses which cause the common cold and influenza, it mutates relatively slowly. It's also not infected farm animals, except for mink, like influenza does, so there's no disease reservoir close to human contact.https://www.biospace.com/article/https-www-nature-com-articles-s41422-020-00430-4/Quote from: coppice on March 20, 2021, 04:06:45 pmYes, it's nothing new. It's happened in previous pandemics.The fact that it seems to be similar to the original SARS is good news for immunity. There's evidence to suggest those who've had SARS back in 2003 still have some level of immunity today and may have a level of cross-immunity to SARS-CoV-2. This is why it seems unlikely it will cause severe disease forever.https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2550-z

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 02:31:15 am
content: Quote from: Zero999 on March 20, 2021, 02:30:43 pmApart from tourism and related things, Australia is actually doing really well. Almost everything is open. Few service businesses like restaraunts went under, kids have been back in schools since May 2020 etc etc. We were having 50,000 people without masks in a sports stadium when the rest of the world was still completely shut.https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-18/state-of-origin-3-queensland-home-advantage/12892044But yes, untimately we have to get out of the mindset of panicing and shutting things down for a week when we get ONE case. Yes, ONE single case here is enough to trigger panic here and localised lockdowns. It's ridiculous and is unsustainable. We still have ridiculous mandatory mask orders on public transport even though we got through this entire thingwithoutany mask madates or community takeup.At some point we have to allow international travel without quarantine happen. Sure test people and quarantine the possitive, but let everyone else in.Local tourism has actually boomed here, but yeah anything reliant upon overseas tourism or overseas students has been hit hard.We often make the news for our draconian lockdowns, but I wouldn't want to be living anywhere else at the moment. Life is pretty much normal here, and apart from a week or two here and there over the last year, always has been for me.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 09:19:34 am
content: Wide-scale (basically the whole planet) real-world human experiments and testing have undeniably revealed the following:1) While most of the "West" have theorized about the advantage to the economy of letting the disease spread without restrictions, not a single nation, not even Sweden, have had guts to go all the way (or even close) to see if this works. The breaking point seems to be the army mass-transporting dead bodies under the windows of people. At this point, losers try the strategy of the winners, but it's too late. What that means, "economy vs. human life" is, and was from day one, a completely false dichotomy. In reality, they go hand-in-hand.2) Statistically signicant number of nations, mostly in Asia (and Oceania), have definitely proved that strong early actions (that seem "excessively strong" or "panicking" to many atthat stage) result in least death, least injury, least suffering, but alsoleast damage to the economy, and maybe most importantly, least amount of restriction of human rights like the right to go shopping or have a coffee with friends. While most of the EU and USA is still more or less closed, people in Australia, New Zealand, South Korea or Singapore are sipping their coffee in restaurants almost normally. These nations have proved that seemingly "excessive" but scientifically rational actions which look like "panicking" to some are effective to guarantee people can quickly go back to normal life at some 90% duty cycle and don't need to suffer for 1.5 years nonstop from this shit.Doing too little too late has clearly led to having to go to much stronger limitations than what "strong" limitations would have originally been, and also for much longer time. It is devastating to see how pretty much all of the "West" has utterly failed to understand this blatantly obvious relationship even WHO, despite all of their shortcomings, talked about from day one.Our Western approach seems to be, panic panic panic, "no we are not panicking! need to show that off", until the death scares the shit out and then we start to visibly panic, still unable to make rational choices based on expert analysis - or even common sense.A large handful of nations have clearly proved though all of this suffering is completely optional tragedy bought to us by our incompetent leaders, but what can we do.

author: Microdoser
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 10:25:41 am
content: IMO the world is heading in one of a few directions. Either we just accept that COVID is a fact of life and just get on with it allowing it to infect whoever, whenever, or we have unsustainable lockdowns when the cases surge, or there are regular rounds of whatever new vaccine covers the latest variants, but this may be three rounds a year or more.The cynical part of me says that just getting on with it is the 'least effort' option for governments, so that is what they will end up doing.Anyway, once they implant all the nano-devices they won't need to do it again.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 10:39:25 am
content: Quote from: Microdoser on March 21, 2021, 10:25:41 amOh but all the nanodevices need upgrades, 5G will be soon outdated so at least a 1G update patch needs to be injected to everybody for 6G.

author: Syntax Error
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 11:04:36 am
content: A salient tale for any place which thinks it can get back to normal. The Isle Of Man (IoM) in the Irish Sea, had long prided itself on being Covid free; on having "defeated the virus." So much so, it became a 'party island' for the 86,000 residents, whilst surrounding UK and Ireland were in total lockdown. So no social distancing, no early closing, no face coverings, no home schooling, no nothing. And then... possibly from a single case of Covid in a crewman aboard the island's ferry, an outbreak which proved their confidence was based on complacency. The IoM (which has more registerd mega yatchs than critical care hospital beds) is now in full lockdown.https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/isle-of-man/

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 11:53:25 am
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on March 21, 2021, 09:19:34 amPlus many idiots ignoring anti-COVID-19 measures and holding superspreader events.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 01:13:51 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on March 21, 2021, 09:19:34 amThere are reasons for the differences between the west and Asia/Oceania.The west is a long way from China and appears to be very disconnected from it. When most people here heard about an outbreak of a new type of pneumonia in China, which killed thousands of people, they thought it's sad but couldn't possibly effect them. Oceania and Asia have strong connections with China, which is almost on their doorstep, so there was a greater sense of urgency, hence the rapid reaction, with fewer deaths and less economic damage. Oceania is more geographically isolated from the rest of the world, so it's easier to quarantine people and prevent the disease from spreading to from one place to another. China has an authoritarian government and can exercise almost absolute control over their population, imposting stricter lockdowns than anywhere else. The Wuhan lockdown was the most strict. People were confined to their homes and food was delivered to their door. The only legitimate reason to leave was to go to hospital in an ambulance. Other parts of Asia such as Japan and South Korea aren't so authoritarian, but people are better at following rules and mask wearing, than people in the west. For example South Korea have a very good contact tracing programme, which people comply with. Many people in the west are too worried about big brother and privacy for a similar scheme to work there.Politics play a huge part. The WHO didn't react quickly enough, recommending everyone suspending flights from China, which many put down to them not wanting to upset the Chinese. I remember Trump being strongly criticised when he stopped flights from China, only for most of the world to follow suit shortly after.Countries with close ties need to act in a similar manner. I doubt there's anything a single EU country could have done alone, which would have significantly reduced the spread. The whole of the EU needed to act in a similar manner.We've been lucky. The disease could have been much more deadly, contagious and harder to develop a vaccine for. What would have happened if the vaccines were a failure? As the disease is now endemic to most of the world, the only choice we'd have is to allow it to slowly infect people, at a rate our health systems can cope with. Hopefully we'll react more quickly from day one in future. The problem is, if we do that, many will see it as a gross overreaction, as nothing bad happened, so there will be less incentive to do the same again.Quote from: Syntax Error on March 21, 2021, 11:04:36 amThe fact they've done so well is proof of the benefits of being an island.This should provide motivation for other places which are COVID-free to get vaccinated as soon as possible.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 01:25:22 pm
content: Quote from: madires on March 21, 2021, 11:53:25 amIf only there was a way to find out who they are and charge them extra for health insurance since they are raising costs for everyone. Problem is, I can't think of a good way to do that without causing its own problems.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 02:42:45 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on March 21, 2021, 01:25:22 pmDon't forget, the person you're responding to is in Germany, which has universal health cover, like most developed countries, baring the US. Perhaps the money raised from heavy fines could be diverted to the public health system?The biggest problems we've had in the UK is the police haven't been seen to handle breeches of the COVID-19 restrictions equally and media bias. The police didn't do anything about the BLM riots, which blatantly broke the rules and the media reported them to be peaceful demonstrations, when in reality there was widespread vandalism and destruction. More peaceful, yet also illegal events such as the gatherings on armistice day and women paying their respects to Sarah Everard, who was brutally murdered, allegedly by Wayne Couzens, a police officer, where met with a heavy handed response. This has badly eroded trust in in the authorities, making people less inclined to respect the police, who are seen as cowards for picking easy targets, rather than violent mobs, and follow the rules.

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 03:13:40 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on March 21, 2021, 01:13:51 pmExcept his "ban" (which came after 45 other countries had already implemented restrictions) was a joke. 27,000 US citizens still travelled from China to the US after the ban, along with 8,000 Chinese and other non-US nationals. Meanwhile, countless thousands of people were still travelling between the US and Europe in spite of the rising COVID-19 cases in the New York region. Trump failed miserably.They did the stupidest thing imaginable - "evacuate" people from the epicenter of the outbreak to locations on a different continent. They failed to quarantine and test them properly after arrival in the US. What could possibly go wrong?https://www.cnnphilippines.com/world/2020/3/2/Wuhan-evacuee-released-quarantine-Texas-positive-coronavirus-.html

author: Terry Bites
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 03:24:07 pm
content: Astra Zenica, first dose. Do I get chipped on the second dose then?

author: Terry Bites
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 03:27:20 pm
content: Since shown to be total BS invented by bored media people. Aspirin is far more dangerous.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 03:29:46 pm
content: Quote from: Microdoser on March 21, 2021, 10:25:41 amIt'll be a combination of both. COVID won't go away, but having lived through the first waves and either being infected or vaccinated means people's immune systems can cope with future iterations more effectively. The problem wasn't COVID as such, the problem was that it was brand new with people having essentially no base immunity. Having that problem on a world wide scale meant swathes of people falling seriously ill, overwhelming health care and leading to many deaths otherwise preventable.Despite spectacular claims from media trying to generate a story, immunologists felt that vaccines would likely still protect against variants. We seem to be seeing that confirmed in the field. If anything, COVID seems to mutate slower than initially expected. Once immunity is built up and things start balancing out, normal life can resume. People will still die from COVID, but coldly put on a manageable scale.

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 03:30:21 pm
content: Quote from: Terry Bites on March 21, 2021, 03:24:07 pmAstraZeneca

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 03:31:59 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on March 21, 2021, 01:25:22 pmSimply apply the law and charge them with attempted assault.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 03:42:32 pm
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on March 21, 2021, 03:29:46 pmThat's true. There are lots of fear-mongering in the media about it going on forever, but all the scientific evidence points towards it getting better in the long term. Once we have herd immunity, due to vaccination and infection, the virus is unlikely to be causing widespread severe disease and death in 10 years time. If it mutated rapidly and immunity were short lived, then reinfection would be more common and vaccines developed against the virus circulating a year ago, would have little effect against the current variants. It's just the media trying to make more money and fear sells.Quote from: JohnnyMalaria on March 21, 2021, 03:13:40 pmOh no, I'm not saying Trump handled it well, just that it was funny the way he was criticised by the media for stopping flights from China, which was the right thing to do.Trump has been rightly criticised for his handling of the pandemic, but I doubt having a different president would have made as much difference, as many believe. The fact that he wanted to quarantine New York, when cases were high there, but realised he couldn't, proves that. Individual states have too much autonomy from central government, for the president to have much effect. If Trump were re-elected, I very much doubt the US could be that much different now, COVID-wise. Biden made a big deal about ramping up the vaccination programme, but it was started by the previous administration and has been endorsed by the ex-president, so it would have happened anyway.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 04:38:13 pm
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on March 21, 2021, 03:29:46 pmReally? So this epidemic is unique? Most other epidemics have just gone away. They weren't beaten by human action, or by the disease running out of victims to infect. Herd immunity is obviously a part of the picture, but it doesn't explain a lot about the way infection patterns reduce. Our understanding of why epidemics go away is very weak, but we do know they generally go away.

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 05:10:04 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on March 21, 2021, 04:38:13 pmAn epidemic has a finite duration but the causal agent persists. More specifically, an epidemic is characterized by an unexpectedly large number of infections in a population in a short period time. Exactly what numbers are used depends on the infectious agent. Just because the number of infections falls below the limit arbitrarily defined to indicate an epidemic doesn't mean the infectious agent has magically gone away.The viruses responsible for the common cold haven't gone away but we don't hear common cold epidemics.Eventually, some mutations of the original COVID-19 will persist at sub-epidemic levels and we'll adapt to live along side it like other endemic diseases.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 05:43:51 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on March 21, 2021, 04:38:13 pmCOVID not going away and the pandemic not going away are two very different things. As we develop at least a base immunity, the impact of COVID will dwindle. Historic immunology tells us it's also likely COVID will evolve into a less severe, possibly more contagious variant. There's interesting reading material on how that gets selected for in society. It'll likely become another common human disease, like the flu, cold and many others. We've seen similar patterns with many other epidemics. You either eradicate a disease, or if that's not possible mitigate its effects to the point of regular life being possible. Odd as it may sound, both humans and the virus itself benefit from it being comparatively benign. The common cold is an incredibly successful disease by virtue of people being mildly inconvenienced and generally carrying on while being highly contagious. Conversely, Ebola tends to kill off its victims so rapidly it hampers its own succes.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 07:25:10 pm
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on March 21, 2021, 05:43:51 pmThat's right. The disease won't go away, but it's likely to have less as an impact, as time goes by.The reason why Ebola doesn't spread, has more to do with the fact that it's not airborne, so close contact is required and it's only spread by those who are obviously ill, rather than high virulence.Viruses generally mutate to become more contagious and less deadly over time, but that doesn't seem to be the case with COVID-19 so far, because most of the spread occurs before it causes severe disease, just like HIV, so there's not the same selective pressure for decreased virulence. The newer strains seem to have a higher case fatality ratio, than the original one. This might be in part due to health care being overwhelmed in the case of the P1 strain in Brazil, but isn't true for the B.1.1.1 found in the UK, where care has improved and hospitals were never overwhelmed.https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/961042/S1095_NERVTAG_update_note_on_B.1.1.7_severity_20210211.pdfhttps://raw.githubusercontent.com/CADDE-CENTRE/Novel-SARS-CoV-2-P1-Lineage-in-Brazil/main/manuscript/FINAL_P1_MANUSCRIPT_25-02-2021_combined.pdfIt doesn't mean this will continue to become infinitely more deadly. Herd immunity will probably be the dominant factor in the reduction in widespread severe disease, than the virus mutating to become more or less deadly, because even the more virulent stains less often cause severe disease in those who've been previously infected, or vaccinated.

author: Microdoser
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 07:43:37 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on March 21, 2021, 10:39:25 amCouldn't they do that with an OTA update?I hear some variants are airborne now

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 08:40:09 pm
content: COVID-19 has an IFR of approximately ~0.4%  in England. So, if we take base case assumptions, at a 100% infection rate (more realistic would be 75-85%) and 56 million in England, we'd expect to see cca ~224,000 deaths in England. Instead, we have seen about 85,000 in England.So, interventions have potentially saved ~139,000 lives -- although the true figure may only be known by the end of the year once vaccinations are complete and this pessimistically assumes that behaviour wouldn't change at all with COVID present.The question is was the cost of the interventions worth the numbers saved? At first glance it seems so, but I would argue it is more difficult to say. The NHS typically spends around £30,000 per person-year saved, and the average COVID patient who dies has around 10 years of quality life remaining. This seems cold, but every healthcare system, public or private, has to determine whether the cost of an intervention is proportionate to its benefit. So the maths is fairly simple: £300,000 (total cost of typical intervention for 10 years gained) * 139,000 = £41.7 billion.The actual cost spent is closer to £300 bn in direct Treasury costs, plus around 4% in GDP loss after the pandemic's effects are over , plus additional unknown costs in the form of permanently lost jobs and social development. Ignoring the last term as it is impractical to assign a direct cost to it, but we have easily spent around £400 bn on COVID - ten times what we would spend on, for instance, lung cancer, or heart disease.Why did we decide to assign such a drastic cost to COVID that we did not assume to other diseases?https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/estimating-the-infection-fatality-ratio-in-england/https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8866/

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 08:51:12 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on March 21, 2021, 08:40:09 pmBecause it was new and there was no effective treatment. The primary purpose of the "interventions" was to slow down the spread so as to not overwhelm the healthcare infrastructure until such time that treatment/vaccines were able to limit the number of serious infections such that the healthcare system can cope.Left unchecked, hospital ICUs would have been swamped for much longer than has been the case and more people in need of intensive care with other diseases would have died.Regarding those poor buggers who only have "around 10 years of quality life remaining" - they've paid into the system through their NI contributions for care and are entitled to receive it.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 09:00:43 pm
content: Completely agree that the initial lockdown for a novel disease was justified but once we realised that this virus was essentially a very serious flu - with a fatality rate about 5-10x worse than a typical winter flu and principally affecting the same demographics - then interventions would have been more appropriately targeted at those at risk. Isolating the whole population beyond the period necessary to evaluate the virus spread and mortality was unjustified, and it also means we need to vaccinate more people.Also, as a side note, whilst a common belief, NI contributions aren't specifically for the NHS - they go into the general taxation pot. The number of NI contributions determines your eligibility to a full state pension, but most pensioners today will draw more from this pot than they contributed through NI.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 09:07:42 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on March 21, 2021, 09:00:43 pmIt's not just the fatality rate, but also how infectuous it is. At some point you start overwhelming the health care system and the number of entirely preventable deaths skyrocket. It's not a linear problem and not even exponential. That's why there were attempts to intervene before the fatal threshold was reached.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 09:10:15 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on March 21, 2021, 08:40:09 pmLook how much the health service has saved in the last year, by not treating huge numbers of people with cancer and other expensive diseases. Nobody will suffer for the premature deaths they have caused there, as it would be extremely difficult to isolate them in the statistics.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2021, 10:19:23 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on March 21, 2021, 08:40:09 pmThe exact IFR for COVID 19 is unknown because the number of cases is inexact. 0.4% is towards the lower bound of estimates for the UK. It would mean that just over half of the population have been exposed to this date, which is unlikely. The true IFR is likely to be double that.https://fullfact.org/health/toby-young-ifr-tweet/https://www.edgehealth.co.uk/post/as-many-as-1-in-5-people-in-england-have-had-the-covid-19-diseaseThe IFR depends on the quality of care available. Had the health system been overwhelmed, it would have been several times higher and included many more in their 50s.It's actually impossible to know how many lives COVID-19 has really cost in the UK, at the moment. There's the collateral, due to people not receiving treatment, both due to not seeking it through anxiety of getting the virus and cancelled treatments/appointments.If we look at the excess deaths, one might think it would paint a more accurate picture, but some people would have just died a year or so early. We will only know for sure, when herd immunity has reached the point to which COVID-19 is no longer causing severe disease and death. Then, number of excess deaths could fall below the long term average, as there will be fewer frail around to die of other causes. Looking at the total excess deaths between March 2020 and March 2025, vs the long term five year average, will probably give us more realistic number lives lost due to COVID-19.I honestly don't know if the government have done the right thing with lockdown. My opinion has changed from one extreme to the other, throughout the last year. I think we could have kept a lot of things open: shops, hairdressers and beauty salons probably didn't need to close, as with suitable PPE the risk is minimal, but it was definitely right to close restaurants, nightclubs, bars etc. when it became apparent cases were out of control. On the other hand closing more down than necessary might have made people take it more seriously and many businesses would have struggled anyway, as people stayed in more, even if they weren't forced to. Many other countries have done a similar thing, so we're hardly unique.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2021, 07:01:29 pm
content: I had my first shot on Thursday, but thought I'd wait a couple of days before posting this. I've had fairly mild side effects. I'm not sure whether it's the vaccine, or me feeling a little tired at the weekend, which is often the case. I was up a little late on Friday, so came into work about 15 minutes late and I slept in a couple of hours today.Anyway, I'll start at the beginning. On Wednesday I heard the under 40s will be offered the vaccine on Thursday morning, so I tried to book, both by phone and on the Internet, as soon as I got into work that morning. Unfortunately they wanted me to travel 12 miles, when there's a vaccination centre within easy walking distance from where I work. The phone call was frustrating. The operator had a heavy Indian accent. I asked why I couldn't get it done locally he said it was because the nearest centre was fully booked, which was a lie. Someone at work sent an email to all staff, telling them the local centre was doing a walk in service, but for over 40s only. I put down the phone and thought I'd try my luck with the local centre, even though I'm under 40. Fortunately they had no problem with giving the shot. They explained to me it's the AstraZeneca, yet under 40s are recommended to get the Pfizer, but they'd do it anyway. I think the online/phone in service only offered me centres which did the Pfizer, but it would have been good to get the choice.The media have overplayed the risks of the AstraZeneca and underplayed those of the Pfizer jab, which is motivated by money. AstraZeneca aren't making a profit on the vaccine and have actually lost money on it, where as Pfizer have turned a healthy profit. Governments have been lobbied to avoid the cheapest and give out the most expensive vaccines. The Pfizer isn't 100% safe either. There have been reports of myocarditis, where it's been exclusively rolled out in Israel. Of course I would have had no problem with getting the Pfizer, but I'd rather not travel when it's not necessary.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2021, 07:54:41 pm
content: AstraZeneca is fine as long as you don't have antibodies for PF4 (a part of thrombocytes) which could trigger a sinus venous thrombosis. And the typical side effects are similar to a flu, but last just one or two days. The recommended minimum age for AstraZeneca seems to be questionable because a new study (unfortunately not robust because of an insufficient number of cases) indicates that people over 60 are also effected by sinus venous thrombosis and other related diseases after the vaccination. Again, the risk for women is about four/five times larger than for men.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2021, 08:59:05 pm
content: Quote from: madires on May 15, 2021, 07:54:41 pmYes, older people have has blood clots, due to the vaccine. The idea for the age limit is not to eliminate all risk, which is impossible, but to balance it with the benefit. I think the lower age limit is sensible, because people in their 60s are at a relatively high risk of severe COVID-19. The infection rate and vaccine availability should also be a factors in deciding what vaccine to give. In areas with high infection rates and the AZ is widely available, the age limit should be lower, because the risks of the disease are higher, than the vaccine. On the other hand if there are few people with the virus, the age limit should be raised, as the risk of infection is lower, so it makes less sense to have a vaccine with a higher risk. This is the reason why the UK dropped the age limit for the AZ recently. What doesn't make any sense is that sex isn't taken into account. We should be giving men the AstraZeneca and women the Pfizer.It's funny how the media in Europe have been so obsessed with AZ and blood clots, yet overlook the myocarditis in men associated with the Pfizer. Being a male in my late 30s, I definitely feel safer with the AZ. Don't get me wrong, I would have has the Pfizer, if it was the only one available, but it wouldn't be my first choice.Another general point is the media go on about herd immunity, which is actually impossible to achieve in the sense of stopping the virus spreading completely. I remember at the start of the pandemic, doctors said figures of around 70% of the population would need to be immune to stop the virus from spreading, which makes sense given R0was expected to be around 3.5 and 1-1/3.5 = 0.71, but that assumes complete immunity. It's unlikely the vaccines will be that effective to all the new variants and there'll be sufficient take-up for herd immunity. Fortunately they do seem to be highly effective at preventing severe disease and death and we hopefully will have sufficient levels of herd immunity to prevent a repeat of last winter.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2021, 09:54:05 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on May 15, 2021, 07:01:29 pmThere are two vaccination centres in York, one at the northern end and one at the southern end. Everyone seems to get their first appointment at the southern one, and their second appointment at the northern one. I have no idea why.Quote from: Zero999 on May 15, 2021, 07:01:29 pmYou mean politicians have a scant disregard for people's well being, and a high regard for monied interests? I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2021, 10:15:42 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on May 15, 2021, 07:01:29 pmHow many, vs how many doses? So far there's no solid information I can find beyond a vague suggestion of a correlation.

author: steve30
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2021, 04:29:17 am
content: Quote from: coppice on May 15, 2021, 09:54:05 pmA relative of mine from Doncaster ended up booking her appointment all the way over in Wakefield. Fortunately though she managed to get it changed to one more local. Around the same time there was an article in the paper which said that lots of people were being offered appointments a very long distance away. This turned out to be due to how the appointments were issued and if anyone was offered such an appointment they'd be better off phoning back in a couple of days time to to get a local one.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2021, 09:12:37 am
content: Well, as of yesterday, I’m fully vaccinated!I feel like crap, but more because the joint aches made it impossible to find a comfy position to sleep, so I barely slept at all. But hey, IT’S DONE!!(Moderna, btw.)

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2021, 06:17:07 pm
content: I'm getting my first shot today! Originally my age group was only in July but they've been moving it up as we get more supply, now anyone 18+ can go.Going to be a good excuse to upgrade my phone to a 5G model, now that I'll be a walking cell tower.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2021, 08:18:20 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on May 15, 2021, 10:15:42 pmYes, that's exactly why I'm a little wary of the Pfizer vaccine. The data from Israel was leaked. The studies on AZ are also a bit flaky. The blood clots have a higher incidence in young women, but that's to be expected anyway, since it could be in part due to oral contraceptives.The severe adverse side effects of the vaccines have all been associated with the immune response, so it's reasonable to expect that if someone was infected with the real thing, they would be at much greater risk of sinus venous thrombosis, or myocarditis etc. than if they were vaccinated. This also means that any vaccine we make will carry some risk of an inflammatory immune response. To me it makes sense to be vaccinated, irrespective of how many people are infected at the moment, because if not enough people get the vaccine, cases will rise in future.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2021, 09:03:54 pm
content: I had my second AZ jab a couple of weeks ago. Absolutely no symptoms from the first one (I think I detected a slightly sore arm when I rolled over in bed, but nothing during the day).I felt a little bit rough for a couple of days after the second one, hopefully that indicated that the first jab had 'primed' me.

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2021, 09:26:19 pm
content: Heads up if you have had Lyme disease...I've now had both doses of the Moderna vaccine and both times it wiped the floor with me. It triggered exactly the same symptoms as when I contracted Lyme disease in 2018. Immense lethargy, almost total cognitive shutdown and depression. I hadn't anticipated it for the first dose but I was more prepared for the second. I relied on the same battery of supplements I used for the Lyme, in particular liposomal glutathione. For me, I believe the vaccine triggered extensive inflammation, esp. in the brain. Genetically, I have certain mutant enzymes that interfere with my own production of glutathione - a critical antioxidant - leading to autoimmune chaos.Of course, your kilometerage will vary (hopefully for the better)

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2021, 09:43:50 pm
content: Lyme disease sounds horrible. We have ticks here now and it terrifies me to know that some microscopic bug can basically destroy my quality of life forever or even kill me. They say to wear pants if you go in the bush, but wearing pants in middle of summer is not exactly fun, either and it won't save you from any that might land in your hair or other exposed body parts. Apparently they did have a vaccine for that but guess they could not get it to work safely. Hopefully this is something they revisit at some point.

author: rfclown
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2021, 09:57:05 pm
content: I just had my first Pfizer shot yesterday. I find the science behind the mRNA vaccines facinating, but if I weren't married, I wouldn't have been vaccinated yet. I'll turn 60 this year, have no chronic medical issues, and don't FEEL at risk. I'm an engineer, logical thinker, try to educate myself on the facts, and make decisions based on facts. From the facts that I'm aware of, I'd hold off because of not knowing the long term side effects of the mRMA approach. Seems like we have enough evidence at this point to see what the short term risks are. My decision to get the vaccine at this time is weighed by the facts of my personal situation: my wife is terrified by this whole thing. Her cortisol levels have been through the roof for a year now, and that it bad for her health. I care about my wife. She lost a brother-in-law from this, and she worries about me and her kids. She has nurse friends who have left their jobs over issues with COVID. For the physical and mental health of my wife, and for my mental health, I am choosing to be vaccinated. It took me a while to be ok to do this. I've read copious amounts of material. I don't listen to the talking heads. My wife was vaccinated just 3 days before me. It was a huge thing for her just to go out and get it done.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2021, 09:58:41 pm
content: Quote from: rfclown on May 16, 2021, 09:57:05 pmZero consideration for the risk remaining unvaccinated would pose to the general public, I see.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2021, 10:01:51 pm
content: With the recent CDC announcement that vaccinated individuals need not wear masks in many situations, but the general opinion that it is impolite (or politically incorrect) to inquire of others about their vaccination status, I must trust the unmasked individuals who I encounter to have been vaccinated. Why does this make me uncomfortable?

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2021, 10:03:08 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on May 16, 2021, 10:01:51 pmBecause people are just going to stop wearing their masks and lie, because somehow wearing a mask is equivalent in the minds of many to being locked in a cell.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2021, 10:20:43 pm
content: One thing I don't get is why masks and vaccines have been politicised in the US, with those who are on the right being against them and those on the left strongly in favour. Here in the UK, they're seen as a public health measures. It's true those on the extreme right and other minorities are against them, but that's because they don't trust the government, like any other group of people who feel marginalised.Quote from: rfclown on May 16, 2021, 09:57:05 pmYes, another reason why I feel safer with the AstraZeneca jab. It's based on a much older, proven technology: a deactivated viral vector. Again, I still would have accepted the Pfizer, if I didn't have the choice.On the other hand, I don't see how getting the vaccine could cause problems several months, or years down the road. I'm not aware of any other vaccine causing problems years later, even though the person felt fine for the first five or so weeks. Those who do get chronically ill from a vaccine, say they develop Guillain-Barré syndrome, do so fairly soon afterwards. It doesn't happen several months, or years later.Good on you for considering others, before yourself, but you should also think of the rest of society, outside your family. I'm quite a bit younger than you and the main reason why I got the jab was to protect everyone else, not just my family. I think you've probably made the right decision for yourself, as no one knows for sure how this virus will affect them. There have been plenty of people under 60 who have gotten really sick from COVID-19, even if it didn't kill them.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2021, 10:24:45 pm
content: The main reason for the politicization of masking in the USA is that our previous president ranged from unenthusiastic about mask wearing to ridiculing those who masked. Thus, a technical issue (with some controversy) became a signal of ones location along the political spectrum. There was no communication from above about joining together, shoulder to shoulder, to defeat the virus for the good of the community.This all reminds me of the Monty Python sketch about parliamentary elections between the Sensible Party, the Silly Party, and the fringe Very Silly Party.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2021, 10:27:16 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on March 21, 2021, 10:19:23 pmWith every infection, there is a chance of mutation. There have been several nasty mutations already, some are more infections, some is killing children as well. Some might become so mutated, that the vaccines will be useless. We didn't know what was going to happen, and what will happen in the next years. I think the complete lockdown was very well justified, as we could end up with a something much worse than this.Quote from: rfclown on May 16, 2021, 09:57:05 pmPeople of all ages died because of this. And could be even scarier, the complications that they are reporting after mild cases. They report hearth damage, can cause strokes, seizures and Guillain-Barre syndrome... We dont even have a very good estimate how many people might die early after having just a mild case of this pandemic.This is not the seasonal flu.

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2021, 10:27:30 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on May 16, 2021, 10:01:51 pmBecause, quite rightly, you are angry at the idea that some selfish sods refuse to get the vaccination and will use the new ruling to be even more selfish. Also, being vaccinated isn't a 100% guarantee at not getting infected, so knowing that there are people who are willing to walk around unvaccinated without masks means that they are still putting you at a risk of infection. However, they are the ones likely to get infected and evolution will take its course.

author: boB
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2021, 10:40:27 pm
content: It may be that the 5G you want is at a higher frequency band.Have them try a shorter needle.

author: joeqsmith
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2021, 10:46:10 pm
content: Quote from: Red Squirrel on May 16, 2021, 09:43:50 pmWith the warmer winter, it seems they are out in force. If you have dogs, keep a close watch. We check for them daily. My wife brought one in with her the other day. Then I found one on the dogs eyelid. It had not taken hold yet. This one came in with the dog. I think it had feasted on some other animal and was hitching a ride.I first heard of the virus here. A few weeks later, I heard an interview with prof. at a large university talking about it. I've had a few friends who have lost friends from it now. In all but one of these cases, the people were younger and had no other health problems. Be careful out there.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2021, 10:53:49 pm
content: Quote from: JohnnyMalaria on May 16, 2021, 10:27:30 pmThere is also the practical problem that there is no reliable (against forgery from web-supplied blank cards) way (currently in the USA) to prove that one is vaccinated, when given an opportunity to go where vaccination is required. Right now, some baseball parks are establishing special sections for the vaccinated, and there may be many private venues (e.g., opera houses?) that will require vaccination of their customers. The CDC card given me when I was vaccinated was designed for medical personnel to keep track of my shots (date and type), and are far from a secure passport. Meanwhile, some States have passed regulations forbidding private companies from requiring vaccination of their clientele--the major cruiseship lines will not be able to use ports in Florida.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2021, 11:05:01 pm
content: Right now, the CDC card is the only object to show vaccination. Places that accept it usually require a regular photo ID (e.g., driver's license) to agree with the name on the card. (My provider had me fill in my name and DOB myself.)

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2021, 11:31:33 pm
content: Quote from: joeqsmith on May 16, 2021, 10:46:10 pmThankfully (?) the tick in that photo is fully-gorged so easy to spot. It's most probably in my case that it was a nymph - smaller than a poppy seed.https://www.healthline.com/health/poppyseed-size-ticks-spread-lyme-disease

author: rfclown
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 17, 2021, 12:20:47 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on May 16, 2021, 09:58:41 pmNot true. I've seldom gone out for anything for a over year. If so, I mask and keep my distance. For my shopping I order online and get it delivered or do curbside pickup. I greatly respect others and their safety. [Profanity removed] for judging my behaviour without knowing. I've chosen to miss my child's college graduation, and seeing a new granddaughter. [Inflammatory childish comment removed]

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 17, 2021, 01:29:31 am
content: I was a bit weary myself of taking the vaccine just because it's so new. Long term effects was my main fear as well. I gave it a lot of thought over the past few months though and as covid cases keep rising in my area, and covid has many long term effects that are known, I figured the risk of vaccine is less than risk of covid. I do think this is a decision everyone should have the right to make though.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 17, 2021, 01:59:02 am
content: Quote from: rfclown on May 17, 2021, 12:20:47 amAt no point did I mention or judge your behaviour, only comment on the lack of such consideration in your post.Glad to see I've made a childish list, though.

author: rfclown
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 17, 2021, 02:02:17 am
content: Quote from: Red Squirrel on May 17, 2021, 01:29:31 amMy previous reponse in this thread was certainly not tactful or gracious. We have all been dealing with alot of stress from this. I agree with you completely on this statement. The difficulty is how to do this and respect the decision of others. For instance, Monkeh assumed that I wasn't respecting the safety of others when I decided to delay vaccinating myself. My thinking and behaviour was otherwise. I have not been concerned with myself getting the virus (which might be misguided, but is how I feel based on the information I have). I don't go out, mask when I do, distance myself, etc. SOLELY based on respect for others. Just because I don't feel at risk, doesn't mean I need to breath in the face of others. This thing is real. People have died.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 17, 2021, 03:22:51 am
content: Quote from: rfclown on May 17, 2021, 12:20:47 amSomeone give me a reason why I shouldn't lock this thread.

author: tkamiya
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 17, 2021, 03:33:15 am
content: I think you should let it go until 6G comes around.

author: all_repair
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 17, 2021, 03:40:38 am
content: The new variant B1617 is able to spread FASTER, and also to younger people from the latest development in Singapore. I think it is best to get your first shot as soon as possible. Those who had 2 shots and got infected did not have to have O2 treatment. 1 shot seem to offer some protection against severity too.The compliance level is very high here, the weak links here were not blocking South Asia region much earlier as our data show they were always the highest in our imported case for past weeks. We would expect number from neighboring countries to be the highest due to the quantity and proximity. Second weak link is to allow indoor dining especially at the airport.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 17, 2021, 09:59:11 am
content: Quote from: tszaboo on May 16, 2021, 10:27:16 pmThe counterargument being all the damage to health caused by the lockdowns: increased stress, cancelled/missed appointments, people taking less exercise, due to being confined indoors, gyms being closed, reduced earnings leading to poorer diet etc. There have been far worse pandemics in the past, without such extensive lockdowns. Countries without such extreme measures have had lower deaths per capita, than others which have, like the UK, although not all populations are equal, so that's not clear cut.The problem I have is, many of the measures taken don't seem to be guided by science. There was no evidence to suggest that shops and hair salons contributed significantly to the spread of the virus, especially with all the precautions taken: keeping customers 2m apart, masks, hand sanitiser etc. Most of the spread has been down to different households mixing indoors, in resturaunts, pubs, bars, homes etc. The only reason I can see for closing more than necessary was to scare people.I see little point in debating the matter, as I've previously raised the same points as you, in prevous posts to other threads, so can see it from both sides. Ultimately we won't know whether it was right thing to do, or not, until this is over.By the way, you're right to be concerned about children, but so far excess mortality in under 14s, in the UK, has been running below the 5 year average through 2020.https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/static-reports/mortality-surveillance/excess-mortality-in-england-week-ending-01-Jan-2021.html#sectionhttps://fingertips.phe.org.uk/static-reports/mortality-surveillance/excess-mortality-in-england-week-ending-01-Jan-2021.html#section-7QuoteNo, it's not seasonal flu, but the virus isn't inherently more deadly than influenza. It's just been causing more severe disease and death at the moment, because it's a novel virus, which the population lack immunity to. Influenza can also cause long term damage to internal organs and GBS, but it's less common, because we already have some level of herd immunity.Quote from: all_repair on May 17, 2021, 03:40:38 amIt's not known whether it spreading amongst the young, is due to changes in the virus, or that young people work, socialise and mix more, than the old, who are generally more cautious. General poorer health and more co-morbidities such as diabeties and poor diet could explain the greater mortality rate in young people, in countries like India and Brazil.I agree, everyone should get vaccinated, when given the chance.QuotePeople don't follow the rules so strictly in the UK and they've gradually been loosened over the last few months, but infections have continued to fall due to high levels of vaccination. Unfortunately our governement has also made the mistake of not stopping people coming from South Asia. It's very frustrating, considering we knew the B1617 variant was causing problems there, yet didn't do anything because there wasn't solid evidence to support it being more transmissible or deadly. It would have been better to err on the side of caution.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 17, 2021, 12:18:11 pm
content: Quote from: joeqsmith on May 16, 2021, 10:46:10 pmOnly on an electronics forum would you find someone using a PCB as a size reference for a tick!

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 12:54:45 am
content: Quote from: TimFox on May 16, 2021, 11:05:01 pmFor all the fluff over this concept, it seems totally reasonable to me. There are an endless list of things for which a person must carry proof that they are qualified, covered, etc in order to do. It's not like the vaccine police are going to barge into private homes or stop a person on the street to see if they are vaccinated. I have to show my ID to get into a bar, I don't mind showing proof of vaccination to enter into an establishment, especially if the alternative is that such establishments are not allowed to operate in the first place.

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 01:04:14 am
content: Quote from: james_s on May 29, 2021, 12:54:45 amI think the only place I've ever been asked to show ID to get into bar since I was ~18 is in the US

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 08:48:41 am
content: Quote from: langwadt on May 29, 2021, 01:04:14 amIt's common in the UK. Generally for younger adults, typically under 30, but I was asked for ID, even though I was over 30. It seems to be more common, when there's a big event, such as New Years eve. The funny thing is, I don't even drink.

author: Ed.Kloonk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 10:19:48 am
content: Our nations airline, Qantas is the first Australian company to announce it intends to offer benefits to the vaccinated. Today's announcement was non-specific in regards to proof of vaccine or what exactly those benefits might be. It this stage the company is really seeking public/pax opinion to gauge how to respond and what to offer. And you know what that means.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 10:21:43 am
content: Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on May 29, 2021, 10:19:48 amIt means Alan Joyce should be sacked.

author: Ed.Kloonk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 10:22:47 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on May 29, 2021, 10:21:43 amNot so soon. He hasn't done to Q what he did to Ansett.

author: Miti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 10:27:54 am
content: When it comes to any medical procedure, I strongly believe that should be an individual decision, and not the government mandate, if I accept it or not. Vilifying people for not participating blindly in an experiment with unknown outcome, or sometimes known but hidden for financial reasons, is despicable. One very reliable and informed source of information in this area, from my perspective, is Robert Kennedy Jr. I have big respect for this man as he presents facts and not hearsay.There are many interviews and debates with him on YT but watch this starting at minute 18:10. That and many more of his interviews make me think twice about the Covid vaccine.https://youtu.be/zyxEo2kqo08Edit: This quote is attributed to Thomas Jefferson "If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny."

author: Rabit0
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 11:13:35 am
content: I strongly believe that all medication including vaccines they need be completely tested for extended period of time like few years before release to widely use, I simply wait few more years before all side effects will be detected and fixed.I simply prefer final version without off deadly side effects

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 12:01:07 pm
content: Quote from: Miti on May 29, 2021, 10:27:54 amI definitely agree that it comes down to personal choice.QuoteI stopped listening at the point he starting talking about profit and the amount of vaccines children get, which are both irreverent to the UK. Children don't get that many vaccines here and the most commonly used COVID-19 vaccine, made by AstraZeneca hasn't made them any money. In fact they've lost money on its COVID vaccine.https://www.wsj.com/articles/astrazeneca-lost-money-on-its-covid-19-vaccine-11619771934Pfizer have made money on their vaccine and must be happy about the safety concerns people have over the AZ.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 12:06:50 pm
content: Quote from: Miti on May 29, 2021, 10:27:54 amOTOH vaccination campaigns have brought a significant increase in health and wealth to mankind. In the end provoking people to take the vaccinations serves the greater good. Especially with a huge amount of fake news floating around nowadays everything helps to make people do the right thing: get the shot.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 12:11:52 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on May 29, 2021, 12:01:07 pmAstra-Zeneca fully intended to make a killing with their vaccine. They have simply failed in their political moves, and not sold as much as they hoped they would.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 12:34:53 pm
content: True, without vaccines you would find most children would not have made it past the age of 5, seeing as the average family size would be 8 to 10 children, with perhaps only 2 making it to past puberty, and becoming adults. Vaccines changed that, as a single biggest change, where you would find that children did not die of disease before their first birthday, and this was an even bigger thing than hygiene, antibiotics and modern medicine based on them.Easiest thing for the anti's is simply to allow them to believe that, but also tell them the choice they made is going to mean that they will also be denied free hospital treatment if they get ill, solving the problem. They will have to pay the cash price, and will not be able to avoid the result by declaring bankruptcy afterwards.BTW, I am alive thanks to vaccines, I would not have made it past 3 if it were not for antibiotics and tetanus shots, I still remember the red lines growing up my leg from that episode. Yes I still get a booster shot every 10 years or so for tetanus, and thankfully never had it ever again. Locally there was a move to knock down the century old stables and make it a soccer academy, wonder just how they are going to remove all the century plus of tetanus that is soaked into the walls, flooring, roof, and what they will be using as fields outside. Hope all the players are up to date on that shot.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 12:59:50 pm
content: Quote from: SeanB on May 29, 2021, 12:34:53 pmA lot of the growth of the world's population in the 20th century seems to have come the lag between the death rate of children plummeting, and people's attitudes about how many children to have adjusting accordingly.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 01:08:17 pm
content: Quote from: SeanB on May 29, 2021, 12:34:53 pm#Beware how you black and white label people.There are huge numbers of people who are "pro vaccine" but hesitant to get anentirely new form of vaccinethat still only hasemergency approval statusand isnot yet fully approved.I know many people like this personally, and I do not disparage them for it nor do I label them, because I know they aren't "anti-vaxxers".

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 01:17:24 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on May 29, 2021, 01:08:17 pmI think most engineers should be at least a little hesitant about covid vaccines. We have plenty of experience of how wonderfully well most new technologies rushed to market work out.... except with a vaccine you can't just throw the crappy products in the bin.Look at this politicised definition -https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anti-vaxxerSo, objecting to state compulsion makes you anti-vax?

author: TopLoser
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 01:26:56 pm
content: AZ 4 weeks ago and Pfizer yesterday. It’s France, who cares! Both gave me the same sore arm for a day, no other side effects.Got my QR coded fully vaccinated certificate an hour after the last jab and will be using that to cross the border from France into Spain after the 7th June when they accept the certificate instead of a test result. Rest of the EU will follow on at the end of June and no more endless tests needed.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 01:28:33 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on May 29, 2021, 01:08:17 pmTrue, but even now with the emergency approval, the number who have side effects is minimal. 7 in a million dying after having it, and not for the usual reasons, is still a much better option than having at least 6 out of 100 dying from it. Lost 2 friends from it already, and at least a dozen people I know personally have died from it as well, including whole families.I will take the vaccine, though here it is likely only going to be available some time between September 2021 to September never. Already made a booking with my local pharmacies if they get some in to call. Only people getting at the moment are those over 60, and healthcare workers, and the clotted cream. Even then slow delivery, and very variable numbers, plus of course we get the pleasure of having one strain named after us, and the other being present as well, along with the "common" type. You there on the Big Island are very lucky.Plus the government here is not telling you to get it, it is free, and you are not forced to take it, though likely your employer will also give you the option of get it or find another job, seeing as in most cases you will want a healthy workplace.

author: Miti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 01:31:23 pm
content: Quote from: SeanB on May 29, 2021, 12:34:53 pmFunny that you mention the tetanus shot. I've got mild IBS from it. When I was a child I stepped on a rusty nail and the doctor gave me a tetanus shot. Soon after, my guts went crazy for few days. It never went away completely to this day. It got more tolerable, but never went away.Quote from: SeanB on May 29, 2021, 12:34:53 pmCan't agree with you more... but then we'll have to include the smokers, the drunk, the pot heads, those who eat at McDonalds and many other fast food restaurants, those that don't eat organic food, GMO and full of pesticides, those that don't exercise, the obese, those that don't follow a healthy sleep schedule... what else?You're going down the rabbit hole pretty fast here.I don't think the infectious diseases that the vaccines are meant to prevent are the biggest burden to the healthcare system.I'm not debating this any more, I just wanted to present my point of view.Miti out!

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 01:40:15 pm
content: I got the first jab 10 days ago... Astra Zeneca. No issues. About one week from a phone booking to getting the jab. Our country had been pretty much virus free for several months.But the Indian variant of the Chinese virus hit us a few days ago, and our state is now in full lock down for at least seven days because there are around 36 people infected. All the people who got complacent about getting the jab are now panicking and the government's online booking service has crashed - its a bit of a fiasco. I can sit back and relax and just work home.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 01:45:51 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on May 29, 2021, 01:08:17 pmThat is a good point but the reality is that there is no good choice here. Short term it is clear that vaccinating people saves more lifes compared not doing so. Long term we don't know it yet. A number of people (starting from 20 years old!) who recover from Covid-19 appear to have long lasting effects from it and will require medical care and/or will be mildly disabled for the rest of their lives. We'll have to see how that balances against the long term effects from the vaccinations.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 01:55:23 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on May 29, 2021, 01:45:51 pmTrue, if you have existing immune issues you get long Covid, know somebody like that, lucky for her she survived as well, but still is suffering after effects. Unlike her family, where there now is a new row of plaques on the wall. Hits old, hits young, kills one in 20 or so, and disables 1 in 200 or so. I probably have had it as well, because the flu last year was something that put me down for 2 weeks, not at all usual. Test by nasal swabs though has up to 30% error rate either way, unless you do the antibody tests.

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 01:57:09 pm
content: I really don't understand why people are so against the idea of mandated Covid vaccination especialy for foreign travel after all for many countries it is already obligatory for things like yellow fever, Hepatitis and typhoid. I know people who willingly take these shots to go on holiday and carry the car but don't want covid on the same list even though they already have had the shot.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 02:26:37 pm
content: A team at Uni Frankfurt investigating blood clots caused by COVID-19 viral vector vaccines thinks it found the mechanism behind the rare side effect. They say that it should be possible to modify the viral vector vaccines to avoid triggering the blood clots.Link:https://www.euronews.com/2021/05/27/why-are-aztrazeneca-and-j-j-vaccines-causing-blood-clots-scientists-claim-they-have-the-an

author: DrG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 02:27:11 pm
content: As soon as I became eligible, I spent an hour or more a day searching for an appointment. Within a few weeks, I received the first dose and three weeks later, the second dose of an mRNA vaccine. Undesirable effects were minimal after the first dose (site pain) and after the second dose about 18-24 h of general fatigue and some myalgia. Basically, I didn’t do much during that time other than lying around, but it was no big deal and resolved completely.Approval of any vaccine is country dependent but is always an evaluation of the benefits versus the risks and potential risks.In the US:Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) is only granted when there is a declared state of emergency and no other approved treatment of that kind exists. In this case, it means no other approved vaccine; it does not mean different kinds of treatments.With an EUA, the manufacturers cannot control distribution as they can with a fully approved product. If the state of emergency ends, they can’t market the product at all without having full approval (some kind of compassionate use possibility exists, at least theoretically).In general, the difference between EUA and full approval (FA) is the number of people studied and the length of time they are studied. Again, in general, this means the Phase III and beyond trials as well as post-approval use.A big part of the EUA is open and public discussion of the data collected thus far (and the data that has not yet been collected) with many independent (non-Government and non-company) physicians and scientists. I watched more than 24 hours of such approval meetings and discussions and much more was available.Evaluation consists of the product itself, any additional compounds, particularly adjuvants and all of the manufacturing processes involved.I believe Pfizer has applied for FA (or is in the process of doing so). I would expect others to follow if they have not already done so.Along with FA is the labeling which includes restrictions and contraindications.https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/vaccines/emergency-use-authorization-vaccines-explainedhttps://vaccine.unchealthcare.org/science/vaccine-approval/whats-the-difference-between-fda-emergency-use-authorization-and-fda-approval/https://www.adventhealth.com/blog/coronavirus-vaccine-eua-vs-fda-approvalhttps://www.verywellhealth.com/pfizer-and-biontech-seeks-fda-full-approval-5186423

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 02:50:54 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on May 29, 2021, 12:11:52 pmAZ are required to sell with no profit during the pandemic period. They would have made no money even if they hadn't monumentally screwed up.

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 02:53:20 pm
content: Quote from: SeanB on May 29, 2021, 01:28:33 pma risk of 6 in 100 would be the very old or with other serious health issues. For those any risk in a vaccine is negligible.When they stopped using AZ here the numbers were ~1:40000 making the vaccine a bigger risk that the disease for anyone under ~40

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 05:39:49 pm
content: Quote from: G7PSK on May 29, 2021, 01:57:09 pmPeople don't like change and they don't like to be told what to do. If you required everyone to take a free sack of money a handful of people would get angry and refuse it and demand a choice in the matter. I know people who would cut off their own nose to spite their face.

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 06:16:25 pm
content: Quote from: G7PSK on May 29, 2021, 01:57:09 pmAsk the people who X, not an electronics forumBut I might be X myself, so if you must know: I don't trust technologies rushed to market and I don't trust career politicians.And I'm not okay with mandatory vaccinations for anything. I have heard (IRL, not on reddit) of rare side effects even to some accepted mainstream vaccines and they may run in a family and people still have no way to opt out even if they know they are at risk. I would prefer if people who are worried protected themselves and let Darwin run his course with the rest.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 06:18:26 pm
content: Quote from: langwadt on May 29, 2021, 02:53:20 pmAs mentioned on numerous occasions, it's not just death which is the problem. There's a significant risks of long term health problems, due to COVID-19.Those numbers will be based on the risk of someone contracting the disease, not just those of complications due to the vaccine. The risk vs benefit ratio of the vaccine not depends on the age and sex of the person, but the percentage of the population infected. In areas with high infection rates and prevalence, it makes more sense to have any vaccine. If there's no virus around, it's obviously better not to be vaccinated. The problem is, the infection rate can vary, so it probably makes sense for most people to be vaccinated in the long term.I think a big mistake is not taking the sex of the person into account. Complications due to the AZ are higher in young women and those due to the Pfizer are higher in young men. I think the safety of the Pfizer is exaggerated, as it's a for profit vaccine and the danger of the AZ overplayed, as it's much cheaper. Being a male aged 39, I looked through the data and decided I'd prefer the AZ, rather than the Pfizer, contrary to the UK government's advice and fortunately I was able to get it.Quote from: Miti on May 29, 2021, 01:31:23 pmWell GMO isn't always unhealthy and laden with pesticides. If crops are genetically engineered to be resistant to certain pests and diseases, fewer pesticides are required. The problem is when a crop is genetically engineered to be resistant to a herbicide, used to kill all the weeds, results in higher levels of pesticides.I do find it funny that many who refuse the vaccine are those who take plenty of other health risks: overweight, poor diet, smoking, heavy drinking etc. I know one idiot who's overweight, worried about catching COVID, yet refuses to get vaccinated and won't allow his children to go to school, or mix with other children. You can't make it up.Don't get my wrong, I know that's not everyone who won't get vaccinated, but it seems like the majority of them.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 06:35:15 pm
content: Quote from: magic on May 29, 2021, 06:16:25 pmThe vaccines were not just rushed out with no testing, and it is not entirely new territory. So far it has been a great success, going by the data they are much safer than many OTC medications that people take without thinking. All sorts of stuff has rare side effects, people die all the time from food allergies or from choking on food, or all manner of other freak incidents, some apparently healthy people suddenly drop dead for no obvious reason. Serious side effects from any of the Covid vaccines have been incredibly rare, but every single one of them makes the news. The vaccines were not developed by politicians so it shouldn't matter if you trust politicians, they were developed by scientists and engineers who know what they're doing and have some skin in the game.You are free to opt out so long as you stay isolated somewhere and only physically interact with other people who choose not to get vaccinated, understand the risk and do not mingle with the rest of us. If you want to participate in society then get vaccinated, not doing so is not just a risk to you (I don't care if you want to risk yourself), it is a risk to everyone else and it takes an incredibly selfish and self absorbed person to not realize this or not care. People with your attitude are going to cause this pandemic to drag on much longer than it needs to and most likely Covid is going to keep on circulating since enough people are going to skip being vaccinated to allow that.I suppose a reasonable alternative is let people refuse to be vaccinated, but hold them legally liable if it can be shown that they transmitted the virus to somebody else who later got seriously ill or died. Charging them with negligent homicide seems reasonable to me in the case of someone dying, or sue for lost wages, medical expenses, etc. When a person makes selfish choices based on ignorance and misinformation that end up resulting in harm to others there should be consequences and it should hurt.

author: Miti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 06:56:34 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on May 29, 2021, 06:35:15 pmWould you be willing to accept the same punishment if within a year 40% of vaccinated develop autoimmune diseases?

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 09:25:06 pm
content: Look at the situation in India (and some other countries) over the past few weeks and you realise that reasonably easy access to the vaccines and non-overwhelmed health systems is a privilege.It's fine for people to do the (rather obvious) maths when deciding whether or not to be 'coerced' into being vaccinated, but you need to remember that these Darwin award candidates, if allowed to reach sufficient numbers (due to conspiracy theories or whatever), increase the danger of taking others in the population with them. By clogging up the health systems they also take vital resources away from the treatment of all the other conditions that normally prey on us, Cancer, heart disease, etc.Of course there should be, and are, exceptions for people with specific medical risks (although with the range of different vaccines available, it ought to be possible to protect many of them). The people intent on exercising their 'free will' for no specific medical reason put these poor folks at increased risk too.It is essential to get the incidence of the virus in the population as low as possible (symptomatic or not) to minimise the number of mutations and new variants developing. We just need one new variant that successfully sidesteps the existing vaccines and we're all up shit creek (again).

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 09:45:38 pm
content: Quote from: Miti on May 29, 2021, 06:56:34 pmWhat's your basis for suggesting "40% of vaccinated develop autoimmune diseases"? Is that a Kennedy BS thing?

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 09:52:12 pm
content: Quote from: Miti on May 29, 2021, 06:56:34 pmHow many vaccines have had that higher risk of autoimmune diseases, after a year?As far as I'm aware, chronic health conditions due to vaccines tend to occur within the first couple of weeks of the dose, not spring up years later. The most risky vaccines are those which contain, attenuated, live virus, which isn't the case for any of the currently approved COVID-19 vaccines.

author: radar_macgyver
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 10:42:49 pm
content: One possible "market driven" approach would be for insurance premiums to go *way* up for people who choose to not be vaccinated (as opposed to people who can't for various medical reasons). That will very quickly incentivize the "muh freedoms" folks. The underwriters will have this info, so I'd be surprised if they aren't doing it already.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 11:02:46 pm
content: The US government should do another stimulus check but not available to those who have not been vaccinated (& do not have a genuine medical reason from a real doctor certifying their inability to have such a vaccine.)Watch how many people would drop their objections to being vaccinated when $600 or $1200 is on the table.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 11:15:05 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on May 29, 2021, 09:52:12 pmThere have never been mass deployments of the types of vaccine most people are getting for covid, so we have no idea what to expect a year from now.

author: DrG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 11:43:50 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on May 29, 2021, 11:02:46 pmI have been following the developments in the US concerning CoVid vaccination with great interest. First, I have to say, as good as it is getting in the US, I know full well what the numbers look like in India, Brazil, Columbia and many other places. It is, as we all know, a global pandemic which is far from under control.I am very proud of what we have done here in just ~4 months - millions of shots administered daily (I think we got over 4 million in one day as the peak). We have done a hell of great job so far and we are continuing and I am very proud of that effort.In a sense, we have an embarrassment of riches with how much vaccine we have right now. Most of the country is within just a few miles from a place to get vaccinated and there are efforts to drive people and even pay for taxi cabs. There is enough for everyone in the US.Many programs are aimed at addressing hesitancy.The general process is to let people voice their hesitancy and ask questions. Outright and without ridicule or shame. There are answers to many of those questions and I like this approach the best.One program was to offer a $25 Savings Bond (it is worth $25 when it hits maturity).Then, one state decided to hold a lottery - 1 free ticket with your vaccine. This created some uproar. I read about how they calculated the benefit and while I don't claim to have critically evaluated the math and the assumptions, the basic idea is that you would save money given XXX folks who would otherwise hesitate, producing YYY cases and ZZZ hospitalizations, each costing $!$!$!$. Put that way, I like that program also.Several states followed suit and we have seen announcements of the first vaccine millionaires.We also saw a spike in vaccination after the new CDC guidance for vaccinated people (no masks most of the time). Didn't try to verify the voracity of the claim though.I don't see the need (or value) in vilifying those who are hesitating or outright refuse to get vaccinated. I will however, support many policies that involve " if (vaccinated) then XXX ", but that is not the same as forcing someone to get vaccinated. When I go out in public, I am having my picture taken...nobody is forcing me to have my picture taken, but if I want to go out to public places, I will have my picture taken. This concept is not new.I can respect those who are hesitant, but I want to have a civil discussion with them. If someone makes any kind of suggestion about the CoVid vaccine causing 40% of those people to develop auto-immune disorders, I want to hear the evidence because I don't believe it exists at all. Even if one does not say it outright, but brings it up, in this context, I want to know their thinking and their fears because maybe it can be changed, or maybe not.BTW: The first doses of the mRNA vaccines were given to humans well over a year agohttps://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/experimental-coronavirus-vaccine-safe-produces-immune-response#:~:text=Scientists%20began%20Phase%201%20trials,in%20mid%2DMarch..I have not heard of any of them contracting an auto-immune disease as a result - has anyone heard such a thing?

author: Miti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 02:02:59 am
content: Oy vey!I can feel the hostility just for stating that I’d like to have the rights over my body respected.No, the 40% doesn’t come from Kennedy BS or from any other “debunked” source of misinformation. I just asked what if, I completely made it up. You can fill the dots with whatever figure makes you comfortable. Again, I don’t want to get into any debate. All the information is there, you just need to have an open mind.Edit: Some material for your studyhttps://pace.coe.int/en/files/29004/htmlRead section 7.3 and 7.5https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Code

author: DrG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 05:03:05 am
content: Quote from: Miti on May 30, 2021, 02:02:59 amI get that you say that you don't want to debate. You said that twice in the last few days of posts. The first time you said it was when you said you were "out". But, you came back with that 40% business, when you know better and I'm glad that you admitted that you just made it up - why you made it up, I don't know. I'm not sure, but I doubt too many in this thread thought that you were serious but, yeah, you could have been citing some source - I have heard worse.Now, you again said that you don't want to debate, but you edited your post to add study materials and with the cryptic X-files like quote that " All the information is there, you just need to have an open mind." - ok, it's not exactly "the truth is out there", but it reminded me of that.I believe that you don't want to debate, but I think you want to be heard and that you're concerned that your "position" will incur a lot of hostility. Well, you don't have to answer and I have no reason to be hostile to you, but I have two questions that I would like you to answer, so that I can better understand your position on the CoVid vaccine.You stated previously, "Funny that you mention the tetanus shot. I've got mild IBS from it. When I was a child I stepped on a rusty nail and the doctor gave me a tetanus shot. Soon after, my guts went crazy for few days. It never went away completely to this day. It got more tolerable, but never went away." My question is; Can you seriously consider that there may be other reasons for lifetime (since then) IBS other than the tetanus shot that you received as a child? IOW: are you sure that the tetanus shot is the cause?The second question has to do with something in the "study materials" - the French politician's recommended guidance from the meeting or whatever it is (and BTW: I recommend that others read the entire paper as it is NOT an anti-vax document - typical Political-Speak yes, but most definitely not anti-vax). If you think I am just screwing with you, then just don't respond. But, I did take the time to read your study materials (I was already familiar with the historical one to some degree and just browsed it) and they are both political statements and obviously not evidentiary in a scientific sense.Specifically," 7.3.2 ensure that no one is discriminated against for not having been vaccinated, due to possible health risks or not wanting to be vaccinated".It has been announced that the University of Western Ontario, in your flag country, is mandating CoVid vaccination IF you want to be living in residencehttps://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-university-of-western-ontario-to-require-covid-19-vaccinations-for/It is requirement. Now, it does state that "Students who forgo a vaccine for reasons protected under the Human Rights Code may apply for an accommodation, the university said." Further, I looked into that codehttp://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/ontario-human-rights-codeand it does appear that it is at least possible that the residence could be considered protected ground, but since one could argue that you are choosing to go there to live, maybe you would not be exempt. I really don't know.My second question is, do you feel that action (by the University) discriminates against you, assuming for the sake of argument, that you wanted to attend in residence but did not want to get vaccinated - IOW does that violate your body rights? [you have stated - "I’d like to have the rights over my body respected."], even if such exemption is normally granted - is it still a violation to require you apply for an exemption?

author: dietert1
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 06:21:02 am
content: I got my first dose and don't understand all the fuss. Isn't protective vaccination something we learned as children? Everybody knows the difference between a cold and a flu, but they can't understand Covid19 is a flu that kills 10x more? What? My wife keeps asking people whether they got vaccinated, it's fun. Better talk to somebody real.On German TV they had an interview (!) with somebody who was introduced as a medical doctor and presented a serious face when explaining that Covid19 and vaccination was invented to decimate world population. The more ridiculous it becomes, the more attention. German TV had our minister of health saying: "Finally we will be able to vaccinate 1 million doses per week". Per week or per day - it doesn't matter. Remember Trump: "Probably 200 000 will die. If only 100 000 die, we have done a good job." Few people can have the medical treatment he received when infected without protection.Regards, Dieter

author: jfiresto
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 07:08:08 am
content: Quote from: dietert1 on May 30, 2021, 06:21:02 amAre you sure that was the number? I would expect far more wishful thinking from Mr. Spahn. I am not quite 60 and still waiting for a vaccination offer. If the politicians have their way, the 12–18 years will be next then everyone else.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 08:21:30 am
content: Quote from: Miti on May 30, 2021, 02:02:59 amIn a global pandemic of a disease with significant mortality and long term damage, it is about populations and death tolls rather than individuals.For the 'free choicer's (aka anti-Vaxers - as to the best of my knowledge NO government is forcibly administering vaccines!). It should be though of as adutyto the rest of the population in order to minimise the overall death toll.You are not (as far as I know), a front line health worker who has to spend long hours day after day sweating in claustrophobic PPE, or risking your life daily treating infectious patients with inadequate PPE and facing the trauma of daily deaths and grieving families. Worse still is the plight of health workers with no facilities, having to mak 'who dies, who lives' decisions and watching patients dying like stranded fish due to lack of oxygen. (For the record, I'm not a front line health worker either, but I have several in the family).People seem to have forgotten the meaning of duty. Putting yourself at (in this case, miniscule risk) in order to benefit others. After what the emergency workers of the world are going though. It seems a little selfish not to be prepared to take a couple of pin pricks and maybe a few Paracetamol. Yes sure, you have a tiny risk of death or side effects, but you can console yourself that you didn't die of the much higher risks of Covid, a car crash or falling down the stairs! There is very little that is less treatable than death!

author: dietert1
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 08:56:57 am
content: My wife spent two or three days online and making phone calls to finally get vaccination appointments for us. I always ended up in the "virtual waiting room", without the faintest idea what was the problem. Of course, after a year one month more or less doesn't really matter.One problem i see is that people below age of 40 are under-represented in governments. Then comes this baby reaction: I am hungry. Nothing to eat now? Then i won't eat anymore. That's perfectly human - and up to each individual to overcome this frustration.Regards, Dieter

author: steve30
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 10:05:18 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on May 29, 2021, 01:08:17 pmI'm curious as to whether Dave has had a coronavirus vaccine or not.Whilst I see very little benefit to it myself, I did ponder the possibility of having one just to disprove the conspiracy theorists who are adamant that it is part of some depopulation plan (yes, I know people who believe this).Unfortunately healthcare is very poor in my country these days, and has become worse since the so-called pandemic. I think this so-called pandemic will be the final nail in the coffin for our health service.My main concerns regarding the coronavirus vaccine are that firstly, I have a ridiculously small chance of getting the disease in the first place, and secondly, that if I get a vaccine, I will probably not be able to get medical help if I get any adverse reactions.The counter argument to that is that I may need medical help if I get Covid-19, but I'm not satisfied that I'd get that either.

author: jfiresto
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 10:53:35 am
content: Quote from: dietert1 on May 30, 2021, 08:56:57 amYour experiences are about what I had expected. Some neighbors have been urging me to scheme some way to get a vaccine, but until recently it seemed unethically early. The ethics of Germany's (and the EU's) Covid response are what bother me. The models other countries are following suggest giving everyone the same priority to get vaccinated, so soon, will result in many preventable deaths, but perhaps there are other factors I do not know about that are more important.Recently I got on a couple promising waiting lists for unwanted AZ doses, but only discovered them by chance. Public health should not be a lottery or worse.

author: Muttley Snickers
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 11:13:42 am
content: At this point in time I have no interest at all in getting the vaccine due to existing and ongoing medical conditions, and I don't appreciate the conflicting and misguided information given by my treating specialists either. I do however appreciate that everybody's circumstances and responsibilities are different so the individual has to decide what is best for themselves, their family and also their community.

author: dietert1
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 11:44:03 am
content: Another psychological problem i had myself: Nowadays sponsors are everywhere (even in this forum) and we are busy keeping people away with their offers. As a freelancer who is used to pay for each and everything i felt a bit lost to accept the vaccine as a present. You always wonder: Who is the sponsor? Are they hiding their intentions?In the end i assume the government is doing it because lockdowns cause huge damage and they want to stop that. I decided to join this effort and i want the protection, of course.We may safely assume that all those critical voices have their sponsors, too.Regards, Dieter

author: Miti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 11:53:22 am
content: Quote from: steve30 on May 30, 2021, 10:05:18 amKnowing Dave, if he wanted us to know that, he'd make a 30 minute video and "Bob's your uncle", eh Dave?

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 12:28:51 pm
content: Quote from: steve30 on May 30, 2021, 10:05:18 amYou'll have to forever continue to be curious.I will not virtue signal my medical status, I refuse to be part of the social media circus on this.

author: steve30
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 01:38:25 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on May 30, 2021, 12:28:51 pmWell said.To be honest, I think if you say you haven't had it, people will accuse you of being a selfish murderer. If you say you have had it, people will either moan about your impending Bill Gates-related death, or they'll go on about what an amazing hero you are for saving the lives of those around you.

author: DrG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 02:39:31 pm
content: Quote from: jfiresto on May 30, 2021, 10:53:35 amIn the US, early on, there was much talk of "line jumping" by the "rich and powerful" and how to game the system. It became common knowledge that any opened bottles (the mRNA vaccine), would have to be administered or tossed on that day. People started hanging out at clinics just for that chance at the end of the day - clinics caught on quickly, but I suspect that the vaccine underground quietly continued.....I do know of one person who got a friend call at the end of the day that if they could be there in 10 min, they could get a shot.Each state in the US decided how they wanted to prioritize distribution. It was frustrating in my state, but I never disagreed with the prioritization as it was clearly linked to chance of infection (e.g., medical treatment personnel) and chance of illness severity when infected (e.g., elderly). It was not a perfect system and there were legitimate issues - of course, those prioritization issue went away as supply increased. It is my hope and belief that those supply increases will occur worldwide and soon.

author: DrG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 03:13:29 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on May 16, 2021, 10:53:49 pmConcur. Fact is, I don't know of a single case where someone was forced to get a CoVid vaccine. It is always an if-then as I see it. The Feds here have made it clear that they will not be part of any kind of passport situation....and the states, as you note, are plenty happy to wade in, and on both sideshttps://www.beckershospitalreview.com/digital-transformation/vaccine-passports-10-states-with-bans-limitations-green-lights.htmlFrom a business perspective going from 0% [lock down] to 25% [partial opening to 50% [lifting of restrictions], it must seem appealing, e.g., you could get to capacity quicker if you could only allowed vaccinated customers, at least in some instances.The thing is, all that crap will go out the window once the infection numbers fall far enough...Nobody is requiring small pox vaccination, but they did. I still have my scar...I bet you do also...had a BS Occ health exam once and the PA was so young, he asked me what it was...I laughed...he was embarrassed.Funny that every state in the US requires a drivers license to drive publicly. These are hard to fake (relatively), form a huge data base of identification, and are readily produced on demand, but we accept the need for that universally - I know I do.I suppose the day will come (although we may not see it) where you are simply scanned for antibody status...oh boy...new toys

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 03:15:32 pm
content: Quote from: DrG on May 30, 2021, 02:39:31 pmif the alternative was that it would get tossed, you'd need to have a weird sense of justice to object to someone getting it for being there

author: gnuarm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 03:25:41 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on May 30, 2021, 12:28:51 pm"Virtue signal"? Discussing an important issue in public and being honest about your actions is "virtue signalling"I'm flying to Puerto Rico from the US mainland and I can either get tested for COVID, be quarantined for 14 days... or just provide a vaccine card (no virtue signals required).I can't say what perspective is provided by living in a country with single digit daily infection rates and virtually zero death rates from COVID, but many of us in the US take this diseaseveryseriously and don't have a problem with taking appropriate actions to reduce the transmission rate as much as possible. The problem we have in the US is that far too many think COVID is not a disease, but a political football and use terms like "virtue signalling" while resisting various efforts to contain the disease with the clear results we've seen over the last year.

author: DrG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 03:34:16 pm
content: Quote from: langwadt on May 30, 2021, 03:15:32 pmAbsolutely agree with you and I did not object and I told her so at the time and have not changed my mind. I did not expect or demand some kind of equitable distribution policy for those few doses because it would be incredibly cumbersome and impractical, nor would I condone large crowds gathering at clinics to fight for those few doses. Nor would I accept any unethical behavior to "arrange" for bottles to be opened when they did not need to be (I don't know that something of that nature ever occurred).Truth is, I did investigate the possibility at the time, but what I saw online for every clinic near me was basically a warning to not show up without an appointment or you would be asked to leave. She is in another state where, at the time, they were already administering at drug store chains and the like (a distinctly different situation).

author: gnuarm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 03:45:35 pm
content: Quote from: Muttley Snickers on May 30, 2021, 11:13:42 amExisting medical conditions are a reasonable justification for not getting the vaccine, especially when weighed in the context of 100% chance of getting the vaccine (if you so choose) vs. the 1 in X chance of getting COVID depending on you circumstances. It may well be that, for your circumstances, statistically you are better off without the vaccine.I have a friend who is highly intelligent, educated and has even worked in the medical field running a blood bank. Yet she decided that simply because the vaccine was developed rapidly (even though the speed did not reduce the testing, they simply minimized the time for each step) it should not be trusted. The fact that there are a very small number of reportedPOTENTIALLYsevere reactions to the vaccines compared to the approximately 1% death rate in our age group from contracting the disease was not as important as her unease. So an emotional decision rather than a logical one.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 03:55:48 pm
content: Quote from: gnuarm on May 30, 2021, 03:25:41 pmSuch countries should really insist on getting people vaccinated as much as possible otherwise they'll have to shut the borders forever due to low group immunity. Covid-19 isn't going away for at leats the next couple of years. Having very low infection and death rates is a blessing and vaccination allows to reap the rewards of being vigilant.

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 04:41:27 pm
content: Quote from: Miti on May 30, 2021, 02:02:59 amI feared you had just made it up. To me, that's even worse than quoting someone else's made-up nonsense.According to the pace link,"7.5.2 use vaccination certificates only for their designated purpose of monitoring vaccine efficacy, potential side effects and adverse events;"That's just bollocks. The primary purpose is as a record that an individual has received the vaccine.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 05:07:36 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on May 30, 2021, 03:55:48 pmThe countries which haven't had much trouble with covid are finding it very difficult to get their populations motivated to be inoculated. People are taking a wait and see approach, which is pretty reasonable at the individual level. However, it may isolate these countries.

author: gnuarm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 05:55:36 pm
content: Quote from: JohnnyMalaria on May 30, 2021, 04:41:27 pmYes, documentation can be kept in many forms for those stated purposes and IS maintained electronically. I think the primary reason this is documented by a piece of easy to counterfeit paper is for personal comfort of people having a way to prove they are vaccinated. I do know it was important to have the card for my second vaccine. I was warned if I didn't have that card when I came in for the second shot I would not get it.

author: gnuarm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 06:04:16 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on May 30, 2021, 05:07:36 pmIt can also leave them wide open to a surge of infection from a more readily spread strain. While the vaccines are not perfect, they greatly reduce the likelihood of serious complications and virtually eliminates the chance of death. If the population is not vaccinated a new strain can sweep through the population that is taking actions that are effective to an earlier, less infectious strain, but less so a more infectious strain.I believe most places with low infection rates are using effective track and trace methods. If a new strain enters the country it may overwhelm such methods and require a return to extreme distancing and isolation as well as seeing death rates take off.The real danger from this disease presently is that it can mutate beyond our current methods of containment and sweep across unvaccinated populations. The US is having a start of summer holiday and I expect to see a reversal in our lowering of daily infection rates, for a week or two at least, but hopefully I will be wrong.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 06:47:46 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on May 29, 2021, 11:15:05 pmThe messenger RNA vaccines are completely new. I know the adenovirus vector based ones are an older technology, but don't know how widely they've been applied. This is partly why I felt safer, with the AZ, than Pfizer jab.People who don't know any better, fear things, which are either extremely unlikely, or impossible, such as getting a massive shock of a car battery; well maybe if you're hands have been soaking in salt water and you have a cut, but even then, it won't be bad, unless perhaps you already have a heart condition. There are also plenty of things which we know can be perfectly safe, such as driverless trains, but many laypeople fear them, because they don't full understand the technology behind it.The question is: does there a plausible mechanism exist, by which a vaccination could cause complications, out of the blue, years later? I'm not doctor, but if there was such a possibility, then I would hope doctors would be warning us about it.Quote from: EEVblog on May 30, 2021, 12:28:51 pmI agree it's none of our business. If you want to talk about it, that's fine, but it's not a bad thing keeping it private.

author: Miti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 06:57:25 pm
content: Quote from: JohnnyMalaria on May 30, 2021, 04:41:27 pmMan, I hope you're not in any decision making position. That's how totalitarian regimes start.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 07:09:04 pm
content: Quote from: Miti on May 30, 2021, 06:57:25 pmWhy is keeping a record of who's been vaccinated a bad thing? It's important to note who's had what vaccine, because the current advice is to have two shots of the same type and some people might try to get vaccinated more than twice. It makes perfect sense to record who's had what. The government keeps plenty of information about you already and this is no different.

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 08:05:21 pm
content: Quote from: Miti on May 30, 2021, 06:57:25 pmDo you have a driver's license to prove you have passed the test?Do you have dental records to keep track of any dental work you have had?Do you have paychecks that record what tax you have paid?Do you have certificates to prove what education you have had?Do you carry your ticket with you when you travel to prove you are entitled to do so?Totalitarian? What's the alternative? Total anarchy?Prior to gaining US citizenship, I had to either prove I had received vaccinations against major diseases or had those diseases. Some of the those records were almost impossible to find and so I had to be vaccinated again. For others, I had the records myself and so didn't have to have additional vaccinations. Was the US government being totalitarian by reducing the risk of disease entering the country? Would it have made it easier for me if the records of my vaccinations when I was 5 more readily accessible?

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 08:09:32 pm
content: The actual format of the US CDC vaccination card makes it clear that it was intended to keep the workflow organized, especially that both doses (when needed) were of the same vaccine and spaced apart by the required time.There is a long tradition in the US of requiring vaccination, starting with smallpox. The inoculation scar was its own evidence, but the microscopic needles for Covid vaccine (too small to pass microchips) leave no visible scar.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 08:11:32 pm
content: Quote from: JohnnyMalaria on May 30, 2021, 08:05:21 pmAll of these are communist oppressive concepts with no place in the land of the Free(of original thought).I'll get my coat.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 08:19:45 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on May 30, 2021, 08:09:32 pmThe scar is nothing to do with the needle. It's caused by the immune system's reaction to the vaccine. I'm not old enough to have been vaccinated against smallpox, but the BCG vaccine caused a nice puss filled boil to form, which left a lovely scar.

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 08:29:35 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on May 30, 2021, 08:11:32 pmI'll need your ticket. No ticket, no coat.

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 08:57:52 pm
content: At the beginning of the pandemic here in the UK the medical experts were saying that if we could achieve a 60% herd immunity the pandemic would be over as the virus would no longer be able to spread. Well we are now at around the 60% mark for at least one shot of vaccine and along with the people who have had the virus we must be well over the 60% mark but the virus is still spreading at an alarming rate in some parts and is active all over the country so what of the herd immunity that was touted by some so loudly.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 09:38:56 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on May 30, 2021, 08:19:45 pmI’m old enough to have been inoculated for smallpox. Instead of a single injection, multiple needle jabs were used, over a few square mm of skin. The resulting scar (from the reaction) is still there after more than 65 years. My point is that the clearly visible scar was used as proof-positive that the subject had been vaccinated.

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 10:17:23 pm
content: Quote from: G7PSK on May 30, 2021, 08:57:52 pm60% of having received the first dose is not sufficient. You need both doses plus a length of time (two weeks) before you can be considered immune. And that's only against the variants that the various vaccines are known to be effective against. The new surge in the UK is due to the Indian variant which the UK government for some insanely f**king dumb reason allowed to enter by allowing flights from India.Now there's a UK-Indian hybrid just detected in Vietnam:https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/new-hybrid-covid-variant-detected-in-vietnam/ar-AAKwoCz?ocid=uxbndlbingPerhaps my fellow Brits should stay at home and stop swanning off around the world at this time.BTW, the UK seems to have fallen behind on its vaccination program. I was surprised that only recently are people in their 30s getting their first dose. That means all the blitzed young people I see in photos outside pubs etc without masks have yet to receive their first dose. So you have a the least vaccinated group of people carrying on the behaviours most likely to spread the virus further.

author: radar_macgyver
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 10:44:34 pm
content: Quote from: JohnnyMalaria on May 30, 2021, 08:05:21 pmHaha, I lost track of the number of MMR shots I had to get for the same reason. Hmm, maybe that's why I'm on the spectrum...

author: Ed.Kloonk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 10:56:11 pm
content: (☉_☉)

author: Miti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 11:03:14 pm
content: Quote from: JohnnyMalaria on May 30, 2021, 08:05:21 pmNone of these involve restricting my constitutional rights, then selectively giving them back base on my acceptance of being injected with an unknown substance, with unknown long term effects, or otherwise preventing me from making a living. That is unacceptable.I may have misread your post, what I read was, and the part in italics is what I thought you meant "That's just bollocks. The primary purpose is as a record that an individual has received the vaccinewith the purpose of restricting the freedoms of unvaccinated."If that's what you meant, my statement stays, if not I apologise.I'm not anti vaxer, I'm pro choice and pro safe vaccines, with transparent and thorough safety and efficiency testing. My wife and I have all the vaccines of our time, my first kid has all the vaccines, with my second one we decided to select some vaccines, and refuse some controversial ones, among them, the MMR. Does that make me an antivaxer? When Dr. William Thompson, a senior scientist in the vaccine safety division at CDC comes and says that they knew about the link between the MMR and autism, that they knew the african american are at greater risk, that at 1 year old the children are at highest risk - on audio records and backed by internal CDC documents - wouldn't I be irresponsible to ignore all that and play the russian roulette with my child's life?

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 11:15:51 pm
content: Quote from: Miti on May 30, 2021, 11:03:14 pmWhich is a myth which has been debunked a long time ago:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_and_autism. You got duped into exposing your kids to dangerous deseases. Outbreaks of the measles have killed a lot of people which could have prevented if the Wakefield and Thompson didn't spread fake news. You see it again with the Covid-19 outbreak: lots of individual scientists with their individual opions. But you know an opinion is like an asshole; everyone has one.Science only works if it is truth by majority. Like the groups of scientists of the WHO work for example.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 11:16:43 pm
content: Quote from: JohnnyMalaria on May 30, 2021, 08:05:21 pmMiddle class parents in much of East Asia are warned, as their children get their first inoculation, that they need to take care of those records if they want to send the children abroad for their education. A number of countries want to see these before issuing a study visa.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 11:20:10 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on May 30, 2021, 11:15:51 pmIts one of those cases where the lie was front page news, but the retraction was in small print at the bottom of an arbitrary page, somewhere in the middle of the newspaper.

author: Miti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 11:31:02 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on May 30, 2021, 11:15:51 pmI choose to wipe mine...

author: DrG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2021, 12:10:50 am
content: Quote from: Miti on May 30, 2021, 11:03:14 pmFor those who have the time and are interested/concerned: Here is a decent (and short) article about this old, and shameful, storyhttps://www.forbes.com/sites/emilywillingham/2015/08/06/a-congressman-a-cdc-whisteblower-and-an-autism-tempest-in-a-trashcan/?sh=4f0168ab5396Here is the link to the original article that did not show an autism link that was co-authored by the individual mentionedhttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14754936/From the article, it appears that later, the co-author says that there was data that DID show an autism link in African Americans, but they did not include the data in the publication.Then, another party gets hold of those data and analyses it and publishes an autism linkhttps://translationalneurodegeneration.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2047-9158-3-16Then, the Journal (ed and Pub) Retract the article citing a lack of confidence in the soundness of the findingshttps://translationalneurodegeneration.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2047-9158-3-22Here is a (well-written) blog posting about both articles (read both parts 1 and 2)https://blog.minitab.com/en/adventures-in-statistics-2/analysis-and-reanalysis3a-the-controversy-behind-mmr-vaccinations-and-autism2c-part-1All this comes well after the 1998 Lancet debaclehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_MMR_autism_fraud#1998_The_Lancet_paperIn 2019, the first author of the original article (in this list above) published a review supporting his prior conclusions of no link.https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30986133/Millions of kids examined in numerous studies with no credible link found - In 2015, this studyhttps://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/227544495,000 kids without finding a link. In this one, over a millionhttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24814559/Sorry, I know you don't want to debate, but it is difficult for me to understand why you would say the things that you are saying.

author: gnuarm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2021, 12:50:44 am
content: Quote from: TimFox on May 30, 2021, 08:09:32 pmI don't think vaccinations have ever been required unless you are in the military. I remember the polio vaccine was purely optional, but like this disease it was killing a maiming a lot of people, but more young than old, so much more excitement was created. I'm not sure I ever got the second dose. Hard for me to recall the details since I wasn't even in school yet I think.Vaccinesarerequired to attend school and other activities perhaps, but there are people who home school just because of that. Still, the vaccines are not mandatory.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 31, 2021, 01:21:48 am
content: Ok, 10 pages worth now, and we've reached the autism thing, it's only going to go downhil from here. Time to call quits on this thread.