Soldato
What part of the data quoted do you disagree with, and why?
COVID-19 (Coronavirus) discussion
- Thread starter ThundyCat
- Start date
Soldato
Also, I wanted to add something here. If the vaccines were shown to be much better at their job and carried a very low, relative risk of problems then I would be the first to sing their praises. Would you consider a vaccine against Polio to be successful if you had to take 5 of them in 18 months and still got the disease anyway?
I think we need to be a little honest with ourselves with the covid shots. Many were duped into taking it. Many were coerced against their will from whatever external pressures (family to go on holiday, work to continue to travel abroad or go offshore, or even attend their regular workplace). With the data presented it's immoral to force or pressure anyone to take these in the arm. Especially considering we have no long-term data available yet.
I think we need to be a little honest with ourselves with the covid shots. Many were duped into taking it. Many were coerced against their will from whatever external pressures (family to go on holiday, work to continue to travel abroad or go offshore, or even attend their regular workplace). With the data presented it's immoral to force or pressure anyone to take these in the arm. Especially considering we have no long-term data available yet.
Soldato
The vaccines are not compulsory, it is entirely your decision if you want to take them or not.
Soldato
1) they are total incidents and not proportional to the number of vaccines given
2) they don't break down by severity
3) they are self reported I think rather than medically verified (open to correction here)
Regardless of what I think, where is the credible medical analysis that back up your point?
If we are just opining on it as punters are you saying the vaccines are a waste of time and have been since they came out? Where are all the class actions? What would you have done instead?
Soldato
I suppose there might be an effect that in workplaces where everyone's in more often more people will have had covid recently so the risk of lots going off at once is reduced... Curious has your workplace made any changes to reduce infection risks?
It is great that covid has forced employers to be more flexible, opened up lots of options for staff. I can see the arguments for going in to work more often though, for some jobs more than others. However for jobs not reliant on workshops, stakeholder engagement, etc, I do think some of the lingering issues that get raised with home working could be addressed with a little bit of organisation though. For example sharing knowledge about what everyone in the team is up to could be done just by encouraging use of an informal team chat, getting new starters up to speed could be improved with more deliberate engagement, making it simply part of doing the job that people let the new guy know about what they're up to etc... Shouldn't use any more time than when people chat in the office or go to get a cup of tea from the kitchen or whatever.
Personally I hope 2 days a week doesn't become a requirement... Once a fortnight seems like plenty to me in my current role.
However what I really don't understand is why basic things which have been proven to reduce risk of infection aren't being done when people are, for whatever reason asked to go somewhere in person.
Soldato
Tell that to the people losing their jobs because they won't take it.
Most things in life are not compulsary. For example I could go and kill someone today. I don't, because there are consequences (and I'm a good guy!
)
Soldato
What point?
Soldato
Well you posted that data, I assumed your point was that the vaccines are bad? (apologies for the paraphrase)
If you've based that on the data, I've explained why I don't think the data is usable.
Soldato
Regards to the vaccine. To cover a couple of points mentioned;
1) The fact that there are lots of reported side effects in absolute terms is because it's the most used vaccine in the last 2 years, we are talking billions of doses in that time period, so absolute numbers of reported side effects are going to be higher than if only a few million were given.
2) The vaccines were excellent at reducing spread, severity and infectiousness of the strain of covid they were designed against (the original "wuhan" strain) as that has largely been eradicated.
Now the virus has mutated to a large extent, it's logical that the vaccines won't protect against infection from omicron BA.X versions as this is effectively a different virus.
Until there is a vaccine that targets an area of the virus that is less prone to mutation then we will see the same patterns of waning protection from infection.
1) The fact that there are lots of reported side effects in absolute terms is because it's the most used vaccine in the last 2 years, we are talking billions of doses in that time period, so absolute numbers of reported side effects are going to be higher than if only a few million were given.
2) The vaccines were excellent at reducing spread, severity and infectiousness of the strain of covid they were designed against (the original "wuhan" strain) as that has largely been eradicated.
Now the virus has mutated to a large extent, it's logical that the vaccines won't protect against infection from omicron BA.X versions as this is effectively a different virus.
Until there is a vaccine that targets an area of the virus that is less prone to mutation then we will see the same patterns of waning protection from infection.
Man of Honour
Well our main office has proper ventilation systems, the a/c has been set to "extract". We have a cleaner that comes in once a day - but that's no different to before, but of course the cleaning is more thorough.
Other work places I go to tend to be places with A/C etc... No mandatory testing, although our main office did have that requirement until earlier this year - however they provided the tests so no one minded.
I agree a few jobs (data entry, possibly software, and that sort of stuff) can be done remotely all the time, but regardless, for social development, professional development, and just normal human interaction being remote is really dangerous in the long term (just look at the data on mental health over the hard lockdown).
However I do accept that some people are more worried/nervous than others. I think it's also a generational thing - for 25+ years I've been going to work and this is "normal" to me, but younger generations probably find the concept of going to an office when they can do things remotely odd - however, as humans you do rely on all your senses to grow, develop and so on, also seeing and doing are important to do for training and development.
I've told my team I want them in the office at least once a week, but ideally twice, there's been 0 resistance to this fortunately - and we get a lot more done when we do meet up. That said I know it's not for everyone, however I'm genuinely worried if the future generations don't experience working in an office environment or on site, or wherever the work takes place as you miss out on a lot of real world experience and how things actually happen at the cold face.
Man of Honour
I don't think the vaccines stop the spread I think it just reduces the severity.
What stops the spread are people not spreading it to one another
I think once the full study of the vaccine is published (next year is it?) it will calm down a lot of the conspiracy theories. Personally I'm happy not to have any more, but wouldn't encourage people not to have it - I would encourage people to do what they feel is right. Similar to the flu jab, for me the risk profile is tiny, but for my parents (if they were still in the UK) I'd be sure they got it.
Side effects happen for most things, it's impossible to predict everything - people's existing medications, hormone profiles, health, genetic make up all create thousands of permutations. As you say the fact that SO many vaccines were rolled out necessarily when you create more data, more data will be revealed both positive and negative.
I'm sure that in time better protection/immunity will occur with various medications etc...
Soldato
Stepson now has covid, he's 25 and has cold like symptoms. So, with my partner having had covid a month ago, I'm the only one out of the 3 of us that hasn't had it yet.
Soldato
I don't think the vaccines stop the spread I think it just reduces the severity.
What stops the spread are people not spreading it to one another
I think once the full study of the vaccine is published (next year is it?) it will calm down a lot of the conspiracy theories. Personally I'm happy not to have any more, but wouldn't encourage people not to have it - I would encourage people to do what they feel is right. Similar to the flu jab, for me the risk profile is tiny, but for my parents (if they were still in the UK) I'd be sure they got it.
Side effects happen for most things, it's impossible to predict everything - people's existing medications, hormone profiles, health, genetic make up all create thousands of permutations. As you say the fact that SO many vaccines were rolled out necessarily when you create more data, more data will be revealed both positive and negative.
I'm sure that in time better protection/immunity will occur with various medications etc...
WRT stopping spread. The current vaccines based on the original strain did stop transmission by the simple fact it would prevent you from being infected by the "wuhan" version. If the virus hadn't mutated from that version, the amount of infections occurring would be minimal and we'd largely be free from the virus.
If you were exposed to the original strain at this point in time your protection from infection would still be excellent from the current vaccines.
If they can come up with a mutation resistant vaccine then things will settle down.
However this virus isn't as stable as other viruses that we have vaccines for.
Man of Honour
Fair enough thanks - but yes the original alpha or delta or whatever strain was feels like an eternity ago! And yes it seems to be a wee bit spontaneous with it's shapeshifting - but deaths with seems to have come down and is trending downwards and deaths of actual covid are way down now as well which is a good sign. Long covid still seems undefined and there's no easy way of testing for it, it does seem to be symptom associated but that's quite anecdotal it seems? So called long covid seems relatively stable (no large spikes).
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Associate
If I say something incorrect, explain why it's incorrect and if what you're saying makes sense then I'll adjust my views accordingly. If your response is "the experts disagree" then I'll assume that you're just parroting whatever your favourite newspaper said. Providing relevant information makes everyone better informed and leads to better decisions (for some people). Dispelling myths means that fewer people will be talking about them, meaning more time to discuss the real issues.
Edit: worth adding that different experts often have different views.
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Soldato
It is a rather mutatable virus. Even Alpha strain was a mutation of the original, albeit not as severe a change as currently circulating variants.
If it is of any interest to anyone I was explained to by someone who's field it is, in layman's terms what is basically going on and why things are happening as they are. It helped me understand and process things easier!
All the current vaccines as mentioned were based on the very first original variant that was found at wuhan market, and then its was only the spike bit of the virus that they targeted.
The vaccines basically train our immune system to produce 2 weapons against the virus they are made to target.
Antibodies which are there to stop an infection even happening, by recognising the virus they were programmed to hunt down and prevent it from attaching to our cells. If the virus that doesn't change/mutate, then it will prevent the vast majority of infections in people who have a normal immune system.
However antibodies are very specific, and any significant change in the way the virus "looks" means they become less and less able to track it down and prevent infection. Hence with the vastly mutated variants we have now, the current vaccines won't really prevent infection.
The T-cells are the other part the vaccines train our body to produce. These only destroy our own bodies cells that have already been infected, so don't rely as much on what the virus looks like. These prevent the infection getting too bad by destroying infected cells (which are basically mini factories, producing more virus). Which is why, for the most part the current vaccines still protect against serious disease. Which is why the proportion of people infected needing ICU or ending up with long covid is not increasing dramatically.
The problem the clever guys designing the vaccines have is, if they target a specific variant/s in circulation, by the time they have made it, mass produced it and rolled it out across the globe, the virus has changed probably multiple times again. Then you're back to square one. It ends up being a constant cat and mouse game.
And unfortunately every new infection is a possible catalyst for a new variant.
Man of Honour
I guess this is why some sort of natural immunity is sought as it sounds as though we're constantly playing catchup but our bodies may be more effective once it has a few of the blueprints? Or is that too simplistic (and wrong?)
Associate
I'm pretty sure they never 100% prevented infection by any strain.
Soldato
I really don't know about natural immunity side but there are people working on vaccines that are less susceptible to changes in the virus, but to prevent infections means there aren't many parts of the virus you can actually target to prevent infection.