Kleinman writes:
Kleinman:
Explain to us why influenza vaccines are changed every year.Percy:
This has already been done. If you're unsatisfied with the answers already provided in this thread then you should point out where they're wrong or incomplete and provide better answers.
Where has descent with modification and adaptation been explained?
It's been explained many times at this site, including recently in this thread. This website's core purpose is discussion of evolution. If you think it's been covered inadequately, either in just this thread or throughout the site, then this is your opportunity to correct that lack.
Kleinman:
And tell us why Covid vaccines are not 100% effective.Percy:
Again, if you're unsatisfied with the answers already provided in this thread then tell us what you believe the correct answers are.
It's all about descent with modification and adaptation. Vaccines are selection pressures and when you have diversity in the population, vaccines won't be universally effective if resistant variants are in the population.
Yes, this was already covered in recent posts.
Kleinman:
I can't help it if members of your forum jump to conclusions.Percy:
We can't help it if you're a font of unsupported self-serving accusations.
Perhaps so, but I do know how descent with modification and adaptation works. And it is the reason that influenza vaccines have to be changed every year and why Covid vaccines are not 100% effective.
This, too, has already been said here.
Kleinman:
Perhaps you think that descent with modification and adaptation increases the efficacy of vaccines (or drugs, or any other kind of selection pressure).Percy:
Since no one who's touched on this subtopic has said anything that even remotely hints at such an opinion, it is baffling that you would say this. Your most common strategy seems to be to falsely imply in a mocking way that someone holds an absurd opinion.
Try not to be so mockable.
You invented what you're mocking. Why not just discuss the topic and dispense with the sideshow?
Percy:
The covid vaccines were approved early before all safety trials had been completed due to the urgency of dealing with the pandemic. Much more data has been gathered since the vaccines were first introduced.
This is anecdotal, but while I personally knew people who died of covid, and I know people still suffering long covid, I don't know anyone hurt by the vaccine. Combining that with what can be found online, my impression is that covid vaccines are pretty safe. If you think they're not safe maybe you can tell us what health problems the vaccines are causing, and what active ingredients in the vaccines is suspected of causing them.
Was the urgency due to fear and overreaction to a perceived threat?
With over a million deaths in this country alone, the threat was apparently very real.
I know people that have died after catching influenza. Should all the policies instituted for Covid be instituted for influenza?
Why do you ask? When covid restrictions were first being instituted there was no vaccine. We already had annual vaccines for influenza.
Vaccines are pretty safe because they undergo extensive testing based on years of experience using these drugs. Fear is not a good reason to discard this experience and push out a vaccine that hasn't been fully tested.
I think health agencies around the world tried to balance risk and benefit.
Kleinman:
...as attested to by the stories of normally healthy people suddenly dying after being given the vaccine.
Percy:
There's a good reason that anecdotal data is never used in studies. It can certainly be used as justification for initiating further study but is not scientific.
Why don't the agencies responsible post the data?
If you're asking about data on "normally healthy people suddenly dying after being given the vaccine," that's not something I've heard anything about, but the top item on search found
Risk of death following COVID-19 vaccination or positive SARS-CoV-2 test in young people in England published just last month. From the abstract:
quote:
Here, we show there is no significant increase in cardiac or all-cause mortality in the 12 weeks following COVID-19 vaccination compared to more than 12 weeks after any dose.
There's more detail if you follow the link.
Kleinman:
It takes time to collect this kind of data and I don't think that the pharmaceutical companies and government agencies responsible are highly motivated to collect such data.Percy:
A CDC page you might find helpful is Safety of COVID-19 Vaccines. Given the couple hundred million people who have received the vaccine, many also receiving boosters, it would take a million people suffering adverse effects just to reach the .5% level.
Do the math with your own numbers. 0.5%*100,000,000=500,000 people with adverse reactions for every 100,000,000 vaccinated.
Yeah, that's pretty much what a .5% adverse reaction rate would mean, but I think my point wasn't clear. .5% wasn't calculated from real data. I only used the example of a million people suffering adverse reactions because obviously that didn't happen since so many incidents couldn't pass unnoticed, and even that large number would only represent a .5% adverse reaction rate anyway. Whatever the adverse reaction rate actually was it must have been pretty tiny. The top result of a search was
Reported Adverse Events from the CDC:
quote:
Anaphylaxis after COVID-19 vaccination is rare and has occurred at a rate of approximately 5 cases per one million vaccine doses administered. Anaphylaxis, a severe type of allergic reaction, can occur after any kind of vaccination. If it happens, healthcare providers can effectively and immediately treat the reaction.
The possibility of anaphylaxis is why people were asked to wait fifteen minutes before leaving after their shot to make sure they suffered no reaction. 5 cases per million vaccinations is a .0005% rate.
How many people got COVID and died from the disease (these numbers are questionable because the death rate from cancer, heart disease, and other causes dropped since COVID is being reported).
As of April 12 there have been approximately 1.1 million deaths from covid in the US. There are approximately 200 additional deaths every week at the current time.
Addressing your concern that deaths from other causes were being misdiagnosed as covid deaths, the National Institutes of Health reports in
Monthly excess mortality across counties in the United States during the Covid-19 pandemic, March 2020 to February 2022:
quote:
Across 3,127 counties in the U.S., 620,872 estimated excess deaths occurred during the first year of the pandemic (March 2020 to February 2021), and 538,708 estimated excess deaths occurred during the second year (March 2021 to February 2022).
The sum of those two numbers representing the period from March 2020 to February 2022 is about 1.2 million. I don't have excess death figures up through the present, but this would seem to indicate that excess deaths exceeded covid deaths by at least a hundred thousand and that heart-related and cancer deaths were not hidden in the data.
Then you might understand why some people refused the vaccine, the risk-benefit ratio was not good enough for them to take the vaccine.
The risk of adverse reaction from the vaccine was .0005% and the risk of death even lower. The risk of contracting and dying from covid was .0033% since it first appeared here in early 2020, or about 70 times greater. The greatly increased risk for refusing the vaccine seems not to justify such a decision. The graph I posted earlier of vaccination rates versus death rates (from all causes) by state clearly indicates a benefit from the vaccine. Red states would appear to have suffered disproportionately higher death rates due to their lower vaccination rates.
But people like you want these people to lose their jobs and have them locked up because they will spread a contagious disease. Why not fire and lock up those that got the vaccine but still spread the disease?
What I actually believe is that members of a society all benefit when individuals behave in ways that don't adversely affect other people. Obviously, balancing conflicting concerns (e.g., illness/death versus making a living) is not simple.
--Percy
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