COVID vaccine works - we're saved!

Let me rewrite this for you in a way that makes it seem like you're trying to be informative and helpful:

Kleinman as rewritten by Percy:

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You list a number of factors impacting vaccine effectiveness, but another worth mentioning is pathogen diversity. Vaccines are typically targeted at a single variant, but pathogen populations are invariably more diverse than that.

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Though already mentioned in this thread, it's worth repeating that covid, like most pathogens, evolves new variants over time. The most well known are delta and omicron, and the vaccines have proven less effective with each new variant. There is push from some quarters for new vaccines that better target the newer variants. The current dominant variant in the US is XBB.1.5 (87.9% of new cases as of the beginning of the month). The influenza vaccine has to be reinvented every year because of new variants. Tuberculosis (which is bacterial, not viral) has evolved drug resistant variants.

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And as you also already mentioned, individual response to vaccines will vary. Some people will not produce the appropriate antibodies when given a particular antigen (vaccine) because they don't have the appropriate genetics.

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--Percy

I think it's more that people don't like being treated this way. It's sort of like the thing about flies and honey. Working with people is easier if you don't piss them off first.Your emphasis seems more on displaying as much obnoxiousness and conceitedness as possible than on communicating helpful information. The message you're actually trying to communicate seems to be, "I'm smarter and know more than any of you, so you all deserve the insults."Human nature being what it is, naturally this isn't working well for you.--Percy

Yes, of course, and it's been done. This data was presented here already just last month, but it's worth seeing again. It shows that higher vaccination rates correlate with lower mortality: The graph also indicates how each state voted in the 2020 presidential election. States that voted for Trump were more likely to have low vaccination rates and higher mortality.--Percy

Of course he's not claiming that. His statement about self-reporting lowering confidence was pretty clear. Purposefully misinterpreting what people say might not be the best strategy.In case you care, your quotes are backward indented, so you're doing unnecessary work, and it also makes your quotes harder to read. Older text should be more indented, not less. It's easier to just use "peek" to cut-n-paste nested quotes just as they are into your text.--Percy

I think misattributing irrational viewpoints to people who never expressed any such thing is obnoxious, and that your continual claims of being right are conceited and probably hide deep seated insecurities. I already presented that graph again. A great deal of data exists and many studies have been conducted, but the kinds of things you're saying seem to indicate an unawareness of it, or perhaps you're aware but believe they're unreliable - I don't know, you don't say.But a data driven discussion would be good, so as we develop a better idea of what data you'd like to see, we all as a group should have little trouble tracking it down.--Percy

One thing at a time. Do you accept that graph as an indication of the effectiveness of the covid vaccines? If so then we can move on. If not then what data about vaccine effectiveness would you like to see?--Percy

Purposefully misinterpreting what people say isn't a good strategy. If this is something you'd like to say then say it, but there's little point in claiming I said it or meant anything like it because it's obvious I didn't. You're starting to sound like a conspiracy enthusiast.--Percy

One example is Message 719 where you say evolutionary forces defeat the effectiveness of vaccines: Moving on: I think everyone here has picked up the strong impression that you don't believe the covid vaccines were very effective. If that's not the case then could you make your position clear? After that we can move on to masking. Really? "No I'm not, you are?" Geez.--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. Again, if you're unsatisfied with the answers already provided in this thread then tell us what you believe the correct answers are. We can't help it if you're a font of unsupported self-serving accusations. 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.
​ 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. 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. 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.--Percy

I'm not aware of any experts saying this. You'll have to tell me who you mean and what they said. Drug resistance and how it develops seems well understood by just about everyone. It's why we're advised to complete a medication regimen (although this advice seems to be undergoing some reconsideration). You'll have to tell me who you're talking about and what they're saying that leads you to believe they don't understand drug resistance.--Percy

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. Yes, this was already covered in recent posts. This, too, has already been said here. You invented what you're mocking. Why not just discuss the topic and dispense with the sideshow? With over a million deaths in this country alone, the threat was apparently very real. Why do you ask? When covid restrictions were first being instituted there was no vaccine. We already had annual vaccines for influenza. I think health agencies around the world tried to balance risk and benefit. 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:

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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.

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There's more detail if you follow the link. 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:

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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.

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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. 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:

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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).

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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. 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. 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

I think it's very unfortunate whenever any public official provides incorrect information, especially about something as serious as covid, and that they should correct the misinformation as quickly and accurately as possible, but you referred to "your so-called experts." If you actually did mean experts then you'll have to tell me who you mean and what they said. For the benefit of those reading we should make clear that this is about antibiotics, not vaccines, and the reality is that the advice for decades has been to take the full regimen because it reduces the likelihood of drug resistance developing. But recent research has yielded some indications that this might not always be the case. This is an issue that has begun to receive some attention within the medical community. Here's the opening few paragraphs from a helpful article from a few years ago, Taking antibiotics for full 7 to 14 days can actually harm you:

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A growing body of research finds that telling patients to finish a full course of antibiotics even if they’re already feeling better not only fails to prevent drug-resistant “superbugs” from forming, but also might make those pathogens stronger.

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The latest evidence comes from a study published this week in the journal BMJ by a group of British scientists. That team joins an expanding chorus of experts who said there’s no scientific support for the conventional wisdom, first adopted in the mid-1940s, that long courses of antibiotics help prevent bacteria from developing immunity to many or most of the weapons in the antibiotic arsenal.

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In reality, these researchers said, the longer antibiotics are used, the more collateral damage is done to the body’s community of helpful bacteria — and that in turn gives resistant strains of bacteria, always present in the human body in small numbers, room to flourish and share their defenses with other pathogens, gradually leading to the superbug strains now estimated to kill 23,000 Americans per year and sicken more than 2 million.

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The article also offers many qualifications, this example for just one:

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“Some patients are sent home from the hospital on oral or (intravenous) antibiotics and need to work closely with their physician. They should not stop antibiotics unless they are directed to,” Roth said.

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But this article is about bacteria evolving resistance to antibiotics. Covid is a virus, and viruses evolve resistance (evasive tactics might be a better term) not to vaccines but to our own immune systems. Vaccines only prepare our immune systems to mount an effective response to a particular viral invader.But I was originally responding to this: I think the experts already understand a great deal about drug resistance. You'll have to tell me which experts you're talking about and what they're saying that leads you to believe they don't understand drug resistance.--Percy

The quote you provided in Message 811 from Physical distancing, face masks, and eye protection to prevent person-to-person transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis only suggests further study and makes no mention of mask mandates causing increased covid spread. Here's the portion you quoted:

Kleinman quoting from The Lancet:

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Interpretation The findings of this systematic review and meta-analysis support physical distancing of 1 m or more and provide quantitative estimates for models and contact tracing to inform policy. Optimum use of face masks, respirators, and eye protection in public and health-care settings should be informed by these findings and contextual factors. Robust randomised trials are needed to better inform the evidence for these interventions, but this systematic appraisal of currently best available evidence might inform interim guidance.

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See, nothing about mask mandates causing increased covid spread. It does endorse mask wearing, however:

The Lancet:

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Face mask use could result in a large reduction in risk of infection (n=2647; aOR 0·15, 95% CI 0·07 to 0·34, RD −14·3%, −15·9 to −10·7; low certainty), with stronger associations with N95 or similar respirators compared with disposable surgical masks or similar (eg, reusable 12–16-layer cotton masks; pinteraction=0·090; posterior probability >95%, low certainty).

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Here's another article about mask effectiveness: Yes, masks reduce the risk of spreading COVID, despite a review saying they don’t. Here's a short excerpt reflecting their conclusions:

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There is strong and consistent evidence for the effectiveness of masks and (even more so) respirators in protecting against respiratory infections. Masks are an important protection against serious infections.

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--Percy

If you think that Joe Biden was informed of this by experts then you'll have to tell me which experts and what they said. As I said, an active discussion on this is beginning to develop within the medical community. My sense is that they're moving in the direction of tailoring the advice for each situation rather than using a "one size fits all" approach.--Percy

Sorry, rereading the excerpts didn't change my interpretation of what they're saying. If you think they say something different than what they seem to be saying then you'll have to explain.--Percy