The Sports And COVID Vaccine Thread

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The declining efficacy over time just means booster shots will likely be required (which is expected and not a big deal). The problem is, we have/had the opportunity to clamp down on Delta NOW in the US (with most people having been vaccinated in the last 3-4 months and free vaccines available to everyone over 12). It's those NOT getting vaccinated that are causing the continued spread and increase in cases! The longer everyone waits to get vaccinated, the longer it will take to get to a herd immunity situation. At this rate, it will likely be after the booster shots are starting to to out. With thousands more needlessly dead and untold millions suffering hospitalization, long COVID, and death.
In the study I looked at concerning Isreal who was at forefront of aggressively getting their population vaccinated they came to a point where despite their aggressive pushing they couldn't make further inroads. The article had several hypothesis on reason why. This resistance isn't just a US one but worldwide although it seems more political here.

I am afraid that herd immunity is a pipe dream. But that just doesn't mean we don’t encourage immunization. I mentioned in a earlier post, if the efficacy is actually decreasing I would think the long term risks should also be mitigated over time. That is an argument that is used often for not taking the vaccine. If it becomes something like the flu shot, you identify those who shouldn't get the shot and encourage the rest. However with the distrust of most institutions now, the more authoritian in nature they become in forcing the shots the opposition will become entrenched all the more.
 

Warhawk

The cake is a lie.
Staff member
In the study I looked at concerning Isreal who was at forefront of aggressively getting their population vaccinated they came to a point where despite their aggressive pushing they couldn't make further inroads. The article had several hypothesis on reason why. This resistance isn't just a US one but worldwide although it seems more political here.

I am afraid that herd immunity is a pipe dream. But that just doesn't mean we don’t encourage immunization. I mentioned in a earlier post, if the efficacy is actually decreasing I would think the long term risks should also be mitigated over time. That is an argument that is used often for not taking the vaccine. If it becomes something like the flu shot, you identify those who shouldn't get the shot and encourage the rest. However with the distrust of most institutions now, the more authoritian in nature they become in forcing the shots the opposition will become entrenched all the more.
You have some good points here. But herd immunity is definitely achievable if folks would just go get the shot. Does the efficacy decline over time? Apparently. But if we got, say, 85% or more vaccinated in the next few months it becomes more of a "nuisance" illness instead of a pandemic and buys more time for newer vaccines, etc., which may indeed be sterilizing. More people are fully employed, less hospital staff burnout and illness, fewer people with long COVID, and heck, more people NOT DEAD.

My main frustration is the fact that the "distrust" was a deliberate political play that fostered/encouraged such feeling and is costing untold lives by people who intentionally choose a culture of ignorance. Were mistakes made on all sides? Yes. But that doesn't include willful ignorance and misinformation that kills both the guilty and the innocents that happened to interact with them and catch the virus.
 
I can't "like" that post but jeeeeez.
I think that tweet can be used to clarify both sides without demonizing either. If you are in the 40% of that team who hasn't been vaccinated for whatever reason, you could view that tweet as selfish and self-centered. Because of his fears and concerns your fears and concerns should be ignored/trampled on. On the flip side, if you are in the majority that are fully vaccinated and wanting to do whatever to get over this, it would be easy to be frustrated and/or angry with those who are refusing. Stopping progress on irradicating this. Is either right or is either wrong? Probably depends on what group you are in to which is which. I don’t think either is wrong and neither is right.
 
I think that tweet can be used to clarify both sides without demonizing either. If you are in the 40% of that team who hasn't been vaccinated for whatever reason, you could view that tweet as selfish and self-centered. Because of his fears and concerns your fears and concerns should be ignored/trampled on. On the flip side, if you are in the majority that are fully vaccinated and wanting to do whatever to get over this, it would be easy to be frustrated and/or angry with those who are refusing. Stopping progress on irradicating this. Is either right or is either wrong? Probably depends on what group you are in to which is which. I don’t think either is wrong and neither is right.
Yep people just don't understand that we have gray areas and it's why we all don't agree on everything.

CDC admitted today that the vaccine is not doing a good enough job of keeping people from getting the virus and they want everyone to mask up. Cases have gone up the last couple weeks but the deaths have basically stayed around the average we've had for over a month now. I'm curious to see if the death rate spikes in the next couple weeks or not. I have a feeling it won't spike the way the cases have been because the majority of the elderly and people at risk are vaccinated. If not, someone can quote this and tell me this didn't age well but I'm going to bet that these sanctions are just an authoritative play and we're going to have to deal with this thing never ending until people finally push back and say enough.
 
Yep people just don't understand that we have gray areas and it's why we all don't agree on everything.
......
Gray areas. That is a good way to put it.

In the posts that were justifiably deleted there was a discussion between "good" and "bad" sources of information. A poster gave a list that he felt was "good" that just happened to mostly lean a particular way and a list of "bad" that with one notable exception that just happened to mostly lean the other. So much for critical thinking.

While I didn't have a problem with the ones labeled "bad," the criticism was fair. I did have a problem with the ones labeled "good," simply because I don't see a difference. The criticism of the ones also applies to the other. Both groupings tend to paint sharp black and white rather than describe the various shades of gray that they actually are.

I wish we could focus more on the gray where we have common ground rather than the sharp contrasts of the extremes.
 
We had never been released not to wear a mask despite the mask mandate being lifted but it was allowed to be the cloth ones. We are now back to medical grade masks at work. Fun times. Helping make the case for those advocating for a more forceful "encouragement" for vaccination. Depending on the demographics of those infected, might adjust my stance. I haven't really asked how many were vaccinated or not.
 
This is a small sample size and from Kentucky. Having a fair number of break through cases. Most of the break through cases are not severe cases in terms of symptoms.

The catch-22 is with the symptoms being on the milder side, easy to dismiss thinking it is sinus, cold or such not Covid especially since vaccinated. The problem being while one might be themselves protected enough where the impact is mitigated those (unvaccinated) who are subsequently infected by them are offered none of those same protections. It is still a potentially deadly disease.

Just food for thought.
 

Warhawk

The cake is a lie.
Staff member
It's the smart move. We have to get folks vaccinated to get past this and try to get back to "normal" soon.

COVID-19: California requires proof of vaccination, negative test for indoor events larger than 1K people (kcra.com)
Are you aware the vaccines are showing 16% efficacy against symptomatic infection for those that were vaccinated in January ? This is according to data from the Health Ministry of Israel. The vaccine is extremely poor at containing spread especially as months go on from 2nd dose.

Herd immunity is impossible. What's the logic of requiring vaccination OR a negative covid test when the vaccine is so awful at preventing infection and spread ?

I believe 80-90% of vulnerable in the US have already been vaccinated. What else do we want.
 
Are you aware the vaccines are showing 16% efficacy against symptomatic infection for those that were vaccinated in January ? This is according to data from the Health Ministry of Israel. The vaccine is extremely poor at containing spread especially as months go on from 2nd dose.

Herd immunity is impossible. What's the logic of requiring vaccination OR a negative covid test when the vaccine is so awful at preventing infection and spread ?

I believe 80-90% of vulnerable in the US have already been vaccinated. What else do we want.
With how often the data changes, it's almost as if things are being rushed without being tested and studied correctly.
 

Warhawk

The cake is a lie.
Staff member
Are you aware the vaccines are showing 16% efficacy against symptomatic infection for those that were vaccinated in January ? This is according to data from the Health Ministry of Israel. The vaccine is extremely poor at containing spread especially as months go on from 2nd dose.

Herd immunity is impossible. What's the logic of requiring vaccination OR a negative covid test when the vaccine is so awful at preventing infection and spread ?

I believe 80-90% of vulnerable in the US have already been vaccinated. What else do we want.
Moderna's efficacy rate against Delta variant symptomatic infection is somewhere around 76%, according to a recent study. And as that number drops with time, we have booster shots. You know, like other vaccines sometimes require as well?

And vaccination largely prevents hospitalizations and deaths even from those with breakthrough cases. It's amazing the total lack of respect and care for people's health and lives. As if infection rate is the only thing that matters (and vaccines still help prevent infection). Overflowing ICU beds matter. Medical professional burnout matters. Grandma and grandpa's lives matter. Supply chains matter. Hospital bills matter. Employment matters.

Having an asymptomatic case or mild symptoms (>90% of hospitalizations and deaths are in the unvaccinated) is much more conductive to working/quarantining at home and keeping your job than going into the hospital for weeks and being strapped to a ventilator. People without good health insurance face incredible hospital bills, especially when they are unnecessarily taking up an ICU bed that could be used for a cancer patient, or accident victim, or whatever. People in ICU hospital beds also find it harder to stay employed and keep a roof over their heads.

Long COVID (shortness of breath, brain fog, fatigue, and numerous other symptoms that can extend for 6 months or more) is still a largely unknown threat but likely affects on the order of 1/4 of COVID sufferers (the numbers vary, but this is one I've seen frequently). Anything we can do to help prevent those cases from happening should be done as well.

In the USA about 50% of people have been fully vaccinated and about 10% more have had one dose. That's nowhere near enough.
 
Moderna's efficacy rate against Delta variant symptomatic infection is somewhere around 76%, according to a recent study. And as that number drops with time, we have booster shots. You know, like other vaccines sometimes require as well?

And vaccination largely prevents hospitalizations and deaths even from those with breakthrough cases. It's amazing the total lack of respect and care for people's health and lives. As if infection rate is the only thing that matters (and vaccines still help prevent infection). Overflowing ICU beds matter. Medical professional burnout matters. Grandma and grandpa's lives matter. Supply chains matter. Hospital bills matter. Employment matters.

Having an asymptomatic case or mild symptoms (>90% of hospitalizations and deaths are in the unvaccinated) is much more conductive to working/quarantining at home and keeping your job than going into the hospital for weeks and being strapped to a ventilator. People without good health insurance face incredible hospital bills, especially when they are unnecessarily taking up an ICU bed that could be used for a cancer patient, or accident victim, or whatever. People in ICU hospital beds also find it harder to stay employed and keep a roof over their heads.

Long COVID (shortness of breath, brain fog, fatigue, and numerous other symptoms that can extend for 6 months or more) is still a largely unknown threat but likely affects on the order of 1/4 of COVID sufferers (the numbers vary, but this is one I've seen frequently). Anything we can do to help prevent those cases from happening should be done as well.

In the USA about 50% of people have been fully vaccinated and about 10% more have had one dose. That's nowhere near enough.
Lack of respect for people's health and lives? If you're worried about your health, then get vaccinated. That's all you have to do and you're protected. Why worry about what other people are doing? The unvaccinated aren't asking for your help here.

I don't understand this sudden micromanaging of people's lives. How about we force everyone to stop drinking soda and eating hamburgers? Lets make cigarettes and alcohol illegal. Maybe we should ban cars so there's no car accidents? We would be the safest if we all just stayed inside our homes for the rest of our lives. I mean where does the line get drawn? What if a vaccinated person gets covid and can't get an ICU bed because some guy that eats 8000 calories a day is taking up that bed? What if the bed is taken up by a person who decided to do 100 in their car and crashed? Are these scenarios to be micromanaged as well?

Really getting tired of people vilifying others because of all the propaganda out there. You're going to spread it whether you have the vaccine or not and it's going to mutate no matter how many people are vaccinated.
 

Warhawk

The cake is a lie.
Staff member
Lack of respect for people's health and lives? If you're worried about your health, then get vaccinated. That's all you have to do and you're protected. Why worry about what other people are doing? The unvaccinated aren't asking for your help here.

I don't understand this sudden micromanaging of people's lives. How about we force everyone to stop drinking soda and eating hamburgers? Lets make cigarettes and alcohol illegal. Maybe we should ban cars so there's no car accidents? We would be the safest if we all just stayed inside our homes for the rest of our lives. I mean where does the line get drawn? What if a vaccinated person gets covid and can't get an ICU bed because some guy that eats 8000 calories a day is taking up that bed? What if the bed is taken up by a person who decided to do 100 in their car and crashed? Are these scenarios to be micromanaged as well?

Really getting tired of people vilifying others because of all the propaganda out there. You're going to spread it whether you have the vaccine or not and it's going to mutate no matter how many people are vaccinated.
Because you eating burgers and drinking soda does not cause other people around you to have to go to the ICU or the morgue (like over 600,000 Americans have already) through no fault of their own. I mean, I thought it was pretty flipping obvious. And yes, those that can't (not won't, can't) be vaccinated truly are looking to those of us who can to do so. It's the only protection THEY have - slowing the spread and giving everyone time to find more solutions. But vaccinations are the solution we have right now that works.

There are people who truly cannot be vaccinated due to medical issues. These are few and far between, but they exist. Also, in the US, the vaccines have not been approved for children under 12, so they can't get vaccinated either. The reason we all get vaccinated is not just to protect ourselves, but to protect everyone else as well. If you are selfish and don't care about others, I can see how this falls on deaf ears. But when you go to the store, that person next to you might be undergoing medical procedures that prevent them from being vaccinated. That kid in front of you can't get vaccinated because of their age. They are all depending on the rest of us to do what we can to help. It's the reason the polio vaccine was administered to kids in schools even before it was proven to work - the protection of everyone requires sacrifices from everyone as well.

How U.S. schools proved Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine was safe (fastcompany.com)

At this point about 160 million adults in the US are fully vaccinated and they are proven safe and effective.

The numbers are somewhere around 90-99% of hospitalizations and deaths (depending on the location and the source of data) are in the unvaccinated. Most lean towards at least 95%. That means probably 90% or more of the current COVID ICU hospitalizations (and forthcoming/resulting deaths) are completely avoidable with a free, safe vaccination. We are killing our population, overwhelming our hospitals, and causing ongoing economic harm because maybe 1/3 of our population refuses to do what every generation before us has - understood that vaccinations protect everyone. It is our responsibility to do so.

The argument you are making is like, well, drinking and driving. If you drink and drive and crash and get killed in the accident, no biggie, right? You say - Why do I care what you did? The answer is - I'm not worried about you getting killed. I'm worried about the family of 3 you take out when you run the red light because you are drunk and total their car. Get it now? Do you understand the societal responsibility we all have to watch out for each other?

This is essentially turning into a pandemic of the unvaccinated (and those that refuse to mask up, wash your hands, and social distance; pretty much the same people I would guess). And it is almost completely preventable. But it is still dragging us down, requiring more masking mandates, more classrooms/schools to be closed or shift to remote learning, more ICUs to be filled, more medical professionals to get sick or leave the profession, more economic hardship, and more restrictions on what activities can and cannot be performed. It's stupid and avoidable. But we have to deal with it.
 

Warhawk

The cake is a lie.
Staff member
You're going to spread it whether you have the vaccine or not and it's going to mutate no matter how many people are vaccinated.
Actually, I wanted to reply to this as well.

This is not true.

Vaccinations still provide some protection against infection, especially when you have been recently vaccinated (vaccine effectiveness appears to wane a bit with time; but this is still being studied) or after a booster, which is becoming available in the US after 8 months from your last vaccination shot. This slows the rate of spread and prevents at least some from becoming infected. The more that get the vaccine, the more people won't get it and spread it. And the ones that still get it have fewer chances to infect others because they are vaccinated as well.

Variants are caused by changes over time (mutations) with significant enough replications. That's another reason why everyone is telling you to get vaccinated ASAP - the sooner we slow the spread the fewer variants we are going to ultimately get. It's simple math, but it keeps getting ignored. We are trying to slow the spread and eliminate infection as much as possible. THIS ALSO HELPS PREVENT VARIANTS FROM ARISING TO BEGIN WITH, AS FEWER REPLICATIONS MEANS FEWER CHANCES FOR VIABLE MUTATIONS. I mean, is that so difficult to understand???

I mean, here - look it up.

The effects of virus variants on COVID-19 vaccines (who.int)

While we are learning more,we need to do everything possible to stop the spread of the virus in order to prevent mutations that may reduce the efficacy of existing vaccines. In addition, manufacturers and the programmes using the vaccines may have to adjust to the evolution of the COVID-19 virus: for example, vaccines may need to incorporate more than one strain when in development, booster shots may be required, and other vaccine changes may be needed.
And here:

'A Few Mutations Away': The Threat of a Vaccine-Proof Variant (webmd.com)

"For the amount of virus circulating in this country right now largely among unvaccinated people, the largest concern that we in public health and science are worried about is that the virus…[becomes] a very transmissible virus that has the potential to evade our vaccines in terms of how it protects us from severe disease and death," Walensky told reporters on Tuesday.

A new, more elusive variant could be "just a few mutations away," she said.

"We've gone through a few mutations already that have been named, and each one of them gets a little more transmissible," he says. "That's normal, natural selection and what you would expect to happen as viruses mutate from one strain to another."

He says that the SARS-CoV-2 has evolved largely as expected, at least so far. "The potential for this virus to mutate has been something that has been a concern from early on."

"The viral evolution is a bit like a ticking clock. The more we allow infections to occur, the more likely changes will occur. When we have lots of people infected, we give more chances to the virus to diversify and then adapt to selective pressures," says Ray, vice-chair of medicine for data integrity and analytics and professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.

"The problem is if the virus changes in such a way that the spike protein — which the antibodies from the vaccine are directed against — are no longer effective at binding and destroying the virus, and the virus escapes immune surveillance," Nelson says.

If this occurs, he says, "we will have an ineffective vaccine, essentially. And we'll be back to where we were last March with a brand-new disease."
 
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I'm sorry but you're reading like a mainstream media propaganda mouth piece. The efficacy of the vaccine is not good enough to stop the spread or mutations so they had to vilify the unvaccinated because they always have to create some sort of enemy. Always trying to dehumanize a certain part of the population, and for what? There is no eradicating this thing. The same way there is no eradicating the flu. Just get vaccinated and be happy that you more than likely aren't going to wind up in the hospital. If someone else does that is unvaccinated, then that's on them. Worried about grandma and grandpa? Well what the hell are they doing out in public without an N95? It's called personal responsibility. The world isn't going to bend over backwards to put a needle in their arm that they don't trust to help out people they don't even know. Especially when the information changes on a weekly basis.

This virus is always going to be here in some sort of mutated form. The efficacy of the vaccine keeps going down by the day. Post a "study" today and it's completely wrong and out of date two weeks from now. Boosters will never eradicate this thing. This virus is much much easier to contract than polio, where you have to get an infected person's feces in your mouth. It's not even close to being as similar as covid is in any way, shape or form.

You said it yourself that people without health insurance are facing incredible bills and taking up ICU beds from people that need it. Well so are a lot of people who have no respect for their own bodies. Your hard line is drawn because you've been made to believe that unvaccinated should be vilified. Maybe someone else's hard line is drawn at something you do that they don't like? We all do things that put other people at danger. Ever gone out in public with a cold? You could have caused an elderly person to catch pneumonia and die. Ever go above the speed limit or tail gate someone? You could have gotten someone killed as well.

You sound like a good person who respects and cares about others and I respect that but you also need to respect people's personal freedoms and health choices. We may not think alike but you need to remember that if we sat next to each other at a Kings game, my unvaccinated self would be much less of a danger to you than if you sat in a section full of vaccinated people. Remember, the unvaccinated have to get tested to attend the game and the vaccinated don't. Which means you are more at risk of catching covid from the vaccinated than the unvaccinated because the virus is being transmitted by vaccinated people at a high rate and these people could be asympomatic or just have the sniffles and still be sitting right next to you. There is no logic to this other than coercion because the science and the policy don't match up.
 

Warhawk

The cake is a lie.
Staff member
Never mind. Got it. It's everyone else's responsibility to watch out for you, as you are too wrapped up in your "freedoms" to have any responsibility for how your actions may impact the community at large. :rolleyes:

It doesn't matter what all the medical professionals say, it doesn't matter what infections disease experts want you to do, it doesn't matter how your actions impact those around you that aren't as fortunate or are too young to get the shots, all that matters is that you get to do what you want.

Rights come with limitations and responsibilities. You know, it's implied right there in the preamble to the Constitution of the US:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Oh, by the way, the Supreme Court agrees:

Can COVID-19 Vaccines Be Mandatory in the U.S. and Who Decides? - COVID-19 - Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (jhsph.edu)

The authority for the state being able to compel vaccination—the affirmation of that authority—goes all the way back to a U.S. Supreme Court case in 1905 called Jacobson v. Massachusetts. That case arose in the midst of an outbreak of smallpox in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1902. Cambridge introduced an ordinance requiring all adults be vaccinated or revaccinated against smallpox.

In that case, the Supreme Court said that states have under their police powers, which is under the Constitution, the authority to enact reasonable regulations as necessary to protect public health, public safety, and the common good. Vaccination mandates constitute exactly that kind of permissible state action to protect the public’s health.

In response to the argument about this individual liberty interest, the court said that sometimes individual interests might have to yield to state laws that endeavour to protect the health of everybody—the “common good.” The court said: “The rights of the individual may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected to such restraint to be enforced by reasonable regulations as the safety of the general public may demand.”
Oh, and anyone that actually uses the phrase "mainstream media" as a derogatory phrase is indicating they don't independently verify various sources of information for reliability and facts, they just go to the same few outlying media sources to validate their own beliefs.
 
There's a major problem when comparing the covid vaccine with the vaccines such as Polio or small pox. The obvious one being how much more deadly the latter one's are. Covid is primarily dangerous to those who are elderly and already sick in some way. Around 70% of all deaths attributed to covid in the US, they had at least 2 other things wrong with them. Also, the overwhelming majority were over the age of 55. If you are young and healthy, you have relatively little to fear. But the other key is how quickly the vaccine came about. It isn't just faster than normal, it would be like someone running a 100 meters race & breaking the WR by 5 seconds. Here is a chart to illustrate what I mean.
FB_IMG_1628883011043.jpg
 

Warhawk

The cake is a lie.
Staff member
Maybe stop listening to whatever media you are dialed into and start listening to the medical professionals and infectious disease experts, all of which are recommending immediate vaccination and have been once it was available? Just a thought....

But the other key is how quickly the vaccine came about. It isn't just faster than normal, it would be like someone running a 100 meters race & breaking the WR by 5 seconds. Here is a chart to illustrate what I mean.
I'm ignoring the nonsense about people with other things wrong with them, as they would still be alive if it wasn't for COVID. That's kind of the point of this whole thread. It wouldn't be here if people weren't dying from it, and in large numbers.

The above chart is also very misleading (intentionally so, as you well know), as the technologies used for developing the vaccine had been in development for years and quickly adapted to this challenge. It's another attempt to draw false conclusions based on limited data. They didn't start from scratch, as you are implying. They've been working with coronaviruses for over a decade, so they know the basic functions and makeup of these viruses. Rapid advancements in computer processing and genome sequencing means that what previously took years to decipher the genome can now be done in hours (and it was something that wasn't possible at all until recently). It means waiting for results is no longer the delay it was. And regulators prioritized the vaccines in order to speed authorization. The science is sound and the trials and safety tests were all performed.

You would know all this with a little reading. Here's an easy primer on the topic, for instance:

How COVID-19 vaccines were made so quickly without cutting corners | Science News

It's like comparing dial up to broadband or iPhones to the old flip phones from the early 2000's. Once the technology is available, implementing it creates all kinds of advances that weren't previously feasible. You obviously don't compare them with a straight face and say that you can't trust it now because it is so much better than what you had before. :rolleyes:

Edit: some info from the article linked above (as I know many won't actually click on the link to read the article and be informed):

For some perspective, researchers first deciphered, or sequenced, the entire human genome over a span of almost 13 years, starting in 1990 and wrapping up in 2003 (SN: 1/17/03). Because of advances in computers, the same task now can take only hours.

Most crucially, researchers now had the genetic instructions for making the spike proteins that the virus uses to break into cells — a key ingredient for making the vaccines. Jutting out from the virus’ surface, these spike proteins make an easy target for the immune system to recognize. Researchers knew to zero in on those proteins thanks to decades of work studying coronaviruses, including two that have caused other outbreaks of human diseases — SARS and MERS. That work also identified the best form of the protein to use: a stable form just before the virus fuses with a cell it’s about to infect.
Those instructions could then be fed directly into pre-made delivery vehicles that carry the genetic code to cells to induce an immune response. Scientists had already built these rapid, genetically based templates largely because of the ongoing battle against HIV, says Tom Denny, Chief Operating Officer of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute in Durham, N.C.

Denny calls it “plug-and-play” vaccine manufacturing. Decades of trying to attack HIV has created a library of safe weapons to use quickly against any new would-be viral marauders. “We got lucky,” Denny says, that the developed platforms have worked so well for this new deadly virus.

The mRNA for the coronavirus’ spike proteins gets packaged inside tiny bubbles of fat called lipid nanoparticles. These tiny fat bubbles have been around for decades and safely used for dozens of other drugs, some approved, others still in the pipeline. So all that needed to be changed to target SARS-CoV-2 were the directions nestled inside.
After the first syringefuls of prospective COVID-19 vaccine emerged from the “plug-and-play” mRNA labs, years were removed from the timeline by cutting out the long stretches of pure waiting that are built into most human testing. Driven by the urgency of the pandemic, nearly half a million people in America alone had offered up their deltoids for the cause through the COVID-19 Prevention Network in a matter of months, in many cases even before the first public inklings of success, according to the American Medical Association.

For instance, it took just under 16 weeks to recruit and enroll more than 43,000 volunteers for the final phases of testing Pfizer’s vaccine. When volunteer recruitment began for clinical trials of the rabies mRNA vaccine in 2013, it took 813 days to get 101 participants enrolled. Based on this comparison, that’s roughly 730 days — nearly two years — saved in recruiting alone.
There was also waiting time recouped from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s review process. Typically, it takes the FDA 10 months to review a new drug.

However, with the COVID-19 death toll rising, the FDA rushed all coronavirus vaccines to the front of the review lines. The Pfizer vaccine got reviewed and authorized for emergency use only 21 days after submission and the Moderna vaccine in just 19 days (SN: 12/11/20; SN: 12/18/20). Compared with a more typical 10-month wait time, that’s about another 283 days saved.

In total, that’s 1,437 days, or 3.9 years, cut off the normal timeline for a new vaccine.
In a final jolt of speed, some pharmaceutical companies, bolstered by big vaccine contracts and research cash from the U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed, were also churning out doses during clinical trials in the hopes that the vaccines would work. Once the companies had emergency use authorization in hand, they were ready to ship doses immediately.

Decades of previous work combined with a fast-moving virus, a public willingness to help and elimination of wait times drove the rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines. No safety steps were skipped, says Stanley Plotkin, emeritus professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania, who is perhaps best known for his work developing the rubella vaccine.
The rapid creation of the COVID-19 vaccines, Plotkin says, are “a sea change in how to develop vaccines.” They are an example of what scientists can do when unfettered from waiting.
 
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I don't know what to tell you other than just use common sense. The vaccine does not protect you from getting the virus at a very high rate and if we all got vaccinated tomorrow, people would still be passing the virus around and it would still mutate.

Don't forget about all the lies the media and the government have told you since this whole thing began. What we know now vs. what we knew a year ago is like night and day...which tells you these professionals don't know a whole lot about this virus. Just because a polio vaccine worked doesn't mean this vaccine will work. It's all common sense. Why wouldn't the government have us all wearing N95 masks if they really cared about us not spreading the virus? Why would they still allow these inefficient paper masks? Don't forget, Fauci lied to the world about masks in the beginning and admitted it. This whole thing has defied common sense since it began. At this point it's about control and money while presenting you with the illusion that it's about humanitarian efforts.

Common sense trumps anything the media tells you. If you want to fully protect not only yourself but the people you don't know that you care about, then you should be wearing an N95 anywhere you go because there is enough evidence right now that you are still at a good risk of contracting the virus even though you're vaccinated. In some ways you could potentially be more deadly to someone who isn't vaccinated because you could be carrying the virus and you would have a much higher percentage of being asymptomatic or just have a little bit of the sniffles and think it's nothing.
This post is one big pile of :rolleyes:.

"Common sense" is not measurable in any way that could possibly be useful during a global pandemic. If I trip on a loose floorboard in my house, common sense dictates that I should either nail it down tighter or choose a walking path that circumvents the loose floorboard so I do not trip over it in the future. I require no outside source or expert opinion to arrive at that conclusion, and it would represent a colossal failure of my common sense if I persisted in tripping over the loose floorboard.

COVID-19 is not a loose floorboard. And "common sense" is not a catch-all that can assist in protecting an organized society during a global pandemic. Expert opinion is vital in crafting a societal response to the threat that COVID-19 poses. More to the point, it would be problematic if what we knew today bore any resemblance to what we knew a year ago. This is the scientific method at work. It's startling to me that your common sense has failed to recognize that science is always subject to the best information available in a given moment. As new information is acquired, one must make adjustments to one's approach. What may have been sensible based on the information available in the spring of 2020 will not necessarily be sensible based on the information available in the summer of 2021. This is not politics. This is not a game of "Gotcha!" It's not flip-flopping. It's a reevaluation of the facts and the data on the ground to determine the most sensible and safe path forward.

You sound increasingly like a partisan on this issue, and not someone who has any interest in approaching the facts as they are. I'd guess that you're more than a little influenced by "the media" yourself, as your talking points seem as if they're peeled directly from dozens of other bad faith arguments currently being propagated by untrustworthy news sources. By the way, do you even have any idea what you mean when you say "the media"? I often wonder if people grasp how silly it is when they wield that particular cudgel. It just smacks of a failure to think critically in concrete terms about an issue at hand, instead relying on a boogeyman they'll happily fill with straw.

"The media" is not some monolithic entity that's out to get you. When my mother says she "saw it on the Internet," she is showing her age a little bit. She doesn't exactly have a strong grasp of the vernacular related to online engagement. The internet is, of course, far too vast a network to cite as a singular source. She might as well say "I saw it on planet Earth." What she probably means is that she saw it on Facebook, which is itself just a vast network where information is shared from a wide variety of other sources. When you say "the media," you sound rather like my mother. It's too big of a target and too non-specific to be taken seriously. The truth is that there are plenty of reliable media sources to seek information from during a global pandemic that offer current information rooted in the best available scientific data in a given moment.

If your sources of information are narrow and untrustworthy, then yes, "the media" won't be particularly helpful to you in discerning misinformation from fact, or in recognizing the sensibility of mass vaccination during a global pandemic. But COVID-19 doesn't particularly care if an individual watches [conservative television network X] or reads [liberal newspaper Y] or listens to [ideologically-disorganized podcaster Z]. It's just going to continue to bounce from host to host until we do something to choke off its supply of available bodies.

For the record, no epidemiologist has ever said that the COVID-19 vaccines would prevent individuals from contracting COVID-19. That's not how vaccines work, and your rather generic talking points betray a lack of education in very simple immunology. Vaccines are an instruction manual for an individual's immune system. They teach an individual's antibodies how to defend the human body against the incursion of a particular infectious disease. They can aid in the suppression of or outright elimination of symptoms, but they don't protect from contraction. They're not a shield or a force-field. A well-developed vaccine is a general that effectively trains and musters its troops to victory.

This is the kind of sh*t you can read on the posters in your doctor's office when you get your flu shot. The information is readily available and easily explained to those who are willing to listen. A child can comprehend it. And I'm perpetually astounded by the ability of the American mind to look at representative data and conclude that it's wrong, that they know the real truth because of their common sense or their intuition or their [extremely limited] experience or their partisan leaning or their pet conspiracy theory of the week.

Ultimately, what you failed to address that @Warhawk took pains to explain on multiple occasions is that the vaccines are doing a remarkable job at reducing the hospitalization rates and death rates amongst the vaccinated. This was always the goal. If enough are vaccinated, our healthcare system can stabilize so that hospitals have beds to offer to non-COVID patients in need, and our economy can stabilize as more go back to work, as events stop being cancelled, as masks are no longer required. Mass vaccination won't eliminate COVID-19 altogether, but it can give this highly transmissible and dangerous virus fewer avenues for replication and mutation.

One doesn't have to be a scientist to understand the math. The duration and severity of the disease is orders of magnitude higher in the unvaccinated than in the vaccinated. Its symptoms make it easier to spread. Reduce the duration of the disease and reduce the severity of its symptoms, and you give the virus fewer opportunities to replicate and mutate. A vaccinated asymptomatic carrier of COVID-19 wearing a mask of any kind is going to be far less likely to spread the disease than an unvaccinated carrier coughing without a mask in the elevator with their coworkers on the way up to the 13th floor of their office building.

Here's a simple analogy. The Kings had a historically awful defense last season. Should the front office and coaching staff abandon all hope of defensive improvement simply because the team's bad defensive habits often allow opposing teams to march to the rim with impunity? Or should they make an effort to bolster the team's defense to prevent penetration with greater frequency, even though there will be opposing players who still manage to "break through" that defense? The answer should be obvious. You don't give up on mass vaccination just because of the risk of break through infection. You do the math. You follow the data. You reduce the spread of the disease wherever you can. Vaccination is the single most effective tool for achieving that task. The more who get vaccinated, the closer we are to returning to some semblance of normal.

Honestly, I have yet to hear a single good faith argument against mass vaccination that was worth listening to. The bad faith arguments are hardly worth responding to anymore. It's all just slapdash justification for narcissism masquerading as ideological reasoning. It would be infinitely more productive if the vast majority of those who are refusing vaccination simply said, "I'm selfish and I don't particularly care about the health and safety of those around me."
 
I addressed it plenty. Vaccines are doing a pretty good job of keeping people from dying and being hospitalized. If you don't want either of those two things to happen, then get vaccinated and go on living your life. If another person doesn't trust the vaccine, then don't worry about them. They don't need your help or your concern and they've never asked for it.

Say what you want about common sense but you need to throw common sense out the window if you think entering Golden 1 center with these covid policies is going to help anyone out. If they really wanted to ensure people weren't spreading covid, they would test everyone upon entry and require N95 masks. Instead they are letting in untested vaccinated people who are currently spreading the virus at a high rate. Just because they don't wind up in the hospital doesn't mean they aren't spreading the virus. So don't pretend like one side is all about the science and the other side is all about goofy conspiracies. Common sense prevails when the science fails and the science has been flip flopping all over the place since the beginning.

Your last sentence perfectly sums up the vilification that I was talking about. You believe that you're on some higher moral ground than the unvaccinated while completely ignoring the fact that you can spread the virus very easily and even more easily if you're in a sports arena than an unvaccinated person who had to get tested to enter could. The media accomplished it's goal by making you think of people as "less than", simply because they don't trust a vaccine that came out in record time and is under emergency FDA approval. You are not better than anyone else simply because you got a needle in your arm. It's crazy how easily propaganda works these days.
 
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