Other relatively simple pathogens, such as smallpox, mumps, etc. are easy to control and breakthrough cases, if any, don’t make the news. SARS based pathogens, such as the flu and COVID-19 are more complex and mutate frequently. We are prepared for the idea that flu vaccines are different each year, we must renew our vaccination every year, and there will be breakthroughs, yet we view COVID breakthroughs as a giant conspiracy based fail.

If we get a million re-tweets about something it must be true, right?

Nah, not meaning that at all.

I think we could get some agreement that truth in advertising has been a fail.

I don’t know a soul who wasn’t willing to sit tight to flatten the curve for 15 days.  In retrospect, if you had studied virii for 40 years, you might have been able to predict that it would not help a bit.

I don’t know anyone who did not believe that a vaccine would get life back to normal.  That may have been the exact phrase we heard.  Ow, not working out too well on that one either.

Its not just me, you know that.  We want to trust our professionals.  But they have put us in a place where we don’t know what to believe.

Technology and knowledge move forward and we must cast off older "given's". What about all of those premium Composite, Component, and early HDMI cables that we installed as a hedge against future developments. Plus all of those TV's we installed that don't have eARC ports. We are no better than the medical professionals who are still learning about the ever evolving COVID landscape.

Obviously I'm not suggesting that we quarantine people over interconnect compatibility, but we accept the idea that electronics technology evolves, and this is good, while rejecting the idea that medical knowledge evolves too.

One aspect of the dilemma is that an unfortunately large population segment is eager to accept the claims of snake oil salesmen, rather than rational information. (Witness the $2500 audiophile grade network switch we are discussing elsewhere)

because vaccines are not magic forcefields. All vaccines are basically teachers that teach the body how to defend itself better. Some vaccines one lesson is good for the rest if your life with other vaccines you need to give the lesson over and over again (aka booster shots). Because the body is better to defend itself it means the effects will be a bit milder (good for the individual), will most likely be less contagious for a shorter period (good for society) and it will make it harder for them to catch it ( good for the individual and society)

the only real way to make sure it does not spread or that a particular person won't be seriously ill is to make sure that they avoid catching it in the first place.





majority is a tricky word. If a population is 95% vaccinated and the vaccinated count for 51% then yes the majority in the hospitals is vaccinated people but roughly 1/2 come from unvaccinated while they only account for 5% of the population.
Also Covid is a very ageist disease before the vaccine the 70+ age group accounted for roughly 60% of hospitalizations here and 20-50 fro less then 10% now because 70+ is more then 99% tripply vaccinated they account for less then 30% and because 20-50 are the least vaccinated they account for more then 30%

[Link: inspq.qc.ca] (sorry info is in French)


same as the NHL. A mixture of Omicron is a lot more contagious, people are a lot more relaxed, numbers are going up in many places....

FYI - smallpox is essentially extinct as it only exists (supposedly) in a few research centers. If there was breakout case it would be #1 on the news.

I recently read where mRNA is now being looked to to apply to other diseases. We will likely evolve to a generic shot that boosts immunity to covid, the flu, lime disease, etc.

`
I get what you are saying and agree with you in part.

but a curve is like a helium balloon, you can hold it down with your hand ("flatten the curve") but when you take your hand out of the way it will just go back to what it will naturally do and float up (start increasing again) the only way to stop it from going up is to pop the balloon ( bring covid-19 down to 0)


so did I ever believe that "flattening the curve" would be an end goal? no, that was (and will always be) just about buying time and making sure the medical establishments won't be overwhelmed.

As for 15 days I laughed when my wife said her boss played it as a possibility the last time she was in the office almost all those months ago. The word quarantine comes from the Italian quaranta which means 40. Back in the dark ages some ports in what is now Italy had put a rule that ships from distant lands stopping into the port had to remain there for 40 days before people/things could get on and off the ships. Two weeks is no where near enough time to stop (or slow down) anything. Think of it person one got covid on the last day before lock down, 5 days later they become infective they give it to an other member of their household 7 days later, the first person gets better 12 days later but that second person is still contagious 19 days later because he started 7 days later, that is why ships had to stay put 40 days, you need enough time (and ships in those days were not like cruise ships today) to make sure the last person to catch it would not be contagious by the time he was let loose into the city.

The same is true for your comment on the vaccine.

Plus let's face it, you are assuming what most people do is important, when the reality is what the minority that is willing to make sure or don't care if Covid-19 is problematic that matter. What covid-19 needs to survive is a new host every 2-3 weeks.


Also we never really listen to the "professionals" we listen to "politicians". From a purely health point of view. Making everyone (through out the world) go out buy 40 days of food and lock them in their homes for 40 days might have worked. But that was something that no body wanted to do because people would not be happy. People need to work, people want to see others.... so it is a balancing act between what is the best way to keep people happy, and the medical system afloat.

I think that it would be productive to offer health insurance discounts for the vaccinated.

Of course if the unvaccinated are mostly uninsured, the discount would not accomplish much.

Anthony, thank you for your well thought out and articulate answer. I agree with much of what you said, but you don’t mention anywhere the immunity that comes from being exposed to a virus. In a medical discussion, we could sanely and soberly talk this out. In a hyper-political world, it is a bad word.

Every winter I am exposed to the influenza virus. I will either come down with the flu, or my body will fight it off, either through natural immunity, or through me getting a flu shot. I have done it both ways over the past several years, and have not had the flu, perhaps in decades.

This coronavirus is not the flu, but it is a virus nonetheless, and the same mechanisms are at play. Your thought of a 40 day or six months lock down with a year‘s food supply would not get rid of the coronavirus. It would only delay exposure. Every single living person is going to have to be exposed to it or immunized against it. A lockdown is only a delaying tactic, and they have not been particularly successful anywhere they have been utilized.

If even the mention of natural immunity makes someone angry, it means that a sober discussion is not possible, and I see that as very unfortunate.

Personaly I hate the word immunity. It is a pipe dream, be it from a vaccine or from catching something, and when it comes to Covid-19 it is even more so. My aunt and uncle in the US have been vaccinated but caught it months later, same for my Nephew in Canada. There is a reason (at least here) people are getting a third jab and why in Israel they are going with a fourth one.

that being said I agree with you surviving Covid-19 , like a vaccine, does help with your body building defenses against Covid-19. That being said:

1) all the research shows that is not as good or last as long as the vaccines

2) in the world there has been well over 5M deaths (and a lot more hospitalizations) from people catching Covid-19 so as a plan it is a lot more dangerous plan

3) it is not just about the immediate, it damages the lung, heart and other important organs that take a long time to heal extremely minor damage and if the damage is big enough they will remain scared and damaged for as long as the person lives which shortens a person's life expectancy

[Link: usnews.com]



In theory yes it can work, the issue is reality. Look at New Zeeland or Singapore or....

they manage to eradicate Covid-19 from their countries, buy doing lockdowns that were observed by their people. The problem is the reality here and there is a lot of people/countries, decided they did not care for such lockdowns and made it easy for the virus to continue existing and thriving and eventually/from time to time bringing it back in.

When many were concerned about the projections being peddled by Neil Ferguson's Imperial College report, I suggested we be cautious. Panic nonetheless ensued, and many elderly folks died as a consequence.

We then discovered that Ferguson had an unenviable record of failure and that the computer code he used was 13 years old and riddled with bugs. Several months later, he was sacked, though not for incompetence but for breaking lockdown rules. Several more months down the road, we learnt he was back in the fold and peddling more doomsday projections.

At this point, I gave up. Like Malcolm Kendrick [1], I believe the issue has become so politicised it's almost impossible to sift fact from fiction - particularly when even the highly respected BMJ falls victim to Facebook's fact-checkers [2].

That said, I recently came across this article [3], which I think is worth a read.

[1] [Link: drmalcolmkendrick.org]
[2] [Link: wattsupwiththat.com]
[3] [Link: juliusruechel.com]

You've left no doubt that you are one of the biggest idiots on this site. Especially your #2 statement where you pull the "current data" out of your ass.

You really need to go back and read, very carefully, some of the responses to you and others in this thread. They are 100% correct in debunking all of the woo-woo you and others believe.

And this is where your brain farts. First, you may, or may not, be exposed to the influenza virus. It's not a 100% given.

Second, you may be exposed, and be vaccinated, and STILL get it. In fact, the efficacy of the Covid-19 vaccine is way, way, way better than the various flu vaccines that they patch together each year.

If you get the flu this season, or if you get Covid-19, let me know. I have some really great homeopathic medications I can sell you. I'm sure you think they are the best that that medicine has to offer. Just don't delete them too much or you may overdose.

David, bless your soul, we were having a reasonable discussion and then you arrived.

Show me a study where the efficacy of Covid vaccines is higher than the flu shot. The flu shot is always 50-60% efficacy.  Covid started higher but continually drops.  That is because the spike protein is a very narrow, focused attack that went after the original virus.  Two, three variants later, and the original mRNA is declining.  Boosters may help, but positive tests keep on coming with vaxxed folks, so the optics are not good.

In the meantime, Anthony, people who have had Covid have a broader immunity, not less, and broader protection.

NIH - “a durable, lasting immunity” [Link: nih.gov]

BBC - natural immunity matters, and add an injection might give you “super-immunity” [Link: bbc.com]

So, thanks to all who have contributed to the discussion.

Merry Christmas and a healthy and successful New Year!

seriously man neither you, I or anyone else posting here is god and all knowing.


can't we just debate the facts and then let people make up their own decision (as much as legally allowed)

The flu vaccine is not a good example there is a large family of flu viruses (like there is a large family of coronaviruses where sars-cov-2 is only one of them )

which makes the flu vaccine much harder to make, if you predict it will be A- H1N1 and B-Victoria and put something to fight those and it ends up being A-H3N2 instead it is more or less useless.


Now as for Covid-19

[Link: cdc.gov]

"In a multistate network of U.S. hospitals during January–March 2021, receipt of Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines was 94% effective against COVID-19 hospitalization among fully vaccinated adults "


did you actually read the articles you posted?

Like I said, both become lessons to your body to better defend itself. So on that we agree but the first link is almost a year old and makes no comparisons between the two and just states the obvious which we agree with. having cought covid once does help train your body for the  second time

The second one

Neither gives you complete protection versus infection, but the immunity you get from either seems to protect you pretty well from serious illness," said Prof Finn, from the University of Bristol.

Antibody levels are, on average, higher about a month after vaccination than infection. However, there is a huge gulf in antibodies between those who are asymptomatic (who don't make very much) and those who get a severe bout of Covid."

so if you have severe case of Covid the bodies defenses are close  to that of the vaccine, but there is still an advantage for the vaccine, but if you are asymptomatic there is almost no benefit.




also later on

"Where does this leave the balance between more vaccine and virus?

There is clear evidence that adults who have not had any vaccine dose will have stronger immune defences if they do get vaccinated, even if they have caught Covid before."



same to you