Covid restrictions over (for us)

[Marcel Birgelen]

Marcel... At least you don't have 45% of the populous there following fake directives and lies from a certain group of people like we do...

I guess the worst that could happen was that this whole COVID thing became a political football, where science and truth just became secondary things. It's not like we don't have those "crazies" here too, but at least no MAJOR political movement has decided to identify with them. There are "anti-vaxers" around here too, but most of them do have a religious motivation and not so much a political one. The outcome is the same though, only their numbers are in the single digits or low double digits...

Technology in vaccine development is leaps and bounds above where it was 10 or 20 years ago. And it's a good thing such advancements have been made, otherwise COVID-19 would be killing far more people now.

Yeah sure, but technology can't foresee the future yet. With those emergency use authorizations for those vaccines, we're taking a calculated risk, because we have models that show us what likely happens when we do nothing and that scenario will most likely be much worse than the potential long-term side effects of the vaccines.

More often than not each new variant of SARS-CoV-2 ends up spreading more easily and making illness more intense. These variants are trying to come up with new tricks to evade antibodies from previous COVID-19 infection or immunity gained from vaccines. If given enough of a chance SARS-CoV-2 will eventually spin off a variant or new strain that will beat all vaccines and any natural immunity. We'll all be back and square one with this pandemic. The anti-vax folks refuse to listen to that point. And they don't appear to care about cutting off the chain of transmission to protect those who can't get vaccinated, such as children under age 12. Some kids are dying of this shit.

With the current pace of vaccinations around the globe, we're due to see some new variants. And wile the "breakthru cases" I've witnessed may just be an unlucky coincidence, and even though none of them were real serious cases, it triggers the suspicion in me that those "Gen 1 vaccines" may not be as effective against current variants as we currently think. And I'm not holding any Pfizer stock and I dislike big-pharma probably as much as anybody else, but I think that's why a booster shot, which is optimized to be effective against newer variations, may not be such a bad idea.

[Bobby Henderson]

Vaccines used to take the better part of a decade before they were approved for general use and it will take the better part of a decade to get a clear view of all the side-effects of the COVID-19 vaccines we're currently distributing.

Technology in vaccine development is leaps and bounds above where it was 10 or 20 years ago. And it's a good thing such advancements have been made, otherwise COVID-19 would be killing far more people now.

What worries me, is the high infectious rate of the new variants and the amount of people around me contracting it and still getting sick of it, despite being vaccinated.

So-called "breakthrough infections" in fully vaccinated people are very rare. And out of those breakthrough cases it's rare for any of those people to be hospitalized. Certain people with political agendas have been trying to claim vaccines are doing no good, cherry-picking pieces of data in a very dishonest way to sell their point. There are fully vaccinated people who have later died, but they died of things like advanced old age or other illnesses they already had. The anti-vax folks don't mention any of that. They just imply a causation with the vaccines.

My big worry is all the stubborn people who refuse to get vaccinated. We have a LOT of them here in Oklahoma. They're the folks who will keep the SARS-CoV-2 virus in circulation, allowing it to continue to mutate. People with only one shot of a two-shot vaccine are also putting the general public at risk. That's not much different than people misusing antibiotics and creating drug resistant pathogens as a result.

More often than not each new variant of SARS-CoV-2 ends up spreading more easily and making illness more intense. These variants are trying to come up with new tricks to evade antibodies from previous COVID-19 infection or immunity gained from vaccines. If given enough of a chance SARS-CoV-2 will eventually spin off a variant or new strain that will beat all vaccines and any natural immunity. We'll all be back and square one with this pandemic. The anti-vax folks refuse to listen to that point. And they don't appear to care about cutting off the chain of transmission to protect those who can't get vaccinated, such as children under age 12. Some kids are dying of this shit.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Marcel... At least you don't have 45% of the populous there following fake directives and lies from a certain group of people like we do...

[Marcel Birgelen]

Wasn't everyone in your country required to get the vaccination? If so you should be pretty safe. But even so, I'd for sure wear a mask if you are around any number of people. I will be doing the same...

There are only 27 years between the original Dutch constitution and the one of the U.S. Both are pretty restrictive in what the government can force upon people. So, mandatory vaccinations are currently not compatible with the Dutch constitution and a vocal, mostly religious inspired minority will probably keep it that way. Even wearing masks was only a "very strong recommendation" for large parts of 2020, because a special law needed to be passed to be able to make it mandatory. The same thing happened to the national curfew, which was declared unconstitutional by a court at first and a special law needed to be installed to make that one stick.

But vaccination rates are pretty high and most initial problems with availability of vaccines, mostly due to mismanagement on the level of the EU are now practically gone. I guess the ongoing strategy will be similar to what France is already doing and Germany is planning to do: If you want to participate with any kind of social activities in the coming months, you need to have a valid vaccination passport, either on paper or digitally via your smartphone. The only other alternative will be to get tested every 24 hours.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Vaccines used to take the better part of a decade before they were approved for general use and it will take the better part of a decade to get a clear view of all the side-effects of the COVID-19 vaccines we're currently distributing. The wife of one of my colleagues has a history of GBS, so she's happy he didn't opt for the J&J shot. But with about 100 reported cases in 12.8 million shots, I guess it's still difficult to call it statistically significant, especially since those 100 cases come close to the amount of cases you'd expect in a similar population.

What worries me, is the high infectious rate of the new variants and the amount of people around me contracting it and still getting sick of it, despite being vaccinated. Granted, none of the cases until now was a really severe case, more like having the flu, but it's clear to me that despite what they're claiming, the "vanilla" vaccines are far from bullet-proof against those new variations. What also worries me is the extreme R0 of those new variants. With an R0 of anywhere between 5 and 8, you can contract this bugger simply by all-day activities, especially now everybody is dropping their guards.

Wasn't everyone in your country required to get the vaccination? If so you should be pretty safe. But even so, I'd for sure wear a mask if you are around any number of people. I will be doing the same...

[Marcel Birgelen]

The Guillain-Barré Syndrome aspect to this is a personal one for me, because I was in hospital with GBS for three months (in 1993, but even so, if you've had it once, no matter how long ago, you are statistically at higher risk of a second episode), and left with a permanent, slight weakness in my upper legs by it. From what I've read, the J & J and AZ vaccines have both now been associated with a statistically significant (by which I mean more cases than would be expected in the normal course of events) number of GBS cases being diagnosed within 2-3 weeks of the shot, but Pfizer and Moderna have not. There are four distinct variants and one subvariant (AMAN with and without sensory loss) of GBS, and I can't find any information online as to whether which ones these post-vax cases are. They range from Acute inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (very rarely life threatening and normally clears up completely within a few days), to acute axonal motor neuropathy (most likely to be fatal; always requires heavy duty medical intervention, and often doesn't result in 100% recovery - this is the version I had). If the vaccine-related GBS cases are exclusively or primarily of the nastier variants, that, IMHO, is worrying news.

Vaccines used to take the better part of a decade before they were approved for general use and it will take the better part of a decade to get a clear view of all the side-effects of the COVID-19 vaccines we're currently distributing. The wife of one of my colleagues has a history of GBS, so she's happy he didn't opt for the J&J shot. But with about 100 reported cases in 12.8 million shots, I guess it's still difficult to call it statistically significant, especially since those 100 cases come close to the amount of cases you'd expect in a similar population.

What worries me, is the high infectious rate of the new variants and the amount of people around me contracting it and still getting sick of it, despite being vaccinated. Granted, none of the cases until now was a really severe case, more like having the flu, but it's clear to me that despite what they're claiming, the "vanilla" vaccines are far from bullet-proof against those new variations. What also worries me is the extreme R0 of those new variants. With an R0 of anywhere between 5 and 8, you can contract this bugger simply by all-day activities, especially now everybody is dropping their guards.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Leo, It's kind of like the flu. They have to develop new flu vaccines almost yearly because of the ever mutating flu virus. And I have gotten a flu shot every single year. . I literally have not had a bad case of it in almost 15 years now thanks to the vaccines.

[Leo Enticknap]

Without straying too far into politics, we know that the EU has used vaccines as a political strategy related to Brexit, so there is very likely something going on there.

Agreed entirely both with Mark and Lyle about Pfizer having a vested interest in promoting boosters. IMHO, evidence is growing that the Pfizer vax both works better, and is less likely to cause gnarly side effects, than any of the others. In other words, they know that they have a winner. Furthermore, if, as seems possible, the Pfizer shot becomes established as the only guaranteed acceptable one for international travel between developed world countries, that is also good news for Pfizer, obviously.

The Guillain-Barré Syndrome aspect to this is a personal one for me, because I was in hospital with GBS for three months (in 1993, but even so, if you've had it once, no matter how long ago, you are statistically at higher risk of a second episode), and left with a permanent, slight weakness in my upper legs by it. From what I've read, the J & J and AZ vaccines have both now been associated with a statistically significant (by which I mean more cases than would be expected in the normal course of events) number of GBS cases being diagnosed within 2-3 weeks of the shot, but Pfizer and Moderna have not. There are four distinct variants and one subvariant (AMAN with and without sensory loss) of GBS, and I can't find any information online as to whether which ones these post-vax cases are. They range from Acute inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (very rarely life threatening and normally clears up completely within a few days), to acute axonal motor neuropathy (most likely to be fatal; always requires heavy duty medical intervention, and often doesn't result in 100% recovery - this is the version I had). If the vaccine-related GBS cases are exclusively or primarily of the nastier variants, that, IMHO, is worrying news.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Or the EU factory wants to keep the Indian factory out of the EU...

[James Biggins]

Also... The Astra Zenica vaccine being manufactured in India is not being accepted in the EU... I wonder what's different about it??

Nothing, it's chemically identical. The problem is apparently administrative (ie paperwork), rather than medical.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Pfizer is talking like they want to sell a lot of doses for a booster shot. Thus far, the CDC and NIH are saying they aren't necessary.

I think that eventually a booster for all the various vaccines will be required... exactly when, is probably yet to be determined. Seems to me the only vaccination that is single dose that requires no booster is the Polio vaccine. And I am not sure that's even given out any more in this country. Pfizer had to pay 2.3 billion in fines in 2009 for illegal marketing. So no doubt they are looking for a way to recoup some of that money.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Also... The Astra Zenica vaccine being manufactured in India is not being accepted in the EU... I wonder what's different about it??

[Marcel Birgelen]

The third shot may be an opportunity to provide more resistance to the new COVID variations. I've seen two mild cases of the Delta variant among people I know, both of them were fully vaccinated with Pfizer/BIONTEC Comirnaty.

[William Kucharski]

To clarify the CDC has said they don't see evidence a third shot is needed yet… but Israel has already started providing a third Pfizer shot to severely immunocompromised patients.

[Lyle Romer]

That's probably wise not to accept it because it only provides 70% effectiveness on one dose. To further the effectiveness it also requires two doses.Moderna and Pfizer are upwards of 90%. And even Pfizer is talking like we will need a booster shot so it maintains its effectiveness.

https://www.astrazeneca.com/media-ce...ii-trials.html

Pfizer is talking like they want to sell a lot of doses for a booster shot. Thus far, the CDC and NIH are saying they aren't necessary.