Coronavirus with an R0 of 3 or beyond

[Emil El Zapato]

Criticism of vaccine mandates rings hollow
The commentary “Vaccine mandates: a new form of ‘institutional segregation’” by Peter Doshi and Aditi Bhargava will do more harm than good.

The authors state that there are no restrictions on people who have received an exemption from childhood vaccinations, unlike employer requirements for masks/testing for those without COVID vaccination. This is not accurate. When we experienced measles outbreaks, officials issued orders prohibiting unvaccinated individuals from entering enclosed public spaces. Health care workers with exemptions from flu vaccination are required to mask up during flu season. If we were facing spread of another disease that childhood vaccines protect against, officials would impose similar restrictions. Contrary to the authors’ assertion that once an exemption is granted, we no longer care about the unvaccinated status, public health professionals care and work to increase vaccination and provide other protections.

The authors also suggest that people unwilling to get the COVID vaccine should be heard. Anyone working in public health or schools considering restrictions has heard from vaccine opponents. These community members have been given a lot of airtime — in public hearings, on mainstream and social media. Just because public health officials, governors, legislators, school boards and employers have imposed, or are considering imposing, vaccine mandates does not mean they have not been listening. Rather, they are also listening to others and, importantly, to science.

The authors refer to science and suggest a valid basis for not being vaccinated is immunity from having been infected with COVID. Yet the authors fail to note that the study concludes that vaccination in addition to natural immunity increases protections. This is not an either/or proposition. The vaccine offers additional protections for those who have had COVID and those who have not. The authors mention the possibility of myocarditis caused by vaccination. Such an outcome rare, and most patients recover readily. Further, an American Academy of Pediatrics study revealed children under 16 were 37 times more likely to develop myocarditis if COVID infected than if not. It is fair — and even ethically required — to mention risks, but the incredibly low possibility of an extreme negative outcome from the vaccine, especially as compared to infection, has been used to prop up otherwise unfounded opposition to the vaccine.

Finally, the authors’ attempt to describe the impact of vaccine mandates as segregation and against our “historical norm of equal opportunity” falls flat. The choice to decline free vaccination and be subject to mask/testing is not analogous to race, sex or ethnicity. I suspect many of my civil rights focused colleagues could eviscerate the authors’ attempt to paint vaccine resistance as a civil rights issue akin to our history of segregation and discrimination and the continuing impact of the same. As a public health lawyer, I’ll leave that to my colleagues.

Kathleen Hoke

The writer is a professor at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law, director of the Network for Public Health Law Eastern Region (funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) and director of the Legal Resource Center for Public Health Policy (funded by the Maryland Department of Health). The views expressed her own, and not of her employer or funders.

[Chris]

There's still the traditional choice, the Johnson & Johnson. The risk analysis leans heavily towards vaccination. The deaths from vaccines are a tiny drop compared to the COVID deaths.

Drowning in your own lungs is a terrible, terrible way to go.

Now that we have folks drinking black goo, excuse me, BOO, I'm not too sympathetic about the claims of being a guinea pig. If folks are willing to bathe in borax or nebulize H2O2, the concerns over the newer vaccines become more and more meaningless.

Hi DT,

You keep saying that the Johnson and Johnson is a traditional vaccine, but it's not. I checked with a couple of doctors and they both said it is a vector vaccine, like AstraZeneca. Unless there is another type in the US I don't know about, but I doubt it. As far as I know, only the Chinese make traditional inactivated virus vaccines (Sinovac, Sinopharm, etc...) and maybe the Indians have started to as well, but I'm not too sure.

All I read in the media are sob stories about families that were destroyed because they refused to get vaccinated. Not one story about the countless hundreds of thousands who have suffered life-long debilitating injuries due to the vaccines of the tens of thousands that have died. Clear media bias and manipulation.

And yes, I'm well aware what it is like to die of covid, I was nearly there, hooked up on oxygen with double pneumonia. But, I had untreated diabetes, which is probably why I have gotten sick and I attended my brother's wedding on Halloween, one day before lockdown came into effect. If I had to choose now, I'd rather have covid again than Myocarditis, get paralysed from the waist down or suffer from unending neurological symptoms until I die. Watch the video please. Two of the guests are victims of vaccine injury, the girl was a victim of the failed Astra Zeneca vaccine trial. Astra Zeneca won't even acknowledge that they were responsible for her injuries, she had to pay 1.2 million dollars out of pocket for her own treatment. Big pharma is dodging responsibility like crazy. This is an outrage and the scandal of the century.

[Emil El Zapato]

She is speaking of controlled studies? Actually, the globe has a HUGE control group across every demographic possible. For every 3 vaccinated, one is not (that is just a number I arbitrarily chose) the hospitalizations and deaths overwhelmingly impact the non-vaccinated. I think the much ado about nothing is a feature of both sides of the controversy. An individual ultimately knows what prompts them to take a vaccine or not take a vaccine. One has to weigh the 'self-insight. Chances are that those that fear the vaccine the most are the least likely to be harmed. It is just a matter of statistics. This is not to suggest that fear levels are indicative of outcome just that statistical odds are overwhelmingly against that the fearful ones will be struck. So it is a false 'state' that is used to prompt more fear. In a true sense this is the nature of reality ... unpredictability, random chance (the scariest thing of all), and will I or will I not roll the dice. The odds of a good outcome are in our favor and that's great. It does little for the 265 million cases that have resulted in 5.25 million deaths.

[Aragorn]

My perspective on vaccines hasn't changed, I believe there's craziness on both sides and the issue has been politicised.

Correct.

[...]

The authorities can push their vaccine propaganda all they want, the facts are as follows:
- The vaccines are far less effective than they were advertised and not nearly as good as natural immunity (this is a basic epidemiological fact, that has now apparently become anti-science).

Correct.

- They don't protect you against infection or spreading the disease. In fact, because you are more likely to have mild symptoms or none at all, the vaccinated are more likely to spread the disease.

Correct.

- The vaccines (with the possible exception of Sinopharm, possibly Sputnik) are incredibly unsafe by usual standards. If we weren't in the midst of a pandemic, there is no way that these shots would be allowed on the market.

That is debatable, but it is a fact that the pharmaceutical industry isn't there to help people; it is there to make money, and they've already long shown the world that they have no sense of ethics. Therefore, I am personally inclined to agree with you on this.

Just some further facts on the dangers of covid vaccines:
- Astrazeneca was trialled in the US, but there were so many vaccine injuries, that they stopped the trials, it is in effect, banned in the US. Are we supposed to accept it is completely safe then?
- Moderna was banned for wide age groups in several European countries, for causing myocarditis, a weakening of the heart muscle. This is essentially a death sentence, anyone with Myocarditis needs a heart transplant within 5 years, or they'll die. Is that a small risk?
- News of vaccine injuries and deaths are actively suppressed by the Authorities and the Media. There have been tens of thousands, yet not one case has made it into the media and we are not allowed to discuss it. Victims, whose numbers are countless at this point, have to suffer in silence and don't get the care they need, because of Vaccine bias. Even doctors refuse to believe what is in front of their eyes, that these vaccines are untested and experimental, basically gene therapies, and their effects are poorly understood.

No, they're not gene therapies ─ that's an entirely different thing. They use mRNA ─ messenger RNA ─ from the virus so as to trigger a response from your immune system, but the mRNA does not in any way interact with your own DNA, any more than that the DNA of the food you eat does.

[...] With this is a background, vaccine mandates are coming and there is a real possibility of mass internment of the unvaccinated. They are already under house arrest 5 miles from me, in neighbouring Austria.

Correct. I call it the New Apartheid™, and there's a lot of opposition against it, from all different corners of society. It's not just the alt-right anti-vaxx conspiracy kook crowd, but also people from the left and the center. Of course, the alt-right conspiracy kooks are trying to usurp the movement ─ just as they have already long ago usurped the so-called "alternative community" ─ but so far, they don't even make up half of the protesters.

The virus is real ─ let there be no doubt about it. Belgium is currently experiencing the peak of its fourth wave ─ the intensive care units are saturated and non-urgent medical procedures are being postponed ─ and the current wave is due to the delta variant, which is about twice as infectious as the original strain. But now there's also the omicron variant, which is about three times as infectious as the delta variant, and thus six times as infectious as the original strain. Four days ago, one person tested positive for the omicron variant ─ not with a traditional test of course, but through a blood analysis. Two days ago, there were two confirmed cases. One day ago ─ yesterday ─ there were nine already.

It's not a Scamdemic™, as some are calling it, nor is it a Plandemic™, as the conspiracy kooks are calling it. The pandemic is very, very real, and the virus is not a bioweapon. There is no government conspiracy to "take away your freedom".

But they are taking away our freedoms. It just wasn't planned. It happened naturally, through (1) the incompetence of the government in handling the pandemic, (2) the industrialized approach to vaccination, and (3) the irresponsible behavior of the population ─ whether vaccinated or not vaccinated. I keep on saying it, but after now two years of the pandemic, I am still the only person who disinfects his hands and his kart at the supermarket entry. Other people just pass me by, kart and all, and walk right in. "Social distance? Wazzat? Never heard of it!"

The virus is here to stay, just like the incompetence of our career politicians, and just as the foolishly irresponsible and selfish behavior of the population at large.

---

[...]The deaths from vaccines are a tiny drop compared to the COVID deaths.

Every death as the result of pharmaceutical treatment is one death too many. The problem isn't so much with the vaccines themselves, but with the way they are being pushed out in an industrialized "one size fits all" manner on a large scale.

There were people here who would have very bad ─ if not lethal ─ reactions to certain vaccines and who requested to be administered a vaccine from another manufacturer. The government ─ or perhaps better put, the authoritative body in charge of the vaccination campaign ─ plainly refused, out of bureaucratic reasons. So they had a choice: either get vaccinated with the prescribed product ─ I believe it was AstraZeneca at the time ─ and suffer the (for them severe) medical consequences, or become regarded as an anti-vaxxer.

The advantage of going with the latter option was that they got to live to be called an anti-vaxxer. Had they accepted the vaccine ─ again, I think it was AstraZeneca, because that was the only vaccine our government could procure at the time ─ then they would have been dead. They would have been good, responsible, law-abiding citizens, but they would also have been dead ones.

The knee-jerk collectivist and industrialized approach from the governments is just as wrong and just as irresponsible as the alt-right's knee-jerk refusal to accept the science and the medical facts. And the New Apartheid™ ─ my term, because they're actually calling it "segregation" in the media over here ─ is just as immoral as the old Apartheid was in South Africa, or as the caste systems that exist elsewhere in the world.

[Chris]

No, they're not gene therapies ─ that's an entirely different thing. They use mRNA ─ messenger RNA ─ from the virus so as to trigger a response from your immune system, but the mRNA does not in any way interact with your own DNA, any more than that the DNA of the food you eat does.

I am not a scientist, but I have now heard two serious researchers call it a gene therapy. One was Dr Robert Malone on the Brett Weinstein podcast (who is one of the inventors of this type of technology), the other one is Dr. Aditi Bhargava, the Indian researcher in the video I posted above. As far as I know both are reputable scientists.

When Dr Robert Malone was asked about it, he said he was arguably the inventor of the technology (there were a few others parallel to his discovery, such as Katalin Kariko) and he doesn't know what else to call it, mRNA vaccines are in fact gene therapies.

Now, I believe the confusion comes from defining what a gene is. Sure, mRNA therapies don't affect DNA, but RNA is also genetic material. Let me point out, that we still don't fully understand what RNA does, it used to be called "Junk DNA" after all, until scientists discovered that it does have a crucial function within the body. So, as DR Aditi Bhargava also pointed out, these therapies may not affect DNA, but they sure as hell affect RNA and that's in fact how they work, by introducing novel RNA sequences into human cells, which prompt them to manufacture spike proteins. As she also points out in the video, mRNA gene therapies have been tried before, but they were deemed dangerous as there were too many side effects, so trials were stopped. There is huge potential in this technology, to cure cancer or aids, but in terms of working as a vaccine, it is clearly experimental and a huge risk in terms of not knowing what its long-term effects are likely to be.

Another thing that was mentioned in the video, which I agree with, is that there isn't necessarily malicious intent behind the push to vaccinate everyone with mRNA gene therapies, it is simply that people put so much hope into these working, them being safe and effective, that they are psychologically incapable of admitting that they were wrong and there is essentially no hope of them ever bringing this pandemic under control.

As a side note, I just don't understand why more countries are not manufacturing traditional covid vaccines with inactivated virus technology. I have yet to find any evidence that they are unsafe, the well-known side effects of flooding your bloodstream, and especially your capillaries with spike proteins, do not seem to be present, at least as of yet. I suspect, it is because the whole viruses get absorbed by T-cells and are flushed out of the bloodstream as a result, whereas the spike proteins in themselves get lodged into the lining of arteries, causing the well-know side effects.

It isn't even a question of efficacy. Here in Hungary, all major vaccines have been deployed, quite uniquely. Now, there were no studies done on side effects, deaths or injuries (surprise!), but we do have real numbers on vaccine efficacy and the fact is the Sinopharm is only marginally less effective than the other type of vaccines, both in preventing illness and preventing death.

I just don't get why big pharma and governments are so adamant on using mRNA and Vector technology.

Actually I do. In the video I referenced above, Dr Aditi Bhargava points out, that there is no patent on inactivated viruses, anybody can just make it, without paying a fortune to the patent holder. So, in effect, there is far less money in it, than in the manufacture of the other vaccines. This is why millions of lives are put at risk and hundreds of millions are being ruined through lockdowns.

[Emil El Zapato]

"I keep on saying it, but after now two years of the pandemic, I am still the only person who disinfects his hands and his kart at the supermarket entry. Other people just pass me by, kart and all, and walk right in. "Social distance? Wazzat? Never heard of it!""

I agree 100%. Same here, people are just lost in a daze of 'what tha' f*ck is going on!'

[Aragorn]

I keep on saying it, but after now two years of the pandemic, I am still the only person who disinfects his hands and his kart at the supermarket entry. Other people just pass me by, kart and all, and walk right in. "Social distance? Wazzat? Never heard of it!"

I agree 100%. Same here, people are just lost in a daze of 'what tha' f*ck is going on!'

I don't think it would be due to confusion. I think it's mainly laziness, complacency and a false sense of security.

[Emil El Zapato]

I am not a scientist, but I have now heard two serious researchers call it a gene therapy. One was Dr Robert Malone on the Brett Weinstein podcast (who is one of the inventors of this type of technology), the other one is Dr. Aditi Bhargava, the Indian researcher in the video I posted above. As far as I know both are reputable scientists.

When Dr Robert Malone was asked about it, he said he was arguably the inventor of the technology (there were a few others parallel to his discovery, such as Katalin Kariko) and he doesn't know what else to call it, mRNA vaccines are in fact gene therapies.

Now, I believe the confusion comes from defining what a gene is. Sure, mRNA therapies don't affect DNA, but RNA is also genetic material. Let me point out, that we still don't fully understand what RNA does, it used to be called "Junk DNA" after all, until scientists discovered that it does have a crucial function within the body. So, as DR Aditi Bhargava also pointed out, these therapies may not affect DNA, but they sure as hell affect RNA and that's in fact how they work, by introducing novel RNA sequences into human cells, which prompt them to manufacture spike proteins. As she also points out in the video, mRNA gene therapies have been tried before, but they were deemed dangerous as there were too many side effects, so trials were stopped. There is huge potential in this technology, to cure cancer or aids, but in terms of working as a vaccine, it is clearly experimental and a huge risk in terms of not knowing what its long-term effects are likely to be.

Another thing that was mentioned in the video, which I agree with, is that there isn't necessarily malicious intent behind the push to vaccinate everyone with mRNA gene therapies, it is simply that people put so much hope into these working, them being safe and effective, that they are psychologically incapable of admitting that they were wrong and there is essentially no hope of them ever bringing this pandemic under control.

As a side note, I just don't understand why more countries are not manufacturing traditional covid vaccines with inactivated virus technology. I have yet to find any evidence that they are unsafe, the well-known side effects of flooding your bloodstream, and especially your capillaries with spike proteins, do not seem to be present, at least as of yet. I suspect, it is because the whole viruses get absorbed by T-cells and are flushed out of the bloodstream as a result, whereas the spike proteins in themselves get lodged into the lining of arteries, causing the well-know side effects.

It isn't even a question of efficacy. Here in Hungary, all major vaccines have been deployed, quite uniquely. Now, there were no studies done on side effects, deaths or injuries (surprise!), but we do have real numbers on vaccine efficacy and the fact is the Sinopharm is only marginally less effective than the other type of vaccines, both in preventing illness and preventing death.

I just don't get why big pharma and governments are so adamant on using mRNA and Vector technology.

Actually I do. In the video I referenced above, Dr Aditi Bhargava points out, that there is no patent on inactivated viruses, anybody can just make it, without paying a fortune to the patent holder. So, in effect, there is far less money in it, than in the manufacture of the other vaccines. This is why millions of lives are put at risk and hundreds of millions are being ruined through lockdowns.

Maybe not quite so straightforward. The medical advances that will be accomplished through this line of research are great. But yeah, maybe big pharma does see it as a wonderful excuse to use the human population as the purported guinea pig. The way I understand it is that RNA is mostly a transporter of DNA, it moves things into position. But it has very specific and scientifically recognizable roles. If a modified RNA bit is programmed to do whatever it does against Covid then that is the end of the story. Side effects, I can see side effects doing unpredictable things but honestly, the fact that it is so restricted in its behavior that they would be minimal when weighed against the shotgun blasts of traditional therapies. Just in thinking about this occurs to me that vaccine side effects are just as likely to be caused by virus effects.

There is a new 'pill' that is coming into use?

[Dreamtimer]

I guess the risk/benefit analysis has to be pretty thorough, then. And folks need to make their own choices. I guess personally I'm willing to risk the effects of the new vaccine rather than die or have long term organ damage from the virus. It's a terrible disease and the effects on hospitals, on families, on communities is tragic. As is the ignorance of so many to the dangers and suffering.

We don't have any national government imposed vaccine type apartheid here. It's all down to businesses, organizations, communities to decide their policies.

Graham Hancock butted up against the establishment which did not want to talk about ancient catastrophes.

I feel like we're at a similar place where people did not want to take the idea of a pandemic seriously. I have a friend who worked in intelligence. He began to talk with his colleagues a few years ago about the upcoming likelihood of a pandemic.They treated him like he was crazy. And they refused to listen.

This is the dynamic that was played into, imo, when our leader said he didn't want to 'panic' people. Translation: Don't stop the money flowing. Because that's the bottom line. Pandemics stop the money flowing. If our national leadership was beholden to the pharma industry they and the vaccines would have been hyped much more.

We've seen massive efforts to debunk this pandemic from the very beginning. It was called a political hoax. It still is. I'd love to know who has been funding all the popular voices out there pushing alternative treatments and calling it a hoax. Millions and millions of dollars are going into that.

The announcements of Omicron immediately brought forth claims of "election variant".

We've lost the plot here. Vaccine apartheid is useless when folks are deliberately spreading and infecting themselves and others.

[Aragorn]

We've seen massive efforts to debunk this pandemic from the very beginning. It was called a political hoax. It still is. I'd love to know who has been funding all the popular voices out there pushing alternative treatments and calling it a hoax. Millions and millions of dollars are going into that.

Believe it or not, but there has been an investigation, and it turns out that all of the vaccine disinformation being spread on Facebook originates from only four people.

[Dreamtimer]

It's massively effed up that just a few can cause so much mayhem. But then, the guy who started the MMR rumors about autism was just one guy who was trying to undermine his competition.

We seem to have a kind of oppositional defiance dynamic going on where people are just rejecting things because it's perceived as mainstream.

We've been losing our critical thinking skills here, imo, for quite some time. I don't really know how that's measured. But I do know that when I was growing up if I'd said some of the things I now hear coming from, for example, Congress Critters, I'd have been dressed up, down and sideways by both my parents.

"You don't speak that way." "You should know better." "You have an education." "Ignorance is no excuse."

Now it's just high school trash talk and we have folks shouting euphemisms for F the President.

Because we're twelve-year-olds.

[Aragorn]

It's massively effed up that just a few can cause so much mayhem. But then, the guy who started the MMR rumors about autism was just one guy who was trying to undermine his competition.

Andrew Wakefield. He's still the hero of the anti-vaxxers. Just ask Maggie ─ she's obsessed with that stuff, and she won't hear a bad word about him.

We seem to have a kind of oppositional defiance dynamic going on where people are just rejecting things because it's perceived as mainstream.

That's a very apt description, yes.

[Dreamtimer]

Some friends of ours were recently sick with Covid. Fortunately they'd been vaccinated and were not terribly ill. One friend said he really regretted not getting a booster because he'd gotten the J&J and it had been many months. I was particularly relieved regarding the other friend as he has some high-risk issues and is a wonderful singer.

Sadly, one of the people at the event where they got sick was a 70-year-old drummer and he is quite ill. He may no longer be able to live his music life because someone else might have been careless or selfish.

This is another example of what consequences accompany irrational defiance of common sense protective measures. People die.

Pregnant people die.

You can chalk up more deaths for the "pro-life" crowd: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is reporting that COVID-19 is now claiming the lives of more pregnant Americans and resulting in more stillbirths. Poynter reports that deaths in pregnancy "rose sharply" in the last two months, and that 40% of such pandemic deaths have happened since August, when delta began surging in the United States.

Pregnant people have an increased risk of severe COVID-19 symptoms due to poorer immune responses and other factors, and the CDC is urging those who are pregnant or are planning pregnancy to get vaccinated immediately.

That 40% of such deaths have happened just since August is telling, because by August vaccines against COVID-19 were already widely available and the United States was well on its way to getting the population fully vaccinated. But it also marked a new surge of COVID-19 cases based, once again, in Republican-voting states and counties where pandemic safety measures like masking, social distancing, and vaccinations have been mocked or intentionally blocked by state and local Republican leaders. Those Republicans followed Donald Trump in claiming that the pandemic would not be serious, that it would lead to few deaths, and that his administration's inaction was therefore not just forgivable but noble. The party has since made resistance to pandemic safety measures a core "culture war"-style issue.

Notably, pro-Trump and anti-vaccine protesters have taken to mocking abortion rights protesters with anti-vaccine signs reading "my body, my choice" or variations.

[Dreamtimer]

I'll get graphic for you:

[Chris]

Some friends of ours were recently sick with Covid. Fortunately they'd been vaccinated and were not terribly ill. One friend said he really regretted not getting a booster because he'd gotten the J&J and it had been many months. I was particularly relieved regarding the other friend as he has some high-risk issues and is a wonderful singer.

Sadly, one of the people at the event where they got sick was a 70-year-old drummer and he is quite ill. He may no longer be able to live his music life because someone else might have been careless or selfish.

This is another example of what consequences accompany irrational defiance of common sense protective measures. People die.

Pregnant people die.

Well, I'm officially fed up with this pandemic. We are in the midst of the fourth wave and they say a fifth is coming in January. What the actual fuck?

Lot of people sick, even at work we have two cases now, though I haven't been to the office in weeks (both of them triple vaxxed, but as we say in Hungary, it's like giving a slap to a piece of shit, completely useless).

I am actually somewhat at a loss as to what to do now. I would like to get a third shot eventually, just to be on the safe side, but I don't really trust any of the available vaccines. My least bad option was Johnson and Johnson, since they spent the longest time developing and testing it and there was very little in terms of bad publicity. Well, that's over, as the latest news is that they will stop recommending the Johnson and Johnson vaccine in the EU due to, you guessed it, blood clotting.

So that one's out of the window then. My preferred option would be a third Sinopharm shot, but you can't have it, if you already had two, you have to take an mRNA or Vector Vaccine as your third or booster shot. I'm hoping the situation will change by the time my antibody levels drop. Hungary is planning to manufacture a vaccine based on inactivated virus technology from late next year, so I'll wait for that if all else fails.