His illness was likely milder than it would have been had he not been vaxed and boosted? Setting aside that the original claim for the shots was that if you got one, you would not get sick, the level of illness in vaxed John vs unvaxed person X is unknowable with the available data. However, I'd be curious to hear when your son was boosted. My brother had the booster 2 weeks ago and 3 days later came down with covid. I'd say it's more reasonable to assume that the booster gave my brother his case of covid than that Althouse-son had a milder case because he was jabbed.
ps we could easily know levels of illness in vaxed v unvaxed if those keeping the records would just publish them, but shut up, you anti-science moron.
Stopped wearing a mask around here about a year ago except a few places that required them. The pandemic is pretty much gone in Utah at this point. Could it come back? Well, who knows?
All cases of Covid in the US as of this date are Omicron variants with mild symptoms, especially for those who have been immunized. My entire family got Omicron, in December, all had very mild symptoms, all were immunized even my 5 year old grandson. While Omicron can readily infect people who have been immunized or those who have been previously infected by other variants of Covid, symptoms are mild for the great majority.
John: CV-19 has been around for 2 years. If you got it, it wasn't because "everyone is going around unmasked". Its because of the law of probabilities caught up with you.
And IRC, you're under 50. Which means there was a 95% chance you wouldn't be hospitalized. Vaccine or no vaccine. But if getting the vaccine made you feel better, that's cool. I got it too.
I’m glad John’s feeling better. A friend had it- he’s 44- has RH. It gave him great fatigue. I’d like to know how someone on multiple medications does w/the shots. My Mom(90) got some virus a few week ago that gave her a sharp pains and messed w/the regularity of her habitual visits to the potty. She went to the ER- had a CT(was kind of afraid it was a blockage)- went home and took Tylenol. She was relieved of her pain. Yet, her stomach is still not quite right.
Also, I had something similar to a cold. I didn’t miss chores, slept a bit more and took Coricidin. I was fine in less than a week. Walking pneumonia is a pain. And the bug that gives you fever/chills sucks, too. Sleep sleep sleep. And hydration. Oh- no shots for me, thx. And no big cities!
Claiming the impacts are more mild because you're vaxxed and boosted is a crock simply because you don't know how you would've been impacted had you not been vaxxed/boosted.
Caught Omicron in December. Not vaxxed. Not even a bad cold.
An old story tells of a guy who met another fellow in the middle of a corn patch in Kansas. The second guy was whanging sticks together. First guy: ‘What are you doing?” “Keeping away wild elephants.” “There are not any wild elephants within four thousand miles from here.” “See how well it’s working!” So while we are all happy son John did not get seriously ill with Covid, one just has to point out that unless one is old, obese, and with multiple co-morbidities almost no one else got seriously ill either. It seems an almost touching faith that the vaccine was what kept the symptoms mild. How could anyone tell that the mild symptoms he had (which were just like almost everyone else’s mild symptoms vaccinated or not) were the blessing of the vaccine? As I say the level of faith is perhaps touching . . . but also astonishing.
If you have high vitamin D3 blood levels, aren't obese and don't have one of the common co-morbidities and catch the Omicron variety, the vaccine is likely redundant as regards whether you're going to get a mild case or an asymptomatic case, which seems to be the overwhelmingly probable outcome here. I live in a Florida retirement city of 140K, average age 75 or so and I know of no one who has been hospitalized this year for Covid. Masks can't be a factor because no one here has worn one for the past 18 months, save a few snowbirds from the upper Midwest and Northeast who show up fully masked and then take them off after a couple of weeks. Ninety or ninety-five percent of the residents are vaccinated, but non-vaccinated residents seem to be fairing about the same. Covid is over and people need to get over it.
I recently learned of a couple in their 30's, friends of a friend, both of whom died from Covid. A husband and wife, now gone. They were not vaxxed. They left three young children.
We should criticize the government's overreaction, yes. I'm glad the mandates and hysteria are coming to an end. But Covid is still a force to be reckoned with. Just like the flu, but that's not nothing.
My BIL had both shots and is boosted, while he is over 60 he is very fit, runs, home gym, and he is pretty miserable, but not in hospital, he had the antibody treatment, the other is a kid and he is mildly ill.
Vaxxed and Boosted. The booster lasts about 3 months. My son, who refuses the vaxx, had Covid right before Christmas. He felt like you described. Relax, now you have real immunity.
I have a friend who knew four people who died of Covid early on. I know nobody who's died of it and our church prayer chain refers to relatives of people whose names I recognize, or not.
We are encouraged to buy groceries in at least some bulk. "Buy two get one free," and infinite variations. Requires personal transportation--tough to manage on the subway--and it requires space at home. Still, it doesn't take long to accumulate some surplus for good times and bad even if you're not doomsday prepping.
I don’t know where the 95% stat came from and have no idea if it is true, but if one person in twenty were really hospitalized for a highly contagious virus, that would be a serious problem. I think that this virus that Fauci built is going to be around for a long time and it’s really a matter of time for each of us and as we have known about coronavirus since the nineties, people are going to catch it repeatedly over their lifetime meaning most of us will eventually catch it as an elderly person.
A lot of post hoc ergo propter hoc in JAC's post. I don't have the impressions vaccines (or masks) make much of a difference with omicron. My wife's case lasted much longer than mine, and she was triple-jabbed while I only had the single J&J (under duress) a year ago. Ideally there would be data to verify this one way or the other, but I haven't seen any broken down by age and co-morbidity so it's hard to know.
There's also a credible theory that all the mass vaccinations have stimulated the mutations resulting in the variants and successive waves of cases. Immunologist Geert Van Der Boosche has been arguing this for a while as in this.
Aside from planned parent/hood (e.g. Michigan, New York), cargo cult mandates (e.g. silent spread, non-sterilizing "vaccines" or Covax and excess adverse events in those who were at lowest risk), and denied, stigmatized early, effective, affordable, safe treatments, Covid-19, 20, 21, and 22 are diseases of mild cases in even the most comorbid cohorts.
If JAC is willing - to advance information data points
- please describe symptoms; who and how diagnosed; progression; treatment; and reactions - kind of silly to just announce got it - over it - yeahhhh as proof of something. - which my nephew does all the time.
I have a retirement job as a school bus driver. Among the driver's pool lots of us are old, overweight, and with various other co-morbidities. Some of the drivers, young and old alike are what one would describe not just as "overweight" but "morbidly obese". Somehow, almost all of us avoided catching Covid during the pre-vaccine era. The one person I know who did have Covid before the vaccine became available was our oldest driver in his late 70s. His case was asymptomatic as he only discovered he'd had it when he took a mandatory test before international travel to Australia, I believe. All of us wore masks on the school buses, but not around the office. Then the vaccine came out and many of us got the shots but many didn't. Then in mid January, Covid swept through the bus barn, spread, I believe by people who were coming to work with what they believed at the time were cold symptoms, but later found to be Covid. The outcomes for almost all of us were pretty much the same, mild to moderate cold symptoms for all, whether vaccinated or not, with a long list of co-morbidities or not. My case, which was super mild ended up triggering my asthma which I suffered from for weeks, just like the common cold does for me more often than not. Covid killed people in our valley, but the omicron variant, which I believe must have been what we all had didn't even hit those drivers with long lists of co-morbidities hard at all. I've had both shots, the booster and Covid. I'll probably end up getting the second booster too, but in our small sample, I'm not sure one could point to a clear benefit of the shots. I'm not saying for sure there was no benefit, I'm just saying it seemed Covid seemed to affect all of us about the same, vaccinated or not, boosted or not, with many, many comorbidities or not. What the hell is one to make of all this?
I have a severe cold or the flu, not sure which. (I tested and it's not covid.) I, too, had stocks of everything - cold pills, kleenex, thermometer, test kits, food and I'm just staying quiet, waiting to get over it. I look outside where spring has come and I feel like a little, sad, pale child in a Victorian story looking wistfully out at the sunny scene. Except it hasn't been sunny, it's chilly and cloudy and I'm too tired to endure that - but the beautiful flowers are are bursting up out of the ground regardless of the chill. Spring has sprung.
PS Before I got sick, I was looking again at the Milwaukee Medical examiner statistics on Covid. The pattern has never changed. If you have two or more major systemic diseases you are at risk of dying from Covid, whatever your age, whatever your vaccine status. But vaccination helps those at risk. The at-risk-vaccinated have a lower risk of dying than the at-risk-unvaccinated but a far, far, far higher risk of dying than the healthy unvaccinated. The older you are the greater your risk IF you have two or more systemic diseases. But older, healthy, vaccinated people are not at risk of dying. I think three people who were healthy, over 60 and vaccinated have died in the last six months and two were over 95 - that is what I was working on when I got sick - exactly how many who, like myself were over 60, healthy and vaccinated, had died of Covid.
!. COVID-19 has become endemic. We will live with it. In general, symptoms will become milder. 2. If someone wants to wear a mask, he or she should wear a mask. 3. Public health officials should take a holistic view of this, not focus just on Covid-19. 4. Children should not be used as a shield for adults. 5. Read this. It is long, but it is worth the time.
He does not have to interact with the delivery person. The food will be left at his door. Does he really believe that if he opened his door to bring the food inside, everyone in his building/on his block would get Covid?
I do not know your son, but has he considered the possibility that he had a mild case of the covid because it was a mild variant of the covid, that the disease is petering out as people catch what is basically a bad cold at this point, and that the proper response to having the covid is to spend a couple or three days working from home if possible or take a couple of days off if you cannot work from home?
I got COVID before there was a vaccine. Other than losing my sense of smell for about 6 months, it was indistinguishable from a cold and a pretty weak one at that. If it was not for the impact on my smell, I would have thought nothing of it and thought I had gotten lucky that year compared to prior year, monthlong coughfests.
Generally, the severe reactions to the disease, even the original version which is probably what I had, have mostly taken its toll on people who were already in bad health. Unfortunately, quite a few people found out they were in bad health the hard way. It was highly likely your son would have had a relatively mild case, regardless if he had the vaccine or not. I do not question him getting the vaccine, but he is overselling it in this case.
But yeah, how about 2 years to slow the spread. Sounds reasonable.
Good article, Amadeus. Here, I’ll excerpt for those who don’t want to read the whole thing:
“ What Next?
Remember those In/Out lists we used to see around December 31 every year? Maybe we need one for an after-action review of COVID.
Out: angry dogmatism.
In: epistemic humility.
Out: solving for COVID, and only for COVID.
In: recognition that public health is about more than one contagious respiratory virus.
Out: children as vectors of infection.
In: prioritization of the interests and well-being of children.
Out: The Science™.
In: Science as a process.
Pre-2020 pandemic preparedness plans, written by cooler and wiser heads, share some common themes. They are grounded in reality, and account for and accept human needs and tendencies. Implicit in all of them is an understanding that other things matter, that other things must matter.
In March of 2020, an elite consensus formed that nothing mattered more than the effort to reduce transmission of COVID. A child could be locked in a home with an abusive parent. Loved ones could be left to die alone. Other deadly diseases could progress, undiagnosed and untreated, because no death was as tragic as a COVID death.
What is so vital to human beings, one of the most social species on the planet, was deemed unnecessary—sinful, even. We were told that the best way to fight COVID—indeed, the only way—was for all of us, at all times, to behave as if we were infected, and infectious. This was, by definition, almost never true, but society had to be reordered, other human needs sacrificed, in order for us to pretend it was.
Treating ourselves and others as little more than potential vectors of infection (a phrase that, sadly, was most commonly used to describe children) was an astonishing assault on human dignity. I suppose it is somewhat comprehensible through the lens of the early promise that we could “crush the virus.” But after fifteen days, why did it continue?
I imagine people will be chewing on that question for decades. Our great grandchildren will probably read cogent arguments in history books that tie the COVID response back to the 2008 financial crisis, or 9/11, or the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
In the meantime, though, we need an honest discussion about how we proceed from here, and it must be free of the bullying, dogmatism, and bad faith exhibited by many experts over the past two years. The Science™ has held up poorly and will likely crumble further as time goes on, but that will not stop defenders of COVID policies from insisting it was all worthwhile.
That question—was it worthwhile?—cannot be answered by numbers, no matter how they are sliced and diced. We had a social contract before COVID hit. Like all social contracts, it emerged organically over time, and perhaps it needed to be revisited. But there was no such debate in 2020. The contract was simply tossed overboard, along with the values and principles underscoring it. Any suggestion that this was perhaps a bit precipitous was deemed morally reprehensible.
For this reason, discussion over what to do if, God forbid, we face another pandemic, cannot use the COVID response as the baseline.
Where, then, should such a debate begin? I’d suggest the following:
Out: Nothing else matters.
In: Other things matter. Other things must matter. “
Not Covid related but pertaining to being an over buyer or under buyer, it’s a good idea to have extras of everything. It’s a hedge against inflation and who wants to have to worry about getting someone to go get supplies for you when you are ill and can’t do it yourself. I’ve got all manner of over the counter medications, ointments, salves, medical supplies for minor incidents, extra cans of soup and easy to make meals. Buying a little bit extra every time you shop gives you a cushion if you can’t get the item because of supply chain issues or for whatever reason. I still had yeast in my freezer from 2020 and just started using it, works like a charm. Extra dry goods, non perishable foods won’t make you a doomsday prepper, but can make things easier for the times that are difficult for one reason or another.
Jake said... He’s drinking the kool-aid --- Kool-Aid isn't marketed via EUA. They'd be held accountable to adverse events. I keep encountering odd PSAs imploring people to ask about Comirnaty. Say what? Start with the mangled metrics like faulty PCR tests (inventor warned against using for this), hospital EHR only allowing vaxxed or unknown staus and then curious timeline of yuuuge all cause mortality jump in less susceptible ages that has insurers clenching their collective sphincters. But yeah. "Coulda been worse!"
Meade, When was the last time MDs were blocked from having legal prescriptions filled and inpatient treatments blocked? Some say it's imperative that doctors be truly allowed to practice medicine, not meekly tow administrative lines to avoid health system and med board persecution in part because government has incentivised to pursue hapless, even death hastening treatments.
A 5yr old has a long road ahead to discover long term effects of an intervention that trains body to produce a toxin at unspecified level for unknown duration and unknown long term adverse effects. A very fertile terrain to do its thing. Could be a game changer. Science!
I'm glad Jaltcoh has gotten better, thanks to the vaxes (and probably good general health). I remember vividly going through a similar illness in 1995. (I know it was 1995 because I spent a lot of time watching the OJ Simpson trial.) I felt like Hell warmed over and missed a week of work. What I had was called "the flu". That year's flu shot didn't work very well. It seems that the Covid vaccines turn "the Spanish Flu" into the plain old "flu". Isn't that good news that we should be celebrating?
“(2) I'm part of New York's current increase in covid, which seems to be resulting from covid measures being loosened in the state: people are going around without masks a lot more, restaurants aren't checking if people are vaccinated, etc. This has been leading to more hospitalizations, and if that keeps going up it could prevent people from getting medical treatment even for things that have nothing to do with covid.”
Nope. It’s happening because your sacred vaccines don’t work very well with newer variants. The big thing slowing down the spread of the virus now is natural immunities on the part of the bulk of the population.
“(3) I'm so glad I'm vaccinated and boosted! That likely kept my illness as mild as it was — similar to a cold. It's amazing that we live in a time when so much progress on a pandemic is being made so quickly. In past pandemics, it's sometimes taken years before they even figured out what virus was killing people! No other vaccine has ever been developed so soon after a virus was discovered. People get frustrated at the lack of perfect consistency, total certainty, or 100% effectiveness. But that's what science is always like — it's never perfect. We're just not used to living through the scientific process in real time, with this much scrutiny and so much at stake. We should be grateful for what we have, and use it well.”
You are just being silly there. They created the “vaccines” so quickly because they bypassed normal safety requirements. We are just now discovering that these “vaccines” have significant side effects, that normally wouldn’t have allowed their use. But, if they just hid the Pfizer data for 75 years, no one would notice. Turns out that your less than 100% effectiveness for these vaccines is why the virus has so quickly mutated around them. Oh, and before thanking the COVID-19 bureaucracy for your good luck, let me suggest that you look at the CDC figures for your demographic - it just doesn’t kill very many your age, and almost as rarely makes them all that sick.
If the virus was ever as dangerous as it's claimed to be and it really was imperative to get vaccinated, wouldn't every person who isn't vaccinated be dead by now?
There are 2 kinds of people—those who think, “nothing very bad happened, so it’s good I took all those precautions” and those who think, “nothing very bad happened, so I wasted resources on unnecessary precautions.”
The people in power and the media (in NYS/NYC and certain other places) used Covid to spread fear of this virus as if it were the bubonic plague or ebola. It worked as a means to control people until it didn't. Down here in Florida the state with the 2nd oldest population, things largely came back to normal (other than stores with mask mandates) after the 15 days to slow the spread expired in April 2020.
I especially appreciated #3 of John’s “3 takeaways:” But that's what science is always like — it's never perfect. We're just not used to living through the scientific process in real time, with this much scrutiny and so much at stake. We should be grateful for what we have, and use it well. Insightful. Open. Humble. And helpful going forward. Well done.
Assume masks and mandates work. If so, there must be some deductive consequences: e.g.: hospitalization rates will increase more slowly; there will be a consequent reduction in rates after imposing masks and mandates; areas with high mask adherence will be distinguishable from those that don't, etc.
Those NYT stats, which are comprehensive, prove those deductive consequences do not follow. There is absolutely no correlation between mandates and Covid trajectories. It is also easy to see that, generally speaking, states with higher vax rates have lower death rates.
There has been ample population level data available for more than a year that the consequences that should have followed, didn't. Yet far too many people — John included — act as if the obvious doesn't exist.
wildswan said... "I have a severe cold or the flu, not sure which. (I tested and it's not covid.)" Yeah. Me too. Turned out it was Covid. The first test was wrong. My quarterly blood test showed antibodies. Hang in there you'll get over it. Turns out taking a statin drug and blood thinners is a benefit.
I probably had Covid last April, a few weeks before I had the Moderna shot -- the nasal test came up negative, but it was a weird little set of disease symptoms, which leads me to suspect it was the Covids -- and I have three thoughts about it:
1) I didn't do jack squat to avoid getting it, and knew that none of the other things people were doing actually accomplished jack squat at preventing it.
2) As a very healthy adult in my late 50s with zero comorbidities, I knew my risk of serious disease was very low.
3) It was over in a couple of days and so I thus had greater immunity than any of the shots or boosters.
Rusty reports that, "taking a statin drug and blood thinners is a benefit." That's excellent news for me, and I get plenty of Vit D and zinc also. I masked and distanced in public when required but always assumed that I and everyone else would eventually get it no matter what.
Since I tend to have low-grade sinus and respiratory crud most of the time, I don't know if I have had Wuhanidia or not. None of the blood tests I've had since early 2020 have indicated it, anyway.
One thing I've learned as a take away from all this debate over Covid policy is to try to not get angry and write something critical when I see someone is saying something obviously unscientific and not data based.
The other day I responded to a tweet from someone who prided him/herself over wearing a mask to protect others even though it has been known that the masks do little to protect yourself from infection. I responded with you're not protecting anyone with your mask unless you are infected. Were you knowingly going out in public while you knew you were infected? Seriously if you know you are not infected how does wearing a mask protect others?
Even when I think people are being idiotic I've decided to be more sensitive to other people's feelings when I tweet.
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64 comments:
Unless JAC was an unusually frail young man, this figures. As Walensky said, most people with serious Covid have 4 or more major risk factors.
At some point, we may even come to terms with the actual science of Covid.
He’s drinking the kool-aid.
When will we start testing for the common cold? Or is Omicron the cold. Who stays at home for a week with a cold. Jeez
Last night in the supermarket the checkout bagger said, anyone ever told you you look like ....
Realized it was the first time I had been in a store without a mask since March 2020.
Surprising that he thinks masks and other NYC stuff works.
His illness was likely milder than it would have been had he not been vaxed and boosted? Setting aside that the original claim for the shots was that if you got one, you would not get sick, the level of illness in vaxed John vs unvaxed person X is unknowable with the available data. However, I'd be curious to hear when your son was boosted. My brother had the booster 2 weeks ago and 3 days later came down with covid. I'd say it's more reasonable to assume that the booster gave my brother his case of covid than that Althouse-son had a milder case because he was jabbed.
ps we could easily know levels of illness in vaxed v unvaxed if those keeping the records would just publish them, but shut up, you anti-science moron.
Stopped wearing a mask around here about a year ago except a few places that required them. The pandemic is pretty much gone in Utah at this point. Could it come back? Well, who knows?
All cases of Covid in the US as of this date are Omicron variants with mild symptoms, especially for those who have been immunized. My entire family got Omicron, in December, all had very mild symptoms, all were immunized even my 5 year old grandson. While Omicron can readily infect people who have been immunized or those who have been previously infected by other variants of Covid, symptoms are mild for the great majority.
John: CV-19 has been around for 2 years. If you got it, it wasn't because "everyone is going around unmasked". Its because of the law of probabilities caught up with you.
And IRC, you're under 50. Which means there was a 95% chance you wouldn't be hospitalized. Vaccine or no vaccine. But if getting the vaccine made you feel better, that's cool. I got it too.
I’m glad John’s feeling better. A friend had it- he’s 44- has RH. It gave him great fatigue. I’d like to know how someone on multiple medications does w/the shots. My Mom(90) got some virus a few week ago that gave her a sharp pains and messed w/the regularity of her habitual visits to the potty. She went to the ER- had a CT(was kind of afraid it was a blockage)- went home and took Tylenol. She was relieved of her pain. Yet, her stomach is still not quite right.
3shots.
Also, I had something similar to a cold. I didn’t miss chores, slept a bit more and took Coricidin. I was fine in less than a week. Walking pneumonia is a pain. And the bug that gives you fever/chills sucks, too. Sleep sleep sleep. And hydration. Oh- no shots for me, thx. And no big cities!
Claiming the impacts are more mild because you're vaxxed and boosted is a crock simply because you don't know how you would've been impacted had you not been vaxxed/boosted.
Caught Omicron in December. Not vaxxed. Not even a bad cold.
Covid hits everybody differently.
An old story tells of a guy who met another fellow in the middle of a corn patch in Kansas. The second guy was whanging sticks together. First guy: ‘What are you doing?” “Keeping away wild elephants.” “There are not any wild elephants within four thousand miles from here.” “See how well it’s working!”
So while we are all happy son John did not get seriously ill with Covid, one just has to point out that unless one is old, obese, and with multiple co-morbidities almost no one else got seriously ill either. It seems an almost touching faith that the vaccine was what kept the symptoms mild. How could anyone tell that the mild symptoms he had (which were just like almost everyone else’s mild symptoms vaccinated or not) were the blessing of the vaccine? As I say the level of faith is perhaps touching . . . but also astonishing.
If you have high vitamin D3 blood levels, aren't obese and don't have one of the common co-morbidities and catch the Omicron variety, the vaccine is likely redundant as regards whether you're going to get a mild case or an asymptomatic case, which seems to be the overwhelmingly probable outcome here. I live in a Florida retirement city of 140K, average age 75 or so and I know of no one who has been hospitalized this year for Covid. Masks can't be a factor because no one here has worn one for the past 18 months, save a few snowbirds from the upper Midwest and Northeast who show up fully masked and then take them off after a couple of weeks. Ninety or ninety-five percent of the residents are vaccinated, but non-vaccinated residents seem to be fairing about the same. Covid is over and people need to get over it.
Almost everybody is all right. The current strains are a natural vaccination program.
I have two friends down with it right now
I'm glad he's doing well.
I recently learned of a couple in their 30's, friends of a friend, both of whom died from Covid. A husband and wife, now gone. They were not vaxxed. They left three young children.
We should criticize the government's overreaction, yes. I'm glad the mandates and hysteria are coming to an end. But Covid is still a force to be reckoned with. Just like the flu, but that's not nothing.
My BIL had both shots and is boosted, while he is over 60 he is very fit, runs, home gym, and he is pretty miserable, but not in hospital, he had the antibody treatment, the other is a kid and he is mildly ill.
Vaxxed and Boosted. The booster lasts about 3 months. My son, who refuses the vaxx, had Covid right before Christmas. He felt like you described. Relax, now you have real immunity.
I have a friend who knew four people who died of Covid early on. I know nobody who's died of it and our church prayer chain refers to relatives of people whose names I recognize, or not.
We are encouraged to buy groceries in at least some bulk. "Buy two get one free," and infinite variations. Requires personal transportation--tough to manage on the subway--and it requires space at home. Still, it doesn't take long to accumulate some surplus for good times and bad even if you're not doomsday prepping.
I don’t know where the 95% stat came from and have no idea if it is true, but if one person in twenty were really hospitalized for a highly contagious virus, that would be a serious problem. I think that this virus that Fauci built is going to be around for a long time and it’s really a matter of time for each of us and as we have known about coronavirus since the nineties, people are going to catch it repeatedly over their lifetime meaning most of us will eventually catch it as an elderly person.
A lot of post hoc ergo propter hoc in JAC's post. I don't have the impressions vaccines (or masks) make much of a difference with omicron. My wife's case lasted much longer than mine, and she was triple-jabbed while I only had the single J&J (under duress) a year ago. Ideally there would be data to verify this one way or the other, but I haven't seen any broken down by age and co-morbidity so it's hard to know.
There's also a credible theory that all the mass vaccinations have stimulated the mutations resulting in the variants and successive waves of cases. Immunologist Geert Van Der Boosche has been arguing this for a while as in this.
John's post an excellent example of post hoc reasoning.
New York, pretty much the epicenter of mandates, masking, and with a 77% vax rate, has so far had 347 deaths per 100,000.
Idaho, which has long since put mandates and masks on disregard, and with a 54% vax rate, has 275 deaths/100,000.
Hmmm. What to make of that?
I'm very glad he's feeling better!
Aside from planned parent/hood (e.g. Michigan, New York), cargo cult mandates (e.g. silent spread, non-sterilizing "vaccines" or Covax and excess adverse events in those who were at lowest risk), and denied, stigmatized early, effective, affordable, safe treatments, Covid-19, 20, 21, and 22 are diseases of mild cases in even the most comorbid cohorts.
Glad it was mild! Best wishes for health and working taste buds.
Hey Skipper nails it.
New York's current increase in covid, which seems to be resulting from covid measures being loosened in the state
1. Loosen Covid measures
2. Covid numbers go up
3. Tighten Covid measures
4. Covid numbers go down
5. Loosen Covid measures...
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Imagine if a mad but benevolent virologist developed Omicron as the true WuFlu vaccine.
I got a text one of my nieces, here in GA, tested positive. She's a HS senior. Went to the hospital with symptoms.
"I don’t know where the 95% stat came from and have no idea if it is true"
Maybe if you'd looked up the CDC stats in the last 2 years, you'd know if it was "True".
What a clown!
Feel good, you got past it!
It’s all gravy now…
If JAC is willing - to advance information data points
- please describe symptoms; who and how diagnosed; progression; treatment; and reactions
- kind of silly to just announce got it - over it - yeahhhh as proof of something.
- which my nephew does all the time.
I have a retirement job as a school bus driver. Among the driver's pool lots of us are old, overweight, and with various other co-morbidities. Some of the drivers, young and old alike are what one would describe not just as "overweight" but "morbidly obese". Somehow, almost all of us avoided catching Covid during the pre-vaccine era. The one person I know who did have Covid before the vaccine became available was our oldest driver in his late 70s. His case was asymptomatic as he only discovered he'd had it when he took a mandatory test before international travel to Australia, I believe. All of us wore masks on the school buses, but not around the office. Then the vaccine came out and many of us got the shots but many didn't. Then in mid January, Covid swept through the bus barn, spread, I believe by people who were coming to work with what they believed at the time were cold symptoms, but later found to be Covid. The outcomes for almost all of us were pretty much the same, mild to moderate cold symptoms for all, whether vaccinated or not, with a long list of co-morbidities or not. My case, which was super mild ended up triggering my asthma which I suffered from for weeks, just like the common cold does for me more often than not. Covid killed people in our valley, but the omicron variant, which I believe must have been what we all had didn't even hit those drivers with long lists of co-morbidities hard at all. I've had both shots, the booster and Covid. I'll probably end up getting the second booster too, but in our small sample, I'm not sure one could point to a clear benefit of the shots. I'm not saying for sure there was no benefit, I'm just saying it seemed Covid seemed to affect all of us about the same, vaccinated or not, boosted or not, with many, many comorbidities or not. What the hell is one to make of all this?
I have a severe cold or the flu, not sure which. (I tested and it's not covid.) I, too, had stocks of everything - cold pills, kleenex, thermometer, test kits, food and I'm just staying quiet, waiting to get over it. I look outside where spring has come and I feel like a little, sad, pale child in a Victorian story looking wistfully out at the sunny scene. Except it hasn't been sunny, it's chilly and cloudy and I'm too tired to endure that - but the beautiful flowers are are bursting up out of the ground regardless of the chill. Spring has sprung.
PS Before I got sick, I was looking again at the Milwaukee Medical examiner statistics on Covid. The pattern has never changed. If you have two or more major systemic diseases you are at risk of dying from Covid, whatever your age, whatever your vaccine status. But vaccination helps those at risk. The at-risk-vaccinated have a lower risk of dying than the at-risk-unvaccinated but a far, far, far higher risk of dying than the healthy unvaccinated. The older you are the greater your risk IF you have two or more systemic diseases. But older, healthy, vaccinated people are not at risk of dying. I think three people who were healthy, over 60 and vaccinated have died in the last six months and two were over 95 - that is what I was working on when I got sick - exactly how many who, like myself were over 60, healthy and vaccinated, had died of Covid.
!. COVID-19 has become endemic. We will live with it. In general, symptoms will become milder.
2. If someone wants to wear a mask, he or she should wear a mask.
3. Public health officials should take a holistic view of this, not focus just on Covid-19.
4. Children should not be used as a shield for adults.
5. Read this. It is long, but it is worth the time.
https://thedispatch.com/p/our-failed-covid-response?s=r
Inga proud of shooting up her 5 year old with this poison is so 2022
Omicron is a mild cold.
Disappointing:https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-pfizer-covid-dose-vaccine-hospitalization.html
"But I wasn't allowed to interact with anyone or even open my door."
Who prevented your son from opening his door? I thought he was living in NYC, not Shanghai.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/shanghai-erects-metal-barriers-fight-against-covid-19
He does not have to interact with the delivery person. The food will be left at his door. Does he really believe that if he opened his door to bring the food inside, everyone in his building/on his block would get Covid?
I do not know your son, but has he considered the possibility that he had a mild case of the covid because it was a mild variant of the covid, that the disease is petering out as people catch what is basically a bad cold at this point, and that the proper response to having the covid is to spend a couple or three days working from home if possible or take a couple of days off if you cannot work from home?
I got COVID before there was a vaccine. Other than losing my sense of smell for about 6 months, it was indistinguishable from a cold and a pretty weak one at that. If it was not for the impact on my smell, I would have thought nothing of it and thought I had gotten lucky that year compared to prior year, monthlong coughfests.
Generally, the severe reactions to the disease, even the original version which is probably what I had, have mostly taken its toll on people who were already in bad health. Unfortunately, quite a few people found out they were in bad health the hard way. It was highly likely your son would have had a relatively mild case, regardless if he had the vaccine or not. I do not question him getting the vaccine, but he is overselling it in this case.
But yeah, how about 2 years to slow the spread. Sounds reasonable.
Good article, Amadeus. Here, I’ll excerpt for those who don’t want to read the whole thing:
“
What Next?
Remember those In/Out lists we used to see around December 31 every year? Maybe we need one for an after-action review of COVID.
Out: angry dogmatism.
In: epistemic humility.
Out: solving for COVID, and only for COVID.
In: recognition that public health is about more than one contagious respiratory virus.
Out: children as vectors of infection.
In: prioritization of the interests and well-being of children.
Out: The Science™.
In: Science as a process.
Pre-2020 pandemic preparedness plans, written by cooler and wiser heads, share some common themes. They are grounded in reality, and account for and accept human needs and tendencies. Implicit in all of them is an understanding that other things matter, that other things must matter.
In March of 2020, an elite consensus formed that nothing mattered more than the effort to reduce transmission of COVID. A child could be locked in a home with an abusive parent. Loved ones could be left to die alone. Other deadly diseases could progress, undiagnosed and untreated, because no death was as tragic as a COVID death.
What is so vital to human beings, one of the most social species on the planet, was deemed unnecessary—sinful, even. We were told that the best way to fight COVID—indeed, the only way—was for all of us, at all times, to behave as if we were infected, and infectious. This was, by definition, almost never true, but society had to be reordered, other human needs sacrificed, in order for us to pretend it was.
Treating ourselves and others as little more than potential vectors of infection (a phrase that, sadly, was most commonly used to describe children) was an astonishing assault on human dignity. I suppose it is somewhat comprehensible through the lens of the early promise that we could “crush the virus.” But after fifteen days, why did it continue?
I imagine people will be chewing on that question for decades. Our great grandchildren will probably read cogent arguments in history books that tie the COVID response back to the 2008 financial crisis, or 9/11, or the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
In the meantime, though, we need an honest discussion about how we proceed from here, and it must be free of the bullying, dogmatism, and bad faith exhibited by many experts over the past two years. The Science™ has held up poorly and will likely crumble further as time goes on, but that will not stop defenders of COVID policies from insisting it was all worthwhile.
That question—was it worthwhile?—cannot be answered by numbers, no matter how they are sliced and diced. We had a social contract before COVID hit. Like all social contracts, it emerged organically over time, and perhaps it needed to be revisited. But there was no such debate in 2020. The contract was simply tossed overboard, along with the values and principles underscoring it. Any suggestion that this was perhaps a bit precipitous was deemed morally reprehensible.
For this reason, discussion over what to do if, God forbid, we face another pandemic, cannot use the COVID response as the baseline.
Where, then, should such a debate begin? I’d suggest the following:
Out: Nothing else matters.
In: Other things matter. Other things must matter.
“
Not Covid related but pertaining to being an over buyer or under buyer, it’s a good idea to have extras of everything. It’s a hedge against inflation and who wants to have to worry about getting someone to go get supplies for you when you are ill and can’t do it yourself. I’ve got all manner of over the counter medications, ointments, salves, medical supplies for minor incidents, extra cans of soup and easy to make meals. Buying a little bit extra every time you shop gives you a cushion if you can’t get the item because of supply chain issues or for whatever reason. I still had yeast in my freezer from 2020 and just started using it, works like a charm. Extra dry goods, non perishable foods won’t make you a doomsday prepper, but can make things easier for the times that are difficult for one reason or another.
Jake said... He’s drinking the kool-aid
---
Kool-Aid isn't marketed via EUA. They'd be held accountable to adverse events.
I keep encountering odd PSAs imploring people to ask about Comirnaty. Say what?
Start with the mangled metrics like faulty PCR tests (inventor warned against using for this), hospital EHR only allowing vaxxed or unknown staus and then curious timeline of yuuuge all cause mortality jump in less susceptible ages that has insurers clenching their collective sphincters.
But yeah.
"Coulda been worse!"
Hang in there, wildswan <3
Stay hydrated- that is a major key to getting well.
Grey here, too. They’re saying snow this week- again:0(
Meade,
When was the last time MDs were blocked from having legal prescriptions filled and inpatient treatments blocked?
Some say it's imperative that doctors be truly allowed to practice medicine, not meekly tow administrative lines to avoid health system and med board persecution in part because government has incentivised to pursue hapless, even death hastening treatments.
A 5yr old has a long road ahead to discover long term effects of an intervention that trains body to produce a toxin at unspecified level for unknown duration and unknown long term adverse effects. A very fertile terrain to do its thing. Could be a game changer.
Science!
I'm glad Jaltcoh has gotten better, thanks to the vaxes (and probably good general health). I remember vividly going through a similar illness in 1995. (I know it was 1995 because I spent a lot of time watching the OJ Simpson trial.) I felt like Hell warmed over and missed a week of work. What I had was called "the flu". That year's flu shot didn't work very well. It seems that the Covid vaccines turn "the Spanish Flu" into the plain old "flu". Isn't that good news that we should be celebrating?
“(2) I'm part of New York's current increase in covid, which seems to be resulting from covid measures being loosened in the state: people are going around without masks a lot more, restaurants aren't checking if people are vaccinated, etc. This has been leading to more hospitalizations, and if that keeps going up it could prevent people from getting medical treatment even for things that have nothing to do with covid.”
Nope. It’s happening because your sacred vaccines don’t work very well with newer variants. The big thing slowing down the spread of the virus now is natural immunities on the part of the bulk of the population.
“(3) I'm so glad I'm vaccinated and boosted! That likely kept my illness as mild as it was — similar to a cold. It's amazing that we live in a time when so much progress on a pandemic is being made so quickly. In past pandemics, it's sometimes taken years before they even figured out what virus was killing people! No other vaccine has ever been developed so soon after a virus was discovered. People get frustrated at the lack of perfect consistency, total certainty, or 100% effectiveness. But that's what science is always like — it's never perfect. We're just not used to living through the scientific process in real time, with this much scrutiny and so much at stake. We should be grateful for what we have, and use it well.”
You are just being silly there. They created the “vaccines” so quickly because they bypassed normal safety requirements. We are just now discovering that these “vaccines” have significant side effects, that normally wouldn’t have allowed their use. But, if they just hid the Pfizer data for 75 years, no one would notice. Turns out that your less than 100% effectiveness for these vaccines is why the virus has so quickly mutated around them. Oh, and before thanking the COVID-19 bureaucracy for your good luck, let me suggest that you look at the CDC figures for your demographic - it just doesn’t kill very many your age, and almost as rarely makes them all that sick.
If the virus was ever as dangerous as it's claimed to be and it really was imperative to get vaccinated, wouldn't every person who isn't vaccinated be dead by now?
And I am glad that John is doing okay.
Hey Skipper
"John's post an excellent example of post hoc reasoning.
New York, pretty much the epicenter of mandates, masking, and with a 77% vax rate, has so far had 347 deaths per 100,000.
Idaho, which has long since put mandates and masks on disregard, and with a 54% vax rate, has 275 deaths/100,000.
Hmmm. What to make of that?"
That its an incredibly stupid comparison.
There are 2 kinds of people—those who think, “nothing very bad happened, so it’s good I took all those precautions” and those who think, “nothing very bad happened, so I wasted resources on unnecessary precautions.”
John is of the first sort.
The people in power and the media (in NYS/NYC and certain other places) used Covid to spread fear of this virus as if it were the bubonic plague or ebola. It worked as a means to control people until it didn't. Down here in Florida the state with the 2nd oldest population, things largely came back to normal (other than stores with mask mandates) after the 15 days to slow the spread expired in April 2020.
"I should've mentioned that I live in an apartment building in NYC. If I had opened my door I would've been knowingly exposing people to covid."
OMG This is frightening. Washing shoes frightening.
I especially appreciated #3 of John’s “3 takeaways:” But that's what science is always like — it's never perfect. We're just not used to living through the scientific process in real time, with this much scrutiny and so much at stake. We should be grateful for what we have, and use it well.
Insightful. Open. Humble. And helpful going forward.
Well done.
@Mutaman:
Hey Skipper
"John's post an excellent example of post hoc reasoning.
New York, pretty much the epicenter of mandates, masking, and with a 77% vax rate, has so far had 347 deaths per 100,000.
Idaho, which has long since put mandates and masks on disregard, and with a 54% vax rate, has 275 deaths/100,000.
Hmmm. What to make of that?"
That its an incredibly stupid comparison.
Well, yes, in and of itself, it is a stupid comparison. On second thought, not stupid, just missing a lot of data confirmatory (or not) data points.
I took those numbers from the NYT's Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count. Scroll down to State Trends, select All Time, sort on Deaths/100,000, and select Show All.
Assume masks and mandates work. If so, there must be some deductive consequences: e.g.: hospitalization rates will increase more slowly; there will be a consequent reduction in rates after imposing masks and mandates; areas with high mask adherence will be distinguishable from those that don't, etc.
Those NYT stats, which are comprehensive, prove those deductive consequences do not follow. There is absolutely no correlation between mandates and Covid trajectories. It is also easy to see that, generally speaking, states with higher vax rates have lower death rates.
There has been ample population level data available for more than a year that the consequences that should have followed, didn't. Yet far too many people — John included — act as if the obvious doesn't exist.
For more graphic proof, see here.
And I know it has already been said, but the article Amadeus cited is one of the best I have ever read on the subject.
wildswan said...
"I have a severe cold or the flu, not sure which. (I tested and it's not covid.)"
Yeah. Me too. Turned out it was Covid. The first test was wrong. My quarterly blood test showed antibodies.
Hang in there you'll get over it. Turns out taking a statin drug and blood thinners is a benefit.
I probably had Covid last April, a few weeks before I had the Moderna shot -- the nasal test came up negative, but it was a weird little set of disease symptoms, which leads me to suspect it was the Covids -- and I have three thoughts about it:
1) I didn't do jack squat to avoid getting it, and knew that none of the other things people were doing actually accomplished jack squat at preventing it.
2) As a very healthy adult in my late 50s with zero comorbidities, I knew my risk of serious disease was very low.
3) It was over in a couple of days and so I thus had greater immunity than any of the shots or boosters.
Rusty reports that, "taking a statin drug and blood thinners is a benefit." That's excellent news for me, and I get plenty of Vit D and zinc also. I masked and distanced in public when required but always assumed that I and everyone else would eventually get it no matter what.
Since I tend to have low-grade sinus and respiratory crud most of the time, I don't know if I have had Wuhanidia or not. None of the blood tests I've had since early 2020 have indicated it, anyway.
Oh, good for young Mr. Cohen. Should have said that at the start.
One thing I've learned as a take away from all this debate over Covid policy is to try to not get angry and write something critical when I see someone is saying something obviously unscientific and not data based.
The other day I responded to a tweet from someone who prided him/herself over wearing a mask to protect others even though it has been known that the masks do little to protect yourself from infection. I responded with you're not protecting anyone with your mask unless you are infected. Were you knowingly going out in public while you knew you were infected? Seriously if you know you are not infected how does wearing a mask protect others?
Even when I think people are being idiotic I've decided to be more sensitive to other people's feelings when I tweet.
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