Will you trust the Covid vaccine?

[Belle RoseParticipant]

I’ll be honest I’m on the fence. I don’t know what to believe. I did read somewhere that doctors are saying it’s bad for people who have severe allergies there is a higher probability of a severe allergic reaction. Some people have sent me stuff saying it makes you sterile. I don’t know.

It seems like a sort of damned if you do damned if you don’t scenario. For me I am super high risk of dying of Covid. So the vaccine would possibly increase my odds of survival, but at what cost? There are jokes going around online about how 10 years from now they’re going to have a class action lawsuit for anybody who took the vaccine this year entitled to compensation because of how it fucks you up.

Just wondering what others are thinking. I think that President Trump jammed the approval through the FDA for his own political brownie points. He basically threatened them that if they didn’t approve his vaccine now their jobs were on the line. That’s not the way to roll out a vaccine and to make people trust it. I say let all them motherfuckers in Congress and Senate, and Donald Trump himself take that vaccine. We all wait six months and then see if it’s really safe for the public LOL

[UnseenParticipant]

I most certainly will.

You don’t take the vaccine home and self-inoculate. You’ll do it in a setting prepared for severe allergic reactions. You will stay after the shot for 10 or 15 minutes in case you react. An allergic reaction of the life-threatening kind isn’t going to wait till you get home; it will happen very soon after the shot. Handling a severe allergic response is as simple as administering epinephrine. If you have severe allergies or your boy does, you probably (or should) have two, one for home and another for your purse. The treatment is easy, quick, and effective, but as far as I can tell, they are only available by prescription (which makes no sense, since I can buy enough insulin to kill a horse as well as the needed syringes without a prescription).

What is true is that you will certainly have a sore muscle at the injection site. Some people experience a low-grade fever, chills, tiredness, like a mild case of the flu.

Don’t believe stuff you see online that doesn’t come from the CDC or some other official source. They are bending over backwards to be honest about what to expect because they need the public to know that they are not putting anything over on them.

Trump did try to bully the vaccine through, but all the hurdles were met, not so much due to his pressure, but due to the science. While it may look like this vaccine was invented from scratch and brought to market in a few months, in fact it’s at the end of a longer more general vaccine development process that’s been in he works for years, this plus the fact that it’s not modeled on the old dead virus model but is a totally different technology as well as new tools developed in recent years, allowed for the vaccine to be developed quickly. The most important phase, the testing on volunteers is the part you need to pay attention to. Apparently, both of the vaccines came through with flying colors.

Can anyone guarantee that some downside won’t show up three decades? No. If we worried about that, we’d never vaccinate anyone and we’d just stand back and let plagues happen they way they did in The Middle Ages or like Dr. Atlas wants us to do.

Biden probably should recognize that the Trump administration did mount a strong effort to produce a vaccine by funding four(?) different companies to try their hand at producing a good one. It seems like it succeeded, though I suspect he should share the glory with the CDC, whish he won’t.

 

• This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by  Unseen.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

 

The vaccine does not make anyone sterile. It absolutely does not make any changes to your DNA. It is an RNA vaccine. Basically, it is just a messenger that shows your system the “shape” of the Covid-19 protein and says “this is the code you need to know to defend yourself”. Think of the virus being like an almost completed 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle. The are a few missing pieces but it functions perfectly as a “picture”. The messenger RNA arrives to show your system how to make the missing pieces (or proteins) and they are fitted neatly into the jigsaw by your own body – not by the injection itself. They then take over and remove all the color from the picture, rendering it neutral. This is not an analogy that purists will like, it is just easier than explaining the microbiology behind it.  Your own body makes the “missing pieces”, the injection just sends a messenger to tell it what it needs to do.

Then your body “kills the messenger” or at least the RNA molecules degrade to nothing very soon after delivering the message. This is because RNA is not a robust molecule and this is why it needs to be stored at very low temperatures, like Pfizer at -80C. Moderna’s is at lot higher, around -20C, as their RNA chain was modified to make it more stable.

The basic rule of microbiology is “DNA makes RNA makes protein” (as per the tattoo on my arm!!) But RNA does not interact with DNA anymore than someone telling someone else where the missing jigsaw piece is. They only give the message, not fit the piece.

When people tell me that they won’t take it or that they will wait, my reply has been; “Great, that means I can move up the queue and get mine sooner. Thanks so much!”.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

A better analogy might be that of “Mission Impossible”. Vaccinating against Covid is the mission. The injection is the tape recorder (that used to be a thing) so cue the music. The message on the tape is the vaccination building blueprints. Once the message is relayed the tape self-destructs just as the injected RNA messenger degrades. Then your body knows how to make the mission possible and starts to defend itself. Your own body does all the work.

[UnseenParticipant]

All Your Covid-19 Vaccine Questions Answered

How the Vaccine Was Developed So Fast

• This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by  Unseen.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by  Unseen.

[Belle RoseParticipant]

Thank you for explaining that LOL okay I’m totally getting one 😂

[PopeBeanieModerator]

I’ll absolutely take it. By the time I’m given the opportunity, millions would have already taken it, so by then we’ll know a lot more details about its safety and efficacy, although we likely already know enough from the robust research required by the FDA that’s more stringent than in many other countries.

In fact, I think the FDA is way too stringent on for not yet approving one particular rapid test (see rapidtests.org ) that could likely be taken every day by hundreds of millions of people for as low as $1 per test. They aren’t perfectly accurate tests but they can still catch infections when they are most likely to spread, a lot more often and quicker than the so-called more accurate tests.

Btw, I don’t remember the source so I can’t confirm what I think is true in the following: A woman came up with how to create mRNA vaccines, but she was not given credibility, supposedly because the technology was unproven. Two men had worked with her; each man started a company, one named Moderna and I forget the name of other, but both of those companies are now making the highly successful mRNA vaccine.

mRNA vaccines are brand new, but look extremely promising.

See https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/why-are-mrna-vaccines-so-exciting-2020121021599

[DavisModerator]

Beyond a small group of crank conspiracy theorists there was virtually zero controversy around vaccines until the social media age began. Having worked with social media for a decade now I know quite deeply the sheer poison that facebook and twitter are (to a lesser extent garbage videos linked via social media). I believe that next to global warming and the resurgence of hate speech (connected to social media by the way) that facebook and twitter disinformation are the biggest threat to western civilisation. If they disappeared tomorrow the world would be undeniably a better place. Europe is starting to regulate them, hopefully some countries will gain courage soon and regulate the shit out of them before the damage becomes difficult to overcome.

Take the bloody vaccine. They save lives. People who tell you otherwise are fools and/or are making money via social media click-bait.

[_Robert_Participant]

Yep, count us in. My sweetheart and I have become closer than ever, being somewhat isolated together, however we are both patiently waiting to get our shots.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Davis, i would make nucs the biggest threat. Possibly no warning. Just armageddon. If it hadn’t been for a heroic Russian it would have happened already.

But disinformation that is accentuating tribalism and echo chambers is a bloody horrendous issue. Do you know whether regulation of twitter and fb has been effective in curbing the march of folly?

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Ivy and Fellow Unbelievers,

This bit of history below should seal the deal for everyone, as it does for me.  If George Washington had not taken measures informed by the science of his day, The American Revolution and the Enlightenment Experiment in the West could have been lost forever:

How Crude Smallpox Innoculations Helped George Washington Win The War

https://www.history.com/news/smallpox-george-washington-revolutionary-war

🎶Look at this f-o-o-o-ssil!  It must be worth some big bucks!”  (National Gepgraphic Theme Song.)🎶

How A Smallpox Epidemic Nearly Derailed The American Revolution

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/04/george-washington-beat-smallpox-epidemic-with-controversial-inoculations/

Vaccination is the bob-tail nag for my betting money.

 

[_Robert_Participant]

Davis wrote:

Beyond a small group of crank conspiracy theorists there was virtually zero controversy around vaccines until the social media age began. Having worked with social media for a decade now I know quite deeply the sheer poison that facebook and twitter are (to a lesser extent garbage videos linked via social media). I believe that next to global warming and the resurgence of hate speech (connected to social media by the way) that facebook and twitter disinformation are the biggest threat to western civilisation. If they disappeared tomorrow the world would be undeniably a better place. Europe is starting to regulate them, hopefully some countries will gain courage soon and regulate the shit out of them before the damage becomes difficult to overcome. Take the bloody vaccine. They save lives. People who tell you otherwise are fools and/or are making money via social media click-bait.

I find myself oddly in agreement. This was the year that changed me. There IS such a thing as “too much freedom”…especially when there is no attached responsibility for outright lies to the ears of babes. Watching the US implode like this is painful. There will be no US nation worth nuking or saving from global heating at this rate.

[UnseenParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

I find myself oddly in agreement. This was the year that changed me. There IS such a thing as “too much freedom”…especially when there is no attached responsibility for outright lies to the ears of babes. Watching the US implode like this is painful. There will be no US nation worth nuking or saving from global heating at this rate

Robert, looking around I don’t think that most of the Americans who are gasping a tentative sigh of relief at the burgeoning distribution of vaccine understand that, while it will protect them from becoming infected, they may still be able to be asymptomatic carriers and thus should be wearing masks until the public health authorities tell them all’s well.

We may be asked to continue wearing masks at least until “herd immunity” is achieved, which will happen later rather than sooner if stubborn Americans continue to resist wearing masks and getting vaccinated.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Davis wrote:

facebook and twitter disinformation are the biggest threat to western civilisation

IMO the employment of increasingly sophisticated AI will amplify that threat. I keep saying that the benefit vs threat of AI will depend, at first, on who designs it and owns it. AI is not a tool that should, by only its own nature, ever be expected to be benevolent, no matter how romantic it may seem or be portrayed in the future.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Fellow Unbelievers,

Here’s  a wild thought:  How about competant consenting adults–remember those?  Pepperidge Farm remembers–not get their medical advice from friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend, Forward-Fwd-fwd-cc e-mails and social media posts?

How about making sure that the person on the other end of your communications has actually studied and pissed blood to get a high school diploma, a college degree in a hard science without the word “studies” in the major, a Ph.D. medical sheep-skin, and internships and residencies in a legitimate medical school?

How about–all physical conditions being equal, of course–go with the methods that have extended human life expectancies from less than age 30 to age 78 and more within the last 120 years?

How about taking responsibility for you own health and running like Hell from away from anyone with “cures” that sound like this:

David Seville “Witch Doctor”

Roy Orbison “Casting My Spell on You”

As for restricting and banning social media and AI, that sounds way too much like past moral panics from religious and Progressive do-gooders against “dime novels,” “penny arcades,” comic books, “subliminal messaging/backwards masking,” “Devil Music,” pornography, violent video games, albums not rated by the Parent’s Music Resource Center,and Televisions without the V-Chip.  (Did I forget any?)

And how about spreading the word about Reason and Science much better in a way that appeals to a mass audience?  Bill Nye could take some fashion tips from Carl Sagan and Neil DeGrasse Tyson instead of Matt Lesko for starters.

People who are supposed to be modern vanguards of The Enlightenment are capable of so much more.  Go for it and be better.

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