Isn't that the reason for long term studies? I mean, isn't it the case that the reason we'll probably never know(this time around) is because we've neglected public safety protocols that have been in place for decades because we already know that such measures are necessary to insure we're doing everything we can to provide the safest possible treatment(s)? — creativesoul

Sort of, but normal safety protocols for new drugs aren't designed to pick up on those kind of long term potential consequences either, it's just too hard. You're right that the longer term the trial is run for the more potential reactions it will pick up, but the differences in trial monitoring periods are small. Longer-term effects are picked up (if at all) at phase 4 when the vaccine is already in use.

This is why a proper risk assessment, including investigation of alternatives is so important, as opposed to the two people spending just three weeks checking a chemical to be injected into half the world.https://www.statnews.com/2020/12/17/did-the-fda-understaff-its-review-of-the-pfizer-biontech-vaccine/

Insanity.

This is a highly technical subject, seriously, if you can't even be bothered to provide citations there's not much point in commenting. — Isaac

You have it backwards. Science doesn't work your way.

Citations can always be cherry picked from diverse sources to support just about anything, which is what you are doing for your reckoning against other people's reckoning. It's still pure speculation either way.

What matters in science is consensus of experts in a particular specialty. What really matters is accepted secondary sources, like reviews and textbooks. For the current virus there aren't any of those yet, so even experts cannot tell us the answers to some of our questions !

Millions of doses were purchased by the federal government prior to the FDA approval. Should this be concerning?

That surprises me. How are Finns thinking about the vaccine? — frank

The Finnish government firmly believes in the EU, and thus is waiting patiently for the EU to decide, or more specifically the European Medicines Agency EMA to decide which vaccines are accepted for distribution. No hurry, I guess.

Larger scale vaccinations are expected to start in the beginning of 2021 with only a symbolic small amount of vaccinations (perhaps 5000) starting from 27th of December with Biontech-Pfizer vaccine, if it is approved. Vaccinations will be free of charge, voluntary and available to everybody. The primary focus groups are similar to other countries: a) medical personnel, b) older age groups and c) other risk groups.

EU has made the following orders for vaccines:

AstraZeneca (300 million doses)
Sanofi-GSK (300 million doses)
Johnson & Johnson (200 million doses)
Biontech-Pfizer (200 million doses)
Curevac (225 million doses)
Moderna (80 million doses)

Of course, as Finns basically trust their government and don't have a similar culture of criticism of the public sector as the US has, there is hardly any discussion about the vaccinations. Naturally there are some commentators who largely mimic the US debate.

Now the debate is about the UK corona scare and the discussion is if the example of the Netherlands should be followed and flights from the UK should be canceled.

Definitely not covid statistics...its complete bullshit — Merkwurdichliebe

How about the stats that there is a shortage of ICU beds in states like California?

(All quite normal?)


Or the stats that funeral homes and morgues are full thanks to Covid-19?

Those also bullshit stats / fake news, Merky?

(Acela Truck Co. has already sold hundreds of pull-behind refrigerated morgues created in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet is that for a need or just a consequence of the covid-scare?)

Definitely not covid statistics...I am complete bullshit — Merkwurdichliebe

Edited for content and accuracy

@Merkwurdichliebe It is obvious to me now, sir, judging by the crassness and vulgarity of your response to my last post, that you are not only far from being a philosopher or a gentleman, you are not even a decent human being.

I regret having ever felt familiar enough with you to give you a pet name, by which I will not only never call you again, but I will never deign to respond to you, by any name, at all, and I encourage all other decent members of this forum to follow my example...

So long, sir.

Funeral home in my small town has over two dozen bodies waiting to be buried; funerals must be placed on a waiting list.

I just presumed that you'd have no reason to disbelieve me. I can cite a dozen trial results, but if you've already decided that I'm making stuff up I'm sure you'd just sweep them away somehow too. There's little point in continuing along those lines. — Isaac

The fact that some people are worried that a vaccine might cause an autoimmune disease, does not constitute a logical relationship between vaccines and autoimmune diseases. Worry does not imply logical.

Absolute nonsense. Pharmaceutical trials are not public relations exercises. — Isaac

Tell me another one Isaac, LOL! The product must be accepted by, then sold to the public, as the goal is to make money. Don't you agree? So, how could these trials be anything other than public relations exercises? The goal of the trial is to make the product appear acceptable to the public, so that it will be bought.

How does it being complex prevent it from being triggered by some molecule. And if not triggered by some molecule, then what is it triggered by? Something from another realm? — Isaac

If the injection of one type of molecule could cause the disease, then it has a simple cause, and is therefore not a complex disease. I'm quite confident that if the cause of any particular autoimmune disease was the presence of one type of molecule, that cause would have been found by now.

Effectiveness is established in the labs in thousands of test tubes by mass laboratory techniques. Before they ever take a vaccine outside the lab effectiveness is already solidly established.
Biological testing with live animals and humans is different. This is where side effects, persistence, and other unknowns are expected to show up before a vaccine goes for approval. — magritte

This sounds like science fiction. Where are you getting your info? Since when is the effectiveness of anything is "solidly established" in vitro?

When the Russians claimed that they had won the vaccine race after supposedly observing an immune response in a small human trial, everyone thought they were nuts. But not even they were crazy enough to stake their claim before running a trial.

Citations can always be cherry picked from diverse sources to support just about anything — magritte

Well then you should have no trouble cherry-picking some experts who claim that the effectiveness of the vaccine at reducing transmission and symptom severity have already been established in vitro.

None of us here are expert virologists, so the interest is in reading such opposing views, not in pointing out their theoretical existence.

How about the stats that there is a shortage of ICU beds in states like California? — ssu

Well, California is a state of whining pussies and hypochondriacs. People there will go to the ER for the most minor inflictions. So I have no trouble believing there is a shortage of beds. I wonder how many people will die in those beds. I wonder, how many of the patients in those beds will die from noncovid morbidities. I wonder how many of those noncovid morbidities will be attributed to covid.

Do you wonder? Or do you just believe what you're told?

Or the stats that funeral homes and morgues are full thanks to Covid-19?

Those also bullshit stats / fake news, Merky? — ssu

The funeral homes and morgues are full? Is that a fact?

I suppose I was unaware because I didn't see dead bodies piling up in the streets.

I have a friend that works as a mortician. She's been on unemployment for a year. Ever think that the corpses aren't being processed at the normal rate because the staff has been reduced beneath capacity?

Of course you haven't considered that. It's a tragedy, really.

You know, preparing a body is not like baking cookies. It takes a certain acumen

I wonder where the excess corpses are being held. Is there any information on that?

(Acela Truck Co. has already sold hundreds of pull-behind refrigerated morgues created in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet is that for a need or just a consequence of the covid-scare?) — ssu

Im sure they sold the trucks. I wonder how many of those trucks are maxed out, or if there are a bunch of empty trucks just sitting there.

But it sounds like they are making a killing. At least someone is benefiting from the covid frenzy.

Millions of doses were purchased by the federal government prior to the FDA approval. Should this be concerning? — creativesoul

Yeah, I'm worried.

Research in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, found the lobbying expenditures ($248.4 million) and new lobbyist registrations (357) of the health sector represented nearly a fourth of all lobbying activity, across all industries, in the first quarter of 2020.

Health sector lobbying spending increased more than 10% in Q1 of 2020 while non-health sector increased only 1%. Meanwhile, the number of new lobbyists registered in the health sector increased a staggering 140% while non-health sector registrations increased only 63%.

Overall, the top 30 healthcare organizations (16 of which were pharmaceutical organizations) spent almost $100 million on lobbying in Q1 of 2020, which represented a 55% increase in lobbying spending over Q4 of 2019.

from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-020-06085-6

Most worrying, to me, is the conclusion of one of the study authors [my bold] "The return on investment on a dollar of lobbying appears much higher than a dollar of R&D"

Same seems to be the case in Europe where European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) lobbied against a tool designed to facilitate equitable access and pricing for pandemic treatments in Europe and former EFPIA Director Richard Bergström is one of seven members on the EU team negotiating these vaccine deals with pharmaceutical corporations.

'm quite confident that if the cause of any particular autoimmune disease was the presence of one type of molecule, that cause would have been found by now. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's better. I wondered what had happened to the old MU with all this "I'm sure the experts know best" malarkey. This is much more like it - startlingly egotistical pronouncements of certainty on topics you clearly have absolutely no training or understanding of...the world's back to normal again.

It is obvious to me now, sir, judging by the crassness and vulgarity of your response to my last post, that you are not only far from being a philosopher or a gentleman, you are not even a decent human being. — Todd Martin

:cry:

Funeral home in my small town has over two dozen bodies waiting to be buried; funerals must be placed on a waiting list. — Todd Martin

I have a friend that works as a mortician. She's been on unemployment for a year. Ever think that the corpses aren't being processed at the normal rate because the staff has been reduced beneath capacity?

Of course you haven't considered that. You are too busy with pet names, and worrying about me calling a hypothetical woman a cunt. It's a tragedy, really.

You know, preparing a body is not like baking cookies. It takes a certain acumen

no worries about becoming sterile, My kids are all grown up. I object to getting the vaccine because, of the two options available to me: My training, education, and experience in this area for the last 15 years are entirely wrong, or B: the vaccine is fine. Going with what I know, not the current hysteria.

The policy question to ask here is whether the long term damage to life expectancy and health as a result of the lock down, which inevitably will result from the economic downturn, are not worse than the lives we're saving by having the lock down. Has any research been done on that anywhere? Because I see it argued by some economists in the Netherlands but nothing backed up by numbers - just that it's a risk.

As a result, what we are missing is no discussion on what to do with the economic fall out after the pandemic passes. And again, this is the umpteenth crisis where, the rich still benefit. Just in the US, during the pandemic billionaires wealth increased by 36%. While I'm against having people suffer merely because others suffer, the correlation between the various crises seems to suggest that rich people benefit at the expense of others. If this is the case, then obviously we should remedy this.

I want an explanation of how it does happen. — Metaphysician Undercover

Bold request since no one really understands auto immune diseases. If I could tell you exactly how it happens I would be up for a Nobel prize and would have a considerable pay raise. In response to your other statement, that a common cold could result in you developing an auto immune disease...Yep, it could. But not very likely. We theorize that auto-immune diseases are triggered by an event, the body's response to that event jumps into a sort of hyperactive, aggressive, law and order group, and then proceeds to run around hassling various, or random, cells they see, and creates a disease response that previously did not exist. A lot like ticket happy bylaw officers harassing people about social distancing or not mask wearing creating dissention and anger where there previously was none. Which supports my global SIRS theory.

What the fuck is that about? It's about inflating numbers to support the pandemic narrative. Using dead people to spread propaganda, that is some crooked, disrespectful shit. — Merkwurdichliebe

Yep. Pretty spot on there eh. If I want to push the evil of smoking I make sure I attribute any lung cancer, heart attack, or stroke deaths as having smoking as a contributing factor. I exclude other factors like genetics and activity levels, unless I can spin them to support my cause. Currently Covid is the push. If you have any underlying condition that is even slightly impacted by Covid, which, if you are positive for Covid, we say will impact your conditions, then if/when you die from one of your conditions, Covid clearly contributed to your death, since your were not dead before you caught Covid, so it's a "Covid related Death". If you crash your car while infected I could probably spin that as "Covid related" because maybe your vision was blurry from covid, or you sneezed and lost control, or your were extra drowsy (Covid induced fatigue). It's that easy. Reassurring eh.

Little known detail outside of the healthcare world: most of our hospitals run at 95-115% capacity as an operating normal. I listen to the news spew panic about a hospital at 100% capacity and think "I hope they enjoy the break". Lots for the places I worked in 2019 had days they ran at 130%. No news stories came from that.

another interesting note.
Montreal long-term care home last week. 95% of residents had their Covid Vaccine. 35% of staff considered getting theirs. So 65% said NO. What's the plan when over half the healthcare staff elect to not get vaccinated? Will we all get sent home? I can see the head line now: "Over capacity hospitals send home 60% of staff due to non compliance. The other staff quit due to workload issues" HA HA HA

That's better. I wondered what had happened to the old MU with all this "I'm sure the experts know best" malarkey. — Isaac

That's the malarkey right here. When have I ever said anything even remotely like what you quote me as saying? It doesn't even sound like anything I would think of. So how is that the old MU, "I'm sure the experts know best"? The only position I have taken in this particular discussion is a stand against the notion that there is a direct relationship between taking vaccines and developing an autoimmune disease.

This is much more like it - startlingly egotistical pronouncements of certainty on topics you clearly have absolutely no training or understanding of...the world's back to normal again. — Isaac

Well, are you ready to show me the evidence then? Where has it been demonstrated that the introduction of one type of molecule into a living human system could cause an autoimmune disease? Or at least clarify as to why you think my statement to the contrary is a startlingly egotistical pronouncement of ignorance. It seems like a statement of what is common everyday knowledge to me.

Bold request since no one really understands auto immune diseases. — Book273

Exactly, that's the point I've been trying to impress upon Isaac here. Autoimmune diseases are extremely complex. Isaac seems to think that they are extremely simple, like a matter of injecting a particular molecule into a body, and boom, there you have it, an autoimmune disease has been caused.

We theorize that auto-immune diseases are triggered by an event.. — Book273

I thought the prevailing intelligence was that they are most likely genetic. If this is the case than portraying them as being triggered by "an event" is completely inaccurate. For example, suppose I have a disposition towards anger. Even though it is a true representation to portray any particular instance of anger as being triggered by an event, It's completely inaccurate to portray my disposition toward anger as being triggered by an event. It is a reversal of cause and effect. So your phrase, "triggered by an event" demonstrates that you are trying to portray an effect as the cause.

Little known detail outside of the healthcare world: most of our hospitals run at 95-115% capacity as an operating normal. — Book273

This is exactly why the governments enforce lockdown measures, they haven't the capacity for any type of surge. If the hospitals were sitting empty, and the healthcare staff were idle with no cash flow, we might see them lobby the government to encourage more people to get sick.

I thought the prevailing intelligence was that they are most likely genetic. — Metaphysician Undercover

Nope. Genetic predisposition has been fielded, however the triggering event theory is applicable in these situations also. Most of the histories that I have taken have the patient claiming that the symptoms were first noticed after some sort of event. Frequently they say "I just felt like something wasn't going right" with whatever sickness or event they had. I had one patient that "felt something off within a minute of getting my flu shot." Her symptoms started shortly after that. Was it flu shot related? No idea. Interesting that the patient believes it is.

Do you wonder? Or do you just believe what you're told? — Merkwurdichliebe

What I wonder is just your irrationality. So just because Californians are whiners seems enough of a reason for you to doubt the pandemic or the statistics. Let's take for example excess mortality. The is a thing of a natural mortality rate at a national level. And that something did hit us can be seen from the statistical difference: the mortality rate doesn't normally vary to nearly twice the number as in the earlier month on a national level.


Figure 1: Excess mortality. Percentage differences between 2020 weekly mortality and average weekly mortality from 2016 – 2019. The month labels indicate the start of every month. The x-axis indicates the average mortality 2016 – 2019.

Source: Eurostat

From a study in Nature:

From mid-February through May 2020, 206,000 (95% credible interval, 178,100–231,000) more people died in these countries than would have had the pandemic not occurred. The number of excess deaths, excess deaths per 100,000 people and relative increase in deaths were similar between men and women in most countries. England and Wales and Spain experienced the largest effect: ~100 excess deaths per 100,000 people, equivalent to a 37% (30–44%) relative increase in England and Wales and 38% (31–45%) in Spain. Bulgaria, New Zealand, Slovakia, Australia, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Norway, Denmark and Finland experienced mortality changes that ranged from possible small declines to increases of 5% or less in either sex. The heterogeneous mortality effects of the COVID-19 pandemic reflect differences in how well countries have managed the pandemic and the resilience and preparedness of the health and social care system.

The fact is that health care, as every emergency service starting from the fire department, have usually been trimmed down to meet the ordinary challenges. Hence once something out of the ordinary happens the system is in trouble. If there is a large scale accident, it's typical that resources are hurled to the area even from very distant places. Yet in a pandemic situation, that simply isn't the option.

Hence obviously something has happened, but I guess with Merky's reasoning is that Californians are just whiners.... and that others here talking about a Covid-19 pandemic are victims of big-government propaganda: perhaps done thanks to a sinister plot of the powers in be to take our freedoms away and not to fight a pandemic. But you just tell us how it is, Merky.

I can't speak to the statistics of Europe without doing substantial research, and frankly, I am finishing off a 12 hour night, so just don't want to get into that now. However, Canada-wise, our increase in mortality rates has been roughly 8% from April to November. Now It is starting to ramp up, but an increase of 8%, while substantial, does not support the damage that the social and economic lockdown is doing. Our suicide rates have increased by over 75% locally. I don't have access to national numbers yet, they are "not available", not so surprising really, no one wants us looking. Cancer deaths are up, as are other medically delayed related deaths. I would not be surprised at all if the combined death increase from the lockdown effects were double the Covid related deaths. Last year we had 451 Opiod overdose deaths. This year, so far, 942. More than double. The counsellors for addictions firmly believe this is the result of the lockdown.

Coronavirus disease: unfortunate, but mostly manageable.
Response to Covid: Much worse than the disease, last longer than the disease, affects more than the disease. Generally a terrible idea based on fear rather than logic or science.

Most of the histories that I have taken have the patient claiming that the symptoms were first noticed after some sort of event. — Book273

Right, the symptoms which are observed are the effect of the underlying condition, and the event is a sort of trigger. The trigger is not the cause, as I demonstrated in my example of anger. The event which triggers my anger is not the cause of my anger. The underlying condition, my disposition is the cause of my anger. When my anger is triggered, that event of anger is the effect of the underlying, internal cause, my disposition, it is not caused by the trigger. Otherwise I could not be held responsible for my actions when I get angry.

So clearly it is not a conventional representation to portray the trigger as the cause. That is a fantasy inconsistent with reality, and you are portraying the effects of the disease as if they are the causes of the disease.

Now It is starting to ramp up, but an increase of 8%, while substantial, does not support the damage that the social and economic lockdown is doing. — Book273

Let's start with the fact that we agree on that an 8% increase is substantial.

There simply is nothing to deny this and this is the fact based on statistics. Mortality rates have little variance usually. There are I think about 3 000 to 4 000 suicides in Canada annually, while there have been over 14 000 deaths due to Covid-19 in Canada. Just to put that 14 000 in to context, it's in the same ballpark as how many Canadians die to drug overdoses annually. In all, about a bit less than 300 000 die in Canada annually, which should put the numbers in the right context (as we have had Covid-19 deaths only this year, basically).

Perhaps if the US would have been among the most successful countries in the prevention of the pandemic, then knowing the American debate the discourse could be on that the whole thing is a hoax (as people have not died). With now a figure that is over the number of all Canadians dying annually, the pandemic cannot be refuted as a hoax.

I myself have theorized that if the US would have been successful in it's pandemic response, the best example to relate to is Canada as the two countries are quite similar and Canada is also large and a very open country to foreigners coming and going especially on the start of the pandemic. The US simply isn't similar to Norway or Finland. Hence if the US would share similar percentages as Canada, it would have now only 125 000 deaths, not 330 000. Hence the simple fact is that policies taken DO MATTER.



To answer to your argument that the social and economic damage isn't worth wile the effort, we really have to look at credible policy alternatives and just how many lives are we are willing to sacrifice and for what. Sweden is the perfect example as it truly has had a different policy, yet people do naturally take voluntary precautions against the pandemic and the health care system in Sweden is advanced just like in Canada. Above all, Swedes are quite OK with their policies. So, just to give a rough estimate, if Canada would have similar amount of deaths than Sweden, about 30 000 Canadians would have died. Hence you would have a double amount of deaths.

Coronavirus disease: unfortunate, but mostly manageable.
Response to Covid: Much worse than the disease, last longer than the disease, affects more than the disease. Generally a terrible idea based on fear rather than logic or science. — Book273

So basically the question is how much better would it have been for Canada to have less of a hassle, because the global Covid-19 economic bust you could not have avoided. How much worth are 15 000 mainly elderly Canadians that are now with you at least for some years to come, yet you and the economy has had to suffer from the lock downs?

That's your question, to put it bluntly.

@Merkwurdichliebe@Book273 You're right, no pandemic. It's all a hoax. Still, though, there's this: something with a mortality rate of around two percent has killed more people in less than one year than were killed in the US Army in all of WW2. Anything to that? Ya think?

Yep. Pretty spot on there eh. If I want to push the evil of smoking I make sure I attribute any lung cancer, heart attack, or stroke deaths as having smoking as a contributing factor. I exclude other factors like genetics and activity levels, unless I can spin them to support my cause. Currently Covid is the push. If you have any underlying condition that is even slightly impacted by Covid, which, if you are positive for Covid, we say will impact your conditions, then if/when you die from one of your conditions, Covid clearly contributed to your death, since your were not dead before you caught Covid, so it's a "Covid related Death". If you crash your car while infected I could probably spin that as "Covid related" because maybe your vision was blurry from covid, or you sneezed and lost control, or your were extra drowsy (Covid induced fatigue). It's that easy. Reassurring eh. — Book273

Perfectly stated! Unbelievale how convincing popular opinion is for most people. And, yes, it is quite reassuring, it is reassuring that I will never be disappointed at how disappointing the mindless masses are.

Apparently Merk is right because Book says so, and Book is right because Merk says so. I, personally, think the two of you should get a room, because your PDAs here are disgusting.