quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
If you actually think all this madness ends after some "fine-tuning", you can't be reasoned with.

Be polite to your fellow forum members.

I have a friend who had underlying health conditions, contracted Covid, was hospitalized, and made it through. Once out her doctor suggested that she take the vaccine to prevent her from getting what she just had. Doesn't make sense to me, and didn't make sense to her.

She suggested that she be tested for antibodies first, and if her antibodies were too low she would consider the shot. Dr. agreed and sent her for lab work.

As she explained it, the number they were looking for was a baseline of 1. Anything lower than that number would indicate her body would not have natural immunity. 1 or above would be sufficient to fight off additional exposure.

Not being familiar with these things, does this make sense to anybody here?

quote:

Not being familiar with these things, does this make sense to anybody here?

Actually it does, although it does seem counter-intuitive. Again, there's a tendency to think in terms of all-or-nothing, but the immune system doesn't work that way. It's a matter of quantity.

Even if a person has just successfully fought off the initial infection, it doesn't necessarily mean there's a huge amount of antibodies in their system. Perhaps their immune system got it all very early, and there wasn't a need for a larger response. Therefore to guard against a subsequent infection, the body needs to be "fooled" into believing there's a much larger viral load, and will thus manufacture more ABs to meet the threat. Thus the need for a vaccine even after recent recovery.

(This is also the reason that some of the vaccines need two separate shots. The first dose is just to get the immune system's attention. It's really the second dose that tells the body to go to full-time war.)

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:
I have a friend who had underlying health conditions, contracted Covid, was hospitalized, and made it through. Once out her doctor suggested that she take the vaccine to prevent her from getting what she just had. Doesn't make sense to me, and didn't make sense to her.

She suggested that she be tested for antibodies first, and if her antibodies were too low she would consider the shot. Dr. agreed and sent her for lab work.

As she explained it, the number they were looking for was a baseline of 1. Anything lower than that number would indicate her body would not have natural immunity. 1 or above would be sufficient to fight off additional exposure.

Not being familiar with these things, does this make sense to anybody here?

I had a friend that had COVID and his physician suggested that he get vaccinated. I told him I opposed that view in that he might have a bad response to the vaccine depending upon which one he got. He went ahead and it turned out O.K., but testing of antibody levels first would have made so much more sense.

I still have mixed feelings about mRNA vaccines. There is no track record in humans and that seems to be a primary desire of the COVID vaccination drive. People are functioning as test subjects to a degree.

And let's remember, NOT ONE of these vaccines is yet approved by the FDA for general use (not that this should give us any comfort given the status of the government health agencies these days). All are still "experimental" drugs.

RMD

quote:

Originally posted by kkina:
It's OK for you to disagree with me, and I am trying to see the other side. Is there really a need to make it personal?

My apologies here

I'll keep my smart alec-self away from this thread.

Just taking it easier will suffice.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
I honestly don't believe for a second that our government "leaders" were actually given this vaccine. They were given saline solution in a photo-op if you ask me.

What evidence do you have for that? Come on; admit you just made that up.

He said "if you ask me", you non-reader, you.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:

quote:

Originally posted by kkina:
It's OK for you to disagree with me, and I am trying to see the other side. Is there really a need to make it personal?

My apologies here

I'll keep my smart alec-self away from this thread.

Not a problem, my friend.

quote:

Originally posted by rduckwor:

I still have mixed feelings about mRNA vaccines. There is no track record in humans and that seems to be a primary desire of the COVID vaccination drive.

RMD

There is some track record. Did you read the article linked earlier?

"Six Month Safety and Efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine"

https://www.medrxiv.org/conten....21261159v1.full.pdf

quote:

Originally posted by kkina:

quote:

Originally posted by BurtonRW:

That's a little bit apples and oranges there.

The seasonal flu vaccine is based on CDC's best guess as to which of the zillion strains will be prevalent the next year. Not so w/ COVID-19. At least not yet.

Also, isn't the number only about 60% even when the CDC guesses right? Correct me if wrong.

They guess as to the most common strain. There are still other strains floating around all the time. The vaccine protects as to the one (or two) they think will be most common, and people can still get, and do get one of the dozens of other flu viruses. You get good protection against the strains the vaccine is good for, and little or no protection against the others.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
He said "if you ask me", you non-reader, you.

That still means that is what he thinks.

quote:

Israel is about the most densely populated place on earth and that probably has a lot to do with it. They still have a little over 40% un-vaccinated so plenty of potential victims left.

Israeli health officials have said 60% of current hospitalized COVID-19 cases are in vaccinated people. Most of them are age 60 or older and often have underlying health problems.

The Pfizer Inc (PFE.N)/BioNTech vaccine, one of the most effective against COVID-19 so far, appeared only 41% effective at halting symptomatic infections in Israel over the past month as the Delta variant spread, according to Israeli government data. Israeli experts said this information requires more analysis before conclusions can be drawn.

https://www.reuters.com/world/...onavirus-2021-07-26/

quote:

They guess as to the most common strain. There are still other strains floating around all the time. The vaccine protects as to the one (or two) they think will be most common, and people can still get, and do get one of the dozens of other flu viruses. You get good protection against the strains the vaccine is good for, and little or no protection against the others.

Yes, I know how the guessing works, but my point was that even when they guess correctly and administer the appropriate vaccine, isn't a tradtional inactivated virus vaccine only about 60% effective vs. the 90%+ of mRNA vaxxes?

I seem to see bad years at 40%, and good years at around 60%. That's where I'm getting the figure.

I have a friend, a 25 YO healthy female that had Covid last year was just diagnosed with the variant. She's very sick.

quote:

Originally posted by BigSwede:
I have had the chinese cooties, why do I need the vaccine?

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

quote:

Israel is about the most densely populated place on earth and that probably has a lot to do with it. They still have a little over 40% un-vaccinated so plenty of potential victims left.

Israeli health officials have said 60% of current hospitalized COVID-19 cases are in vaccinated people. Most of them are age 60 or older and often have underlying health problems.

The Pfizer Inc (PFE.N)/BioNTech vaccine, one of the most effective against COVID-19 so far, appeared only 41% effective at halting symptomatic infections in Israel over the past month as the Delta variant spread, according to Israeli government data. Israeli experts said this information requires more analysis before conclusions can be drawn.

https://www.reuters.com/world/...onavirus-2021-07-26/

I read another version of this story …but your version left out:

However, the two-dose vaccine still works very well in preventing people from getting seriously sick, demonstrating 88% effectiveness against hospitalization and 91% effectiveness against severe illness, according to the Israeli data published Thursday.

I mentioned Novavax and no responses so far.
I would consider it ahead of the mRNA offerings but no hope of the powers that be moving ahead with it any time soon. Anyone anywhere looking to get Novavax to market?

quote:

Originally posted by Patriot:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by chellim1:
Israeli health officials have said 60% of current hospitalized COVID-19 cases are in vaccinated people.

The Pfizer Inc (PFE.N)/BioNTech vaccine, one of the most effective against COVID-19 so far, appeared only 41% effective at halting symptomatic infections in Israel over the past month as the Delta variant spread, according to Israeli government data.



However, the two-dose vaccine still works very well in preventing people from getting seriously sick, demonstrating 88% effectiveness against hospitalization and 91% effectiveness against severe illness, according to the Israeli data published Thursday.

See, I have a hard time reconciling these percentages. They seem contradictory.

But then, I had a rough time with statistics courses in grad school. And those are just percentages.

There are smarter people who know how to use mathematical functions like "s counts, percentages and associated Clopper-Pearson 95% CIs" .

I can pick out disclaimer comments from the "Methods" sections, such as "Participants with a COVID-19 medical history were excluded, though evidence of current or
prior SARS-CoV-2 infection on laboratory testing of study-obtained samples was not an
exclusion."

I'm not familiar with the AAAS (Publisher of the article) so searched for information about their political leanings.

I found this entry interesting: It's supporting the factual basis of what they publish.

"AAAS always supports the consensus of science. For example, in 2006 they wrote “The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society….The pace of change and the evidence of harm have increased markedly over the last five years. The time to control greenhouse gas emissions is now.”"

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com...ent-of-science-aaas/

I've always been a Born Again Skeptic and the timing of this article makes me question their intentions. I don't believe or trust anyone any more.

quote:

Originally posted by RichardC:

quote:

Originally posted by Patriot:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by chellim1:
Israeli health officials have said 60% of current hospitalized COVID-19 cases are in vaccinated people.

The Pfizer Inc (PFE.N)/BioNTech vaccine, one of the most effective against COVID-19 so far, appeared only 41% effective at halting symptomatic infections in Israel over the past month as the Delta variant spread, according to Israeli government data.



However, the two-dose vaccine still works very well in preventing people from getting seriously sick, demonstrating 88% effectiveness against hospitalization and 91% effectiveness against severe illness, according to the Israeli data published Thursday.

See, I have a hard time reconciling these percentages. They seem contradictory.

But then, I had a rough time with statistics courses in grad school. And those are just percentages.

There are smarter people who know how to use mathematical functions like "s counts, percentages and associated Clopper-Pearson 95% CIs" .

I can pick out disclaimer comments from the "Methods" sections, such as "Participants with a COVID-19 medical history were excluded, though evidence of current or
prior SARS-CoV-2 infection on laboratory testing of study-obtained samples was not an
exclusion."

It can be confusing but read each sentence on its own merits.

The key is that the percentages stated are NOT those of the same set or number of people.