Ok get back to me once there are 55 million covid deaths.

aging research involving immunology..

Good luck in your program!

Well gee, then, that settles it; grad students know everything.

Or...think they do.

Your reasoning processes, at least as they manifest themselves on this board, suggest that graduate school may not be the best choice for you and you should seek a career in the caffeinated beverage industry.

Uhhhh...for the same reason that no one is talking about french fries being fattening, the 1924 New York Yankees, or how to change the alternator on a 2009 Toyota Camry? In a thread about Covid?

Yes, because youre clearly the expert in medicine, and all my years of study went to waste apparently..

While on the subject of PhD's (as they relate to the topic of vaccines), a recent Carnegie Mellon and University of Pittsburgh study shows that PhD's are the least likely group to get vaccinated, by level of education. They slightly outpace high school (or less) in their reluctance.

Also, PhD's are the least likely to be swayed from their beliefs according to the study, which means those who aren't yet vaccinated are definitely planning to remain unvaccinated, even as the government pressure ramps up.

Not sure how to provide the best link to this research, but you can google it.

I just found it noteworthy that the least educated and the most educated share a similar skepticism of the Covid-19 vaccines, but perhaps for far different reasons. The media would like us to believe that it's only illiterates who refuse to take the vaccine. But that's simply not true. The most literate and the most educated in our society are also aggressively refusing it, in larger numbers than one might expect.

I would love to know if it's the Chemistry, Physics, and Math PhD's who are saying "no thanks" to the vaccine or if it's the Sociology, Art History, and English PhD's... but unfortunately the study doesn't provide us with that level of detail. That would be extremely useful information. My hunch tells me it's the experts in the hard sciences who are refusing to be vaccinated. And that's worrisome for all of us if that happens to be true. (The reason that's my hunch is because I happen to know quite a few of the humanities doctorate crowd, and they all say they took the vaccine. But I don't have any scientist friends at all.)

Any Chemistry PhD's here? Or experts in any of the hard sciences? Not so much interested in your personal vaccination choice, which should remain private, but what are your colleagues saying? I think it's high time that the smartest people in this area, the ones who really understand the research extremely well, share their thoughts freely. The rest of us are just stumbling around in the dark, and doing what we're told. Most of us aren't PhD's or high school dropouts. We're smart enough to know that we're not smart enough to know, so we've put our trust in those who are giving the instructions.

Your decision on whether to get the vaccine and to wear masks or not doesn't just effect you. It effects every person you come in contact with and every person they come in contact with.

Your libertarian BS ignores that simple fact. If the vaccine were 100% 0erfevt or if masks were 100% perfect then your post might make an ounce of sense, but instead it's complete garbage.

K

PhD in Neurobiology in 1981, then after post-doctoral fellowship ran my own research laboratory for over 35 years.
My former colleagues are all vaccinated. 100% of them. My last employer before retirement, an academic medical center on the East Coast, has a policy requiring vaccination for all employees. Rather than being reluctant vaccine recipients, my colleagues did everything in their power to be vaccinated as soon as possible, once the frontline healthcare workers in the hospital system were all fully vaccinated as phase 1A recipients.

I find the notion that PhDs as a whole are a group somehow most resistant to vaccination absurd, and doubt the veracity of the unsourced claim. The evidence for the profound efficacy and safety of the two mRNA vaccines has been overwhelming since completing their gold-standard complying (double blinded, placebo controlled with well defined outcomes) pivotal clinical trials in over 30,000 participants each, a fact any PhD scientist in life sciences or biomedicine worth their weight in salt would instantly recognize and appreciate.

You honestly think people should make a decision and stop spreading science? Only people that knowingly make uneducated decisions say stuff like that. This is not a vegan or fitness discussion. Spreading disinformation during a pandemic leads to death. Last I heard that was fairly fatal.

Thank you for your response. This is helpful information. I'm wondering if it's the Philosophy PhDs or Psychology PhDs after all. Or perhaps it's just people lying about their level of education.

Thank you for this. It makes me that much more confident in the vaccines. I was hesitant when they first started talking about how soon they would available but got in line at the first opportunity and was fully dosed in February. The only thing I'm sad about is that I didn't become magnetized.

I got vaccinated as quickly as I was allowed to. Im not anti-vaccine. Im anti vaccine mandate and anti-mask mandate because its telling people what to do with their own bodies to try to protect them from themselves, and im against that.

yes, but those people that an unvaccinated individual encounters could have chosen to get the vaccine to protect themselves. So really, your protecting a collective group of people that don't want the vaccine, from themselves. Going against their will. Its not going to affect you or I, because we already got the vaccine. You just want to tell people what to do because youre irrationally afraid of the virus at this point. I am pretty much always in favor of free choice. Someone wants to make a bad decision, thats their right to do so.

But the mask mandate is not about protecting people from themselves.

I declined an invitation from my alumni association to participate in those trials. The sponsors were unwilling to disclose the facts until the trial was done, a multi-year prospect. The 50% chance of getting an untested vaccine early was outweighed by getting a 100% "emergency authorized " vaccine asap.

(You must be older than dirt by the way, though probably younger than me.)

No vaccine is 100% effective, but reduction of the un-vaccinated pool size would help matters overall.

No vaccine is yet available for kids.

Inconvenient truths for your side of the issue, but clearly must be weighed in the balance when public policy is made on health matters.

... and there is such a thing as public health policy and regulations. Cf. Typhoid Mary, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon

There is a link in the coronavirus thread in OOT. Study is not yet published or peer reviewed as well as having some other methodology limitations imo. Scan that thread a few days ago for a discussion between me and pocket_zeros to find the link.

Thanks for the reminder ;-) But my physical self won't let me forget it, every single day that I'm an OMC.

Its close enough to 100% that we dont need to start making people wear masks. Theres always some risk of death in life, and its been true long before COVID ever came around. At this point, for a vaccinated individual, there are many many other diseases that you are at more risk to get and die from than COVID.

Typhoid Mary was making people sick a large % of the time in close proximity to her and those people that were getting sick were then dying a large % of the time. Completely different situation. A child or a vaccinated individual has death rate under 0.001% from COVID. Im just not worried about those odds and you shouldnt either, given the much higher odds you find out you have some sort of cancer on your next doctor's visit, or you die in a car accident in the next year. Hell, even the flu has a better chance of killing you.

then what the hell is it about?

I don't agree with you here. The vast majority of infectious disease specialists don't agree with you, either. With 50% or even more of SARS-CoV2 infections being asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic, and those infection severities still being contagious, it's in fact an effective strategy for mitigating spread of infections to the unvaccinated and vaccinated alike (especially the former, given their several fold increased vulnerability), provided that the masks are of high quality at reducing aerosol influx and efflux and are worn properly.

Im aware it mitigates the spread. And I'm saying it doesnt matter, but forcing people to wear things or do things does.

Nothing you said refuted my point. Other than saying "an unnamed majority of experts agree with me, so I must be right". And how do you know the majority of experts agree with you? Have you conducted a poll recently?

We make people wear all kinds of things. Try going to the mall without any pants. Ever seen a sign that says No shoes, No shirt, No service? Gotta wear those seatbelts. Lots of kids have to wear uniforms at school. Lots of adults have to wear uniforms at work. Construction workers have to wear steel toed boots and hard hats. When I take a load of trash to the dump they make me wear an orange vest. The list goes on and on. Masks are just a big deal because of a bunch of crybabies who don't care about anyone but themselves.