You're talking about Matt Taibbi and CNN's Twitter accounts?

I was talking about the very derpy YouTube video in the Twitter link (by some dude named Matt Orfalea - the "Nobody is Safe!" thing) that was posted on YouTube with the standard ALL CAPS SCREAMING font with the bonus exclamation point in case that was not enough that features Biden in mid sentence to look weird. Sorry if I refered to it as Twitter instead of YouTube. Anyway, that is standard fare of stuff posted here as a reference source by conspiracy folk. That channel has relatively few followers and most of his videos features the same alarmist approach to appeal to derps. Be sure to SUBSCRIBE TO HIS RUMBLE! as he nicely asks.

The CNN one is a very old post and it lacks full context as is often the times when extremists post their source material, so it is presented in mid 2023 as if it happened recently, when it did not and safe to say the knowledge now is different than what was known then as are the variants etc. Also, who really cares what an actor says about Covid, not like he is an expert. We see this a lot when dusty or outdated stuff is presented as if it was said today, and that of course changes the context.

Hope that helped explain it. Not my fault the sources provided by extreme conspiracy folk are always pretty bad - what else would they be?

All the best.

Yeah, the fear mongering and propaganda peddling was off the charts.

This compilation is a good follow up to that video. The irony is fairly brutal.

E.D. might report me for this dangerous spamming. It's funny isn't it? is it satire?

Was surprised to see that only 17% of Americans got a booster (3rd) dose of the vaccine

About 1 in 5 is or 20% of the US population is vaccine resistant, they didn't take any covid vaccination and will not change their mind.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/353081/...resistant.aspx

I've been catching the news on it here and there. So if I have this right it is not recommended for under 18 years old now according to the FDA? And JNJ vaccine is totally halted bc of blood clot risk. Adults after second shot get covid more often than unvacced? I'm def not getting another booster. I got the second like a year ago as a healthy adult and regret it now. I only got it bc i was 40 yrs old and worked with the general public.

Do you have a cite for this stat?

Your article is dated 8/6/21 ...

Still its not that far off when you consider the entire population.

Here is a current article with stats broken out by age group

About 81% of the population has taken at least one dose of the vaccine. Perhaps more importantly only 70% are fully vaccinated. It could be that some people who have taken one mRNA shot are now anti-vax...

However if you look at the breakdown by age group you will see that it is younger people who are not getting vaccinated as much as older people.

By age group in the US:

65+: 93% are fully vaccinated (and over 95% have received at least one shot)

50-64: 83% are fully vaccinated (95% received at least one shot)

25-49: 71% fully vaccinated (84% received at least one shot)

18-24: 66% fully vaccinated (81% received at least one shot)

12-17: 61% fully vaccinated (71% received at least one shot)

5-11: 32% fully vaccinated (39% received at least one shot)

2 4: 4% fully vaccinated (8% received at least one shot)

<2: 2% fully vaccinated (6% received at least one shot)

So the way the data is distributed it is clear that people who are most vulnerable (65+) are getting vaccinated. Remember that 2% to 3% of the population can't get vaccinated for medical reasons so that means that 95% to 96% of 65+ would be fully vaccinated if they could.

With 50-64 they would be like 86% fully vaccinated.

Under 50 is less than 80% fully vaccinated as would be expected. It matters less to them because they don't see themselves as dying. Still close to 75% of those 24-49 are fully vaccinated (or can't be vaccinated).

It will be interesting to see what happens to vaccine mandates for children over time. While it is still very low there is more death and serious illness from Covid for children than there would be from vaccines.

The irony of course is that like 80% of people who are dying from covid are not vaccinated. And another 15% are not fully vaccinated. What this means to me is that over 1% (possibly close to 2%) of all 65+ people in the US who are not vaccinated are dying from Covid each year. My guess is that the dead are being replaced by unvaccinated 64 year olds, So this will keep happening.

In the past year there have been approximately 140,000 Covid deaths.

What do you consider fully vaccinated? Two shots? I would consider fully Vaccinated two shots and the booster

The point I was making was about the booster .

So were the deaths.

With the current mild strains I would argue the vaccine is not warranted for any age groups/cohorts except those with compromised immune systems or significant comorbidities. The vaccine got us through the pandemic but is no longer needed or nearly as effective.

I pretty much agree with the above assessment, as it accurately fits the scenario we are currently in. I have not thought about a Covid vaccine in a while, nor will I likely, but I understand the history, regardless of the entertaining narratives that the extreme anti-vaxx community spews (hoping more Lizard People are part of it).

One can definitely debate (in hindsight, so more historical than fair) the cost/benefit analysis of extra deaths vs economic cost savings, and during that time I was totally on board with anti vaxxers getting Covid the natural way (as they seemed to prefer) and croaking at a much higher rate, as their croakings saved a lot of health care cost future money and lowered the derp quantity overall. I pitched hard for team "Let it Rip!" for a while during the pandemic (once the effective vaccine existed and was available), and I meant it. Many of those who on the anti-vaxx side said let it rip amused me here because they were 21 in their head but much more "hello, fellow kids" in reality. One here talked about her mother in her late 80s, so you know - heh on math.

Note, I am mildly entertained by the extreme anti-vaxxers attempt to re-write history to serve their narrative. Makes it easy when they always use nut low source material, but I always respect the effort. I have asked many of them if they would choose to ban all vaccines including ones many schools have long required (like polio and measles etc) but they seem to not have the courage to answer that directly, which of course is why I ask it. Again, more Lizard People will solve everything!

fully vaxxed is fully up to date on boosters. so having a booster within 6 months.

it has already been shown that they wear off immensely after that time period. so the booster that you got in fall of 2021 aint doing **** anymore.

This is a pretty wild exaggeration, although it's true effectiveness degrades over time.

What's that got to do with the hysterical fear mongering based on the false claim that the vaccines prevented transmission? "Nobody is safe till everybody is safe" was unscientific nonsense spouted by dummies.

It has been a very long time since "vaccines prevented transmission".

Interestingly the articles never said what fully vaccinated means.

The reports that show the death rates started before there were boosters. Once boosters became active those reports never changed their format. So my guess is that their intent was to keep things the same in terms of what fully vaccinated meant (so not including boosters).

The only thing I could find on current death rates was in this article and it does show the difference between those fully vaccinated and those who have received boosters from October 1, 2022 through March 4, 2023 (when the data ends). Prior data, from October 2021, was only about those who had been vaccinated not considering boosters. Also they didn't start out looking at data for children under 12. Data for children 5-11 was added in December 2021, and for children 0.5-4 in August 2022.

The data was weekly averages so I averaged them out (which means if there were more deaths one week than others then my averages won't be 100% accurate but they should be close). Here is what was reported for death rates for those unvaccinated, vaccinated without bivalent booster and vaccinated with bivalent booster in the 23 weeks that were reported:

There were no deaths at all for anyone vaccinated (regardless of booster) < 18 years old. For those 18-29 there were only 2 weeks where deaths were reported. For those unvaccinated there were no deaths in 8 weeks for those <5, no deaths in 14 weeks for those 5-11, no deaths in 15 weeks for those 12-17, and no deaths in 3 weeks for those 18-29.


Unvaxxed : Vaxxed w/ booster (Vaxxed : Vaxxed w/ Booster)
30-49: 6.3x (1.6x)
50-64: 8.1x (1.9x)
65-79: 18.0x (2.6x)
80+ : 8.4x (2.4x)
All : 10.3x (2.3x)


In the prior year data was similar but overall slightly worse for those 65+ (so the Omicron Booster and/or Omicron changed things possibly in both directions):

Unvaxxed : Vaxxed
30-49: 11.2x
50-64: 10.4x
65-79: 14.4x
80+ : 5.7x
All : 9.2x

It has never definitely been proven vaccines prevented transmission although many including Fauci strongly suggested it probably helps, which was based on secondary studies. But Fauci always hedged by saying unlikely but not impossible. Transmission was not one the outcomes tested during the Phase 3 trials.

The vaccines did reduce transmission of Covid they just didn't eliminate it. They basically reduced transmission at approximately the same rate as a Covid infection. And ironically if you had both (infection and vaccine) it almost doubled the reduction of transmission to 40%.

The reason nobody knew if they would eliminate Covid is because some vaccines do eliminate transmission (like for the measles, etc.) and some don't (like for the Flu, etc.). With a new vaccine you won't know until its out there

Reduction to transmission has never been proven in an RCT as far as I'm aware - it's only been suggested in observational studies, which have much less scientific weight. Like I said, the effect on transmission wasn't even evaluated during the phase 3 vaccine trials, which makes sense because if you read those studies' methodology, becoming infected wasn't one of the endpoints checked for the actual treated group - they only tested subjects if they exhibited symptoms, so the two outcomes the phase 3 trials actually measured were 1) symptomatic infection and 2) severity of that infection. Thus asymptomatic infections were not measured in the trials.

I get what you are saying.

If I remember correctly what I read was not based on trials but as you say on live data (like the way they are doing the death data at hospitals figuring out what % of people were vaccinated, boosted, unvaccinated). So it wouldn't be as accurate as a trial. But still I think its a positive sign that the vaccines when they first came out probably saved some lives other than the people who had taken them.

placebo effect is very real

Intuitively it certainly makes sense a vaccine would reduce transmission. However I don't think they ever got a handle on the true asymptomatic rate in both the vaccinated and unvaccinated population or how infectious asymptomatics were versus those with symptoms. During Delta they found larynx viral loads were similar, which was surprising, but of course those with symptoms would be expected to sneeze and cough more to spread that load, but then again, those with symptoms were also more likely to stay home to nurse their symptoms vs asymptomatics walking around and potentially infecting others. In the absence of clear evidence either way I personally think the vaccine likely didn't do much to prevent transmission on a full-population level.