Covid vaccines - thread banned users in First Post

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613451#Comment_119613451

My strong belief only relates to covid vaccines, not all vaccines.

snowcat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119612497#Comment_119612497

That ould chestnut on masks. Masks are worn by surgeons to prevent basic bacterial infections. Not viruses. Think about it..a surgeon with the flu will not spread the flu just because he is wearing a mask in theatre. Not going to happen otherwise he would be wearing a N95 or a respirator if it made a difference.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613950#Comment_119613950

Of course it would make a difference, depending on how long they were operating for and the level of air ventilation.

https://www.news18.com/news/lifestyle/wearing-a-cloth-mask-you-can-get-covid-19-in-20-minutes-study-4634423.html

https://physics.cornell.edu/news/masks-protect-better-distancing-study-finds

And in the context of this thread, what's the conspiracy theory? Authorities acted on the best available information, lab studies etc showing masks have a role in reducing respiratory droplets, viral load etc. Mask mandates have been dropped now. So the 'masks forever' conspiracy theory is dead in the water.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119612911#Comment_119612911

Ask over on the medical forum or mail the study directly (mail address is on the study) to explain it. Here's the email address: lin@bios.unc.edu

Good idea, so I emailed him:

Dear Dr Lin,

I hope you don't mind me emailing you, but I read the above correspondence in the NEJM with interest, and have also seen it referenced elsewhere - both to support the case for vaccinating children and to argue against it!

Those arguing against it are citing the apparent negative effectiveness after 18 weeks shown graph B, Figure 1.

I wondered why no comment is made on the finding of negative effectiveness in your text? It seems odd not to address it and wondered if you could clarify why not?

And the courteous Dr replied:

Thank you for your message!

 

Figure 1B indeed shows a decline over time of vaccine effectiveness against omicron infection in children. The data were sparse after 5 months, so there’s great uncertainty with the estimates after 5 months. It’s likely that high risk children were vaccinated first, which would cause underestimation of vaccine effectiveness at the end.

 

Figure 1E shows that vaccination confers greater protection against hospitalization than against infection, and as stated in the text, no children who were vaccinated died whereas 7 unvaccinated children died.

 

Thus, our work showed that vaccination was effective, especially against severe outcomes, although its effect against infection waned over time.

 

The correspondence in NEJM does not allow authors to elaborate on their findings.

hometruths_real

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119614285#Comment_119614285

data was sparse...sounds like they'd need some sort of statistical process to extrapolate the results...

edit: that sort of throws your 28 weeks worth of data argument under the bus?

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119614386#Comment_119614386

After 5 months.

hometruths_real

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119614403#Comment_119614403

point still stands... your argument of having data up to 28 weeks doesn't

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119614386#Comment_119614386

edit: that sort of throws your 28 weeks worth of data argument under the bus?

Yes, I was seven weeks out. Data was sparse after 21 weeks.

hometruths_real

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119614475#Comment_119614475

and what statistical process was used to produce the 95% CI used in the graph?

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119614468#Comment_119614468

Do you mean your point of extrapolation still stand? If they had sufficient data, perhaps even extremely comprehensive data, up to 21 weeks at what stage did they start extrapolating and what were they extrapolating?

hometruths_real

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119614530#Comment_119614530

Ok, don't answer my previous question

You like to think extrapolation is simply extending a graph (in simplistic terms, this is correct)

In this example, its used to find trends from a dataset

The perfect dataset would be sampling everyone in the world, which is impossible

Next best is an evenly distributed sample (age, sex, medical history etc...) but even that would have regional variations.

Hence why statistical methods are used to extrapolate trends on these elements (which you would have seen in the analysis index of the study).

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119614583#Comment_119614583

You posted you previous question as I was writing my post. I will answer it.

and what statistical process was used to produce the 95% CI used in the graph?

To me this looks like any "extrapolation" concerns potential unknown prior infections, not the infections covered by the study period for which they had the data - almost 200,000 of them.

No doubt you'll correct me if I wrong? What exactly are they extrapolating?

snowcat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119614530#Comment_119614530

When they got to 0% they should really have cut the dataset, Bonkers they showed the negative effectiveness. Do they think normal people can not read graphs.

hometruths_real

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119614720#Comment_119614720

no, what you've shown is the additional factor for combining the 2 data sets

hometruths_real

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119614857#Comment_119614857

technically it can be taken as 0%.... the fact it's left in is to show the data set isn't complete bollocks

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119614857#Comment_119614857

Do they think normal people can not read graphs.

Hard to believe, but there does seem to be quite a lot of evidence of that round here.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119614285#Comment_119614285

So you know now why the didn't comment on the negative effectiveness.

Why are you claiming that the study still shows this?

Do you not accept the explanation given to you by the author of the study?

Are they lying to you?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119614906#Comment_119614906

So out of curiosity... did you not see the part where snowcat claimed a study showed there was a link between the vaccines and a decrease in fertility yet the study directly stated there wasn't? Or was that another case of you getting struck blind at a convenient moment?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613950#Comment_119613950

You're back again.

Any luck finding any evidence to support your claim that there's a clear link between the vaccines and fertility? Any studies that you actually read and don't say the exact opposite?

snowcat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119615143#Comment_119615143

You are on my ignore list. Please stop asking me questions because i wont respond to your drivel. One last time,If you do not understand that menstruation is linked to fertility thats your ignorance. And extremely unlikely and needs long term research means they do not have the data yet and neither do I.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119615545#Comment_119615545

So that's a no then.

And that's a no to explaining why you posted that study as if it supported your claim when it fact it claims the link was extremely unlikely and that concerns about that link are refuted.

And its a no to the question about wether or not you actually read the study before posting it.

You're free to ignore whatever you like. You've been doing that for a long time before you put me on ignore.

The difference is now at least you're admitting it.

Fighting Tao

Seems like some conspiracy theorists/anti-vaxxers still want an echo chamber. It would make one wonder why they post on discussion websites.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119615571#Comment_119615571

They just want to link dump things they find on Twitter so they can pretend they researched something.

The only time they actually talk to each other is to whinge about how mean people are for asking questions.

They never ask each other anything, never mind challenge each other when they claim diametrically opposed things they believe are obviously false.

I don't think they even read each others links given that they often don't even read their own.

hometruths_real

"oohh yeah, a twitter jpeg with no context"

***unzips***

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119612497#Comment_119612497

Total rubbish. You are contradicting yourself here, they weren't sure they worked, yet they were essential for medical staff - and what about the rest of us? Should we all simply die? If what you said is true, we can take it as read now of there is a health threat that they will lie about effective measures to save health personnel.

And I've been in two separate consultants offices where they said I could take off the mask because it's pointless. Surgeons wear masks to prevent bacteria and bodily fluid splashes going in both directions. If it was for viruses, all medical staff would have always worn them. For viruses you need a respirator. Not masks. Masks are as effective as a tinfoil hat against COVID.

And COVID killed millions despite all this expert consensus. Sweden was more successful than most by following the pre 2019 pandemic guidelines. There was only a consensus because countries were afraid of being seen as the outlier. Not because of science. A basic measure like not putting recovering COVID patients in nursing homes could have saved millions worldwide but the experts couldn't work that one out, despite nursing home managers screaming it on tv as indeed they did here. How do you think they got it right with such a complex problem as whether to use masks or not?

And lockdown? I was in Dunne's with 1000 others at the height of lockdown, yet couldn't do click and collect at a small business. Lockdowns were only for small businesses. Complete quarantine was all that would work, and that was unfeasible.

The reason I'm posting this here is that any negative discussion of the COVID response gets you branded a conspiracy theorist.

Here's a nice video demonstating how effective masks actually are

https://youtu.be/_fPfGU1MizY

sydthebeat

Spouted like a true holder of a Sesame Street medical degree. Well done you.

Norway and Denmark don't recommend COVID vaccines for under 18s unless severely compromised. The risk benefit isn't there. Vaccine induced myocarditis is a bigger risk than COVID for children, especially males. Plus most of them have been exposed multiple times already. A recent UCC study showed 95% of people tested had COVID antibodies (not vaccine induced, this test was specific to infection induced) but only half of them thought they ever had COVID. So injecting them with a vaccine based on a nearly 3 year old Wuhan strain seems pointless even if they are 100% safe.

I'm not against the COVID vaccine - I'm boosted myself, and generally pro vaccines in general - but for kids this one doesn't make sense.

Dohnjoe, it's a bit rich to be talking about fundamentalist beliefs when you clearly suffer from them yourself.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119615820#Comment_119615820

It it's been shown repeatedly, often by conspiracy theorists posting studies they haven't read completely, that those vaccines still provide significant protection against serious illness and hospitalisation.

You guys have not at all shown anything to suggest that myocarditis is a bigger risk for anyone. That's a straight out fib.

You guys haven't shown anything at all to suggest that the risk benefit balance isn't favourable for vaccines and to do so.. you have to tell lies like the above.

Meanwhile we've hundreds of experts and doctors who disagree with your untrained assesment. Why would we listen to you over them? Why is their trained evaluation invalid while your untrained, biased and misinformed evaluation is valid?

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119615744#Comment_119615744

You claimed "all" health officials and scientists were strongly against masks, that's a straight up fib. We didn't magically know everything about the virus the moment it emerged, how it spread, how it worked, it was new, hence there wasn't an instant global consensus. These things take time to build, and as health professionals and virologists and scientists from all over the world came to understand the virus, the consensus became overwhelming, and replaced the initial speculation, masks could reduce the spread.

No national health body independently came to your conclusion. There's a reason for that.

Masks are as effective as a tinfoil hat against COVID.

If the tinfoil was covering your mouth, considering how the virus spreads, then it could be slightly more effective across a population than absolutely nothing.

If you want to believe this stuff, fine, if you want to believe that you, someone on an internet conspiracy forum, knows more than medical science on this issue, that's also fine.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119615849#Comment_119615849

I didn't claim that at all? WTF? I even cited Sweden several times. All the platformed health officials were. The likes of Luke O Neill was, and the reprehensible ISAG zero COVID cult.