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Almost all respiratory viruses are "deadly". This article brings up children. For whom the virus is almost never deadly. These vaccines pose a higher risk tha

Almost all respiratory viruses are "deadly". This article brings up children. For whom the virus is almost never deadly. These vaccines pose a higher risk than reward for children and healthy young people. Myocarditis often results in permanent heart damage. It's not something you just get over and move on with. For a young person, this is effectively a permanent disability.

pfisherman 5y ago
Yes. Many respiratory viruses can be deadly. This is why we vaccinate for influenza every year. Some are much lower risk. This is why we don’t vaccinate against rhinoviruses. Your claim about risks in children is almost certainly wrong. This will be borne out by the data from vaccine trials in pre adolescent children. But even now, it shouldn’t take much more than a quick back of envelope estimation (# of exposures / # of cases) to convince yourself that even in children risk from COVID >> risk from vaccines. The numbers become even more ridiculous when you consider the safety record of vaccines in general over the last 5 - 10 (or 100) years. And just for kicks can COVID cause myocarditis or trigger other chronic conditions (i.e. cfs/me)? What are the rates of long COVID vs lasting side effects from vaccines?
- mewpmewp2 5y ago
  Not sure how welcome vaccine debate is here, but the more we give vaccines to people the more quickly the virus will start to mutate due to evolutionary pressures as I think it is clear now that there's no herd immunity against this virus. So this raises another question, should we vaccinate everyone or just risk groups? Each new variant and mutation is a risk for appearance of unknown symptoms and unclear ability to get through current vaccines.
  - new_realist 5y ago
    Vaccines reduce the chance of a new variant by reducing the number of copies of the virus made in society. Every copy is a chance to mutate. Vaccines don’t create more mutations, any more than a person with zero immune response will produce fewer. They will produce more, because the virus will replicate more.
    - mewpmewp2 5y ago
      Could you explain the high amount of alpha/delta mutations as vaccines started to roll out and as they became available to everyone? https://nextstrain.org/ncov/open/global https://nextstrain.org/ncov/open/global If virus's infection rate becomes too low, new mutations and variants with ability to get through defenses have that much higher chances of becoming the new dominant variant/mutation. Essentially it is kind of king of the hill battle with variants where when you push down one, another will appear, with maybe completely different symptoms.
      - pfisherman 5y ago
        The delta variant took over because it is much more infectious than the alpha variant, period. Its emergence in India was not because of high rates of vaccination. In fact, quite the opposite. Also, I think you are misinterpreting the plots on next strain. Look at the distributions of variants in different countries on the world map. Vaccination timelines in the US/UK/EU did not coincide with most other parts of the world. In many of those places there is still not widespread access to vaccines. Taken all together one can infer that (1) countries with widespread vaccine availability are less impacted by the delta variant. And (2) the rise in the proportion of delta variant cases is being driven by infections outside of countries with widespread access to vaccines.
        mewpmewp2 5y ago
        This could be it, as well. I think I have spent too much time now on this and must move on, I am not sure what the truth is at this point. Let future show if vaccines will help us to normalcy at any level at all.
  - pfisherman 5y ago
    By your reasoning the eradication of smallpox or polio (in developed countries) would have been impossible. The human immune system and environmental barriers between hosts are the primary selective pressures on the virus. Those exist in the absence of any countermeasures. If it was vaccines driving selection then the more infectious strains would have emerged in areas of the world that had early access to vaccines. That is not what happened. Vaccines squeeze the reservoir of susceptible hosts where mutations can occur. Also my understanding is that the SARS-CoV-2 genome is relatively stable compared to other viruses as Coronavirus RDRP has pretty high fidelity. But I could be wrong about that last one.
    - mewpmewp2 5y ago
      These viruses didn't have characteristics of coronavirus. Variants appeared elsewhere, but mutations and spread started near the time when vaccines started to become widely spread. E.g. check nextstrain.org and see when alpha/delta start to mutate most and timeline of vaccines rollout. Also consider how much Pfizers efficacy has fallen. Would it have fell so much if it wasn't for mutations against evolutionary pressure from this vaccine?

pfisherman 5y ago

Yes. Many respiratory viruses can be deadly. This is why we vaccinate for influenza every year. Some are much lower risk. This is why we don’t vaccinate against rhinoviruses. Your claim about risks in children is almost certainly wrong. This will be borne out by the data from vaccine trials in pre adolescent children. But even now, it shouldn’t take much more than a quick back of envelope estimation (# of exposures / # of cases) to convince yourself that even in children risk from COVID >> risk from vaccines. The numbers become even more ridiculous when you consider the safety record of vaccines in general over the last 5 - 10 (or 100) years. And just for kicks can COVID cause myocarditis or trigger other chronic conditions (i.e. cfs/me)? What are the rates of long COVID vs lasting side effects from vaccines?

mewpmewp2 5y ago
Not sure how welcome vaccine debate is here, but the more we give vaccines to people the more quickly the virus will start to mutate due to evolutionary pressures as I think it is clear now that there's no herd immunity against this virus. So this raises another question, should we vaccinate everyone or just risk groups? Each new variant and mutation is a risk for appearance of unknown symptoms and unclear ability to get through current vaccines.
- new_realist 5y ago
  Vaccines reduce the chance of a new variant by reducing the number of copies of the virus made in society. Every copy is a chance to mutate. Vaccines don’t create more mutations, any more than a person with zero immune response will produce fewer. They will produce more, because the virus will replicate more.
  - mewpmewp2 5y ago
    Could you explain the high amount of alpha/delta mutations as vaccines started to roll out and as they became available to everyone? https://nextstrain.org/ncov/open/global https://nextstrain.org/ncov/open/global If virus's infection rate becomes too low, new mutations and variants with ability to get through defenses have that much higher chances of becoming the new dominant variant/mutation. Essentially it is kind of king of the hill battle with variants where when you push down one, another will appear, with maybe completely different symptoms.
    - pfisherman 5y ago
      The delta variant took over because it is much more infectious than the alpha variant, period. Its emergence in India was not because of high rates of vaccination. In fact, quite the opposite. Also, I think you are misinterpreting the plots on next strain. Look at the distributions of variants in different countries on the world map. Vaccination timelines in the US/UK/EU did not coincide with most other parts of the world. In many of those places there is still not widespread access to vaccines. Taken all together one can infer that (1) countries with widespread vaccine availability are less impacted by the delta variant. And (2) the rise in the proportion of delta variant cases is being driven by infections outside of countries with widespread access to vaccines.
      - mewpmewp2 5y ago
        This could be it, as well. I think I have spent too much time now on this and must move on, I am not sure what the truth is at this point. Let future show if vaccines will help us to normalcy at any level at all.
- pfisherman 5y ago
  By your reasoning the eradication of smallpox or polio (in developed countries) would have been impossible. The human immune system and environmental barriers between hosts are the primary selective pressures on the virus. Those exist in the absence of any countermeasures. If it was vaccines driving selection then the more infectious strains would have emerged in areas of the world that had early access to vaccines. That is not what happened. Vaccines squeeze the reservoir of susceptible hosts where mutations can occur. Also my understanding is that the SARS-CoV-2 genome is relatively stable compared to other viruses as Coronavirus RDRP has pretty high fidelity. But I could be wrong about that last one.
  - mewpmewp2 5y ago
    These viruses didn't have characteristics of coronavirus. Variants appeared elsewhere, but mutations and spread started near the time when vaccines started to become widely spread. E.g. check nextstrain.org and see when alpha/delta start to mutate most and timeline of vaccines rollout. Also consider how much Pfizers efficacy has fallen. Would it have fell so much if it wasn't for mutations against evolutionary pressure from this vaccine?