The Vaccine Thread

[No Excuses]

The FDA is squarely to blame for the lack of at-home rapid tests available in this country, followed by the Biden administration laughing at the suggestion of sending rapid tests for free to people only to enact it in January when it won’t matter much. 
 

I really, really hope that Pfizer and Moderna are following through with Omicron specific shots for next year. Fauci once again gave terrible advice that we don’t need variant specific shots. The COVID shots need to be updated every year to match the dominant circulation strain at the time as closely as possible. They may not end up being a perfect match, but we know pretty well now that shots based on the ancestral strain won’t be good enough for the immune evasive strains that will follow Omicron.

[The Evil Genius]

14 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

The FDA is squarely to blame for the lack of at-home rapid tests available in this country, followed by the Biden administration laughing at the suggestion of sending rapid tests for free to people only to enact it in January when it won’t matter much. 
 

I really, really hope that Pfizer and Moderna are following through with Omicron specific shots for next year. Fauci once again gave terrible advice that we don’t need variant specific shots. The COVID shots need to be updated every year to match the dominant circulation strain at the time as closely as possible. They may not end up being a perfect match, but we know pretty well now that shots based on the ancestral strain won’t be good enough for the immune evasive strains that will follow Omicron.

 

I'd be curious if future covid boosters will be a blend of variant protections like flu shots are? Is that even possible?

[No Excuses]

24 minutes ago, The Evil Genius said:

 

I'd be curious if future covid boosters will be a blend of variant protections like flu shots are? Is that even possible?

It’s possible. It will depend on which strains are in circulation at the time of vaccine prep and testing. For the next update, I believe it will likely be entirely tailored for Omicron. Not sure how it will hold up but the variants from here on out will be selected for immune evasion built largely to the ancestral strain all the way up to delta. Omicron is our best indication for what future strains will look like so it makes the most sense to vaccinate against it at some point next year.

[Sticksboi05]

More proof of how out of touch the Biden administration is with the pandemic and public health ...

 

 

[No Excuses]

The administration would argue (as it does in the article) that it is precisely following the advice of “public health experts”. The problem is that they are listening to a segment of voices that are deeply uninterested in leveraging technology and innovation to its maximum and becoming flexible about policy in the face of an emergency. I’ve worked hand in hand with many government agencies on science and tech policy issues and this is pretty much standard course across them. They are not equipped to effectively regulate innovation, and they are beyond terrible at imagining how innovation can make society better. 
 

It’s pretty much DC at its worst. Republicans are a bunch of incompetent buffoons and Democrats can’t be bothered to think that sometimes good governance demands bureaucratic flexibility and creative thinking beyond your little echo chamber of career government officials.

[Elessar78]

1 hour ago, Sticksboi05 said:

More proof of how out of touch the Biden administration is with the pandemic and public health ...

 

 

Dude, I’m all fairness, before thanksgiving I thought we had this virus in check. Esp with the pill coming on line. At the same time, we needed to be testing like other modern economies.

[Sticksboi05]

1 hour ago, No Excuses said:

The administration would argue (as it does in the article) that it is precisely following the advice of “public health experts”. The problem is that they are listening to a segment of voices that are deeply uninterested in leveraging technology and innovation to its maximum and becoming flexible about policy in the face of an emergency. I’ve worked hand in hand with many government agencies on science and tech policy issues and this is pretty much standard course across them. They are not equipped to effectively regulate innovation, and they are beyond terrible at imagining how innovation can make society better. 
 

It’s pretty much DC at its worst. Republicans are a bunch of incompetent buffoons and Democrats can’t be bothered to think that sometimes good governance demands bureaucratic flexibility and creative thinking beyond your little echo chamber of career government officials.

 

Beautifully stated!

[Grumpy Vet]

Merry Christmas everyone.

 

Update - wife, younger daughter and I got our rapid results back around 8 PM the same day we tested (Thursday).  Happy to report - 3 negatives.  Yesterday around 11 AM we got the results of the PCRs - 3 negatives.   Impressive turnaround.  Less than 24 hours on the PCR.

 

Last Saturday before anyone knew the roommate was even getting tested - my oldest and her boyfriend went to the movies together and then went for food.  They were together masked and unmasked for about 5 hours.  He has also tested negative.

 

Last Sunday, after my oldest daughter got her rapid back as negative - my two daughters hung out most of the evening after the wife and I went to bed.  They stayed away from each other on Friday and Saturday and my older daughter wore a mask around us before Sunday evening.  She has been wearing a mask around us since she got her PCR results. 

 

So here is my thinking......

 

I'm thinking my oldest got the Covid 12/9-12/11.  Maybe the gym?  Maybe hanging out in someone else's dorm?  Their inner circle has come back 5/7 cases positive.  She had very mild symptoms early that following week (12/13).  By the middle of the week she didn't have any symptoms - but by then the roomie caught it.  Roomie tests positive Saturday on the rapid as she is smack dab in the middle of the infection.  Older daughter is wrapping up the infection so she tests negative on the rapid (less disease/less likely to transmit) but the more precise PCR picks up traces of the virus.  I'm still a little surprised the younger daughter didn't get it after their hang session Sunday night.   Some of the family was pushing for normal Christmas Eve and Christmas with the negative tests.  The rationale was the symptoms were around the 13th - so 10 days after would put her out of isolation yesterday.  Out of an abundance of caution, we are deferring to what the testing place said - 10 days after last contact with someone known to have tested positive (roomie last Friday).  That keeps her locked down until the 27th as she has been asymptomatic since last seeing her roomie.  Some places say that she should be isolating 10 days after the test - which would put it at the 29th.

 

The amount of varied information you hear and read really is troubling.  

 

I'm just thankful that everyone so far is healthy and doing ok.  It is a bummer to have to delay plans - but I'd take that over someone being really sick.  Everyone in our family that can be - is double vaccinated and boosted.  Our 14 year old recently passed 6 months since her 2nd shot and doesn't qualify for a booster in Maryland (16+).  I'll be curious if that changes soon.

 

Anywho....I share in hopes that my experience can help someone else.  Both in testing and isolating / quarantining. 

 

Everyone have a safe and healthy holiday.

 

Yours in hating Dallas,

GV

[Sticksboi05]

+1 I'd rather meet safely on March 7th than unsafely today 10x out of 10.

[Fergasun]

Much to my spouses chagrin, I got the vax on the 23rd.  I have been ingesting large amounts of Gatorade the 23rd, 24th and a bit less yesterday.  Was a bit more tired.  I will see how fatigued I get today (but also I had increased my carbs those days... holiday time). 

 

I do have the same swollen lymph in the armpit where I got my shot that she complained of.  Mine is not as painful as hers was.  Feeling less tender by the day... but its weird to have a noticable fluid retention when I compare the way my armpits feel... 

[Barry.Randolphe]

 

 

Does anyone have any insight on this recent breakthrough? Is this an actual game changer?

[PeterMP]

1 hour ago, Barry.Randolphe said:

Does anyone have any insight on this recent breakthrough? Is this an actual game changer?

 

Various entities, including the army, have been working on a "universal" corona virus for a number of years.  It isn't something that is implausible but to know whether they are really game changer is impossible to say without long term large scale studies and seeing how corona viruses respond longer term evolutionarily. 

[PeterMP]

On 12/24/2021 at 2:44 PM, No Excuses said:

The administration would argue (as it does in the article) that it is precisely following the advice of “public health experts”. The problem is that they are listening to a segment of voices that are deeply uninterested in leveraging technology and innovation to its maximum and becoming flexible about policy in the face of an emergency. I’ve worked hand in hand with many government agencies on science and tech policy issues and this is pretty much standard course across them. They are not equipped to effectively regulate innovation, and they are beyond terrible at imagining how innovation can make society better. 
 

It’s pretty much DC at its worst. Republicans are a bunch of incompetent buffoons and Democrats can’t be bothered to think that sometimes good governance demands bureaucratic flexibility and creative thinking beyond your little echo chamber of career government officials.

 

Is there actually any evidence that we had the ability to generate the tests at the necessary volume and if we did, it would have made much of a difference?

 

The Vanity Fair piece is just odd to me.  The interpretation of a "vaccine only" response (from the Vanity Fair article) can be widely interpreted.  But even they say the Biden administration has put billions of dollars into ramping up test production.  $23 billion dollars doesn't seem like saying we don't care about something.  They talk about Europe like it is a great model for at home testing, but in Europe there have been issues with omicron.  If home testing is some great panacea, then why didn't the UK keep it in check?

 

It isn't like the FDA hasn't approved tests.  In May, there were multiple FDA approved home tests.

 

https://cen.acs.org/analytical-chemistry/diagnostics/covid-home-test-kit-review/99/i20

 

It's widely accepted that diminishing FDA restrictions on testing actually resulted in some not very good tests being put on the market and probably hurt our response and that home testing wasn't likely to going to actually solve the problem.

 

e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7577497/

 

(Which is consistent with what we've seen in Europe and them still having issues with omicron.)

 

 (People frequently like to criticize the FDA, but I've known a few people that work at the FDA and mostly they are good people that work hard.  And there is a long history of complaints about the FDA being underfunded and under resourced.  But by May, the FDA had approved a handful of home tests.  Are we really blaming a Dec. out break on lack of approval by the FDA that had been approved well before that?)

 

Generally, this seems to me to be likely a case where people like to complain about government when there really wasn't much different that the government could do.  Given the restrictions and resources the relevant government entities have.  I'd say 20/20 hindsight is perfect.  But this isn't even a case of that.  There's really nothing that I've seen that suggest that a different approach would have changes things much at all.  London is shutting down bars.  We could have rushed tests through the FDA process, probably had some poorer tests on the market, spent $200 billion on ramping up at home testing, and be in the same situation.  For what?

 

(What has worked pretty well is China style lockdowns.))

Edited December 26, 2021 by PeterMP

[Renegade7]

Sister is pissing me off with her anti-vax status, and it almost got ugly when she said I was wrong about something in front of my wife who doesn't like it but did it anyway.  She even hit me with the not trusting CDC numbers which made me want to snap on her but end the conversation instead.

 

Like, if you someone hands you a bag of 100 jelly beans and 95 are poison, you really gonna stick your hand in there hoping you get one of the 5 that aren't poison?  I get that calling unvaxxed stupid makes unvaxxed want to double down out of anger and spite, but thats what this is now, its not about facts, its about folk's feelings.  The number of people in the ICU from COVID is dominated by unvaxxed, the number of people dying from COVID right now is dominated by unvaxxed.

 

Saying it's not 100% like it's 50-50 is jus flat out BS.  In some localities it is 100%, saying the vaccine lowers your chances instead of eliminating them is just missing the point in an attempt to justify the decision not to get vaxxed.

 

This vaxxed/unvaxxed thing is pitting us against each other in a way that is dangerously unhealthy for our society. We shouldn't be trying to shame folks into getting the vaccine, its not working, its backfiring, its making it worse.

[Fergasun]

@Renegade7

 

 

I said that at some point in the thread.  There is diminishing returns at courting the hard-core unvaxxed and pushing them out of society or taking jobs from them is likely to have negative implications at some point. Yes, "public health policy" should dictate we get close to 100% vaxxed.  But, these are holdouts of the "give me COVID over the vaccine." attitude. 

 

At the same time I would say it is the holdouts themselves that are acting as if society is against them. The same liberty that folks respect their choice, if they are restricted from entering places they shouldnt complain. 

 

I saw a group of unvaxxed go to the movies this weekend and they got into an argument at the door with the theater manager about not being allowed in without masks on.  The manager said something like, "You need a mask, I will refund your tickets."  and they were like, "that's not true..." and were waving some paper around.  They then changed to "we have masks".    

 

The unvaxxed case count due to Omicron is starting to spike... our country tracks to that level (unvaxxed vs. vaxxed).  

[LD0506]

7 hours ago, Renegade7 said:

Sister is pissing me off with her anti-vax status, and it almost got ugly when she said I was wrong about something in front of my wife who doesn't like it but did it anyway.  She even hit me with the not trusting CDC numbers which made me want to snap on her but end the conversation instead.

 

Like, if you someone hands you a bag of 100 jelly beans and 95 are poison, you really gonna stick your hand in there hoping you get one of the 5 that aren't poison?  I get that calling unvaxxed stupid makes unvaxxed want to double down out of anger and spite, but thats what this is now, its not about facts, its about folk's feelings.  The number of people in the ICU from COVID is dominated by unvaxxed, the number of people dying from COVID right now is dominated by unvaxxed.

 

Saying it's not 100% like it's 50-50 is jus flat out BS.  In some localities it is 100%, saying the vaccine lowers your chances instead of eliminating them is just missing the point in an attempt to justify the decision not to get vaxxed.

 

This vaxxed/unvaxxed thing is pitting us against each other in a way that is dangerously unhealthy for our society. We shouldn't be trying to shame folks into getting the vaccine, its not working, its backfiring, its making it worse.

 

I hear ya and you are apparently a nicer person than I am but, I digress.

IMO WE aren't doing **** to the plague rats, this is 100% self inflicted frustration/angst/anger/ hold my breath til I turn blue tantrum throwing. They refuse to wipe and I'M supposed to pretend that they don't reek? Puleeeeeze.....

 

I am tired, exhausted with trying to tapdance around their infantile behavior. They're enabled daily by a pack of grifters shaking them down and they like it! They hoot and bleat at each other in their bubbles and this self-reinforcing messaging just makes them worse.

 

Fine

G'head

Good luck with that plan

 

But me? I'm not afflicted with it, I'm not excusing or enabling or ignoring it, I am all out of ****s to give for anyone so willfully ignorant, so vocally antisocial, so self destructive that they'll take you with them rather than admit they were doing something stupid.

 

Stupid

S

T

U

P

I

D

 

Stupid

The "S" word

 

We're down to the point where that is not only justified, it's accurate to the point of excluding other explanations

 

I'm not obliged to tolerate or associate with this level of stupid. I'm not obliged to get sick because they are stupid. I am not obliged to put my family at risk because they are stupid. I shouldn't be expected to risk my health and the health of those around me to perform basic functions like grocery shopping because they are stupid. And I damn well am not happy to see the country convulsed and jumping through its own ass trying to accommodate their stupidity.

 

Go sit in the corner, stay there until you decide to rejoin society.

If you die there rather than choosing to behave like human beings, so be it.

We'll haul the bodies away to make room for more.
~The End~

 

[The Evil Genius]

 

 

**** you if you can't fulfill your basic human social contract to protect everyone else from this.

 

Seriously. **** you. 

 

God damn selfish pricks (not directed at anyone here 🙂).

 

 

Edited December 27, 2021 by The Evil Genius

[Califan007 The Constipated]

This site is a trip…and apparently there was a Santa shortage due to many of them dying from COVID?

 

https://www.sorryantivaxxer.com/

[tshile]

Conservatives are just upset their general anti-anything-intellectual (science, math, economics, I mean it’s basically everything) has been exposed in such a crazy way

 

Sorry but the only one responsible for you appealing to making **** up as you go, is you. 

Edited December 27, 2021 by tshile

[Larry]

27 minutes ago, tshile said:

Sorry but the only one responsible for you appealing to making **** up as you go, is you. 

 

That's . . . not quite true.  

 

There's been people conditioning them for 40 years, to simply ignore anything that they don't want to hear.  

 

It's a standard part of the playbook, for propagandists, and abusing psychopaths.  

[Jumbo]

1 hour ago, Califan007 said:

This site is a trip…and apparently there was a Santa shortage due to many of them dying from COVID?

 

https://www.sorryantivaxxer.com/

 

with what's at stake in the left's war on xmas, it was inevitable that their atheist-scientist lackeys would eventually unleash biologicals---ones designed to more likely infect god-loving right-thinking patriotic freedom-fighter americans who would never let them implant their pervert-socialist slave-making mircochips 

[tshile]

20 minutes ago, Larry said:

 

That's . . . not quite true.  

 

There's been people conditioning them for 40 years, to simply ignore anything that they don't want to hear.  

 

It's a standard part of the playbook, for propagandists, and abusing psychopaths.  

Right. But when I see slutty clothes on the racks at the store in the little girls section, I choose to blame the parents that purchase them. 
 

There will always be someone willing to sell bull****. 
 

it’s whether any one’s willing to buy it that matters. 

[Cooked Crack]

 

Why does Biden keep politicizing the pandemic?🤔

 

[MrSilverMaC]

So I got my moderna booster yesterday, and woke up with a cough and slight sore throat. Are these side effects of the shot or did I **** around and catch omicron before getting boosted?

[PleaseBlitz]

Mark me down as having crossed over to the dark side of not really caring if unvaxxed people get seriously ill at this point.  Best thing for everyone is that everyone obtain immunity is some way, and if you won't get vaxxed, then you get antibodies by contracting the disease.  Everyone has made their risk decision by now, and I'll live with mine and I'll accept yours, but I hope Omicron burns through the population like wildfire.