Is now the correct approach. I mean sure, many/most floomers are people with only a tenuous grasp on reality who don’t understand things like “excess mortality.” That said, with vaccines available now widely available across the First World – certainly to the age groups who are vastly more likely to die from Corona – it is time to lift all restrictions, all lockdowns, all quarantines, all mask mandates, all Corona-related barriers to international travel, and everything else that impinges on quality of life in the name of the anti-epidemic efforts. This is because, unlike in 2020, getting seriously sick or dying from Corona is now a choice in the Anglosphere, in Europe, in Russia, in East Asia, and will soon be in India and Brazil too. “Let the bodies pile up high in their thousands,” as BoJo wisely said.
There is, to be sure, the question of hospital capacity. The correct response would be to deny the non-vaccinated hospital places for Corona treatment in the absence of spare capacity. If there’s empty beds and unoccupied medical staff, great, come in. If not, that’s sad, but it was you who made that choice. This policy should apply irrespective of age. This would be an ethical approach because the non-vaccinated believe that Corona is “just the flu”, or even a “hoax”, and make full suppression impossible. That is their right, but those who disagree should not be forced to subsidize their beliefs (just like we don’t subsidize, say, homeopathic medicine). “No bailouts!” is a slogan that I am sure consistent anti-vaxxers will agree with. They can always pay for a place at a private hospital or build their own hospital at the end of the day. In the great and immortal words of that Texan mayor, “only the strong will survive.”
Another argument against floomerism was that with billions of potential carriers, the door would be open to the emergence of much more dangerous strains. Frankly, that train has long passed. Corona is globally endemic, with low state-capacity regions with billions of people now serving as petri dishes for it. The appearance of new strains that are more infectious is certain (see India), and it is also possible that the new strains will be more virulent. But, again, that’s a done deal at this point.
There should also be a global ban on gain of function virus research, which seems to have an incredible lopsided ROI ratio (grants for virologists vs. millions of dead and trillions USD in lost GDP).
Here is what will actually happen. There will be new strains that will be more resistant against existing vaccines, and vaccination itself will not be universal. But the above proposals, which nobody with a libertarian outlook should have cardinal issues, will be politically unacceptable. The interaction of the bureaucratic obsessions with window-dressing (as opposed to results), rightoid intransigence ruling out herd immunity based total suppression of Corona, and normie Corona-hysteria translating into popular acquiescence to endless lockdown spectacle will massively degrade quality of life for indefinite years to come.
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Here in continental Europe people under 40 are still waiting to get a shot. What’s the situation in Russia, do only older people have a possibility rn to get a shot or also younger people? Otherwise I support your argument, but give Europe some more months to give a shot for anybody who wants one.
You get it about right. I agree with your suggestions – let’s see who does better in a free-for-all. We haven’t had a true evolutionary pressure for a few generations and we ended up with low-T recluses who apologize for who they are and eat junk food while playing video-games.
Let biology roar and see who will come out on top.
https://youtu.be/QcbR1J_4ICg
Not one mention of the millions of brothas who lost their gains during lockdown and forced closure of gyms.
Gymcel Lives Matter!
I think travel restrictions are good. I support a reduction of travel. Especially migration.
You say high excess deaths, I say low QALYs (quality adjusted life years) lost.
Especially compared to previous flu epidemics which took younger people (and those old enough to be around in 1919 often showing immunity).
But even on a pure death count, UK deaths per 100k were at the same level in 2003 and all previous years, and adjusted for the older population 2020 was the same as 2008 and all previous years.
https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n896
The nice thing those charts show is just how much good economic growth and full health services have reduced deaths over the decades. Lockdown is sacrificing real improvements that return decades of healthy lives in order to save months for the aged or co-morbid. (the grim reaper is a much better judge of those with co-morbidities or whose time is near than any doctor).
The real Floomer debate is about who dies or doesn’t die next. Will we see falling life-expectancy amongst those under 65 because they missed out on basic healthcare in 2020 or 2021? And will the over 65s have increased life-expectancy because those most at risk have fallen already.
You are a year late. Once we knew death rates were not 5% and not 1% but 0.1%-0.2% for pops with full age ranges, lockdowns should have finished then. That was May 2020 (and even the CDC published guidance with an implicit 0.26% rate back in June 2020).
@akarlin what’s your stance on ivermectin as a suitable, if not potentially even better (as implied by results from multitudes of observational and RCTs around the world) substitute to these experimental mRNA vaccines, as a means of helping to reach global herd immunity?
Among the numerous known examples of its efficacy, the one that really stood out to me was that covid front line health care workers in Argentina who were given moderate doses of ivermectin prophylactically did not contract the disease at all (as in 0 people out of 500+, forgot the precise figure), compared to 58% of the control group who got it. So if enough people aren’t infected due to prophylactic treatment, or treated early enough with ivermectin to vastly inhibit viral replication, then that means no viral shedding, and so such people indeed can effectively contribute to herd immunity.
Many non-vaccinated know that SARS-CoV-2 is real (and that well-tested vaccines work) but still estimate that the best approach is to avoid the virus and the new emergency-approval vaccines.
From what I’ve heard, if you catch Covid and survive, your immunity will protect you from its mutant relatives. On the other hand, if you get the shot, you are protected from this one strain and it alone. You will need to be inoculated for the mutants.
Anyone know if this is true?
Wrong.
I think both can protect your from the mutant strains. However, 1/5 of people who survive Covid fail to develop lasting immunity, leaving them very vulnerable to reinfection, often worse than before. Previous Covid infections usually provide less protection against Covid reinfections than vaccines. Plus you end up with damage to vital organs. People who survive Covid are also twice as likely to die from other causes.
I heard that the tests for Sputnik V against the South African variant are showing over 90% efficacy – so far the highest of all vaccines. That variant shares one of the mutations found in the Indian variant, which makes Russians’ refusal to take any vaccine more frustrating.
If I were the guy funding Gain-of-function, I would have quietly, tactfully (i.e., not Blinken-style) done my best to implement, and pay for, extraordinary safety procedures. “We are partners in this research, so let us be partners in the safety methods. You Chinese are very good at this. We will learn a lot from you! Because we will learn, we want to pay.” I can hear myself saying that, even though I am a nobody pajamas.
Did anyone try this? Who? How? If not, why not? Why hasn’t the press asked these questions? This is not just hindsight. They all knew this was the most dangerous project in the history of the world. As Adm. Nimitz said after they disastrous Halsey hurricane, it is dangerous to be grudging about safety precautions for fear that they might turn out to have been unnecessary.
“The interaction of the bureaucratic obsessions with window-dressing (as opposed to results), rightoid intransigence ruling out herd immunity based total suppression of Corona, and normie Corona-hysteria translating into popular acquiescence to endless lockdown spectacle will massively degrade quality of life for indefinite years to come.”
Good point.
But what if things go badly?
I should clarify (if it wasn’t clear) that most floomer claims remain as factually wrong and often insane as they always were.
This isn’t me subscribing to “it’s just the flu”, “its real IFR is 0.1%”, that masks when universally worn are ineffective, etc. This is me deciding that my right to access the gym, the food court, and park benches (the cretins who run Moscow have plastered them over) supersedes the health and welfare of people who de facto want to get infected with Corona anyway (in the long term, as reiner Tor points out, the choice between getting vaxxed or getting Corona is an almost binary one).
In other words, my reasons for endorsing tactical floomerism boil down to misanthropy.
I don’t know. It’s not my area of expertise and I doubt researching the efficacy of unconventional Corona treatments is worth my time at this point (or anybody’s here).
Normie hysteria is entirely a product of the latest information slop they’re being fed by the media. The smart thing to do would be to ban reporting on the coronavirus, providing an easy way out for governments. After all, nobody will notice the rather minor increases in excess mortality that will occur assuming most of the old and vulnerable are vaccinated. Obviously, this would only work for a country that has the state capacity to control the media.
It also raises some questions as to why corona still gets the headlines (and hence lockdowns and acquiescence) despite being a day-to-day irrelevance for so long now. Good for ratings? Popular inertia? Or something more sinister?
Correct, but too timid. Animal sampling should be banned as well. All so-called preventive virological research should be banned. It prevents nothing, and in fact causes what it purports to prevent. It’s just a cover for military research.
This is surely politically acceptable, desirable, and feasible. The tide of opinion is quickly shifting towards it.
Why not simply make vaccination mandatory?
I would imagine it’s politically unrealistic in most countries.
Ratings makes sense. It’s the only thing media has to talk about now that Trump is out of office. He was their big money maker for years. Endless Biden fluff pieces about his favorite flavor of ice cream and obviously false “America is back” propaganda don’t really rake in the clicks like Trump outrage porn did.
What area of expertise informs your beliefs about the efficacy of conventional Corona treatments?
According to “my” data, michael droy’s data is correct for younger people (below 40, Institut Pasteur and others). But I am touched to see Karlin’s trust in an experimental technique, in a vax developped in a few months and in the people pushing it – and I thank you for being a guinea pig for me. You also believe in anthropogenic climate change, which, after reading Steven Koonin’s book, strikes me as a low-information position.
Edit: What area of expertise or research informs your beliefs about the efficacy of conventional Corona treatments?
Climate change is hardly a low info position:
http://berkeleyearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/PassableArctic-1024×577.png
NOBODY needs a gym for anything for crying out loud.
Go to any prison on the planet and look at all the ripped physiques from guys who do burpees in their cells out of boredom.
It seems that you like dictatorial approach
On what grounds should the taxpayers who fund the publicly funded health care (which most of the discussed countries have) be denied access to it, vaccinated or not ?
Oh, let’s deny those who drink too much access too, those who eat to much, those who overdose or close to, those who got themselves in MVA, those who are too old, those who did not come in time for the annual exam….
Is that how some/ most Russians think or it is only you?
BTW, I have here on ventilators two individuals, fully vaccinated with Pfizer who went to party with other fully vaccinated individuals and got COVID.
Nevertheless, the lockdowns should stop, vaccines or not, the lock downs did more harm than good. We already see the consequences of those measures on people’ s health.
i would urge you to give a look at the issue as well. you don’t think a prophylactic / treatment option available now, at low cost, with a superlative safety record is important?
https://www.bitchute.com/video/qHjNQIynVb5O/
https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/FLCCC-Ivermectin-in-the-prophylaxis-and-treatment-of-COVID-19.pdf
tbh the fact that ivermectin information is censored off social media is probably the best indication it actually works.
That has always been the only acceptable endpoint, but you’re conditioning it on the existence of vaccines. You seem to think the choice is between getting vaccines and not dying from COVID (but possibly debilitated or dying from side effects), or become antivaxx and die. False dichotomy – you can be antivaxx and healthy too, especially if you are young and look out for your own health.
Vaccine passport much? Don’t cover up by deleting your posts calling out “Covidiots” and hoping for mandatory vaccinations.
You’re missing the point of floomerism – it is the fact that, since COVID has long been proven to be a highly transmissible but low-fatality disease, already becoming an annual outbreak, the sensible strategy will be likely how the flu is treated in the past years (excluding the Avian Flu scare of 2008-09). This undermines the basis for lockdowns and pervasive control over reopenings.
You need to lose your quality of life in order to own nothing and be happy. (and as Audacious Epigone pointed out, the heavy lifting is being done by high inflation).
Only the last 2 points, the normies and everyone ending up with nothing, are right. But systematic crises are inevitable, and they’re only appropriating that…
I am an anti-vaxxer, as the term goes (though if I had to choose, Sputnik seems the least problematic…a “normal” vaccine), but I heartily agree with your stated policies, both practically and morally. Though, RT does make a point about publicly funded health care and the whole “calculated cost of any individual” issue. Sadly, I also agree with your thoughts as to what will actually happen (most likely.)
I’m one of those people. I live in a very low risk country with a very good public health system, so it just makes sense to not use any emergency-approved vaccine, because, well, its not an emergency. My calculation would be different if I was living in a country where the virus was among the general population though.
I’d much rather my vaccine goes to help people at greater risk than me.
Now you know how the responses to epidemics play out. How would you envision Malthusian Industrialism turning out?
The number of reinfections is much smaller than the 1/5 times (176 mil divided by 8 billion), that your post would predict. In fact, at this point, it seems more of them are the artefactual product of false positive testing.
To your credit:
If you don’t advocate for segregation based on vaccinated vs unvaccinated (which is being done across the 1st and 2nd world), then great.
But even if these were to be implemented the next day everywhere, antivaxxers wouldn’t “take the bait back to ‘normalcy'” and would actually stick to whatever positions they’ve established in Florida, the garden in the suburbs or the local self-sufficient networks. Those aren’t antivaxxers in themselves, but the general dissident and outcast types. The Great Awakening is a real phenomenon (in that what has happened since 2020 has made a lot of former normies receptible to anti-establishment ideas), and they know how more fundamental arrangements to their lives, ideologies and social systems are at stake.
The political will strong enough for this proposal would have been strong enough, far enough, than needed to push everyone to vac.
Thinking about it, this fallacy is what you find with many of the libertarian ideas.
And the polical pressure to mess with sci research. I mean, come on, the other minute you are talking about gene editting babies. Now you are agianst them sci folks playing with viruses. You cannot be this inconsistent, or can you?
Slippery slope.
Once you allow the system to make viral pneumonia vaccinations mandatory, tomorrow a hundred other procedures will be mandatory, all of them “for your own good”, but pushed through by big pharma lobbyists. And negative results hushed up by a compliant media.
An anarcho-corporate techno-feudal version of the worst aspects of the Soviet-type systems.
Mandatory vaccinations are OK if there are bodies on the streets Black Death style. Not before something like that hits. And even then who’s to say the apocalypse wasn’t engineered by the hostile elites in the first place.
Vaccines are not yet widely available in many parts of the world.
And the West will scream at you if your country makes it mandatory. When AK says Political Will, he is not being precise.
It’s about shifting paradigms in which actors act and react.
Last minute “freedom” for a thousand subcultures and unrestricted consumption, this minute the “New Normal” where compulsion to act and monitoring is pervasive.
Bah. That’s Europe’s own doing. First they rejected the best vaccine available (Sputnik V), then the politicians (but, again, not the physicians) blocked their own AZ vaccine for months, on orders from the US. For any shortage EU itself is to blame.
Moreover, no one has any idea of the middle-term and long-term risks of the US vaccines that in a medically normal world would not be approved without at least 5 years of followup.
Enjoy.
Good article – totally agree – let’s get on with life, travel, work etc. I got Corona in Russia and my pensioner doctor came after hours to give me a check-up and a list of meds to use . He does this frequently , because of this virus and people don’t want to go to the hospital where he works { or the folks are too ill to head to the Hospital }. So I recovered – like I have in the past with other flu’s and I’m ready to go travel – southern Russia tourist season has hit and hopefully International flights will resume in the fall . The real problem I think, is with all the bioweapon labs that the US NWO has around the world. And this has all been documented.
Good article – totally agree – let’s get on with life, travel, work etc. I got Corona in Russia and my pensioner doctor came after hours to give me a check-up and a list of meds to use . He does this frequently , because of this virus and people don’t want to go to the hospital where he works { or the folks are too ill to head to the Hospital }. So I recovered – like I have in the past with other flu’s and I’m ready to go travel – southern Russia tourist season has hit and hopefully International flights will resume in the fall . The real problem I think, is with all the bioweapon labs that the US NWO has around the world. And this has all been documented.
Slippery slope is such a lazy fool’s excuse.
May I quote Ben Franklin, the one where he talked about “if you can keep it.”
Slippery slope basically says that one should avoid all risks to resist one single danger, that all prices must be paid for all kinds of other challenges, or, maybe to reject that any new things would come along at all.
It is a refuse to take up new fights, to deal with uncertainties, to face up to the new complexities accompanying the very concept of freedom. As if you just keep the old way, you will keep it, your freedom, as always.
also when certain people “stay at home” life outside becomes more pleasant
At least the one good thing out of this is the liquor stores and cannabis shops around here started to deliver. What can go wrong during a hysterical lock down. Alcohol poisoning is a hoax.
Everyone loves to be offended (woke-culture) and corona is the never-ending spigot offering offence to those with empty lives. This is probably the most excitement many in the West have ever experienced (which is quite sad, but then again when was the last time the West produced a Man?). Everyone likes to play with PPE until it gets old (and it does, fast, like condoms).
Of all the evil-doing shit I’ve done in my life it took Corona to bring police to my door after refusing to answer calls from ‘health inspectors’ (read: a high school drop out given a script, a piece of tin and a bit of authority which clearly went to their head; come on Canada, with all the money you take you couldn’t even put a nurse on the line? I’m not asking for the Surgeon General but don’t waste my time with some kid off the street given a checklist).
I guess no one complained about the meth lab in my shed or the two dead hookers I buried in my neighbours yard. I mean ‘escorts’, more politically correct, of course.
Just because corona may kill you doesn’t mean its dangerous. It just means you’re a weak ass child. 99% survival before vaccines, I guess math must be a hoax too like BLM keeps reminding us.
Shit even my dad got covid and survived. And he’s a 70 year old vagina with three heart surgeries under his belt, a prostate issue, and was a smoker of 25 years (when cigarettes didn’t have filters for little girls). Spoilers: yes he got vaccinated when he was called because he’s a vagina.
Couldn’t I just get my Iran war?
Fair enough, and good of you to admit as such.
You can speak for yourself, especially since you’ve gotten vaccinated already, but it’s stretch to make that same judgement call for others.
There are many here who are either undecided on whether or not to vaccinate, or have decided not to do it at all due to the known and unknown medium to long term potential risks of the mRNA vaccines. For these groups, being cognizant of all potential preventative/treatment options, especially if the data suggests they could be even better than the vaccines themselves, certainly sounds like a worthy investment of a moderate amount of time to me.
I heard most of that podcast with Dr. Kory too. If all the info surrounding ivermectin is true, hell if it was even just half true, then its deliberate suppression and misalignment is definitely a contender for crime of the century, as Bret Weinstein says.
Thanks for the link, Dr Chelsea.
Karlin looks really foolish doubling down on his fallacious statements about COVID. Even Ron Unz has back pedalled on this issue, but Karlin continues to dig a hole for himself.
I think there’s the issue of children. They don’t yet have the chance to get vaccinated, and any new variants will disproportionately affect them, if for no other reason, then because they are not vaccinated at all. It’s a myth that children cannot get hospitalized because of this shit, but the bigger issue is long term (potentially lifelong or life shortening) complications, due to the strange way this virus was bread in a gain of function research. (Basically it was made to attack any human organs, not just the lungs. Also I’ve read my Plague Time, so I know how many infectious diseases can have negative long term complications.)
I’m okay with parental choice (maybe the teenagers should have a say in this? or they should be able to decide all for themselves?), Beckow won’t get his children vaxxed and I’ll get mine.
While paying people to do it would be popular.
Meth lab in the shed and burying dead hookers in the garden— based.
Calling your father a vagina— cringe.
There are basically 4 reasons that’ll give rise to “Antivaxx”:
1) Vaccines are experimental/poorly tested/might have complications in the near or the long-term. Relatively easy to convince when better and safer vaccines are out.
2) The risk of vaccination is greater than not (or that there isn’t apparent need). Easily confused with 1), esp. the complication part. But much harder to convince since it is based on a relatively firm understanding of the nature of the vaccine.
3) Screw the Big Pharma/medical authoritarians/statists/WEF! (Alternatively, whatever that has to be done with vaccine passports can be skipped or done elsewhere). It is no longer a medical issue for these types, but ideological and political ones, and trying to convince then to be jabbed misses their point.
4) Personally injured and traumatized by past vaccination experiences, feeding into 1) & 2)
The way the COVID vaccines are pitched (allowing the Alt media to disseminate wild antivaxx stories alongside more substantial evidence and arguments) inspires way more fear and resistance than compliance. Probably they want as many Savages as Deltas and Epsilons, both of them predicted in Brave New World?
Being not a medic, from all the med writings I’ve read or just scanned quickly, got the impression it is primarily blood vessel disease, which disrupts normal coagulation and may cause all kinds of potential blood clots, from micro to large, to form everywhere in the body – brain/heart (micro/macro strokes), lungs (pneumonia), guts (diarrhea), etc.
The young seem to be more resistant, because they have the most elastic and undamaged from wear blood vessels yet, also capability to regenerate fast, so the probability of long term damage may be lower, but very hard to say for sure of course atm, without long term data being available.
Europe is mostly using the Pfizer-BioNTech and that vaccine is not a US vaccine. It was created by two Turks in Germany.
The Spanish flu caused long-term problems for many of those exposed to it in utero:
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/03/the-lasting-effects-of-the-1918-influenza-pandemic.html
I haven’t found information about long-term effects of the Spanish flu ex utero.
To soon to tell for COVID, but I did read somewhere that expectant mothers who had COVID were likely to have premature babies. Also, there is no reason to expect new variants of COVID to be less dangerous than current variants. So we aren’t out of the woods yet, but we are governed by fools who underreact when decisive action would be effective then overreact when it’s too late to make a difference, so that they look they are doing something.
This mental process is called ‘habituation’. Time to start living again, and, where applicable, take your booster shots.
Yes, reckless and foolish — indeed, decidedly unethical even by the confused and diluted modern standards — though I think the cat is out of the bag for this. The funding just moves to the black budget. But perhaps such a ban can act as a brake to proliferation and lunatic science.
(What are the odds this contagious but not very deadly release was just a test? After all, it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, and we probably won’t have to ask for forgiveness at all.)
I hope all of this can be used to derive sound and efficient government policies and responses rather than just random power grabbing. Who knows, knock on wood, right?
I recommend that you read Plague Time by Paul W. Ewald. Basically he proposes that lots of chronic diseases (like heart ailments or mental illnesses) are caused by viruses or bacteria (or other similar bugs), which often first cause an acute illness and then later, after the patient was cured from the acute disease, a chronic disease.
STDs are good examples, basically HIV causes a relatively short acute illness (things like fever and general weakness), from which the infected person recovers relatively quickly (after a couple weeks), but the bug stays in his system, and starts to destroy the immune system (it uses the short acute illness to infiltrate the immune system), and causing long term damage. Syphilis also does lots of long term damage to those who no longer show any primary or secondary symptoms.
But Ewald proposes that such long term chronic diseases might be caused by other, more ordinary bugs. He cited research showing the presence of certain bugs in our systems long after the infection has been cleared and we are no longer infectious or ill, and apparently in the hearts of people with a heart disease bugs are present with a much higher likelihood than in the case of people with healthy hearts. The same was found with the brains of schizophrenics. While correlation is not causation, his case seems compelling. Even lung cancer might not be caused by smoking, rather an infectious agent.
The way lifestyle (like regular exercise, diet, or smoking) enters the picture is by inhibiting or enabling the bug to enter certain parts of your body. Smoking might obviously make it way easier for most infectious agents to enter the lungs. Regular exercise might help your immune system reach all parts of the body and clear the bugs. Etc.
So, I wouldn’t trust covid to fully clear from our bodies after infection. Especially repeated infection. Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe sometimes it doesn’t. It’s better to avoid it. Fortunately it’s not the plague, so no need to fall into despair if you do catch it, as likely you will recover and be healthy afterwards. But it’s very likely you will catch it unless you get vaccinated.
Anarcho-tyranny, Bro.
Migration has increased, at least at the USA’s southern border.
(((Our own government))) skips airports’ moronic Safety Theater altogether, putting illegal invaders-unvetted for diseases-on commercial flights.
Yeah, it’s kind of interesting that they are so lackadaisical about illegal immigration when we’re in such mortal danger from Corona. At the moment it basically looks like US forces routed at the southern border, migrants triumphant.
For Europe, I’m getting a feeling that vaxx passports will be required to travel but migrants can slink around however they like because we’re not racist. The best of both worlds, citizens!
Vaxx passport is a kind of unsurmountable barrier (for those antivaxxers with a conscience) which stops them from doing what they once enjoyed. Easier to kill your dreams and hopes than to convince yourself making that decision with possible risks and harms.
Typical segregation stuff, politics of exclusion. It gonna be the Prohibition once again!
Please provide what you believe to be the most credible substantiation for this particular assertion.
I have read elsewhere on this website that the efficacy of the Pfizer product was determined by a reduction of symptoms, not infection (or transmission). That point never seems to be refuted, just scorned or ignored.
I shall assume charitably that you understand why everyone will eventually get infected without vaccines, and assume instead that you are asking about evidence concerning the effectiveness of vaccines.
It would be easy and convincing to test effectiveness using challenge trials, but unlike our ancestors, we are cowards.
However, there is strong anecdotal evidence that the Pfizer vaccine works (Israel), and serological data is now available:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01325-6
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2814-7
Similarly for Sputnik V:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00234-8/fulltext
And perhaps our very own Mr. Karlin is a point in that data.
“likely to have” should of course be “more likely to have”
You’re probably directionally right in your pessimism, but there’s a few reasons for greater optimism.
Covid immunity likely fades over your life time, but does not disappear. If you catch it in your teens, you may still have some protection in your 80s. This will reduce its effect greatly.
Rightoids tend to quietly get with the programme, after making a big fuss about the end of the world.
Viruses trend to lower lethality over time.
Hysteria will find a new outlet. Little outbreaks, of a less lethal kind, will be ignored.
Provisional thanks, although at first glance these authorities don’t refute that the efficacy of the Pfizer product was determined by a reduction of symptoms, not infection (or transmission).
Is that true or false? Again: the efficacy of the Pfizer product was determined by a reduction of symptoms, not infection (or transmission).
Because if that’s true, then – to your charitable assumption – everyone may “eventually get infected [with] vaccines,” too.
the number of San Marino residents infected with Covid-19 by day. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/san-marino/
https://cs14.pikabu.ru/post_img/2021/05/01/11/1619893412115070659.webp
The blue vertical line is the arrival of the first batch of Satellite V in San Marino (February 23). Red line – 35 days from the date of vaccination of the first citizens of San Marino (35 days-the time interval after which, according to the Gamalei center, the effectiveness of the vaccine reaches 97%). In San Marino, 90% of the adult population is vaccinated, most of them-Sputnik V
“Efficacy” of a vaccine seems to be defined by regulation and doesn’t necessarily mean what you would think it means.
If I understood correctly the original Pfizer study, then yes, I think it’s true that they only observed symptoms. My other complaint about all of these studies is that they have very low levels of infection in the control group. However, I cautiously accepted the original studies as some kind of evidence of efficacy, and that seems to be born out by the later serological data and the facts on the ground in various countries.
In San Marino, yes, but not apparently in Russia. I myself have been infected once the old-fashioned way and am scheduled for a second artificial infection.
Pessimistically, the least vaccinated, both globally and in each particular country, will continue to be black people. This will mean that future Covid outbreaks will have a “disproportionate impact”, leading to bleating about racism, rather than an acute understanding of the facts.
Misanthropy only works as long as it is hidden. When you display it publicly and argue by assertion, you lose people.
This is not a trivial game of ‘screw you all, I want to play with my toys‘. It is the key issue today: to poke or not to poke, flippantly hiding behind misanthropy doesn’t work. The argument is not between flat-earthers and lemmings – there are valid points on all sides.
The vaccine-enthusiasts are usually non-family people with little biological stake in the future. They just want to play. That is not conservative, it is the definition of liberalism not too far from swapping genders and preaching virtues with bombs.
It is admirable how much you care about your children and the future, but you’re wrong on the facts about the various vaccines.
Given that 90% of population experiences either none or mild Corona symptoms, how would they know the difference? That number is closer to 100% for young people: the serious cases of corona among young people are a fraction of 1%. For 18-29 year old serious vaccine side effects are 3.5 times more frequent than being hospitalised with corona (EU numbers up to May 15).
It looks like a straightforward equation to protect the old (and obese) at the expense of young. That is a deal with the devil. The interesting thing about any Faustian bargain is that Faust knew fully well what he was signing up for. Maybe that’s why we get an escape into misanthropy.
Save your condescension for when you actually have some facts. Otherwise it looks like lazy escapism. Should healthy 12-year olds by vaccinated?
Probably not, because “why bother”, but I trust the vaccine more than the virus, so, also, on balance, no harm.
How about we extend this chart to 10000 years?
Thanks again, including for the respectful tone often lacking among Mr. Karlin and some commenters.
In the hope of preventing confusion and enabling further discussion, here’s a revision of something I posted back on May 2 under a Sailer piece:
———
There’s been a lot of discussion in and under other articles about the meaningfulness of the efficacy rate, including:
If the blocked quotation is accurate, then those people relying on the efficacy rate to inform a decision to use the product — especially without understanding the distinction between relative and absolute risks, i.e., that there’s less than 1% chance of hospitalization with or without the shots — have been misled.
———
Further,
This is why I haven’t decided to “take a jab.” And Mr. Karlin’s serial, insulting blogs won’t get me there any sooner.
Oh yeah, upgrade from social darwinism: State Darwinism.
The Turks are basically business owners. It was created by German technical staff using German scientific infrastructure.
Based and Vuchler pilled
You will get both, that’s the way it works.
Sure. Then why don’t we pump a few ounces of any liquid into kids? Or 25-year olds? No harm.
What works that way?
This is an odd comment. Why would putting any liquid into children be equivalent to vaccinating them? Let me ask a few questions to get a context for the assertion you imply:
Are you against all vaccinations for children?
Do you think Covid is fake and/or killed only a few people?
Do you think the mutiltiude of vaccines, developed all around the world, are fake?
Do you think the vaccine is higher risk than the virus?
Most do it willingly. AK used the annual flu vaccine as an analogy why annual vaccination is normal. I pointed out that the average flu vaccine efficacy is 40%, his response was that is ok, because it mitigates flu symptoms. Sure, so does drinking water, vitamin C and preventive exercise. This is a downward spiral, we have different contexts.
Cults don’t explain anything.
No. No. And no.
The Covid scale has been exaggerated, especially its impact on healthy people under 60. But Covid is brutal for elderly and people with preexisting conditions, e.g. obesity. Vaccine efficiacy and side effects have not been scientifically established – it is too early.
Depends. It benefits older people. Based on what we know the vaccine poses more risk for younger people and children than getting Covid. (EU numbers show 3.5 more vaccine side effects than Covid hospitalizations for 18-29.)
Don’t oversimplify. At the core is the old-young dilemma – a moral question. Cui bono?
Ok, we’re not dissimilar.
Even very sick Covid patients are not generally hospitalised. You have to be in an awful state.
What are the main side effects of the vaccine? What percentage of side effects lead to hospitalisation?
I have come to think floomerism has always been the right position. The cost of corona is simply not high enough to make people care. Floomers were the first ones to take safety measures and at the same time first ones to discard them.
Had corona been more deadly more of them would have survived.
This is of course separate from the retarded political theater that both red and blue tribes practice.
It would be great to know who the vaxxed are so that the rest of us can stay away from these vaccine shedders. Once they all start dying off the rest will be busy queuing up at the local clinic so we wont have to deal with these morons on the street. What did I read? 76% of the vaxxed are Dems so at least when everything shakes out the less worst will be in charge of this Bizzaro World.
Of course SARS-CoV-2 is real. Nevertheless, getting the vaccine is not a rational choice for those who are not high risk. By high risk I mean either elderly or morbidly obese.
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=242459
Karl Denninger’s blog is BY FAR the best information you will find on the ‘Net about Covid-19 and the vaccines. I recommend you check it out.
https://market-ticker.org/nad
You say: Even very sick Covid patients are not generally hospitalised.
They are, although it varies country by country. If you are not hospitalised, you are probably not that sick.
Inflammation of heart muscles has resulted in a few dozen documented deaths among young after taking the MRNA vaccines. (Currently investigated by CDC, you can google it.) Blood clots, sudden shock, neurological problems, organ failures, fertility and on smaller scale: fever, pain, tiredness, etc…
The percentages are small: in EU 14,000 hospitalisation after vaccines out of almost 200 million vaccinations. The point is that is substantially more than Covid hospitalization for the young. The side effects are more common among younger people, there is also a longer period for the young to develop future complications. For children, vaccination at this point is almost madness, a form of child sacrifice for benefit of the old.
This is the crux of the question. We have a lot of data now. It should be easy to see if the vaccine is worse than the disease for young people. I am not convinced either way.
At the same time, I am happy that neither are unusually dangerous for young people.
I would have followed Sweden’s lead at the beginning of the outbreak, were I forced to decide; even if I would prefer not to have decided, as I am no expert, but…”if”.
I am also, with hindsight, happy with my judgement at the time. Perhaps this is biased, because I am in a very low risk group.
I actually caught Covid, from going to a lot of parties and sharing drinks, during the height of the pandemic. This might be criticised as irresponsible, but I had no reason to see anyone outside of a low risk group, and no one who wasn’t consenting. My illness was mild.
Having caught Covid, I may or may not get a vaccine. My friend, who I see a lot, is very scared of the virus, and she is too intelligent and reasonable for me to try to persuade otherwise. I think she is wrong, but I may get vaccinated just for her sake, as I will have access to it some months before her, due to international travel.
The restrictions on travel are keeping me away from my siblings, which upsets me greatly. I later want to go to a club and dance and have fun. It has also hurt me economically, but I needed that time to reflect, so all is not bad. Overall, this sucks, but I am happy to get a vaccine quick, if it helps things return to be more free. I do not like restrictions on my freedom.
My guesstimate is that reactions to the vaccine are like mini reactions to the virus. Your immune system goes mental and this is why young people get just as many side effects. My immune system should be chill with Covid, given that I’ve already had it. I am not afraid of illness or even death anyway. I have my own psychology. Other people are not so familiar with death and tragedy and may find this more difficult.
82% of those in the US who died with covid were over 65 years old according to the government’s own numbers. Of those who died, many were actually killed because at the beginning of the epidemic they were put on ventilators which was the wrong treatment. Those younger individuals who died with covid all had serious co-morbidities. Only .2% of those who died were under 25. Long term effects of the gene therapy shot are unknown, with many well-credentialed scientists arguing it’s very dangerous, and being suppressed. The numbers are out there, and by all indications, the shot is unnecessary and maybe dangerous. Especially to the young.
That’d be true if lethality was 60%, but with 1%? Smallpox has been around for millennia, and its lethality was 1%. I think it even had another strain, also thousands of years old, with a much higher lethality.
So that’s just not true.
You sure smallpox didn’t trend lower over time? It is an unlikely set of circumstances that make a virus lethal. Most viruses are harmless.
I therefore infer that mutations will tend to make them less lethal; like randomly changing a letter a year in Hamlet, will make it make less sense.
But I am no expert.
Too vague. More accurate numbers must be available. Most people I see as credible say the vaccine is generally better than the disease for most people, or close to, even for the young. I am not bothered much. I take recreational drugs with more risk. If it makes my friend feel less anxious, I’m OK with it.
I have only once taken a flu vaccine, but then I didn’t have any serious flu-like illness for almost two years, whereas normally I used to have it twice a year. (I have since improved my immune system with cold showers, but kids happened, so now, before covid, that is, I had a flu-like illness once a year.) So either I was lucky, or the vaccine did work.
I also know a few people who take a flu shot every year. They all claim that they rarely have the flu. Two of these people are colleagues at work, and I can confirm that they are rarely ill. Not never, but there are several years without them missing from work. Both have kids, so they should have more sick days than the childless.
Viruses don’t care about you, and they are under no pressure to become less lethal. They are under selection pressure to become more transmissible. Also within your body there’s a selection pressure to be as virulent as possible. There’s a complicated link between transmissibility and virulence. First, it depends on the vector. It’s humans here, so let’s not care for the other vectors. If the vectors are humans, then they virus is under selective pressure not to kill its hosts too quickly. After a while the outcome doesn’t matter. If you are mildly ill for a week (and spread the virus), then fall seriously ill (and get hospitalized with some further nice chances for the virus to hop onto new hosts), and then you die after four weeks in the hospital… that’s actually better for the virus than if you heal after a week. Also, if it gets more virulent and forces you to bed after four days instead of one week, then that’s worse, except… it might have a better chance of transmission during those four days as the concentration of the virus particles in your droplets might be higher during that period. Likely there’s an optimum level of virulence.
Now the virus might figure out how to survive on a surface. The smallpox virus figured that out so well that a surface containing some smallpox particles was still infectious after several years. You could get smallpox from living in a house where someone else was ill with it years before. Such a virus can afford to kill its host quickly. Again, it might be beneficial not to, because it’s better if it can infect others both through the surface and directly through the human.
What it comes down to, the better the virus gets at infectiousness, the more lethal it can be, because the weaker the selection pressure to keep alive the hosts.
I don’t think you read my post…
Yes, covid is not killing young people but giving them certainly LONG TERM health problems.
Okay.
That’s a start, but it gets more complicated. Super-infectious virus will naturally attack more people who have natural immunity and die inglorious death. So the selection starts to mutate in a way to attack the most vulnerable because of a better chance of success. Pure randomness intervenes and given about 30,000 choices, we get both more and less deadly mutations. Which ones do you think have a better chance to survive?
Badly thought-out vaccination campaigns can cause damage – they can allow a dying breed of virus to survive allowing it to mutate. That is due to a simple fact that when the host survives, so does the virus. In any case, “do no harm” used to be considered a prime medical precept. No longer, we are in an experimentation phase.
That’s roughly why viruses tend to get weaker over time. There is no guarantee, but that has been the historical pattern – our world today is in substantially less danger from viruses then at any point in the past. It is not all due to hygiene and medicine. Corona could still surprise, but under normal circumstances it would slowly weaken and die out in about 3 years.
The vaccine side effects could be with us for decades. The MRNA travels the body and could (theoretically) attack any organ. It is also a new organic substance that is in no other living organism – anyone predicting what it does is guessing. It is especially dangerous for the young who have a strong immunity response.
I am glad that flu vaccines works for you, I was quoting official numbers from WebMD. I have never taken it and don’t get sick. My kids bring a lot of stuff home – maybe it has increased our immunity over time. We also don’t eat processed food.
Celebrating beating Poland – what a game…and nobody kneeled: good luck w Portugal.
What is your definition of “long term”? Enlarged hearts? Blood clots? Brain fog? Reduced immune function? Those are the “long term” effects already noted from the relatively short release time of your “vaccine”.
I think most discussing vaccine acceptance, hesitance or refusal, misses the whole point of “floomerism” or why Karlin is starting to endorse it (if there’s no string attached in his view).
It is how the lockdowns and restrictions are dependent on vaccination rate. The ploy is set up so that they will only declare victory after 90% of the people have the jab (a “War on Terror” style victory at that), and only those with the jab and vaccine passports are planned to regain economic and social rights. Antivaxxers will be the new outcasts (Mike Whitney said so), and a lot of them know it. This is what I have been consistently saying and talking on COVID vaccine posts – not whether the jab is effective or harmful or not.
This is the difference between NY/Cali and Florida, and the UK & Russia/Belarus. If you hesitate, you should expect your life to be screwed over until you make a definite decision. If you are decidedly antivaxx, you should join the agorist crowd as a survival strategy, or move to Florida (if you are in the US).
mRNA “vaccines” are designed to lessen symptoms while leaving infections largely possible. When an asymptomatic also counts as a case, that will actually not remove the largest signal for lifting every restriction, which is “zero COVID” (as nebulous as it is). So since there will always be the virus and its mutant strains out there, the state will say only the vaxxers are protected, and denies economic and social rights to the antivaxx since they could contract COVID and poses a risk to others.
Only real vaccines (employing real or gene-edited viruses) train your immune systems the old way and really reduces you chance of infection. That’s why for me, my bottom line is no mRNA “vaccines” (those can work with other types of medical conditions, none of them infectious ones, only after rigorous testing).
The virus will mutate regardless, it doesn’t require permission from any vaccination campaigns for that.
A doctor will correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s actually the antibody immunity which is targeted, which means no infection, or not much. T cell immunity appears as well, but it’s more targeted by the adenovirus vaccines. (Though they also induce antibodies, so more a theoretical difference afaik.) Anyway, asymptomatic carriers are much less likely to be infectious anyway, so even so it’s not that bad, but high levels of antibodies mean no infection and no positive test.
The Hungarian Katalin Karikó also made a lasting contribution, first as developer of the mRNA technology, then working at BioNTech. I know that some other Hungarians worked there as well.
Sure, but deadly variants tend to kill the host and themselves…brutal, but it works.
That graph shows that Covid-19 incidence went down to almost zero before, during the summer of 2020, even without any vaccines. The vaccination campaign is being conducted in Europe in earnest and then they’ll claim when it goes down during the summer that it was due to the vaccines. Wait until autumn to see what happens
San Marino, having vaccinated almost the entire population, completely suppressed covid, while in the neighboring regions of Italy the epidemic continued (I do not know how now, but some time ago the situation was exactly like this). So it was the vaccine that worked.
That’s the beautiful thing about this virus. It only kills after a long time. So it gives the host a chance to infect others. If it was milder, those people would get cured, but then its chances of infecting others would not be any higher.
It’s just beautiful how a healing patient is the same as a dead patient for these viruses, either way it’s not going to replicate in that body forever.
GOF research on viruses should not be banned. I think these researches can provide insight on the molecular mechanisms of viral infections, how they can ‘jump’ host species etc.
Perhaps virology labs with GOF research should be under international scrutiny and frequent audits to ensure adequate safety measures are in place, and only select personnel can perform /be involved in GOF research. The potential public and policy back-lash on GOF research should the Wuhan lab leak be proven true(which I think it is) is perhaps one big reason the Chinese Govt and all researchers and bureaucrats(Western and Chinese) involved will never allow this to be proven. Instead of banning, smarter regulation and audits. A lot of scientific progress entails risks. Shouldn’t ban intellectual inquiry because of potential/proven mishaps.
No covid treatment is more conventional than Ivermectin. Been in use for decades, billions of doses taken, no serious side effects, inexpensive, no political lobby.
The unconventional treatments are the emergency experimental gene therapies that busybodies want to force inject everyone with: novel, untested delivery methods, no long term track record, troubling side effects, costly, tremendous vested financial interests influencing policy.
GOF research should absolutely be banned, because the risk to reward ratio is ridiculously lopsided in favor of the former. Curtis Yarvin had this to say on the matter.
Also, here’s a relevant excerpt from Nicholson Baker’s January piece, The Lab-Leak Hypothesis:
So basically without repeatedly going through fervent GOF regimens, the naturally occurring bat coronovirus SARS-CoV-2 was derived from, was not very capable at infecting humans at all. And even when it did under perverse conditions, no epidemic ensued. OTOH after such viruses have been altered and well-adapted to human hosts via GOF procedures, the chances of subsequent laboratory leaks, no matter how secure the facility or how careful their protocols, will always still be orders or magnitude higher than zoonotic events generating a virus of similar transmissibility and/or virulence. Moreover, there has been zero evidence that “knowledge” gained from GOF research has ever been useful in any practical way. Certainly not wrt helping to mitigate or end the current pandemic that was a direct result of such negligent practices.
In other words, we can treat GOF research as always having vastly negative expected value, and therefore should be banned. Those virologists should retrain and do other research. If they continue to do GOF research illegally, then they should rightfully be punished.
Kinda like how Marek’s Disease went from being a minor nuisance for poultry to a global poultry exterminator after farmers started using half-assed experimental vaccines on it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marek's_disease#Prevention
It’s such a mindfuck to me that so many people, even those who are typically well-tuned to receive and consider heterodox viewpoints like Karlin, have wholeheartedly drunk the “safe and effective” mRNA vaccine koolaid.
If one were to dispassionately look at the abundant amounts of research on ivermectin use for covid that now exist, there really is only one logical conclusion that can be drawn: the whole world has been bamboozled for well over half a year at this point, all to allow a few Big Pharma corps to make some billions at the expense of trillions globally.
A beautiful virus. Corona divinity can’t be too far: masks, shots, maybe some lentil soup.
Religion is primarily about how to deal with death. Many ideas have been tried, from ancestor worship to resurrection. The time has come for a complete denial of death, or covidism, ban the damn thing, hide from life to avoid death.
(Too bad about Ronaldo, but the Budapest stadium looked the best, they should move the final there from London.)
Thanks.
You raised valid points. I shall read the links you provided.
Another Big Brain denialist. On one hand you have EVERY Academy of Science and scientific society on Earth, and 98% of actively researching climate scientists, and, on the other you have a book by the latest denialist hero. A former BP whose tripe was roundly denounced as bog-standard denialist garbage, but praised by the denialist industry’s usual suspects. The death-cult never gives in-too much money at stake.
Just how many bio-warfare labs do you reckon the USA controls? In how many countries? How much ‘research’ is on the black budget and secret? Yet you blame the ChiComms, like a solid citizen.
Encephalitis lethargica.
Huh?
I did not blame the ChiComms ONLY. In fact, if it was an accidental lab leak, ChiComms failures include not ensuring adequate lab safety protocol adherence and a cover up of the incident. However, the USA (through the likes of Fauci + other Western bureaucrats + virologists) were deeply involved in GOF research, probably knew what truly happened and were involved in the cover up. Thus USA and these Western researchers were at least as culpable as, or more responsible, for this pandemic than China was. If I remember it right, Fauci finally admitted but defended American funding of GOF in China(as long as it was not in ‘American soil’).
So both USA and China are to be blamed, USA even more so. That the Chinese Govt will never admit to the lab leak and will deny culpability is only logical – the backlash for its image and international diplomacy will be massive. The USA has turned this nightmare of their own doing by pointing ALL blame on China. Typical, sneaky American political elites.
To all your rhetorical questions, of course I do not have an answer, being not privy to all these classified info of the Great Evil Empire.
China, USA and the researchers involved in the GOF research screwed up. That’s it.
I stopped using public transport and stopped getting flu. Now if I ever get sick is because kid’s friends got them sick.
Sorry I’ve been remiss in reading your updates lately so I think I’m a little confused by this one.
Are you saying that anyone who hasn’t paid for a vaccine that isn’t past Stage 3 trials to protect them from a contagious disease (and possible biological weapon) that was bred in a lab (which one I’m not sure?) should be left alone by society to die in the street?
Or are you saying that this is what ‘floomers’ think? I’m not sure what floomers are or what the ROI on that attitude is. Maybe anyone who thinks like that should go pickup some garbage in their local park; or something basic and productive like that?
I find having a sense of agency helps me avoid needing to control people or blame them for their stupid selfish and totally human decisions. Good luck staying sane y’all.
The time to aggregate the evidence has already been spent by a better man than you, or me. You would just need to find his social media location. I suspect you’d rather concentrate on whether to buy Tesla on what will turn out to be a downward shelf.
Good summary of the logic of the evolution of virulence. The basic tradeoffs were conceptualized by Paul Ewald in the 1980’s.
It’s amazing that lots of supposed experts still have pretty muddled thinking on the issue, assuring the public that over time the virus will necessarily evolve milder.
That does seem to be a more productive pursuit than scouring Twitter in search of the next HCQ.
I suppose no one’s reading this thread anymore, but the problem here is imprecise language.
The infection fatality rate (IFR) means the number of those infected who die, including those with mild or non-existent symptoms. This figure is around 1% in older, developed counties and as low as 0.1% in younger countries. Plausible estimates of the global average IFR vary from around 0.1% to 0.6%.
The overall death or fatality rate means the percentage of the whole population who die from the virus, infected or not. This figure is necessarily lower than the IFR.
The other figure which is causing disagreement here is the case fatality rate (CFR), i.e. the number of those officially diagnosed with the disease who die. This figure will be higher than the IFR. Like the IFR, it will vary with the average age of the population.
Sources provided upon request, but now you know the proper terms to search I think everyone can look these figures up for themselves.
Yes, it might be something like 0.2% in Sub-Saharan Africa. In that case no particular disagreement. I always said it was less of an issue for the (younger) Third World.