Same in Ireland. No masks (unless dealing with patient who has covid) in healthcare settings as of a week or two ago. Great to see.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
Same in Ireland. No masks (unless dealing with patient who has covid) in healthcare settings as of a week or two ago. Great to see.
Anyone listened to this, not here to discuss ludicrous conspiracy theories, just thoughts.
I got this recommended to me via someone in the same industry saying he’s very good.
I know rogan isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but it’s an interesting conversation.
Yes I’m fully aware of his previous controversies
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Basically, he’s full of shit. I found out about him through his stuff about statins, which is woefully misinformed. His take on the vaccines isn’t much better.
Like a lot of these agent provocateur medics, there are grains of truth in what he says. But he takes them to ludicrous extremes to attract attention, sell books and generally grift. Goes without saying that his whole “don’t trust the government/big business” shtick is catnip to the average Joe Rogan fan. The perfect guest.
Fair, I’ve heard the polar opposite from others as with any of these things.
Was mainly interested in the discussion about the vaccine side effects specifically the heart, the noise isn’t going away.
That's because the noise is a toxic cacophony of ignorance and grift. Study after study that I have read say the same thing: While there is an increase in the prevalence of myocarditis post vaccination it is dwarfed by the increase in the rates myocarditis, pericarditis and cardiac arrhythmia following SARS-CoV-2 infection.
All vaccines carry some risk depending on the underlying genetic and physiological makeup of each individual. However, that risk is always offset by the significant protections the vaccines offer against diseases whose "side effects" are demonstrably worse.
Here is an excellent (and free full text...I love PMC!!) paper if you are interested in reading more:
Risks of myocarditis, pericarditis, and cardiac arrhythmias associated with COVID-19 vaccination or SARS-CoV-2 infection - PMC (nih.gov)
The key passage in the discussion:
Edit: I will admit I have not read anything published in the last 6 months, so if something earthshattering came out that I somehow missed then oopsy.
He just seems insanely biased. The two big red flags are him being convinced that the vaccine caused his depressive episode and his dad’s coronary artery disease. Because they both happened to be vaccinated a few months beforehand. As though no previously fit and well person has ever succumbed to an unexpected illness, out of the blue. That’s so crazily unscientific. He might as well blame an Indian takeaway they ate the previous weekend. Anyone who plays that fast and loose with correlation and causation can’t be taken seriously. The other big red flag is the way he alluded to his appearance on GB News as though it’s a legitimate trustworthy organisation.
In terms of the his take on vaccine data I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he chooses to go deep on vaccine efficacy vs safety based on a dataset involving omicron only. Which is such a benign virus that you’re obviously going to get trivial efficacy vs hospitalisation. Because it barely hospitalises anyone. If the previous variants were all as benign as omicron then you could make a very strong case for binning the whole vaccine roll-out. But that wasn’t the situation we were facing when a) the vaccine was developed and b) when needles first went into arms.
I can see why he gets listened to though. He’s a smart guy, who talks a lot of sense and the idea that big pharma is a psychopath in league with the government to screw us over for money is a compelling narrative. But yeah, huge holes in what he’s claiming. Like a lot of experts who get sucked into the culture war he’s obviously led himself down a garden path some time ago.
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People will read into things what ever they want. Look how many 100s of millions, if not billions, have had the vaccine. Possibly more than have had covid.
Give the same amount milk or nuts and you’ll have a bigger % suffering side effects.
I've heard that the world is flat from people. It is still utter bollocks.
Serious side effects are very very rare and miniscule in comparison to the benefits. Most heart effects are even rarer and almost alwasy trivial that clear up quickly without treatment. These are proven facts based on millions of vaccinations. Noise is irreleavant as covidiots are always just as noisy, as they are stupid and wrong.
https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
I also undersratnd that during the pandemic covid cases increased at about the same average rate as electric car ownership
QED
My favorite correlation that is often misused is that fat people drink more diet soda than thin people. Of course it doesn't meant that diet soda makes you fat or fatter than drinking the same amount of full sugar soda. Just that fat people tend to drink more diet soda in an attempt to make themselves less fat.
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I don’t doubt they’re very small, still believe there will be a middle ground one day in the future and there will be shown there was more side effects then believed, this does not mean on a mass scale.
While some of the suggestions from people are insanity and ludicrous, I no longer think it’s outrageous to think we may of been coerced to some degree without the full story, this does not equate to we are all going to drop dead like flies.
This is definitely true. It’s true of all new medicines. That’s why we do post marketing surveillance. Very rare side effects are only revealed when a drug has been used for a long time, in huge numbers of people.
What’s reassuring about the covid vaccines is that they have already been used in an absolutely enormous number of people. So even very rare, short term serious side effects would have been uncovered by now. The nature of vaccines means that side effects from long term use are unlikely to be an issue as they’re not taken over the long term, so you don’t get cumulative effects. But even so, I’d agree it’s likely we don’t fully understand the full safety profile just yet.
Of course, the changing nature of the virus is the big issue here. Based on the latest variants the initial vaccine roll out would definitely have been overkill. And the recommendations about who should/shouldn’t receive a vaccine now have changed to reflect that. But it’s arguing in bad faith when people like Dr Malhotra use safety and efficacy data from the omicron variant to argue the initial vaccine rollout was ill-advised. And when someone is prepared to be be so deliberately disingenuous then you have to assume that everything else they say on the topic is also likely to be biased or misleading.
No. We have an incredible amount of data already. The picture we have is very accurate in terms of serious side effects.
Coerced? I'd really hope so.
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Imagine if this type of mentality was this pervasive during the global campaigns against smallpox and polio.
That'a not really comparing apples with apples. The risk-benefit ratio for smallpox/polio vaccines is radically different to covid. Although, having said that, I do think we didn't have any choice other than to go with the aggressive vaccine roll-out we went with, due to the paralysing effects of covid on society as a whole. At an individual patient level I don't think the need to get vaccinated is quite so cut and dried. Especially for young patients. And I do think that the decision to vaccinate children doesn't look too clever with hindsight. Always easy to be wise with hindsight though...
I'd be vaccinating my kids if I had any young ones. Universal vaccination for almost everything has such great benefit to society even of herd immunity isn't reached. IMO is should be compulsory/encouraged with making it a requirement for school enrolment and the like and particularly increase the medicare levy (or equivalent) for those who don't.
I had to take my better half to hospital for a broken finger and I was (pleasantly) surprised to see that maks for all were still compulsory.
No doubt if social media was around it would have been.
Terrible opinion.
The risk benefit of vaccinating kids against the current (and, almost certainly, future) covid variants doesn’t add up at all. Making it mandatory for these age groups would be an awful decision. Which, thankfully, will never happen because it would be medical malpractice.
With hindsight, I've got to say the JCVI for example made very few mistakes. Even on the things where they were mixing expediency (low vaccine stocks) with principles like greatest good for greatest number and classical immunology theory. Them opting for the longer windows between first and second vaccination, and a slow approach to vaccinating under 18s were good calls. They were fast when it mattered in terms of saving lives and slow where they could go for caution.
I think that's where hindsight breaks down though - it's easy to forget the context. Fast vaccine rollout with a high uptake of a vaccine that reduced transmission and reduced severe illness was key to restarting normal life.
The misteps (around coercion in particular) were well intentioned and even they were mostly accepted as part of the cost of reopening. Individual risk factors - like past infection and youth - deserved better handling, but it's easy to see how they got sidelined in the overall drive.
Now of course we tend to see everything through the prism of Omicron. But Omicron raced through an already highly vaccinated society and the unvaccinated had mostly had at least one infection already.
Still, it grates with me that the US in particular has continued things like vaccine mandates for foreign visitors. Some colleges etc kept them in place even once they were having minimal impact on transmission and for students with no real risk factors.
Mind you, some bits of the US carried on masking little kids in schools long after we knew it was pointless.
Universal vaccination for almost everything where it has a major impact on the health of the child or the people around them has a great benefit to society. There's no reason to put the COVID vaccines in that category though.
Yeah, the unnecessary use of masks and vaccines in the US is clearly politically, rather than medically, motivated. They’ve managed to make it part of their culture war.
Yes there is. Same reason flu and cervical cancer etc should be.
I wouldn't make it compulsory per se but if you don't you should pay for hurting others and the added health care costs you cause.
Not vaccinating children against covid doesn’t hurt anyone. Especially now we’re dealing with a relatively benign variant and prior infection is basically a given. Giving children vaccines they don’t need will definitely hurt children (even if only with the needle)
Putting pressure on children to get vaccines they don’t need would be a terrible decision. Which, as I said, nobody who understands the science is advising. And that’s important for the roll out of vaccines that children really need. Making obviously poor decisions about childhood vaccinations only undermines faith in the whole system.
It wouldn't because it would protect society by further reducing transmission amongst kids, teachers and other kids families. COVID is still a huge drain on our medical services even if you just want to limit economic damage.
But of course it won't be compulsory for young kids, or indeed anyone most likely. Indeed no vaccinations are compulsory in most countries but should be strongly encouraged in various ways. But here we are with measles making a big comeback.
An unvaccinated kid will catch covid more often and when infected and pass it on more often to others including the most vulnerable. Teachers and child care workers die more often from covid, so anything we can do to protect them is a good idea. You have a duty for the benefits of being part of society and being vaccinated against everything is part of that. You might as well say getting the cervical cancer vaccine shouldn't be strongly encouraged (as nobody will be held down and injected). Free riding is a social evil.
Sorry, Wibble, but you’re not doing yourself any favours here. I really don’t think you understand the science. Comparing covid vaccination in young kids with the HPV vaccine is a woeful analogy.
Pretty impossible to implement something like that. If you start punishing people for it why not do it for people going to work with the common cold? Statistically with the cervical cancer thing you'd never prove conclusively that individual cancer was caused because of the lack of the HPV vax.
No need for kids to be vaccinated anymore. Probably no need for healthy adults to be, i certainly haven't heard anything about future boosters here. Last winter the Covid booster jab was being rolled into the flu jab campaign as one vaccination.
That chat aside, I would use somebody's opinion on the vaccine as a future job interview question.
/thread?
Crazy, we made it! Well done everyone.
This was something I noticed last year when watching bands from the US playing in England. All of those I like fall into the left side of the spectrum and they were taking mask wearing incredibly seriously up until the point where they were on stage sweating and singing/screaming for 90 minutes in front of an almost entirely unmasked audience. Then the masks were back on, despite the fact by then it was a futile effort to reduce transmission, by the time they were packing up their gear.
Wonder who will take responsibility for destroying economies and millions of people lives (I know the answer). The first lockdown when it all started made sense because we didn't have enough data about it but after that all the decisions made by the governments were insane.
Yeah, it’s so odd. Masks have become the left’s version of a MAGA cap.
So who won the pandemic?
Unsurprisingly I tested Covid positive today, just a few days after masks ceased to be compulsory here. Didn't have as much as a common cold in the past three years.
I'm not forced to go home and can work Covid-positive. Back to using a mask and disinfecting all the time, to try and not pass it on. Covid area in the ER will be shut down next week so everyone will be lumped together anyway.
Got a feeling I might have Covid again (would be the third time). Obviously no way of knowing with no testing here in the UK now.
You can buy lateral flows in the supermarket, or get them delivered by Amazon, if you want to be sure.
I know but not sure how conclusive they are anyway. Plus I assume that the Government / medical world has decided that it’d no longer worth testing so I’m not going to spend my own money.