Pfizer probably has the least side effects from the injections. J&J is good as it is only one dose, but we're supposed to caution people who are at risk for blood clots. For instance, people with prior hx of blood clots, smokers, frequent travelers, people with recent major trauma or surgery, and people on birth control.

The potential for developing any of the various long-Covid ailments was a bigger motivator for me to get vaccinated than the potential for dying.

There's more and more evidence coming out that Covid damages the vascular system at the cellular level, rather than being a respiratory ailment as first suspected.

While the vaccines provide a consistently high level of protection, natural immunity is extremely variable and may not prevent long-Covid issues if contracted. It's a personal choice, but the odds are clearly on the side of vaccination.

VASCULAR

https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/618765/

Fantastic and fair article from someone who is pro-Covid vaccine and completely baffled by the people who don't want a vaccine. The end is strategies to try and convince people, but up until that point it is a really honest and genuine desire to learn why people think this way.

The big takeaway for me was the anger generated by government pandemic policies. Masks and enforced quarantines were part of my life as a physician well before the pandemic. They weren't common or universal, but it wasn't weird to wear a mask to see sick people or to isolate a sick or exposed person to prevent spread of an illness. So all those measures seemed pretty standard and rational to me. I also never had to worry about my job. However, the scale of the measures for COVID started affecting millions of people and drastically changing their lives in negatives ways. So when the IFR estimation went from 10% to 0.2%, people became pissed off about the negative impacts to their life. Now they don't trust and won't follow any recommendation as it is all just interpreted as more tyrannical overreach.

I don't agree with that perspective, but at least it makes some sense to me now

Makes sense.

The medical community lost most of its credibility on the covid matter when they went all in on the validity of the initial epi-curves, and, to a lesser degree the IFR, as you mention.

Once these firm assertions were demonstrated to be inaccurate, sometime in late April 2020, the sophisticated and apolitical citizenry was lost forever.

What has happened in the year since then was 1) the manifestation of politics / messaging, followed by 2) the scales falling from eyes of more of the citizenry.

I do not mean to impugn you or your profession (meaning the hands-on-patients MD's), but, the academic types completely failed when thrust upon this global stage. This is unsurprising, as they are wholly unprepared for setting policy, notwithstanding their expertise in their very narrow field.

I'll do you one better:

It's cause I literally don't care.

1) Mistrust of the way this was handled all the way around. Just lies or flat out misleading the public. They double down on the lies or misleading as well.

2) Continued thought that nothing will change based on actions of vaccinated politicians. This is just bad public messaging on the part of politicians who think by wearing the mask after vaccination they are being leaders and setting a good example, but it absolutely has the opposite effect with people on the fence.

I've argued that individually, it may not be an immediate change, but with higher vaccination % it will change. I think it's obvious, buy many don't believe it now

3) At the end of the day, while likely safe, one thing you can't do is prove long term effects of the vaccine. Mostly bulls*** but again? Technically you can't prove anything will come up 3-4 years down the road. We don't have that data. Hard to argue against them if they believe this. I just always say usually vaccines show their negative effects in 6-8 weeks. Not heard, and you don't know the long term effects of the virus, either. But it falls on deaf ears as they seem to have made up their mind,

4) I've already had covid. This one doesn't bother me much. in likelihood they still help contribute to herd immunity

ramblin_ag02 said:

---

https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/618765/

Fantastic and fair article from someone who is pro-Covid vaccine and completely baffled by the people who don't want a vaccine. The end is strategies to try and convince people, but up until that point it is a really honest and genuine desire to learn why people think this way.

The big takeaway for me was the anger generated by government pandemic policies. Masks and enforced quarantines were part of my life as a physician well before the pandemic. They weren't common or universal, but it wasn't weird to wear a mask to see sick people or to isolate a sick or exposed person to prevent spread of an illness. So all those measures seemed pretty standard and rational to me. I also never had to worry about my job. However, the scale of the measures for COVID started affecting millions of people and drastically changing their lives in negatives ways. So when the IFR estimation went from 10% to 0.2%, people became pissed off about the negative impacts to their life. Now they don't trust and won't follow any recommendation as it is all just interpreted as more tyrannical overreach.

I don't agree with that perspective, but at least it makes some sense to me now

---

A 0.2% IFR justifies virtually nothing that was done by the government. Nothing.

I'm fairness It's 0.5% in the US. Not 0.2%. Maybe it's 0.2% now with new treatment, or with protection of nursing homes.

The_Fox said:

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A 0.2% IFR justifies virtually nothing that was done by the government. Nothing.

---

Threadender.

beerad12man said:

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I'm fairness It's 0.5% in the US. Not 0.2%. Maybe it's 0.2% now with new treatment, or with protection of nursing homes.

---

They didn't even do this and it was the one thing that they should have done. See New York.

Y'all know Dr.'s posting on Texags aren't the government, right? There are better punching bags to take your policy frustrations out on than docs hanging out on forums to answer people's questions.

Today in a townhall at a large Houston hospital system (and one of the largest employers in the city), the respectful question was asked "When this started you required us to take measures to flatten the curve and stop the hospitals from being overwhelmed. Now that risk has come and gone, but the measures are still in place. What is the goal now?"


First the CMO answered (paraphrased) "this disease and others are still present. And just look at what happened to the Flu this year - we used to have 50k deaths per year (nationally) and now we have almost none. How many are acceptable, I think that was too much"

Then the CEO, another doctor, compared it to Polio and said we have practically eradicated all Polio so the goal should be to eradicate this disease as well.


Unbelievable. This is the power of fascism in the name of "I know what's best for you, so you're better off surrendering your freedoms to me".

The_Fox said:

---

ramblin_ag02 said:

---

https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/618765/

Fantastic and fair article from someone who is pro-Covid vaccine and completely baffled by the people who don't want a vaccine. The end is strategies to try and convince people, but up until that point it is a really honest and genuine desire to learn why people think this way.

The big takeaway for me was the anger generated by government pandemic policies. Masks and enforced quarantines were part of my life as a physician well before the pandemic. They weren't common or universal, but it wasn't weird to wear a mask to see sick people or to isolate a sick or exposed person to prevent spread of an illness. So all those measures seemed pretty standard and rational to me. I also never had to worry about my job. However, the scale of the measures for COVID started affecting millions of people and drastically changing their lives in negatives ways. So when the IFR estimation went from 10% to 0.2%, people became pissed off about the negative impacts to their life. Now they don't trust and won't follow any recommendation as it is all just interpreted as more tyrannical overreach.

I don't agree with that perspective, but at least it makes some sense to me now

---

A 0.2% IFR justifies virtually nothing that was done by the government. Nothing.

---

Is IFR the only thing that matters?

To use an extreme example to illustrate my point, what if the IFR was 0% but hospitalization rates were twice as high? Would any mitigation measures be justified then?

The unique thing about this virus was its ability to spread rapidly and quickly make a large chunk of the population require medical interventions that they could only get at a hospital.

traxter said:

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The_Fox said:

---

ramblin_ag02 said:

---

https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/618765/

Fantastic and fair article from someone who is pro-Covid vaccine and completely baffled by the people who don't want a vaccine. The end is strategies to try and convince people, but up until that point it is a really honest and genuine desire to learn why people think this way.

The big takeaway for me was the anger generated by government pandemic policies. Masks and enforced quarantines were part of my life as a physician well before the pandemic. They weren't common or universal, but it wasn't weird to wear a mask to see sick people or to isolate a sick or exposed person to prevent spread of an illness. So all those measures seemed pretty standard and rational to me. I also never had to worry about my job. However, the scale of the measures for COVID started affecting millions of people and drastically changing their lives in negatives ways. So when the IFR estimation went from 10% to 0.2%, people became pissed off about the negative impacts to their life. Now they don't trust and won't follow any recommendation as it is all just interpreted as more tyrannical overreach.

I don't agree with that perspective, but at least it makes some sense to me now

---

A 0.2% IFR justifies virtually nothing that was done by the government. Nothing.

---

Is IFR the only thing that matters?

To use an extreme example to illustrate my point, what if the IFR was 0% but hospitalization rates were twice as high? Would any mitigation measures be justified then?

The unique thing about this virus was its ability to spread rapidly and quickly make a large chunk of the population require medical interventions that they could only get at a hospital.

---

This is debatable as well. Nothing shows it more contagious than other similar viruses and the hospitalization rates are wildly over estimated by the general public.


From The NY Times.

My wife just got her 2nd Moderna shot and is on her 32nd hour of pure misery. Top 3 illnesses in her 45 years. Anyone outside of the high risk categories who has seen someone go through that might be in the reluctant group.

fightingfarmer09 said:

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traxter said:

---

The_Fox said:

---

ramblin_ag02 said:

---

https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/618765/

Fantastic and fair article from someone who is pro-Covid vaccine and completely baffled by the people who don't want a vaccine. The end is strategies to try and convince people, but up until that point it is a really honest and genuine desire to learn why people think this way.

The big takeaway for me was the anger generated by government pandemic policies. Masks and enforced quarantines were part of my life as a physician well before the pandemic. They weren't common or universal, but it wasn't weird to wear a mask to see sick people or to isolate a sick or exposed person to prevent spread of an illness. So all those measures seemed pretty standard and rational to me. I also never had to worry about my job. However, the scale of the measures for COVID started affecting millions of people and drastically changing their lives in negatives ways. So when the IFR estimation went from 10% to 0.2%, people became pissed off about the negative impacts to their life. Now they don't trust and won't follow any recommendation as it is all just interpreted as more tyrannical overreach.

I don't agree with that perspective, but at least it makes some sense to me now

---

A 0.2% IFR justifies virtually nothing that was done by the government. Nothing.

---

Is IFR the only thing that matters?

To use an extreme example to illustrate my point, what if the IFR was 0% but hospitalization rates were twice as high? Would any mitigation measures be justified then?

The unique thing about this virus was its ability to spread rapidly and quickly make a large chunk of the population require medical interventions that they could only get at a hospital.

---

This is debatable as well. Nothing shows it more contagious than other similar viruses and the hospitalization rates are wildly over estimated by the general public.


From The NY Times.

---

I don't follow what you're trying to say.

Are you saying that despite overestimation on hospitalization rates that hospitals weren't overwhelmed? Per that graph you posted, 1% of 30 million Americans that got COVID is 300,000. 5% would be 1.5 million. That's a lot of people requiring hospitalization. How does that compare with other viruses?

Also, what source are you using to say that nothing shows it to be more contagious than other similar viruses? And what do you define as a similar virus? I'm sure it's probably similar to the first SARS. But from what I've read it's substantially higher than the annual flu.

traxter said:

---

The_Fox said:

---

ramblin_ag02 said:

---

https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/618765/

Fantastic and fair article from someone who is pro-Covid vaccine and completely baffled by the people who don't want a vaccine. The end is strategies to try and convince people, but up until that point it is a really honest and genuine desire to learn why people think this way.

The big takeaway for me was the anger generated by government pandemic policies. Masks and enforced quarantines were part of my life as a physician well before the pandemic. They weren't common or universal, but it wasn't weird to wear a mask to see sick people or to isolate a sick or exposed person to prevent spread of an illness. So all those measures seemed pretty standard and rational to me. I also never had to worry about my job. However, the scale of the measures for COVID started affecting millions of people and drastically changing their lives in negatives ways. So when the IFR estimation went from 10% to 0.2%, people became pissed off about the negative impacts to their life. Now they don't trust and won't follow any recommendation as it is all just interpreted as more tyrannical overreach.

I don't agree with that perspective, but at least it makes some sense to me now

---

A 0.2% IFR justifies virtually nothing that was done by the government. Nothing.

---

Is IFR the only thing that matters?

To use an extreme example to illustrate my point, what if the IFR was 0% but hospitalization rates were twice as high? Would any mitigation measures be justified then?

The unique thing about this virus was its ability to spread rapidly and quickly make a large chunk of the population require medical interventions that they could only get at a hospital.

---

Government mandated mitigation? And hospitalizations stayed primarily in the over 65 age group?

No, next question.

Thank you for the time you have taken to post here. From the Atlantic article:

Quote:

---

I made this case to several no-vaxxers: Your grandparents, elderly neighbors, and immunocompromised friends will be safer if you're vaccinated, even if you've already been infected.

---

That was my exact conclusion, so I schedule!ed my appointment. But now several very close family members have announced that they "temporarily" can't be around me because I'll be "shedding spike proteins" that could cause excessive menstruation, miscarriages, and infertility. My jaw hit the floor - so now the anti-vaxxers have moved on to arguing that the vaccine will harm not just the recipient but also their loved ones? Have you run across articles from reputable sources addressing this one?

A "large chunk of the population" is hardly 1-5% of known infections.

You would be correct if you said "the vast majority of the infected needed little to no medical intervention". But that would be a different story then wouldn't it?

I am not surprised that so many people are reluctant to take the vaccine for reasons that have been covered in the last page or two. For the most part it has to do with lack of trust and polarization. Its just an extension of the paranoia gripping this country.


What surprises me is how many people don't follow the recommendation, or maybe just don't ask, their regular doctor.

Ultimately I don't care what a Facebook post, Texags post, politician, FoxNews, or anyone else says about it. I care about what my doctor recommends.

One of my coworkers made a similar remark about "shedding parts of the virus" post vaccine. I believe my response was something along the lines of "don't be a f'n idiot, that's grade-a conspiracy website trash."

If you have people claiming as much, be direct and let them know they're being stupid.

They'll probably be defensive about it and try to deflect the topic to point to how "all the experts" have been wrong for the last year and no one can know what might happen because it's "still an experimental drug". Keep on point and tell them to stop listening to fake news and buying into conspiracy websites.

Feeding articles to someone who is operating from a seat of ignorance isn't a meaningful or effective a way to change their mind as calling them out and forcing the issue, at least in my experience.

The messaging from the idiots in charge has been awful since the beginning. Allowing political interest groups (looking at you teacher unions) to write the "scientific" guidance has been criminal.

If the vaccines work (I'm fully Pfizer'd up) then you should have no restrictions after vaccinated.

If you have antibodies you should NOT get the vaccine and have no restrictions.

If you want people to get vaccinated promote this information. People are easy, give them a goal to work towards.

Stop telling us to "follow the science" and ****ing publish some actual science. Set targets and actual metrics that don't constantly change. Publish KPIs we as a society need to hit to get back to normal.

Stop doing absolutely asinine things like responding to a "surge" in Michigan and promoting another lockdown opposed to increased vaccination availability.

This entire saga was about the election and now they don't know how to get back to normal society without everyone realizing people died, lost their livelihoods, and set back an entire generation of kids for no reason.

HumbleAg04 said:

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The messaging from the idiots in charge has been awful since the beginning. Allowing political interest groups (looking at you teacher unions) to write the "scientific" guidance has been criminal.

If the vaccines work (I'm fully Pfizer'd up) then you should have no restrictions after vaccinated.

If you have antibodies you should NOT get the vaccine and have no restrictions.

If you want people to get vaccinated promote this information. People are easy, give them a goal to work towards.

Stop telling us to "follow the science" and ****ing publish some actual science. Set targets and actual metrics that don't constantly change. Publish KPIs we as a society need to hit to get back to normal.

Stop doing absolutely asinine things like responding to a "surge" in Michigan and promoting another lockdown opposed to increased vaccination availability.

This entire saga was about the election and now they don't know how to get back to normal society without everyone realizing people died, lost their livelihoods, and set back an entire generation of kids for no reason.

---

Sadly I've already tried that exact tactic. In fact I told them that if they think I will get them sick then they can stay away. In response I received all the conspiracy theory articles. So I'm now trying to make a persuasive case.

Shagga said:

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Thank you for the time you have taken to post here. From the Atlantic article:

Quote:

---

I made this case to several no-vaxxers: Your grandparents, elderly neighbors, and immunocompromised friends will be safer if you're vaccinated, even if you've already been infected.

---

That was my exact conclusion, so I schedule!ed my appointment. But now several very close family members have announced that they "temporarily" can't be around me because I'll be "shedding spike proteins" that could cause excessive menstruation, miscarriages, and infertility. My jaw hit the floor - so now the anti-vaxxers have moved on to arguing that the vaccine will harm not just the recipient but also their loved ones? Have you run across articles from reputable sources addressing this one?

---

I have seen nothing even close to anything suggesting the vaccine has any bad impact on people not getting it. I can't conceive of how it would happen. Even if you were "shedding spike protein" all it means is that they would get a partial vaccine

Thanks. Here's something I found this morning but it is very long.

"The vaccinated are a danger to the unvaccinated because of shedding!": The latest COVID-19 antivaccine disinformation

By the way, are you familiar with this Dr. Gorski? Seems credible to me.

Never heard of him, but that means nothing

I've even heard people in these union-dominated states suggest that the kids should all be held back a year to make up for the lost year. I asked, "what lost year?" My kids have been in school all year, played all their sports, taken all their AP tests...

Kinda feels nice to see the rest of the country jealous of Texas public schools. But the Animal Farm/ghetto mentality of holding everybody back because somebody got something you didn't get is so typical...of certain people...who may or may not hold...alleged political persuasions.

There, I didn't let it get partisan.

Shagga said:

---

Thank you for the time you have taken to post here. From the Atlantic article:

Quote:

---

I made this case to several no-vaxxers: Your grandparents, elderly neighbors, and immunocompromised friends will be safer if you're vaccinated, even if you've already been infected.

---

That was my exact conclusion, so I schedule!ed my appointment. But now several very close family members have announced that they "temporarily" can't be around me because I'll be "shedding spike proteins" that could cause excessive menstruation, miscarriages, and infertility. My jaw hit the floor - so now the anti-vaxxers have moved on to arguing that the vaccine will harm not just the recipient but also their loved ones? Have you run across articles from reputable sources addressing this one?

---

Complete lunacy. Not aware of any articles on this (though I'd be interested in reading such a thing), just social media chain letter type bs.

Shagga said:

---

Thanks. Here's something I found this morning but it is very long.

"The vaccinated are a danger to the unvaccinated because of shedding!": The latest COVID-19 antivaccine disinformation

By the way, are you familiar with this Dr. Gorski? Seems credible to me.

---

God have mercy on us. I feel like I'm back in the Middle Ages reading that.

FrioAg 00 said:

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Today in a townhall at a large Houston hospital system (and one of the largest employers in the city), the respectful question was asked "When this started you required us to take measures to flatten the curve and stop the hospitals from being overwhelmed. Now that risk has come and gone, but the measures are still in place. What is the goal now?"


First the CMO answered (paraphrased) "this disease and others are still present. And just look at what happened to the Flu this year - we used to have 50k deaths per year (nationally) and now we have almost none. How many are acceptable, I think that was too much"

Then the CEO, another doctor, compared it to Polio and said we have practically eradicated all Polio so the goal should be to eradicate this disease as well.


Unbelievable. This is the power of fascism in the name of "I know what's best for you, so you're better off surrendering your freedoms to me".

---

This type of BS will dig trenches deeper.

That CMO is implying we did something to drop flu to zero and that is manifestly not the case, places that had no restrictions had the flu vanish same as here and it crashed before any restrictions were implemented. People that are paid to know the best information and act accordingly are either willfully ignorant or are up to something else and trying to lie to us again. Both of these conditions have come to pass repeatedly throughout the past year.

People ask an honest question and they get high minded moralizing from people that are ignorant or lying. It is a wonder that anyone trusts them at all.

HumbleAg04 said:

---

Stop doing absolutely asinine things like responding to a "surge" in Michigan and promoting another lockdown opposed to increased vaccination availability.

---

And then when cases start plummeting at the same time you call for more lockdowns that don't happen, don't act incredulous that the public has tuned you out.

chimpanzee said:

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FrioAg 00 said:

---

Today in a townhall at a large Houston hospital system (and one of the largest employers in the city), the respectful question was asked "When this started you required us to take measures to flatten the curve and stop the hospitals from being overwhelmed. Now that risk has come and gone, but the measures are still in place. What is the goal now?"


First the CMO answered (paraphrased) "this disease and others are still present. And just look at what happened to the Flu this year - we used to have 50k deaths per year (nationally) and now we have almost none. How many are acceptable, I think that was too much"

Then the CEO, another doctor, compared it to Polio and said we have practically eradicated all Polio so the goal should be to eradicate this disease as well.


Unbelievable. This is the power of fascism in the name of "I know what's best for you, so you're better off surrendering your freedoms to me".

---

This type of BS will dig trenches deeper.

That CMO is implying we did something to drop flu to zero and that is manifestly not the case, places that had no restrictions had the flu vanish same as here. People that are paid to know the truth and act accordingly are either willfully ignorant or are up to something else and trying to lie to us again. Both of these conditions have come to pass repeatedly throughout the past year.

People ask an honest question and they get high minded moralizing from people that are ignorant or lying. It is a wonder that anyone trusts them at all.

---

I'll be honest. I understood the first 15 days. Okay, we need to prepare for this. Makes a bit of sense. After the first 2 weeks was up, and extended another 2 weeks, I began to worry. Then when it was extended again, I realized we were in trouble. The longer this goes on, the less likely we ever pull out of it. We went down a rabbit hole you can never get out of. Justifications for lockdowns, shutdowns, masks forever, now operating under preventing the flu which we accepted as a risk from the day we were born.

Not to mention like you said, operating under the false sense that what we did eliminated the flu and not that it was likely viral interference, but that's neither here nor there.

If you operate like this person, you cease to have a free republic any more.