To add to the what the article is saying RE:safety, the vaccine only stays in one's body for a few days to a week. Then it's gone. Also Moderna made a previous mRNA vaccine for Avian flu that was safe-- no long term side effects.https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2022483?fbclid=I....
If you are alluding to the rumor of it modifying human DNA by quoting "modification of mRNA building blocks"-- this is a modification of a piece of the viral mRNA. It DOES NOT modify human DNA or RNA.
The Moderna Vaccine can be kept at refrigerator temperatures. The author addresses safety in that he explains why the vaccine was able to be produced more quickly while still going through the same level of safety testing.
The case of the person that got reinfected is grossly exaggerated. Don't you think if this was really occurring frequently there wouldn't be only one or two reported incidences of this world-wide? Asymptomatic carriers do definitively infect others. Just because you personally are not sure of things, doesn't mean that they are not known. And this "do nothing" approach you are advocating for- which is what happens if you wait until everything is fully and definitively proven- has resulted in the disastrous results the US has had so far. Also please explain "suggesting cataclysmic shoot-from-the-hip solutions"- I don't think anything I suggested comes close to that. I said that we shouldn't reopen colleges in places with rising cases. That doesn't seem cataclysmic to me.
> Don't you think if this was really occurring frequently there wouldn't be only one or two reported incidences of this world-wide?
No, for reasons I have already mentioned in my first comment.
The patient we think was reinfected was reported to have a mild case in the spring. The US, at the time, had extremely limited access to tests for anyone except the grievously ill. It is likely the patient would not have received a test in the US, and certainly not had the infection genome-sequenced.
The second time the patient tested positive, he was asymptomatic. The CDC currently recommends against testing asymptomatic individuals. It is likely that, in the US, the patient would once again not have received a test.
Basically, the US tests sparsely and doesn't seem to test longitudinally on any scale at all. Does any country in the world with more than a few thousand cases test longitudinally?
If anything, I think it's more telling that this patient was identified in Hong Kong, which only has 4.5 thousand cases total. Finding seemingly ironclad evidence in such a small pool suggests that this isn't a rare phenomenon.
> And this "do nothing" approach you are advocating for- which is what happens if you wait until everything is fully and definitively proven- has resulted in the disastrous results the US has had so far.
If I'm advocating anything at all (and I don't think I'm advocating anything in my original comment), it's that we hold off on making aggressive policy decisions based on our Swiss cheese "understanding" of COVID immunity. How about working toward goals we set months ago and have since kept failing to meet, such as ubiquitous access to testing and meaningful case tracing?
On the other hand, let's maybe hold off on jokes about sending Grandma to New Orleans? The photo of the elderly woman wearing sparkly bangles is the joke, but I think your suggestion right before that, that "we could send the highest risk people to the places that are the most immune so they could be shielded" is made seriously, right? Like, even moving an individual, medically fragile, institutionalized elderly person leads to complicated and often negative outcomes in the best of times, simply because of the complex and fragile support systems their well-being relies on. Shipping "the highest risk people" en masse and organizing care for them seems dramatically more complex than, again, following through on testing and mitigation strategies that we, as a state, have been paying lip service to for months now.
It literally says "All joking aside" following that comment. I don't know how much clearer I could have made that. I also advocate wearing masks, distancing, protecting the vulnerable, and not opening schools. I don't know how you can possibly be construing me as advocating for any of the extreme things you are talking about.
The logical connection between our comments is pretty tenuous. I don't think there is a need to continue the conversation. Good luck promoting your point of view!
I have to ask though, have you accounted for the seemingly deliberate lack of testing, and politically-motivated alterations to CDC guidance (the latter has knock-on effects of changing what insurance companies will reimburse for)?
How big a factor is this in the numbers? If the numbers are unreliable, what does this do to your assumptions?
My data comes from worldometer.info which pulls directly from the states and hospital reporting and not from the CDC or HHS. So I think it is reliable.
How does that relate to epidemiology? In a previous discussion here you made basic errors like referring to a study from a single clinic as if it was representative of all of New York.
I apologize, that didn't seem to be the case from the bio you give on the site. the bio you link to, or your published research. Obviously you know your background better than I do, but you're not putting your best foot forward to build credibility.
I'm after pointing out that a self-promoted site on the front page makes grandiose claims about public health with flimsy support.
Call me an optimist but I think the public can handle the nuance of cases have dropped but still don't throw a crazy party until they are 100% gone or everyone is vaccinated. Also levels are 20-30% now but will continue to rise throughout the fall because there still are new cases and transmission even if RT<1.
I really want to believe this. It neatly lines itself up with my worldview and afford individuals the agency of being smart enough to do what is right 99% of the time while also allowing for the freedom to make the rare "less than safe choice" in situations that warrant it. That is the world I want to live in.
-BUT- I think to get there, we are going to need some serious education on this matter that actually penetrates the politics that have grown to dominate the pandemic. I don't think most people see it as "containment vs keep clam and hope everything is okay." Opting instead to see it as r-v-l.
To be clear, I don't blame anyone for thinking in those terms, that is the narrative being presented. That said, I do ask that any theory hinging on "people are able to handle nuance" provide some evidence for the claim that can be directly applied to the now. In a world where individuals leer at each other for not wearing masks in wide open outdoor spaces, while others yell inside of Walmart about the constitution, it is hard to have belief in that claim.
I agree with your first two points whole heartedly. But I think we got into a r-v-l place where the public has lost all trust BY paternalism. Trust means giving people the truth. And my theory doesn't hinge on people behaving responsibly at all. If people are irresponsible- this ends sooner with more death. The theory is the same either way- the timeline and number of deaths just change a bit.
Ok I'm going to put this at the top since I believe it sheds further light on many of the points. This is a talk at UCSF's medical grand rounds (the weekly science talks given to all doctors at UCSF). At 38 minutes, one of the scientists cited by the MIT tech explains his findings in support of herd immunity. It's not peer reviewed yet because it's brand new- peer review takes a minimum of three months. He shows open table and google maps data in support of people not being much more careful in Florida or AZ. He also explains the interplay between mask wearing etc and RT. Hopefully you will find this to add extra rigor to what I have been saying. It is pretty dry- but that is the nature of this sort of talk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew2MEF4XX8w.
