There’s more than a hint of Cromwell in the present circumstances, IMO. A lot of the COVID response seems to be motivated by the fear of TPTB that somebody, somewhere, might be enjoying themselves.
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So how large a sample size would be acceptable to you?
How long a time frame?
When—ethically speaking—is a proper time to bring this new technology into the world?
I’m all ears.
Guy
The analogy I would use would be Fentanyl. A highly effective analgesic when proscribed to the right patients, basically those in such pain they require palliative care. It’s only when they started dishing it out to people with backaches that things went tits up.
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I believe it typically/traditionally takes 10 years to get a vaccine approved. If that’s the established precedent with established technology, doing it in, what, one? with innovative bleeding edge technology sounds rushed, and not achievable without cutting corners.
Doing it without a working system in place to monitor adverse effects, as is alleged. sounds like you don’t want to know.
And you don’t, do you?
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I wonder what the vaccine cheerleaders would think if, say, Boeing came out with a radical new aircraft design - a flying wing or something - and got it through the testing and approvals process in a year.
I wonder how many of them would be suspicious if politicians and celebrities started popping up on TV accusing people who didn’t want to fly on it of being backward, uneducated, MAGA-hat-wearing luddites.
I wonder if they’d sniff and sneer if aerospace experts raising questions about the whole thing found themselves sidelined and relegated to alternative media sites.
But the vaccine isn’t an aircraft. It saves lives! We don’t have to worry about any of that other stuff.
The substitution of sloganeering in place of science and procedure reminds me of this:
Vaccines! It’s what people crave!
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A letter from Emanuel Goldman, one of those who knows more about these matters than we do. Only if you ignore the giant breeding ground left by the unvaccinated, does only vaccinating those deemed at risk make sense.
For reference: Emanuel Goldman pioneered research that covid 19 could live on surfaces though likelihood of transmission is very small.
SARS-CoV-2 has shown that it can mutate into many variants of the original agent (3). An unvaccinated pool of individuals provides a reservoir for the virus to continue to grow and multiply, and therefore more opportunities for such variants to emerge. When this occurs within a background of a largely vaccinated population, natural selection will favor a variant that is resistant to the vaccine.
So far, we have been lucky that the variants that have emerged can still be somewhat controlled by current vaccines, probably because these variants evolved in mostly unvaccinated populations and were not subject to selective pressure of having to grow in vaccinated hosts. Nevertheless, the Delta variant is exhibiting increased frequency of breakthrough infections among the vaccinated (4).
The real danger is a future variant, which will be the legacy of those people who are not getting vaccinated providing a breeding ground for the virus to continue to generate variants. A variant could arise that is resistant to current vaccines, rendering those already vaccinated susceptible again.
Progress we have made in overcoming the pandemic will be lost. New vaccines will have to be developed. Lockdowns and masks will once again be required. Many more who are currently protected, especially among the vulnerable, will die.
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It’s interesting how health authorities in every major economy except China have carefully examined clinical data (and now real world data) and concluded that mRNA vaccines are useful to protect their people. The authorities in Beijing have not approved them. No doubt they are onto something.
It’s always fascinating to me that skeptics on this board are confident they know more than the health authorities in all these countries know—the People’s Republic of China excepted, of course.
In any event, here in Taiwan, we have three very different vaccine types available. If you’re not comfortable with cutting edge mRNA vaccines, fine, leave some for the rest of us. I don’t understand why such people wouldn’t choose the old-school protein based subunit option (in this case Medigen) that’s basically available to any adult in Taiwan that wants it.
Guy
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It’s kinda interesting how absolutely nobody was saying this, ever, before the vaccination programme started, even though it was obvious there would not be and could not be 100% takeup.
Although this is just a letter, an opinion, I can’t entirely disagree. The position we’re at now, with a large number vaccinated (with a flawed vaccine applying selection pressure) and a large number unvaccinated (applying different selection pressures), probably is the worst possible place to be. However that does not imply that vaccinating the minimum possible number would have been worse still, and indeed he doesn’t suggest that it would be.
The fact is, though, the present scenario was entirely foreseeable. Which means the vaccine should have been used only where clinically justified. But if that had been the plan from the start, nobody would have even agreed to start development. The payback wouldn’t have made it worth the effort.
Nobody here is asserting superior knowledge. We’re suggesting that because they must know what we know and more besides, they are almost certainly Up To Something. What that something might be is anybody’s guess.
What we are asserting is that most of the cheerleaders know next-to-nothing about any of the relevant science or technology, mainly because - it seems - they’re doggedly refusing to look at what little data there is, or even failing to notice that there is precious little data available.
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Well OK, didn’t know that. Interesting. Assuming it is true, what is your hypothesis for China breaking ranks?
I get that you are insinuating something, well done, Just not sure what it is.
Possibilities I can think of might include, in no particular order:-
(a) Not invented here bias
(b) They’ve had one massive fuckup, possibly of local research origin, and they don’t want another one just yet, thanks. Call it White Coat Hypertension
.
(c) Owing to the peculiar way their economic system operates, and the patents mostly being held by US based companies, no local apparatchicks stand to make billions out of it.
(d) China feels, and is to some extent, isolated and alone, because its all their fault and nobody likes them. This alienation insulates them from the prevailing group-think so they get to take their own decisions
Dunno, take your pick. Maybe a combo. But all those options have obvious flipsides illustrative of likely motivations in the rest of the world, and the flipsides are not as pure, rational or as disinterested as you seem to suggest.
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True that. Every single person in our workplace suffered side effects from the vaccines, some of them reasonably serious - vomiting, passing out, increased heart rate, loss of energy, pain all over, runny noses, fevers, dizziness, heavy period flows, and so on. For some days, for some. Multiple side effects were present simultaneously. One lady said she almost crashed her car due to dizziness. Some of the side effects they still have. None were reported or followed up by anyone in authority, not even to the company they work for.
And if and when someone ever dies following the vaccine shot in Taiwan, the govt. quickly shuffles the case into the "Nothing To Do With Vaccines’ box. It hardly seems like a rigorous system. And to be honest, what would be the point? The pharma companies have indemnity, the govt has paid for the vaccines, contracts signed, money to be made with local vaccines and various Covid industries profiting hand over fist, politicians needing to project a certain image, needing to double-down on the whole program, they can’t really afford to stop the train. The people who claim compensation for relatives’ vaccine deaths will get a little cash, and things will go on. I would expect they have to sign some non-disclosure agreement as well.
As far as I’m aware, deaths following vaccines in Taiwan are now greater than the combined Covid deaths. With every “Covid death” labelled due to Covid, and all “vaccine deaths” labelled due to comorbidities by the CECC.
Someone’s rubber stamp is working overtime over there.
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The PRC is supporting their own guys, and want “their” people to take “their own” vaccines. That’s why we got a pile of BNT vaccines early—Beijing simply did not grant approval, making a bunch of extra stock available. Out of major economies, I believe they are the only one to take this path.
Guy
GF’s grandfather died 3 days after his jab (dunno which one). But he was in his 70’s, so whaddyagonnado?
Well, you do sophisticated statistics on all the dead grandfathers, I suppose, but you need good data for that.
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I recall Minister Chen on a rare occasion, when deaths started occurring after vaccines, saying that those deaths were just statistically acceptable for that age group, so not to worry.
He never stated anything similar for any Covid deaths, not until recently when the deaths were slowing and they were aiming for that zero.
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So (a) then. Not Invented Here
Not sure about "Out of major economies, I believe they are the only one to take this path."*though
That would imply the rest of the world fully accepts Chinese vaccines, which I understand is not the case.
If it isn’t the case: Flipside
The “System” (or is it “The Community”?) has just flagged me saying I’ve posted “more than 21%” and I should STFU, Well, actually it said, “Is there anyone else you would like to hear from?”
Actually, I’d like Malone to give me his take on whether I should get the second Moderna shot, but since that isn’t likely, I should STFU and do some work.
Like the USA did with AZ?
They didn’t approve it because they wanted to protect their vaccine.
Like the French tried to do and would have done if they were able to produce one.
Yeah the US didn’t approve AZ. If I recall correctly, the authorities there got especially angry when the notorious factory in Baltimore—which was attempting to produce AZ along with J&J—somehow mixed things up leading to a large number of unusable vaccines. They kicked AZ out of that factory and decided to back their own horse.
Guy
So when you posted"Out of major economies, I believe they are the only one to take this path. " in reference to China, you were excluding the USA from “major economies??”
I doubt, even managed as it has been, that Covid has done quite that much economic damage to the USA
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Uh no, I meant China is the only major economy in which mRNA vaccines (this was what we were talking about) were NOT approved by the relevant agencies. Everywhere else looked at the clinical (and now real world) data and gave a green light.
Guy
Well, thats not what you say above. You say China was promoting its own stuff, and later you say the USA was doing the same thing.
In THAT protectionism scenario, the technology used would appear to be only relevant to the extent it was used as an excuse.
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