Covid restrictions over (for us)

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Also... The Astra Zenica vaccine being manufactured in India is not being accepted in the EU... I wonder what's different about it??

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Pfizer is talking like they want to sell a lot of doses for a booster shot. Thus far, the CDC and NIH are saying they aren't necessary.

I think that eventually a booster for all the various vaccines will be required... exactly when, is probably yet to be determined. Seems to me the only vaccination that is single dose that requires no booster is the Polio vaccine. And I am not sure that's even given out any more in this country. Pfizer had to pay 2.3 billion in fines in 2009 for illegal marketing. So no doubt they are looking for a way to recoup some of that money.

[James Biggins]

Also... The Astra Zenica vaccine being manufactured in India is not being accepted in the EU... I wonder what's different about it??

Nothing, it's chemically identical. The problem is apparently administrative (ie paperwork), rather than medical.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Or the EU factory wants to keep the Indian factory out of the EU...

[Leo Enticknap]

Without straying too far into politics, we know that the EU has used vaccines as a political strategy related to Brexit, so there is very likely something going on there.

Agreed entirely both with Mark and Lyle about Pfizer having a vested interest in promoting boosters. IMHO, evidence is growing that the Pfizer vax both works better, and is less likely to cause gnarly side effects, than any of the others. In other words, they know that they have a winner. Furthermore, if, as seems possible, the Pfizer shot becomes established as the only guaranteed acceptable one for international travel between developed world countries, that is also good news for Pfizer, obviously.

The Guillain-Barré Syndrome aspect to this is a personal one for me, because I was in hospital with GBS for three months (in 1993, but even so, if you've had it once, no matter how long ago, you are statistically at higher risk of a second episode), and left with a permanent, slight weakness in my upper legs by it. From what I've read, the J & J and AZ vaccines have both now been associated with a statistically significant (by which I mean more cases than would be expected in the normal course of events) number of GBS cases being diagnosed within 2-3 weeks of the shot, but Pfizer and Moderna have not. There are four distinct variants and one subvariant (AMAN with and without sensory loss) of GBS, and I can't find any information online as to whether which ones these post-vax cases are. They range from Acute inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (very rarely life threatening and normally clears up completely within a few days), to acute axonal motor neuropathy (most likely to be fatal; always requires heavy duty medical intervention, and often doesn't result in 100% recovery - this is the version I had). If the vaccine-related GBS cases are exclusively or primarily of the nastier variants, that, IMHO, is worrying news.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Leo, It's kind of like the flu. They have to develop new flu vaccines almost yearly because of the ever mutating flu virus. And I have gotten a flu shot every single year. . I literally have not had a bad case of it in almost 15 years now thanks to the vaccines.

[Marcel Birgelen]

The Guillain-Barré Syndrome aspect to this is a personal one for me, because I was in hospital with GBS for three months (in 1993, but even so, if you've had it once, no matter how long ago, you are statistically at higher risk of a second episode), and left with a permanent, slight weakness in my upper legs by it. From what I've read, the J & J and AZ vaccines have both now been associated with a statistically significant (by which I mean more cases than would be expected in the normal course of events) number of GBS cases being diagnosed within 2-3 weeks of the shot, but Pfizer and Moderna have not. There are four distinct variants and one subvariant (AMAN with and without sensory loss) of GBS, and I can't find any information online as to whether which ones these post-vax cases are. They range from Acute inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (very rarely life threatening and normally clears up completely within a few days), to acute axonal motor neuropathy (most likely to be fatal; always requires heavy duty medical intervention, and often doesn't result in 100% recovery - this is the version I had). If the vaccine-related GBS cases are exclusively or primarily of the nastier variants, that, IMHO, is worrying news.

Vaccines used to take the better part of a decade before they were approved for general use and it will take the better part of a decade to get a clear view of all the side-effects of the COVID-19 vaccines we're currently distributing. The wife of one of my colleagues has a history of GBS, so she's happy he didn't opt for the J&J shot. But with about 100 reported cases in 12.8 million shots, I guess it's still difficult to call it statistically significant, especially since those 100 cases come close to the amount of cases you'd expect in a similar population.

What worries me, is the high infectious rate of the new variants and the amount of people around me contracting it and still getting sick of it, despite being vaccinated. Granted, none of the cases until now was a really severe case, more like having the flu, but it's clear to me that despite what they're claiming, the "vanilla" vaccines are far from bullet-proof against those new variations. What also worries me is the extreme R0 of those new variants. With an R0 of anywhere between 5 and 8, you can contract this bugger simply by all-day activities, especially now everybody is dropping their guards.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Vaccines used to take the better part of a decade before they were approved for general use and it will take the better part of a decade to get a clear view of all the side-effects of the COVID-19 vaccines we're currently distributing. The wife of one of my colleagues has a history of GBS, so she's happy he didn't opt for the J&J shot. But with about 100 reported cases in 12.8 million shots, I guess it's still difficult to call it statistically significant, especially since those 100 cases come close to the amount of cases you'd expect in a similar population.

What worries me, is the high infectious rate of the new variants and the amount of people around me contracting it and still getting sick of it, despite being vaccinated. Granted, none of the cases until now was a really severe case, more like having the flu, but it's clear to me that despite what they're claiming, the "vanilla" vaccines are far from bullet-proof against those new variations. What also worries me is the extreme R0 of those new variants. With an R0 of anywhere between 5 and 8, you can contract this bugger simply by all-day activities, especially now everybody is dropping their guards.

Wasn't everyone in your country required to get the vaccination? If so you should be pretty safe. But even so, I'd for sure wear a mask if you are around any number of people. I will be doing the same...

[Marcel Birgelen]

Wasn't everyone in your country required to get the vaccination? If so you should be pretty safe. But even so, I'd for sure wear a mask if you are around any number of people. I will be doing the same...

There are only 27 years between the original Dutch constitution and the one of the U.S. Both are pretty restrictive in what the government can force upon people. So, mandatory vaccinations are currently not compatible with the Dutch constitution and a vocal, mostly religious inspired minority will probably keep it that way. Even wearing masks was only a "very strong recommendation" for large parts of 2020, because a special law needed to be passed to be able to make it mandatory. The same thing happened to the national curfew, which was declared unconstitutional by a court at first and a special law needed to be installed to make that one stick.

But vaccination rates are pretty high and most initial problems with availability of vaccines, mostly due to mismanagement on the level of the EU are now practically gone. I guess the ongoing strategy will be similar to what France is already doing and Germany is planning to do: If you want to participate with any kind of social activities in the coming months, you need to have a valid vaccination passport, either on paper or digitally via your smartphone. The only other alternative will be to get tested every 24 hours.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Marcel... At least you don't have 45% of the populous there following fake directives and lies from a certain group of people like we do...

[Bobby Henderson]

Vaccines used to take the better part of a decade before they were approved for general use and it will take the better part of a decade to get a clear view of all the side-effects of the COVID-19 vaccines we're currently distributing.

Technology in vaccine development is leaps and bounds above where it was 10 or 20 years ago. And it's a good thing such advancements have been made, otherwise COVID-19 would be killing far more people now.

What worries me, is the high infectious rate of the new variants and the amount of people around me contracting it and still getting sick of it, despite being vaccinated.

So-called "breakthrough infections" in fully vaccinated people are very rare. And out of those breakthrough cases it's rare for any of those people to be hospitalized. Certain people with political agendas have been trying to claim vaccines are doing no good, cherry-picking pieces of data in a very dishonest way to sell their point. There are fully vaccinated people who have later died, but they died of things like advanced old age or other illnesses they already had. The anti-vax folks don't mention any of that. They just imply a causation with the vaccines.

My big worry is all the stubborn people who refuse to get vaccinated. We have a LOT of them here in Oklahoma. They're the folks who will keep the SARS-CoV-2 virus in circulation, allowing it to continue to mutate. People with only one shot of a two-shot vaccine are also putting the general public at risk. That's not much different than people misusing antibiotics and creating drug resistant pathogens as a result.

More often than not each new variant of SARS-CoV-2 ends up spreading more easily and making illness more intense. These variants are trying to come up with new tricks to evade antibodies from previous COVID-19 infection or immunity gained from vaccines. If given enough of a chance SARS-CoV-2 will eventually spin off a variant or new strain that will beat all vaccines and any natural immunity. We'll all be back and square one with this pandemic. The anti-vax folks refuse to listen to that point. And they don't appear to care about cutting off the chain of transmission to protect those who can't get vaccinated, such as children under age 12. Some kids are dying of this shit.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Marcel... At least you don't have 45% of the populous there following fake directives and lies from a certain group of people like we do...

I guess the worst that could happen was that this whole COVID thing became a political football, where science and truth just became secondary things. It's not like we don't have those "crazies" here too, but at least no MAJOR political movement has decided to identify with them. There are "anti-vaxers" around here too, but most of them do have a religious motivation and not so much a political one. The outcome is the same though, only their numbers are in the single digits or low double digits...

Technology in vaccine development is leaps and bounds above where it was 10 or 20 years ago. And it's a good thing such advancements have been made, otherwise COVID-19 would be killing far more people now.

Yeah sure, but technology can't foresee the future yet. With those emergency use authorizations for those vaccines, we're taking a calculated risk, because we have models that show us what likely happens when we do nothing and that scenario will most likely be much worse than the potential long-term side effects of the vaccines.

More often than not each new variant of SARS-CoV-2 ends up spreading more easily and making illness more intense. These variants are trying to come up with new tricks to evade antibodies from previous COVID-19 infection or immunity gained from vaccines. If given enough of a chance SARS-CoV-2 will eventually spin off a variant or new strain that will beat all vaccines and any natural immunity. We'll all be back and square one with this pandemic. The anti-vax folks refuse to listen to that point. And they don't appear to care about cutting off the chain of transmission to protect those who can't get vaccinated, such as children under age 12. Some kids are dying of this shit.

With the current pace of vaccinations around the globe, we're due to see some new variants. And wile the "breakthru cases" I've witnessed may just be an unlucky coincidence, and even though none of them were real serious cases, it triggers the suspicion in me that those "Gen 1 vaccines" may not be as effective against current variants as we currently think. And I'm not holding any Pfizer stock and I dislike big-pharma probably as much as anybody else, but I think that's why a booster shot, which is optimized to be effective against newer variations, may not be such a bad idea.

[Bobby Henderson]

Yeah sure, but technology can't foresee the future yet. With those emergency use authorizations for those vaccines, we're taking a calculated risk, because we have models that show us what likely happens when we do nothing and that scenario will most likely be much worse than the potential long-term side effects of the vaccines.

I'm personally infinitely far less worried about a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine that hasn't had final FDA approval than I am about getting infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus again. I've already had it once. I know it's possible to get infected again. That's why I didn't fart around wasting time before getting vaccinated at the earliest opportunity.

There's a bunch of idiot Americans who just flatly cannot weigh one risk versus another. All they know is they're just not going to get vaccinated, especially if anyone tells them to do so. Of the anti-vax folks who can weigh risks they think the pandemic is a hoax and the virus is no worse than the flu. They stay stridently hardcore in those beliefs the SARS-CoV-2 virus is of no concern. No need to get vaccinated for a fake plan-demic.

Plenty of medical professionals are encountering these anti-vax, pandemic deniers in the hospital. It's either they or someone they care about is infected and reeling from a serious case of COVID-19. Sometimes those people admit it's not a hoax afterall. Many other times they don't and deny they or their loved ones had COVID-19. There are people dying of the stuff yet denying they were ever infected. It's just the flu.

With the current pace of vaccinations around the globe, we're due to see some new variants. And wile the "breakthru cases" I've witnessed may just be an unlucky coincidence, and even though none of them were real serious cases, it triggers the suspicion in me that those "Gen 1 vaccines" may not be as effective against current variants as we currently think. And I'm not holding any Pfizer stock and I dislike big-pharma probably as much as anybody else, but I think that's why a booster shot, which is optimized to be effective against newer variations, may not be such a bad idea.

Scores of scientists and medical professionals are monitoring the situation 24/7. It's not like they're leaving anything to chance. Just this week one study was released suggesting the Johnson & Johnson vaccine may be less effective on the Delta variant compared to other SARS-CoV-2 variants. But the study was not peer reviewed. So a whole lot of people are checking and double-checking everything.

Compare that to the armchair quarterbacks, keyboard warriors and other fake scientists throwing around their "expert" opinions on Facebook (or in the halls of the US Congress). If I end up needing to get a booster shot for the Pfizer/Bio-N-Tech vaccine I'm not going to throw a fit about it. But I'll wait for some actual qualified professionals to deliver that recommendation.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Bobby, so far those monitoring figures show that 46% of the new cases are from just three States. Texas, Florida, and Arkansas... Why Class Action lawsuits have not been filed by the general populous against those three Governors is beyond me...

[Bobby Henderson]

Texas and Florida are making up most of those cases since they are highly populated states (particularly Texas). Arkansas is a pretty bad hot spot since the booming Northwest Arkansas region is right next door to what is currently the nation's worst Delta outbreak in SW Missouri.

Oklahoma isn't making as many headlines simply because the state has only about 1/8 the population of Texas. COVID-19 rates are on the rise though. Here in Comanche County we were down to as little as 50 known active cases in May. Now we have over 250 known active cases, many of which are Delta. That variant has been creeping in from the big outbreak in Missouri. State-wide Oklahoma is back to case number levels not seen since April and we're going farther and farther backwards. Just about all the people in Oklahoma who wanted to get vaccinated have been vaccinated already. Everyone seems hell-bent on finding out the hard way about this virus. I would be perfectly fine with that. Let them all become Darwin Awards Winners. But the selfish assholes aren't going to keep the infection to themselves. They'll be sure to spread it to people who can't get vaccinated, such as kids under age 12. Not every child is invincible to this virus.