Rant away about COVID, the vaccine, etc.

So no unicorn because I totally made that up? Figured with runor prone to exaggeration/fiction, it was OK.

But what I wanted to know, what I am curious to find out from people who could avail themselves of the covid vaccine but have chosen not to, do you think that your chances of a serious problem or death from getting vaccinated are greater than your chances of a serious problem or death from getting covid?

Thank you Mods!

I wanted to share this important new research showing how effective masks can be. There has been a dearth of real life studies on this- because it's a hard thing *to* study, outside of labs with fake aerosols and fake lungs and robot face simulators... & so lots of what we've had is modelling based on lab results.

But this was a randomized evaluation in Bangladesh, undertaken by a multi-disciplinary team from Yale, Stanford, Berkely etc. 350,000 people, 600 villages..

"With this 29 percentage point increase in mask-wearing, we saw a 9% drop in serologically confirmed COVID."

"The reduction was larger in villages where we (randomly) used surgical masks than those where we used cloth masks; in surgical mask villages, we saw a 12% reduction in COVID overall and a 35% reduction among those aged 60+."

masks work, surgical masks worked better than cloth (I'm guessing N95 or equivalent would work even better).

https://www.poverty-action.org/study/impact-mask-d...

Shetland, I would love to see you get a response that was a straightforward answer to your question without a lot of justifications,pivots, or arguments thown in. Also, could it be that the sign of the beast remark was made in jest? If it was real, we’re in bigger trouble than I ever thought possible.

Thanks, Mods.

Mitch McConnell wants you to get vaccinated. 😮

Yes, I don’t think wearing a mask is that big an ask and my states’ guidelines are pretty sensible IMO. We are no longer required to wear them outdoors and usually I don’t anymore.

We have a few boxes of surgical masks, which to me are actually more comfortable than the cutesy little cloth ones, that I deem flimsy.

I even see a few side benefits - if a bus passes by when I’m walking, the exhaust stinks less and the mask probably affords a little protection to my lungs. It’s been handy having them around the house for when I clean - less inhalation of dust and strong cleaning products.

Drawback - going on long walks with masks did feel like I wasn’t getting enough oxygen after awhile.

The annoying fogging up of my glasses, even with a nose wire.

But those are petty annoyances , surely not worth getting in a fight over.

I do understand the concerns some people have about children wearing masks and being in this new environment where the social cues from seeing facial expressions are missing, and concerns about kids being able to keep a clean mask on all day, etc.

It must be so so difficult to parent right now. I would probably be trying to home school or work with asmall group of other families to start an “education pod” or something - but everyone is not able to do so.

Oh another good thing I see coming out of this disaster, not mask related, but I think it’s great that public buildings, airplanes, etc are improving their ventilation systems. A big pet peeve of mine when I worked in offices was the poor ventilation and the inability to open a window.

I've always believed people are entitled to their opinions. I have a lot myself. But ALL opinions, in my opinion (😈) should move aside when confronted by FACTS.

Olma61, my favorite part of mask-wearing is not having to SMILE at people I don't want to, especially anyone who tells me to!

AliceBastable,

Cowgirl13 - here is an article about the mmr and Tdap vaccines providing some immunity to covid. Unfortunately I don't believe under 2 year olds have had a full complement of these vaccines. The tetanus booster may be helpful too for older people. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210831142423.htm

JavaJana: Welcome back. I think the thread will stay open. The Mods just want to have listed where stated "information" comes from. If it is an opinion, state it as so -- not as a fact. If there is no peer-reviewed, scientific proof -- say that too. "I read it somewhere on the internet" does not make it true. And please everyone don't call each other names.

javajana, I agree with many of your points and right now I'm laughing because I had a similar thought about all the alt med/foregoing treatment/dog dewormer threads that exist here.

I can anticipate the response, though - “Breast cancer is not an infectious disease!!!!"

Ok, but people wanting to forego chemo or other tx, when it's their best option, comes from the same fear that many vaccine hesitant people have about getting the vaccine.

There's even a note from the mods on the alt treatment thread that people who disagree may post but should be respectful, or something like that. People are allowed to discuss any and every fringey oddball alt treatment under the sun

Believe me, I don't want any “alt medicine for cancer" thread or “I'm having doubts about treatment thread" censored. But that's because I don't think anyone should be censored...or at least...pleasecensor very very sparingly.

ok I'm not trying to organize a mutiny or anything, I'm just expressing my opinion on censorship - and tolerance.

Well, I stand corrected, I was able to easily find an example. of at least one covid vaccine trial but it really doesn’t make me feel better.

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04324606

In this particular trial, the exclusions include anyone with a history of cancer, severe disease requiring hospitalization or specialist treatment, allergies, asthma, diabetes, bleeding disorder, depression, bipolar disorder, alcoholism, etc. the list was far more extensive and those exclusions cover a huge population including many people I know. But I never heard any of this mentioned, I guess they hope for the best and find out later.

I agree that the pandemic has been politicized. And there is no question in my mind that a lot of what we've told over the past 20 months, by politicians, government medical officers and the media, has been positioned to reflect what they wanted people to believe at that point in time, rather than being fully honest and truthful about what they knew and didn't know. My understanding of Covid and my positions on the pandemic come much more from the reading I've done than anything I've heard from politicians. I devour research studies and data reports and when I can find it, raw data. It's funny (or not) that in Canada, for 18 months we saw Dr. Theresa Tam on the news almost every night, warning us about the horrors of Covid (to the point of absurdity, and I say that as someone who thinks Covid is very serious). All of a sudden, Dr. Tam has gone missing. Why? I'm thinking it's because Trudeau called an election, and being in Covid wave 4 isn't consistent with his wanting voters to think he has done a gone job of managing the pandemic. It's also not good to be issuing warnings about people gathering in large groups when politicians are holding rallies. It's all so obviously political.

Anyway, for me the good news of the day is that proof of vaccination will be required in Ontario as of September 22nd. Yay! to that.