- It was rushed to market.
- It didn't undergo proper safety trials.
- It contains mRNA which affects our cells (albeit which is designed to help your body).
- There are stories of nasty short-term effects.
- There is potential for long-term harmful effects.
- There's no need to do something risky when there are safe cures available such as hydroxychloroquine.
- Various knowledgeable people, with no financial interest, are not in favor of it.
The thing is, the exact same arguments are vastly more applicable as reasons to be more afraid of Covid than of the vaccine:
- Covid was rushed to market.
- It didn't undergo any safety trials - just danger trials.
- It contains RNA which affects our cells - and which is designed to harm them.
- There are vastly more stories of much nastier short-term effects - including death.
- There is enormous evidence for long-term harmful effects, including brain, heart and lung damage, amongst many other things. (Unlike the vaccine, where there isn't actually any particular reason to think that there can be long-term harmful effects.)
- There's no need to do something really risky, like potentially getting Covid, or taking something like hydroxychloroquine which is known to be potentially very dangerous, when there is a vaccine available which has already been safely tested on millions of people.
- The overwhelming majority of knowledgeable people, with no financial interest, are firmly in favor of it.
But what about the fact that you might not actually get Covid? There are two responses to be made to that.
First is that the new strains of Covid are far more contagious. That's why even though so many people in Israel have been vaccinated and there has been a partial lockdown, there are still thousands of new cases daily. To presume that you won't catch Covid is simply foolish.
Second is that the question "Is it in my best interests to get the vaccine?" is a selfish one. The entire country is suffering from the hospital overload and the economic shutdown. Things can only go back to normal when a sufficiently large proportion of the population gets the vaccine.
Do the smart thing for your health. Do the right thing for your country. Get the vaccine.
(Incidentally, I ran all the above by two PhDs in the medical sciences.)
one thing I don't understand is why people care if others take the vaccine or not. anyone who takes the vaccine will be protected and anyone who doesn't take it, its at his own risk?
ReplyDeletei would appreciate a reply
Didn't you read the post? I addressed this.
DeleteA better question would be why people who won't take it care so much that other people shouldn't. I myself have been *attacked* for getting the vaccine. "Drinking the kool-aid" was a nicer thing. It's bizarre.
DeleteI think it was Churchill who said "a fanatic is someone who won't change his mind and won't change the topic." I guess we can add, "and who won't keep himself from barging in on the conversation."
Vaccine protection isn't 100%. No vaccine accomplishes that. But when everyone is vaccinated, there are so few hosts for the disease that community infection levels drop to near zero. That's why we don't worry about smallpox and polio anymore but measles still has outbreaks. And you can still infect people who are too young to get the vaccine. Some young people will have bad outcomes.
DeleteTwo words: Hospital overload.
DeleteThere are people who cannot get vaccines for medical reasons. Often these people are most at risk (chemo patients, etc.) They are not protected unless there is heard immunity - which means people who can get the vaccine need to get it to protect others.
DeleteAlso, we are dealing with a very cunning monster that learns how to get around vaccines by mutating. The more quickly the majority of the population vaccinates and develops herd immunity, the less we will have to deal with deadly new strains of the virus.
DeletePlease listen to genuinely RATIONAL, moral, ethical, emotionally intelligent medical doctors & stellar leaders in the Hewish community discussing what YOU need to know that your government won’t tell you about covid and the “vaccine”, if, in fact, that is what the covid injection really is. Healthycrownheights.blogspot.com
DeleteThe only rational reasons not to get a COVID vaccine:
ReplyDelete1) You aren't eligible yet according to the rules where you live. (Here in the US, rules vary a lot. I am eligible in NY and got the second dose of the Moderna vaccine last Thursday. But in most other states I am ineligible.)
2) Vaccines aren't available where you live.
3) You are or might be pregnant. (Probably not a problem, but pregnant women are excluded from most clinical trials by regulations that have the force of law. We are so scared of the theoretical harm from fetuses being harmed by a vaccine that we would prefer that they and their mothers die from the pandemic. Pro-life indeed.)
4) You have another countraindication, such has having received another vaccination within the past two weeks, having an active COVID infection, having a known allergy to one of the vaccine ingredients (very rare).
All life has a natural instinct to protect their young (and ability to reproduce). We should deny nature only very carefully. It's only the sickness of the last few decades that has chipped away at those, and other, basic facts. It's perhaps thus not surprising that those who cheerlead for mass abortion (ostensible medical people, no less) mock these impulses.
DeleteOtherwise, spot-on.
One more reason. I heard a conspiracy theory that Bill Gates created the vaccine to experiment in the population and that it contains alien DNA. The stupidity!
DeleteJokes aside, it is pro-life to ensure the survival of the mother and child. In halakha, Jewish law, abortions are allowed if the life of the mother is at risk. The vaccine has been known to lead to death. We cannot afford the death of the mother and baby at the same time. Best to wait.
"Been known". Passive voice *and* no evidence. A twofer.
DeleteThere's a small irony in that mention of "according to the rules." Early on (Trump administration!), the CDC announced that Certain People should be more eligible for the vaccine than others. They were forced to "withdraw" that, but the word had gone out. Many states told them to get lost, but New York, under its amazing governor, decided to go along.
DeleteOf course, an expected consequence of a practice like that is that it will hurt the very people it's supposed to "help," and so it was. But it's the people who don't think mass feticide is a good thing that get the jibes. Elu Elohekha Yisrael.
(I hate making this argument, by the way, as racism is wrong, period, but sometimes you have to argue on people's own terms.)
When my age group became eligible for the vaccine in Israel, I had recently gotten a flu shot. So I waited an extra week or so.
DeleteNachum are you saying you hate to call yourself a racist?
DeleteNo, I hate to have to argue with racists (in this case, left-wing ones) on their own racist terms. That is, I'm forced to make the argument "Your anti-white racism ends up hurting black people even more!" instead of simply saying, "You shouldn't be racist against blacks."
DeleteIt would be like someone telling the pre-Civil War South that slavery hurt their economy, rather than that slavery was wrong.
Nachum good point.
DeleteWhoops, meant "shouldn't be racist against whites."
DeleteRegarding the possibility of long-term side effects: You rightly point out that COVID does seem to have very serious long-term effects.
ReplyDeleteTo this, I would add that experts are pretty confident that the vaccine does not have any long-term side effects, because, in general, side effects of vaccines are seen within 6 weeks of a dose. The experts understand the workings of the current covid vaccines, and they don't see any reason why it should be different. Moreover, there have already been people who took the covid vaccines many months ago, in the clinical trials, and nothing unusual has been reported.
Paul Offit, one of the world experts on vaccines, says: "I can’t name you a long-term side effect. Vaccines can cause serious rare side effects … that’s true. But that all occurs within 6 weeks of a dose." https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/20201217/covid-19-vaccine-faq-safety-side-effects-efficacy
Famous last words: "I don't see any reason why there should be long-term side effects"
DeleteHow about this reason: It contains polyethylene glycol (PEG) that can cause lethal acute idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP). https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/health-experts-investigate-doctor-who-died-weeks-after-receiving-covid-vaccine/2357958/
ReplyDeleteWow, a single case out of tens of millions, which according to your link, hasn't even been proven yet. This is precisely the sort of irrationality that gives the anti-vax movement such a bad look.
DeleteSpecifically, we must distinguish between absolute certainty, which a single counter example would disprove, and statistical measures of risk. Lazar may or may not be right that one individual died because of the vaccine but that is not the point. The point is that the vaccine on average saves far more lives than it takes.
DeleteI find both sides have issues with using equivocal language which properly conveys the nuances and the uncertainties of the empirical data. In this environment of course Lazar struggles to pick out the bad data and bad actors.
The behavorial scientists do not advocate humiliation and name calling as an effective means of spreading the message of public health and vaccinations.
The Hat
DeletePlenty of proponents of the vaccine have willfully admitted it has risks (as any medication does), but they are very rare, especially when weighed against the much higher risks of the virus itself. I'm sorry if some people have a problem grasping that.
I find your appeal to "behavioral scientists" funny. I believe you said "No authority - whether clad in a dark coat or a black one - can be trusted." Perhaps the behavioral scientists don't wear coats at all?
It's not a single case. There are a number of fatalities, including in Israel. Generally, ITP has been linked
Deleteto drugs containing PEG, and ITP cases are covered by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Anyway, covid vaccines are said to work for 6 months after which everybody are back to square one. Do some Google search and listen to presentations of Dr.Zelenko on better ways of preventing (and treating) covid.
lazar,
Deletesure, let me ignore the advice of all those experts I don't know and instead listen to THIS expert I don't know. What's the logic in trusting this guy in particular?
Shlomo, you are right. Behavioural science, and not behavioural scientists, are the relevant authority.
DeleteI have heard support for the vaccine and lockdown be expressed reductive and binary terms. For example, https://www.thedrum.com/news/2021/01/25/all-the-uk-governments-covid-19-ads-latest-nhs-ads-shift-tone-with-hard-hitting
It's not a single case.
DeleteWrong. There's not a single case that's been proven to been cause by the vaccine. Zero.
"There are a number of fatalities, including in Israel"
There are always fatalities. What you have to show is there has been a significant rise in fatalities. In Israel we'd expect about 450 ITP cases in adults in a year- or about 75 in two months. Israel has been vaccinating for about two months now. Have we seen ITP cases significantly exceed the 75 expected? In a couple more months, will we see cases significantly exceed the 150 expected? If we don't then you can't even argue correlation.
"Generally, ITP has been linked to drugs containing PEG"
Evidence please.
"and ITP cases are covered by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program."
That's not evidence. Compensation is no proof of injury caused by the vaccine. This has been covered elsewhere.
Plus you've implicitly contradicted yourself. Polyethylene glycol has never been used before in vaccines. And yet you're claiming that vaccines causes ITP and PEG causes ITP too? You found two distinct causes for an idiopathic condition?
"Anyway, covid vaccines are said to work for 6 months"
Wrong. It is true that Israel's Vaccine Certificate expires after six months, there's no evidence that there would zero or little immunity at that point. We're past six months since Pfizer started their Phase III trials. We should should hear very soon that immunity last longer than six months in most cases.
"after which everybody are back to square one."
Wrong again. Even without herd immunity, the vaccine will buy time to research better treatments. I would suspect by then we should hear the final word on Ivermectin (then again there are still believers in laetrile, homeopathy & vitamin C.) And if we require a booster- so what?
"Do some Google search and listen to presentations of Dr.Zelenko"
I saw his study. It was trash full of flaws. He's a doctor, not a scientist.
Nebach. This is so sad and misinformed.
ReplyDeleteToo much to unpack.
But one point I think is worth making.
Your write:
1. or taking something like hydroxychloroquine which is known to be potentially very dangerous, when there is a vaccine available which has already been safely tested on millions of people.
I find it quite incredible and fascinating in a disturbing way that those that promote the use of a vaccine that is not FDA approved, a new never before used technology, did not have the calendar time to evaluate long-term effects (for which the pharmaceutical companies felt was too risky and demanded a removal of liability), and whose short terms effects, including hundreds of deaths, are ignored and excused as “from another cause” (no matter the proximity to the vaccine) will encourage people to take the vaccine with no concern for safety because “Covid is so dangerous”.
Yet when it comes to HCQ, that is the second most prescribed medication in the world, been used for 70 years, has been safety tested on BILLIONS of people, is over the counter in many countries, is given out like candy to as a prophylaxis to anyone travelling to a country with Malaria, where every single doctor who prescribes it regularly for rheumatoid arthritis to thousands of patients testifies that they never check for heart issues and never had a patient have an adverse reaction to it, that has one single case written up with a long-term HCQ user that had a heart arrhythmia, they warn people to NOT try HCQ, even when they are actually sick with Covid, and even back in the beginning when people were actually dying, because it is too dangerous.
How does one explain that?
And if you want to hear a doctor explain some of the concerns: https://www.bitchute.com/video/BZeJ6gKacJfZ/
One explains it by the following: careful studies have shown that the mRNA vaccines work exceptionally well against COVID-19 while careful studies have shown the HCQ doesn't. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/hydroxychloroquine-doesnt-benefit-hospitalized-covid-19-patients
DeleteLimitations:
Delete"This trial had several limitations...Second, patients with respiratory symptoms for up to 10 days prior to randomization were included. Some trials of antiviral medications limit enrollment to patients with symptoms for a shorter duration in an effort to enrich the population for patients most likely to benefit"
"...Seventh, this trial evaluated hydroxychloroquine as monotherapy for COVID-19 and did not systematically study co-administration with azithromycin, zinc, remdesivir, or other agents."
Also, please correct me if I'm wrong, but the vaccine studies did not find a statistically significant difference in deaths or severe illness - only a statistically significant difference in those with COVID-19, and those who didn't get COVID-19.
"and whose short terms effects, including hundreds of deaths"
DeleteInstead of linking a video, why not actually post some real data? What side effect and how many deaths? How frequent does that side effect appear in the general (non-vaccinated) population? Does the side effect appear in greater numbers in the vaccinated population? If yes, than by how much?
"has been safety tested"
DeleteLook up "HCQ toxicity".
"is given out like candy"
No, it's not. There are dose recommendations.
"and never had a patient have an adverse reaction to it"
Wrong. The cases of HCQ toxicity are by no mean rare. Some studies show figures approaching 1%, other show .38% and .68%. Compare these numbers to the covid severity/fatality rate. Given that at best HCQ is only suspected to be effective (and even optimistically not 100% effective)- it is worth the risk?
Also, you didn't address mw's point. The point was that we understand the minimal risks of HCQ which has been used for 70 years. We don't nearly as well understand the risks of a new vaccine that uses a new technology, and that has been rather quickly approved for Emergency Use Authorization. Yet Rabbi Slifkin writes: "something like hydroxychloroquine which is known to be potentially very dangerous, when there is a vaccine available which has already been safely tested on millions of people." That is backwards.
Delete"but the vaccine studies did not find"
DeletePlease clarify. "did not find" or "did not look for"?
I agree with Rob.
DeleteEphraim is doing what he always does when the preponderance of evidence shows the Moral Hysterics to be wrong. He clutches at straws and semantics and thinks he can ignore the thrust of the evidence. What do you even mean by HQC toxicity?
DeleteTo be apprehensive of the vaccine they created in few months is not stupid but reasonable. Taking the vaccine without the FDA's approval is extremely dangerous.
DeleteThe vaccine gives you a part of the virus. Who knows what the side effects will be. It takes years to develop a safe vaccine. I'm not taking it. I made it this far.
1 and 2 are both lies. They did undergo proper safety trials, and they could not have received Emergency Use Authorization without doing so. They were not "rushed to market" in any ways that actually compromise patient safety. Some regulatory excess was chopped away to make the approval path more efficient because it's a global emergency. The reality is, this more efficient and faster process should be the approval path for drugs ALL THE TIME!
ReplyDeleteGo talk to patient advocacy groups and rare disease advocacy groups and they will be puzzled as to why treatments for their patients' conditions cannot similarly be accelerated to the marketplace. This is exactly what they want.
As for "CURES" like hydroxychloroquine, you have to be a complete imbecile at this point to still think that's a cure. If it was a cure, no one would be dying from Covid.
Who are the two PhDs?
ReplyDeleteHydroxychloroquine is well tolerated by the vast majority of people who take it for auto immune disease or as an antimalarial. It happens to have no effect upon Covid, but it is not objectively dangerous compared to most other pharmaceuticals.
ReplyDeleteStop taking it for Covid because there are people with Lupus who do need supplies.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15511405/
https://www.ndorms.ox.ac.uk/news/oxford-led-international-research-finds-hydroxychloroquine-safe-in-over-130-000-patients
Facts matter, opinions and PhDs not so much.
PS: it's not selfish to refuse medical treatments for other people. We don't have compulsory blood donations, which has similar side effects to vaccinations. Show some gratitude to the young people who vaccinate despite the low marginal health improvement that vaccination brings them, instead of haranguing them. Maybe pay them money for their time.
I agree with everything you wrote except about hydroxychloriqine. While it's effectiveness has not been established (observational studies are not considered reliable), but it really is not a dangerous drug at all.
ReplyDeleteOf course people should be vaccinated, but as long as we're quibbling: "It contains RNA which affects our cells - and which is designed to harm them." SARS-CoV-2 wasn't designed and if even you want to speak anthropomorphically, it did not evolve to harm cells but to leverage cells as replication machines in order to propagate itself. Killing the host does not help propagate the virus in this case. In fact, it is the mildness of some infections and the asymptomatic nature of the early replication stage that makes it so transmissible.
ReplyDelete"SARS-CoV-2 wasn't designed"
DeleteWell, that's still not proven one way or another, but point taken.
There will always be a certain percentage of people not willing to take the vaccine, so what to do? Well you can use force to make them do it or what the govt is planning to do by twisting peoples arms and making them uncomfortable(which by the way is a type of force). What the govt is dividing Israeli society more and Bibi and others have in a roundabout way declared the non vaccinated, etc as enemies of the state. I predict that the govt will let the vaccinated physically and verbally assault the non vacinated and they will step in to make it legal. After all, they are enemies of state and if some die either of the virus or by force...then we are rid of those meddlesome people. Think that is crazy? It was been done before in history and can happen again.
ReplyDeleteTislach Rabbi Slifkin, but it is hard for me to believe that anyone rational can believe these are reasonable reasons not to get the vaccine, or that any authorities you consulted with did not tell you so.
ReplyDeleteDo you seriously think that they would rush a vaccine to the market without proper safety trials? (Or that there is any sort of albeit poetic analogy to Covid being rushed to the market?) There are obviously cogent responses to all of the above. Rather than go into specifics, here is a link to two rational Zoom conferences that explains some of them. (They are nearly identical, except that the first, a bit more detailed was done before the vaccine came out, and the second responds to some of the specific concerns once the vaccine had begun to be administered.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=741935746679537&ref=watch_permalink
https://www.facebook.com/jicny/videos/741935746679537
I would have hoped they rushed a vaccine to market without proper safety trials because the opportunity cost of waiting was known to be even more unsafe. But no. We conducted phase 3 trials which told us that the rate of adverse (influenza like) reactions was higher than expected. The phase 3 trials should have been the mass roll out.
DeletePeople should also know that they have been researching mRNA vaccines for decades.
DeleteMy own view is that it is absolutely disgusting that the vaccines, which were known to be highly likely to be safe and effective from around June 2020 following phase 2 trials, were not made available to consenting adults. Russia made its vaccine available without the medico-legal establishments' protocols which are wholly unsuited to national emergencies. If we had done the same without excessive deference to experts, tens of thousands of lives, hundreds of thousands of jobs, and billions of pounds would have been saved. Why is Russia allowing more liberal choice than Western democracies? Because politicians, not scientists, are in charge, and the priority is the public, not the protocol.
ReplyDeleteI completely disagree with the Chinese approach of coerced vaccination, although undoubtedly that too has saved lives and treasure.
One can argue that the release of the Russian vaccine before completion of Phase III trials was driven by politics. The name Sputnik certainly evokes nationalistic politics rather than a medical breakthrough.
DeleteThat being the case, the data of the vaccines effectiveness seems very encouraging.
You make an interesting argument for releasing the vaccine much earlier than they had. However, it has the potential for a nightmare scenario: Let us say the vaccine was somewhat dangerous to a significant percentage. The backlash against ALL vaccinations would have been intense, possibly leading to a generation not trusting vaccines at all. Catastrophe.
DeleteShlomo:
Delete1) How's the backlash against massive lockdowns going in your bit of the world? In the US it contributed to an insurrection and people losing their minds to conspiracy theories. In the Netherlands and Israel it led to unprecedented riots. Mass unemployment, repression of rights, and is strongly linked to societal upheaval. Here in the UK idiots are blowing up 5g mobile phone masts, and many are refusing the vaccine.
2) How is that we need the State's Official Permission to make reasonable risk / reward decisions? It's not like the results of the trial have eliminated all risk entirely. It's not like the trials themselves did not involve risk. It's not like if the vaccines hadn't been safe then it would have been a blow to vaccination generally. If anything the risk profile has slightly increased as a result of Phase 3 trials, albeit it was known with higher precision.
3) Here is the test of the lunacy we are in. There are various new strains of Covid with similar groups of mutuations in the spike protein. Adopting the Pfizer / Biontech vaccine to target these strains specifically would take a skilled postgraduate student about 72 hours. I accept the need for some perfunctory research on a few hundred people, but then , if we cannot use our human intelligence to save ourselves because of The Protocols then we are doomed indeed.
Can someone in a responsible position please get a grip!
This matter is not so simple. No one can say yet if there will be long term effects from this vaccine. We do know that there are very good treatments now available that were not available a year ago. Everyone should make their own informed decisions on this subject. Here is some information: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uMv1jgV_6DUxPhqlPKgb6osm2yxlFmFQ/view
ReplyDeleteHas anyone studied the long-term effects of having had covid?
DeleteI went to the second link in your file, and I think you really need to do teshuva for disseminating this nonsense.
DeleteUsing studies on animals from 15 years ago, when the technology has evolved and is a lot better nowadays, and those side effects have been tested for already, is just plain sheker. Using sheker to advance a cause tells us something about the motivations.
'Make your own informed decision'?!
DeleteSo when you move to a neighborhood, you first learn all hilchos eiruvin, then you check the eiruv yourself, before you carry? You surely don't buy meat in a store, you buy a female animal (no males, because maybe it is a bechor), slaughter and butcher it yourself, then salt and cook it yourself too? Because 'informed decisions'.
And when it comes to medical decisions, you first go to college, then medical school. Afterwards you go to graduate school and train as a medical researcher, before giving antibiotics to a child with an ear infection. Makes sense to me.
According to the internet, 177m vaccines have been administered so far. How many anecdotes do you have? 50? 100? How negligible is that?
DeleteEspecially as a heart attack two hours after a vaccine is not even an anecdote.
Some of your anecdotes are anaphylactic shocks, which are accounted for at all reputable vaccination sites. A simple injection and the story is over. Hardly a reason not to take the vaccine.
Nothing but fearmongering in this document. Lots of theoretical risks ignoring the fact that we have EVIDENCE on all these questions now, and the evidence refutes the risks.
DeleteHydroxychloroquine is dangerous??
ReplyDeleteAnd you say everyone should be vaccinated. Last I checked, if a person had Covid, the chances of him getting it again are much less than the chances of someone who is vaccinated getting it. If that's true, why don't you add a proviso -- that you're only talking about people who haven't yet gotten Covid?
" the chances of him getting it again are much less than the chances of someone who is vaccinated getting it"
DeleteThat's not true. Both have low chances of getting it.
But someone who had it before AND gets vaccinated should theoretically have even lower chances of getting it, or at least restarts the clock in terms of when he may become susceptible to getting it again.
We don't get to make up stories.
If someone dies two days after the vaccine (estimates of over 500 people in Israel so far) then it is unconnected. If someone dies 2 weeks after recovering from corona then it counts as a corona death. No wonder there is no evidence.
ReplyDeleteThese days honesty and science are far far apart. There is an official party narrative and if you don't follow it you are a murderer.
We can see from the records that there have been excess deaths in 2020 when compared to 2019. So something is going on.
Delete"If someone dies 2 weeks after recovering from corona then it counts as a corona death."
I don't know where you're getting this claim from. However, just because someone recovers from the virus itself, doesn't mean that they recover from the damage the virus has caused. Simple example: people experiencing anosmia for months after being free from the virus.
"If someone dies two days after the vaccine (estimates of over 500 people in Israel so far) then it is unconnected."
The fundamental point is, that you've got to show that deaths (or other side effects) in the vaccinated population exceed that which would be expected in the general population over the same time period. For a rough calculation, determine how many people are expected to die in a two month period. Divide that number by the total population and you get the death rate for entire population. Multiply the death rate by the amount of people vaccinated & you get the amount of deaths expected for a group that size. Does the number of deaths among those vaccinated significantly exceed the expected amount? Until you show this to be case, there shouldn't even be a suspicion that's there's a problem.
(Obviously, this is a simplification.)
https://www.zman.co.il/184281/
DeleteWe can now see in the record that Skeptic may have a point.
"We can now see in the record that Skeptic may have a point."
ReplyDeleteWrong. Skeptic was casting doubt on the figures on the count of covid deaths. The article you cite is dealing with a different question: how to count excess deaths due to covid. It's a different question.
Suppose you have 5000 deaths in one year & 5500 deaths in the following year. A naive calculation will give you a value of 10%. But more a sophisticated measure may note that the population is aging, and the 10% exaggerates the real story. You can show that the death rate for seniors has remain constant, but if there are more seniors than the overall death rate for the entire population looks higher.
The article also mentions other complications. Incidents of flu are way down because more people took the vaccine & restrictive measures also reduce flu infections- especially since flu is less contagious than covid. So on that level, covid actually saved lives.
Further problems with a naive measure is the concern regarding people who postponed medical care. Now, this ironically reduces mortality because less care means less contact means and thus less covid infections. So that causes a decline in deaths, but only in the short term. In the long term, this would cause more deaths, the results of which we wouldn't see for months or years. The point of the article is the technical question of how to properly count excess deaths. It's complicated. Skeptic's point is not justified by the article. Nothing in the article suggests fraud or deceit- it's a call for a more sophisticated measure of excess deaths. Also see the quote of Ron Blitzer- who clearly rejects Skeptic's concerns.
I referred to Skeptic's point "If someone dies 2 weeks after recovering then it counts as a corona death."
ReplyDeleteThe article shows that the number of deaths in 2020 in Israel is only about 800 above the expected number.
Skeptic's point is not confirmed in the article. The article addresses the issue of determining excess deaths due to Covid by naively comparing 2020 deaths to 2019 deaths.
DeleteNowhere in the article does it say, allude to, or otherwise imply that Covid deaths have been exaggerated because "If someone dies 2 weeks after recovering then it counts as a corona death."
"The article shows that the number of deaths in 2020 in Israel is only about 800 above the expected number."
The article doesn't say that. Read the whole thing.
Here's a rough translation of the final summarizing sentence of the article:
"The bottom line is that we're dealing with a complex statistical question that has no complete answer. There is only one thing that we know for certain... The Corona virus has caused excess deaths. Corona kills.. and we must be cautious and observe the rules... get vaccinated in order to
rid ourselves of it"
The article doesn't say that naive excess deaths count is wrong or even exaggerated- it's say that's it's an overly simplified measure & doesn't reliably indicate how deadly covid was in 2020.
Ephraim, just compute 1.69 percent of the yearly number of deaths.
ReplyDelete@Ephraim
ReplyDeleteTHe MoH reports 344 deaths from covid between 0-13 days after the first dose of the vaccine in the over 60's. Just think about this; death from covid is not a fast event, it takes around three weeks to happen from the time symptoms starts. These people were presumably quite well when they got the vaccine otherwise the nurses would have noticed something. So why did they die? Likely the vaccine effect.
The VAERS system notes over a thousand reports of death shortly after the vaccine, though they have now for some reason reduced this number - maybe they came back to life.
But don't worry, just keep on denying. And reclassifying according to your belief system.
Skeptic your arguments are terrible. Pathetic even.
DeleteSaying that people "were quite well" at the time they were vaccinated is something you cannot possibly know.
For all you know, they were infected prior to being vaccinated. Or they had massive heart disease without symptoms at the time they were vaccinated, and now had their first heart event. This is out of millions of people vaccinated!
A certain number of people die every day of all sorts of causes. If you track the elderly population for a 2 week period, any random 2 week period at any time in any year, you will observe X number dying in that 2 week period of all sorts of ailments. If that number X isn't wildly different than MoH report, then you are making a meaningless argument.
This is the whole reason the medical field runs randomized placebo controlled trials before approving a medication (and in this case before approving these vaccines). If the vaccine was so "deadly" as you're implying, old people would have been killed in higher numbers in the vaccine group than in the placebo group during the trials. Yet that didn't happen. In fact none of the old people who took the vaccine in the trials died.
VAERS (just like its more general cousin FAERS) is not, and never has been, a reliable tool to assess drug safety. It just isn't. It's something antivaxers have taken and run with. But no one serious in the medical field believes it has that ability.
"So why did they die? Likely the vaccine effect."
ReplyDeleteYou're missing data. How many 60+s got vaccinated? Let say x. In any given two week period, how many out of x 60+s do we expect to die? Let say a. Is a < 344? That's the basic question. You haven't answered it. Though, I have in the past given a rough answer to those kind of questions. And they all indicate that there's no vaccine related deaths- or at least very few vaccine related deaths.
"The VAERS system notes over a thousand reports of death shortly after the vaccine"
How many thousand? Call this number a.There have been 55 milllion vaccinations in the USA. Of 55 million, how many of them were expected to die anyway? Call this number b. Is a > b?
" though they have now for some reason reduced this number - maybe they came back to life."
Irrelevant. You don't understand VAERS. You don't what it's good for, and you don't know its limitations. You don't know that anyone can file a false report to VAERS. You also don't know how VAERS refines and updates their data and why.
"But don't worry, just keep on denying."
You're providing half the story. I've haven't just denied, I've debunked.
" And reclassifying"
I've been consistent. The deniers have never responded to any refutation, they just move on to their next misinformed claim. So again, if you're going to proven that the vaccine has caused significant deaths or side effects- you've got to first determine the baseline- how many people would we expect to die or suffer that side effect anyway? Not a single anti-vaxxer has answered that question in these comments.
"You don't understand VAERS. You don't what it's good for, and you don't know its limitations. You don't know that anyone can file a false report to VAERS. You also don't know how VAERS refines and updates their data and why."
DeleteVAERS has historically been shown to be vastly underreported, not overreported. Furthermore, while it is not a federal crime to not submit a report, it is a federal crime to submit a false VAERS report.
@ephraim
ReplyDeleteYou don't know only i do blah blah blah