RE: Just because you and your family are lucky does not mean everyone is.
And Just because someone does well as a result of vaccination does not mean that everyone does well.
RE; From a public health perspective, a disease that kills off 1% of those who catch it is devastating.
You are assuming that vaccination always prevents death from Covid. But isn’t true. See here:
https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/why-do-vaccinated-people-represent-most-covid-19-deaths-right-now/
Vaccinated or unvaccinated, death comes to the individual depending on his personal condition.
RE: And the 7% or so of people whose long Covid will not relent represent a huge burden on our health care system and social welfare systems.
Uh Huh, and you are assuing that vaccination helps prevent long Covid. Again. not true. See here:
https://www.medpagetoday.com/neurology/longcovid/103708
RE: Since immunity is only valuable if it keeps you from catching a disease, then what is the point of immunity if your method of getting it is by catching a disease? And recatching the disease whenever your immunity fades after a few months? How is that protective and how can that possibly benefit your health?
Well, the question you ask can also be asked of those who are vaccinated. The effectivenes of the vaccine wanes in a few months as well. Whenever your immunity fades in a few months, you have to get boosted again. So how does continous MRNA vaccination become good for your health?
In fact, there is evidence to show that naturally acquired immunity lasts longer than the immunity provided by vaccines. See here:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1
COPY AND PASTE:
Conclusions: This study demonstrated that natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity.
RE: I should also point out that due to the nature of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the damage it causes seems to be cumulative. You might not have noticed any heart, lung, kidney, etc., damage after your first bout of Covid. But each subsequent bout causes more damage. You can avoid that damage by getting vaccinated.
Errr... you are assuming that those vaccinated will never suffer the above health problems you enumerated.
First off, it is important to understand a little bit about the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein.
The only difference in the actual protein sequence between the original “Wuhan” strain Spike protein of the virus, and that coded for by the genetic vaccines, is two amino acids which have been changed in the S2 region of the protein.
These were not introduced to make that vaccine version less toxic (as some “factcheckers” have asserted), but rather to make it better able to stimulate an antibody-based immune response. Whether vaccine encoded or virus encoded, the S1 subunit (which includes the receptor binding domain (to which the majority of “neutralizing” antibodies are directed) gets cut free (“proteolytically cleaved’) to yield an S1 subunit which is free to circulate in the blood, bind ACE2 receptors, interact with platelets, neurons, open up vascular endothelial tight junctions etc.
HOW IS THERE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE S1 SUBUNIT RELEASED FROM THE VACCINE SPIKE PROTEIN AND THE S1 SUBUNIT RELEASED FROM THE VIRUS SPIKE PROTEIN?
The question then is how much and for how long does this free S1 subunit spike protein, including the receptor binding domain, become produced by the mRNA vaccines, versus how much and for how long by natural infection?
Surely this was well understood and characterized by Pfizer before these vaccines were widely deployed? Surely the FDA required that these studies be performed?
Well no, it took over a year for another study to come out.
SEE HERE:
It says:
“Immunohistochemical staining for spike antigen in mRNA-vaccinated patient LNs varied between individuals but showed abundant spike protein in GCs 16 days post-second dose, with spike antigen still present as late as 60 days post-second dose.”
So, the vaccine produces far more spike S1 subunit for far longer than the natural infection does. Hmm. Curiouser and curiouser.
But is the S1 subunit (which is identical between the virus and the vaccine) actually a toxin? Good question.
First question - does spike S1 subunit get into the brain across the blood brain barrier?
Well, yes it does according to this paper:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-020-00771-8
TITLE: The S1 protein of SARS-CoV-2 crosses the blood–brain barrier in mice
Next question. Does Spike S1 do any damage to the brain when it hits nerve cells (neurons)?
Looks like it does! Who would have guessed. read it for yourself here:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncel.2021.777738/full
TITLE: SARS-CoV-2 S1 Protein Induces Endolysosome Dysfunction and Neuritic Dystrophy
AND THEN THERE IS THIS ONE:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666354621002027
As I read this, I can’t help but say to myself: There does not seem to be a significant difference between the symptoms of long COVID and post vaccination syndrome.
If you want to take that risk, be my guest.
RE: As for your friends who have become ill despite being vaccinated and boosted—how much time elapsed between their last vaccination and their catching of Covid?
I know of 5 of them ( 2 colleagues ) who became ill after being vaccinated and boosted. I don’t know the specific details of the 3 others.
But 2 of them are quite close to me.
of these 2, one got reinfected after boosting 4 months later.
The other got reinfected not long after the first one ( since both work in the same company ). I would say 5 months after boosting.
They are both WORKING AGE — in their late 40’s.
There have been studies to show that 94% of the US population were estimated to have been infected by SARS-CoV-2 at least once.
See here:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.19.22282525v3
[COPY AND PASTE]
Results:
“By November 9, 2022, 94% (95% CrI, 79%–99%) of the US population were estimated to have been infected by SARS-CoV-2 at least once. Combined with vaccination, 97% (95%–99%) were estimated to have some prior immunological exposure to SARS-CoV-2. Between December 1, 2021 and November 9, 2022, protection against a new Omicron infection rose from 22% (21%–23%) to 63% (51%–75%) nationally, and protection against an Omicron infection leading to severe disease increased from 61% (59%–64%) to 89% (83%–92%). Increasing first booster uptake to 55% in all states (current US coverage: 34%) and second booster uptake to 22% (current US coverage: 11%) would increase protection against infection by 4.5 percentage points (2.4–7.2) and protection against severe disease by 1.1 percentage points (1.0–1.5).”
I read the above study and here’s my take:
Highlights:
If 22% (double the 11% currently boosted) of the US population would be boosted a second time, the initial increased protection against infection would rise by 4.5 percentage points (2.4–7.2), and furthermore…
If 22% (double the 11% currently boosted) of the US population would be boosted a second time, the protection against severe disease would increase by 1 percentage points. Of course, as the CDC has implied above - that extra ONE percent protection would wane rapidly and be gone in sixty days…
It doesn’t get any more clear than this. These “boosters” don’t look to be effective.
And then, I read this:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36436751/
TITLE:
SARS-CoV-2 antibodies persist up to 12 months after natural infection in healthy employees working in non-medical contact-intensive professions
[COPY AND PASTE]
Conclusions: In this cohort, SARS-CoV-2 antibodies persisted for up to one year after initial seropositivity, suggesting long-term natural immunity.
Juxtapose the results of the booster study above that shows very little protection against severe disease with this study - which documents long-term natural immunity in a vaccine free population and what can I conclude?
Clearly, the results are in. Natural immunity is best ( at least against Omicron ). But why can’t it be the same for later variants?
So, my friend, if you want to be continually boosted, that’s your prerogative. But please, leave me out of it. And please remember that America ( last I saw ) is still a free country where our rights to put whatever we want in our body are ( at least OUGHT ) to be protected by law.
And worse come to worst, if I want to take the vaccine, I’ll wait till maybe 2027 or 2028 ( about the same time it took for other vaccines to be fully approved ). These mRNA vaccines came out first as Emergency Use Authorizations, only approved after a year of COERCIVE use. I can wait till more detailed peer reviewed studies are published.
And Just because someone does well as a result of vaccination does not mean that everyone does well.
It really helps to understand the concept of relative risk here.
I have found no reports of verifiable deaths caused by Covid vaccines. To be honest, others who are scientific-minded like me have found up to a couple of dozen deaths attributable to vaccination.
However, one way to see if there are excess deaths is to compare the death rate between two similar populations, one which received the intervention, the other which has not. When I did my own calculations, I found that the death rate DROPPED in the vaccinated population. Now, since I am retired and have no lab, research staff, or medical library access*, my own calculations remain unpublished. Other researchers who have done the same analysis with the same result have published their data.
For context, the death rate of Covid remains at 1%. It would be higher, but the most at-risk population (the elderly) is highly vaccinated.
A safety study evaluating non-COVID-19 mortality risk following COVID-19 vaccination
Tl;dr version: you are less likely to die if you have received Covid vaccines.
Serious adverse effects:
Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS). This is a rare autoimmune disorder of uncertain etiology which follows most frequently after viral (including Covid) or bacterial infections. A study did find that the J&J adenovirus-based Covid vaccine caused a higher than expected incidence of GBS. However, the rate of GBS among recipients of the mRNA based vaccines was the same as the background rate. The FDA has pulled the authorization for the J&J vaccine for this and other concerns.
Myocarditis and Pericarditis. The professional antivaxxers have really hyped this one because the rate of myo- and pericarditis following vaccination actually is higher than background in certain groups. So an analysis of relative risk is very necessary to understand this.
The highest rate of peri- or myocarditis in the group at highest risk following vaccination was "1 in 30 000 doses after second dose of the primary series."
However, the rate of peri- and myocarditis in Covid patients was at least 15 fold higher than background levels. The incidence of myo- and pericarditis among Covid patients is between one in 25 and one in 667 cases. This is clearly a far higher rate than in vaccinees.
For further context, the myo- or pericarditis following vaccination is most likely due to an inflammatory response and is mild and self-limiting.
Q&A: What Causes Rare Instances of Myocarditis After mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines?
The peri- or myocarditis following Covid disease results from physical virus-caused heart damage which, in some cases, might even necessitate a heart transplant for the patient to survive.
COVID-19, Myocarditis and Pericarditis.
I am not going to discuss the other severe adverse events which follow vaccination, but if you are interested, you can peruse the CDC vaccine safety page that summarizes the data and provides links to the relevant studies:
Selected Adverse Events Reported after COVID-19 Vaccination.
I will point out that severe adverse events occur after any vaccine. The context in which to analyze vaccine safety is, what is the risk following vaccination versus the risk from catching the disease?
Uh Huh, and you are assuing that vaccination helps prevent long Covid. Again. not true. See here:
The article you linked is not so much a discussion of long Covid, but a discussion of what is commonly called "brain fog," which is a serious manifestation of long Covid. The study referred to in that article apparently is a comparison of brain fog between vaccinees and Covid patients. I cannot read the study article as it is behind a paywall. The abstract suggests that at least some of the vaccinees experiencing brain fog are experiencing psychosomatic symptoms (that is, their symptoms arise from anxiety and are not physically caused by vaccination). Furthermore, the brain fog of vaccinees was clinically different than the brain fog of Covid survivors.
Vaccination does decrease the incidence of long Covid, as well as the chance of catching Covid in the first place, of developing serious disease in a breakthrough infection, or of dying.
I think that professional antivaxxers try to instill the belief that a vaccine is an impervious shield that protects the vaccinee against pathogenic assault. This is a belief that they have promoted for centuries which they are now employing in their campaign against Covid vaccine.
The truth is that a vaccine is not a shield. A vaccine is an immune system training aid. An antigen is presented to the immune system, which studies the antigen and forms a defense against it. The defense is in the form of specialized T-cells, B-cells, and antibodies. But, in much the same way as people have varying levels of intelligence (some get Fs on the test, some get As, and most are in the middle), individual immune systems have variable levels of "intelligence." There are a lot of reasons for this, which I have mentioned in previous posts.
Basically, if your immune system has little to no function, no vaccine in the world can restore that function. So, if you are unfortunate like Colin Powell whose immune system was completely destroyed by cancer, getting vaccinated against Covid is completely useless. He died because his immune system didn't work, not because of any shortcoming or flaw of the vaccines.
Well, the question you ask can also be asked of those who are vaccinated. The effectivenes of the vaccine wanes in a few months as well. Whenever your immunity fades in a few months, you have to get boosted again. So how does continous MRNA vaccination become good for your health?
This statement indicates to me that you have (consciously or not) absorbed the professional antivaxxer trope that immunity is a primary health goal in itself, independent of disease protection. It is not. Being immune to, e.g., yellow fever is completely useless if you never travel to a place where yellow fever is endemic.
How long immunity lasts against a pathogen is a function of how the immune system interacts with that pathogen. It has nothing to do with vaccine quality. The immune system typically does not retain memory of coronaviruses for more than a few months. This includes coronaviruses that cause the common cold as well as the SARS-CoV-2 virus. It doesn't remember other respiratory pathogens very well, either (why do you think people keep catching colds over and over). On the other hand, the immune system (at least in some people) is apparently able to remember some viruses forever. My medical record states that I am medically exempt from receiving any further measles vaccinations because a titer test in 2015 showed that I still had protective levels of antibody against measles after a single dose of vaccine that I received in 1984. But I recently had a cold, which I keep getting every 5-6 years despite the fact that I've had many colds before.
It is unrealistic to expect a vaccine to change how the immune system responds to different species of virus. The reality is that most vaccines require boosters to remind the immune system to maintain immunity. In fact, it's about time for my family (human and pet members) to get our annual round of immunizations. Yes, we will get the newest Covid booster.
Due to the length of this post, the volume of information contained within it, and the time required to properly research each response, I have elected not to address at this time some of the other misunderstandings you have expressed.
*The significance of medical library access is that it allows me to read articles for free that are behind a paywall for the general public.