2019-2020 coronavirus pandemic (Vaccination 2021 Edition)

Agema

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You didn't listen to every single vitamin d expert, which all would laugh at the UK recommendation.
That is pathetic, dishonest scumbaggery of the worst sort. These are the day jobs of most of the panel that created the UK Vit D recommendations:

Professor of Nutritional Biochemistry and Head of Human Nutrition Unit
Professor of Food and Health
Consultant Physician, Metabolic Bone Service
Professor in Epidemiology
Head of Department of Nutritional Sciences
Professor of Biomedical Sciences
Director, MRC Human Nutrition Research
Reader in Child Nutrition and Consultant in Neonatal Paediatrics
Professor of Medicine

These people are experts.

They are however not people who have spiffy wellbeing bullshit webpages, YouTube channels, and aggressively court public opinion. You seem to labour under the misapprehension that publicity is the primary indicator of expertise rather than professional accomplishment.

Studies in China and the US suggest that most patients, on average, are admitted to the hospital about one week after symptoms begin.

Thus, patients arriving at the hospital have most likely cleared the viral infection already.
I can see why you're avoiding proper references and being super-vague here. Let's add some precision, because you're approximating the length of time until hospitalisation to about a week, and the length of SARS2 infection to about a week, and in the process destroyed the very real window of theoretical treatment that exists in the real figures.


Don't worry about the weird link name, it does work. So, live virus has generally been found up to 12-13 days after symptom onset, although 8-9 as a median. Other studies suggest the length of time live virus may be present is higher in severe cases, the elderly, and people with certain health conditions.


Yeah, it's Belgium, but it's not going to be that different anywhere else (and indeed, other studies in other places suggest similar). And herein we see the time to hospitalisation from symptom onset, which varies 3-10 days but mostly around 4 days.

Then, with the power of maths, 8 - 4 = 4; 4 days a patient is likely to have virus, just by the average. Obviously, it could be much higher for patients admitted to hospital early and that have a longer than average span with live virus - potentially something like 10 days. Thus in a large number of patients, there would be potential for remdesivir to be effective at reducing viral load (if it even does). And again, so it would make sense that the data did seem to find remdesivir more effective at shortening the time course of symptoms for those admitted to hospital sooner.

It's not only that, but there is also your dreadful hindsight bullshit again. Remdesivir (amongst others) was under investigation before the viral time course was well established - also considering the context that the viral time course for SARS1 and MERS was much longer than it turns out to be for SARS2). It's pretty dumb to ask why anyone would use an antiviral when the virus was gone, when researchers wouldn't have known the virus might be gone at the point of administration when they started trials.

There is plenty of evidence...
There's rubbish evidence saying they work, and better quality evidence saying they don't.

They already are safer from covid than the flu and don't really spread it. They are just developing the ACE2 receptors so the virus has a hard time infecting cells and replicating.
Oh my god. Do you really not get it? One of the core points of vaccination for this sort of easily transmissble disease is herd immunity. Not "Oh, we'll miss out that bit of the herd and fingers crossed it'll be okay" immunity.

The fact is that covid does make at least some children extremely sick, kills a handful that are vulnerable for whatever cause, and infects many sufficiently that they could pass it to more vulnerable individuals (like their grandparents). So immunise children too to be on the safe side. It's not difficult.

So if 20 countries do X and show improvement, it's just random coincidence?
Again, correlation and causation matters.

You've presented the sum of zero data indicating that ivermectin use correlates with a fall in infection. You've said approval: but approval isn't the correct thing to correlate, because use of the drug will predate approval, and the approval does not necessarily equate to instant uptake of the drug. So it's an empty claim right at the start.

Secondly, enabling untested drugs won't occur in isolation. It's a panic response to increasing or out of control infection, thereby frequently occurring around the same time as other urgent measures, whether from the government or the public taking safety into their own hands. Thus unless you can isolate the impact of ivermectin from anything else, there nothing you can usefully show.

Finally, ivermectin, if it works, is almost certainly only going to be marginal: if it were that effective, the modest evidence thus far would be enough to show so. So let's say there's a 10% reduction. If we assume an extra 20% of the population start chowing down on antiparasitic pills, the sum difference it makes to infections / deaths will be barely noticeable (~2%). It simply cannot explain large-scale decreases in infection, hospitalisation and death.
 
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McElroy

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Yeah, it's Belgium, but it's not going to be that different anywhere else (and indeed, other studies in other places suggest similar). And herein we see the time to hospitalisation from symptom onset, which varies 3-10 days but mostly around 4 days.
4 days is lowballing it. Especially in these later waves when mostly younger people are getting infected. "In Belgium, the mean time from symptom onset to hospitalization overall is 5.74 days -- depending on the patient population, estimates range between 3 and 10.4 days in Belgium. The time from symptom onset to hospitalization is largest in the working age population (20–60 years)"
 
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Agema

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4 days is lowballing it. Especially in these later waves when mostly younger people are getting infected. "In Belgium, the mean time from symptom onset to hospitalization overall is 5.74 days -- depending on the patient population, estimates range between 3 and 10.4 days in Belgium. The time from symptom onset to hospitalization is largest in the working age population (20–60 years)"
No, isn't lowballing it. This is a situation where the median is more useful than the mean, because the distribution is not normal and relatively few very late hospitalisations can significantly skew the mean to less representative values. The paper states that young people have a median admission time of 1 day with a quarter over 2.6 days, the working age have a median of 4 days with a quarter over 6.7 days, and over 80s a median of 1.6 days with a quarter over 4.3 days.

This therefore tells us a considerable majority of patients are admitted to hospital within 4 days of symptom onset.
 

McElroy

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No, isn't lowballing it. This is a situation where the median is more useful than the mean, because the distribution is not normal and relatively few very late hospitalisations can significantly skew the mean to less representative values. The paper states that young people have a median admission time of 1 day with a quarter over 2.6 days, the working age have a median of 4 days with a quarter over 6.7 days, and over 80s a median of 1.6 days with a quarter over 4.3 days.

This therefore tells us a considerable majority of patients are admitted to hospital within 4 days of symptom onset.
Majority of Belgian patients. While the disease is the same, those waffleheads could be more sensitive. I wouldn't even argue about some study, but I've seen multiple sources, including official Finnish ones that describe the typical course of serious covid-19 requiring hospital care roughly a week from symptom onset. Statistics and individuals sure; maybe we are stupid and try to suck it up. However, the main point seemed to be that patients still shed live viruses when they get admitted to hospital because the clearance can easily be over a week from symptom onset in serious cases.
 

Agema

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Majority of Belgian patients. While the disease is the same, those waffleheads could be more sensitive. I wouldn't even argue about some study, but I've seen multiple sources, including official Finnish ones that describe the typical course of serious covid-19 requiring hospital care roughly a week from symptom onset. Statistics and individuals sure; maybe we are stupid and try to suck it up. However, the main point seemed to be that patients still shed live viruses when they get admitted to hospital because the clearance can easily be over a week from symptom onset in serious cases.
I think we're agreeing then?
 

McElroy

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I think we're agreeing then?
4 days still seems lowballing it, but it's been awhile since last Autumn and our covid situation didn't get much worse until late November. No wait those numbers are from late March 2020. That could explain the difference as procedures for diagnosis and hospital admittance vary a bit across countries and over time. Those were the most hectic times.
 

Phoenixmgs

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To me this statement right here exemplifies how you absolutely do not understand human physiology or pathophysiology on any level. That graph is hilariously misleading and only shows what happens in those that suffer from immune dysregulation due to Covid-19, which is a fairly small group even when compared to only those that get seriously ill in Covid-19. Most people that are hospitalized for Covid-19 are so because the disease itself is potentially life threatening to them even without suffering immune dysregulation. And then we could get into how a virus works but it would just be wasted effort at this point.
It's not really the virus that does most of the damage.

But with the flu and most other viral diseases, antiviral medications are often effective only early in the disease. Once the virus has spread widely within our body, our own immune system becomes the thing that more urgently threatens to kill us. That response cannot be fully controlled. But it can be modulated and improved.

“A lot of [the damage in the body during COVID-19] is due to what we would call a sepsis syndrome, which is due to complex immune reactions,” Evans said. “The infection itself can generate an intense inflammatory response in the body that can affect the function of multiple organ systems.”



That is pathetic, dishonest scumbaggery of the worst sort. These are the day jobs of most of the panel that created the UK Vit D recommendations:

Professor of Nutritional Biochemistry and Head of Human Nutrition Unit
Professor of Food and Health
Consultant Physician, Metabolic Bone Service
Professor in Epidemiology
Head of Department of Nutritional Sciences
Professor of Biomedical Sciences
Director, MRC Human Nutrition Research
Reader in Child Nutrition and Consultant in Neonatal Paediatrics
Professor of Medicine

These people are experts.

They are however not people who have spiffy wellbeing bullshit webpages, YouTube channels, and aggressively court public opinion. You seem to labour under the misapprehension that publicity is the primary indicator of expertise rather than professional accomplishment.
THEIR RECOMMENDATION IS BASED ON JUST BONE HEALTH, WHICH IS WHAT THE RECOMMENDATION WORKS FOR.

I can see why you're avoiding proper references and being super-vague here. Let's add some precision, because you're approximating the length of time until hospitalisation to about a week, and the length of SARS2 infection to about a week, and in the process destroyed the very real window of theoretical treatment that exists in the real figures.


Don't worry about the weird link name, it does work. So, live virus has generally been found up to 12-13 days after symptom onset, although 8-9 as a median. Other studies suggest the length of time live virus may be present is higher in severe cases, the elderly, and people with certain health conditions.


Yeah, it's Belgium, but it's not going to be that different anywhere else (and indeed, other studies in other places suggest similar). And herein we see the time to hospitalisation from symptom onset, which varies 3-10 days but mostly around 4 days.

Then, with the power of maths, 8 - 4 = 4; 4 days a patient is likely to have virus, just by the average. Obviously, it could be much higher for patients admitted to hospital early and that have a longer than average span with live virus - potentially something like 10 days. Thus in a large number of patients, there would be potential for remdesivir to be effective at reducing viral load (if it even does). And again, so it would make sense that the data did seem to find remdesivir more effective at shortening the time course of symptoms for those admitted to hospital sooner.

It's not only that, but there is also your dreadful hindsight bullshit again. Remdesivir (amongst others) was under investigation before the viral time course was well established - also considering the context that the viral time course for SARS1 and MERS was much longer than it turns out to be for SARS2). It's pretty dumb to ask why anyone would use an antiviral when the virus was gone, when researchers wouldn't have known the virus might be gone at the point of administration when they started trials.
When I put something in italics it's a direct copy/paste, you can google that in quotes and find the source right away if you want to.

Also, the hospitals in the US will tell you to go home until you get bad enough to have trouble breathing, nobody here (besides a few doctors) actually treats covid early.

The WHO recommends against giving remdesivir to hospitalized patients. Are you gonna disagree with a body of experts?

There's rubbish evidence saying they work, and better quality evidence saying they don't.
And where is this better quality evidence saying they don't work?

More and more countries are approving ivermectin.

Oh my god. Do you really not get it? One of the core points of vaccination for this sort of easily transmissble disease is herd immunity. Not "Oh, we'll miss out that bit of the herd and fingers crossed it'll be okay" immunity.

The fact is that covid does make at least some children extremely sick, kills a handful that are vulnerable for whatever cause, and infects many sufficiently that they could pass it to more vulnerable individuals (like their grandparents). So immunise children too to be on the safe side. It's not difficult.
It makes them less sick than the flu and they hardly even spread it. Kids kill way more people spreading the flu than they do covid. The vaccines are still for emergency use only here. How are you gonna make kids get a vaccine for something less deadly than something they already don't get vaccinated for (and it's still only authorized for emergency use)? More kids drown every year, you gonna ban pools?

And we'll be at herd immunity without kids needing to get vaccinated. All these stories and even John Oliver's Last Week Tonight keep saying we need say 70% (IIRC at least one article said 70%) vaccinated for herd immunity. THAT IS COMPLETELY FALSE. You need 70% of TOTAL IMMUNITY, vaccinations are not the only form of immunity. Getting over covid gives you natural immunity.

Again, correlation and causation matters.

You've presented the sum of zero data indicating that ivermectin use correlates with a fall in infection. You've said approval: but approval isn't the correct thing to correlate, because use of the drug will predate approval, and the approval does not necessarily equate to instant uptake of the drug. So it's an empty claim right at the start.

Secondly, enabling untested drugs won't occur in isolation. It's a panic response to increasing or out of control infection, thereby frequently occurring around the same time as other urgent measures, whether from the government or the public taking safety into their own hands. Thus unless you can isolate the impact of ivermectin from anything else, there nothing you can usefully show.

Finally, ivermectin, if it works, is almost certainly only going to be marginal: if it were that effective, the modest evidence thus far would be enough to show so. So let's say there's a 10% reduction. If we assume an extra 20% of the population start chowing down on antiparasitic pills, the sum difference it makes to infections / deaths will be barely noticeable (~2%). It simply cannot explain large-scale decreases in infection, hospitalisation and death.
I said look at all these countries that approved it and the fall in infections but you didn't want to be lead to some "propaganda" site so I told you just look up the date X country approved it, then look at their curve. And do it for Y country, then Z country. You said you didn't want to. Then I said look at India as it's happening, and you complained that 1 country meant nothing. Well, that was because you said you didn't care to look at the other countries. Oh, and you can look at Goa in India and compare it to the rest of India because they are giving it to all adults.
 

Phoenixmgs

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Pieces like this get branded as misinformation by sites like Facebook. Yet how many times have "experts" been wrong predicting spikes or downturns. It looks like Marty was pretty spot-on (back in the middle of February) as immunity seems to have kicked in at the end of April when the current drop in cases started and hasn't stopped yet. He included *gasp*, natural immunity, into his calculation that the "experts" today still don't do.

This should be branded as misinformation.
 
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Agema

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THEIR RECOMMENDATION IS BASED ON JUST BONE HEALTH, WHICH IS WHAT THE RECOMMENDATION WORKS FOR.
How do you have the nerve to write this? Where do you get your bullshit from? Do you just make it up?

There's a 141-page document (not including references and appendices) from 2016 covering Vitamin D in musculoskeletal health and also: pregnancy and lactation, cancers, cardiovascular disease and hypertension, all cause mortality, immune modulation, infectious diseases, neuropsychological function, oral health, and macular degeneration. Plus there have been a couple of minor updates since.

Also, the hospitals in the US will tell you to go home until you get bad enough to have trouble breathing, nobody here (besides a few doctors) actually treats covid early.
Report from an academic conference presentation about a US hospital. 33% of covid-19 hospitalisations in the study were within 3 days of symptom onset, 27% after one week. Beats your unsourced anecdote by a lot.

The WHO recommends against giving remdesivir to hospitalized patients. Are you gonna disagree with a body of experts?
Do you have the memory of a goldfish? I have said many, many times that the evidence against remdesivir being effective is now very strong.

I'm defending the principle of why it was trialled and that (under emergency circumstances) there was data to justify its approval, not that it works.

And where is this better quality evidence saying they don't work?
In the scientific literature, obviously. Seriously, google something like "study ivermectin covid-19" and start looking. And don't just pick out the ones that say what you want.

More and more countries are approving ivermectin.
Yes, because many governments are otherwise unable to control covid-19 and want to be seen to be doing something by an upset populace. As a bunch of numpties spread rumours that ivermectin works, it makes people clamour for that probably useless drug, and so it's cheap and easy for politicians to seem responsive and let them have it. See also hydroxychloroquine.

It makes them less sick than the flu and they hardly even spread it. Kids kill way more people spreading the flu than they do covid. The vaccines are still for emergency use only here. How are you gonna make kids get a vaccine for something less deadly than something they already don't get vaccinated for (and it's still only authorized for emergency use)?
Who cares? Give it to them and be done with. There is no means to force anyone to take a vaccine, so if the anti-vaxxers squeal they can stop their little darlings having the jab. Other than that, go forth and vaccinate because it is just the most sensible thing to do. If you've got a problem with that, you are in essence an anti-vaxxer.

More kids drown every year, you gonna ban pools?
Don't be so ridiculous.

And we'll be at herd immunity without kids needing to get vaccinated. All these stories and even John Oliver's Last Week Tonight keep saying we need say 70% (IIRC at least one article said 70%) vaccinated for herd immunity. THAT IS COMPLETELY FALSE. You need 70% of TOTAL IMMUNITY, vaccinations are not the only form of immunity. Getting over covid gives you natural immunity.
Herd immunity is simply the point that new infections should go down naturally. However, that doesn't mean people magically stop being infected the minute herd immunity is reached. The more people immune the better the protection, the fewer people get infected in mini outbreaks and the faster they die out.

I said look at all these countries that approved it...
Waffle. None of this is answering the fact that your claims are empty.
 

hanselthecaretaker

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What a clusterfuck. I can imagine if places start tossing mask mandates we’ll see another big uptick in cases, because up to now we’ve been told vaccination doesn’t automatically mean free and clear, especially with new strains floating around. Also kids are a large swath of possible carriers that aren’t cleared for vaccinations. Which begs another question: what the hell kind of vaccine is it that isn’t safe for kids let alone babies like pretty much any other one.
 
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tstorm823

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What a clusterfuck. I can imagine if places start tossing mask mandates we’ll see another big uptick in cases, because up to now we’ve been told vaccination doesn’t automatically mean free and clear, especially with new strains floating around. Also kids are a large swath of possible carriers that aren’t cleared for vaccinations. Which begs another question: what the hell kind of vaccine is it that isn’t safe for kids let alone babies like pretty much any other one.
1) There has yet to be a variant that isn't at least substantially weakened in vaccinated populations. Anyone who says otherwise is fearmongering.
2) Kids aren't cleared because covid vaccination hasn't been fully tested in children, not because it is more or less safe in children. It's just a matter of not knowing yet.
 
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stroopwafel

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What a clusterfuck. I can imagine if places start tossing mask mandates we’ll see another big uptick in cases, because up to now we’ve been told vaccination doesn’t automatically mean free and clear, especially with new strains floating around. Also kids are a large swath of possible carriers that aren’t cleared for vaccinations. Which begs another question: what the hell kind of vaccine is it that isn’t safe for kids let alone babies like pretty much any other one.
The adenovirus vaccines(moderna, astra zeneca) come with some serious, altough rare, potential side effects like an auto-immune reaction to plateletes leading to rapid clotting in critical vessels that can cause death or a lifetime in a wheelchair. Children have zero risk from covid infections and neither have these vaccines been researched for their age group. It's all the risk none of the benefit. The mrna vaccines are safe for adults(no real serious side effect as far as I know) but again not really something you want to test on a child.

They are never going to acquire herd immunity for an endemic, seasonal coronavirus. Just give the vaccines to the risk groups or anyone else who wants it and be done with it. This isn't the plague or anything. 99% have a sneeze or a cough and that's it. And 99% of covid sufferers are either of old age or already have a cluster of underlying health issues(primarily obesity).

If they really want to improve public health then governments should whip people into shape. Exercise, lose weight, extra taxes on sugar/fat etc, promoting healthy diets etc. It's free and it actually helps people but no they rather fill the pockets of Pfizer etc with billions of dollars just to protract this 'pandemic' ad infinitum.
 

stroopwafel

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Citation needed.

"Low risk" is not "zero risk." Hospitalizations and deaths of children from COVID-19 have been reported across the country.; they're rare (2.5% and <0.1% respectively according to the CDC in January), but they are regular occurrences.
Extremely rare then. Ofcourse there are also children with immune disorders or respiratory illnesses or other underlying illnesses for which covid could be a risk. Maybe those are the children in that statistic. So if there is a medical reason you could argue the benefits outweigh the risks. But this is definitely not true for children in general. They pretty much don't even notice an infection considering their high amount of ace2 receptors.
 
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Buyetyen

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Extremely rare then. Ofcourse there are also children with immune disorders or respiratory illnesses or other underlying illnesses for which covid could be a risk. Maybe those are the children in that statistic. So if there is a medical reason you could argue the benefits outweigh the risks. But this is definitely not true for children in general. They pretty much don't even notice an infection considering their high amount of ace2 receptors.
Missing the point that they can still spread it to others. Vaccines aren't just about your own personal protection, they protect everyone else at the same time. How many times does this need to be explained?
 

Agema

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Children have zero risk from covid infections and neither have these vaccines been researched for their age group.
1) They have already started that research.

2) It is very important to draw a distinction between "low risk" and "no risk".

Those paying attention would notice that although children have very low direct risk from covid-19 itself, covid-19 does seem likely to be a major contributor to a post-infection illness called paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome (PIMS), which has caused a large number of hospitalisations, is life-threatening, and has caused numerous fatalities in children. There are many more children coming down with this than there are people suffering blood clots from vaccines.

And besides, the blood clots can be managed because they tend to occur in specific demographic groups in response to specific vaccine types, thus those people just need one of the other vaccines.
 

stroopwafel

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1) They have already started that research.

2) It is very important to draw a distinction between "low risk" and "no risk".

Those paying attention would notice that although children have very low direct risk from covid-19 itself, covid-19 does seem likely to be a major contributor to a post-infection illness called paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome (PIMS), which has caused a large number of hospitalisations, is life-threatening, and has caused numerous fatalities in children. There are many more children coming down with this than there are people suffering blood clots from vaccines.

And besides, the blood clots can be managed because they tend to occur in specific demographic groups in response to specific vaccine types, thus those people just need one of the other vaccines.
Since when has absolutely zero risk become a realistic expectation in life? From the millions of children who get infected you have to search the ones who get seriously ill from covid with a magnifying glass. Other paediatric illnesses might be more worthy of that attention. Even at the peak of the pandemic covid wasn't even in the top 10 causes of death. Most people die from easily preventable lifestyle diseases, ie the real pandemic, and no one gives a shit. But every covid death is one death too many. I don't understand that logic.

Some children might have extremely rare complications from a covid infection but like you say there might be other predispositions for which they could be screened so medical science can more accurately predict who those children are when 99,9% don't have that complication. Might be genetics or some immunological problem who knows. Who knows if the complication is even unique to covid, and not some other infection that could have triggered it as well. It's not like you can spare children(or adults for that matter) from every and any infection though I'm sure at one point it will actually get that ridiculous. This itself will probably trigger a boom in auto-immune disorders.

Missing the point that they can still spread it to others. Vaccines aren't just about your own personal protection, they protect everyone else at the same time. How many times does this need to be explained?
If people at risk are vaccinated how are children still able to infect them? I assume that is what they have been doing now for the last 6 months, vaccinate the people who run most risk of becoming seriously ill from covid. Why risk vaccine side effects for children when they have very little to fear from the virus?
 
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Buyetyen

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If people at risk are vaccinated how are children still able to infect them? I assume that is what they have been doing now for the last 6 months, vaccinate the people who run most risk of becoming seriously ill from covid. Why risk vaccine side effects for children when they have very little to fear from the virus?
And the people who are immuno-compromised and can't get the vaccine? Fuck 'em?

And for fuck's sake, the side effects are about 48 hours of flu-like symptoms. It's not like one of those boner pills advertised on TV with side effects including diarrhea, nausea, internal hemorrhaging and lycanthropy. Don't be difficult.