2019-2020 coronavirus pandemic (Vaccination 2021 Edition)

Kwak

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So, does the vaccine actually stop covid? Can't you still be infectious even with it? And if so, how is that supposed to achieve herd immunity?
 

Phoenixmgs

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So, does the vaccine actually stop covid? Can't you still be infectious even with it? And if so, how is that supposed to achieve herd immunity?
It teaches your immune system how to fight it basically like any other vaccine. Chances are very slim that you'd be infectious, it's why kids don't really transmit it because their immune systems kill it right away. If you catch it (get infected) and your body takes care of it right away, you don't transmit it to others and thus the virus has nowhere to go. That's what herd immunity is.
 
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Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
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So, does the vaccine actually stop covid? Can't you still be infectious even with it? And if so, how is that supposed to achieve herd immunity?
When you're infected with a pathogen the symptoms depend on how quickly the pathogen replicates compared to how quickly your body can kill it.

Pathogens can often replicate very effectively on first infection because it takes time for your body to properly identify it as foreign material and attack it; antibodies are the body's main way of identifying foreign material so it can launch a rapid response. In practice, once you have antibodies, you're much less likely to suffer symptoms because the body will attack the pathogen very aggressively very quickly. And vaccines are basically a way of getting the body to create antibodies without having the problematic virus.

So, in summary, once vaccinated you can be infected, but your body is likely to kill it quickly so you should both be less infectious to others and not suffer (severe) symptoms. It does, in practice, create herd immunity, because the drastically reduced infectiousness means that the chances of spreading it to others plummets.

On the other hand, I am doubtful we will ever erase covid. It's too endemic, it probably mutates too quickly. Chances are we will need annual shots, and new vaccines for new variants, for years to come. In the long run it'll be a sort of "second influenza": permanently there in the background, killing a small percentage of vulnerable people every year, forever.
 
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Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
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Are you surprised? Fabric masks are science-tifically proven to wick away freedom from the American body at fifty-five micro-Constitutions per minute.
To be fair, I've met people who feel similarly about underwear.
 

Baffle

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So, does the vaccine actually stop covid? Can't you still be infectious even with it? And if so, how is that supposed to achieve herd immunity?
Reports on the BBC this morning say it reduces transmission, but the study hasn't been published yet (due to be in The Lancet).
 

tippy2k2

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https://news.yahoo.com/fauci-says-a...bers-to-back-up-his-prediction-221400929.html

Well that sounds promising. I was kind of worried we'd be looking at a bit of a gridlock until at least the summer but at least Dr Fauci seems to be optimistic at the timeline. Hopefully this means I can get my shot within the next few weeks (I have asthma, which at least according to my Doctor would put me in the "High Risk" 16-65 year old group, which would be the group before mass vaccinations in my state at least).
 
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McElroy

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In order to stop scammers from lying, the rich should obviously get the vaccine first if they're willing to pay for it.
 

Phoenixmgs

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Definitive data showing that it is VITAMIN D.
  • 930 person RCT of active vitamin d (calcifediol) so the body doesn't take a week+ to process it
  • 5.4% getting vitamin d went to the ICU, 21.1% went to the ICU in control group
  • 6.5% deaths getting vitamin d, 15% deaths in control group
  • Patients were added to the study after being admitted to the hospital so at least somewhat late-stage infection
  • Treatment later in infection resulted is poorer results so treating a disease sooner is better (so common sense)
  • NOT A SINGLE ADVERSE EFFECT REPORTED
And taking a vitamin d supplement daily prior to infection to have a good starting level of vitamin d at infection would likely show even better results than post-infection treatment. Treating a disease early works better than treating a disease later obviously.

 

Agema

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Definitive data showing that it is VITAMIN D.
Whilst a valuable addition to knowledge, the study is not revolutionary: there is already a strong body of evidence indicating that vitamin D deficiency is a risk factor for covid-19 mortality.
 

Phoenixmgs

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Whilst a valuable addition to knowledge, the study is not revolutionary: there is already a strong body of evidence indicating that vitamin D deficiency is a risk factor for covid-19 mortality.
Yeah, and when I said people should be getting treated early for covid, I had you telling me there's no early treatments. There's early treatments that work better than the very best "accepted" drug (dexamethasone) that's only useful at a certain time and does have adverse side effects. It's shocking at how bad our health agencies are. Hospitals are giving out expensive remdesivir instead of the super cheap calcifediol that does literally no harm and has results. In your opinion, it's better for doctors to tell people to sit and home and wait until it gets bad enough they need to come to the hospital instead of telling them to use cheap and safe treatments at symptom onset to save hospitalizations and deaths.
 

Avnger

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Yeah, and when I said people should be getting treated early for covid, I had you telling me there's no early treatments. There's early treatments that work better than the very best "accepted" drug (dexamethasone) that's only useful at a certain time and does have adverse side effects. It's shocking at how bad our health agencies are. Hospitals are giving out expensive remdesivir instead of the super cheap calcifediol that does literally no harm and has results. In your opinion, it's better for doctors to tell people to sit and home and wait until it gets bad enough they need to come to the hospital instead of telling them to use cheap and safe treatments at symptom onset to save hospitalizations and deaths.
So once again, we're back to random internet user Pheonixmgs has in his spare time found the miracle solution to COVID that both medical professionals and medical policy experts are ignoring because ??????

Have you tried sending your proof to your local hospital? Your local, state, and federal health agencies? The WHO and AMA?
 

McElroy

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Whilst a valuable addition to knowledge, the study is not revolutionary: there is already a strong body of evidence indicating that vitamin D deficiency is a risk factor for covid-19 mortality.
Jumping the gun while multiple RCTs are still ongoing is unnecessarily brave most of the time, but a bit of propaganda to actually get people to treat their deficiency can be useful when there are barely if any downsides.

Though calcifediol isn't readily available as a vitamin D supplement, and thus regular D3 is the way to go.
 

Lykosia

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So, does the vaccine actually stop covid? Can't you still be infectious even with it? And if so, how is that supposed to achieve herd immunity?
There are two types of vaccines. Effective and sterilizing. Effective vaccines won't stop you from getting infected or spreading the infection, but they will minimize the symptoms, most vaccines are this kind. Sterilizing ones prevent you from getting infected, few vaccines can do this, it's much harder to achieve. I believe most COVID vaccines are first kind.
 
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Generals

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So once again, we're back to random internet user Pheonixmgs has in his spare time found the miracle solution to COVID that both medical professionals and medical policy experts are ignoring because ??????

Have you tried sending your proof to your local hospital? Your local, state, and federal health agencies? The WHO and AMA?
After a quick google I came across two quite recent studies (amongst which one with a very small sample size) suggesting "calcifediol" may greatly help reducing admittance to ICU/death. However the sources i found dated from end of 2020 and early 2021. So I guess this is a case of "why aren't hospitals instantly switching their protocols based on a small amount of recent studies suggesting something works".
 

Agema

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Yeah, and when I said people should be getting treated early for covid, I had you telling me there's no early treatments.
Because there were no recognised early treatments. All those many, many drugs they've stuffed into people like hydroxychloroquine, remdesivir, lopinavir / ritonavir, famotidine, diphenhydramine, zinc, Vit D, are all attempts to find some sort of effective treatment from an initial evidence base of approximately zero. The effect of Vit D has not been easy to work out.

Low Vitamin D tends to be heavily associated with obesity, diabetes and old age, thereby meaning it's not easy to tell whether it's Vit D or the associated factor that's that the problem. There's also a publication problem: some positive studies on Vit D have conflicts of interest, or confounding factors due to administration of other drugs. One of the studies that created a lot of attention which purported to show a benefit of Vit D was a non-peer reviewed preprint whose named authors don't appear to exist. There are also studies on Vit D which are inconclusive, and at least one suggesting an increased risk of death if hospitalised. So it's been many months of study looking at connections between Vit D and covid-19. The latest study again shows a clear correlation between low Vit D levels and mortality; implicitly, therefore that's probably what the calcifediol is doing.

One can possibly appreciate why Vit D fans might be frustrated at the slowness of it all, but from the point of view of science and medicine, no-one really wanted another hydroxychloroquine farce. That said, the evidence was sufficient ~3 months ago to convince the UK government to revise and reinforce its Vit D advice, and started sending free supplements to people on its covid-19 high risk list.
 
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Phoenixmgs

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So once again, we're back to random internet user Pheonixmgs has in his spare time found the miracle solution to COVID that both medical professionals and medical policy experts are ignoring because ??????

Have you tried sending your proof to your local hospital? Your local, state, and federal health agencies? The WHO and AMA?
The data says so. It doesn't have to be a "miracle" solution to use it. Something that saves say 20% of hospitalizations that has no adverse side effects and is extremely cheap is worth doing. In many places, standard covid care includes stuff that is a "bad word" here, it's pretty sad. I actually did tell the pharmacists at one hospital that remdesivir doesn't work after overhearing them (I'm IT) discussing a patient refusing the drug, and they said "yeah, we haven't seen it work."


Jumping the gun while multiple RCTs are still ongoing is unnecessarily brave most of the time, but a bit of propaganda to actually get people to treat their deficiency can be useful when there are barely if any downsides.

Though calcifediol isn't readily available as a vitamin D supplement, and thus regular D3 is the way to go.
So much of the population is deficient in the winter that's north or south enough that has actual winters. Plus, with the sun at the angle it is during the winter season, you ain't getting any vitamin d from the sun either even if you tried. Hospitals should give the active form, people getting supplements would get D3 obviously. There are literally no downsides, you'd probably have to take at least like 10,000 IUs of it a day to get downsides (taking too much of anything is bad).


There are two types of vaccines. Effective and sterilizing. Effective vaccines won't stop you from getting infected or spreading the infection, but they will minimize the symptoms, most vaccines are this kind. Sterilizing ones prevent you from getting infected, few vaccines can do this, it's much harder to achieve. I believe most COVID vaccines are first kind.
Most are the 1st kind. The reason there's stories about how much lower the efficacy is against the South African variant is because the chance of getting infected with symptoms is much higher (but not severe symptoms).

After a quick google I came across two quite recent studies (amongst which one with a very small sample size) suggesting "calcifediol" may greatly help reducing admittance to ICU/death. However the sources i found dated from end of 2020 and early 2021. So I guess this is a case of "why aren't hospitals instantly switching their protocols based on a small amount of recent studies suggesting something works".
Here's the most recent one, over 900 person RCT (and more on the way) that the video I posted discusses. We had TONS of correlational data pointing to this for months and months, yet we can't give something that does no harm and probably works?


Because there were no recognised early treatments. All those many, many drugs they've stuffed into people like hydroxychloroquine, remdesivir, lopinavir / ritonavir, famotidine, diphenhydramine, zinc, Vit D, are all attempts to find some sort of effective treatment from an initial evidence base of approximately zero. The effect of Vit D has not been easy to work out.

Low Vitamin D tends to be heavily associated with obesity, diabetes and old age, thereby meaning it's not easy to tell whether it's Vit D or the associated factor that's that the problem. There's also a publication problem: some positive studies on Vit D have conflicts of interest, or confounding factors due to administration of other drugs. One of the studies that created a lot of attention which purported to show a benefit of Vit D was a non-peer reviewed preprint whose named authors don't appear to exist. There are also studies on Vit D which are inconclusive, and at least one suggesting an increased risk of death if hospitalised. So it's been many months of study looking at connections between Vit D and covid-19. The latest study again shows a clear correlation between low Vit D levels and mortality; implicitly, therefore that's probably what the calcifediol is doing.

One can possibly appreciate why Vit D fans might be frustrated at the slowness of it all, but from the point of view of science and medicine, no-one really wanted another hydroxychloroquine farce. That said, the evidence was sufficient ~3 months ago to convince the UK government to revise and reinforce its Vit D advice, and started sending free supplements to people on its covid-19 high risk list.
The correlational data is beyond ridiculous to not be doing studies on vitamin d. We know pretty well what vitamin d does for the immune system and that it directly affects the ACE2 receptors (kinda important to covid wouldn't ya say). It's even theorized to be why flu disappears in the summer (IIRC from the many things I've seen about it). We know it will help, just not how much. Also, vitamin d is much more than just some resource your body needs, it's a hormone.

What study shows increase of death with vitamin d? The only thing I've ever seen of taking too much vitamin d is calcium buildup, but vitamin k eliminates that issue, it's kinda why a lot of vitamin d supplements also have the amount of vitamin k you need. I'm sure if you take ridiculous amounts of it, it can do some bad shit but that's with anything.

HCQ isn't a farce, there's far more data and solid studies showing it helps (not a miracle cure by any means). Guess what is standard treatment in Spain (the place that's doing the vitamin d trials)? HCQ. The UK didn't give people nearly the supplement of vitamin D they need, 400 IUs is nothing, it's not even close to what's needed. It'll work against rickets but that's about it.
 

Agema

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The correlational data is beyond ridiculous to not be doing studies on vitamin d.
People are doing studies on Vit D, so things are working as they should.

We know pretty well what vitamin d does for the immune system and that it directly affects the ACE2 receptors (kinda important to covid wouldn't ya say). It's even theorized to be why flu disappears in the summer (IIRC from the many things I've seen about it). We know it will help, just not how much.
Hypotheses are not the same thing as reality.

Also, vitamin d is much more than just some resource your body needs, it's a hormone.
Facepalm.

What study shows increase of death with vitamin d?
That'd be one you haven't looked at because you don't read the evidence base properly or use sources that accurately represent the evidence base.

HCQ isn't a farce, there's far more data and solid studies showing it helps (not a miracle cure by any means).
Still banging that discredited drum as well, eh?
 

McElroy

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You might want to check the name vitamin D to find out what it is...
It has its own receptor in the cell nucleus (more in some cells and less in others and each type of cell reacts to it differently), and thus it has more functions and interactions in the body than your typical vitamin which is usually a coenzyme. Vitamin D's structure is almost that of steroids, making it a secosteroid.