ppf

No, there is no evidence that this is anything else other than incompetence on the part of the vaccine developer.

I was responding to the parent comment that such headlines are just competing vaccine compaines attempting to destroy the reputation of their competitors. Assuming that is the reason behind this headline (which, is not a given), I'm just pointing out that would not be surprising.

At least where I am (UK), yes. They added to article 174 of the Human Medicines Regulations, allowing an unlicensed vaccine to be advertised in some circumstances, as well as allowing a broader range of people to administer the vaccine, and provided legal protection in law to the developers of the vaccine in case of any issues.

This is in addition to the existing powers of article 174, which allows an unlicenced medicine to be rolled out in exceptional circumstances.

Given the sheer amount of potential profit at stake, it's not surprising that some skullduggery is happening. However, given the speed of the rollout of the various vaccines, and the corresponding number of people injected with them, the companies invovled should be absolutely above reproach in these matters.

The fact that, even when lives are at stake, companies cannot resist temptation, is why there are regulations. Try complaining about the regulations that were relaxed to allow this all to happen, however, and suddenly I'm an anti-vaxxer.

I'd say that hiding potential issues with a vaccine, where regulations have already been eased to speed up its rollout, is about as damning as it can be.

You appreciate that this attitude, that is, that things must be hidden or people might get worried, is exactly why some do not trust the new Covid vaccines?

The idea that technology-lead solutions will solve the world's problems is just preposterous. Not only does semiconductor manufacturing use an enormous amount of energy, it also drives demand for rare minerals and creates horrible environmental problems (both during creation and disposal).

The only way that these solutions are currently palatable is because we have outsourced so many elements of the supply chain to other countries with lax environmental controls.

Edit: I should clarify what I mean by "technology". By that, I mean widespread use of computing-based devices.

I am now the proud owner of an older Nokia 105. I'm also not in the US, so this is a much more viable choice from a practical and cultural point of view. It has not yet caused me any problems, but then my lifestyle right now is a lot different than what it should be. I'm looking forward to seeing how this works out.

Giving up my smartphone. It's been one of the single best choices I have made for the mental and social health of me and those I interact with, primarily my young family, just so much better.

"The Science" is the new state-sponsored oppressive religion.

The parallels write themselves - only a few are worthy to approach "The Science", and we must trust that their interpretation of the mysterious writings is correct. As well as that, we must obey, for the good of all, or face public ridicule and be shunned as dangerous.

I've been saying this for a while, and happily it is becoming less and less controversial. Our response to Covid has shown that we have already abdicated responsibility for decision-making, at all levels, to possibly well-meaning but misguided and uninformed people. This is fine when there aren't any hard decisions to be made. But now, the result is that we are all living under restrictions that we know are absurd, and do absolutely nothing to slow the spread of an airbourne virus.

On the upside, I look forward to building a greenhouse out of all of the discarded plexiglass.

If only the same standard were applied to all statements about Covid.

When you were talking about "80%", I thought you were referring to reduction in transmission. The article you linked only talks about the reduction in numbers of cases (and mostly symtomatic cases), which is not the same thing. By "reduction in transmission", we are talking about the chances of someone catching Covid from someone already infected with it.

>Your original statement, and some of your followup statements, argued against the vaccine reducing spread at all.

Not that it matters much, but I started by saying that it does not confer sterilising immunity (something even the article you linked suggests could be true), later correcting it "it's not know if it does". I've also said, many times now, that it may have some limited effect on reducing transmission.

I'm still not sure why the obsession with transmissison, anyway.

So if I promise to isolate myself if I get symptoms, and am not concerned about Covid, why should I get vaccinated?

I already clarified my statement, quite a few replies ago. I've also already suggested that the known low effectiveness of reducing transmission would indicate that it does not have sterilising immunity.

But wait!

> 80%

Now, you've made a pretty positive statement there. My turn to ask you for a link, or other proof.

"just a factor of 20" is a huge number. At this point, it's not even clear if the vaccines stop you becoming infected in the first place, or just reduces your symptoms. In that case, a vaccinated person is no better for transmission than an unvaccinated, "asymptomatic carrier".

It's not nitpicking to ask for a source for the statement "it's not known if the various vaccines give sterilising immunity", it's asking for proof of a negative. The only possible refutation of such a statement is a counterexample (that is, evidence of it providing sterilising immunity). If we were to set this discussion up properly, the burden of proof would be on the person making the statement "this vaccine provides sterilising immunity".

I'm fully aware of the results you found, as I already indicated with statements like "3rd party testing that has been done shows limited effect on reducing transmission". As I already said, it would be very surprising if a vaccine had limited effectiveness at reducing transmission (as your search results indicate), and also provided sterilising immunity. In fact, it seems to me that the known fact that transmission does still occur, preculdes the idea that the vaccines have sterilising immunity.

I don't get what your point is. I suggest you work out what that is, before delving into more complicated subjects. As I have essentially repeated what I said before, it seems we are now going in circles.

If you really want to nitpick, "what we got" are vaccines that are not known to provide sterilising immunity, and the 3rd party testing that has been done shows limited effect on reducing transmission. That being the case, it would be surprising if they did have sterilising immunity.

It's a fact that the various vaccines were released without any information about their effectiveness on transmission. It's not impossible to prove, it's just not been done (nor, if the tests were done, do we know what the results would be).

>"vaccinate the people near the vulnerable so they won't spread it to the vulnerable"

Why does that matter, if the vulnerable are already vaccinated? That was the whole point of vaccinating them in the first place.

>That's not a citation. And vaccines are designed with a very general goal of "make the body fight this". That can potentually affect both symptoms and transmission. Don't argue in bad faith and equate that to "anything could be true"

>Huh? Checking if the vaccine does anything at all is after the design is done. The choice of when to test symptoms vs. spreading is more about difficulty of getting the data than anything else.

You're the one arguing in bad faith, demanding evidence of a negative. When the vaccines were released, the published testing only covered a few key endpoints - primarily, incidences of lab-tested Covid cases. Any work on measuring effects on transmission was done by 3rd parties (in this case, I believe it was researchers in Israel).

Covid has a very specific (and small) risk profile. That's the idea we were all sold - vaccinate the vulnerable, get on with our lives. Given that it presents very little risk to the vast majority of people, it doesn't really matter about transmission. Except that is, now we are apparently trying to surpress potential mutations, which means we'll be battling a relatively harmelss (compared to the great pandemics of the past) disease forever.

It's what we have, according to the designers of the various vaccines. Unless you are suggesting that all things are true unless proven otherwise, in which case I'd ask you to go back and check some books on elementary logic.

There is some work after the fact to measure the effect on Covid transmission of the vaccines, but even that isn't very promising.

It's odd when "stopping people dying" is "a huge downgrade". I suspect what you mean is that the vaccines in their current form will not get us out of the restrictions we are currently living under, which is true (and incredibly predicable).

Like I said - so do many vaccines. I suppose we need to all lock ourselves back in our houses for a few more years while researchers make a new vaccine for Covid-19, that does provide sterlising immunity?

This is why creating a vaccine for coronaviruses is a fool's errand. This is all very predictable. We have to look at the actual harm being done, and decide if all this is worth it.

We are already dependent on "Big Tech", we just haven't realised it yet.

Well, it's what we got, and it's how we plan to get out of this (apparently). Also, what's wrong with a vaccine that stops people dying?

It most certainly is the point. Many other vaccines also do not provide sterilising immunity.

So how will "everyone be vaccinated"? It won't be mandatory, but I'm sure it'll be difficult to refuse.

From a state security perspective, the "Balkanisation" of the internet makes perfect sense. You wouldn't allow huge numbers of unknown agents from other countries in, to spend their time trying to influence your people, yet there is a free and open internet with a practically direct connection the population's brains, and very little way to know who is doing the influencing.

I'd rather not be injected with bits of mRNA that encode random bits of proteins, thanks. The deltoid is "medically interesting" enough to produce Covid spike proteins.

If your (state, country, whatever) has a 100% vaccination policy to "prevent mutations", then how can you possibly not have a vaccination passport?

It's not the percentage of intact mRNA that's the problem, it's what the other bits of mRNA happen to do.