@sundialsvcs - Of course you are correct that some medicines get approval that turn out to have serious side effects and Thalidomide was one of those rare instances. However the numbers of deaths you quote as "side effects" of US available vaccines appears to be WAY overblown. There have been a few negative reactions but they number less than 80 per million...that's .0008 %. That percentage is for ALL side-effects including trivial through serious through to death.

You are however completely wrong in saying mRNA vaccines are not vaccines and implying they can find their way into human DNA. I strongly suspect you got your numbers from one of those websites that make wild claims like doctors are secretly injecting RFID chips in people. Incidentally you mentioned VAERS and crackpot websites seem to be making up numbers since Reuters and VAERS report WAY different numbers. Some sites, like rightsfreedroms.wordpress are reporting
45,000 deaths! which began from some anonymous idiot woman posting on Instagram while even many far right wing websites report 1/10th that. I suggest you go to https://wonder.cdc.gov/wonder/help/vaers.html# and read for yourself how the data needs to be interpreted to be a valid set of statistics, which that woman obviously skipped. You don't have to register for VAERS but you will have to accept the terms in something akin to a EULA to get deeply into data.

Thalidomide was a disaster but please note that very quickly it was pulled once effects showed up as commonplace. This is not the case at all with mRNA vaccines. The numbers are astonishing in that 90+% effectiveness is huge and actually a breakthrough, especially compared to other marker types and it isn't like mRNA was invented post Covid. The technology has years behind it. Perhaps easier to grasp is that if you imagine the drug companies (of which I am certainly no fan) push these vaccines to get rich, please consider that traditional growth of disease cells takes years longer and costs a great deal more and their profits would be greater after many more millions had died. Also many got vaccinate free of charge.

While my ex-wifes condition was not a good thing, it wasn't in danger of killing her. Covid did kill her and agonizingly so! Imagine slowly drowning in your own lungs for 4 days ... and that would not likely have happened had all the nurses been vaccinated. The doctors said so, the hospital administrator said so and the governor of St Croix went on TV and Radio saying the same and pleaded with people to be vaccinated.

For now I'm being a gentleman about this but I strongly suggest you actually check VAERS or other Official health-related websites instead of political agenda sites before you start spreading unverified misinformation that can get people killed.

Maybe some people will react that way unfortunately but I'm the OP of this thread and I'm a Libertarian so I am certainly not wanting to increase coercive power of any government... BUT, I'm pretty confidant both you and I would expect authorities to stop a neighbor from creating say Sarin gas or was involved in any behaviour that threatened you, your family, and neighbors. This is similar.

AFAIK nobody is talking seriously about jail or "holding people down". What they are saying is if you want to work, travel, eat in restaurants, go to public school you have to comply with the rules that protect your neighbors. If you don't want to get vaccinated more than you want to participate in public, it's your choice, but choices have responsibilities and consequences.

I made a remark about how ironic it is that so may ersatz right winger individualists apparently thought they were standing up for individual rights but what they really did was bring down retribution of a sort, setting a precedent I certainly don't like even if I understand the need to remind people of the Social Contract - Rights come with Responsibilities.

FWIW sundialsvcs, Covid vaccines have proven helpful against other strains. The effectiveness is reduced from 90+% down to around 60-70% (both to not catch it at all or to reduce symptom intensity) and 50-60% for the best of the others. I asked my doctor 2 weeks ago if I should consider a booster (I got Moderna mRNA type - 2 shots) and he told me he would contact me if there was any change but current stats show Moderna is very effective as things are now.

Also FWIW, 32 months ago I received an experimental RNA based vaccination (its cost at that time was over $10,000.00 but I got it for free as a part of the study) and it totally wiped out the virus with minimal side-effects.

I'm going to ask one more time, man to man, please check your data before posting here or start your own thread. OK?

My condolences, enorbet. I'm very sorry to read about your wife.

Several of my relatives have caught this f-ing virus. Some have been hospitalized. No fatalities so far. One breakthrough case that I know of (my nephew in FL, just within the past few weeks). And this thing is a long way from being over.

I don't feel comfortable about government mandates, and I don't claim to have all the answers, but... Well, be careful out there, folks. The virus is being given lots of opportunies to continue to spread -- and to continue to mutate!

The vaccine (don't ya just love how sundialsvcs continues to insist on using the word "potions"?), masking up, distancing, I'm gonna keep going with those three things. I know I can't control what other people do, but I can try to do what I can to not be one of the people helping to spread this thing around.

At this point it's very difficult for me to not feel angered, saddened, and disgusted by the way so many people are reacting and behaving during this pandemic. Gawd. And what a spin on Patrick Henry's words, "Give me liberty or give me death."

enorbet... Aw man, I'm so sorry.

For any interested in how the HUGELY exaggerated number of deaths came about this is some interesting reading on the subject -----

https://www.politifact.com/factcheck...d-19-vaccines/

Thank you to michaelk and m.a.l's_ pa for your kind consideration. May you and yours stay healthy and happy.

Statistics may be explored (for the USA only) at https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisiona...-Age/9bhg-hcku

By the way (for those math challenged) if a vaccine is 98% effective (which is very good) that means that one in 50 vaccinated people you meet can still get ill from the virus and are at risk of death. That is better than without the virus, since 50 people out of every 50 people unvaccinated are at risk.

There is no evidence of the vaccine doing any direct damage to any of the millions of people who have been vaccinated, although there is a very small chance of a blood clotting condition (roughly 6 or 7 per 10 million people). Since your chance of death form the virus if unvaccinated is FAR FAR higher, that risk is acceptable and treatment is well documented.

All previous variants of the virus were perfectly protected by successful vaccination: you could not catch or pass on the virus. The DELTA branch is so fast growing that it CAN make you contagious for a day or two EVEN IF your vaccinated and the vaccine fully protects you. The behavior and spread of this variant is reason for resuming mask mandates even among vaccinated populations in conditions that make spread likely.

There is now a second delta strain, that has arisen in Libia and South Africa that may be even worse. Such variants will continue to generate as long as large numbers of people are unprotected and the virus can spread.

If you care to research, I recommend the CDC and WHO sites.

Some information on the new DELTA PLUS variant can be found at https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/24/delt...d-to-know.html

If you go back and look at sundialsvcs posts in other threads on the same topic you will find the same nonsensical rhetoric and misinformation. I doubt anything will change.

None of my immediate family has gotten the virus but others in my family have personally known people that have and died from it.

Almost everyone in your got virus. You just didn't notice this. Because we know that side effect caused by virus affect only some percentage of infected people.

Myself personally for sure was infected. These masks, scarfs - they do not prevent infection. They source are flu epidemia. It is not what breath in - but out.

I was lucky this time to not develop side effects. But maybe next time I may not be such lucky.

There is only period of time vaccine can protect you. But so far no one is telling about next year vaccination program. As it was said: vaccines are known to be effective against all known variants. What about those we don't know yet?

There are medicines which supposedly may help to easy patient heavy conditions. Some say they works, other they do not. Now I read about some new this kind of medicine.

What really bothers me - why doctors do not offer these medicines to patients? It may help - it may not. But in such situation action - let just try - seems to be justified. This is extreme situation.

But no - there are all these institutions which block effectively use of such drugs. The last I read is because known side effects drug may cause. What is extreme hypocrisy in view that all vaccines are accepted to use conditionally . Because side effects so far are not known. Except blood clothes.

The last is: how people know vaccines are working? There is no sickness but people not vaccinated affected by virus also didn't developed sickness. At least you agree this is true about children. So what's the chance person not vaccinated would develop serious illness?

But in time narration about vaccines is constantly changing. At the beginning it emphasized personal protection in the first place. But in time it changed to vaccination would kill supposedly pandemia. Did ever those farmaceuthical companies made such promise? So were this narration came from? As result we have now moral, social pressure to got vaccines as act of virtue and solidarity. That's ridiculous. Are there no other ways to help each other in difficult times?

Perhaps it is just: let vaccinate all, end pandemia and go back to normal? Can enorbet co back to normal? And so many people are in situation of enorbet today. Do we just try to go back to normal and forget all of this?
Virus coming from nowhere? All these deaths in vain? No lesson taught? How many lessons of this kind do we need?

It is not nightmare we hope to wake up from. This is reality we need to learn to live in. Sooner we realize that better for is us all.

It's all due to social media

https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/co...t-social-media

I think people get an idea that vaccine = nothing to worry about. Really it's about slowing it down to manageable levels. It doesn't cure or prevent the damn thing. If hospitals were half full instead of maxxed out I'd guess the mortality rate would be lower due to higher quality care per patient. Think same principle as to many kids in a single classroom. I am not a medical professional though.

At the end of the day though it isn't going away. There won't be a "back to normal". This is normal now. Sooner we all accept it the better we will be. Was inevitable really. We've trashed our environment, broke the delicate systems. It's fighting back.

I can only offer best wishes Enorbet. This world is painful at best. I haven't had any losses yet but I have seen the suffering directly in my family as well. No good for anyone.

Vaccines work. Vaccines are not magic. They save lives, but not 100% of the lives of everyone vaccinated until or unless they eradicate the disease.
The Covid vaccines were quick to approval only because they leveraged the work started for SARS to apply to SARS-2 (Covid-19). No shortcuts were taken.

Masks work. Masks are not magic. They cut down on transmission, saving lives and preventing hospitals and emergency facilities from being overwhelmed.

In environments where spread is likley, vaccination AND masks are recommended: because neither one is magic.

Check the information and statistics on the vaccination and virus at WHO and CDC before spreading misinformation, unjustified optimism, or doom and gloom. Things are working well WHERE the population is following the science. We need the entire world on board with that, and the longer that takes the longer this will drag out, but the strategy does work.

The problem is psychological. If you want to encourage people to get vaccinated, you need to persuade them that vaccination really does make a difference. If they see everything continuing as before, everyone wearing masks, everyone isolating, gloomy statistics and prophecies being pumped out by the networks, and no end in sight, they'll just conclude that it isn't worthwhile. It looks like many young people have already have made this calculation.

I will keep my position right where it's at: "these are not 'vaccines' at all," and "they appear to me upon rational examination of evidence and reports to be neither safe nor effective." These potions have never been "approved" by anyone at all. I won't be part of a medical experiment.

We have never before attempted to induce the body to PRODUCE a pathogen. The reports of autoimmune reactions are to be expected and therefore cannot be discounted. My body is not going to have any part of that.

So sundialsvcs what is it about anonymous woman on Instagram that strikes you as authoritative? Apparently you gravitate to lunatic conspiracy sites like "9/11 an Inside Job" and "Moon Landing Was a Hoax" as evidenced by numerous posts from you in the past. Thankfully you have not yet AFAIK sunk so far as Flat Earth, but you really need to do some serious research on how mRNA vaccines actually function (THEY ARE NOT POTIONS despite your continuing to cast nebulous aspersions on them). I suggest you actually check on how vaccines work at an actual medical site not some political agenda-ridden wack site. I mean, do you hire a carpenter to fix your car? Experts are expert for good reason.

If this seems harsh, I warned you. You have a perfect right to your opinion but where it actually affects people's lives and by extension the health of a nation if not the entire globe. you need to stop spouting unsubstantiated crap here. The numbers are in regardless of anyone's opinion. Where vaccination rates are high there are massive reductions in new cases and deaths. That is indisputable. So please cease in this thread or for the first time in decades I will report you to moderators. This is as kind a warning as you have earned.

You have that right of course. The problem is you are coming into contact with others who have the right to know if you are a danger or not. The vaccines slow the spread, that much has been proven. Reducing risk where human life is concerned is always worth it. I didn't want this shot. I don't trust it and don't feel a need or personal fear making me want it(always had an overpowered immune system). I got it for everyone around me. Just because Covid either won't hurt me, or minimally if it does is not good enough to put others in more danger than necessary. Small price to pay for both my family and those not related. A human life is worth far more than my personal rights of avoiding an extraordinarily rare complication

*EDIT* I'm not calling myself a saint. Just suggesting one looks at their rights versus the endless stream of other's rights that we spend time around.