As New Zealand battles the Covid-19 Delta variant and debates reopening to the rest of the world, the United States offers some insights and lessons on what might be ahead.
In a Zoom interview with interest.co.nz, Patrick Watson, the Austin, Texas based senior economic analyst at Mauldin Economics, notes the US is now battling its fourth Covid wave with this one being Delta. However Watson describes the pandemic as optional in the US now.
"In the United States at least, the vaccines are readily available. If you choose to have it then you're pretty safe...Unfortunately a large part of the population has chosen not to for reasons I don't understand in many cases. So in those regions where the vaccination rates are lower, it is sweeping through and causing problems, filling hospitals almost exclusively with people who were not vaccinated. Many of these cases are very severe and death rates are starting to rise. It is a problem for those areas. For the rest of us, [we] can go on pretty much as normal," Watson says.
However, what that normal looks like differs depending on what part of the US you are in.
"The vaccine passports for just normal life, to get into restaurants or theatres or this sort of thing, that is happening in some states. New York is in the lead on that. But it varies a lot by state. Here in Texas they have actually made that against the law. Businesses are not allowed to even ask customers if they've been vaccinated or not, which to my way of thinking is crazy but that is the law now," says Watson.
Meanwhile, mandatory vaccination demands from employers are becoming more common.
"President Biden has ordered that for all the Federal Government's workers and for the military who are not already vaccinated. Many large companies are either mandating it or encouraging it by giving additional payments or incentives. So that is happening. I think it will have an effect. How much of an effect I don't know yet. Some universities are requiring it of their students, others in places like Texas and Florida, they're not allowed to. So it's going to be very effective in some places and have almost no effect in others."
"Customers need to feel safe in order to go places and spend money. So doing this is actually quite critical to get the economy back to its prior level," Watson adds.
Although figures out this week suggested about 75% of adults in the US have had at least one vaccine dose, Watson says surveys suggest about 20% of adults won't get vaccinated no matter what. Currently children under 12 aren't allowed to get vaccinated, although this may change in coming months.
"We may get to 70% of the eligible population fully vaccinated maybe by year end...[But] that is not going to be enough, the epidemiologists say, to get us to the herd immunity that we used to hear about. So we will continue wrestling with this," says Watson.
And with the virus also continuing to spread and mutate around the world sometimes in places with low vaccination rates, Watson expects rolling waves to continue with more new variants emerging.
"World War II lasted four, five, six years depending on the country [involvement]. I think this is going to last that long before it's over with, I really do," says Watson.
In the video he also talks about the US Infrastructure Bill recently passed by the Senate, the country's infrastructure needs and climate change.
Meanwhile on Friday, after the interview with Watson, President Biden announced that all US companies with at least 100 employees must mandate vaccines or employees must undergo weekly testing.
"The bottom line [is] we're going to protect vaccinated workers from unvaccinated coworkers," Biden said.
*This article was first published in our email for paying subscribers. See here for more details and how to subscribe.
147 Comments
" President Biden announced that all US companies with at least 100 employees must mandate vaccines or employees must undergo weekly testing." Ha - that's a motivator if there ever was one. A brief prick or regularly getting that damned cotton swab shoved into painful places in your sinus? He hasn't mandated the method of testing, but could do. Pussies will opt for saliva tests to avoid any kind of pain.
Try a week. My brother lives in Rio and his partner caught Covid when he stopped to eat at a roadside cafe en route to Sao Paulo. Luckily he recovered but got very sick. I saw the pictures on WhatsApp. It was a very stressful time for my whole family and the closest we've come to an encounter with this pandemic.
With people dropping like flies over there, you'd think that there would be less buy-in with conspiracy theories, but no. My brother was incredulous after a brief discussion with a man who worked at a shop nearby his apartment who was deep in Covid denial. A week later said brother rang me and reported that the man had contracted Covid and was now dead.
How is it a scare story if it's the truth? It's fab that lots of people get it and recover. Likewise people like you and I are getting it and dying or getting long term / permanent injuries. Rare but it's happening. This situation hasn't presented itself with any other easily transmissible diseases in my lifetime. It's a situation that requires a response, which is why understanding these relatively rare situations is important as it doesn't discriminate. You might be in great health but have an unknown genetic weakness which means you are vulnerable to this version of sars.
Knowing these things will help people act accordingly.
Thank you Solve_it. I'm wondering if the person making the previous comment watched the video posted above. The economist said there are two classes emerging in the US: those that have had the vaccine and can go about their day with a few inconveniences like wearing a mask indoors and those who haven't and are filling up the hospitals/dying. I know which group I'm happy to be in.
A brief prick or regularly getting that damned cotton swab shoved into painful places in your sinus?
The US has other testing methods available, eg saliva. They also do rapid antigen tests. They're not as accurate/effective as the PCR nasal tests we do in NZ, but they're much less invasive.
Another reason for why we do PCR tests here is that the sample on the swab can then be genomically analysed, which is important when you're trying to contact trace and eliminate a cluster. The US isn't trying to eliminate COVID.
>Or maybe it's a great big Darwin Award for the anti-vaxxers.
There's not a lot of anti-vaxxers out there, but there is a lot of anti mRNA vaccine sentiment and as time goes on the the mounting evidence questioning the safety of these vaccines is being suppressed by governments, media and big tech.
These are still experimental vaccines, are you the guinea pig?
Maybe they are safe, maybe they are harmful.
the truth is out there
Sure, and mostly it should be up to scientists, people who are expert in their field, to be questioning the science. Not lay people who just go off their reckons.
A huge amount of regulation of new drugs now exists precisely because of thalidomide. That's not to say mistakes like that can't still happen, but they're much less rare and generally much less severe these days.
scientific findings are political 100% and only those that fit the narrative are promoted.
Look at the superstar Dr Fauci
Ends up the virus did start in the Wuhan Lab and that Fauci was authorising the funding of the research, including gain of function
Sometimes there is a lot of talk from experts on the surface claiming to be science but...
The truth is out there
So you think any government in this world would let a truly independent international investigation team come in, access freely any info, organisation or building they desire to establish "beyond reasonable doubt" guilt that the virus originated in their lab...? LOL
I would saying thinking for yourself requires a hard look at your sources of information and questioning those first.
Secondly taking a hard look at ones self, dissolving any political bias or notions that are making you lean towards a particular decision. Scientific answers are not political and a vaccination decision should be purely a scientific decision.
Once everybody has had his/her chance to be vaccinated, the NZ Government should create a new law removing the right to any form of public healthcare, in relation to Covid treatment, from anybody who elects not to be vaccinated.
This law would exempt anybody who, for proven medical reasons or age ineligibility ( < 12 years old) cannot be safely vaccinated.
People should be free to decide whether or not be vaccinated, but the taxpayer and the public healthcare system should not pay the consequence for the stupidity of these anti-vaxxers. Moreover, vaccination should be mandated by law in all cases of individuals performing jobs or activities (such as teacher, emergency workers and the medical profession, for example) that require ongoing and constant contact with the public at large.
The law should also make it clear that employers have the legal right to sack any employees who do not want to be vaccinated, and who are not exempt because of medical reasons. Individual freedom also means that an employer is free to make sure that her/his work environment is safe for herself/himself and her/his other employees. Individual freedom also means taking ownership and accountability for her/his own individual choices. Feel free not to get vaccinated, but then don't come whinging to the public healthcare system if things go wrong because of your choices.
People should be free to decide whether or not be vaccinated, but the taxpayer and the public healthcare system should not pay the consequence for the stupidity of these anti-vaxxers.
Do you feel the same way about other health conditions? Should we withhold healthcare from fatties, smokers and diabetics?
Suppose someone gets in a car crash while speeding, should they be shit out of luck?
I don't think we should choose who is worthy of healthcare based on a moral judgement of that persons choices - it makes for a very slippery slope.
Fatties, smokers and diabetics aren't disease vectors that affect others, and en-masse overwhelm a health system that was not designed to carry them.
The point is that COVID is new, the health system hasn't been designed for it, it spreads very quickly and a fairly high proportion of people who get it need hospital care (compared to say, the flu) for long lengths of time (earlier research I did indicated a typical influenza hospital stay was 5-10 days, but COVID is usually at least 10).
There also aren't cheap and effective interventions for fatties, smokers and diabetics, in the form of 2 injections of a vaccine, that substantially improve their health outcomes - if there were, then yeah, we should apply the same logic to those health issues as well.
So it is logical that COVID could be treated differently from fatties, smokers and diabetics, because it has different inherent characteristics.
Comorbidity and its Impact on Patients with COVID-19
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7314621/
Underlying Medical Conditions in Covid-19
Hypertension: 49.7%
Obesity 48.3%
Chronic Lung Disease: 34.60%
Diabetes 28.3%
Cardiovascular disease 27.8%
The biggest factor is still your genetics. You can have none of those issues but still die and yet other people hardly even knew they had it. Perhaps later when they are not making so much money from the vaccines someone may look at another way of looking at your risk profile using your DNA.
I will put it another way. So you have no underlying medical conditions as above and your also fit, would you not prefer to know you risk profile so it would essentially let you know if you even need to take the jab or not ? If I knew in advance that getting Covid will have next to no affect on me then no way I would get vaccinated. Basically I'm left looking at how if affected my unvaccinated cousin who got Covid at the start and it was a non event for her so that's improving the odds for me that it would be a non event for me also. So yes if your fit and healthy its all down to your genetics.
By that token, how do we know that a smokers lung cancer is caused by smoking?
As far as I'm concerned, universal health care should be universal. Trying to exclude people based on their choices or perceived moral failings seems to have too many edge cases to be worthwhile according to my reckons.
Type 2 diabetes while has a risk factor of overweight, also has other factors:
from https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/library/features/diabetes-causes.html "We don’t know exactly why this happens", risk factors include:
- Have prediabetes.
- Are overweight.
- Are 45 years or older.
- Have a parent, brother, or sister with type 2 diabetes.
- Are physically active for less than 150 minutes a week.
- Have ever had gestational diabetes (diabetes during pregnancy) or given birth to a baby who weighed more than 9 pounds.
- Are African American, Hispanic/Latino American, American Indian, or Alaska Native (some Pacific Islanders and Asian Americans are also at higher risk).
So it maybe that though no fault of your own you develop diabetes. Anyway all the things you have mentioned are not easily cured they require life long commitment to maintaining. It is not as simple as taking 30 minutes out of your life to get 2 vaccinations, that is a choice that anybody can make, and take back at any time.
It's a big ask but I suggest smokers should be licensed. They need a license to buy tobacco, or like drivers, they need to be able to produce that license on demand to the authorities. That license would have conditions attached like purchasing or funding a health insurance policy, or specifically excluding them from some parts of publically funded health care. But there'd have to be a causal link required too, but the wrinkles could be worked through.
That's never going to fly in NZ. It puts you on a slippery slope too, next no treatment for all commonly vaccinated illnesses (measles, etc.), then no treatment for diseases like lung cancer in smokers, next no treatment for most cases of type 2 diabetes (it was your choice to eat that much), next no treatment for a variety of diseases if you don't get your 30 minutes of exercise each day ...
morepork - it already exists to a lesser extent in NZ -- ACC will no longer cover you if your injury took place whilst you were committing a criminal activity - ie a car accident in a stolen vehicle if you were the driver - and that is creeping further - oh yes the hospital will still treat you -- but no weekly compensation, no lump sum and no rehabilitation supports --
You can gauruntee that plenty of conversations have already taken place about how to exclude people due to obesity and diabetes - especially if the injury occurred as a result of poor management of their illness or the chair collapses because of their weight - only a matter of time !
Once everybody has had his/her chance to be lose weight, the NZ Government should create a new law removing the right to any form of public healthcare, in relation to metabolic diseases, from anybody who is overweight.
This law would exempt anybody who, for proven medical reasons or age ineligibility ( < 12 years old) cannot be safely lose weight.
People should be free to decide whether or not lose weight, but the taxpayer and the public healthcare system should not pay the consequence for the stupidity of these fat people. Moreover, weight loss should be mandated by law in all cases of individuals performing jobs or activities (such as teacher, emergency workers and the medical profession, for example) that require ongoing and constant contact with the public at large.
The law should also make it clear that employers have the legal right to sack any employees who do not want to lose wight, and who are not exempt because of medical reasons. Individual freedom also means that an employer is free to make sure that her/his work environment is safe for herself/himself and her/his other employees. Individual freedom also means taking ownership and accountability for her/his own individual choices. Feel free not to lose weight, but then don't come whinging to the public healthcare system if things go wrong because of your choices.
You would have to also refuse medical care to those injured while intoxicated or speeding or texting while driving because these are similarly antisocial traits. I’m not disagreeing with the hard line approach. Maybe instead they should lose their right to free health care in these situations but still have some access.
Death and injury rate for alcohol abuse and high speed motor vehicle incidents not a topic of interest sadly compared to covid vaccination.
There is a technical terms for the unvaccinated or those in the above groups and that is….
How would this work in practice?
Patient is admitted to A&E with difficulty breathing, perhaps low blood oxygen etc. Treatment obviously starts pretty quickly to stabilise the patient.
Meanwhile, a covid test is administered and several hours (days?) later confirms the patient currently receiving treatment has Covid. A nurse runs off and checks the database to see if the patient is vaccinated. Negative.
OK, pull out those tubes, dump the patient outside A&E, and bill them for the treatment they have just received. To be paid by their relatives if they die on the Hospital doorstep.
I don't know many healthcare workers who would enact this policy.
So you show up with a broken leg, but aren't vaccinated for Covid so must pay for the costs?
I'm fully vaccinated and support the vaccine, but I do not want to see policy refusing healthcare to people making different decisions. Universal healthcare is something to be cherished and I don't want to see cracks appearing in the walls.
Easy solution for mandatory vaccination in the workplace.
If you want to mandate vaccination on the basis that it is your responsibility as an employer, that is fine, and a logical position IMO. But in doing so you need to accept that you are effectively assuming liability for the spread of any transmissible disease (like any other cold, flu etc) within the workplace.
You also need to accept responsibility and liability for any side effects that an employee might experience. Side effects are so rare that you surely wouldn't worry about the implications of that as an employer, right?
If you're happy with both of these conditions, then mandate away for all I care ... as long as you've got ideological consistency and accept the ramifications thereof.
They probably wouldn't. But catching it would be less consequential, perhaps by an order of magnitude, and spreading it would be less likely meaning that large damaging outbreaks are less likely. Perhaps simple measures like crowd size restrictions and mask wearing will be enough to snuff them out, rather than sending 80% of the population home as we have to now.
The more unvaccinated there are in the chain, the bigger and more damaging the outbreaks will be.
This is a very confusing time. The vaccine advisory body in the UK is refusing to green light jabbing kids 12-15 because they are at such low risk that jabs would offer only a marginal benefit (BBC last week). Now the goverment is apparently pressuring them to change this .... When i got the vaccines (here in NZ) I had a different understanding of why I was doing it but cannot see how it can be forced on anyone now that we know that it does not protect against getting/spreading delta and next variants (and may now make a diff choice). I understand that our healthcare system can't handle an outbreak because of high obesity and low per capita ICU beds but now some are trying to suggest authoritarian push to mandate for all rather thanadress these two issues..I cannot understand why govs are getting companies to blackmail people into doing something they shoulnt need to (youth, natural immunity etc) So confused.
It doesn't protect against delta but it reduces severity, likelihood of catching it, therefore likelihood of transmitting it to others who may suffer a worse fate than you.
I agree delta has changed the game and it's not an overwhelmingly black and white situation like before but all my reading to date indicates it is still of clear benefit to have the vaccine for yourself, and certainly for society, and that the alternative (not getting the vaccine) has a much higher likelihood of negative impacts for all concerned.
"Delta has changed the game" ... or has it just changed the message?
Just terrible all round, highly emotional non rational language, manipulation of facts by inclusion of certain elements with deliberate exclusion of others. It insulted my intelligence and I am disappointed in myself for continuing past the first paragraph because you similarly asked at the time what it was that I specifically agreed or disagreed with. Ain't nobody got time for that. I will not click on any more of your links!
For vaccinating kids, the risk rewards have got to be looked at, their risk of death from covid one in a million. whereas the risk from the vaccine as below from MOH - 1 in 1000 to 1 in 10000.
"Rare side effects
Temporary one-sided facial drooping and temporary inflammation of the heart wall (myocarditis) have been reported as rare side effects, affecting every 1 in 1,000 to 1 in 10,000 people."
COVID-19: Vaccine side effects and reactions | Ministry of Health NZ
Not so sure. Some years ago I watched a doco on artificial heart technology and the doco spent a bit of time exploring the case of an older African American who had a history of heart failure, had just had a major heart attack, and they were looking for someone who would be receptive to having an artificial heart implanted. His life expectancy was at best, months. Johns Hopkins was supervising the experiment. this chap had the heart implanted for 3 or 6 months. At the end of it they took it out because his heart had completely healed itself. His ECGs showed absolutely no sign of heart muscle/tissue damage, and all the other tests did the same. The secret seems to be take the load off the heart, let it rest and natural processes do the rest. I doubt that it would work in every case, but i don't understand why we don't hear about this more other than the sheer cost.
"inflammation of the heart wall (myocarditis) have been reported as rare side effects, affecting every 1 in 1,000 to 1 in 10,000 people."
This is my primary concern. Why should I take a 1 in 10,000 risk (being conservative) of what is quite a severe illness, when the risk of being infected and having severe symptoms from Covid is diminishingly small?
I've been frustrated at the authorities reluctance to release clear statistics on the number of deaths attributed to Covid for young <40, healthy (no issues, healthy BMI) people. The data is often poorly stratified, for example "under 50s" - why do we have 21 years olds mixed with 49 year olds? The data is never stratified by BMI. My suspicion is that there's a deliberate effort to obfuscate the real risks to young and healthy people, in an effort to use fear to drive vaccination.
I agree npc, there must be the statistics out there already that would enable you to build your own risk profile instead of the "Just Jab everyone" approach. Would we not be a whole lot better off by letting those that have a decent immune system fight this off naturally ? Also I just don't get those people that have already had Covid and it was a non event for them and yet they still went out and got the jab. Some people are really blinded by science.
There is actually. Oxford University built a tool where you can input your age weight underlying conditions etc and it gives you a probability of outcome. Link is below.
Interesting. But only calculates risk relating to data collected from the first wave (alpha) in the UK.
Would be really helpful if they updated it relating to delta outcomes, but they're probably starting to run out of unvaccinated people to collect a decent data set from.
I am currently in Colorado and have been in both the US and NZ since covid began. Within a few weeks of getting here (May this year) I got the vaccine and haven't been effected by covid at all and would compare it to level 1, only having to wear masks on planes and in ubers. Ironically, went to the Indy 500 (circa 150k attendance) and the only people wearing masks were the mask ambassadors.
Life is good and normal here, and no worrying about lockdowns on the horizon.
Don't want to downplay all the bad that has happened from it all, but once people have been vaccinated what more can you do without destroying peoples livelihood.
Arguing from a point of scientific literacy won't work when the other person has derived their position from ignorance. The Immunisation Advisory Centre has shown that vaccine hesitancy has many drivers but a genuine critique around safety is seldom the main motivator. I've argued long and hard with friends about MMR vaccines and autism, the falsefied data, Wakefield being struck off, retrospective cohort analysis of children showing no relationship, no plausible biological explanation.....waste of time.
If you want to increase uptake either offer a carrot (payment) or a stick e.g. travel restrictions, inability to enter premises such as movie theatres/bars.
Personally, I can't see NZ getting more than 80% of adults vaccinated in the next 12-months. When the next variant of concern comes along we'll have a real party. Mu looks to be more infectious than delta.
I hope you are right. I would prefer 95%.
At 85% for every 20 people I meet I have 3 chances of catching Covid and then until developing symptoms I may infect 3 other people. Assuming I meet 20 per day and I am infectious for 2 days then that is 7 people infected (includes myself). At 95% that changes to one third the chance of being infected and then only 3 people infected. So that extra 10% vaccination rate actually reduces the chance of outbreaks by a factor of 7.
OK in the real world vaccinated people are being infected but to a lesser extent and some individuals meet hundreds of strangers daily (bus drivers). But the basic maths is high levels of vaccination are remarkably rewarding for society. So it makes sense to persuade everyone to be vaccinated.
What a load of innumerate nonsense. Do you seriously think that the 15% are walking around permanently infected and contagious? The irony is, once they've caught and recovered from the virus once, their antibodies actually give them more durable protection from the virus than the flaky Pfizer.
One thing I suspect strongly but would be very hard to measure, is that on average people choosing not to get vaccinated are a lot less social and integrated into society.
Think people with enough dead time to be sucked into a disinformation wormhole on YouTube.
Hopefully this means they will spread the virus less.
My personal experience is that the source of the conspiracies is quite an antisocial person who doesn't work, feels excluded by society etc, but the wider family in a dysfunctional show of support are all on board. They are all highly social, go to work each day etc.
So the theory would be nice but unfortunately it will likely get messy around the edges.
Research from UMR for New Zealand indicates 5% will definitely not get the vaccine, down from 7% in July.
A further 5% will probably not get the vaccine down from 9% in July.
So Delta is having an impact, but still around 10% will likely not want to be vaccinated.
It'll drop further and further, as people they know get vaccinated, and once COVID comes to NZ when we open up next year. The longer the vaccines exist, getting more clinical support and no scandals about side-effects, the less distrusting people will become. Seems the government is also going to get Novavax next year, which is a more traditional vaccine than Pfizer and at least as effective. There may be provisions for people who refuse Pfizer to get a double dose of Novavax.
I sincerely hope there are such provisions.
If the aim of the vaccination program and all the "tough talk" around vaccine passports, mandates in workplaces etc is to genuinely encourage uptake, then allowing people who are hesitant about mRNA vaccines to take an alternative option can only be a good idea.
Either every vaccination counts, or it doesn't, so anything that is a "carrot measure" like this is a good idea.
no scandals about side-effects, the less distrusting people will become....
Sheep arent interested in data
Luckily that page has its own disclaimer about the information it contains:
VAERS accepts reports of adverse events and reactions that occur following vaccination. Healthcare providers, vaccine manufacturers, and the public can submit reports to the system. While very important in monitoring vaccine safety, VAERS reports alone cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event or illness. The reports may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable. In large part, reports to VAERS are voluntary, which means they are subject to biases. This creates specific limitations on how the data can be used scientifically. Data from VAERS reports should always be interpreted with these limitations in mind.
- The number of reports alone cannot be interpreted or used to reach conclusions about the existence, severity, frequency, or rates of problems associated with vaccines.
LOL ...
Yip - a system setup by the US govt to help monitor "side-effects" isnt reliable
Sounds like we dont have any feedback loop then?
BTW - is there any disclaimer on the number of "cases" we have ....? PCR tests were never designed for this mass testing .. false positives etc
Is there any disclaimer of deaths WITH covid versus BY covid?
Novavax is preferable. I plan to hold out and use this vaccine. I'm concerned about the myocarditis side effect in younger males from the mRNA vaccines (which appears to be under-reported). This is not a position of ignorance, a conspiracy theorist or stupidity.
When I evaluate the risk of :
Becoming infected with Covid in an almost Covid free country, then having severe symptoms (extremely low to the point that it is international front page news when it happens)
Vs.
The relatively high chance of mild symptoms and very low chance of severe side effects from an mRNA vaccine...
I prefer waiting. If this country is to remain relatively free, it should respect and allow that. If we're forced to medicate, our personal sovereignty is gone.
Those at risk from Covid should vaccinate as soon as possible.
I think your risk assessment is flawed. The incidence of myocarditis in young males after the 2nd shot of Pfizer is 8 per million, and most cases resolve quickly.
The death rate from Covid in that age group is .2%, plus all the other complications like long Covid.
You're right here in terms of risk assessment as a 'mathematical expression'. I don't deny at all that the risk of dying from Covid in any adult age group is far greater than your risk of getting serious side effects like myocarditis.
However, what I am greatly opposed to in all of this (with regards to talk about vax passports for entry into domestic venues, employment etc) is forcing people who are genuinely concerned about the risk of a side effect into compliance via the effective threat of exclusion from society.
Statistics and probabilities turn real people into numbers, and a lot of nuance is lost in this approach.
For example, I have a close friend who recently had a miscarriage, and this has had a severe impact on her mental health etc. She is genuinely terrified that the vaccine might affect her fertility and prevent her from becoming pregnant or add to the risk of a future miscarriage. She wants to wait until she has had at least one child before being vaccinated.
Statistics dictate her fears are unfounded, and she has more to fear from Covid than the vaccination. But irrespective of the statistical falsehood of her belief, let me tell you her fear is very real to her and that is what matters.
I have another friend who lost a brother in his early 20s to myocarditis. He was fit young man, played competitive sports at a high level etc. One night he was headed home from an event and fell unconscious, and then passed away several days later due to heart failure brought on by myocarditis. You try look his brother in the eye and tell him that myocarditis is nothing to worry about (I saw a Stuff article not long ago make this claim, with regards to Covid vaccination).
Fears such as these may be wholly irrational from a statistical/mathematical perspective - but they are very real to the person concerned, and this is why I cannot support mandating vaccination (or effectively mandating it by proxy by making life difficult for the unvaccinated).
I've seen that data you cite, and don't doubt it at all.
But being illogical/irrational - especially with regards to fear - is part of human nature in many respects.
To quote Bertrand Russell:
“Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.”
It doesn't matter what the stats say, if that fear of getting myocarditis from the Pfizer vaccine outweighs the fear of getting myocarditis from Covid, then that is what is real to that individual.
In the NZ-specific context, for as long as we have a de facto elimination policy in place, this line of thought actually makes reasonable sense ... if I take the vaccine I am guaranteed to be at risk of potential side effects, whereas the risk of getting Covid right now in NZ is very low indeed due to the lockdown, especially for those of us living outside of Auckland.
In some respects, it's a bit like playing the lottery. A quick Google indicates that you are about five times more likely to be struck by lightning than you are to win the jackpot. Buying lottery tickets is completely and utterly irrational, but how many in society line up and do it anyway despite the odds being so stacked up against them? Because even though statistics are against them, the chance of winning feels so much more real than mere mathematics suggests. In fact, lotto players should be more concerned to wear rubber-soled shoes when they go outside!
Can you share that data please.
My understanding is that myocarditis from covid19 infection is astonishingly rare[reference 1] whereas myocarditis from vaccination is relatively common, roughly one in 86 thousand, according to the officially reported New Zealand data.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1553838920304978
[2] https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/COVID-19/safety-report-25.asp
Up to 1 in 1000 or so according to this study on teenagers. Small numbers and not causal, just whether myocarditis occurred within 90 days of a covid diagnosis, excluding patients with known heart conditions so likely to overestimate to some extent.
Still close to 2 orders of magnitude more common than from the vaccine according to your source.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.23.21260998v1
Teenage Boys Six Times More Likely To Suffer Heart Problems From Vaccine Than Be Hospitalized by COVID
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.30.21262866v1
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/boys…
Well, that just about covers it.
You don’t gain natural immunity to covid once you've been vaccinated. After vaccination, and whenever you're exposed to covid virus your memory B cells will recall the antigens/epitopes from your first spike protein exposure. If that's from the pfizer bioNtech vaccine this means you'll have antibodies which are tuned to a genetically modified version of the 2020 version of the spike protein where the receptor binding domain is locked into an open configuration. This could be a big problem in the future https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mSphere.00056-21
This country is now an international laughing stock. The death rate from Covid is about 0.15% (J Ioannidis), ie the same as the flu and we are becoming a socialist hermit queendom. Every media source, every leader and every official has been lying to us for 18 months.
The Pfizer jab is useless. In Israel, 80% of hospitalisations are double vaccinated, so why should any Kiwi take it? The spike protein (not the virus) crosses the blood brain barrier causing neurological damage in Covid and vaccinated victims. And why would any youngish, pregnant female port worker take the jab when Pfizer only tested the poison for 3 months on pregnant women? - not nine months.
Criminal charges need to be laid against our leaders who have authorised a provisionally approved "vaccine" for mass roll out. American VAERS/CDC data indicates 14,000 dead which indicates about 100 dead here. God speed to lawyer Sue Grey in the High Court on September 21 to stop the 2020 "Vaccination Order". I pray a crusty High Court judge realises that the media have caused the nation of the All Blacks to become a nation of brain washed, cowards.
I'm really hoping that the vaccine is OK. But if it's not, what do you think that the 20% who have been shamed or coerced into taking it are going to do?
The Russian Revolution will look like a cakewalk.
This is the Pascal's Wager argument against mandatory vaccination.
The bottom line is now I don't believe anything put out on Covid by the government, the media or otherwise. The MSM is censored to death and anything opposing it ends up on YouTube and comes across as being made by conspiracy theorists and complete nut jobs. The number of people who have had Covid has been underreported and the side effects from the vaccines have been underreported. People only tend to get the figures right when someone actually dies. Your left to go with your gut feeling and an honest personal risk assessment. On that basis I have decided NOT to get vaccinated at this stage. Only time will tell if that's the right decision but its mine and not someone else's. Alternative vaccines will become available and the risk assessment is constantly changing.
Talk about laughing stock. You can't even interpret your sensationalized nonsense data correctly. I suggest letting the adults do the data analysis.
https://www.covid-datascience.com/post/israeli-data-how-can-efficacy-vs…
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