TOPIC: Try discussing here....

bpsymington wrote: I just read that Missouri is having a significant rise in cases, especially the new Delta variant. Very low vax rates in MO.

We’re at the Missouri border. My parents live in the county north of us (which is in Missouri) and their local vax rate is in the teens. There mentality of where they live, in general (which correlates the earlier data point), is one big reason why I don’t live there anymore (even though I could live there for free (separate house) and it would just add 30 minutes to my commute).

Since there has been discussion about vaccinating children, I thought I'd post the latest WHO guidance on it as FYI:

The World Health Organization issued new guidance on childhood vaccinations on Monday. The WHO’s current advice for parents who have plans to get their children vaccinated is to await further investigation of the vaccines.

“Children should not be vaccinated for the moment,” the WHO said. “There is not yet enough evidence on the use of vaccines against COVID-19 in children to make recommendations for children to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Children and adolescents tend to have milder disease compared to adults. However, children should continue to have the recommended childhood vaccines.”

Mike Steele wrote: Since there has been discussion about vaccinating children, I thought I'd post the latest WHO guidance on it as FYI:

The World Health Organization issued new guidance on childhood vaccinations on Monday. The WHO’s current advice for parents who have plans to get their children vaccinated is to await further investigation of the vaccines.

“Children should not be vaccinated for the moment,” the WHO said. “There is not yet enough evidence on the use of vaccines against COVID-19 in children to make recommendations for children to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Children and adolescents tend to have milder disease compared to adults. However, children should continue to have the recommended childhood vaccines.”

The trials for kids under 12 won't be done until late August, early September, so that guidance is pretty much standard. A lot of people that have been griping about the WHO probably won't care either way since they didn't follow their guidance in the last year. I am pretty sure the main reason GHC is requiring masks is because kids under 12 can't get vaccinated yet.

balthasar wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: Since there has been discussion about vaccinating children, I thought I'd post the latest WHO guidance on it as FYI:

The World Health Organization issued new guidance on childhood vaccinations on Monday. The WHO’s current advice for parents who have plans to get their children vaccinated is to await further investigation of the vaccines.

“Children should not be vaccinated for the moment,” the WHO said. “There is not yet enough evidence on the use of vaccines against COVID-19 in children to make recommendations for children to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Children and adolescents tend to have milder disease compared to adults. However, children should continue to have the recommended childhood vaccines.”

The trials for kids under 12 won't be done until late August, early September, so that guidance is pretty much standard. A lot of people that have been griping about the WHO probably won't care either way since they didn't follow their guidance in the last year. I am pretty sure the main reason GHC is requiring masks is because kids under 12 can't get vaccinated yet.

I thought GHC was NOT requiring masks, but was requiring vaccines?

Edit: "Masks will likely not be required"

Wade Schwendemann (Dr. Uid) wrote:

balthasar wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: Since there has been discussion about vaccinating children, I thought I'd post the latest WHO guidance on it as FYI:

The World Health Organization issued new guidance on childhood vaccinations on Monday. The WHO’s current advice for parents who have plans to get their children vaccinated is to await further investigation of the vaccines.

“Children should not be vaccinated for the moment,” the WHO said. “There is not yet enough evidence on the use of vaccines against COVID-19 in children to make recommendations for children to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Children and adolescents tend to have milder disease compared to adults. However, children should continue to have the recommended childhood vaccines.”

The trials for kids under 12 won't be done until late August, early September, so that guidance is pretty much standard. A lot of people that have been griping about the WHO probably won't care either way since they didn't follow their guidance in the last year. I am pretty sure the main reason GHC is requiring masks is because kids under 12 can't get vaccinated yet.

I thought GHC was NOT requiring masks, but was requiring vaccines?

Edit: "Masks will likely not be required"

My bad, I was confusing it with Gen Con. Yes, vaccinations are required. I am hoping Gen Con keeps the masks for requirement.

Brad Mortensen wrote:

bpsymington wrote:
I think the vaccines are well past "experimental." Yes, in the US they are still under an EUA, but they are not new - they are based on research that has been conducted for years.

I've heard that argument before, so I assume it isn't original with you, but it strikes me as specious. Just because a certain class of vaccines has been studied for years doesn't mean that any particular vaccine in that class is safe. It would be like me telling my boss, "Computer science and the C# language have been thoroughly studied for decades. This software was written in C# so why test it? Let's just go straight to production." The difference is, none of our software will kill anyone if we get it wrong. And yes, part of both computer and medical science is thorough testing - a step these vaccines skipped. If you feel the testing was adequate for you and your family to take it, that's up to you.

@Mike Steele- thank you. Almost everyone I know has gotten one of these vaccines or another, so I sincerely hope I'm wrong to be concerned. It wouldn't be the first time. If I was convinced I was right I would have been begging everyone I know not to get it.

Brad - I would encourage you to reconsider. I've spent a lot of time with public health departments for my work (we created a tool to help them track Covid transmission vectors.) It's forced us to, unfortunately, become unusually well educated about how covid is transmitted and how outbreaks can be detected. The odds of you catching covid if you aren't vaccinated are quite high even with others getting vaccinated.

First, though, emergency use authorization isn't the same as experimental. We're far past trial stages where we don't know what will happen in great detail. That would have been early summer of 2020. Even then, the root of the vaccine had for Pfizer and Moderna had years of clinical testing against other Coronaviruses. The only vaccine available in the US that had any significant side effects was J&J with blood clots. That was paused over a risk tolerance that is less than what is accepted as the norm for almost any other vaccine and orders of magnitude lower than what you see in traditional pharma. I ran a sales division for Novartis in the early 90's - we were taught about how to present a drug or vaccine as a risk benefit argument.

The odds of having a serious side effect, especially one impacting the heart or circulation, from Pfizer, Moderna, or J&J is 0.005%. Worldwide, that has been less than 8,000 people. Anaphylaxis accounted for the vast majority of those reactions and occurred at, roughly, the same rate you see with flu and pneumonia vaccinations. World-wide 3 people total have died from the vaccines available to Americans - all three were blood clots from J&J. Your odds of dying from the vaccine are 1 in 50,000,000 (based on 150M fully vaccinated adults in the US.)

The other side of the coin...

So far, 10% of the United State Population has caught Covid (33.5M cases.) Today's variants are several times more infectious but that's lessened by half the country being vaccinated. If you aren't vaccinated, it is reasonable to assume you have a 1 in 10 chance every year of catching Covid. 600,000 people of those 33.5M died. Although data is showing that the death count is higher due to undiagnosed cases, let's use the 600K. That gives a mortality rate of 1.7%. However, treatments are better today than every before and if you have resources at your disposal, you can get the best treatments. Let's cut the 1.7% down to 0.6% (the current CDC estimated mortality rate.)

That math says your chances every 12 months of Covid killing an adult (kids have higher survival rates and elders have lower survival rates) is 0.06% or 1 in 1,650. The odds of the vaccine killing an adult American are 1 in 50,000,000. What people forget are the long-term disabilities Covid can cause. 10% of cases result in hospitalizations and 33% of those result in long term heart, lung, or brain damage. Yes, the odds of death are only 0.06% but the odds of being crippled from it are 1 in 333.

Brad - I'd encourage you to discuss getting vaccinated with your cardiologist. I would be shocked if they didn't tell you to immediately get vaccinated. Covid is a vascular disease, not a lung disease like a lot of people think. It changes how blood is handled and processed. Blood clots are very common for serious Covid cases - it's why the stroke rate for younger adults with Covid are terrifyingly high.

Whatever you decide, be well.

Fred

BeLinda Mathie wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: Keep in mind, the vaccinated rate is only part of the story. Everyone that has had COVID (even those that never realized they had it) have antibodies in their system that are more effective than a vaccine at preventing COVID.

Respectfully, the statement about antibodies acquired from COVID infection being “more effective than a vaccine at preventing COVID” does not appear to be correct. Per Johns Hopkins “Vaccination offers longer, stronger immunity.” This is why public health officials are encouraging people who have recovered from COVID to also get vaccinated. From the linked article:

If you’ve been infected, you have some protection. But that immunity has limits. The biggest limit is that it doesn’t last as long as we would like it to.

Studies have shown that people who have been infected can benefit significantly from vaccination. It gives them a strong, lasting immunity boost. After receiving the first dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, they have immunity levels comparable to those of uninfected people who have received their second dose.

I would go a step further than Belinda did here. Brazil demonstrated how little prior infection matters. Data from Brazil is showing that prior infection had negligible impact on b.1.135 and the newer p1 variant. Infection rates for Brazillians who had a prior Covid infection mirrors the general population as does the death rates.

We don't build long term immunity to coronaviruses. Because of how they mutate, old infections have little bearing on getting one again. If we did build immunity just from infection, the common cold (a coronavirus) would have died off generations ago. The vaccines, however, (especially the MRNA versions) teach the body how to respond to a wider range of Coronaviruses by introducing a more generic template rather than a specific version. Even so, the vaccines will likely need boosters modifying them to better handle the new variants. Both the p1 and Indian variants are much more dangerous than prior version.

www.nytimes.com/2021/03/01/health/covid-19-coronavirus-brazil-variant.html

Unfortunately, because we can't convince everyone to get vaccinated so we can eradicate this, this will be a long-term problem for years to come. I wonder if people fought the same way to not get vaccinated against Polio.

Fred

I know GC is still considering policies as health conditions improve and local/state/federal mandates. I am hoping they will require attendees to be vaccinated; then they could drop the masking requirements. Whatever they decide, I will be there.

Unfortunately we are likely to see an outbreak of the Delta variant and possibly others in areas with low vaccination rates.

bpsymington wrote: Unfortunately we are likely to see an outbreak of the Delta variant and possibly others in areas with low vaccination rates.

Missouri and Arkansas are working hard to ensure that happens it would seem. I worry for my parents. My dad works with the public and they're doing what they can. My mom doesn't work...Mitchell and I can just stay home. I'm more worried about gencon than I was before. We've had more places have to shut down due to fully vaccinated breakthrough cases since my last comment on that

bpsymington wrote: Unfortunately we are likely to see an outbreak of the Delta variant and possibly others in areas with low vaccination rates.

This thread is filled with good and bad, I was early and continue with, please just stop.

While I am here though, for Brad and those like him, I hope people get the vaccine so herd immunity can protect those that cannot get the vaccine, and we are delta free.

Fred K wrote: I wonder if people fought the same way to not get vaccinated against Polio.

Fred

According to my grandma, there was more fear of polio itself so they were grateful for the shots. I guess people were more trusting of authorities back then.