Hoosier

It is in the low 30s here with a lot of sun. Pretty impressive to get that combo in the afternoon on April 1.

Oh yeah, it snowed here.

This particular one is more curious than most. The odds of a 39 year old person dying are not particularly high to begin with, but when you look at the timeline of when that woman experienced symptoms and then died, it is natural to wonder if the vaccine triggered something. As was said, use VAERS with extreme caution. Very easy to twist data from there.

Speaking of which, our old friend Russia is out with an animal vaccine. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/03/31/europe/russia-covid-vaccine-animals-intl/index.html

We may be sitting here a few months from now with Brazil having passed the US death toll if they don't get their **** together quickly.

I strongly believe we should try to get as many people vaccinated as possible. But as far as those who are not jumping to get a covid vaccine, I'm not going to lump them all in one basket and look at them as the enemy. For me, it depends on their reasoning. If it's the generic "vaccines bad", I'm not sympathetic to that. However, if somebody recently had covid and wants to hold off a bit and maybe allow someone more in need to get ahead in line, I'm cool. Or if somebody wants to wait until it gets out of EUA territory, ok. Personally, it makes no difference to me whether it is EUA or full approval, but I respect those who view it differently. Or maybe someone just doesn't want to put up with the possibility of side effects. If you're young and healthy, particularly in your teens/20s, there's a real possibility that you will feel worse from the vaccine side effects than you would from covid. But that could also be a miscalculation and you'd end up feeling worse with covid. Point is, I don't look at it as black and white. We are still losing almost 1000 people per day. I think most reasonable folks would agree that is unacceptably high. But there comes a point where we're going to just have to live with this in some form, because 0 cases/0 deaths ain't walking through the door anytime soon. I don't mean to sound cold, but it is what it is. I lost a family member to covid so I'm aware of how much it sucks.

My main intent with that post was the hospitalizations. Anyone following this even a little bit knows that the vaccines aren't 100% at preventing illness, but the trial data did indicate no hospitalizations. Now we have 8 of those in WA. Though like Phin said, the need for hospitalization is a bit subjective and it would be interesting to know if these hospitalizations were a borderline call or if those people are gravely ill.

Of course, which is why I said the vast majority of cases are pretty clear.

I think what we were talking about was a situation that is more murky. Say someone has very late stage cancer and is estimated to have a week or two to live. Then they contract covid and die. What's the cause of death in that particular case?

Here's an example. The J&J vaccine was reported to be 100% effective against hospitalizations. I think the other vaccines reported the same thing. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/01/jj-vaccine-shown-prevent-85-severe-covid-19-disease You raise a good point. What will vaccine effectiveness be like in a world where masking and social distancing goes away? Would not be surprising to see some erosion of effectiveness, besides any new variants that pop up.

I am almost certain that the trial results were reported to be 100% effective in preventing hospitalizations. Not at getting covid, but at being hospitalized. But it is just that... a trial with relatively small numbers compared to when you give it to millions of people. Just today, we saw the report that a Pfizer trial showed 100% effectiveness in the 12-15 year old age group. When that eventually gets rolled out to all 12-15 year olds, it is not unreasonable to think there will still be some cases in kids that age.

You report what you observe in the trial. I agree that anytime a trial mentions 100% this or 100% that, that it can be misinterpreted by the general public to think they are guaranteed something. I would interpret it as "that's pretty damn good, but maybe in reality it won't quite end up being 100%". While the trials enroll a decent number of people, it is small compared to a rollout to the general public, so you may start to see things that didn't occur in a trial.

The vast majority of cases are fairly obvious as to whether covid caused the death, but in instances like what you described, I would hope that an honest best judgement is being used.

May be some of the first documented instances of fully vaccinated people being hospitalized in the United States? Still, you greatly, greatly cut your odds of needing to be hospitalized if you get vaccinated. Over 100 fully vaccinated people contract COVID-19 in Washington state, officials say Most cases were patients who experienced only mild symptoms, if any, according to a press release from the Washington State Department ofHealth. However, at least eight people with breakthrough cases have been hospitalized. The Washington State Department of Health is also investigating two potential breakthrough cases where the individuals died. Both patients were over 80 years old and suffered from underlying health issues. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/100-fully-vaccinated-people-contract-covid-19-washington/story?id=76784838

Some good news and some, well, slightly less good news Pfizer-BioNTech says Covid vaccine is 100% effective in kids ages 12 to 15 https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/31/covid-vaccine-pfizer-says-shot-is-100percent-effective-in-kids-ages-12-to-15.html Over 100 fully vaccinated people contract COVID-19 in Washington state, officials say Most cases were patients who experienced only mild symptoms, if any, according to a press release from the Washington State Department of Health. However, at least eight people with breakthrough cases have been hospitalized. The Washington State Department of Health is also investigating two potential breakthrough cases where the individuals died. Both patients were over 80 years old and suffered from underlying health issues. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/100-fully-vaccinated-people-contract-covid-19-washington/story?id=76784838

We probably don't even have a real chance to get to that percentage for many months anyway. Not as long as kids 15 and younger can't get a vaccine.

If you and other people feel I let too many opposing views slide, or not acted quickly enough, that's fair. I wouldn't really even object to that. I think there's room for opposing views on some things regarding this subject.

This is unnecessary dude.

How convenient... you can swing by and say hi to Angrysummons when you're done.

That's a bridge too far for me. Besides the logistical issues of such a thing, where exactly are we setting the goal? 0 covid cases and 0 covid deaths? If you have a crowd of 20,000 packed people who are all vaccinated, you could theoretically still get some covid cases from that since it is not 100% effective against infection.

Would you still want proof of vaccination in June? August?

Indiana's statewide mask mandate ends 1 week from today. I think a lot of businesses will still require one around here but regardless, I am going to continue to wear one. Would take some looking into but I wonder if there is another example of a statewide mask mandate ending as cases were steady or rising. Seems like the other governors that ended the mask mandates did so when cases were falling in their states.

Michigan is providing informative data as far as how much of an increase in hospitalizations you can have in the "vaccinated world" before it affects the death numbers. The rise in hospitalizations has been ongoing for a few weeks there, and is now almost triple of where it bottomed out, but there has only been a slight increase in deaths so far. I would expect average daily deaths to continue to increase but hopefully at a slow rate and not peaking too high this time.

Apparently the dirty masks decided to be a problem now and not last month when the numbers were falling?