Covid-19

[bobbiemcgee]

Going to reply to both long messages at once as it is a lot to reply to…

. I don’t disagree but insurance companies already charge more to smokers, obese individuals, people with preexisting conditions that make them more costly. Some of those conditions are a result of personal choices. I specified smoking because it is the most associated with a choice. Nobody is a smoker their entire life, however other conditions including obesity may have been present since childhood.

Unless they are on Medicare/Medicaid or both.

[XU_Lou]

Massive Protests Worldwide Against China Virus Vaccine Passports:

https://gellerreport.com/2021/07/inc...assports.html/

Go ahead Joe, just try to...

[Lloyd Braun]

Unless they are on Medicare/Medicaid or both.

Government is a different ball of wax. There are several private insurances that don’t charge extra for smokers or obese members, but there are many that do.

[Xville]

Completely anecdotal but sums up my feelings pretty well:

https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/im-ic...130001363.html

[Strange Brew]

Completely anecdotal but sums up my feelings pretty well:

https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/im-ic...130001363.html

Overly emotional and lacking substance? I kid. I feel for the healthcare workers. They’ve had a brutal 18 months.

[boozehound]

Hopefully an increased ability to discern fact from fiction.

Right. I mean, this is a message board for a College Basketball program. Hopefully we all believe that College has some value, and I would argue that one of the core things that College does (or at least should do) is teach one how to think objectively.

If you don't want to get the vaccine because you are not properly interpreting studies / data, I'd argue that while you may be making a personal choice, you aren't really doing in the best way because your premise is flawed.

I'm not really sure how to think about the people who don't want to get the vaccine because it is 'experimental'. I'm don't know what 'experimental' means in this context, and I'm also not aware of any past vaccines that have been found to have significant side effects months or years down the road. Over 100MM people have received these vaccines with no significant side effects. You are overlooking a mountain of evidence based on what seems to me to amount to a hunch/superstition that is contradicted by all available (credible) evidence.

[Muskie in dayton]

Right. I mean, this is a message board for a College Basketball program. Hopefully we all believe that College has some value, and I would argue that one of the core things that College does (or at least should do) is teach one how to think objectively.

If you don't want to get the vaccine because you are not properly interpreting studies / data, I'd argue that while you may be making a personal choice, you aren't really doing in the best way because your premise is flawed.

I'm not really sure how to think about the people who don't want to get the vaccine because it is 'experimental'. I'm don't know what 'experimental' means in this context, and I'm also not aware of any past vaccines that have been found to have significant side effects months or years down the road. Over 100MM people have received these vaccines with no significant side effects. You are overlooking a mountain of evidence based on what seems to me to amount to a hunch/superstition that is contradicted by all available (credible) evidence.

College also should teach people to think critically, and to seek data and information to backup what one is told. The bold above is completely incorrect.

There are over 400,000 reports of adverse events related to the COVID vaccines in the CDC's VAERS Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) (hhs.gov). These are mostly mild and indicative of an immune response, but some are very serious including over 6,000 deaths.

I understand that the risks are small with the hundreds of millions of vaccinated people, but it is a risk to weigh against the risks of COVID, which vary greatly based on age, health and natural immunity. The answer for one is not the answer for all.

[STL_XUfan]

College also should teach people to think critically, and to seek data and information to backup what one is told. The bold above is completely incorrect.

There are over 400,000 reports of adverse events related to the COVID vaccines in the CDC's VAERS Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) (hhs.gov). These are mostly mild and indicative of an immune response, but some are very serious including over 6,000 deaths.

I understand that the risks are small with the hundreds of millions of vaccinated people, but it is a risk to weigh against the risks of COVID, which vary greatly based on age, health and natural immunity. The answer for one is not the answer for all.

VAERS data is self reported and not verified. Per their website: "A report to VAERS generally does not prove that the identified vaccine(s) caused the adverse event described. It only confirms that the reported event occurred sometime after vaccine was given. No proof that the event was caused by the vaccine is required in order for VAERS to accept the report. VAERS accepts all reports without judging whether the event was caused by the vaccine." - https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/dataguide.html

The J&J vaccine was shutdown after 6 deaths in order to conduct more research. Do you really believe that if there was 6,000 deaths tied to the vaccine that they wouldn't pause that vaccine to study the causes mores?

The sad part is that I am not telling you anything you do not already know. You have posted enough links and articles in this thread to show that you have made an attempt to study this information. So either your "research" has a giant blind spot, or you know full well the limitations of VAERS data and decided to intentionally spread misinformation by not putting the data in proper context. While I am not normally one to assign malevolence to someone's motivation when ignorance would explain it, in this case I will make an exception.

[boozehound]

VAERS data is self reported and not verified. Per their website: "A report to VAERS generally does not prove that the identified vaccine(s) caused the adverse event described. It only confirms that the reported event occurred sometime after vaccine was given. No proof that the event was caused by the vaccine is required in order for VAERS to accept the report. VAERS accepts all reports without judging whether the event was caused by the vaccine." - https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/dataguide.html

The J&J vaccine was shutdown after 6 deaths in order to conduct more research. Do you really believe that if there was 6,000 deaths tied to the vaccine that they wouldn't pause that vaccine to study the causes mores?

The sad part is that I am not telling you anything you do not already know. You have posted enough links and articles in this thread to show that you have made an attempt to study this information. So either your "research" has a giant blind spot, or you know full well the limitations of VAERS data and decided to intentionally spread misinformation by not putting the data in proper context. While I am not normally one to assign malevolence to someone's motivation when ignorance would explain it, in this case I will make an exception.

Anti-vax is a religion for some folks, which is why I don't think that the VAERS data should be taken too seriously by lay people (or anyone really). I remember when the rapper DMX died recently people were blaming the COVID vaccine. Not his decades of publicly known drug and alcohol abuse, the COVID vaccine. There is a group of people who are anti-vax zealots akin to flat earthers, and I don't think that we can trust self-reported data in that environment.

I would place much more stock in anything that is medically verified, for example from any of the large vaccine studies. Presumably Doctors are following up on any reports of deaths etc. potentially due to the vaccine.

As for the 400K plus reports of 'adverse effects', I don't really consider a day of chills / fatigue to be an 'adverse effect'. At this point these vaccines have been pretty extensively studied, and widely used. It's highly unlikely that point that there are any nefarious long term side effects. You can always play the 'what if' game, though.

[UCGRAD4X]

VAERS data is self reported and not verified. Per their website: "A report to VAERS generally does not prove that the identified vaccine(s) caused the adverse event described. It only confirms that the reported event occurred sometime after vaccine was given. No proof that the event was caused by the vaccine is required in order for VAERS to accept the report. VAERS accepts all reports without judging whether the event was caused by the vaccine." - https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/dataguide.html

The J&J vaccine was shutdown after 6 deaths in order to conduct more research. Do you really believe that if there was 6,000 deaths tied to the vaccine that they wouldn't pause that vaccine to study the causes mores?

The sad part is that I am not telling you anything you do not already know. You have posted enough links and articles in this thread to show that you have made an attempt to study this information. So either your "research" has a giant blind spot, or you know full well the limitations of VAERS data and decided to intentionally spread misinformation by not putting the data in proper context. While I am not normally one to assign malevolence to someone's motivation when ignorance would explain it, in this case I will make an exception.

I am generally pro-vax. I have a difficult time seeing justification for many who refuse to do so. I do, however, realize that there are personal, religious, medical, risk vs reward reasons that I don't fully understand but (somewhat) respect because I don't know it all.

That being said, the causation vs correlation is often difficult to confirm with an adequate degree of certainty particularly without an extended period of documentation (but increases with the #N). I respect that VAERS is honest enough to make this point and don't really see it as a indication of fatal flaw in the data and conclusion.