Free To Fly

[GDR]

I have had 2 Pfizer shots. However, I had and still have concerns about going that route. I weighed the risk from both points of view and concluded that the risk of taking the shots was outweighed by the risk of Covid itself.

However, I don't trust government to tell us what we should be doing, and I don't trust big pharma. For example here is a quote from the Centres for Disease Control Control and Prevention. The highlighted portion is theirs and not mine.

• COVID-19 vaccines are not interchangeable. If you received a Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, you should get the same product for your second shot.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/mrna.html

Our government has told us that it is  just fine to mix the vaccines, and yet it appears that was false information. We were told that we should get the first shot that was available and over the whole period of time they made it virtually impossible to know which shot you were getting ahead of time. I was only able to find out at the time I was getting the shot.  

My daughter did as she was told by gov't to do and got the first shot available, which was the Astra Zeneca  and then when the 2nd one came due it wasn't available and she got the Pfizer shot. What does she do now?

We were told that the time to get the 2nd shot was as early as 3 weeks after the first shot but the later found out that the 2nd shot was more effective if you waited up to 12 weeks.

There are reputable sites on the internet that provide information on the vaccines, with most of them in favour, but I have to wonder about the integrity of you tube, google etc. blocking sites that question the use of these vaccines.

We were told at the outset that if we locked things down for a relatively short period of time that the Pandemic would quickly come to an end. We were told that if we reached 70% of eligible people being vaccinated that we would have herd immunity and it would be all over. That target has been comfortably exceeded and we are back in lock down out here in BC and in other places.

There is no good reason to simply trust what the politicians, (who very often don't follow the advice they give us), tell us in regard to the vaccines.

I think that there are many of us who are concerned about the long term risk involved in taking these vaccines. Those that decide against vaccination are now treated as modern day lepers with people metaphorically going around yelling "unclean, unclean".

I have decided to take them, but I'm not going to be too quick in condemning those who refuse them 

 

[Vsplat]

1 hour ago, Seeker said:

This whole thing has been co-opted by the Great Reset cabal.   Covid is a minor health issue with numerous valid interventions that has been hi-jacked into a global hysteria. Hundreds and thousands of doctors and researchers with expertise in this field have been silenced and censured. 

 

I read this kind of stuff on the internet all of the time.  There's never any evidence to back up the claim.  it's a bit too convenient to say those with evidence have been silenced.  Clearly your views are not being silenced, here you are.  Who, exactly, is doing the silencing? 

The only silencing we have evidence for went on in Asia and it was silencing of those trying to raise a flag about how bad this really was.  In fairness, shouldn't you be acknowledging the attacks on their freedom of speech?

I have lost friends to covid.  I don't consider their death to be a minor health issue.

Vs

Edited August 27, 2021 by Vsplat

[Kasey]

1 hour ago, GDR said:

 

• COVID-19 vaccines are not interchangeable. If you received a Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, you should get the same product for your second shot.

 

 

"You should" but in BC the second one available was not always the same as the first one so people hedged their bets took the one available to them, Pfizer then Moderna!

 What options are now available to them as the mass inoculation centres close across the province?

[Kasey]

1 hour ago, Seeker said:

 

This whole thing has been co-opted by the Great Reset cabal.   Covid is a minor health issue with numerous valid interventions that has been hi-jacked into a global hysteria. Hundreds and thousands of doctors and researchers with expertise in this field have been silenced and censured.  

 

 

Not to mention the "MILLIONS" of people C_19 has killed, maybe "bowing out" at this time is prudent!

[Rascal]

First time replying to a Post. I should tell you at the onset that I am a person that is 16 years into a Cancer Diagnosis.. Three Autologous StemCell Transplants, Heavy Chemo and a Maintenace Treatment of meds every day have kept me on the right side of the sod Suffice to say I have a compromised Immune system and Antivaxxers with no Medical Reason get no sympathy from me. I think one of the problems with our Society is some people refuse to think there should be no consequences to decisions. I am a firm believer that there are consequences to all decisions made in life, whether good ones or bad ones. Many years ago, it became a requirement that smoking must be done in certain areas and those areas are outside. Smokers that decided to continue knew what they had to do. Either quit or go outside, again with the consequences. I see no difference here with opting not to get the vaccine.. I read earlier that COVID is a minor health issue. Really!. Last time I checked well over 640,000 Americans are dead. A lot of folks down there still call it a hoax!  Some hoax. Stay safe everyone!  My rant for a Friday Evening

Quote

 

 

[Guest2]

37 minutes ago, Kasey said:

Not to mention the "MILLIONS" of people C_19 has killed, maybe "bowing out" at this time is prudent!

 

1. COVID Live Update: 214,412,026 Cases and 4,471,557 Deaths ...

    
   https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus

   2021-08-25 · Reported Cases and Deaths by Country or Territory. The coronavirus COVID-19 is affecting 220 countries and territories. The day is reset after midnight GMT+0. The list of countries and their regional classification is based on the United Nations Geoscheme. Sources are provided under "Latest News." Learn more about Worldometer's COVID-19 data

[UpperDeck]

I was vaccinated early this year in Florida. I continue to have questions/issues with mRNA but every day brings a new revelation.

I continue to be confounded by the numbers notwithstanding the valiant effort of IHG ( whom I owe a beer) to "right my ship".

Assume the Pfizer vaccine had 90% efficacy...now diminishing. In other words, it had limited benefit to 10% of receipients. 

The first response to that observation will understandably be; "But it reduces severe symptoms, hospitalization and death to less than 1%".

Aren't those the same numbers we heard originally...before the vaccines were developed?

And as more people are vaccinated, 1% becomes an ever- increasing number. If everyone in the US was vaccinated, almost 4 million...4 million...would have breakthrough infections that resulted in severe and life-threatening illness.

One thing of which I am sure; one cannot reasonably compare this pandemic to the consequences of annual influenza infections.

 

[FA@AC]

1 hour ago, UpperDeck said:

And as more people are vaccinated, 1% becomes an ever- increasing number. If everyone in the US was vaccinated, almost 4 million...4 million...would have breakthrough infections that resulted in severe and life-threatening illness.

I don't think one can calculate it that way.  If more people in the community are vaccinated, less Covid circulates.  If the virus circulates less, exposures and thus breakthrough infections should be less frequent I'd think. 

[Vsplat]

1 hour ago, UpperDeck said:

The first response to that observation will understandably be; "But it reduces severe symptoms, hospitalization and death to less than 1%".

Aren't those the same numbers we heard originally...before the vaccines were developed?

And as more people are vaccinated, 1% becomes an ever- increasing number. If everyone in the US was vaccinated, almost 4 million...4 million...would have breakthrough infections that resulted in severe and life-threatening illness.

The premise behind the equivocation of risk has been debunked.  Here is one site that deals with it.  Of course, not everyone agrees.

https://healthfeedback.org/claimreview/unvaccinated-people-are-more-likely-to-die-of-covid-19-because-they-are-more-vulnerable-to-infection-and-severe-disease-tomi-lahren/

 

[Seeker]

5 hours ago, Vsplat said:

The premise behind the equivocation of risk has been debunked.  Here is one site that deals with it.  Of course, not everyone agrees.

 

From the linked article:  Unvaccinated people are more likely to become infected, develop severe COVID-19, and die

The problem with these sorts of statements is that they get adopted and thrown around without any analysis - used as bold headlines and seen scrolling along the bottom of the screen on your favourite news channel.  The risk varies greatly between age groups.  Yes, an 85 year old person who is unvaccinated has a significantly greater chance of dying from Covid but they want to vaccinate children.  I even read something about Pfizer wanting to develop a vaccine for infants.  Infants!  I'm terrified about the long term effects of vaccinating babies with this new technology when their bodies are still developing against a statistically very small risk.

I'm old.  If the vaccine causes a reaction in my body - well, I had a good run but think about the ramifications of some unexpected long term effect on millions of infants.  Is it worth the risk to do this?

I'm sure everyone remembers the mad-cow situation.  Some minor change to they way farming was done and the terrible effects don't show up for 10-20 years.  When the problem showed up - all the scientists;  "Well, we didn't expect that to happen." 

In fact, history is full of the best and brightest scientists, doctors, engineers, generals saying, after the fact; "we didn't expect that to happen."

[Guest2]

Second Opinion: Why Canadians need to keep their guard up in the 4th wave — even if they're fully vaccinated (cbc.ca)

[UpperDeck]

12 hours ago, FA@AC said:

I don't think one can calculate it that way.  If more people in the community are vaccinated, less Covid circulates.  If the virus circulates less, exposures and thus breakthrough infections should be less frequent I'd think. 

I think that makes sense and I have confessed my susceptibility to confusion engendered by statistics and reportage.

I followed the link from Vsplat and again suggest that the intent/bias of the reporter must always be considered.

For example....within that Snopes-type article, reference is made to Alabama and the low rate of vaccination. It is indicated that 509 unvaccinated people died from Covid-related causes and only 20 vaccinated people died. Only 30% of the population is vaccinated. Clearly there is a reduction in the mortality rate if we had a "zero" date....but if the total of deaths is from the beginning and the vaccinated number is calculated 8 months later, the number of "post-vaccination" deaths will be significantly less regardless.

Look at it another way. The US hit 500,000 Covid-related deaths on Feb.21st, 2021. It now sits at 650,000 deaths. In 6 months, the number of deaths is 150,000; a death rate that is about 40% less ( per 6 months) than the preceding 12 months. Is that a result of vaccinations? It might be given that there was a high vaccination rate beginning in January, 2021. But I don't know.

[IFG]

1 hour ago, UpperDeck said:

.... Look at it another way. The US hit 500,000 Covid-related deaths on Feb.21st, 2021. It now sits at 650,000 deaths. In 6 months, the number of deaths is 150,000; a death rate that is about 40% less ( per 6 months) than the preceding 12 months. Is that a result of vaccinations? It might be given that there was a high vaccination rate beginning in January, 2021. But I don't know.

Hi, UD - The above calculation would be misleading, but responsible reporters (& there are many of them!) would/should not circulate them. But we can take care not to confuse the denominators in these #'s. Your reference to 1% representing around 4M people does that. When efficacy is stated in %'s, we can look at it as %'s of a cohort that would otherwise be infected, not of the total population. e.g., 90% efficacy does not reflect a 10% vulnerable group, it suggests that the number of infections within a vacc'd population will be 10% of that within an unvacc'd pop.

We could try a real world example. (NB: This is a rough illustration to contextualize these #'s that get thrown around; of course there are confounders and complications that epidemiologists are paid to tease out.)

Yesterday in Ontario, there were 485 unvacc'd infections diagnosed, compared to 147 fully vacc'd. In ON, there are aprox 10M fully vacc'd, 4M unvacc'd. It would be reasonable to infer that were the vacc'd group not so, they would show about 1200 cases (485 x 10/4). Rough #'s, this would indicate 88% efficacy (147 = 12% of 1200).

Similarly for hospitalizations, 140 to 27 for unvacc'd/vacc'd. 27 is about 7-8% of a potential 350 (again 140 x 10/4), suggesting  92-3% 'efficacy' against hospitalization.

One might wonder, if we could achieve near-100% vacc, could yesterdays numbers have theoretically been a bit over 200 instead of 781 (unfortunately rising right now). Consider then the trend if an infected cohort passed on about a quarter of the infections.

Now take all this as only the further ramblings of a reasonable layman who has tried to stay informed. There is responsible reporting out there, e.g. Andre Picard in the Globe', Zeynep Tufekci, Nate Silver (not epidemiologists, but very sharp observers and explainers on grokking data), lots of others ...

Cheers, IFG  

[IFG]

21 hours ago, GDR said:

.... There is no good reason to simply trust what the politicians, (who very often don't follow the advice they give us), tell us in regard to the vaccines.

I think that there are many of us who are concerned about the long term risk involved in taking these vaccines. Those that decide against vaccination are now treated as modern day lepers with people metaphorically going around yelling "unclean, unclean" ....

Hi, GDR - Healthy skepticism is always a good thing, but I think you frame many questions/objections a bit aggressively, and elide the need to reassess when there's new info (paraphrasing Keynes: when the facts change, I change my mind - what do you do? ). e.g.:

Advice about not mixing vaccines reflected the abundance of caution about straying from the conditions of the trials. This noble objective collided with an urgency to reduce infections caused by delayed vacc'n. WRT the period between shots, the 4-week period was set to speed up the trials, not because it was known to be the best time-span. Generally, multi-dose vaccines are more effective longer periods, but of course that requires longer trials. Likewise, mixing vacc's generally seems to strengthen response, but testing for all that takes precious time.

Hopefully, the recognitions of mixed vacc's will come  fairly soon, but international travel capability if not the public health system's top concern, fewer infections is. PITA for some those that followed recommendations for sure, but little doubt that best-vacc-is-first-vacc sped up the process and lowered infections. Hopefully, recognition of multi-vacc'n comes fairly soon. BTW, some good friends of mine from UK are prevented from wintering in US because Americans won't recognize AZ (unmixed). International rules are a hodgepodge everywhere.

Re: blocking some disinfo sites - Mygod, people are taking cow/horse medicine. Facebook/Youtube etc have historically been totally unedited. Editing is good. Despite free and easy slagging of 'the media', and imperfect as it might be, we're far better off with some chain of responsibility in our news providers IMHO.

Re: "We were told ..." - In the early days, they made their best guesses, and mostly were pretty clear about that. People didn't want to hear "we do not know", so they got "our best guess is". I think you overstate both the degree of certainty, and the degree of error. This has dragged on far longer than we hoped, but mitigations DID reduce the spread, and putting all the opprobrium on the politicians ignores some non-compliance and forced political response to demands for opening up. It's messy, but "we" are not free of responsibility for "our" fate.

Calling anybody "unclean, unclean" seems drastic, but the analogy I would suggest is London blackouts during the blitz. Anybody leaving lights on (because, don't want to bump into anything or whatever) bugger it up for everybody. Community 'rights' and individual 'rights' often collide. Some seem to assert that the latter always trumps the former. I hope that's not so here.

Cheers, IFG 

Edited August 28, 2021 by IFG

[GDR]

Hi IFG

Of course I agree that when the info changes we have to adjust, but the information that was given to us, such as the optimum time between vaccines, was not expressed as an opinion but as fact. Of course they want to change that view with new info, but at least when we were told 3 weeks, they should have said that was the best advice available based on what they knew at the time. The same holds true in regards to the mixing of vaccines.

I agree that there is a great deal of abuse of our freedoms when it comes to what's on the internet but I don't agree that we should shut down those that question the wisdom of being vaccinated. We are putting a foreign substance into our body that is adjusting our whole immune system. I came to the conclusion that I was better off doing it that to not doing it, but I did that only after looking at both sides of the discussion. The one side has now been shut down. I'd rather have seen them shutting down porn sites which are doing tremendous damage to our kids today.

I think that's a bit of a stretch to compare this to the "blitz". I'm not so sure that is all that much different than the treatment of lepers in the not to distant past. There is an island about 3 kilometres from where I live that was a leper colony less than 100 years ago. (All of those assigned there were Chinese but that is a separate and even more ugly issue.)

Thanks for the response. We really aren't that far apart. 

Cheers

Greg

 

[J.O.]

Federal and provincial health and safety regulations already require employers to have policies and programs to protect workers from employment-related injuries and illness. There is plenty of evidence that COVID-19 has been spread in Canadian workplaces, therefore it is not a huge stretch to say that in order to comply with the existing legislation, an employer can require vaccinations as part of their OH&S compliance program.

[UpperDeck]

16 hours ago, GDR said:

Hi IFG

Of course I agree that when the info changes we have to adjust, but the information that was given to us, such as the optimum time between vaccines, was not expressed as an opinion but as fact. Of course they want to change that view with new info, but at least when we were told 3 weeks, they should have said that was the best advice available based on what they knew at the time. The same holds true in regards to the mixing of vaccines.

I agree that there is a great deal of abuse of our freedoms when it comes to what's on the internet but I don't agree that we should shut down those that question the wisdom of being vaccinated. We are putting a foreign substance into our body that is adjusting our whole immune system. I came to the conclusion that I was better off doing it that to not doing it, but I did that only after looking at both sides of the discussion. The one side has now been shut down. I'd rather have seen them shutting down porn sites which are doing tremendous damage to our kids today.

I think that's a bit of a stretch to compare this to the "blitz". I'm not so sure that is all that much different than the treatment of lepers in the not to distant past. There is an island about 3 kilometres from where I live that was a leper colony less than 100 years ago. (All of those assigned there were Chinese but that is a separate and even more ugly issue.)

Thanks for the response. We really aren't that far apart. 

Cheers

Greg

 

GDR.....I'm not trying to be a smartass but on what do you base the assertion that "porn sites" are doing "tremendous damage" to our kids today? What constitutes "porn"; nudity; simulated sexual activity? What type of damage is suffered and how does it become "tremendous"?

This isn't "thread drift" per se. As with Covid vaccine comments, sometimes a very large net is cast for a few very small fish.

[GDR]

As to the definition I suppose that it is a personal opinion as to whether nudity counts as porn or not. Personally I don't. Frankly I only know what is on porn sites from what I have read about them. I don't want to google looking for articles on the subject as I don't want to wind up getting stuff popping up on my computer that I don't want.

I understand that a great deal of the internet is taken up with porn. Young children are on the internet and there first sexual experience is quite likely to come from porn sites. I'd suggest that porn objectifies women and removes the intimacy of using sex as entertainment without any emotional attachment.

If you think that young children being exposed to porn is harmless then so be it, but would you really want your 6 year old to experience it? 

[A330PilotCanada]

On 8/27/2021 at 7:54 PM, Rascal said:

First time replying to a Post. I should tell you at the onset that I am a person that is 16 years into a Cancer Diagnosis.. Three Autologous StemCell Transplants, Heavy Chemo and a Maintenace Treatment of meds every day have kept me on the right side of the sod Suffice to say I have a compromised Immune system and Antivaxxers with no Medical Reason get no sympathy from me. I think one of the problems with our Society is some people refuse to think there should be no consequences to decisions. I am a firm believer that there are consequences to all decisions made in life, whether good ones or bad ones. Many years ago, it became a requirement that smoking must be done in certain areas and those areas are outside. Smokers that decided to continue knew what they had to do. Either quit or go outside, again with the consequences. I see no difference here with opting not to get the vaccine.. I read earlier that COVID is a minor health issue. Really!. Last time I checked well over 640,000 Americans are dead. A lot of folks down there still call it a hoax!  Some hoax. Stay safe everyone!  My rant for a Friday Evening

 

Good Afternoon Rascal:

A excellent rant especially form someone facing your health situation. Although I am required not to disclose my medical courier work you will be happy to know I am a member of a group that goes around the world for stem cells. Our group plays a rather exquisite game of beat the clock as they are viable for 36 hours from harvesting to infusion. So far our group has been as far as Singapore and Cape Town which gives you a idea on how long our duty day can be.

Now as a cancer patient you are aware of the CART-T program in which CRSP-R technology is used to rework molecular make up of Stem Cells in order to identify and kill off specific tumour cells. Now to the uninitiated with rather pedestrian knowledge this is almost at the same level as reworking the spike in a COVID-19 virus. I find this ironic that those who decry the MRNA style of vaccine would be beating down the doors to get into a CAR-T program if they were in your shoes Rascal.

I literally puke when I hear my rights are being violated so how about the responsibilities that go with same rights? The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. For those who compare this to the Yellow Star for the implantation of the vaccine I would strongly suggest a trip to Yad Vashem, Dachau, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Mila-18 in Warsaw and others so you can truly understand the true meaning of Holocaust/Shoah.

In addition the term "Vaccine Passport" should be changed  to "Vaccine Certificate" in which I think that would be a welcome change from the highly emotional "Passport"!

For those who do not want to get vaccinated your right to do so but please don't expect empathy from front line medical staff when you clog up ICU and close down elective surgery. I must also disclose I am in line for elective surgery and if that is stopped again to protect ICU capacity I will exhibit more contempt for them as a poster earlier called them out as mere morons.

I would expect that in the future for the anti-vaxer (crowd) this saying which is posted at airport security will apply "It is your choice not to go through security but going through security is a requirement to go through security to board an aircraft".

Rascal stay safe and remember "Illegitimi non carborundum"!  

 

       

 

 

 

[IFG]

7 hours ago, UpperDeck said:

GDR.....I'm not trying to be a smartass but on what do you base the assertion that "porn sites" are doing "tremendous damage" to our kids today? What constitutes "porn"; nudity; simulated sexual activity? What type of damage is suffered and how does it become "tremendous"?

This isn't "thread drift" per se. As with Covid vaccine comments, sometimes a very large net is cast for a few very small fish.

Hi again, UD - Admire your fearlessness in taking up the libertarian defense of leaving porn up on the internet . Apropos GDR's original comment, though, whether or not the porn "net" is cast, it has no bearing on the vax-disinfo fishing.

 

On 8/28/2021 at 5:35 PM, GDR said:

I think that's a bit of a stretch to compare this to the "blitz". I'm not so sure that is all that much different than the treatment of lepers in the not to distant past. There is an island about 3 kilometres from where I live that was a leper colony less than 100 years ago. (All of those assigned there were Chinese but that is a separate and even more ugly issue.)

Thanks for the response. We really aren't that far apart.

! 2 quibbles tho'. My Blitz analogy (not intended as comparison) was drawing out the failure of anti-vaxxers to step outside their personal concerns. Another might be booting team members who won't follow the playbook Imagination abounds. The point is again that group concerns often collide with individual ones. Anti-vaxxers (and their fellow-travelling anti-maskers) have been indulged to a considerable extent, but the patience of the overwhelming majority might be exhausted.

There's an unfortunate collateral result, where worst instincts kick in, and, in the face of compelling evidence, stubbornness takes over. This phenomenon is well known and documented. It's blooming in many pathetic dying anti-vaxxers to the very end. So one should try to give hope a chance & not to be overtly judgmental, but seriously? That's hard now.

The other quibble is the notion that anti-vax opinion is being censored. It's my understanding that take-downs target [mis-dis]information, upon which most (not all) anti-vax opinion rests. Far from being silenced, opinionated internet anti-vaxxers still seem to win the shouting match by volume.

Cheers, Ian 

[Seeker]

23 minutes ago, IFG said:

Anti-vaxxers (and their fellow-travelling anti-maskers) have been indulged to a considerable extent, but the patience of the overwhelming majority might be exhausted.

 

I believe history will show the anti-vaxxers to have been right.  We'll meet back here at 5 year intervals to compare notes.

 

 

[IFG]

2 minutes ago, Seeker said:

I believe history will show the anti-vaxxers to have been right.  We'll meet back here at 5 year intervals to compare notes.

Hi, Seeker. "Right" is carrying a lot of weight in that sentence, but - fair enough? Hope we're all still here to keep those appointments!

Cheers, IFG 

[Seeker]

3 minutes ago, IFG said:

Hi, Seeker. "Right" is carrying a lot of weight in that sentence, but - fair enough? Hope we're all still here to keep those appointments!

Cheers, IFG 

Haha!  Good one.  I'll put an appointment in my Google Calendar for Aug 29th, 2026 to check in with IFG and see who was right.

 

 

[FA@AC]

1 hour ago, Seeker said:

I believe history will show the anti-vaxxers to have been right.

 

 

What do you make of what is going on in the southern US states currently?

[UpperDeck]

9 hours ago, GDR said:

 

If you think that young children being exposed to porn is harmless then so be it, but would you really want your 6 year old to experience it? 

I had a lengthy response typed but it disappeared. The Covid discussion is more important but let me say this:

1) I don't recall EVER suggesting " porn" was suitable for 6 year-old children. Really??

2) If I had young children who were within my control, I could restrict their access to internet content I believed to be inappropriate. You know one can do that, right?

3) there are some who believe that depictions of the naked body constitute "porn". I would not prevent my child from viewing an unadorned human. Would you?

Enough. I apologize. I only intended to make the point that one man's porn is another man's art but at some point, their perceptions coincide.