Quackery

[Richardo]

45 minutes ago, mrelwood said:

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a news clip of a bicycle rider who crashed without a helmet, 

As a somewhat interesting aside, I actually made international news for getting hit by a car while riding my bike without a helmet.

It was all over stuff in the USA, and got picked up by the guardian. 

 

(the only reason why was because it was caught on the dash cam, and was some of the most spectacularly gruesome footage you can find of a cyclist getting smashed. no one even mentioned the lack of helmet. Also to make the story even less related to your original point, my head was miraculously spared)

[Paul A]

Unvaccinated TikToker Who Died of COVID Spent Last Days Urging Followers to Get the Vaccine

Sep 10, 2021

 

An unvaccinated TikTok creator who died of COVID-19 spent her final days desperately pleading with her followers to get the vaccine so they "won't end up in the hospital like me."

Megan Alexandra Blankenbiller died on Aug. 24, 2021, just nine days after she had made her final TikTok video that urged viewers to get quickly vaccinated and protect themselves from COVID-19.

________________________

If the hospitals are full, there might be no ICU beds available.

________________________

 

[mrelwood]

2 hours ago, Paul A said:

Think the message is that a young unvaccinated father died from covid.

His last message to others is to get vaccinated.

Another point: Would his final wishes have ever hit the news if they’d present a neutral or a negative attitude towards the vaccine?

[mrelwood]

2 hours ago, Richardo said:

As a somewhat interesting aside, I actually made international news for getting hit by a car while riding my bike without a helmet.

It was all over stuff in the USA, and got picked up by the guardian. 

 

(the only reason why was because it was caught on the dash cam, and was some of the most spectacularly gruesome footage you can find of a cyclist getting smashed. no one even mentioned the lack of helmet. Also to make the story even less related to your original point, my head was miraculously spared)

What a story! Yeah, having such incident picked up on dash cam is definitely educational, as well as feeding the endless craving of people wanting to watch more and more gorey stuff happening to someone. So horrible that they can’t stop watching.

The fact that the lack of a helmet wasn’t even picked up says a lot about the motives of publishing such news.

[Paul A]

Not sure a dying person's final wishes would be expressing a neutral or negative attitude towards a vaccine.  

Suppose it could be possible, bit hard to imagine though.

A dying person in his last words, "I think vaccines don't work, am thankful that I didn't take it ..."

[Paul A]

mRNA vaccines, explained

2.5M views · 7 months ago

 

[.....]

On 9/29/2021 at 3:55 PM, Paul A said:

People will make their own choice.

If only I could entirely believe this. If choice was the agenda......

Edited October 1, 2021 by ShanesPlanet

[Paul A]

People cannot be forced into taking a vaccine even if mandated.

If covid is contracted, most people will survive.

Some won't even have symptoms.

Some will have severe symptoms.

Some will die.

Those that survive may have serious permanent damage to their organs.

US covid deaths to date is approximately 695k from a population of approximately 333 million.

Approximately 1 in 500 US citizens have died from COVID thus far.

Edited September 30, 2021 by Paul A
Typo

[RockyTop]

No vaccine:

No job, No drivers license, No grocery store, No government assistance. 
 

Biden said that his patients are wearing thin. He has had enough…. He might have been talking about waiting for his ice cream tho. 

695k? Given that no one has died by any other causes in the last 2 years, those numbers are obviously exaggerated. 

I think that Covid has cured old age deaths  and the flu. We should celebrate! 

[Paul A]

Source of world wide covid data.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

How they collect data.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/about/

 

Last updated: September 30, 2021, 18:49 GMT

 United States

Coronavirus Cases:

44,215,598

Deaths:

714,110

Recovered:

33,637,480

[Paul A]

Not sure covid curing old age deaths is to be celebrated.

Some people might have that view though.

It might have been the intent of Bolsonaro.

[RockyTop]

The point is that it does not matter how you die it will be listed as Covid. No one dies of old age because if they do it will be listed as Covid just like my friends that died of a motorcycle accident and a long over due 4th heart attack. 

Edited September 30, 2021 by RockyTop

[Tawpie]

Dying OF Covid is different than dying WITH Covid? That distinction isn't made often. Pretty much everyone dies OF hypoxia, the importance of the specific factors that may have brought on fatal hypoxia depends on your agenda at the moment.

[Paul A]

Data collection has many difficulties.

Yes, the integrity of the data will not be 100 percent totally accurate, there are flaws.

Definitions of:

'Confirmed' death.  With laboratory evidence.

'Probable case and death'.  Without laboratory evidence.

_____________

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/us-data/

Changes in United States Data following the new CDC guidelines on "Case" and "Death" definition

Following new CDC guidelines: "As of April 14, 2020, CDC case counts and death counts include both confirmed and probable cases and deaths. This change was made to reflect an interim COVID-19 position statement issued by the Council for State and Territorial Epidemiologists on April 5, 2020. The position statement included a case definition and made COVID-19 a nationally notifiable disease.

A confirmed case or death is defined by meeting confirmatory laboratory evidence for COVID-19. A probable case or death is defined by i) meeting clinical criteria AND epidemiologic evidence with no confirmatory laboratory testing performed for COVID-19; or ii) meeting presumptive laboratory evidence AND either clinical criteria OR epidemiologic evidence; or iii) meeting vital records criteria with no confirmatory laboratory testing performed for COVID19" [source]

This change is a further example of one of the many reasons why the label "confirmed cases" (used by some to designate total cases) is incorrect (see definitions for more details). The US CDC (and Worldometer) has always used the label "Total Cases." Canada is another example where the "total number includes publicly reported confirmed and probable cases [source]

On April 14, New York City reported 3,778 additional deaths that have occurred since March 11 and have been classified as "probable," defined as follows: “decedent [...] had no known positive laboratory test for SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) but the death certificate lists as a cause of death “COVID-19” or an equivalent" [source]. 

From April 14 onward, New York City has provided - and will continue to provide -  the updated number of probable deaths in its daily reports.

Since every probable death necessarily implies a probable case, logic mandates that the adjustment be made to both deaths and cases, and not only to deaths. We have adjusted for New York State and the United States accordingly.

___

The state of Ohio is an example of a state that has started reporting total cases and deaths correctly, in accordance with the new CDC guidelines. On its "Overview dashboard" it show total cases and total deaths, while also providing the breakdown between confirmed and probable, with the note "CDC Expanded Case Definition (Probable)" and "CDC Expanded Death Definition (Probable)."

_______

Other examples are:

• Virginia: shows "total" cases and "total" deaths with the breakdown between "confirmed" and "probable." Very well done and presented.
• Idaho, whose total includes both laboratory confirmed and probable cases.
• Colorado: whose total includes both, with a note explaining that "The number of cases includes people who have had a test that indicated they were positive for COVID-19. The number of cases also includes epidemiologically-linked cases -- or cases where public health epidemiologists have determined that infection is highly likely because a person exhibited symptoms and had close contact with someone who tested positive. The number of epidemiologically-linked cases represents a very small portion of the reported cases."
• Wyoming: shows both laboratory confirmed and probable cases separately.
• Maryland: shows both confirmed and probable deaths, separately and in a statistical summary below the main dashboard

Worldometer is also following the new CDC guideline of including both probable and confirmed in the total case and death counts.

[Paul A]

Different countries have populations with differing attitudes and trust in science, vaccines, government etc.

Portugal, population approximately 10 million, September 2021.

Member @Paulo Mesquita in Sintra/Lisbon, Portugal may be able to give first hand observations.

_____________________

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/09/30/portugal-vaccination-covid/

September 30, 2021

Excerpts from the article.

Portugal has nearly run out of people to vaccinate. What comes next?

Portugal’s vaccination campaign is almost over now, and it has exceeded even the wildest goals. Nearly an entire nation trusted in the science, officials say.

Some 85 percent of Portugal’s population is fully vaccinated...

“We have actually run out of adults to give shots to,” said Lurdes Costa e Silva, the chief nurse at a Lisbon vaccine center that is already half-shuttered.

 

Portugal’s feat has turned the country into a cutting-edge pandemic laboratory — a place where otherwise-hypothetical questions about the coronavirus endgame can begin to play out. Chief among them is how fully a nation can bring the virus under control when vaccination rates are about as high as they can go.

The emerging answer is promising — mostly. In Portugal, every indicator of pandemic severity is quickly trending downward. The death rate is half the European Union average and nine times below that of the United States.

 

But Portugal’s experience is also providing a note of caution: a reminder that 1½ years into this pandemic, the current tools of science still might not be enough. The virus is still causing cancellations, lost work days and sickness — in rare cases severe. It spreads less quickly and less far than it would in places with lower vaccination rates — which benefits everyone, including the 12-and-under children not yet eligible for shots. But herd immunity remains elusive. Daily calculations about risk remain, even without large ranks of unvaccinated people to blame.

 

Mask-wearing indoors will still be mandatory in some indoor situations. Digital health certificates will continue to be necessary for travel and events with crowds.

 

In Portugal, seniors are vaccinated at a level verging on the statistically impossible: Official data puts the rate at 100 percent. But many were also vaccinated more than half a year ago — and studies from around the world, from the United States to Israel, have warned of a drop in protection by that point.

 

One of the biggest warnings of all has come from a science institute in Lisbon, where researchers have been measuring antibody levels in several thousand people — including about 500 in Portuguese nursing homes. Shortly after those nursing home residents were vaccinated, all with the vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech, 95 percent developed antibodies, the researchers found. But this summer, when the latest batch of blood samples arrived in coolers, the scientists performed the same tests — introducing the blood to synthetic elements of the virus — and the results were even more worrying than what they had been bracing for.

The staff at the nursing home, whose blood was also tested, still had detectable antibodies. But more than one-third of the residents had lost antibodies entirely.

 

To Henrique Gouveia e Melo, most of the information arriving about the elderly was overwhelmingly reassuring. Even six months in, they weren’t filling hospital beds. Case levels among seniors were falling still.

The rates in many Western countries were decent to good, still rising slowly. But then he stopped on two former Portuguese colonies, Angola and Mozambique.

In both places, like in many African nations, vaccination rates remain in the single digits — potentially giving breathing room to rampant infections and new variants capable of evading vaccines and racing around the world.

 

In March, as news about rare blood clots linked to AstraZeneca’s vaccine threw Europe into a panic, Gouveia e Melo tried to put the risk in context. He described two roads, one for those who chose the vaccine and the other for those who chose to wait. On the road for the vaccinated, a sniper would kill one of every 500,000, Gouveia e Melo said. On the road for the unvaccinated, a sniper would kill one of every 500.

“So,” he said, “which road do you want?”

 

“You cannot win just by vaccinating everyone in your own country,” he said. “The war ends after we give shots to everyone in the world.”

 

[.....]

23 minutes ago, Paul A said:

“The war ends after we give shots to everyone in the world.”

 

This should be more fearful than a road with a sniper only hitting 1 in 500. I'd rather choose to take the 1/500 trip than be FORCED to take the 1/5000 road. I like those odds and its worth the freedom of choice. I wonder the odds of injury to myself or others, when I choose to ride an euc, or merely drive my car to the store?  Its not the vaccines that should worry us, its how would an entity go about forcing an entire world to do ANYTHING? What about people who have recovered from Covid, where's the reasoning behind forcing them to be re-shot with drugs every 90 days? I'm not too keen on being forced to do something related to personal health. When do the means become unjustified for the ends? I guess it all depends on how much freedom you have been accustomed to having and how much a fight you'd be willing to protect your freedoms. "freedom' and 'privacy' are somewhat based on opinion. So, who's opinion matters more when it comes to personal choices? Your own, or the opinion of the masses? Why does everyone keep ignoring that the issue may be pulling on something deeper than the mere 'science'? Science also tells me that mortality rate among humans is 100%. Ive had a few friends and family recover from Covid these last years. I've had friends and family die this last year. My opinion stands.

Edited October 1, 2021 by ShanesPlanet

[mrelwood]

14 hours ago, Paul A said:

Not sure a dying person's final wishes would be expressing a neutral or negative attitude towards a vaccine.

Certainly possible if they are already vaccinated, in which case the death should be much more newsworthy in itself. Yet they don’t make news reports of those. Why is that?

 

10 hours ago, Paul A said:

People cannot be forced into taking a vaccine even if mandated.

Which is why other methods had to be found to persuade. As we quite clearly see, for example in several of the links you provided.

10 hours ago, Paul A said:

…most people will survive.

Some won't even have symptoms.

Some will have severe symptoms.

Some will die.

Those that survive may have serious permanent damage to their organs.

The above can be said of both people who are and are not vaccinated. And about many other diseases as well, vaccinable or not.

10 hours ago, Paul A said:

US covid deaths to date is approximately 695k from a population of approximately 333 million.

Approximately 1 in 500 US citizens have died from COVID thus far.

And what has happened to death rates from other causes than Covid?

[Paul A]

The current one in five hundred mortality rate of Americans may not remain constant. 

If number of cases rise to such numbers that the capacities of hospitals, carers, equipment, etc are overwhelmed, it may increase.

If a person has recovered from covid, there might not be a need for vaccination as presumably they would have acquired a degree of immunity.

A person surviving covid may not necessarily have recovered fully though, with serious permanent damage, a life long disability to contend with.

 

Henrique Gouveia e Melo's statement about everyone in the world getting vaccinated is in reference to his conscience.

He is critical about wealthy nations perhaps being selfish in only considering the needs of their own population, that booster shots are being prioritized to those that have already received some level of vaccination, while there are people in poor countries that have not even had one shot of vaccine.

He is stating that it is in the self interest of wealthy countries to donate vaccines to poor nations to stamp out the virus everywhere.

If they do not, they are allowing the virus to continue to run rampant unabated, and likely mutate to other strains that might even be more infectious and deadly than the Delta strain, that current vaccines will not be able to protect against.

[Paul A]

Perhaps the important issue is unvaccinated people dying from covid.

There would be breakthrough cases where even vaccinated people are dying from covid.

The selection of what is newsworthy might be a bit trivial in the context that the worldwide Covid death toll is approximately 4.55 million currently.

___________

 

Total number of deaths are recorded, regardless of cause of death.

There may be errors in classification of cause of death, covid or not covid.

It is easy to compare total number of deaths over several years to have an average.

Similar to techniques/data/statistics/death tables that actuaries employ to calculate risks/outcomes and price the cost of premiums for insurance policies.

Similar to the law of large numbers that casinos employ.

 

Year on year, there would be an average number for expected deaths.

Display as a graph to depict it visually.

A very large increase in number of deaths compared to the previous years average/expected numbers, is likely attributable to Covid.

 

[.....]

On 10/1/2021 at 1:58 AM, Paul A said:

Perhaps the important issue is unvaccinated people dying from covid.

There would be breakthrough cases where even vaccinated people are dying from covid.

The selection of what is newsworthy might be a bit trivial in the context that the worldwide Covid death toll is approximately 4.55 million currently.

___________

 

Total number of deaths are recorded, regardless of cause of death.

There may be errors in classification of cause of death, covid or not covid.

It is easy to compare total number of deaths over several years to have an average.

Similar to techniques/data/statistics/death tables that actuaries employ to calculate risks/outcomes and price the cost of premiums for insurance policies.

Similar to the law of large numbers that casinos employ.

 

Year on year, there would be an average number for expected deaths.

Display as a graph to depict it visually.

A very large increase in number of deaths compared to the previous years average/expected numbers, is likely attributable to Covid.

 

Or other related deaths as suicide rates increase, obesity is increasing. Overall depression increases and general health is decreasing. Divorce rates are up, spousal abuse is up, drug use is up.  Lest we even mention the financial toll (which also increases mortality rates). Then there's the politics behind it, which will last forever and mandates applied now will be misused forever. Somehow the issue is being played out as if its black and white. If anyone mentions a grey area or that there's more to consider than merely death and stats, they are assumed to be ignorant or an enemy of health. The media and government is staying VERY far away from mentioning anything other than the 'safety' net of vaccines and the skewed data of sickness. It isnt insane to recognize that health is not the ONLY priority in life for some. Yes its important, but its not the ONLY thing at stake here...   Have we finally gotten past the 'if you dont wear a coarse cotton mask, you are choosing to kill grandmothers', yet? I know its hard to believe, but some people who choose to not vax, are just as aware of the data as those that do vax.

I see opinions and views on both sides of the fence and a lot of them don't exactly imply 'quackery' or simple misinformation. It is strange, but you can take two intelligent people, toss in a complicated issue, and come back with two different answers. Both may seem equally wrong to the other person, yet both have merit in some form or another.

Edited January 2, 2022 by ShanesPlanet

[Paul A]

Yes.

Leading causes of death in US from CDC.

• Heart disease: 659,041
• Cancer: 599,601
• Accidents (unintentional injuries): 173,040
• Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 156,979
• Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 150,005
• Alzheimer’s disease: 121,499
• Diabetes: 87,647
• Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 51,565
• Influenza and pneumonia: 49,783
• Intentional self-harm (suicide): 47,511

Source: Mortality in the United States, 2019, data table for figure 2

____________

It seems that the cultural psyche of the US is the deep rooted reason.

Distrust of government, science, experts, public institutions, main stream media

Perceived infringement and irreversible gradual erosion of individual freedoms/liberties, 'mandates applied now will be misused forever', wearing of masks to protect others

Highly individual outlook as opposed to group, as exampled by resistance to a universal health care system.

____________

 

The wearing of a face mask is for the protection of others.

The surgeon and medical team in the operating theater are wearing masks to protect the cut open patient on the table from possible infection, not for their own protection.

The other person in the supermarket wearing a mask is protecting you.

You wearing a mask in the supermarket is protecting others.

The mask greatly reduces the likelihood of the airborne transmission of the virus.

People do not necessarily know if they have Covid, therefore wear a mask at all times in public.

It is extremely puzzling to see in the USA the incredible resistance to such a seemingly simple, easy, highly effective, cheap strategy.

Protesting that it is an infringement to constitutional rights, human rights, personal freedom/liberties........seems very selfish.

Other countries don't seem to have the same vehemence to public health advice.

_______________

 

The promotion of Ivermectin as a prophylactic to Covid is quackery and misinformation.

Until current clinical trials prove otherwise, it is quackery to promote Ivermectin.

__________

 

The stark contrast between Portugal and the US will be closely watched by all countries in the ensuing months.

 

[Paulo Mesquita]

6 hours ago, Paul A said:

Different countries have populations with differing attitudes and trust in science, vaccines, government etc.

Portugal, population approximately 10 million, September 2021.

Member @Paulo Mesquita in Sintra/Lisbon, Portugal may be able to give first hand observations.

_____________________

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/09/30/portugal-vaccination-covid/

September 30, 2021

Excerpts from the article.

Portugal has nearly run out of people to vaccinate. What comes next?

Portugal’s vaccination campaign is almost over now, and it has exceeded even the wildest goals. Nearly an entire nation trusted in the science, officials say.

Some 85 percent of Portugal’s population is fully vaccinated...

“We have actually run out of adults to give shots to,” said Lurdes Costa e Silva, the chief nurse at a Lisbon vaccine center that is already half-shuttered.

 

Portugal’s feat has turned the country into a cutting-edge pandemic laboratory — a place where otherwise-hypothetical questions about the coronavirus endgame can begin to play out. Chief among them is how fully a nation can bring the virus under control when vaccination rates are about as high as they can go.

The emerging answer is promising — mostly. In Portugal, every indicator of pandemic severity is quickly trending downward. The death rate is half the European Union average and nine times below that of the United States.

 

But Portugal’s experience is also providing a note of caution: a reminder that 1½ years into this pandemic, the current tools of science still might not be enough. The virus is still causing cancellations, lost work days and sickness — in rare cases severe. It spreads less quickly and less far than it would in places with lower vaccination rates — which benefits everyone, including the 12-and-under children not yet eligible for shots. But herd immunity remains elusive. Daily calculations about risk remain, even without large ranks of unvaccinated people to blame.

 

Mask-wearing indoors will still be mandatory in some indoor situations. Digital health certificates will continue to be necessary for travel and events with crowds.

 

In Portugal, seniors are vaccinated at a level verging on the statistically impossible: Official data puts the rate at 100 percent. But many were also vaccinated more than half a year ago — and studies from around the world, from the United States to Israel, have warned of a drop in protection by that point.

 

One of the biggest warnings of all has come from a science institute in Lisbon, where researchers have been measuring antibody levels in several thousand people — including about 500 in Portuguese nursing homes. Shortly after those nursing home residents were vaccinated, all with the vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech, 95 percent developed antibodies, the researchers found. But this summer, when the latest batch of blood samples arrived in coolers, the scientists performed the same tests — introducing the blood to synthetic elements of the virus — and the results were even more worrying than what they had been bracing for.

The staff at the nursing home, whose blood was also tested, still had detectable antibodies. But more than one-third of the residents had lost antibodies entirely.

 

To Henrique Gouveia e Melo, most of the information arriving about the elderly was overwhelmingly reassuring. Even six months in, they weren’t filling hospital beds. Case levels among seniors were falling still.

The rates in many Western countries were decent to good, still rising slowly. But then he stopped on two former Portuguese colonies, Angola and Mozambique.

In both places, like in many African nations, vaccination rates remain in the single digits — potentially giving breathing room to rampant infections and new variants capable of evading vaccines and racing around the world.

 

In March, as news about rare blood clots linked to AstraZeneca’s vaccine threw Europe into a panic, Gouveia e Melo tried to put the risk in context. He described two roads, one for those who chose the vaccine and the other for those who chose to wait. On the road for the vaccinated, a sniper would kill one of every 500,000, Gouveia e Melo said. On the road for the unvaccinated, a sniper would kill one of every 500.

“So,” he said, “which road do you want?”

 

“You cannot win just by vaccinating everyone in your own country,” he said. “The war ends after we give shots to everyone in the world.”

 

Great article, guys. 

As a portuguese 61 year old, vacinated twice with Pfizer I'm quite confident with my vaccine? Do I believe it's full proof? No, not at all. 

My reasoning when deciding about taking the shot was: do I want to play Russian roulette with oneor three bullets in the chamber? I chose one. 

Portugal is now the #1 covid vacinated country in the world. Actually my mother is going to take a 3rd shot this month. (my mother in law, in Florida, already took her 3rd too). I don't know if they'll pull down to the 60 year oldage bracket for 3rd shot vaccination. Mow it's down to 65 year olds. 

If they do I might do an immunity test just to check what my levels are before taking the needle again. 

You see, portuguese people are very laid back and very obedient and trusting when it comes to make Healthcare issues. We have free public healthcare for over a century now and given the fact that the majority of the population doesn't have much money, this has helped our life quality quite a lot. 

As for the vaccine itself, there are still quite a few anti-vax fanatics over here too. They are extremely aggressive and even insulting. My sister is one, and I think that the aggressiveness is due to the fact that they are now a very small minority, thus the cornered feelings they have, resulting then in aggressive behavior. 

So at the bottom line it all comes down to my joke with my wife. She took the Zeneca shot the 1st time and the Pfizer on the 2nd. Since the Zeneca one was built from the adenovirus of a chimpanzee and the Pfizer plays with our RNA... I say: Honey, the worst that can happen is that you might get a 2nd head growing on your shoulder and it will surely be craving the entire time for bananas and peanuts!!! 

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂🤣😂🤣🤣😂🤣😂🤣

Edited October 1, 2021 by Paulo Mesquita

[RockyTop]

I am not actually against the vaccine. I am against forcing people that have had covid to get the vaccine. I am for choice. Remember, "my body my choice" 

 

[Paul A]

My body, my choice.

Am wondering why this seems to be ignored when Texas has outlawed abortions after six weeks, when it is likely women would not have even realized yet they are pregnant.

 

 

Edited October 1, 2021 by Paul A
deletion of incorrect assumption

[RockyTop]

I am just trying to use words that people understand. I see you got the hypocrisy. 

Edited October 1, 2021 by RockyTop