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I'm honored you hung onto my quote.

Here are my two biggest problems with the “natural immunity is better” or even “natural immunity is sufficient” arguments.

First, as someone stated previously, natural immunity requires that you first go through the infection. And while yes, statistically there are certain groups expected to have fewer symptoms and severe illness, there is absolutely no guarantee of this. You can be perfectly healthy with no comorbidities but just have the shitty luck to need up on a ventilator, ultimately dead.

I couldn’t find data with a nice, neat statistic, but let’s use the 1-2% that everyone seems to hold onto. “Why should I take a vaccine to prevent an illness that I have a 99% chance of surviving?”

I was able to find data about vaccine adverse events. With over 18 million doses of Janssen/J&J vaccine administered in the US, a causal link was found to TTS, a clotting disorder, in 57 patients. Of those 57, there were 9 deaths linked. (source, CDC) With 513 million doses of mRNA vaccines there were 3 identified cases of TTS reported.

Guillain-Barré syndrome: Of 18 million+ doses in the US (Janssen/J&J) there were 302 cases of GBS documented. There was no increased GBS risk identified with the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer or Moderna.

Myocarditis and Pericarditis: There were 2,132 reports to VAERS of possible cases as of January 20,2022. Of those, 1,233 were confirmed through follow up. There were no deaths reported, and “most patients” (no percentage or numbers were cited) responded well to treatment and had no residual symptoms. Most of the cases of myocarditis/pericarditis were in young males who received the mRNA vaccines.

Death after vaccine: Health care providers are required to report any death occurring after a vaccine dose. But simply reporting the death does not mean there is or was a causal link from the vaccine. With 535 million doses of vaccines given in the US as of 1/20/22, there have been 11,657 reported deaths (0.0022%). Thus far, a causal link has been established for only 9 of those.

So, it is clear, unless one has deep distrust for “the government” and or “mainstream medicine” that the vaccines are overwhelmingly MUCH safer than being infected with COVID. It’s very interesting to me that DDee and I are so similar in our views on this because I am very much a person of faith. With the amount of information (and unfortunately misinformation) available almost instantly, there is no way that a massive global cover-up on this scale could be achieved.

And please hear/understand me. I don’t discount the anecdotal evidence from individuals. I don’t discount the suffering of the people who did experience an adverse effect of the vaccine and I don’t blame anyone who has seen a close relative suffer adverse effects for being hesitant.

But that brings me to my second big problem.

It’s. Not. Just. About. You.

Loukas, I’m replying to your post but I’m not speaking that directed at you personally. But what this pandemic has brought about in the US and apparently in Canada, from what you and some others have written, is a collision of 2 very important and basic values: personal freedom of choice versus responsibility to the community around us. We have laws restricting personal freedom of choice surrounding all sorts of issues. I am not allowed to personally choose an action or behavior that harms someone else. (Outside of certain well known exclusions such as self defense). If I am diagnosed with tuberculosis, I am not allowed to go around the community untreated and spread that illness. If I am diagnosed with certain illnesses, my physician is required to report that to public health officials so that the community around me can be informed/protected.

So it’s clear again to me, the right to personal choice in all areas is not absolute, not it is advisable. If I’ve learned anything in the past 2 years it’s that people are capable of making horrendous choices with little or no regard to people around them. As Dee said earlier, the importance of getting many people vaccinated quickly was to protect the people most at risk. Early data last year showed enormous promise that vaccinated persons were at much lower risk for infection, and when breakthrough cases started happening they tended to be milder and the contagious period shorter. Both of those effects meant fewer virus particles flying around to infect others. But the extended period of time that we’ve now gone has is with a new variant that is running rampant now.

And I restate what I said earlier. I am baffled by all of the resistance. I cannot fathom why anyone would choose to get an illness that has a documented risk for death and long term effects and refuse to get a vaccine that has been given more than 535 million times in the US with very few confirmed adverse effects. I just can’t. Even with the whole “I’m a healthy adult with no risk factors so it will just be like the flu or a cold” defense, there is always a period of time between exposure and symptoms where you can be spreading the virus. And so while you might just feel like crap for a few days, the little old lady who had to go to buy some milk one day might not be so lucky. My MIL went out in public literally once in the 2 week period before she became ill. Once. A 30 minute trip to Walmart. That’s all it took and she was gone in 5 weeks.

Last thing I’m gonna say about natural immunity being so great. Yes, there is data supporting that for a lot of people there is a strong natural immune response. But again, because we’re all still learning together because this thing is playing out in real time, we don’t know how long that immunity lasts. And it’s certainly not universal. I had diagnosed OG COVID twice within 4 months. And my second case was exponentially worse than the first.

My opinion is that if enough people would have recognized a responsibility to the people around them and chosen to get vaccinated for that reason, we wouldn’t be taking about mandates and vaccine passports and discrimination. And I believe we’d be in a much better situation now. That’s just my opinion.

I’m not angry anymore. I think I’ve exhausted my capacity for that. We’ve had 16 new cases in my facility in the past 2 weeks. Most of the patients are vaccinated, which will give a certain group of people the opportunity to crow about how the vaccines aren’t all they are cracked up to be. Instead of looking at it as a failure on our part to protect the most vulnerable people in our society.

My opinion is that if enough people would have recognized a responsibility

How much is enough?

How much is enough?

Clearly more than have been willing so far. That’s all I’ve got.

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[This message edited by Loukas at 5:05 PM, Saturday, January 29th]

In Canada as of January 22 2022

Age group (years)_At least 1 dose______Partially vaccinate_________Fully vaccinated_______Fully vaccinated with an additional dose

0 to 4________0.02% (308)___________ 0.02% (303)_____________<0.01% (5)____________0% (0)
5 to 11_______53.17% (1,530,611)_______44.53% (1,281,968)_______8.64% (248,643)______<0.01% (24)
12 to 17_______87.59% (2,162,058)_____4.68% (115,523)__________82.91% (2,046,535)_____1.08% (20,522)
18 to 29______88.45% (5,251,572)______4.38% (259,784)_________84.07% (4,991,788)_____24.43% (1,137,523)
30 to 39_____87.95% (4,718,351)______3.44% (184,675)__________84.51% (4,533,676)____31.05% (1,297,477)
40 to 49______90.17% (4,412,777)______2.50% (122,168)__________87.68% (4,290,609)____39.19% (1,451,366)
50 to 59______90.77% (4,656,361)_____2.02% (103,426)__________88.75% (4,552,935)_____50.12% (1,949,033)
60 to 69______94.47% (4,572,789)_____1.67% (81,066)___________92.79% (4,491,723)______64.05% (2,297,730)
70 to 79______96.86% (3,035,806)_____1.36% (42,669)___________95.50% (2,993,137)_____75.31% (1,727,798)
80 and older__98.39% (1,686,255)______1.77% (30,342)___________96.62% (1,655,913)_____77.56% (981,975)

This is what clearly not enough looks like. And because of that, we are talking mandates, vaccine passports and discrimination.

Just let that sink in- We are actively discriminating against our own citizens!

Loukas, you can use the buzzwords but it doesn't make it true. Constitutional scholars have clearly stated that vaccine mandates are not discrimination, and not a violation of Charter rights or anything like that. People will not win lawsuits for being laid off as a result of a vaccine mandate.

None of these things are actually true.

Constitutional scholars are not judges. Nor are they perfectly harmonious. A wise scholar would know nothing is guaranteed until the judges decide. That’s how these things work, not the experts brought in by media or a professors opinion. The law moves real slow and cost a lot of money and court cases have only just begun. That is the truth, so far. It is also blatantly obvious that we are in fact discriminating against our citizens. Hardly a buzzword.

I don't understand your statistical points, Loukas.

*****

I can't imagine thinking that a vax that works against one virus will work against all variants. Even so, these vaxes worked against Delta and Lambda - and it mitigated the effects of Omicron. I have no problem understanding that new flus need new vaxes. I have no problem understanding that a vax may work for a limited time. To expect anything else is to live in fantasyland. To believe a politician who says otherwise is to live very dangerously. To believe a news medium uncritically is to accept lies, since news media almost always have to cut out important aspects of any report.

I have a problem with expecting more from the CDC, given the evolution of US pandemic response plans. The NSC began planning responses to a pandemic shortly after the SARS pandemic in the early 2000s. The planning was updated after 2009. I've heard talks by a consultant on the plans; he's a fan of only one of those administrations, but he praised the pandemic planning of both. A later National Security Advisor threw out the plan as unnecessary. It wasn't retrieved or followed when it was needed.

A blanket statement above asserted that the Covid vaccines did not prevent infections or transmission, when in fact every vaccine legally available in Canada and the US demonstrably did so - and mitigated the effects of Omicron. That's not a bad record for any vaccine.

*****

If you want to rail against bureaucracy, I'm with you. Bureaucracies make mistakes all the time - unfortunately they usually get most of what they're ordered to do right, and they're usually backed by powerful PR machines. In fact, even when bureaucratic problems get into the news, the reports focus on serving someone's electoral desires and not on improving policies.

*****

Around here, most public venues are required to exclude unvaxed people, I'm very good with that.

I would be OK with a restaurant that said, 'Unvaxed people welcome.' I just wouldn't enter them or even order from them for take-out or delivery. I do not want to have to wonder if every new customer who walks in while I'm there is or is not infected. (Actually, at my age, with my co-morbity, I'm also willing to stay out of restaurants and musical performances now.)

Would you go to work with flu if you had sick days? Would you go to work if you knew the person next to you had flu? Would you dance with someone who has flu? A cold? If you wouldn't, how is it OK to enter and stay in a public venue when you're unvaccinated when something as virulent as Omicron is floating around?

I'm willing to limit the freedom to infect others and to nurture potentiall very dangerous variants. I'll willingly get vaxed and give up some pelasure for the benefit of my fellow human beings, and I don't think I'm asking too much from tem in asking them to get vaxed if they can - especially since the reasons given for not doing it are not based on proven data.

'Race', religion, national origin, skin color, sexual orientation, gender, language group (which can be different from national origin) ... I'm happy to see a public venue that keeps someone out on one of those bases shut down.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 10:00 PM, Saturday, January 29th]

Loukas,

As we've already discussed, you and I love in very different locations with very different experiences. When I said, "Not nearly enough," I was primarily referring to the U.S. and specifically to the region where I live. I live in the Southeastern region, in the state which pretty much invented "States' Rights" as a rallying cry.

Please note that is as close to politics and government I intend to go and am not inviting debate on that particular philosophy.

Just emphasizing that in my area, there are a whole lot of people who would literally rather die than to submit to some real or imaginary loss of their perceived autonomy. I've been told that by a whole lot more than one or two people.

Not nearly enough people were willing to listen to the VAST majority of medical professionals and take a vaccine soon enough to have possibly/likely prevented the Delta and Omicron variants from even developing. People trusted their own beliefs when most do not have the education or experience/knowledge base to understand how much they didn't know. I know you said to disregard masks, but where I am, again, not nearly enough people are willing to use this very simple, noninvasive, proven mitigating safety measure. Because it's uncomfortable. Or simply because "Nobody's gonna tell me what to do."

Honestly, that's the most amusing/bemusing thing about all of the conspiracy theories to me. We are expected to believe that thousands of scientists, health care professionals and government officials are all colluding together for some nefarious purpose that no one has been able to actually define. But we can't manage to get 50 people in a closed space to be willing to put a damn mask on.

Anyway, believe it or not, I am not in favor of vaccine mandates. I just wish more people cared enough about the rest of society to do the right thing. I wish people who are hesitant be cause they don't understand the technology were willing to be educated. Maybe then, the people with valid reasons to defer the vaccine would be respected and not dumped in with the pejorative "unvaxxed" class.

[This message edited by HFSSC at 3:00 PM, January 29th (Saturday)]

Constitutional scholars are not judges. Nor are they perfectly harmonious. A wise scholar would know nothing is guaranteed until the judges decide

Sure, but judges are all former lawyers. Lawyers are experts in the matters and are in the best position to interpret the constitution and the way it has been interpreted in the existing law and to evaluate whether arguments are likely to be successful or not. It makes sense to listen to experts.

That is the truth, so far. It is also blatantly obvious that we are in fact discriminating against our citizens.

Are we still talking about the truckers? If so, how are they being discriminated against? No rights have been removed from them, what has been removed is a privilege. They are now required to follow the exact same steps that ordinary citizens follow when crossing the border back into Canada. They had previously been exempt from having to follow the same rules as everyone else.

Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

Yikes! Which of those categories are being discriminated against in requiring vaccination against Covid-19?

Informed refusal on what basis?

During WWII, even Canadians were drafted. What was the penalty for 'informed refusal'? It was theoretically possible to get 'conscientious objector' status, but that complied with the law. Defeating Covid-19 requires group action, similar to the group action required to wage total war.

What happened to Canadians who simply refused to serve? In the US, they went to jail. A quick search will surface a CBC story about jailing Mennonite COs....

*****

Very few of us in the US oppose vaccine mandates - even Mississippi, Alaska, Florida, and Texas (which I cite only because they seem to be our most rebellious states) require DPT, Hep B, Meningitis, measles, mumps, rubella, polio, chicken pox, etc. But they all seem not to like Covid-19 vax. (Florida sent its first shipments of Covid vax to the most affluent areas of the state, and it was initially impossible to get appointments during the first several weeks of availability.) That doesn't make sense.

Also, when measles ripped through an unvaxed population not too long ago, parents of vaxed kids expressed rage at the parents whose kids spread the disease, and they were supported by their community at large.

So as much as mandates seem unnecessary, they seem accepted by the vast majority here in the US. But not for Covid-19.

Yikes! Which of those categories are being discriminated against in requiring vaccination against Covid-19?

If we’re still talking about the truckers, they aren’t even required to be vaccinated. The change is that IF THEY ARE UNVACCINATED they are no longer exempted from quarantine requirements that the country requires of all other unvaccinated citizens (previously unvaccinated truckers were given an exemption from this requirement due to their essential service status). There is no removal of a right, it is the removal of a privilege.

I find this to be akin to a bunch of people drunk driving as a protest against fines for drunk driving because most people don't die when they drive drunk and shouldn't they have the freedom to drive as drunk as they want without government interference? A few extra people dying is surely no reason to deny us the freedom of driving drunk.

Dee, this is a PERFECT analogy.

I don't understand your statistical points, Loukas.

Which ones? Why and what don’t you understand?

A blanket statement above asserted that the Covid vaccines did not prevent infections or transmission, when in fact every vaccine legally available in Canada and the US demonstrably did so - and mitigated the effects of Omicron. That's not a bad record for any vaccine.

Have you not been paying attention to the omicron wave? Nations with high vaccination rates? We know the vaccines are not preventing transmission and infection of omicron, like 0% effectiveness for 2 shots and very minimal for a short time with the booster. You’ve mentioned this a few times now and I’ve been puzzled every time. Pfizer CEO Albert Borla said so himself. Just look at the vaccinated members in this thread who got infected. That’s not to say vaccination is pointless, but to assume you are safe from transmission and infection because the unvaxxed aren’t allowed to frequent where you go out is unwise and not scientific.

On that note, it’s in the name of this science that we here in Canada are still actively discriminating against our own people with vaccine passports.

We know the vaccines are not preventing infection and transmission, but in the name of science, here are vaccine passports to keep the unvaxxed out.

Anyway Sisoon, you got caught up in the categories of the rights, you overlooked the very beginning where it said every individual.

As for right to informed refusal. Here’s what a judge from our second highest court had to say about it (not COVID specially, just the right itself)

"The right to determine what shall, or shall not, be done with one's own body, and to be free from non-consensual medical treatment, is a right deeply rooted in our common law. This right underlines the doctrine of informed consent. With very limited exceptions, every person's body is considered inviolate, and, accordingly, every competent adult has the right to be free from unwanted medical treatment. The fact that serious risks or consequences may result from a refusal of medical treatment does not vitiate the right of medical self-determination. The doctrine of informed consent ensures the freedom of individuals to make choices about their medical care. It is the patient, not the physician, who ultimately must decide if treatment — any treatment — is to be administered."

@Loukas then why aren't you railing against other mandated vaccines and only for COVID? It seems there is some kind of cognitive dissonance or narrative to which alignment is staunch and unbending. Just curious.

As to why I got the vaccine, I can assure you it wasn't because I thought I needed it. No sir. I am not young and in all of my decades on earth I have never had any illness that impacted my lungs - the very part of the body that COVID attacks and causes death.

...it means getting the vaccine is far more a personal protection choice, rather than community choice.

Not true for many so making such a statement is your perspective.

May I remind you and others to please keep the discourse kind. There is NO reason to call someone out or to perpetuate attacks.

A sorry on a COVID thread, I assumed were would all understand I was referring to COVID vaccines. Dirty games, Sisoon, very dirty.

Uninvited attacks are not welcome on this forum or any forum on SI. It causes discomfort and invites less than honorable discourse.

After defacing the Terry Fox monument in Ottawa, the truckers will NEVER have my support. Ever!

Also, I disagree that there is evidence of NO vaccine protection against Omicron. The US data that I’ve found supports that people with a booster dose are less at risk for Omicron infection. Still not perfect. Still more risk than for the original virus and earlier variants.

Secondly, all of the chest pounding in the world about the individual’s right to personal health care decisions cannot outweigh the rights of the community around them to be free of harm caused by your health care choices. If you have HIV, you are not free to go have unprotected sex with whoever you want. If you have Tuberculosis, you are certainly free to refuse treatment, but you are then not free to go about the community and spread Tb. Smokers have the right to do whatever they want to their own lungs but are restricted from most public spaces.

It is a fact that unvaccinated, previously uninflected people have the highest risk for infection with COVID. That is a fact. There is still conflicting data as to the consistency and longevity of natural immunity after infection. And there was very strong data supporting consistent, fairly long lasting protection after a 2nd dose of mRNA vaccines up until omicron hit.

I’m with ISSF on this point, too. Why is COVID the only public health/vaccine issue the only one that matters? Not calling you out specifically, Loukas. But it just blows my mind that the majority of people have had their kids vaccinated for daycare and school, have taken vaccines as adults for college and work requirements. But suddenly when we are 2 years into a global pandemic that has killed millions of people, this is the hill they want to die on.

And this may be a bit of a T/J of my own post but…

As a science nerd and a nurse, I was very excited about the science of the mRNA vaccines. From the very beginning, when Jenner and Pasteur worked to establish the link between pathogen and disease, the only way to get immunity was to infect oneself with a similar or hopefully mild form of the disease. Over the years, developing “traditional” vaccines continued to require the use of actual pathogens. Some vaccines today still use live/attenuated virus. Those vaccines do carry a risk of actually causing the disease they are trying to prevent. Some vaccines use dead virus that theoretically cannot cause infection, but still requires the use of actual pathogens in development.

The research on mRNA vaccines began over a decade ago. This wasn’t some fly-by-night arrangement where research was rushed through. The approval process was stepped up because hundreds of thousands of people were dying, and people everywhere were screaming at the governments and public health officials to DO SOMETHING!!!!!! As I said, I was excited that we have now progressed with science that can use our body’s own mechanisms to form an immune response rather than risking the use of the actual virus.

There’s a family near me opposed to the vaccines because mRNA freaks them out. But their son is a type 1 diabetic who survives because back in 1978, David Goeddel and his colleagues figured out a way to get bacteria (E coli, to be exact) to produce an insulin chemically identical to human insulin. They used recombinant DNA to get those bacterial cells to produce a life saving product. I don’t know exactly how it works, but that’s just amazing to me. How someone can accept similar technology for one disease but reject it in another disease.

And no, please don’t anyone freak out and think I’m comparing COVID to diabetes. And rDNA is not the same as mRNA. I know this. 😊

It causes discomfort and invites less than honorable discourse.

As yourself and others have stated over and over again throughout this thread, they feel they got the vaccine for the greater good. Which means coming out against this position is by default, amoral. Comments calling the unvaxxed selfish, being just an example, if we want to talk about honourable discourse.

Not true for many so making such a statement is your perspective.

Absolutely, but I don’t know how you could claim the many didn’t operate from their perspective. Very few selfless acts exist without selfish motivations.

Loukas then why aren't you railing against other mandated vaccines and only for COVID? It seems there is some kind of cognitive dissonance or narrative to which alignment is staunch and unbending. Just curious.

I mean who’s free of narrative? But staunch and unbending, only when it comes to human rights. I take it very seriously, it’s been shocking to see how careless we’ve been with them over the passed two years and how many are willing to fight against them.

Cognitive dissonance, possibly, I do try to check myself regularly, but with regards to vaccine mandates, nope. No other vaccine requires a passport to eat a burger in a restaurant, or discriminates against an individual for not having one. The speed of which these vaccine mandates come into place don’t even allow a reasonable amount of time to see how the vaccines work in real life. In my province, the majority of our population got fully vaxxed after our 2nd wave and before our 3rd, which happened to be omicron and only seven months apart. But we’ve had vax passports for 4 months now and already we know much more then we did when the passports came into place.

[This message edited by Loukas at 4:05 PM, Sunday, January 30th]

If you have HIV, you are not free to go have unprotected sex with whoever you want. If you have Tuberculosis, you are certainly free to refuse treatment, but you are then not free to go about the community and spread Tb.

You need to have contracted either, to have minimal restrictions put on your life. Not so with COVID, healthy individuals, free of infection, masked up, refused most everyday freedoms. The smoker is still welcome anywhere, he just can’t smoke everywhere, a reasonable balance, at least.

[This message edited by Loukas at 5:05 PM, Sunday, January 30th]