Situation in the Philippines and in our province

only in years to come will we know if they made the right or wrong choice.[/QUOTE]

It seems to be evident that vaccines enable a higher rate of survival so "right choice"[/QUOTE]

In the short-term. That is all we have the evidence for - less than one year. I fully agree that the vaccines are reducing hospital admissions and deaths and that the world had no choice but to vaccinate. But we have no evidence yet for 2 years, 5 years, 10 years. For me, no serious side-effects would be fine within 10 years of vaccination but younger people might feel even 10 years is not long enough. Long-term adverse effects are known for a host of diseases and can in some cases be due to the disease organism, or parts of it, becoming latent - we could speculate the possibility of this for vaccines containing genetic material or altered viruses (e.g. the attenuated ones). I accept that this could also be the outcome of infection with the virus and not only of vaccination.

The problem is that people have to make a choice with no evidence available except for the short-term. I have already stated that although I am cautious about the long-term (simply because it has not happened yet) I will get vaccinated (but not with Communist-produced crap) if the Delta or future more-serious variants prove a great threat to me within the area where I live at that time.

 

I am interested in this and would like the reference where you obtained this correlation please.

 

Facts: As a result of mass vaccination many children's diseases are merely a distant memory in much of the developed world, and the incidence of serious adverse effects from vaccination with all of these vaccines, short term and long term, has been proven to be negligible.
https://www.aafp.org/afp/2002/1201/p2113.html#afp20021201p2113-b5
So why one would expect serious adverse effects from Covid vaccines, especially those developed with proven technology (non MRNA), remains a mystery to me.

Just saying, if the world would be exclusively populated with anti-vaxxers there would not be any vaccine available today, nor in the future (because no volunteers for any phase 2 and 3 test schemes). Basically, antivaxxers are either fine with the risk of illness, or they think they're entitled to hike their wagon onto the train of braver citizens who will protect them by getting vaccinated.

Similarly, there were some scientists who dismissed climate change as the result of human influence on the planet for a long time (they're going quiet now though). Case in point: there will always be a vocal minority to question/dispute any scientific conclusion, also among scientists.
I tend to stick with the opinion of those scientists who do actual research, publish their results so they can be peer reviewed, and in the Covid case specifically those who work with EMA, CDC, WHO and the likes.

 

HAHAHAHAHA

 

Just as there are anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers, the opposite end of the spectrum is those that have a "religious" belief in the government. Sadly, neither end of the spectrum seems interested in science.

 

Agreed! It is tough living in the 21st century.

 

A friend, whose writings I respect, posted on our high school class site the following, which really follows my reasoning. It is also why I feel that a risk-benefit analysis would come down on the side of masking and avoiding places where I see many people, mostly ex-pats, not masking.

<<Since mask-wearing does more to protect others, necessarily any study has to be a community study, rather than the vaccine studies of individual. See the thread by Jason Abaluck posted today on Twitter reporting on a massive (>350,000 persons) randomized study in villages in Bangaldesh. PR campaigns in half the villages increased mask wearing from about 13% to 42%. In the villages with increased mask-wearing, testing found an 11% reduction in COVID-19, including a 35% reduction in the over-60 population. The authors project that universal near mask-wearing would result in a 37% reduction in positive tests and a disproportionate reduction in morbidity and mortality.>>

 

Thanks for replying to my query, when 'TO(n)TO and the Lone (r)ANGER' did not.

I can accept that SOME anti-vaxxers are anti-every-vaccine and that SOME anti-vaxxers are anti-masks, but I would need figures from scientific studies to prove that these are a majority - and no figures seem available. There is certainly evidence that anti-covid-vaxxers are also anti-mask as pictures of their demonstrations show it. I also understand why that group behave as they do as it is political and driven by a madman.

I am not anti-vaccines, in fact I am very much in favour of them - I just resent that some Forum members call those who are cautious about one rushed set of vaccines as 'anti-vaxxers' and then defend the rushed vaccines as safe in the long-term when they have ZERO evidence. They sometimes try to prove their case by stating that similar methods are used to make these vaccines as used to make other vaccines for decades - but alcohol (choosing a product probably familiar to everyone here) is made by the very long-tested process of fermentation and distillation and yet the end product depends on the material used in the fermentation. The materials used to make Covid vaccines are NOT the same materials used to make polio, rabies, measles, mumps, etc vaccines - the materials used to make Covid vaccines are Covid antigens and not polio antigens or other antigens. If the 'wrong' materials are used to make alcohol then the end product could be lethal.

So people who say anti-Covid-vaxxers are non-scientific are, I observe, lacking in scientific knowledge - that is why it is difficult to use scientific evidence to refute them - plus the fact that intellectuals (of which scientists form a sub-set) are frowned upon in a world which calls sports people 'heroes' and where extreme governments execute intellectuals. It becomes pointless using science when most people don't understand it and resent those who do. I wonder how much of a scientist Mr Donald Trump is.