Nobody is forced to take the vaccine. Nobody is being dragged in and held down to take it.

Oh okay I just thank thank you @jca2 I guess I am a little paranoid.

What should alarm you is the fact that previously the necessity for mandates did not exist. It is only recently that the stupidity of Americans has dictated the need to protect the idiots from themselves.

https://ocde.us/CHEP/Documents/Forms2/Updated%20Iz%20Requirements%20by%20Grade.pdf

It’s just you. Take the vaccine. Better to be safe than sorry.

You are probably too young to remember, but back in the early 60’s, all grade school kids were mandated to get a polio vaccine (I think it was in the form of a sugar cube) and a small pox vaccine. That’s why you hardly ever hear of anyone having either disease as it was mostly eradicated due to these vaccines. If you have never heard of, or seen pictures of an iron lung, look it up. People with polio had to live in those machines just to be able to breathe and live.

There are tons of vaccine mandates. For school children, teacher, nurses and others, there have been long standing vaccine requirements. No one forces you to take them, you simply must if you want to participate.

As do health care workers. They have to show proof of childhood vaccines before they are hired in a health care facility.
Edited to add: oops sorry @Smashley, you did specify nurses.

Aren’t all kids in this country routinely vaccinated at birth?

You’re paranoid, but almost surely because Trump led the GOP into a pattern of lying about the situation, which they haven’t been willing to back down from, and have kept doubling down on.

What’s far more than “a little out of the ordinary” is COVID and the pandemic, which has killed 936,059 people in the US as reported today, of 78,829,022 reported cases (and many who have survived have had life-changing effects).

The whole world current reported totals are 404,728,943 cases and 5,799,544 deaths. And it’s not stopping. The reports of new cases are higher than ever.

Compare to US casualties during all of World War II (1942–1945): 407,300 deaths and 671,801 military wounded.

More than twice as many deaths than World War II is MORE than “a little out of the ordinary”, and worth serious response.

Meanwhile, the vaccine isn’t even “being forced on the people” – it’s just being required to do some things where not being vaccinated would materially endanger others’ lives.

The politically-motivated misinformation about COVID and the vaccines has probably cost many many lives.

I remember lining up in the hallway in school to be given small pox vaccinations. I wonder if they even got the parents permission.
Then the teacher passed out sugar cubes that had the polio vaccine.

@HP: The parent takes their baby to the pediatrician for vaccinations, shortly after the baby is born. Nobody is forcing the parent to get the child vaccinated.

All good answers above, from my fellow Jellies.
There’s also the yearly flu shot, for as long as I can remember (I’m in my fifties) that people voluntarily get.
No pressure there too.
Only logical, sensible information, so people can make a well thought out decision.

Can you all remember the “freedom marches” we had every year, from people that protested the shots to “battle the flu”?
No he?!!
They didn’t exist.
Some people totally lost the plot.
They’re clever enough to put a string of words together, but too stupid to think logical (and trust science).

@raum

Your link leads to a “404 page not found”.

Oh weird. Does this link work?

Basically, a list of all vaccines requirements to attend K-12 in California.

@raum

It works, and that page is an excellently comprehensive source. :)

I wish I could say just you but unfortunately, there are many like you who for some unbelievable reason think they are being forced to get a vaccination they don’t want. I can only imagine that people want to legitimize their fear because they hate shots or just use them as political cheap fodder to legitimize not caring about anyone but themselves and their personal agenda.

Get your shot. I’ve got my first and my booster. I’m still the same bullheaded person I was before the shot and my health is pretty much the same. I even got covid but I had a very mild response. Just lasted 3 days, but probably because it was probably Omicron and I had the Moderna booster that they said responded to Omicron the best.

Thanks @Pandora.

At bottom, this entire tendency amounts to a glaring and certainly justified distrust of government. Before the internet there were surely a few dozen anti-vax folks in the country. But nowadays, it would appear a vast number of us can no longer discern which issues are worthy of suspicion. Those formerly scattered groups of antivaxers now have the megaphone to propagate hairbrained nonsense and voodoo theories to beat the band.

The pandemic is out of the ordinary. The US has had nothing like this since polio in the 1950s and the flu in 1918.

I was more than happy to get my three (so far) out-of-the-ordinary vaccine shots.

Vaccinated people rarely get hospitalized and killed by Covid. I’m happy to be in the protected group.

@HP
Here is a link to the 1918 Pnademic when the Spanish Flu took hold.
Masks, isolation etc were started then as well.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-commemoration/1918-pandemic-history.htm

I must ask sense almost every outbreak had a vaccine. Is this the first time we have boosters?

Boosters is what science has worked out @KRD.

Haven’t read above responses. We have plenty of mandatory vaccines in most countries, including most states in the US. It’s blatantly false that the governments and businesses don’t require other vaccines.

Most vaccines that are mandatory there are some exceptions allowed. Covid vaccine there are exceptions also.

No one is forced to get the covid vaccine. No one is being held down, but yes some people feel forced because they have to work and their job is requiring it. I believe some people who were “against” the covid vaccine or on the fence are actually relieved it was required at work.

As far as I know children are not being required to get covid vaccinated for school in the US. Not like the other vaccines that are required, MMR, Polio, Pertussis, and more. Many colleges are requiring the covid vaccine, but they are adults, or just short of 18 in some cases.

Back when Polio vaccine was finally being widely distributed they lined up children in schools for it. Measles was also a massive effort to vaccinate all children, most adults were exempt, because they had immunity. There are so many similar examples. Practically everyone in the world was vaccinated for smallpox in the 60’s, all ages.

@KRD: “Is this the first time we have boosters?”

We have all kinds of boosters. Besides MMR, and Hep A/B boosters we get as a kid, don’t forget that we all get our tdap (Tetanus, Diphtheria, Pertussis) boosters every 10 years. Many of us also get the flu vaccine every year.

@JLeslie: My guess as to why people used to line up willingly for smallpox, and now willingtly get their polio vaccines is that those diseases have terrible outcomes, whereas the Republicans have billed Covid as “nothing worse than a cold.” People here on Fluther say that too. “It’s nothing worse than a cold.”

I’m pro-vaccine, just pointing out one reason why the Covid vaccine is not as popular as smallpox or polio vaccines.

@jca2 I agree. Actually, I think Smallpox had an average deathrate of 30%, higher in children, it was very deadly. Polio, almost everyone I know over 65 knows someone who had a bad case of polio or had it themselves, either bed ridden for months, permanently crippled, or died. I don’t know how often those types of severe symptoms or outcomes happened with Polio, but it was very scary, and it was children who were most often attacked by the disease. People have less tolerance for children dying than 80 year olds. So many people say, “they were sick with other things,” when talking about older people who died. They think it is wrong to name covid as what killed the person, even though they were not at death’s door before covid, they were living with their health problems.

Also, I think trust in doctors was much higher back 50 plus years ago. A lot of people older people I know seem more inclined to follow doctors’ orders.

There also is serious selective memory and confirmation bias out there and lack of historical knowledge. People really believe no other vaccines are mandated, when they themselves were vaccinated because of the schedule of vaccinations issued by the state. How can that make sense?

On the flip side, there is unlikely to be school mandates while the vaccines are only approved for emergency use, that is something I think Democrats are missing. The Polio vaccine, and other vaccines, were not suddenly in wide distribution in all schools. There was a trial, and then a halt to administering it, and then I don’t remember all of the details, a new one was created and then finally a new one, different from the original ones in the trials, that eventually was given out to the population at large.

@product I was asking of the covid vaccine was the first to have a booster not how long we have had them.

@KRD: “I was asking of the covid vaccine was the first to have a booster not how long we have had them.”

That is the question I answered.

???

@JLeslie: Even with the states’ schedule for vaccinations, parents don’t have to get the baby vaccinated. Amish and other religions can claim exemptions, and there’s a big anti vaccine movement (even before Covid).

@jca2 Yes, I know. Measles and some other illness sometimes get into the Amish communities (or similar cluster communities) and significant outbreaks in those populations happen. The virus just races across the group infecting almost everyone in its path who has no immunity.

The government doesn’t really force anyone to get vaccinated as far as I can tell. You might just lose your job or might not be able to attend something. Just like you said above.

@KRD You are not paranoid. We have experimental vaccines being mandated (or attempted to be mandated) for all people to have to take. Unlike every other vaccine we have ever had, they are based on unproven technology…technology that was never shown to be safe for any application, until they started injecting humans as a vaccine.

The mandates are to force you to take something that does not prevent the illness (again unlike most other vaccines we have had), nor does it stop you from transmitting the disease. Yet if you are unvaccinated, people want to treat you like you are the only one that is spreading the disease.

The vaccines have shown to have more adverse reactions than every other vaccine we have ever used…combined. They have crippled people for life, they have killed people, they have done all sorts of things to a lot of people. But 2 shots is not enough. You need 3. And now 4.

No, you are not paranoid. But I would say you are a bit off the mark. They aren’t a little out of the ordinary…they are WAY out of the ordinary.

@seawulf575 The vaccines have full FDA approval now for adults. It’s no longer new or experimental. The first people to get the US vaccines received theirs almost two years ago.

95% of the COVID-19 deaths are unvaccinated ! !

https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-numbers/95-percent-covid-19-deaths-parkland-dallas-unvaccinated/287-1a7a6816-4f4a-4cea-bfd6-e646d006d7a8

Joe Rogan is a “scumbag” and is killing people.

@JLeslie Help me out here. What use has mRNA technology ever been proven safe for? What was it ever used for prior to starting injections into humans as a Covid-19 “vaccine”? I’ll help you out…the answer is “nothing”. We have no idea what the long term effects of these vaccines will be. The CDC has even had to change their definition of “vaccine” to be able to call these vaccines.

The government has been demanding (mandating) their use. This was going on long before they were approved by the FDA. The FDA is a government entity. At this point they would have to approve them for use or they would set the government up for law suits out the ying yang. Let me challenge you to another one. What other drug has ever been approved for use with as many serious side effects as have been seen on these vaccines?

@Tropical_Willie So what you are saying is that 5% of all deaths were to fully vaccinated people. Got it. Let me give you another stat: 100% of those that have been permanently disabled or died due to the vaccines were vaccinated.

HA – HA – HA . . . “100% of those that have been permanently disabled or died due to the vaccines were vaccinated.” and the number are . . . https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html SMALL

When you dead you are dead and 95% of the dead from COVID-19 are unvaccinated !

@Tropical_Willie Per the VAERS database there have been over 23,000 deaths due to the vaccines. That was a little while ago…we covered that in a different thread. And the real kicker is that if the person dies more than 2 weeks after the injection (which is when most of the real adverse reactions start), they don’t count it as a “vaccine related death”. So you go and spout off at the families and loved ones of those 23,000 people and try shouting them into getting vaccinated. And we won’t even start into the ones that didn’t die but probably wish they had.

And before you start trying to say “Sources please!” here is the thread where I spelled out how to get the data out of VAERS

https://www.fluther.com/230116/would-you-support-a-health-tax-on-unvaccinated-americans/

There have been that many deaths from COVID-19 the last week and half . . . .

. . .and 95% of them were unvaccinated !

Don’t need to know how to extract info from CDC !

. . . . that is where I’m getting numbers for the dead !

Why do you make arguments that you would need PhD in order to understand the answer @seawulf575?

@seawulf575 How many people do you think have been vaccinated? Let’s limit it to the US for simplicity. How many?

And how many have suffered dire consequences?

@Dutchess_III What PhD? I gave you guys step-by-step directions to pull out the data. You have to have the wit that would allow you to assemble a child’s toy.

@Call_Me_Jay How many deaths and permanent disabilities is too many from a medical treatment that doesn’t do anything?

@seawulf575 How many 100s of millions of vaccinations do you call “untested”? And keeping people out of the hospital and the grave equals “doesn’t do anything”?

@seawulf575 I know you had covid, it wasn’t very severe, and so you likely won’t get vaccinated.

Let’s talk about some random person over age 50 who has never had covid and won’t get vaccinated. Why should they feel like they will be the one person in millions to have a lasting side effect from the vaccines or worse die, but they feel sure if they catch covid they will sail through with no problems? We already have one jelly just among us regulars who wouldn’t get vaccinated and now has had lasting effects from covid.

I get that if they never catch covid they never have to worry about it, and if they put their arm out for the shot they definitely are risking the shot (so very little risk, but ok, anything can happen).

Why are people so cocky about being healthy enough to fight off covid, but not to get the vaccine? The actual statistical risk of catching covid and getting very sick, hospital sick, long haul, or dying, are much much higher than any number you have given us about the self reported vaccine side effects.

Really? VAERS? This is a self reporting database that doesn’t weed out lies, bias, or accidental duplicates without direct permission from the poster, and only if they cared to leave appropriate contact information.

The incredible hulk event is a great example of what’s wrong with this database. Relying on VAERS is popular because it helps the fools pretend that the lies are the truth.

It’s also possible that stats are skewed toward making it sound like the vaccine has terrible side effects because if they ask people to report any and all side effects, and someone says they had a headache or spent the day in bed with the chills, from the vaccine, there’s no way to differentiate, statistic-wise, between that and something catastrophic. To me, a day in bed with the chills or arm pain is not worth reporting, but if the makers of the vaccine say “report everything, we want to know” then people will report it and it sounds like there are millions of people who are now crippled or dead from a vaccine, whereas that’s not the reality.

@Smashley You are correct. However most of the entries are from medical professionals. Why would they make stuff up? AND you make a valid point…ONLY IF THYE CARED. It is likely that the numbers are grossly underreported. So while I’m saying 23,000, the estimates are actually much higher. There is a “reporting factor” that applies to account for those that aren’t actually caring enough to report. Most sites I can find make that number to be 40. I believe that to be a bit high. So let’s be extremely generous and say it is only 10. That means you are now looking a death count of 230,000. And that doesn’t count the others that have been only permanently disabled.

And remember, there is a concerted effort to NOT call things vaccine deaths. A perfectly healthy athlete gets his vaccine and 2 days later he keels over. They blame it on stroke or blood clots or anything other than the vaccine. Yes, it probably was a stroke or blood clot, but what caused that in a perfectly healthy individual? They don’t ask those questions. So the death rate due to the vaccines is probably much, much higher.

Concurrently there is a concerted effort (and monetary incentive) to call things “Covid cases” or “Covid deaths”. Hospitals have someone come in with a broken arm. They have no Covid symptoms but they test them anyway. They find that person is positive so they are changed from a broken arm to a Covid case. And they get paid more for it. Ditto that for Covid deaths. So the 909,000 deaths in the US could easily be much lower. And the Vaccine deaths much, much higher. Suddenly we aren’t looking at a low number of deaths any longer.

@seawulf575 Even if there is some ill will in reporting deaths and hospitalizations, how much of a misrepresentation do you think there is? 10% in either direction? The stats still are in favor of getting the shot, ESPECIALLY if an adult has not been sick with covid yet. Even more so if they have any risk factors like, overweight (a lot of people are completely unaware they are overweight) high BP, etc, or if they are over the age of 50. That’s selfishly, they should do it for themselves, I’m not even talking about for the greater good.

@JLeslie You are ascribing considerations that may not exist to your random straw man. I asked the question: What has mRNA EVER been used for before? It has been around since 1990 and had all sorts of glorious hope associated with it. It was going to cure cancer, it was going to cure all sorts of diseases…but never made it past testing. As far as I can determine, it never made it past animal testing because of the side effects and the long term effects.

Someone over 50, in good health, such as myself might look at that and question it. Then they see the hoo-haw about the vaccines and start questioning the motive. Why start mandating an experimental drug? Yes, I know…the FDA approved them. But not until just recently. The vaccines have been getting mandated for much longer. So who has what to gain by this?

You could say it is to stop the spread of the disease. In fact that is what they DID say. The CDC start off saying you got the vaccines to build immunity. That has since changed to you get the vaccine to help boost your immune system. That change happened when they saw the vaccines did not protect you from getting the disease or from spreading it.

You could say getting the vaccine will keep you from having to wear a mask and let you get back to a normal life. In fact the DID say that. But almost immediately when a bunch of people started getting the shots, that changed. No relaxing of masks, nothing in the way of getting back to normal.

You could say it can’t hurt and will give you great protection against the disease and it’s only 2 shots (at most)! In fact they DID say that. Until they said you needed a booster. And now another booster. The vaccines have really been out for about a year now. In one year they are suddenly saying you need 4 shots and show no indications that will slack off. So for the next 10 years of your life, you will have to get what…20 shots? 30 shots? Obviously it isn’t like the flu shot with an annual booster (which is geared towards the most likely versions that year).

You could say the boosters give you better protections against all the variants. In fact they DID say that. Even after it was shown to be false and even after the Pharmaceutical companies all said their vaccines didn’t work against the variants and it would take months to develop new ones.

So now that person, over 50, in good health, starts looking at it. Something doesn’t smell right. An experimental drug, that doesn’t give you immunity, that doesn’t keep you from spreading the disease, and which doesn’t get your life back to normal. And the government is trying to coerce you into getting it. And then getting boosters that are known to not be effective. So that then looks at the side effects and sees that there are more adverse reactions, and more significant adverse reactions, than every other vaccine that has ever been out there…combined. So you realize that you gain nothing but could lose much. So why take it? You aren’t guaranteed of getting the disease and if you do it is 99.9% likely you will survive. And in the end, having the federal government dictate to you what you can and can’t do is offensive. It is tyranny.

So is your question really “why do people think for themselves?”

@KRD are you starting to see why it is out of the ordinary?

^^Are you sure businesses were mandating the vaccine before it was approved? That might be incorrect. Vaccines were not mandated anywhere the first day they were available.

Your 50 year old isn’t looking at the whole picture or all of the facts.

@seawulf575: Mask mandates are being lifted. NY, CT and NJ are lifting them or have lifted them. In NY, school mask mandates are being lifted March 8, for the first time since the shutdown.

Additionally, J&J is not mRNA and has decent efficacy with the two dose series.

Edit: I am disappointed the vaccines don’t block catching the disease better, it does prevent some disease. I do believe it helps with herd immunity overall. Thinking for myself :) it seems worth it to get the first two doses, I’d lean towards Moderna for adults over 50, maybe even since then two months apart instead of one in my non-expert OPINION not advise for anyone. Absolutely people are taking more risks once vaccinated. Come to where I live.

Article about mandatory vax before full approval https://www.denverpost.com/2021/08/24/fda-approval-covid-19-vaccination-mandates/amp/

@JLeslie Not sure if you read the article you just posted, but it is inaccurate. It was back in August and they were touting the Pfizer vaccine being approved. It wasn’t. The BIOnTECH version…Comirnaty…was NOT the same as the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. It is a technicality possibly, but Comirnaty was not released for use. It was their design that was approved and it is slightly different than the Pfizer-BioNTech version. The Pfizer vaccine that has been touted is NOT Comirnaty. So it was still experimental…EUA use only. Another oddity to the whole narrative surrounding the vaccines.

@jca2 Yes, they are being lifted. Why not? The elections are coming up and Democrats are tanking across the country. They need a win. The Feds and the CDC still say they should be worn…which is what they have said all along and which was the rationale for these states you just listed to mandate them. The recommendations haven’t changed, but the mandates have. Political. But then you know my view: the SCIENCE has said they don’t work all along. It was political to say they do.

Paranoid much?

@Dutchess_III Paranoid? Nope. Maybe you can explain it to me. The Democrat controlled states have gone for 2 years now claiming they are following CDC guidance. That has been their excuse for the control of people. Now, suddenly, they are changing that. The CDC still says the same thing it always has. Fauci is still saying it’s science. Yet they are stepping away from that. Why is that? Don’t they care about their constituents? Aren’t they afraid, like they have always professed to be, that the virus will run rampant and kill millions? You explain it to me.

Did you not get the memo, @seawulf575?
Omicron is much less deadly than Alpha and Delta were.
Every new mutation, every new situation in a pandemic, asks for a new approach, a new regulation.
It’s ‘rocket science’ what the scientists do, but not rocket science understanding the basics of how to deal with a pandemic.
It’s logic.

Funny how @seawulf575 assumed I was talking about him.

@seawulf575 I do see now that it is out of the ordinary.

It baffles me that people actually conclude covid is but a convenient excuse for the government to deprive us of autonomy. It is an unfortunate fact (which we are certainly witnessing) that people MUST be controlled. And STUPID people are God’s invention put here specifically to prove that point. No one is trying to revoke the freedom to BE stupid, but stupid behavior MUST have its limits. Covid itself is a joke next to our “rampant” stupidity pandemic.

@rebbel Everything you say is true. But if it is basics on how to deal with it, why has the CDC not changed their guidance? Why has everyone ignored the statements from the vaccine manufacturers that their vaccines don’t work against Omicron (and they made similar statements about Delta)? The guidance from the “experts” hasn’t changed. That same guidance is what these Democrat controlled states claimed as the reason for the mask mandates. So if the guidance hasn’t changed, but the Democrat controlled states are suddenly ignoring it you have to ask “why?”. Either the masks were always useless, in which case the CDC and the Democrat controlled states have been screwing the American public for no apparent reason OR the Democrat states are suddenly breaking away from “the science”. In which case you have to ask “why?” again. The only obvious reason is that they realize how far down in the polls the Dems are on every front and they need something at election time they can point to and say “See what we did for you?”. If you have another option, please share it.

Yes @Dutchess, especially since I am the only one that has been commenting outside the designed narrative. Gee…I wonder who you could have been talking to? In fact let’s ask: Who were you talking to? Go ahead and dazzle us. Dodge much?

@seawulf575 I think we think the same where politics and politicians (D/R) are concerned.
They use, misuse, and abuse, every single time they get a chance to do so.

The not wearing masks again/anymore, as directed by, if I believe you, democratic states is, in my opinion, right now a logic point.
In fact, I wouldn’t need my state (or nation) to tell me that, because I like to think that I’m a knowledgeable and logic person.
Omicron is very infectious, but much less sick making.
An even less sickening variant and we could hold Gamma* parties (where we voluntarily get infected).
It’s just a matter of time now before most of the population has got Omicron.
Without to much disturbances for the society, and not too much deaths (obviously, every single person to die is one too many).

Frankly, I don’t know if masks are ineffective, the vaccines don’t work or isolation of the sick is pointless. I have however noticed what happens to those who advocate such things and tell us the disease itself is somehow a hoax. And it is ALWAYS THE SAME PEOPLE pushing each of these versions of reality. For 2 years I’ve heard from them that covid is just another disease like the flu or a common cold: “It’s no big deal. It’s a minor blip.. Don’t bother with precautions. Go out and risk death for the good of the economy. Don’t let the government tell you what to do. They’re all lying anyway”. We’ve all heard it and watched as these folks pile up in the hospitals and the mortuary business exceeds the fast food industry in profitability. There’s no point arguing with them. But I intend to continue as best I can to AVOID THEM LIKE THE PLAGUE. Right or wrong, I take my shots and hide from the idiots. And right or wrong, I am thus far covid free.

@HP I suspect you have not been hearing the whole thing if that is what you are hearing. Or you are, indeed, listening to fools. You are relatively new around here, but we have had numerous discussions along this same idea. I will tell you MY view of the whole thing and you will see important differences between what you have heard before.

Covid-19 is real. That is a given. It is, indeed, a bad cold since it is in the same category (coronavirus) as the common cold. But that isn’t to say it can’t make you sick or even kill you. Just like with the flu every year there are deaths.

There are RCT (Randomized Controlled Tests) that were done well before C-19 showed up that demonstrated that masks don’t do a thing to stop the spread of infection. These tests were done to determine if masks used in surgery actually made a difference in the infection rate of patients. I found (and have subsequently cited) 3 such tests. And the results of these three tests showed that there was no difference in infection of the patients or, at worst, the patients that had doctors and staff wearing masks showed a slightly higher incident of infection. If you remember at the start of C-19, the story that was being told was not to bother wearing masks since they don’t do anything to stop the spread of the virus. That was because the science at the time was based on tests such as the ones I cited. Then the story magically changed to “it can’t hurt to wear them” and then into “you have to wear them or you will kill people!”. No new studies were done to account for these changes. Later, after this point was brought up, an couple of tests were done by the CDC to show masks worked wonders. But they were NOT RCT tests. They amounted to anecdotal evidence. No controls, no consideration of other factors.

The vaccines, likewise, were touted as what was needed to stop the spread of the virus. Initially it was touted that they would protect you by giving you immunity. Immunity means you cannot get the disease. When it was quickly show that wasn’t true, the story changed to vaccines will help your immune system to fight against the virus. BIG difference. And also untrue. Now we know the vaccines do not keep you from getting the virus nor do they keep you from spreading the virus. And we find there is no semi-protection for any great length of time. And we have the makers of the vaccines telling us they are no good against the new variants.

Why does all this bother me so much? Well, for one I don’t like being lied to. But on the matter of protecting the public I go back to basic troubleshooting ideals. When presented with a problem, you gather data first and let the data tell you what the right solution will be. If you just go forward guessing at what might work you are likely not going to hit the right solution and you are just as likely to make things worse. We are not finding that all the mask wearing has led to developmental disorders in small children. Because they don’t get to see facial expressions nor the lips of a person talking to them, they have problems understanding language and emotions. And we don’t know if these problems are permanent or not. We know that all the lockdowns did severe damage to the economies around the world. We know that the drug overdoses, alcoholism, domestic violence and suicides have all gone up under these efforts to “stop the virus”. We know there are a ton of negatives to the actions that have been forced upon us but we don’t see the good that was promised to us coming out. Remember when, if we all masked and shutdown the economy, we could stem the tide? It didn’t happen. Remember when we had to get everyone vaccinated to stop the spread? It didn’t happen. Remember when, if you got vaccinated, you could go back to a normal life of no masking and no social distancing? It didn’t happen.

So THAT is what my views are based on. None of it says C-19 is not real or that it is just a flu. It IS the fact that what has been done so far has been led by lies and politics and not science.

Honestly, I don’t know why we’re even going around and around and around and around with this topic, on this site. This is the umpteenth discussion with very long posts and opinions on the virus, masks, mandates, etc. here. Nobody’s minds are being changed. @seawulf575 has his heels dug in on the topic, and others have stated theirs, so much time spent on this here.

@jca2 The funny part about that statement is that I am willing to discuss it. I’m asking for information. I’m asking for logic. I don’t get it. So if not being willing to just accept it is called “digging my heels in”, then I am. But I continue to wonder how so many of you dig your heels in when logic and facts go against you.

”So THAT is what my views are based on. None of it says C-19 is not real or that it is just a flu.”

”Covid-19 is real. That is a given. It is, indeed, a bad cold since it is in the same category (coronavirus) as the common cold.”

@seawulf575: It wasn’t intended to be an insult toward you. Really, it wasn’t. It was just a general statement as I read all that has been typed here and on other posts on Fluther about this topic, and wonder why we’re spending hours typing and reading and googling links for each other when we’re not changing each other’s minds. It kind of reminds me of the discussions that were here about 10 years ago (not sure if you were here then) about Christianity. Some people would go into huge explanations about why Christianity was stupid, and stuff like that, and it was like, why? I really think life is too short to argue with people on the internet about this or any other topic.

Sure it’s a tiresome discussion over a tiresome disease that stubbornly persists. But here are some more thoughts on @seawulf575 ‘s take on the subject. Let’s begin with masks, and their efficacy in prevention of the transmission of infection. Prior to covid, I don’t believe I’d ever donned a mask as routine other than at Halloween. However, as I write this, I am trying to recall any depiction of a modern surgical theater where every participant in the room isn’t fully masked and gloved. So the question must arise, to what purpose? Next, there are his quotes to the effect that we believed if everyone was masked, it would stem the tide of infection. He then concludes it didn’t work, but neglects to consider the critical question “did everyone mask up?” Well, did they? Were all those maga hats masked up at those Trump death rallies? The same holds for vaccinations. We might thwart the disease if everyone is vaccinated. Wulf states that it hasn’t worked, so I ask him plainly: “HAS EVERYONE BEEN VACCINATED?” Sure, the government may be wrong. However, it would seem prudent to me to follow the ESTABLISHED path we have regarding viral pathogens for better than100 years. Listen to the consensus of the professionals and follow their advice. There was a time when most of us had the sense to recognize the logic of this. My advice is to avoid proximity to those who don’t. The holdouts to masks and inoculation are determined to be the death of us all.

@HP Surgical masks in the operating room was started back in the 1800s. Some doctor said it would prevent infections and everyone started doing it. There were no tests and no one questioned it. It wasn’t until much later (around the 2000s) that it was actually tested. But there is still a use for them in the operating room. That use is to keep fluids from the patient from squirting up and hitting the doctor in the face/nose/mouth. They are most effective for that. Other than that, many doctors wear it strictly out of convention. This is a very good write up concerning the use of masks in surgery.

Gloved I have no problems with and have never said anything differently.

As for masking stemming the tide, think about it. Initially no one was masking up. Then as the push came for wearing masks, more and more people were wearing masks. I was delivering product to grocery stores and convenient stores at the time and saw an awful lot of people. And masks fairly quickly became very commonplace and frequent. So if you have 100 infected people that are unmasked you will have some set transmission rate. Now, take that 100 people had mask 80 of them. You would see a fairly significant decrease in the transmission rate…the rate of new cases. You would have to. If masks worked. But what we saw was a continued increase in the number of cases. The decrease due to masks never occurred.

As for the vaccines, I say the vaccines don’t do what they were touted to do because it has been proven. It has been seen that fully vaccinated people transmit the virus, just like unvaccinated people. It has been shown they have the same viral load in their their nasal passages. To say they protect those people or others is ludicrous. If they have the same viral load, they have the disease…the vaccinated person is not protected. And if they have the same viral load, every time they breath they are spreading it. Vaccinating 100% of the people will not change this. Look at Israel and Palestine as the perfect example. Israel is one of the highest vaccinated countries in the world. And they have a very high case load. People started saying it was because the Palestinians were coming into the country and spreading the disease. Palestine has one of the lower vaccination rates in the world…far lower than Israel. But the rate of infection and the rate of death in both countries is the same. Again…if you have one country that is 70% vaccinated and one that is 25% vaccinated, you’d think, if the vaccines worked, the infection rate and death rate would be much lower in the more highly vaccinated country. So to say 100% vaccination would stop everything is naïve.

Staying away from people is a good plan, except it is not very practical. First off, you don’t always know if someone is vaccinated or not so you really can’t pick and choose. And then, let’s say you stayed home alone and had zero contact with other humans for a year. Do you believe that possible? But let’s say you did. When you go out into public again, you are not sure if anyone has the disease or if it is entirely gone. And if it isn’t you are putting yourself at risk.

My suggestion? Use common sense. Wash your hands frequently. Change your clothes often when you have been out in public. Clean your house regularly. Keep a little distance between yourself and others while you are out in public. Eat foods and take vitamins that help your immune system. None of these are panaceas but can all help.

I love how when anyone points out that VAERS is a bs database, antivaxxers are all like “Yes, so we must at least multiply the bullshit by 10 and possibly as much as 40!” It’s the other way around.

Walls of text don’t make an argument more persuasive. It just makes people more likely to not bother reading it.

@Dutchess_III: Especially when the topic has been rehashed and rehashed many times over in the past two years.

Like the disease itself, the topic is apparently unavoidable. Any news around it regardless of how frivolous, rouses the same silliness. I agree, my participation only encourages the taunts.

@Smashley The ones that point out VAERS is a bs database are those that don’t want the information to be true. And those same people will tell you that not all events get reported, so they know it is under-reporting. And when it is pointed out that using their own logic it means things are far worse than they want them to be, they try saying it isn’t true.

So what is your beef? That the CDC doesn’t have accurate information? That could open a whole big can of worms. That the people saying it under-reports are wrong? Tell that to your compatriots. That under-reporting means that the actual numbers are higher than what is being reported? Sorry…I can’t defeat basic math for you.

Just to prove the FDA is actually looking for efficacy and safety with the vaccines, the FDA did not give Pfizer emergency approval for under 5 this week as it was submitted. The safety was looking good, but efficacy was not up to the level the FDA hoped for and saw fit to not approve the vaccine for that age group as tested in the recent trials.

I didn’t read all the posts, but did read many. Hope this is not a duplication. There are just two points I’d like to make: 1) some people claim that Covid vaccinations are a “freedom issue” and that they will not comply because the government has no right to impinge on their freedom to reject the vaccine. I’d like to know if they feel the same way about traffic laws. Do they want other drivers to feel free to proceed through stop signs whenever they might want to? and 2) I have never yet seen names of actual people associated with these many “claimed” deaths from having gotten vaccinated——let alone know someone who died or had lasting injury from it. Where are these mysterious people, what are their names. I do know people who have died of Covid19.

@Blondroots Here is the CDC numbers for deaths:

“Reports of death after COVID-19 vaccination are rare. FDA requires healthcare providers to report any death after COVID-19 vaccination to VAERS, even if it’s unclear whether the vaccine was the cause. Reports of adverse events to VAERS following vaccination, including deaths, do not necessarily mean that a vaccine caused a health problem. More than 547 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered in the United States from December 14, 2020, through February 14, 2022. During this time, VAERS received 12,304 preliminary reports of death (0.0022%) among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine. CDC and FDA clinicians review reports of death to VAERS including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records.”

As of February, 15, 2022 924,000 people have died but 76.5% of the population have had at least one vaccination for COVID-19.

12,000 versus almost a million dead – - get vaccinated!

@Blondroots I think I can answer both of those questions for you. I normally am one that would tie claims back to traffic laws. I believe that if YOU believe that you have to follow the law on one you have to follow the law on all. Laws are laws for a reason. But Covid vaccines are not law. The mandates of their use has not been put through any legislative actions. So by that difference alone, you have one answer to the traffic law question. Another is the science and logic behind the two. Blowing through a stop sign has been shown numerous times to cause accidents. Stopping for the signs reduces the chances of an accident significantly. This has been shown over and over again. The Covid Vaccines, on the other hand do not protect you from getting the disease, do not prevent you from spreading the disease. To equate it to your stop sign analogy, let’s say they are more like a law that says you have to slow down at a stop sign but you may or may not stop. Another way to look at it would to assume GM put out a new car that was touted to ensure everyone stops at stop signs. It will make sure you stop AND it sends out a signal that will activate the brakes on other vehicles within a certain distance. The government determined that running stop signs was so horrible that everyone needed to get one of these cars. So you run out and get one. And the very first day you are driving, you come to a stop sign, but it only slows you down a little, it doesn’t stop you and you roll right through the stop sign. AND, the car approaching at the same time from the right of that 4 way stop doesn’t stop either! He only slows down. You have an accident right there. Would you say that car was all it was touted to be? Would you say it stopped accidents?

But let’s equate the vaccine mandates to another law. Discrimination laws. This actually hits home closer to the apples to apples comparison. If you are interviewing someone for a job, you are not allowed to ask them specific types of questions. You cannot ask about their sex. You cannot ask their age. You cannot ask if they are married. You cannot ask about their religious beliefs. You cannot ask about their political beliefs. You cannot ask if a woman plans on getting pregnant. You cannot ask about their medical issues. All of these kinds of questions are put in place so you cannot discriminate against a person based on any particular trait or belief. They are put into place so that a person’s autonomy would be maintained and they would not be punished for that autonomy. Would you agree these are good laws? No look at a vaccine mandate. You are now being told that you have to share your medical history with anyone that cares to ask about it. And if your medical history does not include what they think it should include, you are being denied freedoms. That is pretty much the definition of discrimination. Want another law?

42CFR482.13 Condition of Participation: Patient’s Rights. This is a very exacting law that states that you, as a patient, have a right to fully understand and to be a part in developing your medical treatments. Sounds reasonable, eh? Would you feel comfortable going into the hospital for swollen tonsils and having them decide to give you a sex change operation? Even if they felt it was the right thing? No. You’d have a ton of questions: what does a sex change operation have to do with my tonsils? How would this help my swollen tonsils? Isn’t there some other treatment? The list goes on and on. But in the end, they wouldn’t be able to do what they want without your consent. Let’s say they wanted to inject you with some experimental drug to treat you. It was the latest thing. Would you like to know what was in it? How it worked? If there were other options? The results if you refused treatment? Now we’re talkin’! But when you try exercising those rights with the Vaccines, you are deemed the bad guy. Go back to the discrimination portion.

As for the names of those that died, it really is not your business. They are entitled to anonymity. But they are being reported in a federal registry…the VAERS database as @Tropical_Willie stated. But there is a piece here that seems odd. 3 weeks ago when I told everyone how to find the data, there were 23,000 deaths listed on the VAERS database. Now suddenly there are only 12,000. Why is that? Did some of the dead people come back to life? Did they change what they call a “death” side-effect? Seems an awful lot of change in a 3 week period, in a direction that makes no sense.

SMDH !

@seawulf575 I read that wall of words you had and I do agree with all of it. Not all covid deaths are from covid. Some are because they marked people who had a hart attack due to covid when in reality, covid can’t cause a hart attack. Also people are trying to separate the vaccinated and unvaccinated from each other. Now I’m going to say some of my own things in this response.
The vaccines have some side effects so some people want to wait to get their vaccine so they don’t get the side effects from the vaccine. People like this want to wait a year or two or even three to get the vaccine which some of the government wants to prevent from happening for a control thing. The vaccine will only get better from here and will help our immune system fight covid.
The pandemic is going away and yet the news makes it look like it is still hitting hard. Some news companies like Fox do the opposite and tell what is really going on. The news can over exaggerate a lot so some things can seem bad but they aren’t that bad.

@KRD “The pandemic is going away” in your opinion !

2850 died yesterday in the USA ! Somewhere between 93% and 97% were unvaccinated

Has not gone – - – - may take a while with all the unvaccinated running without masks and going to large public events !

“Some news companies like Fox do the opposite and tell what is really going on.” 90 percent of their news is Trump propaganda !

@KRD I recognize that not all Covid deaths are from Covid. Especially when there is monetary incentive to hospitals for having Covid cases and Covid deaths. Similarly, not all deaths that are called by other things are not Covid Vaccines deaths. A perfectly health athlete dies of a heart attack or a blood clot coincidentally a couple weeks after getting the jab and they don’t look for the cause of the heart attack or the blood clot…they just say that was the cause. But actuarial data has shown a 40% increase in death rates since the vaccines started. That is statistically unreasonable to be a natural event. And according to the data, the vast majority of these deaths are not due to Covid-19. To put it into perspective, they said that a 10% increase was a cataclysmic event…something we see maybe every 200 years. 40% is off the charts. But nobody is looking at the “why” of the deaths. It’s like there is fear that if they look into it they might find something. We’ve entered a situation where someone dies and we just say “well, he died.” But something is causing it. It’s amazing and scary.

“Especially when there is monetary incentive to hospitals for having Covid cases and Covid deaths. ”

FALSE https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/hospital-payments-and-the-covid-19-death-count/ Fact check

All deaths hurt hospitals. They don’t want their death statistics to be high. That’s why they transfer cancer patients out to hospice care. Part of why anyway.

Hospitals get a lot of money if they have to do a lot of treatment. If covid is causing severe illness then they are making money sure, but they would make that money if anything required life supporting assistance.

Do I think hospitals should get more for a C19 diagnosis—hell no. If they still are that should stop. Want to really get rid of garbage coding? Socialized medicine would stop that.

Making more for treating a particular a dx is ridiculous. The government and private insurers should change that altogether. Not just covid.

@Seawolf – Forget laws…just think about ‘what’s the right thing to do?’ Self preservation alone tells us that we need to obey stop signs. It’s the same with common-sense ways to contain the virus. Those ways are evolving, naturally, as scientists learn more about this new disease. I will certainly listen to them instead of self-appointed, amateur, virus experts. You are welcome to refuse the vaccine, just kindly don’t expect to mix and mingle freely wherever you might want to go among people who do follow the best health advice out there. My point remains: your perceived ‘freedoms’ must not take away others’ freedoms. If a proprietor of a restaurant wants to keep people out who won’t do as he asks and wear a mask, he can do that. It’s his property and his rules….it’s his freedom to say who can enter. If someone else feels that that takes away his freedom to dine wherever he wants, too bad. He has not made any investment in that business and he can go where the rules suit his viewpoint. Also, you decline to give me a single name of a person killed by the vaccine with the very strange reason that it would invade their privacy? And they’re dead and gone? Mercy! What about all the celebrities who’ve died of Covid, and people we know personally? Their names are on the evening news. Like, it’s not a disgrace to die of Covid nor the vaccine either (if, indeed, it happens). What is a disgrace is unvaccinated people demanding to be ‘free’ to mix and mingle anywhere and everywhere they want to.

@Blondroots Think about what’s the right thing to do? That is exactly what I have been saying since the beginning. Think about it. I have seen the studies that showed masks don’t work and potentially lead to more infections in surgeries. Yet all you hear is that we have to mask. Did it slow things down? No. We heard that the vaccines will give you immunity to the virus. That turned out to be false. We heard that the vaccines would keep you from spreading the disease. That turned out to be false. Think about what’s the right thing to do. I have stated repeatedly that if you just take action in any situation without fully understanding the situation, you are likely going to make things worse. And I suggest that is what has been done almost from day 1 of this disease.

You just said: “You are welcome to refuse the vaccine, just kindly don’t expect to mix and mingle freely wherever you might want to go among people who do follow the best health advice out there.” But being vaccinated, which you imply is the best health advice out there, doesn’t keep you from spreading or getting the vaccine. So all you are doing is espousing discrimination. You aren’t protecting yourself or others by being vaccinated. Yet you are trying to take my freedoms away because you are afraid I might spread the disease. Your logic implies that you KNOW this to be true. Being vaccinated, you don’t want unvaccinated people around you. Why? Because you KNOW you can still get the disease. And you KNOW you can still spread the disease.

Your story of the restaurant owner sounds amazingly like “we don’t serve blacks in here. My place, my rules”. And if blacks don’t like it they can just go where the rules suit their viewpoint. Isn’t that what you are saying? As we all know, it is NOT his freedom to say who can enter. Nor is it his right to know my medical history.

I was trying to be honest and humane about the names of people that have died from the vaccine. Respectful. But you seem to have some ghoulish fascination with this. I suggest you open up VAERS and do a search to find the people that have died from the vaccines. They generally don’t give names, again for legal reasons. You can not like that answer, but it is what it is. Doing other searches on the internet can show you names if you are so inclined. A quick search I just did came up with a Jeanie Evans right on top. Happy? You can do your own research though.

@Blondroots also, as to the deaths by vaccine, you have to remember why you hear so much about the covid deaths and nothing about the vaccines deaths. It is the narrative. They don’t want to talk about the vaccine deaths. We have had whistleblowers from both Moderna and Pfizer that have come forward with documentation showing these companies suppressed negatives so they could start injecting people. We have had medical professionals come forward and state they were threatened with their careers if they spoke out against the vaccines or showed the damage they were doing. The pharmaceutical companies are making record profits off them so they have an incentive. The government is eroding our rights to gain control over the public so they have an incentive. So when you have perfectly healthy people get the vaccine and a couple days later die of blood clots or strokes or heart conditions that never existed before, the medical people stop at that as the cause. They don’t make the obvious step into asking what cause that condition. And all of these issues are known adverse reactions to the vaccines. Yet no one wants to go there. Why is that? Because too many powerful people are exerting pressure on individuals to keep the narrative going.

@Tropical_Willie

https://www.hfma.org/topics/hfm/2020/may/federal-government-responds-to-covid-19-crisis.html

It plainly says the government increased the payment by 20% to medical facilities for Covid patients.

You might want to stop spreading disinformation.

FDA requires ALL deaths and severe symptoms to be reported to VAERS within a certain time frame of giving the covid vaccines. The doctor is not supposed to make a judgement, including even coroners would report even if they made an official cause of death not vaccine related.

The FDA then takes these reports and investigates them.

Serious AEs regardless of whether the reporter thinks the vaccine caused the AE. Serious AEs per FDA are defined as:

Death
A life-threatening AE
Inpatient hospitalization or prolongation of existing hospitalization
A persistent or significant incapacity or substantial disruption of the ability to conduct normal life functions
A congenital anomaly/birth defect
An important medical event that based on appropriate medical judgement may jeopardize the individual and may require medical or surgical intervention to prevent one of the outcomes listed above

Source: https://vaers.hhs.gov/reportevent.html

I didn’t say there was not a 20% increase payment . . . what I was saying was the hospitals are not falsifying death certificates.

The Federal government does audits for fraud when it comes to paying money.

All hospitals and skilled nursing units and home health agencies are audited once a year by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.
Probably doctors offices too, but I have no specific or personal knowledge of doctors offices.

They shouldn’t get more money just for the diagnosis. I don’t think they fake the diagnosis. That would be really horrible and unethical and fraud. But, if they aren’t doing more for a patient for covid compared to flu or some other illness or if the patient is asymptomatic, why should the hospital get more money?

Maybe initially there was some logic behind treating covid meant hospitals would be having fewer patients overall and using more PPE or health professionals were risking their own lives, which begs the questions were they paid hazard pay for doing that?

@Tropical_Willie So if there is a 20% increase in payment, you honestly believe they aren’t going to get that every time they get a chance? Really?!?

And yes, the Federal Government does do audits. But those audits do NOT dig down to the level of second-guessing every diagnosis. They are looking at the payment end of things and to see if the services are excluded from Medicare coverage. In other words, was the service covered by the program and did it seem reasonable. They might catch something like charging for a hysterectomy on a male since that doesn’t seem reasonable. In the middle of a Covid-19 outbreak, to say someone has Covid-19 is not unreasonable.

@chyna Do you have a reference for the frequency? I’ve been searching and cannot find it anywhere.

@JLeslie No, I’m not suggesting they are necessarily faking the diagnosis, just changing the reason someone is at the hospital. There have been cases like someone broke an arm and went to the ER. Once there they tested that person for Covid, found out they had it but were asymptomatic, and they changed the reason for the visit from broken arm to Covid. Not entirely a false claim, but it certainly wasn’t the reason the person was there. One might even ask why they were tested in the first place. I have a broken arm so the first diagnosis is a Covid test? Seems weird. And the only reason I can see for doing that is to get more money.

@seawulf575 ”One might even ask why they were tested in the first place.”
In the middle of the pandemic, in a hospital, it sounds like an obvious course.
You want everybody that’s inside a hospital to test to see whether they’re at risk, for themselves, but no least, others.

@seawulf575 They can’t argue setting a broken arm is treatment for covid. I do see where they might code the billing with the covid diagnosis though. They were testing everyone, trying to separate covid patients from non-covid patients, not because they wanted to commit a fraud, although they might have banked some money with some unscrupulous billing once they came up with a positive result. The testing was warranted though, and still is. I know two people who caught covid while inpatient.

Ok, so, those people tested actually do have covid, they should be in the covid case count. That’s completely legitimate. I think probably most of the people who are positive do get symptomatic. Hospitals don’t get more money because someone died from covid. Hospitals get paid based on treatment.

Do I think some doctors and hospitals commit fraud or walk a fine line. Yes, I do. I’ve caught my doctors committing billing fraud.

Socialized medicine wouldn’t have the profit incentive.

Even if there is some fraud, it’s a small percentage. The plus or minus doesn’t matter, because of the enormity of the cases and deaths. Even if you take away 100,000 deaths, still over 800,00 have died.

@rebbel I disagree. The operational practices are in place to stop the spread of disease already. Someone walking in could already be spreading the disease. You are going to handle everyone like they are contagious anyways. Doing an extra test is just an extra test for which they can charge and one that has nothing to do with a broken arm. If you go in because you cut yourself badly and need stitches, do they do an MRI? A colonoscopy? Draw blood to see if you have cancer? Or reverse it, if you go in with Covid symptoms, do they send you for x-rays to see if your leg is broken?

@JLeslie They CAN code it as a covid patient if they test and say it is. It doesn’t matter what the patient came in for. And because that patient is now a “covid” patient, every thing they do for treatment of that person can be billed at a higher rate. The higher rate is to account for supposed different handling of the patient because of covid.

@seawulf575 Ok, so let’s just say you’re right. It’s still a small percentage! Most people don’t have covid at any given time. You are blowing up the number in your head and over focusing on it.

@JLeslie Or maybe you are under rating it in your mind? Omicron was running rampant, though many people didn’t get sick from it or even show symptoms. How many people went to the ER or even the hospital for non-covid reasons in the past few months? It could actually be quite a large number.

Here’s another thought for you. Look at flu statistics. Every year there are deaths from flu and many, many cases. There are quite a few. Yet in 2021 there were almost none. How does that happen? Yes, I know. The CDC says it was because of better flu control things like washing hands and wearing masks. Yet the flu is a virus just like Covid. None of these had that significant an impact on Covid so why on the flu? The answer seems obvious to me: flu cases were called Covid cases. Remember, the incentive is still there for calling trips to the doctor/hospital/ER “Covid”. On July 21, 2021 the CDC put out a notice that the test that had been used to detect Covid was no longer going to be allowed to be used after 12/31/21. No reason is given. There are many claiming it was because it wasn’t specific enough and could confuse flu and Covid and there are just as many saying it wasn’t. The notice from the CDC gives no reason. But something led to the enormous decrease (90+%) in the average flu cases in 2021.

The truth of this will be uncovered somewhere down the road, but what matters now and cannot be disputed is the 900,000 corpses we have accumulated in this country in 2 years.along with the untold numbers hospitalized. And these dismal figures must in large part be attributed to those among us so consistently willing to underplay and minimalize this scourge since its onset. This outbreak predicted by naysayers as but a seasonal equivalent of the flu has transformed our existence and irretrievably so. There are still those among us who insist as they have since the day this disease was announced that we merely go about our business as normal. Even yet these poor souls do not appreciate that “normal” is gone and won’t be back. Our brave new world for one example is no longer dickering over why people don’t want to work. The scourge all by itself has transformed the argument as to why people WON’T work, and that is about as profound a shift as I can envision.

98% of the people in ICU at my local hospital with COVID-19 are unvaccinated same with deaths.

I absolutely believe flu was down because of masks, distancing, restricted travel from other continents, fewer cruises and stricter measures on cruises. To think that didn’t have a large impact is ridiculous. Flu did get up to high levels in some states this flu season. I know Florida went red on the map for a few weeks. New Jersey was the worst, it was blue or purple whatever that level is.

Covid is diagnosed and counted with a test. Flu is diagnosed with tests and estimation.

@JLeslie Yes, it could have had some impact. 98% reduction?

@HP You obviously don’t listen to what those “naysayers” were saying. Very few said it wasn’t real. Very few said it didn’t kill people. Many said it didn’t have the fatality rate that many were led to believe. And people, such as myself, have said that taking actions that had no impact at all and making them mandatory was foolishness. I have said from day one that natural immunity is as good as, if not better than, any vaccine. And now the “science” community if finally admitting it.

If you look at countries that pretty much went about their business as usual, didn’t shut down, didn’t force mask mandates, didn’t go hog-wild for vaccines (take Sweden for example), they are pretty much back to normal. They went through it and came out the other side a lot better than we in the US who did all those things. Then you look at some country like Israel that forced vaccinations and got one of the highest vaccination rates of any country and they also no have one of the highest Covid case rate of any country in the world. When you open your eyes and look with questions instead of blindly believing, you start seeing how wrong our entire approach has been. When you have a problem, you need to fully understand it to understand what the right solution is. Otherwise you will likely make the problem worse.

Let’s look at this. Natural immunity means immunity acquired AFTER acquiring the disease and surviving the effects. Such immunity may be equal to or even superior to that provided those merely vaccinated. “Just as good” however clearly applies to those who survive the disease and avoid hospitalization. Those foolish enough to risk natural immunity as opposed to vaccinations benefit themselves and the society at large only through their furtherance of the Darwin principle.

@seawulf575 Flu deaths aren’t finalized for this season. I honestly don’t know if something unusual is happening with the count.

98% using what flu season? I agree flu deaths have been greatly reduced, but 2019–2020 flu season had a relatively low death count (around 20,000) if I remember correctly. Most deaths are 65 and older and they are the most prudent during covid, especially the most vulnerable.

2017–2018 had very high cases and deaths, maybe there is a lot of natural immunity, plus a lot of people have been getting vaccinated.

Let’s be suspicious and say all pneumonia deaths not counted in the usually flu stat were moved to covid deaths. On average around 35,000, and I’ll give you all of that even though some are actually identified as flu usually. 70,000 for two years. 900,000 people have died in two years of covid in the US. So we take out the 70,000, and the 100,000 I gave you already for people dying with cancer and covid. Still at about 730,000 covid deaths in two years. Still very high. Still ten times higher than an average flu and pneumonia deaths year, and that with people taking precautions. What if people had not been taking precautions, it would have been a higher number.

@JLeslie the CDC says that preliminary data shows that only 0.2% of the total tests showed flu. that is 1675 cases out of 818,935 tests. Interesting thing about this link…all previous data has been removed. If you click on 2019–2020 or the 2018–2019 years you get the “Oops” page. If you click on 2017–2018 you find VASTLY different numbers. 10% of the tests, 30,453 hospitalizations, 185 child deaths.

On the other hand, numbers vary. Health shows a slightly different set of numbers. 1.3 million tests with only 2136 cases. They also cite CDC numbers. Average years (2010–2020) we see 12,000–52,000 deaths due to flu, 140,000–710,000 hospitalizations, and 9M-41M cases. So we dropped from 9M cases to 2136 cases. You’re right…98% was being way too generous. 99.98% reduction over the average. That is pretty much statistically impossible.

You could say it is because they tested so many fewer people. A valid point. But that opens the door to asking the “why” question. In a world where if you sniffle it is looked on worse that insulting somebody’s mama, more people are going to the doctor for less and less symptoms.
You’d think there would have been more tests. Also if you consider that 9M is verified cases (tested) and 12,000 of those died, the flu is generally 99.9% fatal. The average year is statistically more deadly than last year was for catching the disease. All this just confirms my belief that more and more cases are being chalked up to Covid.

^^Sounds like they wasted a lot of time and money testing for flu when it was likely covid or something else. My guess is most people are tested for flu with the quick test if they even bother getting tested at all. Maybe more people were tested for flu than usual because of covid. I couldn’t find how many are usually tested in labs every year.

I was looking at this flu season originally not 2020–2021.

2017–2018 was a very bad year for flu. I’m still upset the government did nothing to prevent flu spread. That flu season was double the average flu deaths. Here’s a link for that. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/past-seasons.html

@JLeslie Yes I know 2017–2018 was a bad flu season. But when you look at the 10 year average, it doesn’t matter. I compared last year to the 10 year average and took the low end numbers of that when there was a range. It is still statistically impossible to be as low as was seen in 2021.

@JLeslie and this flu season isn’t over. It goes from October to May. We are in the middle of it. The most recent we have is 2020–2021. And we were most definitely in the throes of Covid for that year.

I know we are still in flu season. We might get one more spike, but usually the worst is over by now.

I am not surprised at all that 2020–2021 was down to almost nothing. There was almost no travel from the places that usually bring us the flu AND Asia was extremely low for flu because of their extreme precautions for covid. Flu moves in large quantity from Asia to Europe and then North America every year via planes and cruise ships. We were testing people traveling internationally and using masks for international travel.

We actually can control the spread of disease. Imagine that.

Too many people on the right want to believe masks don’t work, which is false, and too many people on the left don’t want to accept young people have very little risk of severe illness from covid. Both sides in the extremes are being slightly irrational. I could name more examples.

@seawulf575 I admit my arrogance and believe strongly in segregating myself from dummies who preach natural immunity as a reasonable choice when vaccines are available. You can call it hubris if you want. I prefer to think it only basic common sense to avoid those who openly declare themselves fools, and then loudly proceed in proving it.

One more thing, it really matters when you get sick. At the beginning of the pandemic people who were in total defiance were killing others and themselves. A fatalist view back then of just throwing up our hands and letting whatever happens happens was irresponsible and immoral.

It’s still a ridiculous risk to not get vaccinated if a person has escaped covid so far, unless someone has real medical reasons not to. Even if someone has had covid I think get at least one shot for a boost.

Now, we have more immunity in the country, people are vaccinated so they are more protected, and risk of catching covid is less of a concern for most people.

We could have maybe conquered covid within a short time if all countries had done what China, New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, and several other countries did, but that time has passed.

It absolutely matters how swiftly the citizenry responds to contagions and how strict mandates are, and to trust the health officials in the government. An analysis of which countries did best regarding covid showed trust in the government was the biggest factor for low amounts of illness and deaths.

Just like you would not want to catch HIV in 1985, at least now you have much more chance of living many years where in the 80’s it was almost certain death. Similarly, catching covid in 2020 is much different than in 2022. Although, still some groups, especially people over 65, have a very high risk of severe illness and even death even vaccinated. It’s still the right thing to do, to be considerate of those with high risk.

Hopefully, the US is learning to mask up during high risk times and ease up when there is little risk. Let’s see if we can do it and avoid a roller coaster of waves not only of covid, but flu, and whatever might happen next.

Ok, we all get opinons here people, but @KRD can’t defend fox news as a bastion of truth. It isn’t true. Fox has always been part of concerted right wing conspiracy to remake the world. It isn’t a news organization at all. Other news groups are often foolish, reactionary or shortsighted, but fox hosts have daily marching orders, and a plan: to create distrust and undermine the left, and blanket the country with anglo-Christian neo-conservatism, and get stinking rich doing it. Witness them try to destroy public media at every attempt. If we lose our democracy, you can bet who had a lead role
The 4th estate is supposed to protect the people, not actively try to undermine them for political power and profit.

Never defend those punks @KRD. They don’t need it and don’t deserve it.

The “news” for Fox is a sideline. The primary function of the outfit is as propaganda mouthpiece for wing nut conservatism. It is the temple of wisdom for America’s “unwashed” and unlettered as well as the unfailing gauge on the gullibility and tasteless nature of the American public.

@Smashley Some news casts are better then others. I don’t try to defend any news casts. I only listen to those who I like.

@Smashley The same could be said about CNN, MSNBC, NBC and others about not being bastions of the truth and only being a propaganda wing. Take a look at how rich Nick Sandmann got off the lies the leftist “news” agencies spewed. They were trying to create an anti-Trump narrative and the butchered the video and changed all the events to get it. That included making up stuff about children. Thankfully he sued. It opened the door to many more law suits for lying news agencies.