There is a lot of skepticism out there about the effectiveness of the current vaccines, even among those who believe in COVID, and that got me wondering who is putting their trust (whatever you feel that means) into them right now.
Which led me to the further question: what resources, government bodies, and individual figures do you trust for COVID information? Whose interpretations and conclusions based on that information do you trust? Or do you synthesize and make conclusions on your own?
CDC… Johns Hopkins… NIH/Dr. Fauci… Dr. John Osterholm… among others.
Do you believe that the skepticism being expressed is founded? If so, on what evidence?
I generally believe that the vaccine is as relatively/statistically safe as we know so far, but with that I understand that since it is a new class of vaccine we will know more as time passes.
I also generally see that one side is highly politicizing COVID and the vaccine, I see what they are doing, they are so sure they are in the right they are willing to put other’s lives at risk to prove it. They are so fearful that the government is trying to control them to wear a mask that they don’t even consider the lives they can save, the suffering they can prevent by this simple act of human kindness towards each other. The Bible states that the laws are intended for the law breakers, and in that, these selfish people, is exactly why we have mask mandates. It is also these same people who are anti-vax in regards to Covid, they are on the wrong side of good/evil, and with their heart on display, and the mark on their hand, I can dismiss their cause.
The watnow?
I trust that there is NOT an international conspiracy among thousands of independent health care officials to fraudulently declare vaccines safe and effective.
The skeptics are essentially arguing from ignorance, as though my personal ignorance of the ingredients used means that the vaccines may unwittingly include a carcinogen, or sterilizing agent ,or some other poison that we won’t discover the impact of for 10 years. I may be ignorant of these things, but researchers are not, and a whole lot of them must be wrong in exactly the same way for a variety of independently created vaccines to be dangerous.
Like it or hate it, but Twitter is the chosen platform of a lot of people:
Youyang Gu, data scientist - Unbiased, data analysis and statistics -
https://twitter.com/youyanggu
Derek Lowe - interpretation of drug/vaccine data -
https://twitter.com/Dereklowe
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/
Monica Gandhi MD, MPH, Infectious diseases and HIV doctor at UCSF - sober, non-alarmist assessment/context of general COVID-19 medical news -
This. I haven’t given it any more thought, or done any additional research. Heck, even Trump got the shot.
Just a bit of an exaggeration of how far they would go to accept the mark of the beast from Revelation to make their point.
The data from different health agencies worldwide were pretty much in concert that the vaccines were both highly protective against infection and the worst outcomes - at least until the delta variant. At the same time, the vaccines were, and still are, pretty new technology.
It’s not that I don’t trust CDC at all – they typically do a great job of staying on top of illnesses they’re familiar with and have had time to study. But they’ve dropped the ball in some cases, and there are other health agencies, universities, institutions, and agencies that have been able to come up with more complete and newer data, faster. Israel and the UK, in particular, have put themselves in a better position to study vaccine efficacy than the US, which is why I keep posting some of their information. And as critical as I’ve been of the Chinese government, Chinese medical institutions have actually produced valuable literature on a range of COVID-related topics, including a recent study in which they were able to determine that the delta variant’s viral load is what makes it a uniquely dangerous strain of the pathogen.
I trust vaccines and took the first one I could , when it opened up to my age group in my locality, I have pushed people to get vaccinated and told my office employees that they need to get jabbed ASAP. Will continue to do so.
I don’t trust the “commentary” on vaccines. I find that to be without exception slanted.
I did not think an mRNA vaccine would be produced so quickly. It is a testament to human ingenuity that this was done. It is shameful that mistrust in this achievement is so widespread.
But it is understandable. Governments got a lot of things wrong. The vaccination rollout in Canada was, partly due to extraneous factors, flawed. Some would say shambolic (though I would be kinder). Messaging has been noisy with lots of media concentration on small details and vanishingly rare side effects without mentioning the real dangers of not being vaccinated.
Do I trust the vaccines? I trust the ones tested on millions of people. I think mRNA vaccines are very low risk. I think I put something foreign into my body every time I eat, drink or breathe.
Do I trust the companies? They performed well. They should absolutely make this more available to underdeveloped countries and for once put profit seeking aside for awhile.
Do I trust the government? I trust the ones that seek and follow advice from genuine experts in the field. It is impossible to expect perfection. Have they learned the right lessons?
I think it is wrong for companies and countries not to consider mixed dose individuals fully vaccinated in the absence of evidence this is true. This does not build confidence.
Agreed. I can’t be bothered to fetch it at the moment but there seems to be growing evidence that two jabs, whether it’s from J&J, AZ, or the mRNA vaccines seems to provide a robust level of protection in the short term. Whether it’s 50% or 90% is still a question without an answer, but I also think that two shots should be considered fully vaccinated.
Yes, I trust the vaccines. I went out and got vaccinated the first day it was available to me. I’ve seen the data from the studies done by Pfizer and Moderna. I’ve read the official recommendations from the CDC and the (provisional) approval from the FDA. In particular, I trust Dr. Fauci, who literally wrote the book that was used for the infectious disease portion of my training in medical school.
Even if I didn’t trust them, the question of why those top people got vaccinated if the vaccine wasn’t safe would be a huge question that would have to be answered, and I don’t see any way of answering it short of nutball theories. If it wasn’t safe, why would Dr. Fauci himself have gotten vaccinated, along with many other top leaders and officials, including Biden, Harris, all of the Democrats in the Senate and the House, all the SCOTUS justices, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and even Trump himself?
The day I received my first dose 1 in 100000 Australians who received the vaccine had died, I’m in the high risk group so it was a pretty simple decision to get the jab. I believe the figure up to around 2.2 person now based on the UK data but if know how to use a calculate you can make up your own mind. I don’t tell people what to do but there is a risk either way.
The day I received my first dose 1 in 100000 Australians who received the vaccine had died
Are you saying “1 in 100000 Australians who received the vaccine had died” because of the vaccine?
Or that “1 in 100000 Australians who received the vaccine had died” in total.
A very rough calculation is that 1,000 australians die every day. 1 in 100,000 Australians is 254. So every four days, 1 in 100,000 Australians die.
(and for the UK, 2 in 100,000 die every week).
I trust that there is NOT an international conspiracy among thousands of independent health care officials to fraudulently declare vaccines safe and effective.
This is the crux of the matter - it is the starting point of my thoughts.
If you don’t believe there is an international conspiracy, then you will require a lot of convincing that there is. Therefore, the combined skills, intelligence, common sense and humainity of the world’s scientists, doctors, hospitals and, yes, politicians is convincing.
And that includes not just the doctors and scientists working directly with the virus and vaccine, because there are many more who have a professional opinion.
Including politicians in that list may, to some, be stretching it, but why would polticians of all persuasions and cultures all say the same thing, knowing full well they will be found out? To go against that majority you’d have to have a convincing argument - and there is none.
The arguments against must take you down a strange path. What is the motivation of everybody lying? ANd how are ‘they’ able to keep it secret? Back to the conspiracy theory again.
There is a risk, but risk is relative. The math is clearly on the side of being vaccinated – for now anyway. The vaccines could become less efficacious with newer variants, and that’s the growing fear that I have. Viruses are always mutating, and we have a pretty successful variant that’s now getting a lot of ‘practice’ on both vaccinated and unvaccinated people.
Since no one can really predict variation, the solution is booster shots and not avoidance.
A global medical conspiracy? Impossible. However, I cannot explain hospitals with low vaccination rates among staff, which sends a terrible message to communities. Surely an effective conspiracy would have higher hospital vaccination rates?
I based that figure on what I what I’ve heard on the radio the day I was vaccinated ten weeks ago, checking the official data now it appears 1 in 1220000 with the AstraZeneca vaccine so considerably lower now.
https://www.tga.gov.au/periodic/covid-19-vaccine-weekly-safety-report-22-07-2021
Yes, 6 deaths related to the AZ vaccine in Australia and 0 (zero) related to Pfizer.