What do you call it when parents who cannot afford private schools, or to stay home with their kids to homeschool, but absolutely must have their kids in public school so that they can go to work, find out that the kids need certain vaccines or they cannot attend? Maybe they are not forced at gunpoint, but they are forced by economic circumstances.
I’m not against required vaccines for public schools. It does irk me though, that this is one more place where money buys you choices. It’s not a coincidence that antivaxxers are usually wealthy and white.
They are “forced” to have their kids vaccinated, in the same way that they are “forced” to provide other forms of necessary health care, “forced” into using seatbelts or child safety seats, or “coerced” into other civic responsibilities.
There are legitimate medical exemptions to vaccination granted in all states and so-called religious or philosophical exemptions in most. It’s true that wealthier parents are in a better position to buy dubious medical exemptions in (for example) California.
Vaccines themselves are provided at low or no cost through insurance plans which must provide such coverage and through government programs.
There seems to be little difference between the incomes of homeschooling and non-homeschooling parents.
“Although Rudner found that the median household income of homeschooling families was higher than the median household income of families with children nationwide, the Parent-NHES:1999 indicates that the household income of homeschoolers, reported in ranges from less than $25,000 to over $75,000, is the same as the household income of nonhomeschoolers. The same percentage of homeschooled and nonhomeschooled students lived in households with annual incomes of $50,000 or less (64 percent)2.”
Hmmm, looks like Sputnik V (the ballyhooed Russian coronavirus vaccine announced by Putin) is beeping suspiciously.
"“There are very strange patterns in the data,” Enrico Bucci, a biology professor at Temple University in the U.S. who has published an open letter highlighting the concerns told The Moscow Times.
“By strange patterns I mean there are duplicate values for different [groups of] patients … which cannot be,” Bucci said, in reference to results concerning the production of antibodies by groups of patients who had been tested with different formulations of the vaccine.
Russia tested six different vaccine formulations on a total of 76 patients — four groups of nine and two groups of 20.
“Among the [different] groups of nine patients, testing completely different things, you see exactly the same numbers. It’s highly improbable to observe such a huge number of duplications,” Bucci said.
“It’s like if you throw a dice and you get exactly the same sequence of numbers several times — it’s highly improbable,” he added.
“The data looks like it’s been photoshopped … it’s too similar and too unlikely from a statistical point of view,” Andrea Cossarizza, professor of pathology and immunology at the University of Modena and one of the signatories to the letter told The Moscow Times. He was referring to charts published along with the article in The Lancet.
Cossarizza went on to explain that it would be “very strange” for the same numbers to appear in all the possible experiments in different populations of people who received a vaccine.
Bucci said that published research into other vaccines currently being tested did not show such duplications."
They only claim to have 76 patients and they are faking data?! I read the start and assumed that someone had “extended” a small study of 50 or 200 people into a larger study by duplicating data.
I’m actually quite pro-vax, and would go around kidnapping all the little unvaccinated rugrats for clandestine shots, if I thought I could get away with it. It just bugs me a little that wealthier parents can essentially buy exemptions less wealthy parents can afford.
So I’ll play.
Yes, the median income of homeschooled and non-homeschooled children is probably about the same, because they all live in single-earner households-- but the homeshool households have something many of the non-homeschool homes lack: a stay-at-home parent (and if not a parent, then an in-resident grandparent, or other relative involved in rearing the children). That is essential to homeschooling, unless the homeschooling is done by private tutors, or something like a governess, which, if a family can afford employees like those, is definitely in a higher income bracket.
I don t know but is covid the same in California the same in New York the same in Mexico the same in europe? Are we going to need multiple vaccinations? Will they require booster shots? If you already had it will you need one?
Last I checked a couple weeks ago there were/are 6 identified strains. There’s some distinct geographic range for each, but also a lot of overlap. And there’ll be more overlap once travel resumes in any volume. But they’re not so different that one vaccine won’t deal with them all. So far.
About half the vaccine candidates by design will need 2 shots delivered at between 2 and 6 month intervals for full protection. Obviously, one-and-done would be better for logistics, patient acceptance, etc.
But there’s a tradeoff (there’s always a tradeoff) between how many significant adverse reactions and merely annoying side effects people get vs. how big the starter dose is. One of the real concerns is if the vaccine’s first dose makes, say, 20% of recipients have a sore arm and a dragged-out feeling for 3 days, how many of them will voluntarily return in 6 months for the booster that gives them real lasting immunity? Damn few, if experience with other vaccines is to be believed. It’s a lot like painting: first you need to put down the primer, wait for it to fully cure/harden then come back for the finish coat. Lots of cars drive around with just primer. Making a vaccine where one does does primer and finish coat, AND doesn’t raise too many reactions, is a VERY tall order. Perhaps impossibly tall.
Nobody knows for sure yet how long the initial vaccination series (1 or 2 shots depending) will provide what degree of protection. The only way to find out is to vaccinate a big chunk of the population and watch them for however many years until they start getting sick in higher & higher numbers, indicating their immunity is wearing off to whatever the disease is like then. Said another way, the vaccine could fail to protect after awhile because it “wears off” and your body forgets, OR because the disease mutates to bypass the vaccine’s point of attack. OR some of each. The reason we need flu shots each year isn’t that the vaccine “wears off”. It’s that the flu mutates rapidly enough that the immunity provided by last year’s vaccine is successfully stopping last year’s disease from circulating this year, but is not stopping the flu’s new and improved this-year version. So far COVID is not showing signs of that speed of mutation. Yet.
So booster shots may be required. As well, presumably the whole industry won’t quit working on vaccines the day the first one that sorta works rolls out.
So e.g. 4 years from now there may be a new and much improved vaccine. Which it would behoove people to get when available. As Yoda said: Hard to predict the future is; always in motion it is.
By “had it” I assume you mean the disease. Another “nobody knows … yet” question. The early returns are that having a significant case of the disease confers nearly absolute immunity to reinfection. So far. Nobody knows how long that will last. And as above with vaccines, how will that natural immunity fare in the face of the disease’s inevitable evolution? We’ll have to wait and see. It’s logically impossible to make a firm prediction in advance.
As to mild cases or asymptomatic cases, so few people with those cases are tested such that it’s impossible to know whether the obvious infection & illness you develop a couple months later is your first time or your second. Yet again America’s (and Americans’) decision(s) to screw this up wall-to-wall by refusing to gather data prevents data-based decision-making. The better data from other countries suggests even mild cases are protective. But how long is still TBD. Months for sure. Years? Who knows?
By “need one” do you mean “will it be legally mandated?” or “Will it be a smart idea?” Darn good question. At least at first, vaccinating the already-immune is wasting a precious asset. But if we arrive at a place where the public is refusing to get vaccinated and a hefty fraction of the populace are lying saying “Oh, I had it last month” and evil criminals are selling fake back-dated test results on the internet so buyers or their kids can avoid vaccination, you could imagine governments taking a position like “If we didn’t see it go into your arm, you’re not immune enough to be allowed to work or attend school.”
no. that is … if i elect to not go abroad. if, however, overseas trip(s) are deemed necessary … and inoculations are mandated for overseas commerce … i’ll reconsider my options when such time arrives.
as for an “implanted” chip … lemme’ know when the law is passed … and you may notice someone digging a six-foot deep pit in my backyard. veritably … that chip will be not only for recording medical conditions (inoculated, diabetic, anaphylaxis, etc.) … there’d be a 99% certainty other ‘hidden’ data will also be burned into the chip … as well as a ‘locator’ beacon. doesn’t matter if gov’t admits or denies.
Sorry if this has been brought up already, but it’s a long and rapidly growing thread, I haven’t read all posts.
One issue I wonder about is that several vaccines may make it across the “finish line”, demonstrating sufficient efficacy and safety for approval. There has been a push to get the mass manufacturing piece done pre-approval, with some help from public monies and guarantees. There will be pressure to push out all approved vaccines, both because the supply of just one may be insufficient, especially early on, and because they have been already paid for.
That’s a very good question. One of the other issues is that as soon as the first vaccine gets out there, suddenly it’ll be very hard to finish the trials for any others. This blog post may get you started on learning about the intricacies of how the race will end, the issues with varying efficacy, etc. https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/10/21/the-vaccine-tightrope
