covid coming back - but how bad is this wave?

[K73c]

It's been a while since I posted . Developed sudden flu symptoms in the night & tested positive to covid this morning. Seeing more twitter - X re new wave, new variant. I know cases were still happening but wondered how many are getting it now - and how last

From your study @BeethovenNinth

“boosting the immunity in the population might be able to mitigate the emerging outbreaks. Maintaining the normalized NPIs and booster injection of vaccination periodically could be a good choice in combating with COVID-19 in the long future. How to optimize the periodic vaccination program incorporating the implementation of NPIs is of great significance, which falls within the scope of our further work.“

You’re right about the decline in confidence. https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/sowc_2023_immunization

This. Also lots of people have underlying conditions they don't know they have until they get Covid. I was one of those people.

@BeethovenNinth

Is it ALL vaccines that you are sceptical about or is it just the Covid vaccine?
And if it’s all vaccines, are you also sceptical about other medical interventions that have potential side effects. For example taking medication to prevent Osteoporosis?

@BeethovenNinth

There is no point having a rationale discussion here. This is why people stop trusting mainstream medicine. It’s why people lose faith in vaccines altogether - because they can’t ask questions or tell their story without ridicule and scoffing which always come from the “scientists”.

Why are you so defensive? No one has attacked or ridiculed you; quite the opposite. The 'scientists' on here always explain things carefully and with patience. As a layperson, I appreciate their perspective.

You do realise the only ridicule, scoffing or other wise derogatory responses in this thread in particular have been written about you by yourself don’t you?

I can well believe your mother was told not to have any more of specifically Covid vaccines. Stating that ‘all’ mRNA vaccines are off the table doesn’t sound right at all.

I’m not responsible for other peoples opinions and I’m certainly not responsible for their emotional reactions to statements they don’t like/understand/provoke uncomfortable feelings. I don’t particularly give a shit about flag waving anti-vaxxers, I do care about the influence they have on others who are quite simply scared by them but don’t investigate further, partly because the MO of remaining deliberately vague makes that a much harder task.

There is no point having a rationale discussion here. This is why people stop trusting mainstream medicine. It’s why people lose faith in vaccines altogether - because they can’t ask questions or tell their story without ridicule and scoffing which always come from the “scientists”

The only replies to your posts calling yourself unintelligent (or equivalents) came from yourself in a sort of one person argument? No one has said anything of the sort, you're getting tons of replies attempting to answer the questions you're asking.

I spent a fair bit of time replying to your questions, explaining why a vaccine cannot cause someone to later become more ill from the pathogen. You ignored this though replied to another poster saying:

(I’m too stupid to understand biochemists confident assertions)

I replied again saying if you didn't understand it that was obviously my fault, not yours, and I was happy to try again if you said what didn't make sense?

I find this sentiment depressing when many scientists have given up their time for free to do science communication type stuff (blogs, videos, Q&As) in an attempt to answer questions and alleviate anxiety during what was a very stressful time. Sadly, no good deed goes unpunished (some links, for anyone interested, on the risks of publicly speaking about COVID policy as a scientist).

Obviously there are knobs in all walks of life and science is no exception. I wouldn't be forming your opinion from anonymous posters on MN though.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/13/how-my-ivermectin-research-led-to-twitter-death-threats
https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/generalprofessionalissues/92622

Anything can be discussed, but you seem to want it to only be one way and then get defensive when anyone replies pointing out the issues in your posts.

The linked pre-print (not peer reviewed, not accepted for publication) would take me around 5 hours to read, critically assess, check references etc.

I do not want to do that. I do not believe you have done the same due diligence, and have became tired of spending my time going through a paper someone posts after only reading the title and thinking it backs up their argument, for them to complete ignore my reply and just swerve on to a new, unrelated point.

I have however skimmed it, and can find absolutely no evidence that supports your claim that vaccines given in 2020-2021 are now making people ill when infected with new variants.

This is unsuprising, given there has been no biological rationale or evidence for this being the case, during the entirety of the pandemic @BeethovenNinth

But you don’t need to analyse the study. How arrogant. The fact the potential for ADE is discussed - and I have seen it discussed in many places - means my suggestions are not utterly preposterous.

by the way- peer review is pretty meaningless these days and tends to mean “ask a pal”. The general quality of most studies is piss poor.

But you don’t need to analyse the study. How arrogant.
I said critically assess - not analyse. I think it's basic due diligence to read a paper (rather than just skim the title and abstract) before drawing conclusions. Not sure how not blindly trusting something is "arrogance"? @BeethovenNinth

The fact the potential for ADE is discussed means my suggestions are not utterly preposterous.
This is an absolute nonsense statement. The authors do not provide empirical evidence relevant to COVID nor reference anything robust that does. Therefore you have not provided anything meaningful that adds to your claim that vaccines given in 2020-2021 are making people ill currently when infected with SARS-COV-2.

by the way- peer review is pretty meaningless these days and tends to mean “ask a pal”. The general quality of most studies is piss poor.

Do you work in scientific research? Regularly submit papers and peer review yourself?

Some absolutely shocking work does get published (and generally retracted if it gets enough attention) - no one is denying that. But something being published rather than stuck on a preprint server which anyone can do does add an extra layer of checking that won't exist otherwise.

It's also pretty ridiculous that you claim peer review is meaningless AND that it is arrogant for someone to want to critically assess a paper before drawing conclusions? Surely if the state of scientific research is as bad as you say it is, you should be doing due diligence by actually critically assessing it.....

I was giving you benefit of the doubt until you attacked peer review. That is just silly and straight out of the anti-vaxxer's playbook. I apologise to everyone on this thread for attempting to engage with Beethoven. What a waste of time.

But you don’t need to analyse the study. How arrogant.

Why do you think it's arrogant to take time to assess a source properly, rather than automatically believing someone else's interpretation of it? @BeethovenNinth

It would be good if people did this more with content from the "big names" on the anti-vaccine circuit - who typically take a stat or sentence out of context to make a fake claim. Obviously not everyone has the time to do so, but not sure why it would be considered arrogant to not follow in blind faith!

I’ve just read the nhs is stepping up testing again.

I think even in the mainstream scientific circles, it is accepted that peer review doesn’t mean very much any more. Great in theory. Many many studies are poorly designed or poorly executed and peer reviewed by someone with vested interest.

it takes me an hour or so to look at a study to work out if I think it’s piss poor.

i think we need need a study on ADE against future variants. Urgently. Properly funded and with decent peer review . The issue is who would choose to find such a study?

If you want to know about ADE and covid, this article from Nature from way back in 2020 isn't a bad starting point.

Antibody-dependent enhancement and SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and therapies | Nature Microbiology

It's not being studied, because it hasn't been happening, and yes people have been on the look out for it (as far as anyone still surveilles covid these days)

I think even in the mainstream scientific circles, it is accepted that peer review doesn’t mean very much any more

I work in a "mainstream scientific circle" and as I said in my reply to you - low quality work does get published (& hopefully retacted). The existence of predatory journals means yes you can effectively pay to get something published which is utter trash - like Aseem Malhotra and many of his ilk.

This does not change the fact that it something published in a peer reviewed journal is still more likely to be higher quality than something lifted from a preprint server - anyone can upload a document there.

But I'm not sure what point you're trying to make - you linked a scientific paper which you mistakenly think backs up your point. You are now swerving to say quality of science is low and peer review is meaningless.

it takes me an hour or so to look at a study to work out if I think it’s piss poor

Baffled by this when I work as a scientist (which includes writing & reading such papers) and already said it would take me ~5 hours to properly read a manuscript.

You can read, evaluate methods, check results, critically assess, follow up references, go through the supplementaries in an hour? Is this every field or just mathematical modelling?

I am suprised that in this hour you didn't notice the many grammatical mistakes, basical epidemiological errors, or the fact that it provides no empirical or referenced evidence that backs up your claims though @BeethovenNinth

I didn’t analyse that study. I used it as a five minute example of the fact that ADE isn’t “implausible”.

elephant- if it’s not studied, how do we know it’s not happening?

Currently have Covid, tested I as was due to meet with elderly relative. I felt awful, earache, headache, chest pains, feverish... So much worse than ever before. Thankfully feeling a bit better today I haven't had my third booster so as soon as i'm better I'll be getting that done.

Because there was no evidence of ADE during the preclinical animal studies. No evidence during the human clinical trials. No evidence during the initial vaccine rollouts into the population. And no evidence of ADE even three years on, with billions of doses given and multiple variant strains in different parts of the world @BeethovenNinth

We have robust, replicated evidence from multiple contexts, by independent groups that vaccination versus non-vaccination is associated with better outcomes when infected with SARS-COV-2.

It's bonkers you are still trying to claim this - you've been on MN for years making these posts, and in this time SO much evidence has been gathered.

Scientists & doctors want people to be safe. They want themselves and their families to be safe @BeethovenNinth

It's just baffling that you think 10,000+ experts in the field worldwide are sticking fingers in their ears, continuing to agree vaccination of the general public was beneficial and recommending it for themselves/loved ones/subsets of the pop, and are completely ignorant to something you've noticed

@BeethovenNinth I'm not sure why you're repeatedly saying studies need to be urgently done

Vaccine effectiveness has been robustly evaluated throughout the last three years - there must be hundreds of studies. Over and over again we see vaccination is protective against severe disease, hospitilisation and death, even during the emergence of new variants. If ADE was the issue you were convinced it is, we would see the opposite. (This is alongside all the preclinical, clinical and intital rollout monitoring that was done).

There is a whiff of the apocalyptic cult judgement day about all this - every time the fake claims do not come true the goalposts are moved. Presumably, despite all this evidence you'll just say that well there isn't evidence for the most recent variant and that's the one that will kill everyone.

You're just embarrassing yourself at this point.

Because if it was happening, we would be able to see that it was.

It's not "studied" because there is nothing to study.

Are people aware of this issue, and ready to examine any hint that it is occurring - yes, very much so, and have been since the very earliest days of developing the vaccine.

embarrasing myself - you will need to better than that. I don’t care a jot

one of the reasons for increased mistrust and vaccine hesitancy is precisely because people don’t see these studies being done. If I’m told there is nothing to study - that makes no sense to me. I found - quickly - one study discussing the potential for ADE and I’m sure there will be others. I and many of my contemporaries have noticed, utterly anecdotally, that those of us who risked no vaccines seem to be infected less. I appreciate this means nothing in the context of data but it would be good to see data showing it’s a coincidence.

And I would very much hope a study is done to disprove that - or otherwise - to maintain confidence.

you May sneer and scoff but this is why people seem worried about taking boosters.

the real worry is that covid remains a risk across all age groups and people are being repeatedly infected. So my other hope is we can find a sterilising vaccine as I worry about the impact on children particularly.

henlee’to be fair, I’m not sure it is still recommended: it’s only now offered to the elderly and vulnerable. I assume that is either due to risk or cost.

I and many of my contemporaries have noticed, utterly anecdotally, that those of us who risked no vaccines seem to be infected less. I appreciate this means nothing in the context of data but it would be good to see data showing it’s a coincidence.

@BeethovenNinth

As I said - vaccine effectiveness has been robustly evaluated throughout the last three years - there must be hundreds of studies. These show vaccination is protective against severe disease, hospitilisation and death, even during the emergence of new variants. If ADE was the issue you were convinced it is, we would see the opposite. (This is alongside all the preclinical, clinical and intital rollout monitoring that was done).