German 'hypervaccinator' gets 217 coronavirus shots; researchers find no ill effects, good immune response

FireDragon76 said:

Japan had a tuberculosis epidemic in the early 20th century (as did many countries) and wearing masks became part of the culture. In Japan, people actually wear masks during cold or flu season if they suspect they have a cold or flu because there is a stronger sense of social responsibility and less individualism.

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What a contrast to western countries, where one of the main arguments against masking up was "but it only protects other people!".

sfs said:

Great, we're in agreement. Remember, you started by saying that you were done with vaccines and that as a society we should move on. Have you withdrawn that statement, or do you still think getting additional covid boosters is a sign that something is wrong with society?

Wearing a mask under certain circumstances is trivially easy. Why isn't it realistic? I mask on the subway and in crowded indoor places. It costs me about a dollar a month and about as much extra work as wearing a seatbelt. I mask more when covid or flu transmission is high and much less when they're low. Likewise, I masked more when I had a big trip planned and when my wife had surgery scheduled because I didn't want to wreck important events. What's wrong with that?

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Again, that’s your decision. I have no problem with it. That’s all. Your choice.

Nithavela said:

People in asia had to adjust to a higher number of infectious disease outbreaks in the past few decades, mostly because of questionable hygene standards in some areas. Also, in many asian cultures, it's a matter of course to suffer a minor personal inconvenience for the good of society as a whole.

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Interesting. Thanks for the info.

FireDragon76 said:

This isn't reality-based thinking. This is political propaganda. COVID is a potentially serious viral illness that impacts more than just the elderly.

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Actually, every single statement I made is factual, including the article I posted. "Impacts"? With that vague word, you have moved the goalposts from my statements. In reality, 98%+ survived, with almost all victims being the elderly and/or those with multiple co-morbidities.

RestoreTheJoy said:

Actually, every single statement I made is factual, including the article I posted.

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What you have yet to acknowledge is that every study shows that the mRNA vaccines, including all of their risks, are much, much safer than being infected with SARS-CoV-2.

RestoreTheJoy said:

Actually, every single statement I made is factual, including the article I posted. "Impacts"? With that vague word, you have moved the goalposts from my statements. In reality, 98%+ survived, with almost all victims being the elderly and/or those with multiple co-morbidities.

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The problem isn't just the death rate, but the strain on the health care system, as well as many people surviving covid having long-term health problems. I know several people who had to recover for half a year or longer, or never got back to the way they were before Covid.

RestoreTheJoy said:

Actually, every single statement I made is factual, including the article I posted. "Impacts"? With that vague word, you have moved the goalposts from my statements. In reality, 98%+ survived, with almost all victims being the elderly and/or those with multiple co-morbidities.

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Yes, impacts. Come on, it hasn't been that long, the impacts of COVID on those who don't die from it have been widely discussed, you know perfectly well what was meant.

RestoreTheJoy said:

Actually, every single statement I made is factual, including the article I posted. "Impacts"? With that vague word, you have moved the goalposts from my statements. In reality, 98%+ survived, with almost all victims being the elderly and/or those with multiple co-morbidities.

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98 percent survived, but 1 in 4 people with COVID experience at least some long term symptoms after the initial infection.

I visited my doctor yesterday for a check up after experiencing a decline in cardiorespiratory fitness post-COVID, and she said having fatigue for up to two months after COVID is normal for the illness. COVID has more in common in this way with mononucleosis than the cold or flu, since mono can be a serious infection that can be debilitating.

sfs said:

What you have yet to acknowledge is that every study shows that the mRNA vaccines, including all of their risks, are much, much safer than being infected with SARS-CoV-2.

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But they are not safer. And EVERYONE who hasn't been hiding in a cave has already been exposed to this virus.

Millions were early on, with mild to no symptoms at all. Of course, those in the high risk categories of the elderly and those with co-morbidities were and are careful, and that makes sense.

40% show no symptoms at all. How many SARS-CoV-2 infections are asymptomatic?

Which is why we have finally returned to the common sense stance of "Stay home if you are ill".

I have no need to relive 4 and 3 years ago for nostalgia purposes. Bad arguments from 2020/1 should stay there.

essentialsaltes said:

German researchers have examined a “hypervaccinated” man they say received more than 200 coronavirus shots without any noticeable side effects or harm to his immune system.

But in fact, the researchers found that the man had more of these immune cells — known as T-cells — than a control group that had received the standard three-dose vaccine regimen. They also did not detect any fatigue in these cells, which they said were just as effective as those of people who had received a typical number of coronavirus shots.

The researchers made it clear that despite their findings, they “do not endorse hypervaccination as a strategy to enhance adaptive immunity.”

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Thus far, it sounds like their sample size group is "1" being that it sounds like he possibly agreed to be researched in exchange for them going lighter on the fraud charges he was facing (sounds like perhaps he was fudging some paperwork to get extra doses.

And it'd obviously be unethical to get a larger sample group to try doing something like taking 100+ doses in such a short time period.

Although, it makes me wonder if it becomes a "diminishing returns" scenario for this.

Perhaps he was one of the lucky ones who didn't experience the headaches, low-grade fever, achy stuff that a lot of people experienced after dose #2 (and subsequent doses)

Says in the article that he got 130 doses over 9 months. At what point does it become "not worth it" to be dealing with the 1-2 day "flu like" feeling twice a week for a year vs. just getting getting the regular regimen, and then experiencing a mild case of covid (which then confers pretty durable immunity lasting 10+ months)

RestoreTheJoy said:

But they are not safer.

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And that's why I keep challenging your posts -- because you're dead wrong about this. If you think you're not, cite the studies that show the vaccines to be more dangerous than being infected with the virus.

sfs said:

And that's why I keep challenging your posts -- because you're dead wrong about this. If you think you're not, cite the studies that show the vaccines to be more dangerous than being infected with the virus.

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I'll defer to your expertise on this one since I know you're scientist. (you've shared that before on here, so this isn't doxxing lol)

Wouldn't that be heavily dependent on the cohort?

For instance, if we're talking about people aged 40+, it's pretty evident that the vaccine is safer than the virus without question.

For males 16-24, and given the current strains out there, would the virus be more dangerous than receiving numerous additional doses of mRNA vaccines?

I know Paul Offit (who's on the board of the FDA vaccine advisory committee) said that he doesn't recommend healthy young people get anything beyond the standard 2-dose regimen, and has suggested that boosters fall into the realm of "diminishing returns". Given that there is a small risk of heart inflammation issues in young males in particular, is there any indicators as to what that "dose #" threshold is where the juice is no longer worth the squeeze, so to speak?

ThatRobGuy said:

Wouldn't that be heavily dependent on the cohort?

For instance, if we're talking about people aged 40+, it's pretty evident that the vaccine is safer than the virus without question.

For males 16-24, and given the current strains out there, would the virus be more dangerous than receiving numerous additional doses of mRNA vaccines?

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An excellent question and not the easiest one to answer. When the vaccines were introduced (I'll stick to the mRNA vaccines), it was easy to answer: vaccination was safer for every age group than being infected. But now, if you're young, male, immune-competent, and have some immunity from either vaccination or infection (or both), what are the risks and benefits of boosting? I can't find any studies that directly address the question -- it's hard to study and interest in the subject has waned.

A couple of relevant facts. First, it's clear that the bulk of the risk of post-vaccination peri/myocarditis for young post-puberty males (who are the ones at high risk) came from the primary vaccinations with the Moderna vaccine. The risk after the 2nd dose was about 10 times as high for Moderna as for Pfizer; even the Moderna booster, which had half the dosage, still had ~2X the risk of a Pfizer booster. The risk of myocarditis from SARS-CoV-2 infection was about half that of the 2nd dose of Pfizer (obviously, there are other risks associated by infection).

Second, the evidence is pretty good that the risk of this kind of reaction, both from infection and from vaccination, decreases with prior immunity. That is, the risk from vaccination was about halved for those who had previously been infected, while the risk from infection was reduced by about a third. It's plausible, then, that as overall immunity to SARS-CoV-2 has increased, the risk from vaccination has decreased.

The benefit side of boosting is even harder to evaluate. No one is doing the kind of randomized control trials of boosting that would be needed to quantify the benefits, and observational studies aren't reliable because people who get boosted have systematically different risk and behavior profiles than those who don't. Boosting with a vaccine that better matches the current immunogenic profile of circulating virus very likely reduces risk of severe disease and probably also substantially reduces the risk of infection, but the latter effect wanes within a few months.

So on net, I don't really know. As I wrote earlier in the thread, if I were in that age bracket, I might not get boosted, but I also might.

sfs said:

And that's why I keep challenging your posts -- because you're dead wrong about this. If you think you're not, cite the studies that show the vaccines to be more dangerous than being infected with the virus.

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I guess you haven't read all the studies indicating that the vaccine does indeed cause myocarditis and pericarditis and heart attacks in the susceptible. And the increase is significant in kids, who aren't even susceptible to the virus but they rushed right out and demanded that all kids get these jabs anyway.

I have already cited numerous articles and studies indicating that most people have a mild infection and 40% never know they were infected at all.

An international study of around 99 million people confirmed known serious side effects of COVID-19 vaccination. It also identified a possible relationship between the first dose of the Moderna vaccine and a small risk of a neurological condition. Social media posts about the study left out information on the vaccines’ benefits and the rarity of the side effects.

RestoreTheJoy said:

I guess you haven't read all the studies indicating that the vaccine does indeed cause myocarditis and pericarditis and heart attacks in the susceptible. And the increase is significant in kids, who aren't even susceptible to the virus but they rushed right out and demanded that all kids get these jabs anyway.

I have already cited numerous articles and studies indicating that most people have a mild infection and 40% never know they were infected at all.

An international study of around 99 million people confirmed known serious side effects of COVID-19 vaccination. It also identified a possible relationship between the first dose of the Moderna vaccine and a small risk of a neurological condition. Social media posts about the study left out information on the vaccines’ benefits and the rarity of the side effects.

Study Largely Confirms Known, Rare COVID-19 Vaccine Side Effects - FactCheck.org

An international study of around 99 million people confirmed known serious side effects of COVID-19 vaccination. It also identified a possible relationship between the first dose of the Moderna vaccine and a small risk of a neurological condition. Social media posts about the study left out...

www.factcheck.org

The Rise of mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine-Associated Myocarditis and Its Implications on the Future Use of This New Vaccine Platform

Vaccine-associated myocarditis is becoming increasingly documented as a complication of the messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccination platform. This complication so far has been found to predominantly affect the younger male population within ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Cardiac Adverse Events after Vaccination—A Systematic Review

The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System database has been used to report adverse events following several vaccines. We studied the patient population predisposed to such reactions and how these reactions differ with respect to the vaccine type. We ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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There's nothing "mild" about COVID. "Mild" is relative, it means you didn't end up in the hospital. You can still be sick for a long time.

FireDragon76 said:

There's nothing "mild" about COVID. "Mild" is relative, it means you didn't end up in the hospital. You can still be sick for a long time.

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In a clinical sense, yes, "mild" encompasses everything from asymptomatic to just this side of "I need to go to the ER".

However, with the currently circulating strains, many (if not most) infections are "mild" in the contemporary usage sense of the word. (low grade fever, stuffy nose, sort throat)

(in discussing the variant JN.1)
“COVID-19’s symptoms are generally of the same spectrum that they have always been, with the exception of less frequently reported loss of taste and smell,” says Amesh Adalja, M.D., an infectious disease expert and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “Overall, COVID-19 tends to look more like a cold, with a sore throat, runny nose, and maybe a fever and aches,”

RestoreTheJoy said:

I guess you haven't read all the studies indicating that the vaccine does indeed cause myocarditis and pericarditis

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Huh? Yes, I've read the studies that indicate that the mRNA vaccines cause myocarditis and pericarditis -- something that should be obvious, since I previously, "Yes, the mRNA vaccines do cause pericarditis..." I didn't ask for studies showing that the mRNA vaccines can cause harm; everyone knows that. I asked for studies showing that they cause more harm than the disease. You haven't done that.

RestoreTheJoy said:

I have already cited numerous articles and studies indicating that most people have a mild infection and 40% never know they were infected at all.

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40% is probably high -- meta-analyses have suggested a number around 25% never develop symptoms -- but in the right ballpark. So what? "Mild" means "not hospitalized", and "most" means that lots of people did indeed get very sick, and millions died. That's the part you keep leaving out.

RestoreTheJoy said:

And the increase is significant in kids, who aren't even susceptible to the virus

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Try telling that to the 1600 American kids who died from covid or to their parents.

RestoreTheJoy said:

An international study of around 99 million people confirmed known serious side effects of COVID-19 vaccination. It also identified a possible relationship between the first dose of the Moderna vaccine and a small risk of a neurological condition. Social media posts about the study left out information on the vaccines’ benefits and the rarity of the side effects.

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So you link to an article that points out how rare these side effects are and how effective the vaccines have been at preventing severe disease -- to support your claim that the side effects were worse than the disease? Are you even reading what you're writing?

ThatRobGuy said:

However, with the currently circulating strains, many (if not most) infections are "mild" in the contemporary usage sense of the word. (low grade fever, stuffy nose, sort throat)

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That's primarily a result of greater population immunity, not changes to the virus. Omicron strains are indeed more mild than Delta, but Delta caused more severe disease than Alpha, which caused more severe disease than the previous mutated version (D614G), which probably caused more severe disease that the original Wuhan strain. When Omicron hit an immunologically naive population in Hong Kong, it too wreaked havoc. The comparison of Hong Kong, which had an ineffective vaccine campaign using a poor vaccine, with New Zealand, which had a much better vaccine and more complete vaccination, is instructive. Both places largely kept covid at bay until the first Omicron wave hit, and neither could contain Omicron, but the death toll in Hong Kong was much higher:

sfs said:

That's primarily a result of greater population immunity, not changes to the virus. Omicron strains are indeed more mild than Delta, but Delta caused more severe disease than Alpha, which caused more severe disease than the previous mutated version (D614G), which probably caused more severe disease that the original Wuhan strain. When Omicron hit an immunologically naive population in Hong Kong, it too wreaked havoc. The comparison of Hong Kong, which had an ineffective vaccine campaign using a poor vaccine, with New Zealand, which had a much better vaccine and more complete vaccination, is instructive. Both places largely kept covid at bay until the first Omicron wave hit, and neither could contain Omicron, but the death toll in Hong Kong was much higher:
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Wouldn't there be some other crucial differences at play that could impact that as well?

I know for a while, Hong Kong was actually being studied to crack the code of why lung diseases (in general, this was before covid) were so common in that region.

Per a separate NIH study
COPD is a common disease that imposes a high burden on health care resources worldwide.1,2 In Hong Kong (HK), the prevalence rates of COPD in the elderly population aged ≥60 years was 25.9%

(it also seems they have a higher prevalence of asthma, as well as a huge number of people who were once heavy smokers up until 10 years ago since they introduced efforts to reign that in a bit, which likely accounts for their high rates of COPD they have today as 10 years isn't going to undo 40+ years worth of damage from heavy smoking)

Obviously air pollution in Hong Kong doesn't help matters either...


So while I'm not surprised to see that the more highly vaccinated Kiwi elderly population had a lower CFR than that of their Hong Kong counterparts. Any possibility that the variables I mentioned above could be the contributor to a portion of that?