Science Deniers Try to Take Over a Sarasota Public Hospital

probinson

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That's nice. How does it demonstrate that the vaccines "completely failed to slow the spread of COVID"? Seems like there would have to be some data to show how vaccinated versus unvaccinated people fared rather than just the raw fact that a highly infectious disease spread in a population which had both groups of people.

Oddly enough, that data is incredibly hard to come by, especially now.

Regardless, you're grasping at straws. In case you missed it, this is what happens to an epi curve when vaccines that actually work to stop the spread of a disease are introduced;

Screen Shot 2022-08-04 at 9.25.12 PM.png

The same logic you apply above applies here. Not everyone was vaccinated against measles. Yet overall measles cases declined precipitously nearly immediately after they were introduced. This is what an effective vaccine does to an epi curve. And the higher the vaccination rate rose, the more quickly cases decreased. Exactly what one would (and should) expect from a vaccine that prevents disease.

Or we could look at how people who actually know what they're doing

Try thinking logically for just one minute.

If vaccines slow the spread of a disease, then cases would decline. Perhaps not immediately, but the claim is that the more people that are vaccinated, the less disease there would be. Are you with me so far?

Now let's look at how rapidly vaccination rates rose in South Korea;

Screen Shot 2022-08-04 at 9.30.35 PM.png


As you can see, vaccine uptake in South Korea was considerably rapid. Now let's once again look at the number of cases relative to that vaccination rate;

Screen Shot 2022-08-04 at 9.37.32 PM.png


I will be the first to admit that I am not an "expert", but I can read a graph. You don't need to be an epidemiologist to look at those 2 graphs and realize that vaccines DID NOT slow the spread of the disease in South Korea AT ALL despite high vaccination uptake. And that doesn't even take into account the booster doses given (currently over 75% of people in South Korea are boosted and that uptake was even quicker than the original vaccine series).

So explain to me how this data supports your contention that vaccines slowed the spread of the disease. If that were true, one would expect to see a decreased number of cases as vaccination numbers increased and there were fewer unvaccinated people (like we see in the chart above after the introduction of the measles vaccine). There is no decline. At all. Anywhere. Just a steady increase in rates of infection from the day the vaccines were introduced to more than 18 months later. Infection rates have never returned to pre-vaccinated levels, and they're STILL trending in the wrong direction.

research the effectiveness of vaccines. For example
Vaccination Rates and New COVID-19 Infections by US County, July-August 2021

Areas with low vaccination experienced a more intense surge of new cases during the third wave of the pandemic in the US, primarily driven by the Delta variant.
Or DEFINE_ME

US counties with ≥ 80% of their residents ≥ 12 years of age fully vaccinated against COVID-19 had 30% (95% CI: 25−35; P < .001) and 46% (38−52; P < .001) lower rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths, respectively, versus those with <50% coverage (reference group).
I can't help but notice how different this actual research looks versus trying to reverse engineer an anti-vaxx narrative from a single cherry-picked example.

I can't help but notice that you're accusing me of cherry-picking when I'm looking at the whole of the pandemic while your first linked study examines two months (July-August 2021) and your second linked study examines only April 1, 2021 - October 31, 2021.

The bottom line is, reality does not support the conclusions of those studies. You can buy into the gaslighting if you like, but don't pretend like it's because evidence and data is on your side. It clearly is not.
 
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probinson

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Let's go all the way back to the original clinical trial data that Pfizer submitted to the FDA. The claim of 95%+ efficacy was based on 162 infections in the placebo arm and 8 infections in the vaccinated arm. That's right folks, the decision to vaccinate the entire planet was based on just 170 people observed over a few months.

So this data shows a relative risk reduction (RRR) of >95%. This was shouted from the rooftops and heralded as one of the most astounding breakthroughs in medicine in our lifetimes.

What was not reported so widely was the absolute risk reduction (ARR). Out of 20,000 people in the placebo group, 162 got COVID while out of 20,000 people in the vaccinated group, 8 got COVID. This equates to rates of infection of .0081 and .0004 respectively, which means that the absolute risk reduction for those who had COVID vaccines in Pfizer's trial was about 0.77%. Do you think that people would have rushed out in droves to get vaccinated if the media had reported that your absolute risk reduction would have been 0.77%?

Then, we need to calculate the number needed to vaccinate to prevent one COVID infection (NNV - number needed to vaccinate). This is calculated by taking 100/ARR%, in this case, 100/0.77, which gives us ~130. This means that 130 people must be vaccinated to prevent one case of COVID.

Lest you think I'm making this up, consider this study, that actually shows even higher estimates of NNV;

Risk reduction with vaccines
Table 1 shows data from the RCTs of Pfizer and Moderna and from the Israeli population-based study. The Pfizer and Moderna studies addressed the vaccines’ efficacy, which refers to their effects within controlled, experimental situations. The RRRs for both vaccines were in the range of 95 percent. This means that, among all those who became ill, 95 percent were in the unvaccinated group. The publications for these studies did not report ARRs, but data published in the studies permitted our calculation of ARRs. The calculated ARRs for vaccinated subjects compared to the baseline risk for unvaccinated subjects were in the range of 1 percent. The NNV to prevent one symptomatic infection, calculated from the ARR, was 141 for mild COVID and 2,500 for severe COVID in the Pfizer study, versus 88 and 500 in the Moderna study.

....

Comparisons with vaccines for other viral diseases
The ARRs and NNVs achieved by COVID vaccines so far appear somewhat less favorable than those achieved by vaccines for some other viral diseases. For instance, systematic reviews of influenza vaccines have revealed NNVs to prevent symptomatic infections between 12 and 94.5 Studies of herpes zoster vaccine have yielded NNVs for symptomatic infections between 11 and 43.6 For human papilloma virus vaccine, calculated NNV to prevent one case of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia in one study was 129.23 Regarding smallpox, the NNV to prevent one death was four (Table 1, calculated from data in 24,25).

COVID-19 vaccines and evidence-based medicine

The next time someone tries to compare the smallpox vaccine to the COVID vaccine, you should point out that the number needed to vaccinate for smallpox to prevent one death was four whereas the COVID vaccine is somewhere between 500 and 2,500 or higher. Just because they're both "vaccines" does not mean they are equal in efficacy.

The NNV and ARR are important factors in understanding the true efficacy of the vaccines. When you first read that the COVID vaccine was "95% effective", you almost certainly believed that meant it would stop 95% of infections. But that was never true if you actually looked at the results of Pfizer's own data.

This is not an "anti-vax" position. It is the simple truth of what Pfizer's own clinical study data shows. Given the fact that mRNA vaccines had NEVER before been used in human beings and there was no long-term data, the implementation and rollout of vaccines SHOULD have been more nuanced and methodical.
 
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Pommer

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What military expertise does Biden have? Would None be a fair assessment?
He didn’t even go to military school, like that one President who was smarter than all of the Generals.
 
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KCfromNC

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Oddly enough, that data is incredibly hard to come by, especially now.

Not really, it took like 30 seconds of searching to find the two of them I linked in my post.

But if you mean that it is hard to tease out the specific effects of vaccines from the other factors which impact how covid spread, well, you're starting to see why cherry-picking a single graph which seems to fit with the ant-vaxx narrative as evidence that vaccines do nothing is less than convincing.

Try thinking logically for just one minute.

Hey look, personal attacks when the holes in previous posts can't be defended. I guess it is better than just repeating the previous mistakes without addressing the critiques of them - no wait, that was there too.

If vaccines slow the spread of a disease, then cases would decline.

That depends on a lot of other factors aside from vaccination status. For instance, if vaccination drives start during the upswing of a new wave of cases, it is entirely possible for the vaccine to slow the spread to something lower than it would have been if the entire population were unvaccinated while cases still rise overall.

So explain to me how this data supports your contention that vaccines slowed the spread of the disease.

I'm pretty sure I mentioned previously that using a single graph to try and determine vaccine efficacy was at best misleading. Not sure why you'd think that means I would want to defend it.

The bottom line is, reality does not support the conclusions of those studies.

I anxiously await your peer-reviewed studies demonstrating these researchers are wrong.
 
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KCfromNC

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probinson

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Ah, Reuters fact-checkers. The quintessential definition of THE SCIENCE™.

The bottom line is, the RRR and ARR are both important to informed consent. The most misleading thing about the vaccine efficacy claims were that they were "95% effective". But that claim was based on just 170 people, and the absolute risk reduction was about 0.77%. Those are the facts. No matter what "fact-checkers" say.
 
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probinson

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Not really, it took like 30 seconds of searching to find the two of them I linked in my post.

But if you mean that it is hard to tease out the specific effects of vaccines from the other factors which impact how covid spread, well, you're starting to see why cherry-picking a single graph which seems to fit with the ant-vaxx narrative as evidence that vaccines do nothing is less than convincing.
Again, I'm looking at the whole of the pandemic, while the two observational studies you chose examined just a few short months. I'm not sure you understand what the term "cherry-picking" means.

That depends on a lot of other factors aside from vaccination status. For instance, if vaccination drives start during the upswing of a new wave of cases, it is entirely possible for the vaccine to slow the spread to something lower than it would have been if the entire population were unvaccinated while cases still rise overall.

Is that what you think happened in South Korea? And Australia? And New Zealand? And every other highly vaccinated country in the world that surpassed the US in infections?

"It would have been so much worse without the vaccine" has been the refrain of the pandemic. It's not very convincing as we look around the world.
 
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expos4ever

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Ah, Reuters fact-checkers. The quintessential definition of THE SCIENCE™.
An actual counterargument to the clear argument from the Reuters article is conspicuously absent from your post. You are asking readers to take your word over the word of a qualified medical expert. Here is a quote from the article:

Natalie E. Dean, assistant professor of Biostatistics at the University of Florida, understood why the ARR numbers might have confused users on social media and explained why the RRR is the “usual scale” considered by the medical community when talking about vaccine efficacy.

“Because (the ARR) is a much lower number, it feels like
it is saying that the other number (RRR) isn’t true,” but this is not accurate, “they are both capturing some aspect of reality, just measuring it in a different way,” she told Reuters via telephone.

Vaccine efficacy, expressed as the RRR means the vaccine will reduce the risk of infection by that reported percentage irrespective of the transmission setting. “It is more meaningful,” she said.


Trying to mislead readers by citing the ARR is one of the many arrows your disinformation quiver.

Another being the highly misleading claim that vaccine mandates are not effective - a drum you have beaten to death in other threads.
 
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probinson

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An actual counterargument to the clear argument from the Reuters article is conspicuously absent from your post. You are asking readers to take your word over the word of a qualified medical expert.

Actually, I posted a link to a study talking about ARR. Here it is again, in case you missed it;

Risk reduction with vaccines
Table 1 shows data from the RCTs of Pfizer and Moderna and from the Israeli population-based study. The Pfizer and Moderna studies addressed the vaccines’ efficacy, which refers to their effects within controlled, experimental situations. The RRRs for both vaccines were in the range of 95 percent. This means that, among all those who became ill, 95 percent were in the unvaccinated group. The publications for these studies did not report ARRs, but data published in the studies permitted our calculation of ARRs. The calculated ARRs for vaccinated subjects compared to the baseline risk for unvaccinated subjects were in the range of 1 percent. The NNV to prevent one symptomatic infection, calculated from the ARR, was 141 for mild COVID and 2,500 for severe COVID in the Pfizer study, versus 88 and 500 in the Moderna study.

....

Comparisons with vaccines for other viral diseases
The ARRs and NNVs achieved by COVID vaccines so far appear somewhat less favorable than those achieved by vaccines for some other viral diseases. For instance, systematic reviews of influenza vaccines have revealed NNVs to prevent symptomatic infections between 12 and 94.5Studies of herpes zoster vaccine have yielded NNVs for symptomatic infections between 11 and 43.6 For human papilloma virus vaccine, calculated NNV to prevent one case of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia in one study was 129.23 Regarding smallpox, the NNV to prevent one death was four (Table 1, calculated from data in 24,25).


COVID-19 vaccines and evidence-based medicine
 
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probinson

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While the US continues to advocate vaccinating children as young as 6 months old against COVID even if the child has already had a prior infection, the Danish Health Authority now advises against vaccinating anyone under the age of 18;

Vaccination of children and young people under the age of 18
Children and young people only very rarely become seriously ill from covid-19 with the omikron variant. Therefore, from 1 July 2022 it will no longer be possible for children and young people under the age of 18 to get the 1st jab, and from 1 September 2022 it will no longer be possible to get the 2nd jab.

Quite a few children with a particularly increased risk of a serious course will still have the option of vaccination, after an individual assessment by a doctor.

Vaccination mod covid-19


Also, when vaccination resumes in the autumn in Denmark, here are their plans;

1. Who will be offered booster vaccination against covid-19 this autumn?
The Danish Health Authority plans for the time being to offer booster vaccinations to people aged 50 and over in the autumn.

There will also continue to be an offer for particularly vulnerable people under the age of 50, e.g. people with severely weakened immune systems who a doctor has assessed would benefit from vaccination.

The purpose of the autumn program is to prevent serious illness, hospitalization and death. The Danish Health Authority has therefore carried out a thorough review of the knowledge currently available about who is at increased risk of a serious course of covid-19. On this basis, the Danish Health Authority has found that it is these two groups that should be offered booster vaccination in the autumn.

So not everyone will be offered boosters in Denmark in the autumn. And why is this?

9. I have previously been offered vaccination against covid-19. Why am I not offered it this fall?
The purpose of the vaccination program for the autumn is to prevent serious illness, hospitalization and death. Therefore, it is persons at greatest risk of a serious course who will be offered booster vaccination. The purpose of vaccination is not to prevent infection with covid-19, which is why people under the age of 50 are not currently offered booster vaccination this autumn.

People under the age of 50 are generally not at a particularly increased risk of a serious course if they become ill with covid-19. In addition, younger people under the age of 50 are well protected against serious illness with covid-19, as many have already been vaccinated and have been infected with covid-19 in the past, and therefore there is good immunity in this part of the population.

It is important that the public this autumn also remembers the good advice to prevent the spread of infection, including staying at home when ill, frequent airing or ventilation, keeping your distance, good cough etiquette, hand hygiene and cleaning.

Just so we're clear, the Danish Health Authority can in no way be construed as an "anti-vax" organization. Yet they are advising against indiscriminately vaccinating children and young people under the age of 18, and are also advising against indiscriminate boosting.
 
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KCfromNC

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Again, I'm looking at the whole of the pandemic

The "whole of the pandemic" was limited to South Korea? Please, tell us more.

I'm not sure you understand what the term "cherry-picking" means.

To me, it means something like searching out a single country's data that seems to back up a pre-determined conclusion that vaccines "completely failed to slow the spread of COVID" while hand-waving away research that compares infection rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated people.

Hopefully that helps inform you on what I do and don't understand about the term. Happy to help.
 
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KCfromNC

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While the US continues to advocate vaccinating children as young as 6 months old against COVID even if the child has already had a prior infection, the Danish Health Authority now advises against vaccinating anyone under the age of 18;

Speaking of my "understanding" of cherry-picking, it is very interesting how national health officials are suddenly credible again just as soon as they support something which looks to support anti-vaxx claims.
 
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probinson

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The "whole of the pandemic" was limited to South Korea? Please, tell us more.

Of course not. But looking at the entire epi curve of a country throughout a pandemic tells us quite a lot. I chose South Korea because the media couldn't stop gushing about how they had kept the virus under control;

Screen Shot 2022-08-09 at 9.27.31 AM.png


As time marches on, and as South Korea has higher infection rates now than they ever did before vaccination, that narrative hasn't aged well.

To me, it means something like searching out a single country's data that seems to back up a pre-determined conclusion that vaccines "completely failed to slow the spread of COVID" while hand-waving away research that compares infection rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated people.

How about 10 countries? Feel free to point out where vaccination slowed the spread of the disease on any of these epi curves;

Screen Shot 2022-08-09 at 9.26.28 AM.png


Even the Danish Health Authority states that "The purpose of vaccination is not to prevent infection with covid-19..." This is pretty common knowledge now. Even the public health authorities that once pretended like COVID would come to a screeching halt once everyone got vaccinated have conceded that EVERYONE is going to get COVID, which if true means that the vaccines will ultimately COMPLETELY FAIL to prevent infection.

Sure, you might be able to produce a "study" that examines a few months and says, "See there? These people that were vaccinated didn't get COVID!", but sure as shootin', those same people are going to get COVID when the study is over if we are to believe the inevitability of everyone getting infected. So it doesn't much matter if you were prevented getting infected in July if you're going to get COVID in September, does it?
 
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probinson

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Speaking of my "understanding" of cherry-picking, it is very interesting how national health officials are suddenly credible again just as soon as they support something which looks to support anti-vaxx claims.

The Danish Health Authority has also exhibited some humility. Just a few weeks ago, they admitted it was a mistake to vaccinate children and they would not do it again;

I want to look every parent who has vaccinated their child in the eyes and say: "You did the right thing and thank you for listening". But at the same time – and this is the important thing to maintain trust – I will admit and say that we have become wiser, and we would not do the same today. And we won't get to that in the future either, said Brostrøm.

In retrospect, we didn't get much out of vaccinating the children, admits Brostrøm

And take a look at that! He says this is "the important thing to maintain trust". An admission of a mistake, a learning from having "become wiser", an apology, and a changing of policy based on what they know today.

It's more telling that you think this "support(s) anti-vaxx claims". How dare anyone take an approach more nuanced than the neanderthal-like approach of VACCINE GOOD! MORE BETTER!
 
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KCfromNC

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How about 10 countries? Feel free to point out where vaccination slowed the spread of the disease on any of these epi curves;

I still don't see any reason why you're continuing with this approach after being shown how actual researchers evaluate how vaccines work in the wild (hint - by comparing the relative infection rates between the vaccinated and unvaccinated population). Are we really supposed to think that a random amateur on the internet has somehow figured out that people who do this for a living are all wrong?


Even the Danish Health Authority states that "The purpose of vaccination is not to prevent infection with covid-19..."

That doesn't mean that vaccines "completely failed to slow the spread of COVID".

Sure, you might be able to produce a "study" that examines a few months and says, "See there? These people that were vaccinated didn't get COVID!",

Which study are you referring to here? I don't remember seeing anything showing covid vaccines were 100% effective, just that they helped to slow the spread compared to the unvaccinated population control group.
These posts would be a lot more persuasive if they actually addressed what we know about covid rather than just making up stuff.
 
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KCfromNC

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It's more telling that you think this "support(s) anti-vaxx claims".
Are you trying to sell the idea that your posts are pro-vaccination? If not, then clearly the goal of appealing to a random person's quote is literally to support anti-vaxx claims.
 
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