Anti Vax / Anti Mask / Conspiracy Loons

[Smendrick Feaselberg]

Maybe the boosters help against the existing strain that's hitting 40,000 new people every day?

Yep, compared to relatively tiny number of Omicron. Though obviously that will change in a few weeks time, but it at leaat buys more time while the data is being analysed/vaccine potentially amended which will minimise additional strain on hospitals.

[StillSpike]

Much better thanks - glad to hear you're over it too. I count my blessings (and thank Pfizer) that I got away with a light one.

[Sid Bishop]

Thanks Spike I have actually read that article and I agree it’s an interesting read. And there’s a case to be made that no one ever mentioned myocarditis as a side effect of Covid until early this year (when people started getting it as a result of the vaccine) but again it depends on how far down the rabbit hole one wants to go and how big your “tin foil hat” is

I suppose I'm guided by who is "making the case" - if it's someone like the British Heart Foundation, then I'm likely to take more notice of the case than if it's just Alan off of Youtube.

You're right that we don't know absolutely the long term possibilities of the vaccines - that's just logic, they've only been around a year - but we do know for a fact that they're cutting your risk of pegging it from Covid - or indeed being hospitalised with it. Speaking personally, I caught Covid about a month ago, and (I'm sure) thanks to the 2 doses of vaccine I'd been given, I got it really mild (despite some underlying conditions) and was fine in a few days with no apparent lasting effects.

Good comment.

[Ronnie Hotdogs]

Much better thanks - glad to hear you're over it too. I count my blessings (and thank Pfizer) that I got away with a light one.

Thank Pfizer?

Pharmaceutical companies have long been associated with price-jacking, short-term financial returns and disproportionate focus on little blue pills over life-saving ones. But at first glance, the Covid-19 pandemic appears to have given this often-maligned industry an opportunity to rehabilitate itself.

The rapid turn-around of vaccines, with the first Pfizer doses administered within a year of the pandemic sweeping across the world, led some to think that this model – built on tight control of intellectual property and profit-motivated research – still had something to give. Boris Johnson hailed the development of vaccines as a victory for “capitalism” and “greed”. There were even rumours that Pfizer was set to win a Nobel Prize for its vaccine work. For a time, whenever anyone ventured to question the wisdom of entrusting pharma companies with protecting us from the virus, they were told to shut up and be grateful. After all, these companies were “about to save the world”.

But all this is only one side of the story – and one that draws most of its influence from pharma boardrooms and wilfully-blind market dogma. The emergence of the Omicron variant should make it clear to anyone not already convinced that a big pharma-led response to Covid-19 just won’t work.

As Ayoade Alakija of the African Union’s Vaccine Delivery Alliance has explained, the new variant is the inevitable result of a deeply unequal global vaccine roll-out in which rich countries – and the pharma companies based in them – have shown zero interest in cooperation with the rest of the world. Scientists have warned for months that increased transmissions allowed by global vaccine inequity would create more opportunities for the virus to mutate. And this is exactly what the existing system has encouraged.

With rich countries jumping to the front of the vaccine queue and then failing to deliver on promised donations, huge parts of the world have been unable to access vaccines. To date, only 5.7% of people in low-income countries have received a single vaccine dose. Only 7% of people in Africa are fully vaccinated. This system has been a disaster for people throughout the Global South – and now it could be coming back to bite us too.

At the start of the pandemic, vaccine manufacturing capacity stood at around 5.5 billion doses for all diseases, so the need to expand this capacity was clear. To this end, last October India and South Africa called for a waiver on World Trade Organisation intellectual property rights on Covid-19 health including vaccines – a move that would help factories across the world mobilise to join production efforts. Since then over 100 countries have backed the waiver, but a few rich countries – including the UK and the EU – continue to block the proposal.

This means that huge amounts of vaccine manufacturing capacity has gone untapped, as laid out clearly by a recent New York Times investigation. And while Johnson has sat on his hands, pharma executives have reclined over ever-growing mounds of cash, nine of them becoming billionaires. Pfizer’s vaccine is set to become the most lucrative drug of all time, with Moderna’s following not far behind.

The refusal to sacrifice arcane trade laws also means that Global South countries have been denied greater autonomy over their response to Covid-19. In South Africa, a WHO-backed company trying to reverse-engineer Moderna’s vaccine is being held back by Moderna’s refusal to share the vaccine recipe with them, even as it courts favourable PR by saying it won’t enforce its patents. Rich countries have insisted that donations will ensure vaccines reach all parts of the world. But by mid-October, only 14% of doses pledged by rich countries had been delivered through COVAX, the official mechanism for facilitating donations.

While many of us are rightly grateful for the protection offered by vaccines, we have to direct our thanks and anger towards the right people. Our thanks must go to the scientists who worked on these vaccines and the public institutions that funded them. Our anger must be targeted at the companies and system that monopolises their work.

In response to criticism along these lines, pharma executives, the British government and supposedly sensible voices rely on old clichés citing the need to incentivise new inventions. But most of the pharma industry is set up to prioritise profits, not innovation. Studies have found that less than half of approved medicines in recent years offered any medical advance, and under-investment in rare diseases is chronic – especially for those that hit the poorest countries hardest. Meanwhile, pharma companies often spend more on sales and marketing than they do on research and development.

Just as importantly, the fact is that every Covid-19 vaccine available is the result of vast amounts of public funding. Even the mRNA technology, on which the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are based, is the result of billions of dollars of US public funding. More broadly, before the pandemic, the public was paying for two-thirds of all upfront drug R&D costs globally. Yet pharma companies consistently walk away with the rewards.

Another way of doing things is possible. The South African vaccine hub described above is a beacon of hope, aiming to use the vaccine it develops not to make super-profits, but instead share its knowledge with other producers in the Global South. And we’ve seen political will to reform the pharma sector before, including by Bernie Sanders, whose 2017 proposal for a Medical Innovation Prize Fund showed an alternative to the rigid patent system.

The Omicron variant is a symptom of a pharmaceutical industry that prioritises profit over public health and systematically disadvantages poorer countries. For now, we must press the UK government to support a waiver on intellectual property on Covid-19 vaccines, treatments and tests. And as discussions continue as to how to prepare for future pandemics, we need to build a growing movement to reform the sector in order to lay the groundwork for a more just approach to people’s health the world over.

[BoniO]

Where did that come from? Not disagreeing but it'd be nice to have a link.

[Smendrick Feaselberg]

These two additional fans having heart problems at games tonight are really going to prompt a negative response.

[Long slender neck]

I still can't understand why people are rushing to get boosters, when it may be totally useless against this new variant.
The current vaccines were developed for the original variant, with each new variant since, the efficacy is reduced somewhat.
Now we have a variant of concern, that some scientists have said has a very different spike, and present vaccines may or may not be effective..... So why not wait, and see what's what.
People are rushing like lemmings to get what may turn out to be something useless, no one knows at the moment.
The manufacturers have said they can tweak the old vaccine to make it more effective against the new variant, so why not wait for that vaccine.
The world's gone mad

Come on everyone, just wait and see if you die before getting a vaccine okay?

[Sid Bishop]

Vaccine hesitancy

[Sid Bishop]

I still can't understand why people are rushing to get boosters, when it may be totally useless against this new variant.
The current vaccines were developed for the original variant, with each new variant since, the efficacy is reduced somewhat.
Now we have a variant of concern, that some scientists have said has a very different spike, and present vaccines may or may not be effective..... So why not wait, and see what's what.
People are rushing like lemmings to get what may turn out to be something useless, no one knows at the moment.
The manufacturers have said they can tweak the old vaccine to make it more effective against the new variant, so why not wait for that vaccine.
The world's gone mad

Come on everyone, just wait and see if you die before getting a vaccine okay?

I dont know about holding back from having the booster jab, As far as I can recall, ComeOnYouOs has said a few times that he has refused to have the Covid Vaccine full stop !

[Hugo Ball Boy]

This is alarming news my niece who is 19 in the university Loughborough had it tonight been in bed all weekend and has very bad sore throat but not varient just the one that is standard form. She had jab also and her two friends the same but they are not sharing same house but now the urgency is who they met at a party last week to warn them of this event. This thing is not going away for a long time and people must curb theirs adventures. I think the supporters should contemplate wearing the mask once more and not be to complacent. Booster is available I am informed at the pharmacy within the complex of Leyton Orient next to the entrances.

[Long slender neck]

Like I mentioned last night when I express scepticism towards vaccination etc it’s not because I think Bill Gates will eat my children or make me sterile but it’s a general worry about the speed and lack of testing. I am simply worried that the price will be high to pay for a lot of people who might have unknown health issues.

Like myocarditis - there’s no denying that it can now be classed as a confirmed side effect of the vaccine regardless of what side of the fence you’re standing and just now seeing another spectator collapse in a stadium mid-match, makes me worried.

What is that now the 3rd spectator to collapse in a stand mid-match live on TV this season only in England? Add to that the many sportspeople collapsing with some dying over the last 12 months, would you not agree that it’s a very noticeable increase in such cases in this country and others?

These are my worries among others. It’s based on not knowing how my body works and what I might suffer from and as such making a judgment call when comparing the benefits for a vaccine for example. I am not scared of getting a chip on my person (we have one called debit card at all times anyway ).

But myocarditis is also a confirmed side effect of getting Coronavirus - the linked article quotes a study indicating that in adults getting Covid 19 increases the risk of myocarditis by 18 times.

https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsuppo ... be-worried

It's an interesting read. The BHF seem to be in favour of the vaccines.

Thanks Spike I have actually read that article and I agree it’s an interesting read. And there’s a case to be made that no one ever mentioned myocarditis as a side effect of Covid until early this year (when people started getting it as a result of the vaccine) but again it depends on how far down the rabbit hole one wants to go and how big your “tin foil hat” is

Careful. Where's your evidence?

[Sid Bishop]

@Ronnie Hotdogs

You fail to take into account that there is also a large amount of ''Vaccine Hesitancy'' amongst many people all over the world so even if the vaccine is available, they will not have the vaccination. I have spent hours and hours trying to convince some of the friends I have in various countries the world over, seems that they are frightened for various reasons, anti vaxxer religious brainwashing and also fears that it is a form of population control, a few conspiracy ideas I have heard, it will sterilize both men and women, kill people within 2 years of having the vaccine, that Covid is a fake disease.

This is a typical one one from America.......

''Florida preacher Rick Wiles used his TruNews broadcast to tell listeners that COVID vaccines are Satan's plot. Then he and his family got COVID-19. All this after saying he would never get vaccinated because it is a “mass death ! Wiles is a right-wing talk show host and anti-vaxxer who came up with a conspiracy theory which suggests the government is inserting eggs in people using the Covid-19 vaccines that hatch into synthetic parasites and grow inside the human body.
In a video on TruNews, a far-right Christian video streaming platform, Rick Wiles called vaccines a “global coup d’etat by the most evil cabal of people” to control the world. Mr Wiles added: “They’re putting eggs in people’s bodies. If you didn’t see yesterday’s TruNews, you need to watch it. It’s an egg that hatches into a synthetic parasite and grows inside your body. This is like sci-fi nightmare, and it’s happening in front of us.”
This guy is just one of many people all over the world who are preaching Covid conspiracy theory ideas that terrify so many people.

[Ronnie Hotdogs]

Where did that come from? Not disagreeing but it'd be nice to have a link.

If I post the link, Pammy will just do his whole ‘Novara Media? That’s credible ‘ shtick.

[Top of the JES]

I have had both first & second doses and this week the booster - Only a fool would think the vaccines haven't saved lives. I have had no reaction to the two AZ jabs or the Moderna booster this week.

On the flip side, I have previously posted on here that my wife had her first AZ jab in Spring and she had a seriously bad reaction almost straight after, bad enough to need an ambulance and medical attention. She has had relentless pins & needles in her hands and feet everyday since along with a headache that simply doesnt go away -six months now of constant dibilitating side affects. She has had so many tests and x-rays and hospital visits since it first started and still they can't see whats causing it, tbf she isnt one to complain but I can see it's affecting her quality of life. She's just been reffered to a nuerologist we are just hoping he can help her.

[Hugo Ball Boy]

I listened lbc today that the government bought millions more Covid dose to administer to save the nhs and prorate to old people from infections. Despite what they say negative Boris is positive and will be held up high. Also Kier Starmer support?

[Adz]

This is the main effect of the vaccine, ongoing falls in the deaths and hospitalization rate while case numbers stay range bound

[tuffers#1]

I listened lbc today that the government bought millions more Covid dose to administer to save the nhs and prorate to old people from infections. Despite what they say negative Boris is positive and will be held up high. Also Kier Starmer support?

They have bought millions of doses for the.next 2 winters .
No different to buying the flu jab ,in advance

This isnt positive action by Tories .
This is Medical action paid for by the govt .

[Story of O]

Like I mentioned last night when I express scepticism towards vaccination etc it’s not because I think Bill Gates will eat my children or make me sterile but it’s a general worry about the speed and lack of testing. I am simply worried that the price will be high to pay for a lot of people who might have unknown health issues.

Like myocarditis - there’s no denying that it can now be classed as a confirmed side effect of the vaccine regardless of what side of the fence you’re standing and just now seeing another spectator collapse in a stadium mid-match, makes me worried.

What is that now the 3rd spectator to collapse in a stand mid-match live on TV this season only in England? Add to that the many sportspeople collapsing with some dying over the last 12 months, would you not agree that it’s a very noticeable increase in such cases in this country and others?

These are my worries among others. It’s based on not knowing how my body works and what I might suffer from and as such making a judgment call when comparing the benefits for a vaccine for example. I am not scared of getting a chip on my person (we have one called debit card at all times anyway ).

Sportspeople have been collapsing with heart problems for years, it is nothing new. In 2003, 387 athletes in America had cardiac arrests and some died

[Smendrick Feaselberg]

Yep. I guess you only hear about the high profile ones - the likes of Marc-Vivien Foe, Miklos Feher, Antonia Puerta, Dani Jarque, Fabrice Muamba, Phil O'Donnell, Christian Eriksen, Ugo Ehiogu, Justin Edinburgh just off the top of my head

[Paddy]

How about the fans getting cardiac arrests in stadiums, do you recall many such cases in years gone by? This season (since august) we have 5 who have collapsed on live TV including 2 on the same night last night. Again I’m not saying left nor right, but does it not make you at least curious?

[Paddy]

But myocarditis is also a confirmed side effect of getting Coronavirus - the linked article quotes a study indicating that in adults getting Covid 19 increases the risk of myocarditis by 18 times.

https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsuppo ... be-worried

It's an interesting read. The BHF seem to be in favour of the vaccines.

Thanks Spike I have actually read that article and I agree it’s an interesting read. And there’s a case to be made that no one ever mentioned myocarditis as a side effect of Covid until early this year (when people started getting it as a result of the vaccine) but again it depends on how far down the rabbit hole one wants to go and how big your “tin foil hat” is

Careful. Where's your evidence?

Careful of what?

[Long slender neck]

Posting unproven anti-vax stuff

myocarditis as a side effect of Covid until early this year (when people started getting it as a result of the vaccine

[Paddy]

Posting unproven anti-vax stuff

myocarditis as a side effect of Covid until early this year (when people started getting it as a result of the vaccine

You trying to say Myocarditis is not proven to be a side effect of the vaccine?

And again “careful” of what? You going to ban me for having a different opinion to yours?

[BoniO]

Posting unproven anti-vax stuff

myocarditis as a side effect of Covid until early this year (when people started getting it as a result of the vaccine

You trying to say Myocarditis is not proven to be a side effect of the vaccine?

And again “careful” of what? You going to ban me for having a different opinion to yours?

Myocarditis cases, attributed to the vaccine are rare, and are still under investigation. Myocarditis cases, attributed to the virus itself, are proven at this moment in time. Much as with the argument against the vaccine due to potential blood clots, the benefits of the vaccination far, far outweigh the risk of myocarditis.

[Long slender neck]

Posting unproven anti-vax stuff

myocarditis as a side effect of Covid until early this year (when people started getting it as a result of the vaccine

You trying to say Myocarditis is not proven to be a side effect of the vaccine?

And again “careful” of what? You going to ban me for having a different opinion to yours?

You need to provide evidence that it is

Careful because, see OP.