I actually looked in VAERS and did an export of the accessible data. Most of the numbers touted are generally around 10k, although VAERS underreporting is a well-known issue, and, VAERS data quality is suspect in the first place, by design.
That person is writing in a way that looks fact based but is not. As you noticed, some statements of what is supposed to be accepted as true are false.
For example, all the vaccines still protect extremely well against hospitalization and death EVEN with Delta. Which is what this whole discussion is about, why vaccines help to keep our hospitals open. So the fact that they would say that the vaccine isn't really helpful anymore because of delta is just purely false.
I think this whole “rah rah do it for the community” is the wrong message to send to the final group of the unvaccinated. The government needs to message on the benefit to the individual.
I can tell you that the ONLY reason I am vaccinated is because I want to maximize my chances of the negative consequences of Covid impact TO ME. I honestly don’t give two shits about anyone else outside my family. As some of you do gooders read this in horror, realize that among the general populace, most people’s motivation behind their decision to vaccinate is not that far from mine.
No one likes to admit it, but objectivism and what’s in it for me are a lot more prevalent than folks like to admit. If our government was smart, they’d realize that and shift the message accordingly.
Going to suggest that rather than mudslinging, you do the work of looking at VAERS [1] yourself
Alternatively, you could use VAERSanalysis [2], or Openvaers [3]
In this spirit of openness, here is also an NPR article [4] on VAERS data quality/verification issues, and how the data may not be considered high quality, that anti-vaxxers use it to spread disinformation. I'm adding that specifically because it is the contrary opinion about the quality of the data and I believe in an open debate. I am not an anti-vaxxer, being up on all my vaccines, and then some due to overseas work, along with one experimental vaccine, but not covid vaccinated yet.
The main point is "legitimate source for what?". A reporting system like VAERS errs widely on the side of overreporting and explicitly doesn't require any causality, so that its data can be mined for surprising patterns to investigate that might uncover a causal link we didn't know about.
Any "There's X VAERS reports of the vaccine causing Y" claims thus heavily misuse the data source, because that's not what it is capturing.
There is spurious data in VAERS, but the CDC has methods in place to filter those out in their research into adverse cardiac effects. Their numbers are in no way exaggerated.
... yes, as I said, the purpose is to inform further research based on it, because the reports showed a suspicious pattern. How is that relevant to the thread here with the "the vaccine killed 15000 people, because there is 15000 reports in VAERS" claim?
> I'm flagging this as dubious. Everything I've seen points to smaller viral load and shorter durations for breakthroughs.
You can flag something as dubious all you want, but you are missing the point, and seeking to redefine something to meet your objectives, rather than having a science based approach.
There are immunizing/sterilizing vaccines, and non-immunizing/non-sterilizing vaccines.
Covid vaccines, in their present 1st and 2nd generation versions are non-immunizing/non-sterilizing. You can still get covid, just your symptoms are likely to be less.
Here is an article on it, since you claimed my data was dubious. Therefore, I say your attack on my data is actually dubious.
Some researchers have already proposed that the evidence of human natural immunity provides data for future vaccines in future generations to target the Covid virii in other ways beyond the mere spike protein.
> Virus-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells are polyfunctional and maintained with an estimated half-life of 200 days. Interestingly, CD4+ T cell responses equally target several SARS-CoV-2 proteins, whereas the CD8+ T cell responses preferentially target the nucleoprotein, highlighting the potential importance of including the nucleoprotein in future vaccines. Taken together, these results suggest that broad and effective immunity may persist long-term in recovered COVID-19 patients.
There is at least one study claiming the opposite of 'smaller viral load': 'Vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals have similar viral loads in communities with a high prevalence of the SARS-CoV-2 delta variant'. Same with duration: lack of symptoms does not necessarily imply smaller viral shedding. But perhaps there are other studies proving the opposite, if so could you please link?
> “We don’t yet know how much transmission can happen from people who get COVID-19 after being vaccinated — for example, they may have high levels of virus for shorter periods of time,” says Prof. Walker.
In the big scheme of things, the issue is not point-in-time Sept 2021. The issue is the long term evolution of the virus. We know as a fact that the rise of Delta caught the vaccine program flatfooted and was the last nail in the coffin of the ZeroCovid idea. We have an unusual Summer-time epidemic spike. We've never deployed single-protein mRNA vaccines at scale, neither in animal nor in human populations. There are legitimate concerns (voiced even by Pfizer CEO) that the virus is likely (his word, not mine) to evade vaccine protection. At which point all the 'viral load is smaller / shorter for breakthroughs' logic goes out the window.
It gives me no pleasure to write the above. I secretly hope I'm wrong / under-informed. I wish that mRNA vaccines were a magic wand to wave covid away. But no amount of wishful thinking will make it so. I find the certitude of '(force) vaccinate everybody, is an absolute positive good in all possible scenarios' hard to square with the actual fragile situation we find ourselves in.
I'm guessing most of those look at viral loads in break throughs. But I'm not sure that is quite as relevant as the viral load that typically results upon exposure, i.e. my guess is that viral load in breakthrough cases looks different than in non-breakthrough cases.
