Topic: Corona Virus Panic/Discussion Thread

@mookysam Right I hear you. And you have my sympathies as well. Again this isn't meant to serve as some sleeper anti-vaxx post, I'm very much going to get the vaccine when it's available in my area. And that's largely out of consideration for what getting Covid could do to other people. (I'm not particularly vulnerable, nor is anyone else in my immediate family.) I just wanted to express my mild concern more just to get it off my chest and to see if I was alone, even amongst those I consider to have a relatively sane view on this matter generally.

@zupertramp The speed the vaccine has been made is due to governments helping with "red tape" problems but also the money being poured into means that the developers have been able to push ahead rather than tip toe along for risk of losing money if it doesn't work. As others have said, there's a big incentive for them to make the best one!

My reservations had been over the press release claims of the extraordinary success rates of the vaccines (Moderna and Pfizer having 95% success rates!) but these have held up once the evidence has been peer reviewed (i.e. reviewed by scientists in that field who are not involved in the vaccine development).

The Oxford vaccine may "only" have a 70% success rate but that is more than good enough (I think over 60% is deemed worthwhile), particularly as it is easier to make, store, and transport as well as being cheaper to make so will be a huge boost for countries that can't throw money at the ones mentioned previously.

I'm just REALLY glad that Trump hasn't been beating the anti-vax drum. We'll basically never get the sort of mask compliance we need in the States because of him.

Still expecting a lot of right-wing nonsense about the vaccines turning us into communists or something. If you believe conspiracies about cell phone towers giving you covid symptoms and/or Hugo Chavez's ghost hacking voting machines, I'm afraid you'll eat up just about anything.

@Thrillho The Oxford one increases to 90 odd percent when they use the correct dosing, the first testing had an error with dosage! That’s absolutely the best one imo, the ease of storage and low cost means it can be shipped across the world and to the poorest of countries. Considering certain low cost vaccines still haven’t been distributed across Africa however, it wouldn’t surprise me if the vaccine just didn’t make it outside the richest of countries.

@nessisonett I think that was only on a small number of participants that were of a younger age group and without much ethnic diversity in the group so they're doing bigger trials to see if it's still the case. Fingers crossed but it might be skewed because of that.

I'm hopefully getting mine in January once the hospital I'm in gets it's supplies. A few friends in other sites have already had theirs.

@Ralizah it was my understanding he's a little miffed he's not getting more credit for it, having spearheaded Operation Warp Speed or whatever. So I think it's entirely possible he turns on it (the vaccine) once he leaves office. But who knows.

Anyway, thanks for the replies from everyone. I did read them.

@zupertramp You know... that wouldn't surprise me one little bit. Maybe we're not out of the woods yet in that regard.

Operation Warp Speed is even messing up with regard to obtaining and distributing the vaccine. Everything that man touches is poisoned by his ineptitude. It's staggering.

@Ralizah @zupertramp OPERATION WARP SPEED

What the hell is with Americans and their operation names oh man, it’s like Chuck Norris movies!

@nessisonett yeah, there's no defending it. shrugs

@zupertramp Just to add: There are dozens of independent institutions who are approving vaccines before they can be sold. And every country usually has their own independent research institutions as well.

The media has been beating this rhetoric that vaccines take 10 years to develop, and this is such an amazing exception, except that in reality it isn't. They're grossly oversimplifying it for a clickbait headline, but they're also feeding the anti-vaxxers this way. It also doesn't help that so many websites have headlines like ''Will the coronavirus vaccine cause infertility? Here’s what you need to know'', even if the answer is a straight up no, it doesn't exactly instill confidence in those are just out there looking for more information.

Also, FYI those 10 years often include incredibly silly things like 3 years for building the labs where vaccines are manufactured. Yes, if you take every individual step and start from scratch, it's going to take a long ass time, but most of it already exists. Research and development are comparable to similar viral strands. So is testing; and money wasn't as issue with this virus, whereas plenty of other (regular) research is often put on hold, or progresses a lot slower because of the lack of money.

If it is of any help, as a biologist, I don't see how this vaccine can cause any severe long term side effect other than its intended cause. Worst case scenario it simply doesn't work.

I haven't seen anything quite this bad (mostly just the few allergic reactions and the bells palsy stuff) but I get what you mean.

And it's strange, even though I understand I'm unlikely to have a severe allergic reaction if I haven't in the past, and I understand the instances of bell's palsy may or may not even be linked to the vaccine, and it seems hard to fathom what could possibly be in a vaccine that would cause any adverse health effects in the long term but that's the thing about fear is it's not often rational. Maybe fear is too strong a word but I assume you know what I mean.

In any case I do appreciate the input (along with everyone's patience) and I do feel a bit better.

@nessisonett

"Operation Warp Speed commence! Engage the Space Force to fend off the Bidenite invasion! Activate the x-ray lasers! Pew pew pew pew pew!!!"

some Republican politician day-dreaming in his backyard, probably

@zupertramp I googled something along the lines of ''coronavirus vaccine'', and it was literally the first one to pop up!

@Octane wow. Well I just tried it on duckduckgo (yes @nessisonett) and couldn't get anything like that to come up. Then again that could be because our media is going crazy over the VPs recent vaccination.

I did see an article questioning whether it was Halal or not, which I hadn't considered. Turns out it is so no worries there either.

RIP Christmas you lot down south. Quite the U-turn from the government.

@nessisonett
Yeah, I didn't expect them to just cancel the entire thing at the last second..

@LieutenantFatman It’s alright, looks like ours is being cancelled up here too! Nicola’s taking 20 years to actually get round to saying but it’s all language like ‘unfortunately’ and ‘failing to act decisively’ which does not bode well.

Yep, we’ve got the same rules as England but not totally cancelled like London and the South East. Although we’re going into Tier 4 from Boxing Day for three weeks so everything’s shutting down like Northern Ireland. Brilliant.

@Octane @zupertramp Actually ... therein lies the difference between Google and DuckDuckGo. As easy as Google is to use, it scares me at how it perpetuates misinformation the way it’s algorithms work.

@Th3solution Whereas DuckDuckGo lists links to child porn dark web content. There are pros and cons to the complete Wild West Internet approach.

@nessisonett Yeah, I hadn’t seen that kind of thing happen, thankfully; so definitely regulation needs to be there too. But with Google, the corporate hive mind is who is in charge of what you see, and spoon feeds you information based on what it thinks will get more clicks and generate revenue. I’d like some kind of balance between filtering and regulating searches and staying out of people’s minds and creating the polarizing situation we have where everything that extreme is blasted to influence the public.