The Third Booster Shot Debate - Are U going to get the booster?

[Chief Stipe]

How's molnupiravir working out for you @EYESAILOR ?

 

[Wess]

I know you optometrists can struggle with facts but the fact is the according to the CDC, roughly 69 percent of adults living in the U.S. have completed their primary vaccination series. More than 80 percent have received at least one shot, but 20 percent remain completely unvaccinated. Only about 15 percent of Americans, or 50 million people, have received bivalent boosters so far.

And if you want to talk fully boosted the number is lower yet.

The public is voting with their arms if you will and said, 'No. I'm not going to get this.' says Dr. Gregory Poland a former member of the FDA Advisory Panel and vaccine researcher at the Mayo Clinic.

 

[d'ranger]

Congratulations Wess, I can tell you are so proud of your efforts to prevent people from taking a simple step to prevent serious illness or death.

Just because 1.1 million died and continue to die (it's about 600/day) and there are 30k in the hospital with 4k in ICU it's just no big deal. This doesn't even begin to deal with the effects of long covid which can last up to a year.

But you do you.

 

[Wess]

Nope. I blame that on whiney little sheeple like you.

 

[NeedAClew]

or complacency.

The 40% of Americans over 50 who do not get a colonoscopy is not a red or blue thing. Its a stupidity thing.

Think about that for a moment. That 40% do get a colonoscopy as miserable an experience that is and yet only 15% got boosted.

That is covidiocy destroying trust across larger portions of society.

Ummm. I think it's 60 percent that do if 40 percent don't, hon.
But you do you.

 

[NeedAClew]

Has @Wess ever explained how they would have handled (or gone pure hands off ) the covid pandemic?

 

[hasher]

or complacency.

The 40% of Americans over 50 who do not get a colonoscopy is not a red or blue thing. Its a stupidity thing.

I have had all my vaccines.

I eat right. I exercise when my knee cooperates. I engage the world in a positive way. I don't think they will stick anything up my ass.

I am a lawyer, my girl is a CPA. Turn over your bank accounts and we'll tell you how much shit you fucked up.

 

[Wess]

Lol Hasher. Yes you are correct Clew. I read too quickly and should have said 60 for the colonoscopy. I actually admit when I get something in g wrong. It actually makes my point every stronger compared to the less than 15 fully vaxed and boosted. Duh!

 

[EYESAILOR]

Topol quoted 10 studies. None of them was funded by Pfizer.

You can't deny that Topol has received large amounts of funding from Pzifer. It's published fact.

I am sorry it is hard to understand you when your online voice is slurring.

The topic is vaccination. Are you saying that any of the studies on vaccine boosters that Topol quoted are funded by Pfizer? Would you care to point out which ones?

Eric Topol has received significant direct funding from Pzifer.

You have said this twice. Its a published fact! you said.

Would you care to back up that statement with any facts about direct funding from Pfizer to Eric Topol?

I am asking politely again. If it is a published fact perhaps you can publish the link so we may judge the relevance.

 

[EYESAILOR]

Duh!

Dont worry Wess. Its not you. Its company you keep.
Hang out with stiped people for long enough and you will make stiped small mistakes.


Dang spell check, I was of course trying to say "stupid" not "stiped", an entirely unintentional slipe of the tongue.

Lol Hasher. Yes you are correct Clew. I read too quickly and should have said 60 for the colonoscopy. I actually admit when I get something in g wrong. It actually makes my point every stronger compared to the less than 15 fully vaxed and boosted. Duh!

I'm not going to fight you on this but of course you are conflating "fully vaccinated and boosted" with the "boosted with a bivalent vaccine". I am fully vaccinated and my booster is up to date. I have not received a bivalent vaccine.

FWIW, and my opinion is not worth the 2 cents that you have not paid for it. I am not sure that there are significant benefits of obtaining a booster for the ancestral strain of coronavirus that was circulating in 2020 and 2021 . That virus has been pretty much eliminated by the dominant variation of omicron. Bivalent boosters boost you against both the ancestral strain and the omicron strain BA 1 thru BA 5. I 'spose there is no massive downside in taking a "top up hit" of both vaccines but I would prefer a more targeted monovalent vaccine focused on the variants I am more likely to come across.

 

[NeedAClew]

@Wess
Hard to know what would have been the right things to do when covid came knocking three-plus years ago. One thing I wish had been different (and it wasn't Trump, must have been starting with Obama) was the lack of robust and plentiful stockpile of PPE for healthcare workers and then under Trump no use of defense production act to get more made ongoing. There were articles about that. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/...-stockpile-contributed-to-covid-ppe-shortage/

I do believe genuine N95s donned, doffed and worn properly and not fingered constantly do offer some decent protection from swapping spit bits with dozens or hundreds of my closest. strangers. It's the virusy aerolized droplets that are stopped. They are bigger than the virus. Duh.

IF the responsible health officials had not seen a need to preserve N95s for frontline workers, they would not have decided to mislead, yeah, lie about how the public didn't need them, how we could make gappy masks out of cloth and coffee filters, vacuum cleaner bags, whatever. I remember all those sincere people making masks for others, giving gappy cotton masks to the homeless, buying fashion cloth masks whatever. Breaks my heart to think of that sincere, lethal covid year of crap masks and hundreds of thousands of deaths.

They didn't work, cast permanent doubt on efficacy of any masks. I like to,think if we'd had enough N95 masks, a lot of the closures and "lockdown" stuff that tipped the nation over the edge wouldn't have been thought necessary. (They knew cloth was crap, had to try something....)

Anyway, now that it's every tub on its own bottom, we wear N95s made in Florida when going to indoor things. We always did. Had some left over from China and Indonesia trips. I am asthmatic. Have our stockpile.

No covid yet for either of us. We got all our shots. I don't know if N95s will be on my face the rest of my life. Hope not but don't particularly want covid at 72 and definitely don't want long covid. Maybe shots help with that. Well, what else am I going to do? We eat healthily, I don't drink much since the breast cancer diagnosis, we walk 3-5 miles a day.

I wish something had been different when covid came. You go on about how CDC, FDA, tooth fairy all screwed up, @Wess but what would the right things to go have been, with what was known at the time? And more was revealed but too late given the shitshow of a divided people.

 

[EYESAILOR]

I eat right. I exercise when my knee cooperates. I engage the world in a positive way. I don't think they will stick anything up my ass.

Then you will be fine. If you eat right, exercise from time to time, and have a positive attitude then you will never get cancer.

Worryingly, there is a swathe of the American population who believe that. So it should not have come as a shock to us that there is a swathe of the population that don't believe in vaccines.

 

[Wess]

Clew - good post. But for few reasons I can’t have a serious discussion here. Other than to say I think a major lesson here for government officials is don’t force; convince, and for government and health care folks be willing to admit and say we don’t know what we don’t know. But neither of those will ever happen.

 

[Wess]

Then you will be fine. If you eat right, exercise from time to time, and have a positive attitude then you will never get cancer.

Worryingly, there is a swathe of the American population who believe that. So it should not have come as a shock to us that there is a swathe of the population that don't believe in vaccines.

Great example of why the medical profession is sometime ridiculed. You can’t see beyond your box and use sarcasm. There are alternate views beyond your statistics that are more important to people in deciding how to live their lives. Stress their live not your live but honestly and sincerely I don’t think you get this or care. You just see your stats and say go get it and mock those that don’t. And you wonder why so many people don’t trust your profession (or mine) anymore. But it’s the internet and SA and we are just here having fun BSing

 

[MR.CLEAN]

There are alternate views beyond your statistics that are more important to people in deciding how to live their lives.

Can you tell them to hurry the fuck up and quit clogging hospitals and doctor offices with their obese asses

 

[Wess]

Angry much?

 

[FlyingCircus2]

 

[EYESAILOR]

Great example of why the medical profession is sometime ridiculed. You can’t see beyond your box and use sarcasm. There are alternate views beyond your statistics that are more important to people in deciding how to live their lives. Stress their live not your live but honestly and sincerely I don’t think you get this or care. You just see your stats and say go get it and mock those that don’t. And you wonder why so many people don’t trust your profession (or mine) anymore. But it’s the internet and SA and we are just here having fun BSing

Which is why I dont join this thread on a daily or even weekly basis. I drop by to see what stiped nonsense is being said. Hurl in a "fact grenade" and then leave.

All professions are ridiculed from time to time. If you cannot laugh at yourself and what you do, then you are taking yourself waaaaay too seriously. The phrase "humor is the best medicine" is not for nothing.

However social media has bred a new form of somewhat dangerous ridicule where nonsense is presented as fact. To be clear, I am not including you in that statement Wess. I enjoy your biting sarcasm as much as the next girl and enjoy returning the ball with some top spin. But there is some dangerous nonsense out there as well. My job is to take care of patients, not to tactfully find the right words to espouse public health policy. Tact has never been a strong suit and nobody would hire me to try and persuade an audience. You might hire me to tell an uncomfortable truth but "politic" I am not. I leave that to your office. Great job, by the way...ermmmmmm..

Oh and sorry again.....I see I've made the same spelling error. I wrote "stiped", and of course I meant "stupid". No pun intended.

 

[EYESAILOR]

little sheeple like you.

Wess, you really have to lay off the sheep.
They dont like you as much as you like them.

 

[Wess]

I do like lamb chops. Not so fond of preachy optometrists lol.