How it started vs how it’s going ... 🔥🔥🔥

🔊sound ...🧐🤣 pic.twitter.com/QZCY84VRRd

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) November 30, 2022

It's been pretty interesting to watch this unfold. The vaccine was perfectly matched to the original strain of COVID (alpha). That makes sense since it was designed based on alpha, and it exceeded everyone's expectations in that regard. They hit a home run.

Then the virus mutated and the major strain was delta. It had genetic changes compared to alpha, so the vaccine was no longer a perfect fit. The vaccine was still ok against delta, but not nearly as good as it was against alpha. Now the vaccine is hitting triples. Not as good, but no one every turns down a triple.

Delta faded and omicron came around with even more mutations. Now the vaccine was much less effective. If the vaccine worked as well (or a poorly) against the original strain as it did against omicron, then it probably wouldn't have been approved. This is also the point where the vaccine became pretty much useless at stopping person-to-person spread, and we started getting outbreaks among vaccinated people.

Since then we've had more omicron variants, like the BAs and the BQs. These were so far gone that the original vaccine probably isn't even worth getting anymore. Maybe for really old or really obese people, but maybe not even then.

I've been ranting since delta that we should be updating the vaccines every time we get a new dominant strain. mRNA is very easy to customize. As soon as you get the genetic sequence of a new strain, we could be making an updated vaccine for that strain. THey finally came out with an updated vaccine against omicron, and it's working really well. Luckily, the virus is also getting less and less lethal from delta onward with each new variant. So vaccination/lack of vaccination isn't having the profound effecti that it had with alpha and delta

ramblin_ag02 said:

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It's been pretty interesting to watch this unfold. The vaccine was perfectly matched to the original strain of COVID (alpha). That makes sense since it was designed based on alpha, and it exceeded everyone's expectations in that regard. They hit a home run.

Then the virus mutated and the major strain was delta. It had genetic changes compared to alpha, so the vaccine was no longer a perfect fit. The vaccine was still ok against delta, but not nearly as good as it was against alpha. Now the vaccine is hitting triples. Not as good, but no one every turns down a triple.

Delta faded and omicron came around with even more mutations. Now the vaccine was much less effective. If the vaccine worked as well (or a poorly) against the original strain as it did against omicron, then it probably wouldn't have been approved. This is also the point where the vaccine became pretty much useless at stopping person-to-person spread, and we started getting outbreaks among vaccinated people.

Since then we've had more omicron variants, like the BAs and the BQs. These were so far gone that the original vaccine probably isn't even worth getting anymore. Maybe for really old or really obese people, but maybe not even then.

I've been ranting since delta that we should be updating the vaccines every time we get a new dominant strain. mRNA is very easy to customize. As soon as you get the genetic sequence of a new strain, we could be making an updated vaccine for that strain. THey finally came out with an updated vaccine against omicron, and it's working really well. Luckily, the virus is also getting less and less lethal from delta onward with each new variant. So vaccination/lack of vaccination isn't having the profound effecti that it had with alpha and delta

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i agree almost 100% with this. sure mRNA is quick to customize, but the problem was in the EUA and manufacturing. the strains were mutating too fast to customize, create a trial, obtain an EUA and then manufacture and sell. they couldnt have gotten a fully functional delta through all that before it mutated to omicron. once the mutations slowed then they could begin working on the variant vaccines.

so instead our govt went all in, intentionally, on pushing the original vaxx that had minor protection against omicron, so minor it wouldve fallen under the 50% efficacy threshold required to get a vaccine approved. but this was all a power and money play to force something on the population, basically the govt's own science experiment.

Why would anyone push a vax using experimental technology (mRNA) to thwart a virus with a 99.5% survival rate?

The negatives related to this new technology far outweigh the positives.

Rocky Rider said:

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Why would anyone push a vax using experimental technology (mRNA) to thwart a virus with a 99.5% survival rate?

The negatives related to this new technology far outweigh the positives.

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Money has been the answer all along.

Rocky Rider said:

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Why would anyone push a vax using experimental technology (mRNA) to thwart a virus with a 99.5% survival rate?

The negatives related to this new technology far outweigh the positives.

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I guess it's all a matter of perspective. Over a million people in the US died of COVID. The best estimate was that ~2.5 million would have died without the vaccines. Over 6.5 million people died worldwide with an estimate that an additional 20 million would have died without the vaccines.

What's your threshold for lives saved before we use something experimental? 1,000? 1,000,000? 1,000,000,000? If you're not going to pull out all the stops for a once a century pandemic, then when would you? The polio vaccine was experimental when it came out. Polio has a survival rate of ~99.925%, and rate of paralysis of 0.5%. So 99.5% of people recover from polio without any issues at all. Where we wrong to push the polio vaccine?

I was wrong about lockdowns and mandates. I was wrong and the reason I was wrong was my tribalism, my emotions, and my distorted understanding of human nature and of the virus. It doesn't matter much, but I wanted to apologize for being wrong.

— Kevin Bass (@kevinnbass) December 13, 2022

To nitpick a bit: everyone expected that the virus was going to mutate. It's disingenuous to say "well, it worked GREAT against Alpha and was a sound strategy except for the mutation detail." It was AT BEST a delaying mechanism - but political powers pushed it as a cure-all.

Also - I have personal issues with the misuse of EUA. Emergency Use Authorization should be effectively a "right to try" status. "The FDA isn't standing against this… but it may be poison. We just don't have enough data yet and individuals who want to take their chances are advised that this product has neither our blessing nor our damnation."

Unfortunately EUA has been *******ized to the point where some jurisdictions demand children be injected to participate in compulsory governmental schooling. "Inject your kid with EUA substance or embark on a sequence of events that could lead to your loss of your kid."

I'm all for handing out EUA more freely if it is used appropriately. But the second that mandates or differentiation arise re: an EUA medicine - the FDA should have come out swinging to say that it wasn't an appropriate interpretation/application of EUA.

I don't disagree with anything you've said. I was complaining way back in the delta days that we should have been updating the vaccines.

Also agree that mandates for EUA meds is terrible, but IIRC they waited for full approval before they started mandating. I could be wrong about that.

I only support mandates when the vaccines reliably prevent person to person transmission of disease. With the COVID vaccines, that was only true from Dec 2020 to April-May 2021. During that time, the supply of vaccine was too limited to mandate anything. By the time we had enough vaccines to mandate broad use, the vaccine was no longer effective enough to reliably prevent infection and spread. So the mandates after that didn't make any sense.

ramblin_ag02 said:

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Rocky Rider said:

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Why would anyone push a vax using experimental technology (mRNA) to thwart a virus with a 99.5% survival rate?

The negatives related to this new technology far outweigh the positives.

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I guess it's all a matter of perspective. Over a million people in the US died of COVID. The best estimate was that ~2.5 million would have died without the vaccines. Over 6.5 million people died worldwide with an estimate that an additional 20 million would have died without the vaccines.

What's your threshold for lives saved before we use something experimental? 1,000? 1,000,000? 1,000,000,000? If you're not going to pull out all the stops for a once a century pandemic, then when would you? The polio vaccine was experimental when it came out. Polio has a survival rate of ~99.925%, and rate of paralysis of 0.5%. So 99.5% of people recover from polio without any issues at all. Where we wrong to push the polio vaccine?

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Polio was hitting young children. COVId was getting the old, fat, and sick. We should never mandate a vaccine for the healthy for an illness that is hitting the old, fat, and sick.