Covid-19 #28: Astra Projecting is an Out of Body Experience

[Fragile Bird]

8 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

They absolutely did. I linked to it in this thread. Every potential adverse reaction reported is published online. I think you need to rein in the conspiracy theories.

Yes, you did, mea culpa, I forgot. The Canadian msm has not reported it.

What conspiracy stories have I spread? That the US wouldn’t be using AZ? That companies expected to export from the US until Trump did his EO? That Israel got their vaccine because because they paid twice as much? 
Tell me.

[Arakan]

@Padraig

As @Fragile Bird already pointed out, it’s not about denying the importance of the US in vaccine development, that would be silly. After all, US pharma companies dominate the world market. The point is though that thousands of people are dying around the world right now, people who could easily have been saved if the US (and the UK to a lesser extent) didn’t show such darwinistic and egoistic approach.
To repeat myself: since March 1st roughly 80,000 people have died within the EU alone, last week it was already 3,000 per day. That figure will likely rise. At the same time at least 77 million vaccine doses (as of March 26th) have been exported from the EU. At the same time 30 or 40 year old Americans with good health and no underlying conditions get vaccinated. Point in case: my gf‘s cousin (35 years, Harrisburg, PA) got vaccinated with Biontech, a woman in perfect health. 

How many of those 80,000 (and thousands of Brazilians for example) could have been saved if the US had worked together with the EU to priotize vaccinations based on those who need it most? 20%? 30%? Till the end of April, we will speak of maybe 100,000 unnecessary deaths worldwide purely due to selfishness. There is no way to dispute the above logic. Simply because it’s the truth. 

[ljkeane]

3 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

What conspiracy stories have I spread?

Like an hour ago you were speculating that data on potential serious adverse reactions was deliberately suppressed.

[Padraig]

48 minutes ago, williamjm said:

If those were doctors were saying no cases had been reported in the UK before then that was inaccurate, a couple of weeks ago the MHRA said they had 5 cases reported.

I wonder if the increase from 5 to 22 reports in a fortnight could be due to vaccinations starting to target younger age groups more?

I wonder will they clarify when these additional cases arose.  I assumed the medical teams have done a deeper trawl of the data and came across them.  But it could be, as you say, that all the cases have occured more recently.  Which would be more concerning. 

It would also be useful to clarify the ages.  The British Society for Haematology noted in the Guardian that these cases have affected patients of all ages and both genders but the distribution would be interesting.

Statistically, I'm sure AZ is fine.  But if you have numerous vaccines, concentrating AZ on older people makes a degree of sense right now.  One of the original advantages of having lots of vaccines was the idea that some vaccines would work better on some demographics.

25 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

There must have been discussions about that between Trump officials and the companies, and when Trump found out that vaccine was going to be exported, he stopped it.

Perhaps.  But you'd expect Trump to sign that order even if there was no expectation of any vaccine leaving the country.  It plays well to his base.  But it doesn't negate the fact that, while the EU could in theory have shut the doors to all exports, if Pfizer had known that in advance, it would have almost certainly reconsidered relying as much on the Belgium factory.  Pfizer certainly wanted to supply more than the US and the EU (and Trump would certainly have signed that order if the EU had done it first).

I think the EU exporting many vaccines is a very positive story.  I wish more countries had done so.  But comparisons with other countries aren't simple.

5 minutes ago, Arakan said:

The point is though that thousands of people are dying around the world right now, people who could easily have been saved if the US (and the UK to a lesser extent) didn’t show such darwinistic and egoistic approach.

I'm not particularly arguing against this (i've argued for it enough times).  Although, Brazil may not be the best example given its leadership.  I just thought some of the comments went too far.

I don't really want to defend Biden here but it would have been interesting if he has been in power a year ago.  Once Trump took his American First approach, I couldn't see Biden changing that.  But if Biden had been in charge of the narrative from the start?  I don't know.  I expect it wouldn't be the same but I don't know US politics enough to know how different it would be.

[Fragile Bird]

25 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

Like an hour ago you were speculating that data on potential serious adverse reactions was deliberately suppressed.

Oh right.

So where is the data on adverse events in the US? How many strokes and blood clots? If it is published, no one is reporting it. 150 M Pfizer and Moderna doses administered and not a single event of the kind brain clots seen in Europe? I see and read a lot of US media and the stories are not there. Oooh! Another conspiracy, right?

And excuse me about data suppression! After that damn Guardian article about the vaccine nationalism of Canada (every Canadian has been vaccinated twice already, ya know, we’re just lying about it) I regard any news out of Britain with not only skepticism but cynicism, as the British press deflects stories elsewhere. Lots and lots and lots of stories about the failures of the EU, not a helluva lot about the UK.

[Heartofice]

Honestly if the Guardian thought that Britain or the British government were doing something wrong or that the EU needed to be defended, believe me you’d know about it. I dislike the Guardian but suggesting it’s a shill for the government is about as far wrong as you can be.

[Fragile Bird]

11 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Honestly if the Guardian thought that Britain or the British government were doing something wrong or that the EU needed to be defended, believe me you’d know about it. I dislike the Guardian but suggesting it’s a shill for the government is about as far wrong as you can be.

I’m not saying it’s a shill for the UK government, I’m saying it’s defending the UK in it’s own way.

As I said, I absorb a lot of US media, and for months now there has been almost no discussion about the role of the US in the pandemic. I don’t think there’s a newsroom in the US that thinks the US should help out other countries before the country is fully vaccinated. When the suggestion came up that the US could send AZ doses to other countries, the idea was met with disbelief and even hostility by some news people I saw. I had mentioned that Dr. Gottlieb rejected the idea. That’s why I was banging on the idea that discussion really had to start, which I said about two or three weeks ago. That discussion has not really happened in msm.

while I never made a career out of journalism, it is my undergraduate degree and I have in my past either run, participated in or watched editorial meetings. Story ideas are kicked around and either slotted for publication, set aside, or outright rejected. My vision of editorial meetings in the US is that discussions about when the US will allow vaccine exports are either rejected or filed under ‘sometime later’. Is that suppression? Is nationwide blindness suppression? When you refuse to discuss certain ideas, yeah, that’s suppression. And that is not a conspiracy theory.

And yes, the editors of the Guardian are having the same meetings. That’s not a conspiracy theory either, that’s the way you run a media business. People sit in meetings every single day, a couple of times a day, and make decisions about what stories are going to run. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

FB,

I have seen it discussed many times on MSNBC, but it is in the context of when the US can start diverting larger shares to countries in need. As myself and others have mentioned here before, while what you’re saying is the moral thing to do, it’s terrible politics. If Biden and the Democratic Party did as you say, they’d get crushed potentially for multiple election cycles, and then the world can go back to enjoying a unified US government under Republican control.

[Proudfeet]

Ah yes, the US where the word "free" is a euphemism for "selfish". I get why some Americans think people hate their freedom now.

[Week]

16 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

FB,

I have seen it discussed many times on MSNBC, but it is in the context of when the US can start diverting larger shares to countries in need. As myself and others have mentioned here before, while what you’re saying is the moral thing to do, it’s terrible politics. If Biden and the Democratic Party did as you say, they’d get crushed potentially for multiple election cycles, and then the world can go back to enjoying a unified US government under Republican control.

Somehow the US death and case rate are completely unmentioned here. Based on this discussion, one could reasonably assume the US has had a mild case of pandemic and not one of the worst. Very much self-inflicted thanks to our previous moronic WH and, in many areas, ignorant, deplorable populace. Still, calling it immoral while we are still in the midst of thousands of deaths per day is pretty over the top.

[Filippa Eilhart]

Definitely the media in UK are doing a much better job at trying to assure the public that the vaccines are safe than European media. It’s totally intended that way. So even if they will report the blood clots, it will have thousands of assurances in the same article how the WHO, EMA, and the British regulator all declared it safe, some sort of word from an expert repeating the same and often a jab at Europe’s foolishness in not believing all said experts.

[Zorral]

3 hours ago, Padraig said:

I really doubt anyone gave Caribbean islands based on where the US wanted to go on holiday

However, many of these islands are tax-free havens where the international plutocracies house their money, which they do like to visit from time to time, or at least send their minions to visit and over see . . . . 

[Fragile Bird]

17 minutes ago, Week said:

Somehow the US death and case rate are completely unmentioned here. Based on this discussion, one could reasonably assume the US has had a mild case of pandemic and not one of the worst. Very much self-inflicted thanks to our previous moronic WH and, in many areas, ignorant, deplorable populace. Still, calling it immoral while we are still in the midst of thousands of deaths per day is pretty over the top.

I think the high rate of infections and deaths in the US have been repeatedly discussed in these threads. But just break up the US into into 7 or 8 or 10 countries and you look just like the EU, and the EU has exported more than 77 M vaccine doses. Canada has had the highest death rate in LTC homes in the world, those EU doses have saved thousands of lives. 75% of people over 80 have now been vaccinated, no thanks to the US but to Europe. And now almost all states are vaccinating people over 16, while here where I live it’s still only people over 70. So immoral? Yes. As I said previously, I understand why, but that doesn’t change things.

[Larry of the Lawn]

It is pretty fucked up that I the US, the people who are skeptical, to out it mildly, of the vaccine, are the ones who would be up in arms if they heard we were exporting as much as EU.

That being said, it's weird to read the last few pages and read comments making broad generalizations not about a nation's policies or politics, but about the national character of its people, whether it be Poland, the US, or the UK.  I can't see anything productive coming from that, and do not understand what purpose it serves.

[Fragile Bird]

I guess folks are just trying to figure out why decisions are made the way they are made, and it comes down to the people?  

[Zorral]

56 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

... do not understand what purpose it serves.

It's serving people's understandable frustration and upset with not being able to get vaccinated.

Personally, I think it's harder now in the pandemic, as the undeniable newest surge is in effect, with proven effective vaccines going to people, while one's self can't get them, than it was before the vaccines.  People are suffering emotionally from this, particularly after living through a year + of hardships of many kinds.  Yes, many suffered this past year far more than many, if not most of us, on this thread, but still, this has been extremely difficult, and it never let up, and it still isn't.  Yet for many of us, even on this thread, certain of the hardships are now being mitigated because we have access to vaccines -- even if that too is entirely effed up in the US too.

So people are venting.

Plus, the US -- and a large portion of its population -- is extremely unpopular just about everywhere due to we know whom and what they continue to do -- including right here in this apartment. There are Reasons. Real ones.

Still, personally, I think it unfair to Biden to keep blaming him particularly -- he's working very hard to do as much as possible as fast as possible to fix things.  The thing is, EVERYTHING needs to be fixed, and needs to be fixed immediately.

But still vaccines aren't available to everyone and people are suspicious of at least one of them, and -- well it's very very very difficult, and the US has contributed some to this, so we, being a big country, are a logical target to blame. 

Pardon me, too, for finding it supremely ironic, that now the US is the target of blame for Covid-19 tragedies, when Putin-backed previous did and still does blame China.  What goes 'round comes around, as They Say.

 

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

6 hours ago, Arakan said:

you really are a fan of koolaid and alternative facts, aren’t you? Look at the objective facts. As of March 26th the EU had exported 77 million vaccine doses, almost 50% of all corona vaccines produced within the EU. At the same time the US and UK exported nothing. Zero. The first export from American soil are those 1.5 million AZ doses. Meanwhile in the EU over 3,000 people are dying everyday right now and we still export out of solidarity. Facts my friend, fucking facts! Spare us your euphemisms. 

*sigh*

Let's go thru this slowly.

I mentioned 20m doses of vaccines going to the UK. Because that's the sticking point of selfish uk importing, but not really exporting anything in return. So where did the vaccines go? Did they go in large quantities to South America or Africa? Nope, companies sold to the highest bidder. So your morale argument is, vaccines should go to the places that can pay the highest price. How very humanitarian of you.

DW's export numbers are lower. They were talking about 43m not 77m doses. Their numbers don't look right, as Israel is being left out, and it lists the UK at 10m instead of 20m.

Anyway, I am not arguing about the immorality of the US and the UK, but to borrow from Brecht: vaccines first, morals follow. And you know full well, that the outcry for export stops for vaccines are getting louder in Germany as well. So what was your point exactly?

6 hours ago, Arakan said:

And the thing with Russia putting Trump into Office. I am so sick of this shit. If you as a person face a problem, look into the mirror, don’t externalize and blame others and your environment for your personal issues and  problems. First, look in the mirror.m. Goes for human beings and nations as well. Trump had been elected by Americans, stop this cheap cop out. 

I don't care if you are sick of that. He actively interefered in the 2016 to get him into office. That doesn't absolve the Americans from any blame. His election was their moral failure. Same with Brexit. At the end of the day, that was the decission of the Brits, as regrettable as it is. Will you tell me that Russia is merely defending crimea from the Ukraine?

There are whole lot of other issues, why I wouldn't look up to Russia as some sorta promised land, and why I think the ones who consider themselves to be on the left, should take a good hard look at what sorta leader Putin actually is, and what actions Russia takes on the international stage, and what happens there domestically. Then they should ask themselves, what exactly is it about Putin's Russia that's so appealing to them. The cleptocratic element? The persecution of political enemies (including assasinations)? The discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community? or is it just the strong man appeal? I don't find any of those things to be reconcillable with being on the left politically. If you are fine with that, okay, but count me out.

[Ormond]

The following story was just reported in the Omaha World Herald. It's about a 31 year old man from Fairbury, Nebraska who just had a lung transplant because Covid-19 had so damaged his lungs. He had no underlying health conditions before he contracted Covid-19 last October. The article mentions at least two other people in the world who have had lung transplants because of Covid-19. Just another example of how unpredictably devastating the consequences of this can be:

31-year-old rancher recovering from Nebraska's first COVID-related double lung transplant | Live Well | omaha.com

[Padraig]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

However, many of these islands are tax-free havens where the international plutocracies house their money, which they do like to visit from time to time, or at least send their minions to visit and over see . . . . 

Could people guess what I meant to write?  I was missing 2 important words!

Quote

I really doubt anyone gave Caribbean islands COVAX vaccines based on where the US wanted to go on holiday

 

[Fragile Bird]

31 minutes ago, Ormond said:

The following story was just reported in the Omaha World Herald. It's about a 31 year old man from Fairbury, Nebraska who just had a lung transplant because Covid-19 had so damaged his lungs. He had no underlying health conditions before he contracted Covid-19 last October. The article mentions at least two other people in the world who have had lung transplants because of Covid-19. Just another example of how unpredictably devastating the consequences of this can be:

31-year-old rancher recovering from Nebraska's first COVID-related double lung transplant | Live Well | omaha.com

Lucky man, to get a lung transplant! When my mom had her stroke she was in ICU for months, and the hospital had Canada’s biggest lung transplant unit. We met many family members of transplant recipients, and it was so wonderful to see those patients recover, and so sad for the ones where the transplant failed.