Covid Vaccine - are you getting it?

Type 1 and LADA
#245

@katers87

This is the part I had a problem with.

Saying it was .00067% It’s not accurate to say the percentages are from 1.2 million as they did not test 1.2 million vaccinated people. We don’t know how many they tested after vaccination, it could have been 102. I’m sure it wasn’t, my assumption would be it fits the 10% of vaccinated people, but that would be an assumption.

My point is even with vaccinations, a few could still get sick, so some care should still be taken with those at high risk. But the biggest concern is the potential to still catch it and possibly infecting others thinking you are vaccinated because now it’s 100% safe.

We have idiots out there “time to vacay, I’m vaccinated now” but not everyone is, it is still the minority in most parts that actually is.

#246

Not sure if that is stupid.

There was a period when I struggled with balancing my checkbook - it was certainly not for lack of quantitative skills - and at the time I found that every year I had a few thousands dollars of credit card debt, even though I applied an algorithm - 10% off the top in the bank, less than 30% for housing - designed to prevent that. The issue on the latter was that I didn’t account for incidentals, like car problems and dental work, which would get put on a card. It was also around this time that I realized the problem was not budgeting, it was earning enough money.

From then onward, I decided that I would simply earn more money with each contracting role, and at the time, with my skills, the industry I worked in, and the growth arc of the country, it was easy to increases one’s earnings. Since then. I never budgeted, let alone balanced a checkbook. Years later, I do watch the general trend on our retirements accounts and investments, eye the state of our basic checking and savings accounts, as well as watch the trends on on our spending.

That said, simply earning more is not an option for most people. At the time I worked as a software developer as a consultant within the financial industry. Even now, there are still opportunities to earn more money - I do get contacted by Google and Amazon to interview - but I now focus more on quality of life, and since I am nearing retirement, earning a higher salary is not so important.

As for stupidity, I have read debt spending has little to do with intelligence, that the better educated can suffer just as much with excess debt, but in my case it would have come down to emotional and lifestyle factors, plus the tedium of the checkbook. What I do with our finances and spending comes down to Excel and pivot tables, but if I had some reason to, I could do something more programmatic with machine learning. The problem for most people would be the country we live in, and that has more to do with our political culture and how people are treated relative to industry.

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#247

The .00067% refers to the % hospitalized- I think it is pretty safe to assume that people who were hospitalized for COVID were tested… The article itself says .01% when referring to infections.
I quoted the article in my post. I did not link this article, so I’m not going to defend the information in the article. I don’t think it was a good source to begin with.

I agree. We’re headed for another surge that will largely occur among the unvaccinated.

It is unfortunate that so many things are opening up because we only have a couple more months before everyone should have access to the protection vaccines offer.

1 Like
#248

Also, just to be clear, I don’t think our perspectives are contradictory.

My original response was to a post from someone who didn’t want to be vaccinated because they’d been misinformed. My focus in that conversation is on the advantages of taking a vaccine.

The disadvantage you’re pointing out is relevant to people who have already been vaccinated and want to protect those who aren’t. As you pointed out, that’s only a minority at this point and also only really relevant for the next couple months while vaccine supply is limited. However, you’re right, the vaccines aren’t 100% effective at preventing transmission- but they’re nearly that at preventing severe illness.

Based on the information we have now about the protection vaccines offer, I don’t think vaccinated people are going to be the ones driving this surge. This surge is going to different than the others. I found the article below helpful.

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#249

I’ve had both shots (Pfizer-BioNtech.) I am T1. Felt the need to rest a bit after the first one. I am 68yo, and know a 93 yo woman who got both shots with no problems. All vaccines have the potential to cause a reaction. My blood sugars went along pretty normally. My 2 cents.

#250

Nope not getting it for several reasons. Im not going to try and talk anyone out of it, as its a personal decision.

For perspective, Im 55yo, T1D for 54 years, and NOT an anti-vaxxer. I have travelled all over the world and have been vaccinated for just about everything. I also always wear my mask in public and social distance. I also had COVID last December.

#251

So many think that whether or not to get vaccines, wear masks, social distance, avoid crowds, etc. are personal decisions. They are not. An invisible epidemic disease, and what each person does (or does not do) about it, affects everyone.

Each person doing what they can to stay safe is what makes everyone safe.

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#252

Did you know that the cultural propensity in Asia to wear masks pre-dates the emergence of Covid-19? Their personal motivation stems from seeking to protect their fellow citizens, not themselves.

We’re all likely aware of the cultural phenomenon, in Asian countries like Japan, that the motivation to wear masks is to protect others from your cold or flu-bug, not to protect the mask-wearing individual.

We in the US could learn something from this, but I think it will continue to be drowned out in this highly polarized era. American exceptionalism at its worst.

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#253

What I find personally repulsive is describing inconsiderate behavior as “freedom”.

If you value this selfish freedom so much, go to Brazil. Currently in Brazil all the hospitals are at capacity. Ambulances are often queued up outside hospitals waiting for a bed to “empty”. They park and wait because traveling to another hospital is considered pointless. They are all at capacity.

Hospital staff is not the only over stressed profession. The grave diggers are also unable to keep up.

The irony to me is that people who claim that covid is “not that deadly” are correct. Whatever the death rate is, it is not high enough to scare people in and of itself. If we were unable to treat Covid at all, it still would not exterminate humanity.

But the people who honestly think this distinction matters are not doing the arithmetic. Even “only” a percent or two of the population of a large country is a very large number of people. More than enough people it turns out to break a country’s health system if allowed to run rampant.

Ah, but oh the unbearable loss of freedom required to be conscientious, community minded citizen! :scream:

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#254

Indeed, it’s nice to be free to choose between rude and kind. But celebrating the rude choice as a proxy for freedom baffles me. It’s nice to be free but it’s much better to make choices that help, not hurt.

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#255

When I think about “freedom”, my first thought goes to freedom of religion. I have always taken it to mean the freedom to practice religion without imposing it on others. In some sense, it means freedom from others’ religion, and ultimately amounts to private practice. Many people are not so inclined, but I would take it to mean the freedom from governmental imposition, or even support of, religion. In the same way, a common misattributed quote is “Your liberty to swing your fist ends just where my nose begins." Generally, it means that your ‘freedom’ ends when it threatens the well-being of others. Similarly, one is not free to ‘shout fire in a crowded theater’.

Freedom, as it is legally defined, has always come with a caveat that you can’t threaten others’ lives, and there are often accepted norms about harming others, e.g., restrictions on drunk driving, second-hand smoke, inflicting emotional/physical harm, etc. Granted, there are many ways the law falls short and allows harm within ‘reasonable’ limits, like exposure to pollution or harmful chemicals, but that seems more like an ethical failure, i.e., government beholden to power and money, than it is a form of freedom.

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#256

I love me some genetic mods, as a type 1 for over 35 years I’d be pretty effed without em.

I say bring it on! Get yer shots ppl, or stay the hell out of my way, please and tyvm.

Both Moderna shots done and dusted with my 1st feeling only like a line drive baseball hit my arm while playing shortstop. Heck the guy who developed the shots been Type 1 for like 50 years!

#257

Freedom to me means not to be forced to do something that might harm you. (Besides misc other things) Vaccines have a small potential to harm which is why there is a fund to collect from if it happens. I do happen to know of two kids that died after a vaccination, one which was a good friend at the time, one was a customer and I do not know as much about that second case.

In the covid vaccine arena I will probably end up with the J&J one because it has the least reactions allergy wise. In Covids case for me, Covid seems to be a much bigger threat than my possible allergic response. My niece is having to consider the same issue. She has major Crohns Disease problems and one of the medications she is on has to be stopped to get vaccinated. Every time she has tried to stop it before she has had a major flare up. She has almost died from Crohn’s before. It is not an easy choice for her either.

So for me, I totally believe , whether someone has issues or not, Vaccines should be a choice.

#258

My type 2 came about as a direct result of taking huge doses of prednisone to combat ulcerative colitis for nearly a year, 20+ years ago. The diabetes has stayed with me. The colitis conveniently disappeared 2 weeks after I quit a job where I was constantly harassed and belittled by my boss as his staff.

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#259

I’ve had the luxury of holding off on a decision up until now, because we’re so isolated here. But my other half is scheduled for surgery at the end of the month, so our risk/reward evaluation got toppled on its head.

I just got the first dose of Moderna yesterday.

I’m still not entirely comfortable with it. Long-term data just doesn’t exist. Who knows how this will play out in 15-20 years? All the short-term data is influenced by politics and profitability, so it’s difficult to to know the truth of anything. No, I don’t trust my government. My biggest fear is of the unknown, though. I keep thinking about antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and how the stuff that can’t be killed seems to be the most virulent. What if something similar applies to this virus, too? What if the vaccine leaves only the most dangerous Covid mutations to spread or even makes us more susceptible to biological weapons… Yeah, I know that latter one sounds extreme, but we’re preppers and all that doomsday prep has served us extremely well this past year.

But for now, there’s greater immediate risk to our being in the hospital for several days than I can imagine coming from the vaccine. So I’m putting my faith in the science.

#260

@Robyn_H

You are correct … nobody knows what will happen 15-20 years downstream. As a card-carrying Cantankerous Old Fart (I’m 71 …) I don’t have to worry about that.

While I am often skeptical of “the government”, I do have high confidence in the peer review process. While I don’t know bupkis about vaccines, biology, mRNA, I did spend 45 years in an academic research laboratory where peer review was THE standard whether it was a matter of research funding or pre-publication review of research findings.

While it is almost impossible to guarantee that there won’t be long-term downsides to these vaccines, the “miracle” that they exist and are being manufactured in staggering volumes, is the result of 75+ years of smart people incrementally building on the work of equally smart people before them … with careful scientific scrutiny every step of the way.

While I’m not an expert in biology, viruses, or epidemiology, to me this work can all be traced back to the work of Watson and Crick unraveling the mystery of DNA and Salk and Sabin for developing a vaccine for polio.

So, yes, these vaccines are a miracle … built on incremental improvements in our understanding coupled with some staggering efforts on the manufacturing side to be able to go from zero production to producing hundreds of millions of doses per month. Not to mention folks like the heroes at Corning Glassworks who have ramped up the production of Valor glass that is capable of being cooled to -80C without shattering, so that it can safely hold and transport the Pfizer vaccine.

Here is hoping that vaccine rates exceed the Covid mutations and that those of us who CAN get vaccinated, DO get vaccinated.

Stay safe.

John

P.S. I was lucky enough to get Moderna vaccine on 2/14 and 3/14, respectively. I can’t think of the last time that ANYONE would have described me as “giddy”, but I was on those two days.

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#261

I wanted to update and say how delighted I was to get my 2nd Pfizer shot 3 days ago! I’m 57 and living with T1d for 45 years. I only had mild flu-like symptoms the day after, and my BG have been quite normal throughout.

I’m grateful I had the choice to get vaccinated, and can now travel to visit my mom who has cancer. I didn’t feel safe flying before this.

I’m so relieved and feel such a sense of freedom with this. I know we have a ways to go, but this feels like a huge step in the right direction!

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#262

I wonder how many diabetics thought that way when insulin became available in May 1922, a mere four months after it was first used in a human.