As has happened here the link was dismissed on that site also.
The only thing that I outright dismiss, is stupidity. I will even entertain ignorance, because no one knows all. But that article wasn't dismissed, at least not by me. I read the article, and formed an opinion, just like the person who posted it did. I simply don't approve of folks who banter around opinions, as facts. The author seemed to me to cross that line.
Of course, i said nothing about only caring about people in a certain age bracket. I care about everyone and that is why i want people to consider the risk of these vaccines. These vaccines are not without risk. People have gotten very ill from the vaccines, people have died from the vaccines. We are building a short term risk profile for these vaccines while not knowing what the long term risks are.
What i want is for people to be able to take into consideration, without undue influence or coercion, the risk and the benefits of these vaccines. If the risk of the virus is larger in the short term, than the risk of the vaccines in short term, while acknowledging that the long term risks are unknown, than those individuals should get the vaccine. If the risk of the vaccine is larger in the short term, while acknowledging that the long term risks are unknown, than those individuals should be free to not get it.
Public health should take into consideration the entirety of the consequences of a certain course of action. Not just a linear, tunnel vision focus on one thing. If you speed through a tunnel as fast as possible only looking at the light at the end, you are probably going to run over a whole bunch of bicyclists and others in the process. You might even crash and completely wreck the car you are driving. The correct course of action is to slow down, pay attention to where you’re going and keep your eyes on the road.
Of course that isn’t the approach we are seeing. We are seeing pedal to the metal, guns blazing, full speed ahead and people are getting bulldozed. We already left a trail of bodies behind from the lockdowns and then left more behind when they decided not to prioritize seniors and the vulnerable first in the initial vaccine rollout. Let’s not leave behind anymore. Let’s slow down and pay attention to where we are going.
Thank you for that response. I understand where you are coming from, and I can appreciate your concern regarding the safety of vaccines. Just for the record I do not blindly trust anyone, regarding anything. But here is where I am currently at, regarding risk factors and this pandemic. Below is the Province where myself and my wife reside.
- Alberta reported 2,020 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, out of 17,327 tests.
- Alberta reported 18 more deaths from COVID on Friday. A total of 2,523 Albertans have died of COVID-19.
- The positivity rate was 10.6 per cent.
- The province is leading the country by a wide margin in daily new COVID cases and active cases.
- There were 19,201 active cases across Alberta, the highest count in the country.
- By comparison, Ontario, a province with more than three times the population, has one-third the number of active cases.
- There were 911 people being treated in hospital, 215 of whom were in intensive care beds.
- Of those in hospital, 78 per cent are partially vaccinated or unvaccinated, Hinshaw said Thursday.
- The R-value, which represents the average number of people infected by each infected person, was 1.12 (with a confidence interval of 1.1 to 1.14) for Aug. 30 to Sept. 5.
- 255,834 Albertans are considered to have recovered from COVID-19.
- Critically ill patients are now regularly being airlifted out of the Red Deer hospital as it fills up with COVID-19 patients. The number of COVID patients in the hospital there jumped 65 per cent in the last week.
- The province is preparing to activate its triage protocol, which means health-care workers will have to decide which patients are given potentially life-saving interventions like ventilators.
- Non-emergency surgeries have been cut by as much as 60 per cent provincewide and the Calgary health zone has cancelled all non-urgent procedures for the rest of the week.
There's more info here:
These charts show how much more often unvaccinated Albertans are being hospitalized and dying from COVID-19 | CBC News
From mid-May to mid-September, 400 unvaccinated people in their 30s were admitted to hospital with COVID-19.
That works out to a rate of about 146 hospitalizations per 100,000 unvaccinated 30-somethings over that four-month span.
Intensive care units
Just seven fully vaccinated Albertans in their 50s have been admitted to an intensive care unit with COVID-19 since mid-May.
That compares to 181 unvaccinated people of the same age — despite the fact that there are far fewer of them.
Fully vaccinated 50-somethings were admitted to ICU at a rate of less than 3 per 100,000.
The rate among the unvaccinated, by comparison, was 139 per 100,000.
It was a similar story among unvaccinated Albertans in their 60s and 70s, who were admitted to ICU at rates about 60 times higher than their fully vaccinated counterparts.
There were major differences among younger Albertans, as well.
Not a single fully vaccinated person under the age of 40 was admitted to ICU over the past four months.
That compares to 129 people under the age of 40 who were eligible for the vaccine but didn't get a shot.
One person in their 30s who was partially immunized, with a single dose of vaccine, did wind up in ICU during that time.
Deaths
Similar with ICU admissions, there was not a single death among fully vaccinated Albertans under the age of 40 in the past four months.
That compares to seven deaths among unvaccinated people of the same age.
For Jenne, the infectious-disease expert with the University of Calgary, the implications of the data are clear.
"Vaccines are dramatically reducing loss of life, hospitalization and intensive-care-unit admissions across the province," he said.
This can be seen, he said, by directly comparing the rates of hospitalization, ICU admission and death among the fully vaccinated and the unvaccinated in each age range.
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Starting to see a trend?
Now let's consider how many folks in ALL OF CANADA, died from a negative reaction or condition, brought on by a covid vaccine, any covid vaccine.
I believe in Canada we had something like 4 or 5 people die from a reaction to the AstraZeneca vaccine. And as we learned more about the rare but serious condition called vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT), the country came out with new directives for those folks that might be more at risk.
COVID-19 vaccine safety: Summary of weekly report on side effects following immunization - Canada.ca
Summary of this week's report updated September 17, 2021
- A total of 54,129,701 vaccine doses have been administered in Canada as of September 10, 2021. Adverse events (side effects) have been reported by 15,298 people. That’s about 3 people out of every 10,000 people vaccinated who have reported 1 or more adverse events.
- Of the 15,298 individual reports, 11,126 were considered non-serious (0.021% of all doses administered) and 4,172 were considered serious (0.008% of all doses administered).
- Most adverse events are mild and include soreness at the site of injection or a slight fever.
- Serious adverse events are rare, but do occur. They include anaphylaxis (a severe allergic reaction), which has been reported 172 times for all COVID-19 vaccines across Canada. That’s why you need to wait for a period of time after you receive a vaccination so that you can receive treatment in case of an allergic reaction.
- All serious events undergo medical review to see if there are any safety issues needing further action. These processes include meeting regularly to review the data with provincial and territorial partners, the regulator, research networks and medical advisors to ensure there are no safety issues that require action. Any unexpected safety concerns are detected quickly and acted upon immediately.
- The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) and Health Canada continue to closely monitor Canadian and international reports of:
- Thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome following vaccination with AstraZeneca Vaxzevria/COVISHIELD COVID-19 vaccine. Health Canada has updated the product monograph to include information about these very rare events of blood clots associated with low levels of platelets following immunization.
- Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) in Canada following AstraZeneca Vaxzevria/COVISHIELD COVID-19 vaccination. Data in Canada indicate a higher number of reports than would normally be expected in the general population. Health Canada has updated the AstraZeneca Vaxzevria/COVISHIELD product monograph to include information on GBS.
- Myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and pericarditis (inflammation of the lining around the heart) following vaccination with COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. Data in Canada indicate a higher number of reports in younger people (i.e. less than 40 years of age) than would normally be expected in this age group in the general population. Health Canada updated the product monographs for both Moderna Spikevax and Pfizer-BioTech COVID-19 vaccines to include information around these risks.
- Capillary leak syndrome following vaccination with the AstraZeneca Vaxzevria/COVISHIELD COVID-19 vaccine. Health Canada has updated the product monograph to include information on capillary leak syndrome, including a contraindication for patients who have previously experienced this syndrome.
- Facial paralysis/Bell’s Palsy following COVID-19 vaccination. Health Canada has updated the product monograph for both Pfizer-BioNTech Comirnaty and Moderna Spikevax COVID-19 vaccines to include information on facial paralysis/Bell’s Palsy.
- The benefits of vaccines authorized in Canada continue to outweigh the risks.
Additional information
Canada’s independent drug authorization process is known around the world for its high standards and rigorous review process. Decisions are based on scientific and medical evidence. Vaccines authorized for use in Canada are safe, effective and of high quality.
The work to make sure a vaccine is safe starts before the regulatory process even begins. Exploratory, preclinical studies, and clinical trials are designed to assess the vaccine’s safety. Evidence from these activities is submitted to Health Canada for regulatory review. Health Canada’s scientific and medical reviewers then conduct a thorough and independent review of all vaccine data. Only then is a vaccine authorized for use in Canada.
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Summary of diseases and vaccines, Canada
DISEASE (wrha.mb.ca)
I was born the same year as when the last pandemic of Polio occurred here in Canada. See link above for before & after for various vaccine stats here in Canada.
S
Supergeorge123
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I actually agree with much of what you said, but unfortunately, how things are being directed or handled varies from country to country, state to state, and province to province, even city to city - it's called politics. That my friend is mostly out of our control. The province where I live has become Canada's #1 covid hotspot, due to politics, and how things were directed months ago. We are now about to implode.
Public health should take into consideration the entirety of the consequences of a certain course of action.
I agree, and generally speaking, at least here in Canada, I believe that for the most part they have done just that. Perfect? Nope, but what is?
But sure, we could slow down, take more time, study the cause & effects for the next few years, or we could try and save more lives now.
In general vaccines work on saving lives, and preventing disease. They have a long running history of successfully saving lives, world-wide. That is a fact, that no one can argue.
30+ yrs ago, prior to the internet, one wouldn't dream of seeing/hearing the kind of push back that we are experiencing today regarding vaccines.
I was thinking back the other day about when seatbelts were first mandated, and wondering how many organized rallies there would be today, over someone's rights being stepped on by being forced to wear a seatbelt. lol I can only imagine. Just take a look in the USA, at how many states held back for years after seatbelt mandates came into effect in the US. In Canada, I was living in Ontario when this law first went into effect, the year was 1976. Lots of pissing and moaning about that at the time too, yet we know now that MILLIONS of deaths have been prevented by seatbelts. Have there been a few deaths along the way, actually caused by using a seatbelt, probably, sure - but that doesn't mean we should all stop wearing one.
I view vaccines in much the same way that I do seatbelts, I understand some of the push back, I too am not happy with everything I see, or how some of this has played out, but at 60+ yrs of age I also never expected to be in the position that I currently am. Who here did? Hindsight is 20/20, it's easy to critique the decision making folks, but at the same time I would not want to be in their shoes, either. Numerous advisors/experts, and a mountain of info, all surrounding unchartered territory, and all affecting the country, and people that you love. Not an easy job.
Good luck to us all.
