Is the COVID-19 vaccine safe?
If you’ve watched CNN, Fox News or CNBC, you’ve probably seen a number of medical correspondents like Dr. Sanjay Gupta or Dr. Leana Wen who consult for CNN during this pandemic. Let’s explore their lack of fiduciary responsibility to the general public.
Medical Doctor or M.D.
To get a license to practice medicine, a person must not only obtain a preset amount of medical training and gain experience in the form of internships, they must also agree to the Hippocratic Oath. This oath originated with Hippocrates (born 460 bc). This oath essentially states, among other information, “First, do no harm”, however, this exact wording does not exist in the oath in its original Ionic Greek form. Instead, it has been translated with levels of interpretation necessary to be understood by an English speaking audience. One might say that the original Ionic Greek form has been altered and updated to modern society standards.
The difficulty with revisionism by third parties is that these revisions were not by the hand of Hippocrates. Regardless, the sentiment of what Hippocrates wrote still essentially remains.
With the phrasing of “First, do no harm”, this runs quite a bit counter to the COVID-19 vaccine. Let’s dive in and understand exactly why.
Mouth Piece
One thing you have to understand about the medical industry, particularly for “celebrity” medical doctors is their level of sway they have with the general public. With a brand like Dr. Sanjay Gupta, he has built his celebrity reputation on seemingly good and sound medical advice over the years. As he has so carefully built this brand, he has been careful to ensure that his messages are in keeping with his brand message and also doesn’t run counter to his medical training or, in general, the medical industry. The same can be said for Dr. Leana Wen, though her brand image is far less solidified than Dr. Gupta’s.
Unfortunately, during this pandemic, these medical “doctors” have taken an odd turn, staking their own personal brands and reputations on a rushed vaccine.
Instead, these medical correspondents, not just for CNN, but all of these news networks, have simply become talking head mouthpieces for the medical industry as a whole. While the pandemic rages and gets worse, killing ever more and more people, these mouthpiece medical practitioners sit in front of cameras spewing the rhetoric of an industry that really hasn’t proven itself to be harmless. More specifically, the pharmaceutical industry.
The Medical Cycle
The medical industry is, unfortunately, a bunch of collusive teams all working together to create a whole. I’m not here to say that each of these industries are bad in and of themselves; it’s just that when combined, they create a whole that’s not completely without “First, do no harm”. It’s very difficult to regulate disparate industries that have only minimal relationships with one another.
Below is an image that demonstrates both the collusive and parasitic nature of each of these industries. With that big $ sitting in the middle, it represents an industry that makes trillions every year. Let’s understand exactly how much money is at stake:
“How much money is in the healthcare industry? In 2018, the global healthcare sector’s revenue was $1.853 trillion, an increase of 4.5% on a year-on-year basis. When it comes to healthcare expenditures, the US tops the list, spending $10,224 per person.”
https://policyadvice.net/insurance/insights/healthcare-statistics/
Over $10,000 per person per year! Wow! What other industry in HISTORY makes this much money per person per year? Yeah, collusion.
What the above image says is that Hospitals rely on both Doctors and Pharma companies for their continued monetary success. Note that I didn’t include equipment manufacturers in this graph, but know that they are out there. Medical equipment manufacturing is a tertiary industry that is needed to supply all 3 of these industries with similar equipment. In fact, the equipment manufacturers are probably the only industry that are mostly outside and don’t act in collusion, but instead, they sit to the side and feed above monetary cycle. However, these equipment manufacturers also make more than their fair share of money from this industry.
Also note that the arrows flow in both directions because money flows both ways. Doctors feed the pharma companies by prescribing. In return, pharma companies grease the Doctors via kickbacks, residuals and free medicines. Hospitals pay their Doctors, in return Doctors act as sales persons for the Hospital by using their expertise and brand reputation to bring repeat business to the hospitals. Pharma and Hospital relationships are entirely obvious and money flows both ways buying and using medicines.
There’s also the research arm of this industry, but most of the drug research resides within the pharma companies. There are also the insurance companies that, while not directly part of the medical industry, act as the glue between the public and this entire industry. Without this “monetary glue” the entire medical industry would fail and couldn’t exist. Should insurance companies be included in the above? No, because they do not practice medicine in any way. They believe they should by making medical decisions based on when to cover and not cover illnesses, but they are firmly outside of that industry.
I don’t wish to digress into the scammy and unnecessary nature of the insurance industry, so I won’t. However, I may write a follow-up article to discuss just how much of a leech, a scam and an unnecessary burden is the insurance industry on pretty much every part of life. I’ll leave it at that. Let’s continue.
Industry Acceptance, Coercion and Blackmail
Doctors are practically held over a fire to keep their license. Instead of being about altruism, it ends up being about falling into the trap of someone bigger than you. A doctor’s practice is held over the fire by their license. Without a license to practice, doctors can’t make a living. It’s basically a legal form of coercion.
What that means is that unless a doctor practices social restraint and, in fact, continues to tow the industry accepted lines of thinking, the doctor may find themselves out on their ass without not only their job, but without a way to make a living. This means that a doctor is almost constantly “coerced” into towing both big pharma ideals, but in towing hospital ideals. They must make sure their opinions don’t run afoul of either of these two entities, either one of which could see to it they can’t make a living.
Either of these “big brothers” may coerce and collude to keep the doctor in line, just like a parent keeps their petulant child in line. Threats of being fired or, worse, losing their license is a strong incentive not to make waves in the industry and to tow the sometimes distasteful practices that have been tossed at their feet.
Medical Correspondents and News Channels
As we circle back around to news channels, we now begin to understand why both Dr. Gupta and Dr. Wen mostly pretend that the COVID-19 vaccine is entirely safe and effective. If they don’t do this pretending, particularly with their powerful celebrity status, this could torpedo the entire vaccine acceptance strategy (and their own personal careers).
I’m not here to say that these vaccines aren’t safe or effective, but I’m cautiously optimistic… the exact stance a medical professional should take. When Dr. Gupta got his shot on camera, I could see a fair amount of trepidation in his eyes. However, his words (and forced expressions) overrode his eye and body language. Just watch the video below and notice his wide eyed expressions closely:
What this says to me is that while he does in some way believe the safety and efficacy, he also realizes the dangers of this mostly untested vaccine. In fact, I got the distinct impression that he felt like an unwitting pawn in this situation.
Levels of Desperation
With the amount of deaths per day, the medical industry feels a tremendous amount of pressure coming from every angle. There’s pressure coming from politicians (and the President) to come up with a solution to the pandemic. There’s also internal pressures coming from pharma companies towards doctors to push their latest “vaccine” as efficacious and safe.
With this measure of not only industry pressure, there’s the level of desperation by the public into wanting a fix and wanting it yesterday. The economy is failing. Businesses are closing. Unemployment is spiking. The pandemic is taking a huge toll on our current way of life. It’s digging deep into every industry, every person and into every single aspect of our current social existence.
Because of all of these levels of desperation, pharma felt pressured to delivery something, anything. They did. The difficulty is not that pharma delivered, but what they delivered.
Prudent or Reckless?
There’s a fine line between being prudent and being reckless and sometimes it’s difficult to see when that line has been crossed. Unfortunately, desperation is never the reason to jump into something that appears to be a miracle. That miracle might, in fact, turn into hell.
The doctors claim that the medical technology used in the vaccine (messenger RNA) is something that’s been in existence for years. The difficulty is that this technology has never been used in vaccines, at least not until today. Even while the technology may have been known for years, putting it into practice is an entirely different thing.
From concept to vaccine delivery was a total of about 9 months, the time it takes to conceive a baby and deliver it. Those 9 months included a rapid clinical trial of a month or two at most.
Most drugs that hit the market have had years of clinical trials (i.e., plural… more than one). This vaccine had a total of one clinical trial. Sure, the amount of participants was large, but it was still only one clinical trial. In fact, the trial excluded certain at-risk groups of individuals, such as pregnant mothers and other at-risk people. In effect, the trial utilized only healthy adults without preexisting risk conditions. Unfortunately, that leaves the vaccine at risk of causing harm “in the wild” because it won’t just be put into the arms of those non-risky individuals. It will be inserted into the arms of pregnant women, children, asthma sufferers, COPD sufferers and all manner of people with diseases of the mind and body.
In short, the quick trial skipped key tests… test that may negatively impact those at-risk folks who were not represented during the clinical trial. It’s risky and it’s disturbing.
Let’s come back to Dr. Gupta and Dr. Wen on CNN.
When these correspondents appear on CNN, their banter about the vaccine is one-note. It’s almost as if what they’re saying is entirely scripted by the pharmaceutical companies and not of their own words. I’ve yet to hear ANY cautionary warnings or verbal trepidation from either of these “doctors”. As I said, “Scripted”.
It all seems so contrived and canned as if to “reassure” the public how safe and efficacious the vaccine is.
Exercise Caution, Restraint and Critical Thinking
While these TV news doctors continually spout almost 100% positive rhetoric that these vaccines are perfectly safe, I’m not convinced… yet. I’m firmly still in the “wait and see” camp. The clinical trial was way too quick, provided way too convenient results and hasn’t in any way been challenged by doctors who should be challenging how the trial was handled.
Instead of challenging anything about the trial, these doctors are being shown given a literal shot in the arm (see above). Even politicians are doing this.
Is the vaccine efficacious AND safe?
The theory behind the vaccine formulation has merit, to be sure. It forces the body to create and replicate antibodies against alleged innocuous portions of the virus. The difficulty is that the mRNA is a foreign invader. It’s something the body hasn’t seen before. The body’s immune response may be somewhat calculated, but there’s no way to know long term effects on the body.
Could the vaccine lead to disruption in key functioning of other body functions either now or in the future? These are thing we can’t know. Because the clinical trial wasn’t able to test any portion of it long term, we simply have no idea what long term effects the vaccine may have on the body’s systems. We simply don’t know what the vaccine may cause 1, 2, 5 or 10 years later.
Compared to getting COVID-19, it’s a toss-up. COVID-19 may also produce these same effects in the future. We can’t know what we haven’t tested… and that’s exactly where we are with the vaccine. Injecting portions of this foreign invader into the body with a minimal tested trial, we simply don’t know long term effects.
We aren’t even sure just how efficacious this vaccine technology will be against the virus in the future. We might find that even after the second dose that the vaccine’s effects wear off 6 months later. The vaccine’s effects may not even be effective against future mutated strains of COVID-19. Again, because the clinical trials couldn’t test long term ANYTHING, we simply have no information. This is the reason why critical thinking is important. We must use our brains and realize that without proper testing, this vaccine may not be all of what it is claimed to be.
Not only might it not be effective, it might cause more side effects than giving us the immunity it was intended.
Wait and See
If you’re thinking, “I work on the front line so I need it”, think twice. That’s desperation talking, not critical thinking. You can’t jump on board simply because you fear getting the virus. You must take the vaccine because it has proven itself useful, not because someone says that it is. Believing hearsay is the quickest way to problems.
I’m not saying the vaccine isn’t efficacious. What I am saying is that the vaccine hasn’t yet proven itself efficacious other than under very specific and controlled circumstances. The world doesn’t work like a controlled clinical trial. There are far too many unknowns when giving shots to people who are not under controlled conditions. This falls under the safety factor. These unknown safety issues can lead people to injury and death. These are possible consequences from these vaccines. It seems that the clinical trial was mostly focused on efficacy over safety. That’s not to say that safety wasn’t a factor in the trial, but it wasn’t the primary motivation in its formulation.
Injecting an unknown substance into your body always has risks, from infection, to allergic reactions to unforeseen consequences, such as Bell’s Palsy, injury or death. We simply can’t know what we don’t know.
Money
Let’s come back to that big $ hanging out in that image above. Money is how the world works. No one does something out of 100% altruistic intent. No, money is how the world-goes-round. Big pharma companies aren’t in it for the altruism. They are in it for how much money they can make. While those who receive the shot may not pay for it, make sure you understand that pharma companies are well paid for producing these vaccines. Without money, these vaccines wouldn’t have been made. It is about how much money pharma can make off of it with as few negative consequences as possible.
Unfortunately, drugs aren’t without side effects. Pharma companies are well aware of that fact. Therefore, for every drug they introduce, they have not only insurance, but also lawyers to work through injury and death lawsuits.
With the pandemic, we really don’t know if suing Pfizer, Moderna or AstraZeneca will even be allowed. Because of the pandemic, the government might give these pharma companies complete immunity from prosecution or lawsuits. What that means is that these pharma companies might have been given carte blanche by the government to produce whatever they want with impunity… no matter how damaging it may become.
Future Vaccines
There’s also a danger in the manufacturing process. As the first batch of vaccines might be somewhat effective, future produced vaccines might not fare as well. As the manufacturers find cheaper materials, faster processes and more efficient manufacturing, that can cause errors to creep into the formulation. That could also mean that vaccines made in February might be less efficacious and more dangerous than those produced in December.
We simply don’t know what Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca might introduce, alter or change in a few months or even next week. It’s extremely hard for me to jump right into this “vaccine is safe” argument and state that the vaccines are 100% anything. There are way too many unknowns to make blanket statements about this vaccine.
For this reason, I’m firmly in the wait and see group. I want to allow others to have first dibs at the vaccines to see how well they fare and what possible outcomes might result from their experiences. After I see how that works out for them, I can then look at those side effects and make a better informed choice.
Right now, we simply don’t know enough. We are flying mostly blind. We need to be able to see exactly how bad the vaccine’s effects may get to judge it against what we know about COVID-19. Only then can we make an informed choice. You don’t want to jump into the vaccine only to find yourself in the hospital clinging to life because the vaccine had a severe consequence on your body. COVID-19 is a bad disease, but the vaccine’s long term consequences could ultimately be worse. We simply don’t know… which is why waiting at least some time is prudent.
Vaccination Confusion
As we move into the vaccination process, comes confusion and, in some cases, sabotage. The confusion stems from many different reasons and from different directions. The first confusion is the two dose schedule. Some people will assume one dose is enough and skip the second dose. Worse, some patients may not be told that there is a second dose (or will forget due to memory issues) and will end up skipping the second dose not knowing it is required to receive full effect from the vaccine.
The second problem stems from multiple vaccines from different manufacturers. As of this article, there exist two approved vaccines in the United States, including the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines. There are three more are on the horizon including AstraZeneca, Janssen and Novavax. Because each of these vaccines have different storage requirements and likely different administration schedules, this puts the onus of which virus vaccine you receive on you. If you get a first dose of the vaccine, but you don’t remember which manufacturer’s vaccine you received a few weeks later, you won’t know which follow up dose to get. That leads to…
If you get the Pfizer vaccine initially… then for the second required dose, you can’t switch and get the Moderna vaccine. The two don’t work together. Because each vaccine has a different mechanism of action and formulation, the vaccines are not interchangeable from the first to second doses. You must get the same vaccine for the second dose that you got in the first dose. Some people will conflate this, take the wrong second dose, assume they are protected and then get COVID-19.
The next problem is vaccine administration practices and vaccine authenticity. A hospital has already gotten mixed up and administered the wrong medicine instead of the vaccine. While this may seem to be a clinical error, it goes way deeper than that. As administrators of smaller and smaller hospitals and medical clinics become responsible for buying vaccines to administer to their patients, inevitably these mix-ups will become intentional. For example, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that some clinics are intentionally injecting plain sterile water into the arms of individuals instead of the authentic vaccine. It could be that the clinic simply can’t get a supply or it could be the administrator is unscrupulous and is selling the vaccines out the back door for real money while injecting patients with fake product.
Speaking of intentionally doing things, we have already seen a hospital worker allegedly intentionally sabotage a supply of the vaccine by taking it out of the fridge overnight. That hospital worker has since been fired (and now arrested), according to many sources, but all of the above is just the tip of this unsettling iceberg.
Counterfeit Product
This last problem, keeping in mind that this is not an exhaustive list, is grey and black market product. As vaccines slip out the back door of hospitals and medical facilities, unscrupulous scalpers may attempt to sell and inject this grey and black market product into people who are way, way down the list. These products might range from authentic to plain sterile water to dangerous drugs. You don’t know what you’ll receive when you go the grey market route. Keep in mind that even reputable hospitals might even fall prey to injecting grey market or counterfeit vaccines into people. There is a wide range of ways that all of this can manifest.
Right now, we’re at the very start of this process. By the end, we’ll have heard of most of the above, if not a lot more shysters, scams and hucksters trying to make a quick buck off of the vaccine.
For safety precautions, always ask to watch the medical worker pull the vaccine from a properly labeled vial. If you can request them to show you the vial beforehand so you can read the label, all the better. Make sure that the label appears genuine and that the product appears authentic. While fakes can sometimes appear better than a genuine product, in a hospital medical setting, one would always hope that everything dispensed is entirely genuine. If you’re visiting a urgent care clinic or a small medical facility, like a doctor’s office, make sure that you ask when they received the vaccine, how old it is and if it was properly stored.
If you’re injected with an improperly stored vaccine or, worse, a fake product, it might do nothing at all or it might have negative health consequences. So, to the best of your ability, request to inspect that the vaccine is authentic and ask all of the right questions about storage and handling. If your doctor suddenly says they have vaccine doses at a time when hospitals are unable to obtain them, this should be a huge red flag. A doctor’s office may have gotten counterfeit product from a scammer.
Scammers abound and these are people who are more than willing to take advantage of small doctor’s offices for their own scamming benefits. They will pretend to be medicine distributors only to sell the office cheap and fake products. By the time the doctor’s office realizes and potentially injects some patients, it may be too late.
When considering your turn at the vaccine, be exceedingly cautious as the vaccinations progress into the future. Scammers WILL find ways to scam this entire process if not outright sabotage it. You must be diligent and ask the right question before they jab that hypodermic needle into your arm.
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COVID-19: Should I help out?
Here’s a solid question that may appear to not have a clear answer, but it really does. Let’s explore.
Emergency aboard a plane
Imagine you’re flying on a plane to get somewhere. Imagine that the person across the aisle from you appears to be having trouble breathing and is sweating. Then, imagine that same passenger begins having a seizure which turns into a medical emergency. Now imagine another medically trained passenger steps up and begins performing CPR on this now stricken passenger and continues performing this activity until the plane lands (i.e., over an hour).
This scenario just played out on a United Airlines flight on Monday December 21st. A scary situation to be sure. Is jumping in to aid a possibly COVID-19 infected passenger wise? Could this situation have been avoided?
COVID-19 has familiar symptoms including shortness of breath, sweating, fever, chills and other outward signs of infection. These symptoms, particularly when this severe, should be easily spotted. Yet, no passengers, none of the flight attendants, none of the airport or airline attendants did anything to question this clearly ailing man before boarding, while boarding or during the flight. How does this happen?
Airline Negligence
Before I get into the meat of this article, let’s discuss the side dishes. This side dish is negligence. When you’re flying on a commercial jet, it is the airport, TSA and airline staff’s responsibility to properly vet passengers all along the way for who may be showing outward symptoms consistent with COVID-19. How does an airport and an airline miss his condition? This is the job of those who run airports and airlines. This is partly why they get paid.
Clearly, this man should have been coughing and having trouble breathing even sitting in the terminal. COVID-19’s symptoms don’t appear at a moment’s notice. Clearly, not only is the airport itself, but so is United Airlines entirely remiss in spotting this ailing passenger at the many touch points of passenger check-in. Even the TSA failed to spot his condition!
How does an airport and a wide array of airline and airport staff miss seeing a sweating, ailing, coughing passenger in their midst? I’m at a loss here.
Passenger Due Diligence
It’s not really on the passengers to do an airline’s or an airport’s job. However, it is on every passenger to stay aware and vigilant of their surroundings. We’ve all been taught to stop, look and listen. During a severe pandemic, it is firmly on ALL of us to be aware of our surroundings. With the pandemic, we need to become even more vigilant and hyper aware of those around us by listening to and watching everyone around us. If someone is coughing, sneezing, wheezing or appears in any way distressed, you should not only move away from them, you should get as far away as possible.
However, when we’re sitting in an airport waiting for a flight, we’re trapped at that terminal. What that means while we can move away from someone who appears to be ailing, we must also notify those in charge that a specific passenger appears to be in a problematic state. At that point, those in charge would need to step up and determine whether that person is ailing, has a fever or appears to have any outward signs of COVID-19 and to pull that passenger aside and deny them access if necessary.
In other words, there were so many touch points that failed to identify this distressed United Airlines passenger, it really throws into question just how diligent and effective airlines and airports really are to screen infected passengers. It’s clear that they missed this passenger. It’s also clear that the passengers themselves missed notifying those in authority.
Passenger Aids COVID-19 Passenger
When the distressed passenger moved into a medical emergency aboard the flight, another passenger aboard that flight decided to jump in and perform CPR. The aiding passenger wasn’t entirely sure if the passenger was COVID positive. However, it has been reported that the wife of the passenger had later stated he had tested positive. This means that this aiding passenger should have known he had tested positive before performing CPR. Here’s Face’s tweets on this subject:
He claims that the distressed passenger’s wife never mentioned that her husband had tested positive. However, it has been reported that she had stated that he had tested positive. I’m not sure of this conflicting information, but it’s possible Face never asked her before jumping in to perform CPR. Unfortunately, his efforts to perform CPR didn’t succeed and the passenger succumbed to his COVID-19 medical fate and died.
As a result, this helping passenger has now tested positive himself. Should he have jumped in to help? Let’s understand this question a bit more in detail. It is also the meat of this article.
Helping in a post-COVID world
While Face may seem like a hero at a time when this passenger needed CPR most, the difficulty in performing this medical intervention is ultimately COVID-19. Coughing, sweating and fever don’t indicate a condition that warrants CPR. It indicates COVID-19. CPR may be required IF the person goes into cardiac arrest. However, let’s understand the position this distressed passenger was actually in.
This situation occurred aboard a flight while in the air. Flights have limited access to medical equipment, but planes do have a defibrillator… a defibrillator which should have been used first to attempt to resuscitate this patient before attempting CPR. Planes may have small oxygen canisters aboard for flight attendant use. It is unknown if this was used.
COVID-19 is an illness that can escalate into a life threatening situation quickly, particularly aboard an airliner where air pressure and oxygen saturation is reduced at 30,000+ feet. That means less oxygen is available when flying on an airliner. For someone with trouble breathing under the throes of COVID-19, boarding an airliner, as in this case, could end up a death sentence.
As I said, there is very limited medical equipment aboard a commercial jet. Let’s understand that even as hospitals get inundated with massive amounts of COVID-19 patients, even their ability to handle these patients is limited and in many cases fails leading to death. Why then would a good Samaritan think they can save a COVID-19 patient clearly requiring access to hospital equipment and oxygen?
Lending Aid
While I applaud Face’s willingness to jump in, the effort ultimately proved entirely futile. Worse, not only did it prove futile, Face became infected with COVID-19 by performing his good Samaritan routine. I applaud good Samaritans willing to self-sacrifice to help out another person, but at some point, you have to logically deduce the odds of success.
For example, if the wife had been forthcoming about her husband’s COVID-19 positive test, it would have been perfectly clear that this passenger was afflicted with COVID-19 and that almost no means could impact his survival short of a hospital visit. That means this first responder would know his odds. Considering that there is very little medical equipment aboard a plane, performing CPR alone would not be enough to stem the tide of what COVID-19 is doing to this person’s body. Logically, he should have assumed COVID-19 (based entirely on this person’s symptoms) and deduced his efforts would fail. Helping is great, but not when the risk far outweighs the reward.
Let’s better understand this logical dilemma. If hospitals with access to their best doctors, best procedures, best medicines and best equipment can’t save severe COVID-19 patients under that level of distress, what makes a basic trained first responder think that performing CPR alone can?
At some point, you have to calculate the odds of success and deduce when the risk is greater than the reward. For Face, this means the unknown of how COVID-19 would impact his health. Will he survive his own infection? Could he end up in a similar situation clinging to life?
That’s what we all face in a post-COVID-19 pandemic world. We must make critical decisions that can impact our own survival.
However, this situation could have been prevented if even one person had stepped up at the airport prior to boarding, recognized his symptoms and called an ambulance to get him to a hospital. Seeing how far along that he was with COVID-19, it’s possible that even a hospital couldn’t have changed his fate. However, that everyone missed recognizing his so obvious symptoms not once, but many times all along the way is disconcerting… no, horrifying.
Ever Vigilant
As we move further and deeper into this pandemic, regardless of the vaccines, we must acknowledge this virus’s effects on the world. We must remain vigilant to those around us no matter where we are and what we are doing. What that means is that if we’re at a grocery store or restaurant or at Target (or aboard a plane), we must remain hyper aware of those around us. We need to stop, look and listen. If someone is coughing, sneezing or appears to be sweating or having any other outward signs of illness or distress, we must move as far away from that person as we can get. You must always look out for you in this pandemic. No one else is.
If you can leave the building and come back later, even better. There’s no reason to stay and risk your own health or those of your family by bringing COVID-19 home. COVID-19 is clearly a devastating illness with severe consequences. Denying that these consequences exist is a recipe for exactly what happened to both Face and that distressed passenger aboard that United Airlines flight.
Worse, every single passenger and crew aboard that same flight could potentially face testing positive for COVID-19 following that flight. There’s no telling exactly what may have flown around in the air while that passenger performed CPR. That situation is a danger to everyone aboard that flight… which means that everyone aboard that flight can now become super spreaders unless the passengers are forced to self-quarantine for at least 14 days. Yet, I haven’t heard anything about this. I’m not even sure that everyone aboard that flight is even aware of what happened. Has United Airlines contacted the CDC with the passenger manifest? Has the CDC contacted every passenger to ensure quarantine? Doubtful.
Not only did United Airlines ignore this aspect of this COVID-19 positive man’s ride aboard the flight, the airline acts like everyone who was aboard is now perfectly safe.
This is why we must ALL remain vigilant. We must step up and call out people who appear to be ill. We must stop them from boarding flights or trains or entering stores. If an airline (or manager) refuses to take action, we must refuse to board the flight and choose to take another flight. Is it really worth risking your own health for the possibility of becoming infected while on a flight, all while knowing that a coughing and sneezing passenger is three rows up from you?
Air Travel During a Pandemic
With the pandemic quickly spiraling out of control, is it the best of ideas to be hopping aboard a plane? While I know that sometimes we must travel for family emergencies or other situations out of our control, we must also acknowledge when not to travel.
Right now, traveling aboard any airliner, train or other means and which affords contact with members of the public, isn’t the smartest of ideas. Worse, many airlines have been reducing their responses to COVID-19 by increasing passenger load aboard planes while the pandemic escalates into the highest infection rates and deaths we have seen so far. While I realize a lot of people don’t believe the pandemic is real, the above United Airlines story is a stark reminder of how very real COVID-19 is.
If you don’t need to travel during the pandemic, don’t. There’s no reason to sit next to other people who may not be as vigilant or as concerned about the pandemic as you are about your health. Unfortunately, our illustrious President has entirely downplayed the seriousness of this pandemic… even going so far as to ignore the worst surging portion of the pandemic entirely over the last several weeks since the 2020 United States Presidential election. This apathy has been taken to heart by many people who believe just as our lackadaisical President.
While we can’t control what others do, we can control what we ourselves do and how we respond. That means avoiding public transportation, avoiding eating at restaurants, avoiding shopping in stores, avoiding doing outdoor activities where we come into contact with the public in close proximity and choosing to not go out unless absolutely necessary. If you need to invite someone into your home, like cleaning staff, baby sitters, plumbers or electricians, require that they wear masks the entire time they are in your home.
Quarantine Period in the Home
For anyone entering into your home whom you don’t know, such as plumbers, electricians or even maid services, they can easily bring COVID-19 into your home. It’s important that you ensure that you protect your home and family. After someone has entered your home, you should avoid the room they have visited for at least 24 hours (if possible) and open the windows to allow it to completely air out. If you can’t avoid using that room, then you may want to use Lysol or another disinfecting product to clean the surfaces they have touched. If you can wait an hour or two for the air to settle, then you can use disinfectant on surfaces to kill any viruses they may have left behind.
For maid services, you should request limited services to limit their exposure around your home. Better, suspend maid services or limit them to once a month. It can be difficult to stop emergency home services, but optional services should be limited or eliminated.
It’s difficult to foresee every single possible exposure in your home, so just use your best judgement. If someone wants to enter your home and it’s not critical for your home, reschedule for them to come back after COVID-19 has passed.
Where do we go from here?
The pandemic is not going away. It’s also very real. Should we bank on the vaccines? No. It is a stop-gap measure. At first glance, it may appear to be the pin that punctures the COVID-19 balloon, but it may simply be a small bandage. That small bandage may prevent the balloon from popping when the pin is inserted. Instead, it may allow a very slow deflation which could take years to ultimately deflate.
Ultimately, the vaccine has promise, but it has not yet proven itself to be the single thing that halts this virus in its tracks.
The only person who can keep you away from infection is you. Taking the vaccine may help and is something that may be required eventually, but only you can prevent you from becoming infected. You have to decide when and how often to go out. You must decide whether you wish to attend a gathering where the vast majority of people are not wearing masks. You must decide how important your health is to you.
For example, the distressed passenger above took it upon himself to subject hundreds of other people to COVID-19 aboard a flight knowing that he tested positive. Who in their right mind does this? It’s clear he wasn’t in his right mind. This is the mind of, at best, a sociopath… someone who puts their own goals above all else and above all others. Karma had other plans for him. Many people don’t believe in Karma and Fate. Good on them. That doesn’t mean Karma doesn’t exist.
While movies like Final Destination take Karma and Fate to ridiculous levels by setting up highly elaborate Rube Goldberg machines that ultimately result in the death of a character, Karma doesn’t work like that. Karma is the act of making the unexpected happen at the most inopportune times, mostly as a result of a careless act by the individual.
For example, if a person is in the throes of COVID-19 and is already in severe breathing distress, the reduced oxygen and pressure on a plane at a high altitude is likely to cause a cardiac episode. Why? Because the body cannot get enough oxygen to support the body’s systems. While one might not think that Karma is at work, it is. Anyone who understands how planes operate must recognize this situation. If this man had realized his own level of lung distress, he would have turned around and checked himself into a hospital, not boarded a plane. By not understanding exactly how well a plane’s oxygen functions at high altitudes, he sealed his own fate (and potentially those he infected along the way).
His stupidity coupled with Karma sealed his fate aboard that airplane. There was literally nothing that anyone could have done to prevent that situation from unfolding. You can’t resuscitate someone with that low of an oxygen saturation level. Planes do have small oxygen tanks for flight attendants to wear in case of emergency, but it is unknown if those tanks were used or even if they were enough to help. Regardless, that passenger’s fate was sealed when he stepped onboard that flight.
What this all means is that you need to know what you don’t know. In this case, what he didn’t know about how oxygen levels work on a jet ultimately killed him. As I said above, even with the best of medical care in a hospital, survival of this virus can be a problem, particularly if the body becomes that level of distressed. There was no way a random trained individual could provide the level of care necessary for a COVID-19 infected person who was that far gone. No, that distressed passenger sealed his own fate by entering that plane. He may have also callously sealed the fate of all aboard that flight by infecting them. However, Karma stepped in to intervene, but not before allowing everyone aboard that flight to potentially become infected.
Ultimately, that man will no longer be able to spread COVID-19 to others, but unfortunately at the price of he himself dying.
Denying COVID-19
COVID-19 is a real and dangerous virus. It is at least 6 times more deadly than cold and flu viruses combined. For those who continue to deny that COVID-19 is a real, I feel for you. I don’t understand that level of delusion, but I can feel for you and pity you. The phrase “Ignorance is bliss” only holds true when that ignorance leads to something other than death. When death is involved, ignorance is most definitely NOT bliss.
However, for those folks who are willing to attend rallies and gatherings without masks, who visit bars and party like it’s 1999 and who choose to “Throw caution to the wind”, then there’s an award for that… The Darwin Award. If you bring COVID-19 down upon yourself by choosing to ignore your own personal safety and then subsequently die, then a Darwin Award waiting for you on the other end. Too bad you won’t be able to accept it when you’re pushing up daisies.
As the author of this blog, I’m perfectly okay with that. In fact, I wholeheartedly endorse allowing these folks to become infected. If they can survive, fine. If they die for their own stupidity, then the gene pool has been cleansed of yet another stupid person.
People can be kept from their own folly for only so long. Eventually, people succumb to their own bias and prejudices and will do whatever they feel they must. If that means hanging out at a bar with others drinking and cavorting in close proximity, well then “Hello, Mr. COVID”. If that leads to a Darwin Award, so be it.
I don’t wish harm on others, but I also won’t keep people from their own fate and folly. It’s not my place to tell people how to live their lives. However, I can write advice articles like this to inform. How someone utilizes this knowledge is entirely on them. If that knowledge is ignored, that’s perfectly fine.
I write these articles to relay my own knowledge and experience. My blogging goal is to use my knowledge and experience to help others become just even the wee bit wiser. If that happens for even one person, then I’ve done my job. I can’t save the world, but I can help save those who wish to read these articles and learn from my experiences on this earth.
Anyone who chooses to deny and ignore COVID-19 as though it doesn’t exist deserves whatever fate befalls them… that fate which has arisen from that ignorance. I shrug and walk away from those people. There’s nothing I can do for those who wish to remain ignorant. Darwin has other plans for them.
Full Circle
To circle back around, if you are a medical professional or a trained first responder, you need to rethink your own involvement with COVID-19 distressed individuals outside of a hospital setting. The only exception is ambulance drivers. These are not only trained professionals, they have a mobile hospital at their fingertips. They can then transport the distressed individual to the hospital quickly for further treatment. Outside of an ambulance setting, attempting CPR on a distressed COVID-19 patient at 30,000 feet up is not likely to succeed.
Everyone must be smart enough to calculate the odds of a COVID-19 breathing distressed patient. Even hospitals with their vast array of medicines, equipment and expertise can’t save every COVID-19 patient in distress. At some point, the patient must be left to see if their own body will overcome the illness. In the case of the distressed COVID-19 patient aboard the United Airlines flight, there was almost no way to save that person with the extremely limited amount of medicines, medical equipment and expertise aboard that airliner.
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Should I get vaccinated for COVID-19?
This is a very good question, but the answer may not be as simple as you think. Let’s explore.
[Updated Aug 1, 2021] This article was written in December of 2020 when the vaccines were first introduced and still new. However, the vaccines have at least proven their safety record. Meaning, taking the shot, even if it doesn’t work as intended (which it likely will), has an infinitesimally low chance of harming you. The point here is that it’s now been long enough to see both the good and bad side effects.
To that effort, there have been some negative side effects associated with the J&J vaccine, including the possibility for blood clotting in some individuals. Moderna and Pfizer’s shots also aren’t free from side effects, including heart inflammation in some younger adults apparently under the age of 29. There’s also the possibility of rare allergic reactions, but that can be said of lots of medications. If you have had allergic reactions to other medicines, including any immunization shots, you should consult with your doctor before having the COVID shot.
Whether the shot is truly and completely effective against all current and future COVID variants is a matter of debate and may depend on how much longer these surges persist. Even the Delta variant seems to be giving the vaccines a challenge. However, it does seem that so long as your vaccination is still in effect and offering you antibodies, if you contract COVID-19, the symptoms should be reduced to much more manageable, less severe levels… thus, keeping you out of the hospital and off of a ventilator. That’s at least a good thing.
With the recent surge of the Delta variant and its associated uptick in cases after the July 4th holiday gatherings (almost as a directly result of these gatherings) coupled with the CDC’s guidelines to drop masking and distancing requirements for those who are vaccinated, this left the remaining 60% of the unvaccinated population fully susceptible to another Pandemic surge and even those susceptible vaccinated people. The CDC’s drop in masking and distancing guidelines was far too premature. It was the CDC’s hubris and unwise decision which has almost directly and irresponsibly led to this uptick in cases of the Delta variant. The CDC’s guidelines dropped just over 1 month prior to July 4th (middle of May). As a result, many people took the CDC’s change in guidelines as a “blessing” that “COVID was over”. Clearly, COVID is not over and it never was. The CDC’s stance should have remained cautious, not exceedingly optimistic. The CDC should always be working towards public health and safety interests, not against it. Hubris doesn’t belong anywhere near the CDC. The CDC should have left its masking guidelines in place until at least holidays, if not longer. Dropping their guidelines immediately prior to one of the biggest summer holidays, as I said, intentionally left the 60% unvaccinated population fully susceptible to COVID-19. So, here we are with surges in every state as of this update.
Worse, the CDC (and other medical professionals) kept espousing an unproven (and now false) assumption that those who have been vaccinated could “rarely” transmit the virus to others. We now know that transmission assumption has been proven false to which the CDC has even admitted, thus forcing the CDC to rethink its masking guidelines in indoor spaces for vaccinated and unvaccinated alike.
Unfortunately, the genie is out of the bottle. State’s leaders who have likewise rolled back their mask mandates, also against public health and safety interests were based, in part, on the CDC’s drop in guidelines. This means that even though the CDC has recently (as of July 27th) walked its guidance backwards and is now, once again, asking ALL people (vaxxed or not) to mask up in indoor public spaces. It’s too late. The CDC should have predicted this outcome before dropping its guidelines. Few are actually masking up now. As I said, the genie is out of the bottle and it doesn’t want to go back in. Worse, the general public is now wary of listening to anyone to mask back up, especially not listening are those who are vaccinated, who feel they are “invincible”. If we want to stop the virus, we have to stop being selfish and mask up. The point in masking isn’t to protect YOU, it’s to protect others FROM YOU. It is a reciprocal arrangement that works so long as everyone wears masks. As long as the vast majority refuse to wear masks, this pandemic will continue unabated…. yes, even eventually working around the vaccines. To stop this pandemic, we must stop the transmission. That can’t happen while people refuse to wear masks.
To those who claim that if we get to 99% vaccination rate that this will all stop, I say, “Let’s wait and see.” That’s, once again, being overly optimistic and offering up unnecessary hubris. It’s clear, this virus is resilient and it wants to propagate. Even were everyone to become vaccinated, I believe this virus would mutate and figure out a way around it, just like the Flu virus does. This is why no one should be touting the vaccine as a magical cure. It isn’t. It’s a stepping stone to getting out of the pandemic, but only if all of the correct pieces also fall into place around the vaccine. Getting us out of the pandemic will require multiple pieces of this health jigsaw puzzle, including best practices, distancing, masking, limiting gatherings and so on…. in addition to the vaccine. The vaccine cannot bring us out of this pandemic alone.
Onto the article…
COVID-19 Pandemic
COVID-19 is clearly the news of the year. It is a virus with an approximate 6% mortality rate for at-risk individuals. What that means is that for every 100 people infected, around 6 people will die from contracting it. That’s a 94% survival rate. While 6% seems low, it’s high when considering the number of people infected so far. By comparison, let’s consider that the Flu’s mortality rate is about 0.1 percent. To see one death to Influenza would take 1000 infections.
Let’s consider that there are around 330 million people in the United States. We’ll go with this number for calculations, but the population of the United States may now be closer to 350 million people as of 2020. Let’s consider that 2% of 330 million is 6.6 million deaths and 6% is 19.8 million deaths. If the range of mortality swings from 2% to 6%, that’s somewhere more than 6 million and less than 20 million dead due to COVID-19 if the majority of the United States population becomes infected. That’s a lot of dead people… way more than from Influenza and colds combined.
COVID-19 was identified by China on December 31st, 2019 to the World Health Organization. However, the virus may have been in circulation as early as mid-November 2019. This means that the virus could have been circulating the globe since late November 2019.
Statistics
As of this article, COVID-19 has claimed the lives of nearly 290,000 people in the United States. Compared against the reported number of infections of 15.5 million, that’s an approximate 1.9% mortality rate. That may seem lower than the 6% high, but that’s partly because hospitals have had time to reduce the mortality rate under their care. It’s also that during the summer into fall, those who tested positive were younger adults whose survival rate is much higher than older adults and those at risk.
Unfortunately, the Spring statistics when the virus first appeared showed the mortality rate much closer to that 6% number than it is today. There are many reasons for this change, but suffice it to say that survival of the virus isn’t going up specifically. It’s that the age (and survival rate) of those infected during the summer have skewed the numbers of dead in a lower direction. Though, medical workers have also had some time to help work through better treatment options which may have had some impact on survival in some cases, including the use of Remdesivir. The only way to know the true mortality rate is for the virus to spread through the entire population of the U.S. before we can really know the survivability statistics.
Vaccination
One other way to alter the survivability is by developing a vaccine that can help our susceptible and fragile human bodies build up immunity to this virus before exposure. To that end, pharmaceutical companies are hard at work fast tracking human vaccines that have been tested (albeit with limited trials) for their effectiveness.
Unfortunately, fast tracking a drug through the United States system is fraught with peril. Most drugs go through years of many clinical trials and FDA approval processes before being allowed to be sold within the United States. This is the way the FDA works. Years of clinical trials ensures that each drug’s side effects are mostly documented and known. Fast tracking a vaccine through the system means that while the efficacy of the drug may be somewhat proven, the long term side effects have not at all been tested. Long term testing of side effects cannot happen when a drug maker has a few months to formulate a product and a few weeks to test it.
Side Effects
What all of this means is that these vaccines may have unintended side effects that could appear weeks, months or even years later. In fact, these long term effects could lead to cancer or any number of other deadly diseases or medical conditions. These vaccines are simply untested and unknown how far or deep these unintended side effects may go.
Sure, it’s great that a rushed vaccine may (or may not) produce an immunity to COVID-19 (we’ll come to this point in another section below), but at the cost of what future medical reality? Do you really want to be the first to jump out of a sinking boat into another sinking boat simply because it looks like it isn’t?
This isn’t saying the COVID-19 vaccines aren’t effective. They may very well be. But, we also don’t know what else may come to those who cannot wait. If you take the vaccine and then a month later develop a nerve disorder, then what? The damage has already been done. You can’t un-vaccinate yourself. Once you take the vaccine, it’s a done deal. The cards fall where they may. If that means that you become debilitated by a separate disease, then you’re stuck with that choice for the rest of your life.
Waiting Game
What I’m stating is that this is a game of wait and see. What I mean is that we’ve waited this long for a vaccine, we can wait a little longer. Being the first person to have that needle stuck in your arm may mean future health problems. We simply don’t know what’s in store with this vaccine.
What I’m advocating is waiting to see how the early adopters fare. Let them be the guinea pigs to inject themselves. Let those early adopters jeopardize their health first. When you’re buying an Apple product, the 1.0 version is always literally the worst version to buy. It’s never ready to go day one. The same exists for this vaccine.
Can it get worse?
After all of the above, it can still get worse. Considering that the vaccines for COVID-19 currently being formulated are explicitly designed to trigger an immune system response, there’s always a danger. First, it could trigger the wrong response in the body. The below documentary describes a clinical trial for an immuno-mucking drug which ultimately led to a Cytokine Storm in almost every trial participant, which in-turn nearly killed every participant in the trial. If the trial had been performed in any place other than in a very large hospital under hospital auspices, the trial may have been lethal.
Second, consider that when taking this vaccine, you’re likely to leave that medical facility the very same day without any further monitoring. You’re going to head home or back to work or out shopping immediately. If your body spirals into a cytokine storm half an hour after taking the vaccine, it could be fatal before you ever reach a hospital. You won’t be at a hospital for them to notice and treat you. Even then, hospital staff aren’t likely to determine that it’s a cytokine storm reaction. Instead, they’re likely to admit you under the guise of COVID-19 and then treat you as if you have COVID-19… that even assumes that with the overcrowding of hospitals to COVID-19, that you can even be admitted and treated. If the hospital misdiagnoses the cytokine storm, it could be fatal. Even respected journals have published theories discussing cytokine storms as a possible outcome from a COVID-19 infection. In fact, it is supposed that many of the deaths from COVID-19 may, in fact, be because of a cytokine storm.
If an adverse reaction occurs after taking a COVID-19 vaccine, the hospitals may not have any beds to treat you. Yet a third reason why it may not be a great idea to take the vaccine during this hospital overcrowding situation. Considering the unknowns surrounding these vaccines, it may be medically wise to consider all options, including waiting to take the vaccine until a time when hospitals are far less crowded.
You don’t want to be first in-line and then end up in the hospital hours later clinging to life because your body’s immune response has overreacted to the vaccine and your organs are shutting down.
Realities, Theories and Promises
It’s always wise to consider all options before you jump into anything that requires poking a needle into your arm. Anything that is something you haven’t taken before is always a risk. These vaccines are particularly at risk because not only were they rushed to market, not only were they not fully clinically trialed, not only does this vaccine muck with immune system responses, not only does it claim efficacy, it may not even work as promised and may have unknown side effects.
The theories surrounding the method of action for these vaccines is that these vaccines are designed to elicit the same immuno-response as COVID-19 in the body. That’s the theory (and the promise). If the formulations are off, if the quality control is suspect, if the manufacturer can’t replicate the vaccine properly, if the vaccine is improperly stored, it can lead to all sorts of complications. This is the reason it’s important to consider all options before being stuck with a needle.
You don’t want to find out that your body rejects the vaccine and now you’re in a life or death struggle. But, that’s an immediate response. What about long term responses? We simply don’t know what those are. The vaccine companies and doctors are espousing exactly how “safe” these vaccines are, but they’re speaking out of turn. In reality, they have no idea how safe or effective these vaccines actually are.
Even if the best case is that the vaccine does exactly what it claims (and there’s a chance it won’t on at least some percentage of the population), it may turn out that the vaccine’s effects only lasts for 3 or 4 months. That’s effectively the same as wearing SPF in the sun where you have to reapply it every 30 minutes. Yes, SPF works, but at the cost of constantly reapplying it. Same for this vaccine. Unless a vaccine lasts for years, it’s not really a vaccine. It’s a drug. If you’re required to re-administer this “drug” every 2 months, that’s not really a useful product. Worse, you’ll end up exposing yourself to this drug every 2 months which increases the risk of short and long term side effects with each dose.
We simply don’t know how long this “vaccine” lasts. Taking this shot every 60 days is really not an option. I’m sure the pharmaceutical companies would love this for money making purposes, but heading to the doctor’s office for constant shots is not an option.
As a result of the rapid testing, there’s no way to know just how long the antibodies will last in the body. We could also find that in just a few months, a new strain of COVID-19 has taken hold, invalidating this “vaccine”. It’s impossible to know much about the effectiveness of this vaccine.
Risks vs Reward
Yet, CNN and other so-called “health correspondents” vigorously advocate the use of the vaccine and completely downplay all of the above concerns.
The risk with this vaccine is that it does nothing to stem the tide of COVID-19 deaths. That taking it was all for naught. We can certainly go through the charade of an ineffective vaccine, but what may come out of it is, at best, little. At worst, even more death.
We have to weigh which is more problematic, COVID-19 or the vaccine itself. I’m sure the pharmaceutical companies have formulated this vaccine with the best of intentions. We know how that proverb goes…
that and Murphy’s Law…
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong
Rushing to produce anything medical is fraught with unknown consequences. It is these exact unknown consequences that may very well lead us down the road to hell.
Way Down The List?
If you’re way down the list of vaccine recipients, consider yourself lucky. Those who are most at risk will be the ones who will test both Murphy’s Law and this proverb. The difficulty is that it is the front line medical workers and those most at risk earmarked for the first batches of the vaccine.
If the vaccine has consequences which are as yet unknown, complications for our front line workers could turn our hospital systems into ghost towns. If even 10% of the medical workers die as a result of unknown consequences from being vaccinated, that will leave our hospital systems unable to cope with the the mounting COVID-19 illnesses, let alone those who are ill strictly from the vaccines (see next section for more details).
These vaccines are very much an unknown risk. COVID-19 is a risk, but it is known. Which risk is better? I’ll have to let you decide. If you feel the risks of taking the vaccine are being overinflated here, then by all means go have a poke. If you’re cautious about your own body, then you may want to wait until others have jabbed themselves first. Never in the history of never has a vaccine been produced this rapidly. We just can’t know what we don’t know. Only after a first batch of vaccines have been widely disseminated and administered with few ill effects will I personally feel more confident about these vaccine risks.
That doesn’t necessarily mean the vaccine’s efficacy will fare as well as its safety record, however. The vaccine might prove to be safe and not at all risky, but how well (or long) that it is able to fend off COVID-19 has not yet been determined. For the efficacy, we will have to wait at least several months to determine.
Front Line Medical Workers and Vaccination
[Updated: 12/16/2020] Here’s a point that’s highly concerning and I thought needed more detailed discussion. Since the powers that be have decided that the front line medical workers will be the first in line to get the Pfizer vaccine, this could set the United States up for a huge future medical system failure. I can’t sugar coat this next part at all. Should an unknown medical condition rear its ugly head a month after these vaccines have been administered and incapacitate or kill many of these front line medical workers, that could leave our hospitals in a huge problematic state. As I said above, even a 10% reduction in the front line medical workers could devastate our hospital system so much so that they can no longer function.
It’s not like medical schools are ready to graduate 10% more medical students into the system who are “ready to go”. If such a problem grows way beyond 10%, then it’ll become an epic disaster. Any unforeseen problem with these vaccines could quite literally decapitate our hospital system leaving not only a disaster in this vaccine, but thousands of people without the medical care they need just as COVID-19 is ramping up to be the worst medical disaster in recent history.
Basically, if we think COVID-19 is bad now, such a vaccine failure could decimate the United States’s ability to medically handle this escalating pandemic. With such a vaccine failure, it’ll be almost impossible to foresee how much worse it will get with the loss of 10% of our front line medical workers. Let’s not even discuss the devastating blow to investors that will be laid bare on Wall Street. Considering that politicians also want to be first in line, such a vaccine failure could devastate our election and Capital Hill.
Note that the above is not intended to predict anything. In fact, these are suppositions… what if scenarios. We may find that the vaccine is perfectly safe and entirely efficacious. However, considering how rushed-to-market these vaccines are, such a vaccine failure is not at all out of the realm of possibility. In fact, simply because this failure possibility exists, I have to grit my teeth every time I see some random medical doctor on CNN or Fox News or any other news program espousing just how safe and efficacious these vaccines allegedly are. Worse, these alleged “medical professionals” completely downplay the above possibility. Even news networks which have been extremely biased towards specific politicians have completely ignored this possibility.
If I had been in charge over who gets the first vaccine doses, I would not dose every front line medical professional. Instead, I would temper that decision by giving it only to a critically short list. Any hospital professionals who are not directly in contact with COVID-19 patients should wait until we know if the vaccine has any unforeseen consequences. Dosing every front line medical worker could accidentally leave not only hospitals in the lurch, but other critical front line industries severely short on staff, like pharmacies, grocery stores and other critical industry workers.
If we think COVID-19 is bad today, a vaccine failure could take COVID-19 to a whole new level of survival… way beyond the devastation that we presently face today.
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What to write?
In the midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic, I’ve found being a blog author has become extremely difficult. While I love video gaming (and I’ve written a number of articles on this topic), COVID-19 has put a crimp on being a blog author… at least for me. Let’s explore.
The Pandemic’s Effects
I love writing this blog. I do. However, it seems that every time I decide to write an article, the pandemic weighs it down like a wet blanket making the article trivial by comparison. It makes it difficult, then, to write articles that are either directly or indirectly about the pandemic. If the article is not about the pandemic, the content seems somehow trivialized by it. If the article is directly about the pandemic, then this blog has gotten off track of being Randocity… or random thoughts.
And, it gets worse.
As more and more people find themselves out of work, as the economy drops deeper and deeper into recession, as people find themselves homeless or evicted, writing these blog articles seems some how trivialized by all of this… which then makes it difficult for me to continue writing in the midst of this pandemic. Yet, I still want to.
For me to pretend that nothing is going on in the world, in similar form to our present illustrious orange President, is disingenuous or, worse, delusional.
I want to write about everyday things, but unfortunately this pandemic is making this difficult in so many ways… the first being that even heading out to the store itself is fraught with peril. In other words, every time I head out to the store, I place myself in peril of contracting COVID-19. For every store or restaurant interaction I have, it’s basically playing Russian Roulette. Eventually, one of those interactions will lead to a personal infection. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.
This situation goes for everyone, not just myself.
Denials and Facemasks
I still see people every day denying COVID-19, its effects on the economy and on the country’s health. I see people espousing not wearing masks and claiming that it’s all a big hoax. That the pandemic is somehow fake and being perpetuated by fake news. This is extremely delusional. I understand the want to deny it all. I get it. To deny it means that people can go about their everyday lives without thinking about the pandemic. That’s very enticing, but not at all realistic or healthy.
Unfortunately, personally denying COVID won’t stop the broader and bigger economic effects. It also won’t stop people from dying from COVID. Those situations are already in play. Governors are enforcing mask and shutdown orders. Hospitals are seeing patient spikes to the point of breaking. These are facts that cannot be denied. Sure, people can bury their heads in the sand, like an Ostrich, but that will not stop the economic impacts already in play by our country’s leaders.
If this situation were fake, would hospitals be overrun by COVID? Would Governors be ordering systemic business shutdowns? Would people be dying from COVID in greater numbers than any other current disease within the US?
Topics and Trivialities
For this reason, writing a blog about topics that don’t acknowledge the seriousness of the present United States situation seems disingenuous. It also makes writing blog article topics extremely difficult… like discussing the latest, greatest Apple tablet or Wearable or PS5 console release. These are luxury items that, while they make our lives easier and better, do nothing to solve our current economic situation nor this medical crisis.
Even watching current TV shows where the fantasy of living without COVID still prevails also seems disingenuous. On the one hand, we all want to remember the days when we didn’t wear masks, where we could visit an amusement park, restaurant or social gathering without worry. We want those days back… and eventually we will get them back, but not before this purge is complete.
85% Herd Immunity
One question that is continually asked is when the U.S. (and the world) will see herd immunity for real? The answer to this question is when at least 85% of the population is vaccinated or has survived COVID-19. Only after this 85% number will this virus become a thing of the past for the United States and, indeed, the world. However, we are a LONG way off from that 85% number… way WAY off from that.
At present, the United States has seen maybe 4-5% of its entire ~330 million population infected. That means ~95% of the population of the US still remains uninfected. That’s literally a crap ton of people who haven’t become infected.
Some people contend that there’s a whole lot more infections that haven’t been included in the counts, perhaps as much as 10% of the population. If that 10% estimate were true, there would be a whole lot of dead bodies somewhere as COVID-19 kills between 4-6% of everyone infected. At 10%, that would be around 33 million people infected. At a 5% mortality rate from COVID, that 33 million worth of infections would mean 1.65 million dead bodies somewhere… in addition to those who have already been counted as dead.
Yeah, I don’t think so. Logically, we are no where near the 10% infected rate because the dead bodies aren’t yet lining the sidewalks of major metropolitan cities. You can’t just hide 1.65 million dead bodies. These grim statistics are a sad reminder of the times we live in and how far we have not yet come with COVID-19.
The Count Rises and Vaccines Dawn
Considering the above, the present population of the United States is 330-350 million people. 5% of 330 million is 16.5 million dead bodies. But, you say, “What about the vaccines?”
The vaccines give us hope, but not necessarily answers… yet. The theory is that the vaccines and clinical trials have focused in having the body produce antibodies against COVID-19. The difficulty is that these vaccines were only tested against the antibody production. While some vaccine trial participants may have come into contact with COVID-19, the vast majority of these trial participants were not exposed to COVID-19 has part of the trial. Instead, the trial focused on having the immune system produce an immune response against the vaccine’s included foreign invader.
If the vaccine makers got it wrong, miscalculated or made even the tiniest of mistake in their assumptions, then the vaccines are worthless. We’re literally banking the farm on a vaccine that has not really been tested against COVID-19 for real… other than by accident. In other words, the clinical trials have provided mostly anecdotal evidence of efficacy.
The vaccine makers really don’t know how effective their COVID-19 vaccine will be against the real virus. Trial participants were not exposed to a live form of the virus, but were only tested for production of antibodies from what’s included in the vaccine. The presence of antibodies, or more specifically, the antibodies triggered by the vaccine, may not protect us from the actual COVID-19 virus. The assumption is that the generated antibodies will help reduce the severity of the live virus. This logical assumption is all “best guess” based on past virus behavior and that the produced antibodies will counteract COVID-19 when contracted.
In other words, vaccine makers really do not have any idea if the vaccine will be ultimately be effective or even minimally effective, let alone how long it may remain effective. The rush to get the vaccine out the door leaves gaping holes which would otherwise be filled by proper long term testing during clinical trials… holes that cannot be filled properly when this vaccine is being tested and released so rapidly.
Side Effects & Long Term Health Concerns
Going beyond the speedy nature of releasing the vaccines rapidly comes with other health concerns. The bottom line is, without long term clinical trials, there’s no way to know what longer term health effects might result from taking any or all of the vaccines. Do you really want to be inline for something that hasn’t been properly tested?
I get it, particularly for front line medical workers. Any protection is likely better than zero protection. But, which is more of a risk / threat, COVID-19 or the vaccine? This is a very difficult question to answer. I know that the drug companies are trying to do their level best to produce a functional and effective vaccine. However, cutting corners to get this vaccine out the door, particularly when it comes to long term testing is ripe for future health problems.
However, I’m sure the government will absolve all of these vaccine makers from all liability as a result of releasing these vaccines so rapidly. This means that should you end up with cancer or heart disease or organ failure as a result of taking the vaccine, you won’t have any legal recourse.
Rushing to produce anything, especially a drug, is ripe for health problems. We simply do not know what long term effects may arise from the use of these vaccines. Unfortunately, this virus is so prevalent and virulent and is causing so much economic havoc, the government may be forced to require every United States citizen to be vaccinated, thus ensuring all of the negative outcomes that arise from these rapidly released vaccines.
It all comes down to whether the vaccine works as advertised. We could find even after inoculating the entire United States population that COVID-19 still manages to kill millions… rendering the vaccine worthless. Ultimately, these vaccines are effectively the medical version of rolling the dice. It’s also not merely rolling the dice one time, however. It’s rolling the dice several times successively and hoping each and every time that we see a 7 or 11 with every single roll. What are the odds in that without using loaded dice? Just ask any craps dealer in Vegas.
The New Normal
Blogging in this new world reality makes it difficult, as a blog author, to come up with ideas that don’t seem trivialized and irrelevant by the world situation. I have found it exceedingly difficult to write about the latest Apple watch, the best new printer, the PS5 or even Hue bulbs without considering this new world normal. When I put keyboard to page and begin filling in this white space with words, with each and every word I write I have to consider the present disruption in our world lifestyle.
Even watching QVC and HSN shopping channels, I see just how naïve these channels seem when trying to hawk jeans, leggings, nail polish or a Chromebook in the midst of this pandemic. Computers are useful, particularly to keep up with the news. But the rest? Yeah. The only thing that QVC and HSN can tout is contact-free shopping. Unfortunately, their deals are not always that great… meaning, you can get better deals at brick and mortar retail stores. The difficulty comes in having to enter a store and put your health at risk to buy one of these in-store deals.
Gaming
Taking this a step further, Sony and Microsoft have recently released new consoles, the PS5 and Xbox Series X, respectively. Unfortunately, it’s really a bad time to release these consoles. Game studios must rethink how to hire and manage their game development staff amidst the resurgence of COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations. Companies must now retool how to hire staff, how to work on products and how to ensure these products function all while keeping their staff safe and healthy.
In fact, we likely won’t see the full effect of COVID-19 for at least 2-3 years within the gaming industry. The PS5 and the Xbox Series X are likely to have very slow starts as a result. The next gen games that usually hit the stores 2 years after a new console release may not hit stores for 3-4 years due to the pandemic. This means that to buy into a PS5 or an Xbox Series X now could mean a LOT of dead shelf time for these consoles. The PS4 had about 9 months of dead shelf time when the console basically had only a handful of games available. For the PS5, that dearth of games could extend to 18 months or longer. If developers can’t get together as teams and work to solve gaming problems remotely, then this new normal may mean extended development times by A LOT. In fact, COVID-19 may put some of these game studios out of business.
In a year or two, managers may be able to work through the kinks of a remote workforce, but in the few months since COVID-19 appeared, managers are just barely getting a handle on it. Even then, many managers intensely despise having remote workers and prefer to have people’s butts in an leased office chair and firmly sitting behind a desk.
Work from Home Policies
This remove working paradigm MUST shift or any company may perish, literally. COVID-19 can see to that. Companies can no longer force people to bring their butt into the office when that action may jeopardize the health of not only themselves, but the health of everyone they come into contact with. Worse, because many office buildings have toxic ventilation systems, these systems ensure the spread of COVID-19 throughout the entire building. Just one person, one sneeze and hundreds may become infected. Office building ventilation systems are some of the worst, most disgusting, most non-hygienic systems ever designed. Many office buildings are worse that you think.
Yet, office managers don’t take this complication into account when they lease their office space. Instead, they lease based on monthly spend and based on space required. They don’t take into account proper building ventilation or the health of the workers based on this.
Case in point, I spent the better part of 5 years in a 6 story building. In all of those 5 years being employed at that company, I’d contracted maybe 2 colds and no flu. In fact, I contracted most of those in my first year, with nothing during the remaining 4 years. Later, I accepted a new job in a 16 floor office building. In the first year, I had contracted at least 3 colds, had two separate bouts of bronchitis and the flu at least once. After quitting, I no longer got sick. The ventilation system was entirely toxic. In that building, it only took on person coughing or sneezing on the second floor and those droplets traveled throughout the entire building to infect someone even on the 11th floor. As I said, the building was basically a toxic petri dish.
As an employee, these are uncontrollable situations you are forced into when you accept a job in some office buildings. You simply don’t know how toxic your company’s leased office space is until you come down with illnesses frequently.
It also didn’t help matters that my company refused to offer paid sick time. Instead, if you needed sick time off, you were required to use your PTO. This meant people didn’t. It meant co-workers chose to head into the office with colds or flu and whatever other malady, which forced them to spread it around the office to others. Because the ventilation system in this building was already piss poor, it meant anyone susceptible would be exposed even if you were on the other side of the building (or even on another floor) from the sick person. It’s part of the reason I had to quit that job. The building’s toxic ventilation system left me with no other choice as, at the time, there was no work-at-home option and no way to rectify that toxic office space environment. Although, there were some manager problems that also could not be resolved, the constantly being sick played into my decision.
In a way, I’m glad I’d quit that job long before COVID-19 appeared. Otherwise, I’m fairly certain that I likely would have gotten it simply because of that toxic office building environment. In fact, I wasn’t even sure who I could have approached at that company to discuss this toxic building environment. It’s not like they would have made the decision to move office buildings strictly because of my single complaint.
Blogging amid COVID-19
Taking a full circle back to how this article began, I’ve given a few reasons why it’s now difficult for me to blog about trivial luxury conveniences amidst the seriousness of this pandemic. I’d love to write an article and offer a way to rid the world of COVID-19. I’d love to write an article that can solve the world’s ills. Unfortunately, COVID-19 is a virus that doesn’t have an easy or fast answer. Even masks offer limited effectiveness.
While I respect you as a reader and want to offer you interesting information and content, I don’t want to trivialize COVID-19’s effects on the world. I don’t want to write blog articles that ignore COVID-19 or make it seem like I’m not taking COVID-19 seriously.
I actually DO take COVID-19 seriously. I do wear a mask when shopping. I limit when I go out and how often. I only go to the store whenever it’s absolutely necessary. I try to stock up on food with each trip. When I choose to eat restaurant food, I do it infrequently, always take the food to go and make sure to wash my hands after each and every trip out. I also take a full shower after I’ve stepped back into the house for the day before heading to bed. I also wash my clothes if I know the clothes have come into contact with anything suspicious (chairs, tables, baskets, carts, etc). I prefer to wear gloves when I’m out and about, particularly at the grocery store.
Whenever I bring my grocery items home, I still wash them and sometimes allow them to sit for several days before using. With mask mandates in most stores these days, this has become less of an issue. But, I’d still rather be overly cautious than risk my own health and the health of those around me.
Future of Randocity
For now, I’m still planning on blogging, producing how-to articles, video gaming articles, movie reviews and various other information when it seems appropriate. However, I will refer readers to this article when discussing how seriously this blog author is addressing the COVID-19 pandemic.
Before I proceed with any further articles, I wanted to write this content to get this information out there and get this off of my chest. It’s difficult not to take this world situation seriously. Yet, I still see many who call it fake or a hoax or deny that it’s a problem. It is none of these. COVID-19 is a virus. It will attack the body like any other virus. It will kill people, like the Influenza. However, it’s much more deadly than any other virus we’ve yet seen. It is a serious virus and it should be taken seriously.
I won’t necessarily write about COVID-19 with each and every article. However, I will refer back to this article whenever someone comments that Randocity is not taking the pandemic seriously. The pandemic is a serious situation. It concerns everyone everywhere, even if not in the United States.
Considering the statistical numbers of infected so far, this virus has the ability to kill at least 5% of the United States which is 16.5 million people dead. At the present ~280k death toll, that’s just 1.6% of the potential 16.5 million dead. So, yes, Randocity takes this pandemic seriously. It’s not a joke. It’s not funny. It’s not a hoax.
When I write an article about a camera or Kickstarter or a Movie Review or a How-To article or a video game or any other topic that doesn’t discuss COVID-19, this blog is acutely aware of this pandemic and its affects on so many families and the economy. With that said, I don’t want this blog to become solely about COVID-19, however. I want this blog to remain focused on random thoughts and random ideas. I want to be able to discuss all sorts of ideas here, including COVID-19, when appropriate.
With that all said, I will continue to write about whatever thoughts come to my head including technology that’s interesting and products that I have tried.
If you’re reading this and you’re struggling to get through 2020, I completely feel for your situation. I realize that so many families may be on the brink of eviction because of the job situation. It’s difficult for all of us, including myself. My situation may be better than some, but don’t think that I’m not feeling the pinch from COVID-19, just as so many of us are.
End of the Year Thanks
I have to assume that by reading this article, you are a loyal reader. For those who have been reading this blog from when this blog began as well as any new readers, I want to sincerely thank you for following and continuing to read the articles I write here on Randocity. I also wish the best of health to you and your family for this holiday season.
If you enjoy Randocity’s articles, I’d like to ask you for a favor. Please like and share these articles with your friends and family. Since you like this blog, perhaps your friends and family will too. The more you share this blog, the more it helps me continue to produce content like this as well as future content. I love to write this blog and I want to continue doing so, but I need a little bit of your help to share the word.
Please consider sharing on on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. These are excellent locations to help me with getting the word out about Randocity. Again, I thank you for reading and here’s to a much, much better and brighter 2021. Happy Holidays!
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