FBI Says Covid-19 Most Likely A Leak From Lab

[Shadow Wolf]

In 2022, the stats did shift - to most people dying from COVID being vaccinated.

Why Do Vaccinated People Represent Most COVID-19 Deaths Right Now? | KFF

This post explores why the share of COVID-19 deaths among those who are vaccinated has risen, Factors include a rising share of the population that is vaccinated, waning immune protection and low uptake of boosters, and changes in immunity among the unvaccinated.

www.kff.org

That's very doubtful, especially as the CDC itself does not claim that.

COVID-19 Incidence and Death Rates Among Unvaccinated ...

This report describes higher protection against COVID-19 infection and death among people who received an updated booster than people who received a monovalent booster.

www.cdc.gov

unvaccinated persons had higher COVID-19 mortality and infection rates than persons receiving bivalent doses (mortality RR = 14.1 and infection RR = 2.8) and to a lesser extent persons vaccinated with only monovalent doses (mortality RR = 5.4 and infection RR = 2.5). Among older adults, mortality rates among unvaccinated persons were significantly higher than among those who had received a bivalent booster (65–79 years; RR = 23.7 and ≥80 years; 10.3) or a monovalent booster (65–79 years; 8.3 and ≥80 years; 4.2). In a second analysis stratified by time since booster vaccination, there was a progressive decline from the Delta period (RR = 50.7) to the early BA.4/BA.5 period (7.4) in relative COVID-19 mortality rates among unvaccinated persons compared with persons receiving who had received a monovalent booster within 2 weeks–2 months. During the early BA.4/BA.5 period, declines in relative mortality rates were observed at 6–8 (RR = 4.6), 9–11 (4.5), and ≥12 (2.5) months after receiving a monovalent booster. In contrast, bivalent boosters received during the preceding 2 weeks–2 months improved protection against death (RR = 15.2) during the late BA.4/BA.5 period. In both analyses, when compared with unvaccinated persons, persons who had received bivalent boosters were provided additional protection against death over monovalent doses or monovalent boosters. Restored protection was highest in older adults. All persons should stay up to date with COVID-19 vaccination, including receipt of a bivalent booster by eligible persons, to reduce the risk for severe COVID-19.
...Overall mortality rates among unvaccinated persons were 14.1 times the rates among bivalent vaccine recipients; mortality rates among monovalent-only vaccine recipients were 2.6 times the rates among bivalent vaccine recipients during the late BA.4/BA.5 period.

 

[SkepticThinker]

And disabled folk because **** the disabled! Not like they dont make up a 4th of the US population or anything. Granted I don't know how many disabled folk have disorders that would make covid worse but that's how many disabled folk are in the US a fourth.

Yep, they're expendable. Money is much more important.

 

[Subduction Zone]

That's very doubtful, especially as the CDC itself does not claim that.

COVID-19 Incidence and Death Rates Among Unvaccinated ...

This report describes higher protection against COVID-19 infection and death among people who received an updated booster than people who received a monovalent booster.

www.cdc.gov

Actually it might be the case. But with 95% of the elderly being vaccinated at least once, then if the vaccines did not work at all they would be 95% of the deaths from covid among the elderly. With a high enough percentage vaccinated sooner or later there will be more vaccinated people dying than unvaccinated. Just as most people who die in car accidents were wearing seatbelts. That is because the vast majority of people were seatbelts these days. It is not because seatbelts do not work. That 5% of the unvaccinated elderly is a very significant percentage of those that die from Covid.

 

[SkepticThinker]

No, not "just" after heart disease which killed 695,547 in 2022 or cancer, which killed 605,213 people in 2022, in the US. COVID was about 200,000 (or more) fewer people. 416,893 just to clarify, according to the CDC.

COVID has killed over one million Americans in just under two years, as already pointed out.

Coronavirus Disease 2019

CDC provides credible COVID-19 health information to the U.S.

www.cdc.gov

United States - COVID-19 Overview - Johns Hopkins

United States - COVID New Cases, Deaths, Testing Data - Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center

coronavirus.jhu.edu

COVID-19 cases | WHO COVID-19 dashboard

The latest data for coronavirus (COVID-19) cases from the WHO COVID-19 dashboard.

covid19.who.int

IHME | COVID-19 Projections

Explore forecasts of COVID-19 cases, deaths, and hospital resource use.

covid19.healthdata.org

You don't have to "understand" any other perspectives. That's all I'm saying - PUT IT IN PERSPECTIVE. A less than 1 percent death rate, nearly all (89 percent - 89 PERCENT) people who were elderly and/or had preexisting conditions. That's the worldwide pandemic. Meanwhile, I think we're all continuing to suffer long term consequences in one way or the other and will for years, maybe for the rest of our lives.

It seems as though you are the one that isn't putting this into proper perspective.

The death count probably would have been much, much greater, had we not taken precautions. Look at how the death rate exploded in the countries it first started appearing in. Does anyone remember Italy? Spain? Mass burials in Brazil? New York City and India running out of spaces to store dead bodies? Hospitals being overwhelmed? It's like a bunch of people just simply forgot about all that.

Oh, and I had elderly parents too. Every moment with them was precious. Thankfully they died in 2016 and 2019 so they didn't have to deal with COVID. I'm not making light of the fact that the US saw a .1 -not one percent but POINT ONE percent - uptick in deaths. I'm just saying that numbers are our friends. Let's use some perspective, since so many of us are going to be feeling the effects of this for many years to come.

Effects, such as? Are these effects more important than preserving lives?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Actually it might be the case. But with 95% of the elderly being vaccinated at least once, then if the vaccines did not work at all they would be 95% of the deaths from covid among the elderly. With a high enough percentage vaccinated sooner or later there will be more vaccinated people dying than unvaccinated. Just as most people who die in car accidents were wearing seatbelts. That is because the vast majority of people were seatbelts these days. It is not because seatbelts do not work. That 5% of the unvaccinated elderly is a very significant percentage of those that die from Covid.

Yeah, that's eventually going to happen but all attempts to spin that as vaccines not working should be kicked in the teeth.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Yeah, that's eventually going to happen but all attempts to spin that as vaccines not working should be kicked in the teeth.

We would have a bunch of toothless antivaxxers if we did that. Not a pretty sight

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I just got over having COVID and the involuntary isolation from it for one thing. But I don't have a lot of faith in any doctor or medical personnel when it comes to COVID to be honest. I feel like they say what they are told to say.

So you feel like you know better than they do.
Great approach to healthcare!

I broke my right elbow in late 2020.

My dad fell off a ladder. He had to go to the hospital and was admitted but couldn't get a room because the hospital was flooded with the unvaccinated dummies of the county.
And do you suppose your or his issue has something to do with how extremely contagious covid is? Do you think your situation was partly due to covids potential for chronic and fatal damage?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

We would have a bunch of toothless antivaxxers if we did that. Not a pretty sight

Prettier than a child needlessly on a ventilator or in a coffin due to the parent's stupidity.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Here's another deal - you couldn't win for losing. See, you could be ASYMPTOMATIC and still be contagious - so you needed to wear a mask. And you also apparently needed to test regularly. The right type, and correctly (masks). Anytime you interacted with other people. To protect other people. You had to get vaccinated in many places, or you were being selfish. With a shot that hadn't been fully vetted yet. Do people not realize that the shots are STILL not fully vetted? But hey, I did it anyway. I also wore a mask, socially distanced, kept my hands super clean, etc. Still do many of those things, and was doing them when somewhere, somehow I contracted COVID from someone else. But hey, at least it was mild.

It has been fully vetted. Billions of vaccinations have been administered, at this point.

 

[SkepticThinker]

They didn't work long for me. Though now of course the definition of "vaccine" has been changed as well. So hmmmmm.

This is the kind of political misinformation we need to avoid.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Where did you get that "emergency use only" claim from? The article that you supplied does not support that. You may be conflating the rapid development due to the emergency with "emergency use'.

The Covid vaccines were developed rapidly because it was a pandemic that was killing millions. The vaccine still went through all of the steps that a vaccine goes through. They were able to vastly increase the time that it takes to make a vaccine because first off the funds were there for the research. Acquiring funds can be the factor that takes the most time in developing a vaccine. One has to pass several stages and raise funds for each stage. In this case the funds were already there they only had to do the research. Second the tests overlapped a bit in timing. That was the one unique emergency move. When a test had advanced to a certain point, but before it was finished all of the way, they deemed that it was safe to start the next round of testing. All tests were completed. But instead of waiting for rock solid answers for test number one before going on to test two they said "close enough" and began the next series of tests.

That was one of the big anti-vaxxer talking points for a while.

 

[Debater Slayer]

I think you are looking at old data. And, of course, other governments were looking at the US for decisions.

Who said that other governments were looking at the US for decisions? Many other governments adopted much stricter measures than those taken by the US, while some, like Sweden's, initially tried for herd immunity but had a very high death rate, and then evidence showed that herd immunity against COVID didn't behave as some initially thought.

If anything, a lot of what the US did during the pandemic was an example of what not to do during a pandemic.

The latest report:

Face masks made ‘little to no difference’ in preventing spread of COVID: study

A new scientific review suggests that widespread masking may have done little to nothing to curb the transmission of COVID-19.

nypost.com

Bombshell Report Shows Face Masks Made ‘Little to No Difference’ in Preventing Spread of COVID - Space Coast Daily

The stance by the Centers for Disease and Control Prevention (CDC) on face masks has taken many twists and turns throughout the COVID pandemic.

spacecoastdaily.com

Those links are about the same claim that multiple members and I have already responded to. The Cochrane report in question had faced a lot of expert criticism in its methodology for reasons already mentioned.

Your Mayo Clinic report states " Can face masks help slow the spread of the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)? Yes. Face masks combined with other preventive measures, such as getting vaccinated, frequent hand-washing and physical distancing, can help slow the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19."

So, which one really helped. Was it vaccination? Frequent hand-washing? Physical distancing? Masks? Did they do a specialized review with mask only?

All of them helped, and studies that focus on one variable usually compare the results when other variables are unchanged or largely the same. So, for example, comparing the fatality rate among those who are 70-80 years old and vaccinated to the fatality rate among those who are 40-50 but unvaccinated involves two variables: vaccination status and age. In order to determine the specific impact of age only, the vaccination status needs to be the same among both groups. Otherwise another variable changes the results.

Notice the ups and downs remain consistent win 2021 - I can't upload the picture:

Provisional Mortality Data — United States, 2021

This report describes overall death rates in 2021 as well as COVID-19 death rates. COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in 2021 after heart disease and cancer.

www.cdc.gov

It didn't matter that we closed businesses, added vaccinations or used masks... it still went up and down and up and down. IF they worked, there would be a steady downward slope when efforts were in effect.

Infections don't necessarily entail severe illness, hospitalization, or death. Among vaccinated people, the rates of severe illness and death were significantly reduced compared to the unvaccinated. Merely getting infected doesn't tell us much by itself.

One also has to consider that the virus has mutated a lot, another cause of infection spikes. Still, vaccines have been shown to be effective in reducing severe illness and death from all variants of the virus.

The China issue is simple... if they lied about China, where else did they lie?

There are two points here:

• I'm not sure who "they" are, but in general, the possibility of a lab leak has been on the table for many months. There was and still is no conclusive evidence that the virus came from a lab leak, however, so assuming that "they" lied seems to me an unjustifiably certain conclusion too.
• The medical organizations that have advocated for preventive measures and vaccines throughout the pandemic come from all around the world. Speaking of them as some monolith that has supposedly "lied" and can't be trusted doesn't make much sense. They're not all the same organization working in unison.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

They didn't work long for me. Though now of course the definition of "vaccine" has been changed as well. So hmmmmm.

Vaccines have never been full proof. Even the polio vaccine isn't 100% effective at preventing polio. And if you read the fine print the vaccine paperwork does state it does not prevent covid but rather reduces the chances of getting it and reducing the severity of it if you do get it. Ya know, exactly what vaccines do and what people (who don't have partisan rabies) said they'd do.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

It really had the face of fascism.

1. A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, a capitalist economy subject to stringent governmental controls and violent suppression of the opposition.

Especially when you are forced to use an experimental vaccination against your free will

Nobody was forced to take the vaccine against their will except perhaps children, who have to be forced to take any vaccine. If you took it, it was because you chose to.

My feelings? Much ado about nothing.

You might find this article interesting. It's about a family of vaccine deniers that was decimated by Covid

I swear I honestly believe that a certain segment of the population is actually disappointed that the death toll from our pandemic isn't higher.

Trump and Kushner were. They had hoped that the pandemic would do to Democrats what it did to the family above. You may recall that the initial outbreaks were most severe in New York City. Democrats cluster in large cities, Republicans in rural areas.

From Opinion | Trump, Kushner and the cruel calculus that may have doomed COVID-19 testing

"Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner's team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. "The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy," said the expert."

it was UNDER 1 percent of the world's population

That died, you mean. Many have been left debilitated with long Covid, many have permanent organ damage, and if you worry about the long term effects of the vaccine, you have more to worry about with the long term effect of a viral infection. The evidence regarding the long-term sequelae of other vaccines that have been in use for decades is that long-term unexpected complications of vaccination are unusual. When severe complications have arisen, such as Guillan-Barre following flu shots in the seventies, the onset was generally within two months and always within six. What is more likely than a long-term complication from a vaccine is a long-term complication from a viral infection. Singles is long varicella-zoster virus (Chicken pox), AIDS is long HIV, cervical cancer is long HPV, Multiple Sclerosis is long EPV (Epstein-Barr Virus), Alzheimer's is long HSV (herpes simple virus), and liver cancer is long HCV (hepatitis).

All of this becomes much less likely in you, since your infection was not as severe or prolonged.

Do people not realize that the shots are STILL not fully vetted? But hey, I did it anyway. I also wore a mask, socially distanced, kept my hands super clean, etc. Still do many of those things, and was doing them when somewhere, somehow I contracted COVID from someone else. But hey, at least it was mild.

And you not only survived Covid, it was only a minor illness for you, and your risks of long-term complications from your infection was reduced. You were in the (informal) treatment group, the unvaccinated the controls. You did much better. In fact, if the data collected following release of the vaccine had been used to decide if the therapy worked, the study would have been discontinued in a few months, which is what happens when a study is set up for say two years and the treatment and control groups begin diverging dramatically and quickly, and statistical significance has been achieved with a much smaller cohort than was originally thought necessary to determine statistical significance.

"Because there is an urgent need for COVID-19 vaccines and the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) vaccine approval process can take years, the FDA first gave emergency use authorization to COVID-19 vaccines based on less data than is typically required."

And I'm grateful they did. We came out of lockdown after the second injection, in early June, 2021. If they had taken two years longer, then we would have missed two more years of post-pandemic life.

Of course the article says the shots are safe and effective. I don't know whether they are or not

You don't? Don't you know how to decide that? How do we decide that with any therapeutic intervention? At this point, we have even more data than when the vaccines were released.

Six in ten people who DIED of COVID in 2022 were vaccinated.

If the whole nation had been vaccinated, then 10/10 Covid deaths would have been in the vaccinated. It's easy to manipulate statistics to create a false impression.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Here's the thing though - people who aren't vaccinated are often vilified. In some countries, you had to show your vaccination card to eat out, to go shopping, to go to anyplace indoors basically except for the drug store, etc.

And all of those restrictions have since been lifted here. Everything is pretty much back to normal now because the vast majority of people have been vaccinated. It's almost as though the vaccine .... worked!

 

[John53]

Could it be because you simply do not want to see it? People hear and read what they want. Anyway, yes, the COVID 19 shots have been tested but the majority of the ones in use are still under an EUA and that's because they haven't been fully tested yet.

If I didn't want to see it I wouldn't have replied. And I agree people see and read what they want, that's become obvious.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Singles is long varicella-zoster virus (Chicken pox),

Wait!! I am unmarried because I had Chickenpox as a kid?

Okay, I am sorry. I could not help myself. That was a masterful post and the only "error" that I could find in it. At least you know that I read it.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Wait!! I am unmarried because I had Chickenpox as a kid?

Okay, I am sorry. I could not help myself. That was a masterful post and the only "error" that I could find in it. At least you know that I read it.

Maybe? I got it three times as a kid and am not married.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

And all of those restrictions have since been lifted here. Everything is pretty much back to normal now because the vast majority of people have been vaccinated. It's almost as though the vaccine .... worked!

And it's a though lots of people detest the willful spread of disease and death.

 

[dybmh]

I don't even know where I picked it up, or what variant it was. We do know that the variants are becoming more contagious. 79 percent of Americans are vaccinated against COVID, but six in ten deaths in 2022 from COVID were in vaccinated people. So I'd say it's not all that effective as a vaccine. It may be as effective as a flu shot but good grief, the side effects are still often pretty severe. I promise you, I was sicker with the side effects from the booster than I was with COVID. Maybe the booster helped me, but maybe it didn't, who knows? Do you know?

I get a flu shot every year and never get sick from that - and I don't get the flu, any strain of it, either. Prior to the flu shot, I would get the flu every single year and even got pneumonia from it one year. I haven't had the flu in years and years now. I wasn't expecting to become so debilitated from a booster, believe me.

I seriously doubt I was exposed to COVID 91 times though. Maybe three or four times. But since people can be totally symptom free and spread it, who knows? Not you, not me, no one.

I know two families who got sick with COVID before the shots were introduced, during the initial infection of 2020. In both cases, though the sickest person in each family lost their sense of smell and didn't get it back for several months, they were not very sick, certainly not as sick as someone with the flu can be. The sickest person in each family wasn't very sick, actually. They ran a fever for a couple of days and then the fever went away. The other family members either never got sick or even tested positive, or only got sniffles.

I ran a fever for three days and tested positive for three days. Tested negative after that and before that, though I had sniffles and didn't feel all that great. Thankfully I never lost my sense of smell or taste though. You know what - my symptoms were exactly like those of a friend of mine whose husband came down with COVID (see above) before any shots were available. So she hadn't been vaccinated, clearly. She lived with her husband, slept in the same bed, etc. Neither she nor any other family members (there were two others in addition to her) ever felt very sick, and only she tested positive, for a few days. Then she tested negative again as did her husband.

I do know someone who DIED of COVID recently, or at least she had COVID when she died. OK so get this - her daughter, who lived with her and visited her in the hospital regularly, never got COVID. I don't know whether she has had the shots or not, but that doesn't even matter apparently because as I said in my earlier post, a person can be totally around someone else with COVID, even without any shots, and never get it. But here's another thing - just a few weeks before the mom got COVID, her daughter and I were talking about her and her daughter told me, "She is going to die in a few months, maybe even in a few weeks." You know why? Because she was already sick as a dog and needed oxygen - she had COPD and was elderly as well. We didn't expect her to live through 2023 and this was BEFORE she got COVID.

Oh well, I guess the hospital will be compensated for the mom's week of care.

She is the only person I have actually known who died with COVID or had to be hospitalized for the record, though I've known many, many people who have had COVID over the years.

Thank you for the reply. I hear you. You've said a lot of important things, but I want to focus on the 6 in 10 statistic. Those are people who did not get boosted. For those who are fully vaccinated and boosted it's 3.7ish in 10. That's a big difference.

This is the actual CDC data. The folks in yellow have are actually vaccinated. That includes a booster. Yes there is a spike in the numbers, but it's not 6 in 10. Source ( link ).

When I went to research this, I can't find anyone claiming the 6 in 10 figure. Some people who believe that the opposition is being silenced might point to this as evidence supporting a conspiracy. But, when I look at it, if the claim is false, then what's being silenced is misinformation.

Where did you hear of / read about this 6 in 10 figure? Whatever the source is for this data should be considered with extreme skepticism. They're not giving you accurate information. But I don't judge you, or them, for believing that the figure is true.

We *do* have a problem with people mistrusting goverment officials and institutions. And that problem is valid, there are a lot of good reasons for that mistrust. Arguably, the way the pandemic was handled made this problem worse. It could be that folks like me, who trust, would have gotten the vaccine and wore our masks without all of the hype. And it could be that the people who needed encouragement were actually pushed away by the manner of the vaccine roll-out and were pushed away by the masking policies. I acknowledge all of that.

But when it comes to the vaccine, there is so much good clear evidence out there that it worked. It did what it needed to do. And that was create space for the public health system to catch up. That was a rapid and urgent need; hospitals were overun and compromised in their capability to deliver life saving treatment to those without covid emergencies, not to mention those with covid emergencies. That is a public health problem that required drastic action by our goverment and instituions. I know this, not from pictures on TV and the internet. I know because we were told by employees of one of the local hospitals. We happen to live in an area very close to one hospital. 2 Drs live on our street, on is an ER Dr. We (my wife and I) also are in the medical/dental community ourselves and heard a similar report from another local Dr. about their hospital.

So, there were dramatic actions taken; they probably did some things right and some things wrong, but, when it came to the vaccine they made the right call at that time accelerating its approval and deployment. Perhaps that time has passed, and now a person doesn't want to accept the side effects in favor of temporary protection. A person might look back and say that the masking and social distance polices, specifically the way they were implemented and the way the public complied with them made no difference. All of that is valid. But at the time, confronted with a public health crisis, those extreme actions were justified. And we can still be confident that the science behind the vaccines is sound. To this day, if a person does not want to be part of a chain of infections that might lead to a compromised individual ending up in the hospital, getting vaccinated and staying boosted is the right thing to do.