The Vaccine Thread

[beeatnik]

No shoes, no shirt, no service. A young man comes in, isn't wearing a shirt, you throw him out of your shop. Doesn't matter what race he is. He chose not to wear a shirt.
No vaccination , no service. Doesn't matter what race, because again you chose not to be vaccinated. Particularly in NY, the issue is not access to vaccination. Heck , I was vaccinated on a Saturday in the Bronx. CVS open 7 days a week, just walk in. That's what I did.

The discrimination argument is bullshit.

To be clear, I'm not making that argument. Public health authorities in major cities outside of the South are in a nearly impossible position. I do wonder about the logic of a mandate which allows those with one dose free access while all public health agencies treat one dose individuals as unvaccinated, statistically.

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/...-keytonyc.page

[j44ke]

This is probably behind a paywall but shouldn't be. Sometimes if you search for the article title on Google, the WashPo lets you through.

"Many unvaccinated people are not opposed to getting a shot. The challenge is trying to get it to them."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/healt...d-but-willing/

Topical I think given the current moment in this discussion.

One of my wife's best friends from college is now a research psychologist who studies patient relationship with medication. Some part of that study involved HIV-AIDS patients and retro-viral medications. The gist of what he studies is why patients do not take their medication as prescribed. The range of reasons is so wide ranging as to include everything and the sun and the moon.

[classtimesailer]

If I was a black man, I might be less hesitant if I paired up with a willing white man to go for our jabs together and in the final moments, switch places. American medicine has operated with extreme racial prejudice in the not too distant past and I can empathize with someone who would rather take a chance with a colorblind virus.

[vertical_doug]

I think the amount of misinformation being fed to people is larger than you think and more insidious.

How Facebook Hobbled Mark Zuckerberg's Bid to Get America Vaccinated
2021-09-17 12:06:23.122 GMT

By Sam Schechner, Jeff Horwitz and Emily Glazer

(Dow Jones) -- In mid-March, Mark Zuckerberg used his Facebook page to
announce a goal that was both ambitious and personal. He wanted his company to
use its formidable resources to push 50 million people toward Covid-19
vaccines.

In a post and a press release, the chief executive discussed Facebook Inc.'s
initiatives to promote vaccines. He unveiled collaborations with global health
organizations. And he touted that his company had "already connected more than
2 billion people to authoritative Covid-19 information."

Inside Facebook, staffers were warning that Mr. Zuckerberg's own platform, the
globe-spanning powerhouse built on code he wrote 17 years ago, was
compromising his effort.

For more than a month, Facebook researchers warned that comments on
vaccine-related posts -- often factual posts of the sort Facebook sought to
promote -- were filled with antivaccine rhetoric aimed at undermining their
message, internal documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show. The
comments ranged from personal objections all the way to debunked falsehoods
and conspiracy theories.

The wave of negative comments worried global health institutions, including
the World Health Organization and Unicef, the documents say. One internal
Facebook memo cited "anti-vaccine commenters that swarm their Pages."

In the weeks before Mr. Zuckerberg made his announcement, another memo said
initial testing concluded that roughly 41% of comments on English-language
vaccine-related posts risked discouraging vaccinations. Users were seeing
comments on vaccine-related posts 775 million times a day, the memo said, and
Facebook researchers worried the large proportion of negative comments could
influence perceptions of the vaccines' safety.

Even authoritative sources of vaccine information were becoming "cesspools of
anti-vaccine comments," the authors wrote. "That's a huge problem and we need
to fix it," they said.

Facebook's goal of protecting the rollout of the Covid vaccines, described in
one memo as "a top company priority," was a demonstration of Mr. Zuckerberg's
faith that his creation is a force for social good in the world. But the
effort ended up demonstrating the gulf between his aspirations and the
practical reality of the world's largest social platform -- where the
company's aims can bring it into conflict with its own users.

Despite Mr. Zuckerberg's effort, a cadre of antivaccine activists flooded the
network with what Facebook calls "barrier to vaccination" content, the memos
show. They used Facebook's own tools to sow doubt about the severity of the
pandemic's threat and the safety of authorities' main weapon to combat it.

By this summer, the prevalence of false and misleading vaccine information on
Facebook prompted a public scolding from President Biden, who said the
falsehoods were "killing people."

The vaccine documents are part of a collection of internal communications
reviewed by the Journal that offer an unparalleled picture of how Facebook is
acutely aware that the products and systems central to its business success
routinely fail and cause harm.

Facebook's own research lays out in detail how its rules favor elites; its
platforms have negative effects on teen mental health; its algorithm fosters
discord; and that drug cartels and human traffickers use its services openly.

The documents show that Facebook has often made minimal or ineffectual efforts
to address the issues and plays them down in public.

Since the Journal began publishing articles based on the documents, several
lawmakers have expressed outrage at the revelations, and two senators have
announced an investigation into Facebook's internal research on how its
Instagram service affects young users.

Some Facebook officials have become concerned that Mr. Zuckerberg or Chief
Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg may face questions from lawmakers about how
their past public statements on these issues square with the company's
internal assessments, according to people familiar with the matter. The
company is also tightening the reins on how information is shared internally,
the people said.

The Covid-19 mess in particular strikes at the heart of Facebook's problem:
its users create the content, but their comments, posts and videos are hard to
control, given how Facebook built and runs its platform, in ways that are
fundamentally different from a company shaping its product or a publisher
curating stories. Even when he set a goal, the chief executive couldn't steer
the platform as he wanted.

"We're focused on outcomes, and the data shows that for people in the U.S. on
Facebook, vaccine hesitancy has declined by about 50% since January, and
acceptance is high," Facebook spokesman Aaron Simpson said in a statement. The
documents show Facebook's "routine process for dealing with difficult
challenges," he said. "Narrowly characterizing leaked documents doesn't
accurately represent the problem, and it also ignores the work that's been
underway to make comments on posts about COVID-19 and vaccines safer and more
reliable."

Optimistic view

Mr. Zuckerberg has long espoused the belief that Facebook's role connecting
people makes it a tool to help solve the world's problems. Former executives
say that optimism left him and his company repeatedly ill-prepared when people
used the platform in ways it didn't anticipate.

"The internal narrative is that the platform is by and large good," said Brian
Boland, a former Facebook vice president who managed business relationships
and left late last year in part because he said the company wasn't forthcoming
enough about its problems. He credits Mr. Zuckerberg with getting Facebook to
work quickly on health initiatives during the pandemic but said his focus on
connecting people created a blind spot for company leaders. "There was not a
lot of discussion in our circles of, 'Hey, are people propagating harmful
messages on the platform?' " he said.

Facebook has similarly struggled with how to handle the spread of inaccuracies
on other issues, from QAnon conspiracy theories and other election falsehoods
to hoax cancer cures and Holocaust denial. Mr. Zuckerberg initially permitted
such denials on the platform on free speech grounds but last year changed his
position, citing rising anti-Semitic violence.

Fringe political activists used Facebook Groups, user-run communities devoted
to topics and interests, to stir violence, the Journal has reported. The
company had heavily promoted the product for years, though it clamped down in
the wake of the 2020 U.S. election.

Facebook had plenty of warnings that a campaign to roll out a new vaccine
might provoke a backlash. Antivaccine groups had already leveraged social
media to gain followers and spread false vaccine claims amid measles outbreaks
in parts of the U.S. In 2019, after the issue became the subject of public
outcry, Facebook promised a crackdown. Months later, the company struggled to
make progress.

Renée DiResta, a leading researcher of online information at Stanford Internet
Observatory who has advised Congress and the State Department, said she
regularly warned Facebook about the tactics of antivaccine activists long
before the pandemic. "People in the company recognized it as a problem," Ms.
DiResta said. "Where is the disconnect?"

Facebook employees had previously flagged comments made on posts as a largely
unaddressed problem, according to a former employee and the documents reviewed
by the Journal. Research in 2018 and 2019 found that comments were what one
memo described as "an important source of misinformation, even on seemingly
innocuous articles."

Mr. Zuckerberg has often stepped in to limit Facebook's intervention on
contentious content, saying it doesn't take sides in controversial areas like
politics and doesn't want to be the arbiter of truth. On the Covid vaccine,
though, Mr. Zuckerberg was clear in his support, and on his desire for
Facebook to assist public-health authorities in the vaccination effort.

Long interested in public health, the CEO and his wife, Priscilla Chan, a
pediatrician, founded their Chan Zuckerberg Initiative philanthropy in 2015
with that as a central focus. The same year, he posted to Facebook
recommending a book that he said explained why vaccine doubts were unfounded.

Mr. Zuckerberg has often described his company as a powerful engine to improve
the world. In a 5,700-word essay in 2017, when Facebook was under fire after
the 2016 election, he wrote that Facebook's next mission was building "social
infrastructure" in part to make the world more resilient in crises. "Our
greatest challenges also need global responses -- like ending terrorism,
fighting climate change, and preventing pandemics," Mr. Zuckerberg wrote.

In February 2020, as the coronavirus spread, Facebook opened its Menlo Park,
Calif., headquarters to the WHO for a meeting with tech companies including
Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Twitter Inc., where a WHO official discussed the
companies' role in spreading "lifesaving health information," according to the
WHO.

Mr. Zuckerberg also emailed Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, to ask how he could personally help fund
vaccine trials, according to correspondence provided to the Journal as part of
a Freedom of Information Act request.

In subsequent emails to Dr. Fauci, Mr. Zuckerberg offered the government
Facebook advertising credits for public-service announcements, as well as
aggregated user data to help with decision-making. He also asked whether Dr.
Fauci would appear with him in a live Facebook Q&A about the pandemic. The two
appeared in one of multiple live Facebook videos four days later.

[robin3mj]

I have a feeling that Facebook and it’s ilk are going to be the tobacco companies of the 2020’s. They cannot go away soon enough.

(Fully acknowledges the irony that I love me some Instagram)

[classtimesailer]

I think the amount of misinformation being fed to people is larger than you think and more insidious.

How Facebook Hobbled Mark Zuckerberg's Bid to Get America Vaccinated
2021-09-17 12:06:23.122 GMT

...
Mr. Zuckerberg has often described his company as a powerful engine to improve
the world...

As do Boeing, Chevron, Dow Chemical, Raytheon, Monsanto, so who wouldn't question the provax message.

[Todd Amunrud]

so who wouldn't question the provax message

Me. I estimate I've provided over 30,000 vaccinations in my career with zero concerning adverse outcomes. This includes COVID vaccination. I've also seen the devastating effects of vaccine preventable diseases. Ever watch the effect on a misled family about the "dangers" of vaccinations suffer through a vaccine preventable disease?

[bigbill]

I have a few unvaccinated employees. I keep hearing the same recycled and debunked anti-vax talking points. "What blood type are you?" "The doctors I follow say the vaccine doesn't work." And the big one, "well, your wife was vaccinated but she still got covid, so why should I get vaccinated?" "So, you're telling me that 97% of the covid deaths at the regional medical center were unvaccinated, that's what they want you to believe."

I've stopped caring about it. It's September, most folks have very little vacation or sick time remaining. Get covid and stop getting paid, maybe you won't die.

[beeatnik]

so who wouldn't question the provax message

Me. I estimate I've provided over 30,000 vaccinations in my career with zero concerning adverse outcomes. This includes COVID vaccination. I've also seen the devastating effects of vaccine preventable diseases. Ever watch the effect on a misled family about the "dangers" of vaccinations suffer through a vaccine preventable disease?

How would you describe the socioeconomic status of the community or communities you serve?

When I watched Pandemic on Netflix in 2019 I was horrified at the casual and seemingly ignorant distrust of vaccines by a seemingly affluent Oregon mom. Recently, on Twitter and youtube, when consuming pro-science messages from doctors such as David Gorski, I've been shocked to discover that in the United States or Europe there are MDs who lead the anti-vxx movement. Hard for me to wrap my mind around that. I can't imagine board certified oncologists suggesting fruit diets instead of chemo.

However, do you think it would be dangerous, reckless, or criminal to properly or methodically disclose an accurate number or rate of adverse events with these covid-19 vaccines? And, as would be expected with hundreds of millions of shots, the number of AEs could seem high. That's where education would come in. Education instead of suppression.

And the big one, "well, your wife was vaccinated but she still got covid, so why should I get vaccinated?" "So, you're telling me that 97% of the covid deaths at the regional medical center were unvaccinated, that's what they want you to believe."

I've stopped caring about it. It's September, most folks have very little vacation or sick time remaining. Get covid and stop getting paid, maybe you won't die.

Isn't that a consequence of ineffective or problematic messaging from the CDC and public health authorities? As "informed" as I am on this topic, all my fully vaccinated acquaintances (and wife) who had breakthrough infections were shocked. They believed the vaccine was sterilizing. And, now, LA Public Health is tracking reinfections in the fully vaccinated. That is a reinfection of a breakthrough case. Reason for that? I won't speculate on this bike forum.

[zetroc]

Isn't that a consequence of ineffective or problematic messaging from the CDC and public health authorities? As "informed" as I am on this topic, all my fully vaccinated acquaintances (and wife) who had breakthrough infections were shocked. They believed the vaccine was sterilizing. And, now, LA Public Health is tracking reinfections in the fully vaccinated. That is a reinfection of a breakthrough case. Reason for that? I won't speculate on this bike forum.

As effective as the vaccines are, they were designed in a pre-Delta-variant world. Delta is much more transmissible than the original virus, so there have been more instances of breakthrough cases.

[zetroc]

Isn't that a consequence of ineffective or problematic messaging from the CDC and public health authorities? As "informed" as I am on this topic, all my fully vaccinated acquaintances (and wife) who had breakthrough infections were shocked. They believed the vaccine was sterilizing. And, now, LA Public Health is tracking reinfections in the fully vaccinated. That is a reinfection of a breakthrough case. Reason for that? I won't speculate on this bike forum.

In an emergency situation with a quickly spreading and rapidly mutating virus, do you think it's unacceptable for a public health authority to track infections?

[vertical_doug]

How would you describe the socioeconomic status of the community or communities you serve?

When I watched Pandemic on Netflix in 2019 I was horrified at the casual and seemingly ignorant distrust of vaccines by a seemingly affluent Oregon mom. Recently, on Twitter and youtube, when consuming pro-science messages from doctors such as David Gorski, I've been shocked to discover that in the United States or Europe there are MDs who lead the anti-vxx movement. Hard for me to wrap my mind around that. I can't imagine board certified oncologists suggesting fruit diets instead of chemo.

However, do you think it would be dangerous, reckless, or criminal to properly or methodically disclose an accurate number or rate of adverse events with these covid-19 vaccines? And, as would be expected with hundreds of millions of shots, the number of AEs could seem high. That's where education would come in. Education instead of suppression.





Isn't that a consequence of ineffective or problematic messaging from the CDC and public health authorities? As "informed" as I am on this topic, all my fully vaccinated acquaintances (and wife) who had breakthrough infections were shocked. They believed the vaccine was sterilizing. And, now, LA Public Health is tracking reinfections in the fully vaccinated. That is a reinfection of a breakthrough case. Reason for that? I won't speculate on this bike forum.

You seem fascinated by socioeconomics, so simple economic question:

If the government offered people a free Megamillions or powerball ticket, should the people take it? Why or why not

If there is a $10 bill on the ground near your foot, do you take it? Why or why not

[beeatnik]

In an emergency situation with a quickly spreading and rapidly mutating virus, do you think it's unacceptable for a public health authority to track infections?

I don't understand your question.

I applaud LA County Public Health for tracking persons who have been fully vaccinated and infected by SARS-CoV-2 multiple times post vaccination [the breakthrough infection and the reinfection(s)]...in a 9 month period. This information is not being actively publicized and shared with reputable local news sources.


reinfects.jpg

reinfects2.jpg

reinfects3.jpeg

[zetroc]

I applaud LA County Public Health for tracking persons who have been fully vaccinated and infected by SARS-CoV-2 multiple times post vaccination (the breakthrough infection and the reinfection)...in a 9 month period. This information is not being actively publicized and shared with reputable local news sources.

Do you think LA County Public Health should be more active in disseminating COVID infection information beyond posting the data on their website?

[Octave]

However, do you think it would be dangerous, reckless, or criminal to properly or methodically disclose an accurate number or rate of adverse events with these covid-19 vaccines? And, as would be expected with hundreds of millions of shots, the number of AEs could seem high. That's where education would come in. Education instead of suppression.

As someone working in the pharmaceutical industry, I do not think this is dangerous, reckless, or criminal. TEAEs in particular (rather than overall AEs, which are not conclusively linked to the treatment) should be discussed as a rate, just as they are for every medication and pharmaceutical product. Head over to the public Clinical Trials database and you can gorge yourself on these data until your eyes bleed. Rates of TEAEs are more informative than total numbers, as of course tens of millions or billions of doses given in a single year will yield relatively high raw numbers, even if the rate is quite low. That being said, just like tracking and reporting breakthrough infections and reinfections, these data should be used to inform people within context of the nature of these drugs.

What boggles my mind is how easily people accept side effects and mediocre efficacy rates for drugs they're willingly taking for minor issues (antidepressants, anxiolytics, BP regulators, painkillers, statins...etc.) while eschewing a quite safe and surprisingly efficacious drug to protect them from a virus with substantial consequences. I have a neighbor who takes a moderately efficacious BP-regulating drug with significant side-effects but refuses the vaccine for the reasons stated quite commonly: fear of side effects and not being a fool-proof, 100%, no-fail cure. But people with give themselves weeks of diarrhea taking ivermectin with zero proven efficacy? At this point I'm a full supporter of medical triage for the willingly unvaccinated.

[beeatnik]

Do you think LA County Public Health should be more active in disseminating COVID infection information beyond posting the data on their website?

I do, with an obligation or moral duty to provide the necessary context for all data.

What boggles my mind is how easily people accept side effects and mediocre efficacy rates for drugs they're willingly taking for minor issues (antidepressants, anxiolytics, BP regulators, painkillers, statins...etc.) while eschewing a quite safe and surprisingly efficacious drug to protect them from a virus with substantial consequences. I have a neighbor who takes a moderately efficacious BP-regulating drug with significant side-effects but refuses the vaccine for the reasons stated quite commonly: fear of side effects and not being a fool-proof, 100%, no-fail cure. But people with give themselves weeks of diarrhea taking ivermectin with zero proven efficacy? At this point I'm a full supporter of medical triage for the willingly unvaccinated.

It's an interesting dynamic which leads me to wonder about past perceived trends of overmedication. Americans love their meds or at least they did, right? In any case, I continue to perceive this on macro terms. Which is to say an issue of transmission and disease burden. You mention triage for the unvaccinated (and by this you mean back of the line, correct?). If this became standard practice, how much would the needle move. An unvaccinated "healthy" 25 year old may gladly take his chances while on the other hand an unvaccinated 55 year old has more to lose, financially and healthwise. It's a confounding (hehe) paradox. Convince (or compel) one person, the 25 year old, to change his behavior (ideology) for society's benefit and convince the other, the 55 year old, to do it for his personal gain or protection.

[zetroc]

I do, with an obligation or moral duty to provide the necessary context for all data.

What kind of context do you think is missing?

[beeatnik]

What kind of context do you think is missing?

I would prefer more consistency and balance. The trend has been for some risks to be amplified (exaggerated), ie, disease burden in children while others are minimized, ie, the rate of increase of breakthrough infections along with the corresponding disease burden from secondary attacks. At this point, many of us in the Latinx community, know a fully vaccinated person, who believing that breakthrough infections are rare, infected another fully vaccinated elderly person, resulting in ICU admission.

[zetroc]

I would prefer more consistency and balance. The trend has been for some risks to be amplified (exaggerated), ie, disease burden in children while others are minimized, ie, the rate of increase of breakthrough infections along with the corresponding disease burden from secondary attacks. At this point, many of us in the Latinx community, know a fully vaccinated person, who believing that breakthrough infections are rare, infected another fully vaccinated elderly person, resulting in ICU admission.

What about their data do you think lacks balance?

[beeatnik]

^The data doesn't lack balance. The presentation may.