#61

Fair point. My wording was definitely clumsy.

And yes, as I mentioned earlier, I think it’s safe to assume that all of the information we are getting is severely limited. Totally agree with you there.

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#62

Ugh, Luke, that is an awful story about your friend’s step brother. So so so sorry to hear that.

It’s definitely hard because we all have such different experiences. Early on, my sister personally knew several very healthy and fit men (ages aprox 55-62 ish) die from covid, but then I knew other people who only saw it happening to very old out of shape people, or no one at all. One of those guys out of an abundance of caution went to the hospital but they sent him home saying you are not very sick… he died that night.

I know plenty of people, including on here, who say they don’t see any bad cases anymore, but I know people here who in the last year have had it and said it was the sickest they’ve been in their life. I think in both cases, people are telling the truth.

Only last year, another friend here had a stroke and her doc thinks it was from her recent case of covid… she is now fine and I am not sure we can ever link those cases without doubt, but ?

On reporting…
I got a covid vax very early on and I had an unimaginable reaction. Obviously not myocarditis territory but bad enough that I couldn’t drive for weeks. I did report it and even tweeted about it because I was scared at the time as there was so little info out there, and I had not heard about bad reactions. I was in shock that no one was trying to get in touch with me. Many many months later someone contacted me, but at this point I don’t remember the particulars. I don’t remember responding to them.

My PT finally came to my house and ‘cured’ me in aprox 10 minutes. He said he reset my autonomic system. I can’t explain it!

After another vax, I had another bad reaction so my cardiologist had me to go UCSF for a lot of testing just to be safe than sorry. I was fine. They did tell me they were seeing a lot of stuff from the vaccines… but no surprise, they were seeing significantly worse and more cases from covid itself.

All this is to say, you are probably correct in that things were under reported and side effects from the vax were obviously very real. I just personally knew of enough people my age, and much fitter than I am, who were dying or getting long covid that risking bad reactions to the vax was a no brainer for me. I realize this is easy for me to say because my reactions were all only temporary.

I haven’t personally heard of anything negative from the vaccines in ages and I no longer have bad reactions either, but I still know people getting bad cases of covid. The people I know have been vaxxed, so theoretically their covid was more mild than had they not been.

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#63

Thanks for sharing your story Beth. Hopefully any issues you had after taking it are ok now.

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#64

Color me a conspiracy theorist. :crazy_face:
I think the side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine are underreported because doctors like mine refuse to see the link and do not report the adverse effects.
I think the COVID-19 deaths were over-reported because anyone hospitalized with any comorbidity that also tested positive for COVID-19 was reported as a COVID-19 death.
"More than half of the patients had two or more comorbidities, highlighting the complex interplay between the virus and pre-existing health issues.
ScienceDirect
“Data from Los Angeles County indicated that a significant proportion of individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 during hospitalization were not admitted primarily due to the virus. In some cases, over two-thirds of patients tested positive incidentally, raising questions about the accuracy of attributing their deaths solely to COVID-19.”
“Furthermore, a study in The Lancet emphasized that COVID-19 exacerbated mortality rates among individuals with fragmented healthcare access, suggesting that the virus’s impact was compounded by existing health disparities.
The Lancet”

I don’t want to refight the battle of to get or not to get the vaccine, but for me, once burned, twice shy.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0213911121002880?utm
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanam/article/PIIS2667-193X(22)00081-3/fulltext

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#65

While that seems reasonable, it also seems to be case that the probability of various Long Covid issues, does increase for each infection?

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#66

I think the cumulative probability that you develop long covid must increase with each exposure. How could it be otherwise? It certainly cannot decrease.

But the incremental increase in your probability of developing long covid likely declines with each exposure. That at least should be our default hypothesis, since that is how we generally understand these things to work. In order to reject that default hypothesis, we’d probably want some compelling data.

There is another issue that long covid itself is not well defined. There are various definitions, depending on the study. So it gets particularly difficult to discuss it with any precision. It is a bit in the eye of the beholder.

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#67

I am surprised anyone would get this vax in a longevity community… Never had one, never will… too many unknowns… very little benefits in my book… So No, not getting any vax, I trust my immune system, it beat covid once (never tested with other flu/colds) …

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#68

Im not convinced that the Covid vax is a good risk/reward. Nor am I convinced that it’s not. Just not sure. I just got the Shringrix shingles vax bc the dementia protection seems well worthwhile.

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#69

Yeah, this is a whole other minefield. Some people with long covid never even tested positive for ever having had Covid in the first place.

See, this is the sort of ideology-driven blanket claim which is just silly. Every vaccine is different and has pros and cons. The decision depends on what the consequence of infection might be, and your chances of a bad outcome. We have seen vaccines like HPV are massively reducing rates of cancer, especially in young people. The shingles virus is offering a massive reduction in cardiovascular deaths, and also maybe dementia.

For Covid, it’s obviously messier. And there are lots of unknowns. For me, I am interested in longevity, and I’m not particularly worried about dying from Covid. However, there are other considerations. Lots of viruses have mild infections by can have long lasting consequences. For example, viruses often seem to increase cancer rates, years down the line. Does Covid? And does the vaccine do anything to prevent that from happening? We just don’t know.

For me, I think I will sit out this round of vaccinations. I’m not convinced by any of the data. The potential upsides seem very limited, and the downsides seem poorly described. However, somebody with a different risk profile might make a different decision.

I personally know 3 people who had terrible outcomes. One 42 year old who died, one 68 year old who died, and one 38 year old who ended up on a ventilator for 3 weeks and has permanent respiratory injuries. That was all during the first wave of infections. Then when I actually got Covid, it was less severe for me than hay fever. So basically it seems like a huge dice roll, with no good way to predict how your body would react.

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#70

It seems like we’ve moved beyond the initial horrible outcomes of getting a COVID infection. It appears to now act more like the flu or a cold. However, we don’t know what nefarious things it may do over time, such as long COVID. Living in a large city and due to the fact that COVID is insanely contagious, I know I will probably get it once a year when my immunity wanes. Is it worth the vaccine or not? I don’t know but I wish I did. I will probably get the vaccine as it should be gentler on me than the actual disease.

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#71

It’s hard to say for certain what the best course of action is and it’s highly dependant on circumstance. Personally, I have a significant underlying health risk which sways me towards getting the COVID vaccine and will do so again this year. Additionally, I work in an environment with a very high viral load exposure, so that influences me too. Having said that, I can very much understand why people are opposed (and often strongly opposed) to getting the vaccine.

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#72

I don’t think I can gift an Apple News article, but for those who can read it:

It says:
Flu
Shingles
Tdap
Rsv

I’m just learning this about RSV. Is this one that those of us who are pro vaccine for longevity are getting, even if you are not the recommended age yet?
It says:
A recent study tracking over 430,000 people found that the RSV vaccine (as well as the shingles vaccine) was associated with a reduced risk of dementia over 18 months compared with those who received the flu vaccine.

or here from Archive.ph: 4 vaccines linked to a lower risk of dementia (WaPo)

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#73

I hear ya, I am so tired of this subject… So much info on it, most of it bad and people persist… I don’t understand. I shake my head at why they haven’t retired it yet, it has done enough harm… something fishy and political with this one. Lipid nano particles with floating RNA and SV40 fragments in them… floating in my blood… That’s a no brainer NO! … I dunno… And the fact that they still blamed covid for the death of vaccinated people if they were not in their “immune” zone … while they were smak in their vaccine injury zone is mind blowing…

It does not prevent covid, it makes you less able to defend against it… (IGG4 with repeating shots), lipid nano particles distribute everywhere… this technology is just a mess.

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#74

Do you have evidence of harm? Everything credible that I’ve read points towards huge number of lives being saved by the Covid vaccines.

The virus can also be described in this “scary” way, and you can add replicating, mutating and multi-antigenic to the list.

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#75

That’s okay, everyone can lay down their cards – we all make our own judgment then on what is best.

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#76

Reading about the covid virus, I know one thing: I don’t want this virus inside me. I don’t fear death or hospitalisation. I’m concerned about what nasty things this virus might get up to longer term, infiltrating and damaging a variety of tissues it’s been documented in, heart, lungs, brain etc., perhaps not even immediately, but should your immunity wane or be temporarily down. You may not experience any effects for years, but it’ll hit you when you’re older, or it’ll be triggered by something unexpected.

The vaccine will not prevent you becoming infected by this virus. I have some weak hope that it may limit the odds of long covid and longer term tissue penetration, because that’s what’s hinted at in some studies. That alone is worth the vaccine for me. And of course, there’s always hope for pleiotropic benefits vs NDDs, as some vaccines have shown. The risks of the vaccine strike me as negligable in my case, but of course everyone’s situation is different, so you must make your own risk/reward calculus.

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#77

not in a million years would I ever get the covid vaccine and a big no to the flu vaccine

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#78

Yes, that’s a very good description. This virus seems to do a lot of endothelial damage, plus inducing micro blood clots etc.

It’s really a shame that the vaccines don’t offer better protection from infection, but I do agree with you that the immune response should (hopefully) result in limiting the viral spread and damage.

The people saying flat out ideological “no” to vaccines might want to consider all of the ways that viruses can mess you up. They extend far beyond just the original infection, which may be minor:

HepB and HepB - liver cancers
HPV - cervical, oral, anal and yes, penile, cancer. No thanks.
Epstein-Barr - lymphoma, stomach cancer, linked to multiple sclerosis, lupus and other autoimmune diseases
Herpes zoster - more lymphomas, linked recently to myocardial infarction and dementia (vaccines reduced these)
Herpes simplex - linked to Alzheimer’s
Influenza - higher risk of myocardial infarction and stroke after (flu vaccines reduce these)
Rotavirus - linked to celiac disease

Scientists are now also thinking that things like autoimmune T1 diabetes, anti-thyroid antibodies etc might also be caused originally by viruses and your immune system spilling over to attack healthy tissue

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#79

You are showing your ignorance. While I completely agree with not getting a shot today, you were a fool to not get one in 2020.

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#80

Indeed. Not only is myocarditis from the vaccine very rare, but the cases have been less lethal and easier to treat than myocarditis from Covid. And that’s ONE ailment - there are dozens of other problems from Covid impacting almost every organ, and there’s strong indication that even mild cases can have long term impact.

Anecdotally, the only people I know who got seriously ill from Covid both had it before the vaccines were available. One clearly had mental issues for a year after - his social media posts were … strange, and he’s still suffering in many ways (long Covid). The other was hospitalized, ALSO caught pneumonia, put into an induced coma and intubated for a week. She also got myocarditis and has had more than one heart attack and also gets seizures. She’s freaking 9 years old.

And among friends, family and coworkers, nearly all are fully vaxed and boosted and NONE of us have had severe cases.

I know just what I see around me - it’s not research. But it does line up with all the available data from credible research out there.

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