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RebE > antibodies might not work for delta variant, whereas the vaccine does.
Seems to be, just talked to a person who relied on previous infection to not vaccinate and just came out of ICU after the second infection. Anecdotes are not data, but those who think the same way please beware.
YS > lot of people I know who don’t want to get immunized because they have antibodies were tested positive for antibodies months ago and never actually showed COVID symptoms nor tested positive at any point.
non-professional understanding of theory: I think the issue is with T-cell protection. Antibodies are very specific and may be less effective with new variants. T-cell immunity is not helping with initial infection, but kicks in later to protect against serious disease and are also longer-lasting. T-cells generalize better and should be more protective against variants. Light cases of disease might not generate T-cell protection at all. Vaccines do, and possibly AZ and J&J more than mRNAs.
Bottom line, suggest to them to get one vaccine, with their initial disease working as a prime.
I quoted before a paper that estimates that vaccine works better than prior infection. I would not say that paper is 100% convincing, but those who claim opposite, should bring their sources.
> Actually, 12-18. So far.
I don’t want to out anybody, but if you have 18 months of antibodies, you probably worked in the Wuhan lab or worked at the proverbial wet market butchering ferrets.
I looked at 2017 FDA paper that identified 22 cases of Phase 3 trials rejecting results of Phase 2 between 1999 and 2017. Out of these, 7 were vaccines, and only one of them, V710 against staph infections in hospitals, was rejected due to safety concerns, the rest due to low efficacy. It took 8,000 patients in Phase 3 to detect the issue. Not stated in the text, but it seems it did not take much time (complications followed vaccinations, not long term effect).
Caveat: authors are saying that not all negative results were published before 2008. After 2008, tests needs to be registered with clinincaltrials site before starting, so all results should be reported, including negstive.
Health > Why does Medication or Vaccines take 9 – 10 years to be approved instead of a few months?!?
There are differences between medications and vaccines. My simple understanding:
medicines – balance between risk and benefit, often can be used in severe cases if there no other hope. On the other hand, medicines taken against chronic diseases, affect patients continuously and have potential of side effects, so require a lot of testingvaccines – on one hand, their effect is time-limited. So, complications are expected only during a short time interval. On the other hand, it is given to millions of healthy people who have low probability of getting a disease, so even very low risk is not acceptable. During pandemic, though, risk of disease is very high, allowing for faster approval due to a higher benefit.
Baal > I can name many poskim that are against this particular vaccine
you are not going around looking for a posek with a view, are you? what is your posek (and your doctor) are saying?
> VACCINES TAKE AT LEAST 12 YEARS (CDC) before approval, as per trial basis,
this is a good point, let’s look at the risk in detail. Could you give us a case of a vaccine where complications were discovered more than a year out in last, say, 40 years, and let’s see if this risk is applicable to COVID vaccines.
> how do i survive this lockdown,
People love quoting Rashbi as an ideal of learning v working. Why not learn like Rashbi and his son did, while hiding from Romans? Maybe share with us here something you learned.
One old book says “if the czar would understand the value of Torah, he would put a soldier with a rifle near each Jew”. while turning the page, I continued in my mind “and when someone attack the Jew, the soldier defends him”. The next page actually said: “and when the Jew distracts from learning, the soldier is pricking him with the bayonet …”. And that was before Internet. So, value the time that you got.
RW > But since when did masks and vaccines start to work only based on what someone else does!? You are openly admitting that the mask and vaccine is not effective in that case!
Do you really not understand concepts of probability and virus propagation? Each of the tools protect to a certain degree. If you are not careful, you have a chance to pick up the virus and expose others. If you are in a prolong close contact with someone, say live in the same apartment, chances go higher. If someone is not healthy or old, their chances are still high even if they are vaccinated and masked. Say, you are working in a nursing home – would you still not do anything? test? mask?
RW> Are you messing with us or just lack basic comprehension skills? You keep repeating that I said I am willing to avoid vaxpass venues. When did I say that! I clearly wrote (in answer to your question) that both vaccinated and nonvaccinated should boycott these venues who require proof of vaccination in order for things not to get worse.
I understand that you want me to boycott them, but I think your boycott would be sufficient. I hope you do not expect us respecting your desires more than you respect ours.
maybe we should go to basics on human obligations? Bava Basra – two houses of different height. The one with the higher roof has to build a fence so not to intrude on privacy of the person below him.
So, a person who might be a danger to others has to act, not the one who needs to be protected. You don’t have to take a vaccine. Just distance from vaccinated people, wear a mask, do weekly PCR test, wear a sign that you are not vaccinated, move to remote location, move to states where most pepole are not vaccinating – there are multiple ways you can act – in addition to multiple vaccines from 3-4 different technologies (mRNA, JJ, Novavax, Sinopharm).
Could you indicate which of these paths you are willing to follow to at least some extent? You already indicated that you are willing to avoid places that require vaccination. This is great, I respect that. Just look over the whole list, disengage for a moment from your worries about the whole world, amd analyze what you personally are willing to do.
>> And that means to boycott places which require you show a vaccination card whether you are vaccinated or not.
So, we agree. Please boycott places that require a vaccination card and I hope you will not define us freedom to congregate in such places. Unfortunately, many anti-vax/mask/SD people disregard privacy of others. Now, I can see people without masks and duck anti-SD kissers, but vaccination status is harder to check. Anecdotally, many would lie or ignore recommendations/regulations, or even show fake cards. I am really happy you are not one of those.
ujm,
see July article Ali Hamady, JinJu Lee, and Zuzanna A. Loboda “Waning antibody responses in COVID-19: what can we learn from the analysis of other coronaviruses” for a lot of details on antibody and T-cells.
They are saying that antibody response from disease is lower than vaccine, especially for new variants, as vaccines are designed to target multiple parts of the virus.
I would add my own understanding that disease protection varies depending on severity. Having a mild or asymptomatic case may or may not give antibodies (to be confirmed with the test) but may not guarantee longer T-cell response, so you may want to continue measuring antibody levels/
Disease + one vaccine are getting great results, with disease substituting for the first vaccine. This sounds like a reasonable middle way.
We just had a parsha with Hashem giving us a mitzva to be empirical with potential demagogues, navvim sheker – check their predictions. I think Biden’s unprompted very specific prediction on July 8, less than 40 days before it happened, qualifies: “There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy in the—of the United States from Afghanistan. “. Do we accept navi sheker defense when he blames the previous naviim?
RebE > the egg is shared
Look up current articles by military people, such as Gen Petraeus, McMaster and even partidians like Seth Moulton, or blogs by US Army veterans, see what they are saying. There is a legitimate military argument for policy – to stay or to leave, and the way it was implemented. For example, many, including Moulton, say that government was not responding to their pleas to start helping those Afghans who were working directly with US military until it was too late.
The underlying theme seems to be arrogance of inexperienced liberals who never ran anything that they know solutions for the problems and hate those who disagree with them. Obama’s brigade was lucky that their early public failure was just a sign up website, and they eventually hired people who know how to make websites. And when thy left Iraq, the country was already functioning, so it did not crumble immediately.
RebE > Afghanistan as Iraq is being overrun by terrorists.
(part of the ) Iraq was overrun by terrorists by the way Obama left it. And he also blamed Bush for that. Possibly were Hillary elected, ISIS would have still be there. Biden had an immediate view, and probably a hand, at that. All he learned was that if you blame others and avoid taking responsibility, you can survive politically.
RW > Those vaccinated who have such pride and think the unvaccinated should be punished and are promoting this new way of life,
We might naturally evolve into 2 species: one with vaccine, and one with Covid. We can have separate schools, shuls. In US, we can have separate states that can make you safe from all regulations, except the federal ones – and even those can be mostly rescinded by the state. But, please, in the areas where you are a minority. either do not walk among vaccinated or have a sign on you so that others could avoid you.
RW > Fine but what is the solution here long term.
You don’t know what the long term is. Maybe, this or next vaccine will work. Or, the virs, h’V will mutate to worse. Or, maybe one of the evil empire will find a way to weaponize the virus (further).
Address the current problem.>> just saying it is a variation of the old one, so no testing is required.”
Health> So why aren’t they doing this?First, as I explained, it seems that manufacturers are not yet requesting it, seeing that the current vaccines are still useful. Biontech founder talked about this recently. Google it for more details.
Second, I outlines two extremes, I don’t know which one is more reasonable. If they follow a permissive one, some would immediately say “untested”!!
In my, not fully informed, opinion, there could be more careful experimentation within the ongoing vaccination: try slightly different doses, slightly different schedules, to gradually build knowledge of what works better without doing much harm.
Biden knows history and Senate. He will only resign when, like w/ Nixon, Senators will tell him they are going to vote to convict. A better question – whether any of the Secretaries – State, Defense or Military leaders or advisors will resign. Either, because their advice was so bad, or if their good advice was not followed.
Unfortunately, lack of public/media criticism of D- Presidents does not serve them well. With Trump, you would have seen people threating or actually resigning or being fired, when he disregarded their opinions. So, each of these disagreements was vetted through robust discussions. Even Obama
had Biden contradicting many of his decisions (killing Osama, staying in Afghanistan), forcing a discussion. With Biden, most of the discussions are happening after the disaster already happened.
Petraeus, McMaster, Bloomberg published in the last day. I don’t know whether they were quiet before, or were not quoted, or were trying to talk in private, but it is too late for a lot of innocent people.phil: it’s a 2x decrease in these approximately 2-4 months. So what happens when a few months go buy and eficacy totally diminishes?
A good Question! I looked up plots for several vaccines and it seems that it is generally NOT declining at the same rate (2x every 4 months). Instead, it goes down rapidly for some months and then approaches some lower limit. for example, rotovirus vaccine for children starts, in rich countries, at 98% and goes to 95% in a year, and stays at 90% for 5 years. In poor countries, it starts 65%, down to 40% in 1 year, and down to 30% in 5 years. Guessing, because antibodies go down quickly, but acquired T-cell immunities stay long-term.
Anyway, if most people will vaccinate while vaccine are working well AND population will keep some caution for a while, then, the overall disease level will be low, and less or no boosting will be required. Conversely, if any time the virus goes down, people will stop vaccinating and start partying, then virus will stay at medium level – going down when peo0le are scared, and going up when people are relaxing. Exactly what happened in April-July – and we are all in a worse condition because of this.
health > You as a Lib will defend it, no matter what.
If you are addressing some other, liberal AAQ, in this group, then let him answer this question. I get enough flak her for my actual positions to answer the baseless one!
>> Every year they change the Flu vaccines to deal with the Mutants.
They could do the same thing with the Covid 19 vaccines.from memory: Flu vaccine is developed in a totally different, and a simpler, way, than Covid. They also need I think about 6 months for production, so they use early data from Southern Hemisphere’s winter to (imperfectly) predict what strain will happen during the winter. COVID manufacturing was set up in about 8 months completely anew and consist of several contractors each, and I would trust companies like Moderna and Biontech on weighting new v. old processes. The only government input might be – how much testing they would require for a changed vaccine: extremes would be requiring Phase1-2-3 as with a new one, or just saying it is a variation of the old one, so no testing is required. I would think if the companies had a new product, they’ll not hesitate press the government. So far, I did not see that happening.
health > But the Government should persuade the Pharmaceutical companies to make vaccines that work directly on the Variants!
so far, response was that they are tracking it and testing new vaccines but for now the original vaccines are sufficient. Maybe this takes into account difficulty of changing manufacturing process that is quite complicated.
>> However with viruses like the flu and covid-19, they mutate constantly and therefore the shots against them are virtually useless.
Phil, Covid vaccine developers took that into account. Covid mutates less than flu and there are certain features that Covid virus needs to have in order to be effective. Vaccines were developed to attack multiple patterns like that. Variants seem to decrease vaccine effectiveness but not fully. Level of antibodies does not fully account for the whole immune system, such as T-cells. Real-life data is more indictive. This month Israeli data – seniors have 7x less hospitalizations with vaccine months ago v. those who do not. So, this is a 2x decrease from 15x as in Phase 3 against original virus, but still substantial effect.
> Is there any state in the USA that the government successfully handled Covid?
a good question that is hard to answer given randomness of pandemic over time and different condition in each state. But see below states with lowest cumulative deaths/100K population – it is obvious that most of them are remote, rural, low density, but not all remote states are on this list! And many of them have older population (Maine, Vermont), so maybe they did something right.
Hawaii 40 / 100k
Vermont
Alaska
Utah
Oregon
Maine 80
Washington
Guam
puerto rico
New Hampshire
Colorado
Nebraska
Idaho 120/100k
Virginia
Wyomingcoffee > The hygiene thing was about masks or about shots?
I am calling on all of us to behave like menchen in all aspects and treat others with respect and care, whether this requires masks, shots, or helping an elderly person cross the road.
There is an expression I do not hear often lately – Ehricher Yid. If we foolow that, many questions here will not need to be asked. I checked with Prof. Google – he has 3K of Ehricher Yids v. 7 mlns of ‘frum” …
phil > In Israel it is currently at 53% while the unvaccinated positive cases are only at 43%
recent stats from Israel: rate of serious cases among older than 60 vaccinated is 7x lower than among remaining unvaccinated. From early data, seems like 3rd booster reduces this further.
>> most doctors. What choice do they have other than to support the vaccine?
my doctor asked whether I am vaccinated and the, unexpectedly and embarrassing to me, said “thank you”, as if I did him a favor … He surely did not have to say that.
Shmuel’s father used same layered approach, keeping orphan’s money hidden and between 2 layers of his own – top for robbers, lower for damage
> I don’t think people should be forced to be mensches
I am not talking about forcing, I am talking what is proper for us to do, so you seem to be on board
> make the masks free (subsidized)
makes sense. whoever here does not have a mask, please ask mods to forward your address to me, I’ll send you some, bli neder. I actually put a bag in one shul early on, when they were hard to find and expensive (with uncertain effect). And, I think, a number of places, like hospitals, give away some. Also consider spending some of the stimulus money on that.
> Covid-19 strikes hardest as those whose lives were already coming to an end meaning that but for the government, the economic impact would have been negligible.
I don’t think this is how halakha looks at the value of life.
coffee, the question is – how often problems found during Phase 3 vaccine trials more than 6-12 months after the start of trials. This should be disclosed as part of Phase 3 results. I recall looking at this, not exhaustively, and did not see any
coffee, a good question. I’ve looked at recall information. It seems that problems with vaccines are typically found quickly. That is, there might be short-term side effect after vaccine uptake, but not long-term. It seems to make sense in terms of how immunity reacts to a threat. If there are long-term vaccine cases, please point me to them.
As to short-term, there is a lot of data by now. First, original Phase 3 trials are now more than a year old. So, they would have safety info. Second, real world tests are now done on millions of people and statistics collected.
That said, there are some decisions that are made as pressed by time and conservative approach – such as having, for now, doses for younger adults and children being same as for older people.
Immune response seems to be universally higher with younger age, and risk lower… These decisions are based on Phase 3s being set up for a reasonably high dose to pass the test from the first attempt, and lack of data on lower doses. Whenever FDA authorizes 10 mcg for children < 12 y.o. (v 30 mcg for adults) or when regular authorization will be available, hopefully it will be possible for all young people, even above ba mitzva to use lower doses.> Acknowledge that the anti Corona vaxxers may be right about some points and adre them honestly .
I thought lots of people were talking here. I agree that there are gov sources that turn information the way they need today, and there are some reasonable anti-vaccine arguments. Still, the way anti-vaxxers present their information (or, more likely, copy it from dark corners of internet or “russia today”) does not help their cause. If the same person is against mRNA for reason A, of J&J of reason B, of masks for reason C, and of Social distancing for reason D – and all reasons are not very reasonable – what is a chance he came to these conclusions through logical thinking? not much. It means that the person’s thinking ability is overwhelmed by a stream of propaganda that he is consuming. If this person lives in China or Russia, this would be understandable, but if this is a Jewish person living in a free world, there is something wrong here. It seems that we have pockets of the community that is getting sucked into the DarkWeb, some of them not even using internet, but hearing it from friends.
coffee > you’re not forced to, it’s your choice
> you shouldn’t be forced to “protect someone who doesn’t want itWhat happened with being a baal middos and tzedokah? I think you are tripped by the abnormality of the situation. I am sure, if a reasonable poor person approaches you, you are not saying “you should have gone to college”. So, if some poor uneducated souls walk around, you won’t inconvenience yourself? And, again, as they are endangering vulnerable people, you are indirectly doing the same.
RebE > Use j&j which does not use this technology
I think he already found a tiruts for that also. But let’s put aside the medical discussion – it is understandable that someone can get lost in medical terminology about a cutting-edge technology. Go, down to basics. So, someone is not vaccinating, and thus, are a higher danger to the society around him. If he is Jewish, then to the Jewish society.
Then, there are kosher solutions:
– limit your interaction, especially with vulnerable people,
– do not congregate in large groups
– wear a mask
– do weekly COVID test (this is now offered as an alternative to some government workers)It may be unclear where exactly to draw the line, but a person should do some hishtadlus in bein adam l’havero in this case. I hope that vaccine sceptics can report on what they and their haverim do in this regard. If they are not, then we need to talk about middos in a wider context, not just about medical and statistical education.
Avira, thanks for acknowledging that Chareidi lifestyle is an emergency decree, and it produced measurable results in terms of dedication to Torah and cohesive communities. And I understand your feeling that the dangers are higher and higher.
There is a reason that this is a emergency decree, so Torah/Chachamim would not want us to live like that under normal conditions. So, the next question is to ask honestly – what are the downsides and how can we mitigate them without losing the positive sides. And situation is different: we are 200+ years into modernity, 100 years in USA and Israel, we have more tools to deal with it than 100 years ago.
Avram > Good thing there are many rabbis and poskim who are aware of how frum Jews live and who advise Jewish families.
This is not an answer. There is a reason we are learning traditional sources. We learn from Gemora/Rishonim/Aharonim who to resolve modern issues. You are welcome to quote specific psak and analyze how it applies to previous ones and to modern conditions, but simply outsource a solution is OK for an Am Haaertz, but if someone is trying to defend a lifestyle of learning Torah, you should do better than that.
Ari > many modern orthodox spend even more money on university, major in art history or philosophy
Avira> MO move out of Brooklyn and aren’t as embarrassed to send their children to public school r”l.I think you guys generalize somewhat. A lot of people go into engineering, computer science, medicine, law. True some elitism is there. A friend who sends kids to YU & Stern to be ina Jewish U, reported that some of them were looked down by classmates by going to an inferior school. There is also an assimilated idea of “kids going away to college” as a bar-mitzva of sort, need to separate the idea of education from “exciting experience” that indeed often ends badly. Sending kids to a local university should be a fine alternative. Some “MO” students, though, are mature enough and thrive in colleges, continuing learning and fully observant. I think you can see in advance which ones can do it.
I am not well versed with the Brooklyn exodus phenomenon, but maybe these people were not able to send kids to public school in NY and now moved to suburbs where they can. So, it is not that they compromised their values now, they just did what they had to do to save their kids from bad public schools while they lived in Brooklyn.
And “rather finance a house” is something to think about.. for people who pay full, or close to full, tuition, Jewish school, whether MO or not, is a major expense (that includes paying part of the tuition for those who do not). If the school also doe not prepare kids for professions at their parents level, it is a very hard proposition to keep kids in such schools.
you don’t need to buy expensive cartridges from the manufacturer, this is same scam as over-priced esrogim or wine, and halakha usually allows boycotting them. Buy third party half-price cartridges, they are as good (or as bad) as the originals. Or invest in a laser printer that prints cheaply.
> The elderly neighbor would be protected if they got the vaccine
coffee, out of 100 neighbors, 10 will be low on their antibodies, and 3 will get sick ….
I am really puzzled my this behavior. We learned over centuries a lot of good practices that we apply without doing a heshbon each time whether it is necessary: don’t sneeze on people, wash your hands before eating (what is percentage of food with E-coli?!), stopping on a red light (what is percentage that someone will walk at you or police hiding nearby), saying hello (what is percentage that are depressed and really need a hello), wearing tzitzis (what is a chance you are going to “follow your eyes” while on a shopping trip), wearing shoes (what is a chance there is glass on the floor)
philosopher,
this is like looking for a posuk in New York Public library catalog …ctrl-h opens your history and then you can search your history
you can also search medline, google scholar, researchnet, etc, for scientific articles instead of internet.RW, Hashem sent this plague, we need to deal with that and use it as a source of teshuva.
Consider many things that you were doing routinely, now they might have small risk associated with them, so you may want to re-think: should you be going to restaurants as you did before? which asifas are worth attending? which travel is essential? which meetings can be done online? you now have a good excuse to avoid unproductive things you were doing before.
there were a lot of small and large changes in the society, such as local ordinances allowing restaurants to occupy sidewalks, Trump’s enabling Medicare payments for tele-medicine, current Florida decision to allow whole districts to use vouchers to avoid “mask bullying”.
The question is not only whether something is sustainable [Cuban economy is sustainable], but whether this is a good thing for a Jew to do.
There is no problem if someone does not chase money, and lives off his meager earnings, as long as his wife is ok with that.
There is no problem, if someone is supported by an honest private person, if he learns according to the donor’s expectation.
I am not sure what are the classical sources for using non-Jewish, or Jewish, government funds dedicated to support of poor by people who are able to work, while there are sources condemning it (make your Shabbat k’hol, but do ot rely on tzedokah)
> what antisemitic source did I quote.
Thai-German Dr
I am puzzled, here and in other places, when people connect Poles to murders of Jews during WW2 .. Poland was the first country to be attacked from two sides, and Polish Jews – as non-Jews – were sure that Polish cavalry will repulse the attack. Warsaw Jews record the shock when they realized that planes in the air are not Polish … We may be victims of an echo of old Soviet propaganda that was accusing pre-Soviet Polish government of all kind of crimes while covering their own. Remember Katyn where Soviets killed 22,000 Polish officers, half of all officers, 8% estimated Jewish, blamed Nazis for that, and Jewish organizations supported Soviet lies over the years. Even in 2020, there was an issue at Yad Vashem where they presented a pro-Russian exhibit.
Justd looked it up, USHMM still omits who killed Chief Rabbi of Polish Army:
“Rabbi Steinberg was later killed in Katyn massacre.”Enigma did not provide relevant information, except for 2 months in 1941 about mass killing at the beginning of invasion into USSR. After Churchill started talking about atrocities there (without mentioning Jews specifically), Germans stopped transmitting thee reports on the radio.
in general, Roosevelt ignored a number of important enigma reports. There was internal rivalry between Army and Navy departments that were presenting him these reports, and they did not often register enough.
rightwriter > Possibly the Jews in Europe felt that way as well and couldn’t believe something like that could happen in a modern Germany. But it did.
I am with you here. My motto is “if you are paranoid, it does not mean there is no one after you”.
Still, you are not helping everyone to be on a lookout for danger, if you are quoting totally discredited, and even anti-semitic, sources.coffee > I’m not worried about the unvaxxed they should worry about themselves
What is the halakha about this? You don’t have to help the donkey if the owner is not helping, but I think we are still obligated to help our fellow Jews. To what extent? And, as I mentioned, they are a threat to immunocompromised vaxed people, if they come in direct contact with them.