Most of us already know there are huge risks from Covid-19.There are huge risks to being alive. The only people who are truly safe are in cemeteries.
And some people who stick their heads in the sand also feel completely safe.
There is no such thing as safe. Safety is an illusion.
Most of us already know there are huge risks from Covid-19.There are huge risks to being alive. The only people who are truly safe are in cemeteries.
And some people who stick their heads in the sand also feel completely safe.
There is no such thing as safe. Safety is an illusion.
Then why do we have so many laws and regulations regarding safety?
Most of us already know there are huge risks from Covid-19.There are huge risks to being alive. The only people who are truly safe are in cemeteries.
And some people who stick their heads in the sand also feel completely safe.
There is no such thing as safe. Safety is an illusion.
Then why do we have so many laws and regulations regarding safety?
They manage risk, but the risk never goes away. People still die in car accidents with seat belts, and in some cases the seat belts actually end up killing them where they would have survived had they not been wearing them. On balance, seat belts reduce the risk of death, so that is why they are the law.
Let's illustrate my point about safety using something from the last pandemic we experienced. H1N1 carried the risk of death. Yet the vaccine to protect against that may give you gullian-barre syndrome. Either option is technically unsafe. What happens instead is you weigh the risks of both outcomes, and make an informed choice.
Let's use another example with safety. We've had problems in Winnipeg with people being stabbed to death on city buses. If Winnipeg Transit had a policy that all passengers had to submit to a full bag, strip, and body cavity search before boarding, you could confiscate all weapons, and you would have surely saved lives. Should Winnipeg Transit put that policy in place? It would make riding the bus much safer than it is now.
Winnipeg Transit has sensible policies aimed at protecting the safety of their their drivers and passengers. Understandably Manitoba also has laws and regulations at protecting the safety of their citizens in response to Covid-19. Jurisdictions around the world have laws and regulations that are aimed at mitigating Covid-19. Governments around the world that have to deal directly with Cobid-19 are in no position to ignore Covid-19 like many people who want to ignore it because they are opposed to the inconveniences and hardships caused by Covid-19.
Winnipeg Transit has sensible policies aimed at protecting the safety of their their drivers and passengers.
There have been 2 people stabbed to death on Winnipeg Transit buses in recent years, so no the policies failed to protect the safety of bus drivers. Doing as I suggested would guarantee safety of everyone on board.
Jurisdictions around the world have laws and regulations that are aimed at mitigating Covid-19.
Those laws and regulations are aimed at controlling and micromanaging citizens to prevent the kind of uprisings we were seeing all around the world last year in response to the threats of climate change and income inequality. Mitigating covid is just the excuse they are using.
Governments around the world that have to deal directly with Cobid-19 are in no position to ignore Covid-19 like many people who want to ignore it because they are opposed to the inconveniences and hardships caused by Covid-19.
Why yes, children trapped at home with abusive parents are just opposed to the inconveniences of covid 19. They just need to wait patiently at home for this to be over, then they can find a friend or teacher to tell about what's happening at home.
Winnipeg Transit and their passengers are opposed to your suggestions.
The laws and regulations that have been established to mitigate Covid-19 are primarily aimed at mitigating Covid-19 and have little or nothing to do with opposing climate change or income inequality. Those are other issues.
Once "this thing" is over our lives will improve including the lives of children living with abusive parents. Hopefully these children, their parents, and grandparents, will have vaccine shots.
Astra Zeneca to test combining its COVID-19 vaccine with Russian one
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/covid-19-vaccines-astra-zeneca-sputnik-v-...
"Astra Zeneca is to start clinical trials to test a combination of its experimental coronavirus vaccine with Russia's Sputnik V shot to see if this can boost the efficacy of the British drugmaker's vaccine, Russia's public investment fund said on Friday. Sputnik's Russian developers say clinical trials, still under way, have shown it has an efficacy rate of over 90%, higher than that of Astra Zeneca's own vaccine and similar to those of US rivals Pfizer and Moderna..."
Like the lockdown? Sleep better on a ventilator? Then refuse the vaccine
https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/don-martin-like-the-lockdown-sleep-bette...
"Having botched any pretense of containing the second COVID-19 wave with an effective blitz of testing, tracing and infection isolation, Canadian politicians are being given a shot at redemptiom. The smiling-face story of this terribly sad year is the arrival of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine, which should be rolling out toward rolled-up sleeves across Canada in limited numbers next week.
But more than the heavy hand of Big Brother, deploying common sense will be the best weapon to fight those who believe the jab of a cure is worse than the health impacts of the disease...Widespread vaccination is the fastest and surest route to normal life returning to all of us..."
Winnipeg Transit and their passengers are opposed to your suggestions.
Then they must not care about safety then, because my suggestion would have clearly saved lives.
Once "this thing" is over our lives will improve including the lives of children living with abusive parents. Hopefully these children, their parents, and grandparents, will have vaccine shots.
What's more likely is that we are going to see widespread poverty as a result of the economic crash that has happened to combat the virus (assuming children traped at home with abusive parents with no recourse actually survive however long it takes for this thing to be over). Fossil fuel companies are also likely going to get access to every last drop of oil they can get their hands on, with the government's help. There will also be more surveillance and "emergency laws" to deal with anyone who tries to rise up and stop this trend.
Like the lockdown? Sleep better on a ventilator? Then refuse the vaccinehttps://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/don-martin-like-the-lockdown-sleep-bette...
"Having botched any pretense of containing the second COVID-19 wave with an effective blitz of testing, tracing and infection isolation, Canadian politicians are being given a shot at redemptiom. The smiling-face story of this terribly sad year is the arrival of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine, which should be rolling out toward rolled-up sleeves across Canada in limited numbers next week.
But more than the heavy hand of Big Brother, deploying common sense will be the best weapon to fight those who believe the jab of a cure is worse than the health impacts of the disease...Widespread vaccination is the fastest and surest route to normal life returning to all of us..."
More alarmist garbage over a disease that most people will recover from without the need for a ventilator. Dr. Tam has made it absolutely clear that the vaccine will not allow us to go back to normal. The vaccine is being trotted out by governments and politicians as "just around the corner" so we see a light at the end of the lockdown tunnel and that we don't question it. They are employing an effective emotional blackmail technique known as tantalizing: get someone to do something they don't want to do by promising a reward, remove the reward once it comes close, and kick the reward further down the road. After the "3-weeks-to-flatten-the-curve" mantra tunred into 9 months, I don't trust a word these people say.
Besides, Martin is a journalist. Isn't his job to actually question what the drug companies and governments are saying, rather than acting as their defacto PR spokesperson? I've seen far to little questioning of what has become conventional wisdom about covid in mainstream and non-mainstream media outlets. Furthermore, Don Martin used to write for the National Post. I thought the National Post was an evil media outlet. That's what many on the left say when Conrad Black writes articles questioning the covid lockdown, but any pronouncements by a former columnist of said paper that reinforce conventional wisdom around covid are to be taken as gospel?
I've done my research. Pro and Contra. My conclusions. The doctors and scientists are trustworthy - the science is logical and proven. Do your own you will conclude as I do. Get the jab.
How do you know these doctors and scientists aren't on the take?
As the number of UK deaths caused by covid-19 reached 50 000 in early November, England enacted a second national lockdown to control the epidemic. Boris Johnson’s government put these measures into action after months of controversial and sometimes confusing policies, including the “rule of six,” regional tiered controls, and directions to “stay alert.” At the same time, the government has faced mounting questions about procurement decisions, from personal protective equipment to testing kits, from vaccine deals to the services of logistics companies.Calls for greater transparency around such decisions have included those bodies focused on science and health, such as the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), as well as taskforces charged with advising on vaccines and testing. Although Downing Street has become more transparent in disclosing the advice of SAGE, it has kept members’ financial conflicts of interest unpublished and shown little concern that advisers to the coronavirus Vaccine Taskforce have financial interests in pharmaceutical companies receiving government contracts. When The BMJ sought further information on these bodies, such as lists of members’ interests, the information was denied or requests were unanswered.
...
Criticism over SAGE’s secrecy first appeared in a Nature editorial1 in March. In April, the government’s chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance sent a letter to parliament2 stating that SAGE’s membership, recommendations, supporting documents, and meeting minutes would be published, but only after the group ceased meeting about covid-19. Vallance argued3 that secrecy protected SAGE members and shielded them “from lobbying and other forms of unwanted influence which may hinder their ability to give impartial advice.”
Rob Weissman, president of Public Citizen, an American non-profit organisation focusing on government transparency, was troubled by this statement because, he says, corporate interests are always granted access to government decision makers: “It’s never a secret from the companies. The secrecy is selective. Secrecy becomes the way to selectively make information available to the powerful, and connected corporations, while the public is kept in the dark.”
...
Multiple experts contacted by The BMJ also argued that SAGE appears unbalanced, favouring certain types of scientific proficiency over others. Some claim that SAGE has relied too much on disease modellers who have been given priority over behavioural researchers. Others point out that public health experts, who best understand how to control communicable diseases, should have been given more seats at the table. Meanwhile, it remains tough to confirm if the government is following SAGE’s advice.
“They’re not ignoring SAGE,” says Linda Bauld, professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh, who is not a member of the committee, “They’re selectively taking their advice.” Bauld says that after the government sends questions to SAGE and gets the group’s feedback, the government then works in other considerations, such as economics, public opinion, and politics. But unlike the advice from SAGE, these other inputs that inform policy are never made public, making it impossible to know if the government has ignored scientific expertise. She adds that SAGE is now more transparent than the Scottish government advisory group, which publishes minutes of its meetings, but which she says contain little information and are not useful.
Like other specialists The BMJ contacted, Bauld also wondered if SAGE requires members to report their financial conflicts of interest. “I’ve not seen that information published anywhere,” she says. The BMJ then contacted the Government Office for Science (GOS) to ask whether SAGE members were required to fill in financial disclosure forms. We also requested copies of any such forms for current members. A spokesperson for GOS confirmed that SAGE members must declare their financial conflicts of interest and provided us with an empty template copy of the SAGE disclosure form.
...
By July the UK government had signed a coronavirus vaccine deal for an undisclosed sum with GlaxoSmithKline, securing 60 million doses of an untested treatment that was still being developed. In September, media outlets reported that Vallance had £600 000 (€661 000; $800 000) worth of shares in the company. The government responded to say that,8 while he heads the government’s Vaccine Taskforce, Vallance “has no input into contractual and commercial decisions on vaccine procurement, which are taken by ministers following a robust cross government approvals regime.”
Days later, the Daily Mail broke another story, this time focusing on Bell. On top of his role with the Vaccine Taskforce, Bell also headed the National Covid Testing Scientific Advisory Panel and chaired the government’s new test approvals group. But the Mail discovered something The BMJ had first reported in 20129—that Bell had substantial financial interests, now amounting to £773 000 worth of shares, in pharma company Roche, which had sold the government £13.5m of antibody tests in May. Following the deal, Bell appeared on Channel 4 News and Radio 4’s Today, calling the tests a major step forward. Yet Public Health England found the tests unreliable.
Bell told the Mail that he had no role in the deal and that he had disclosed to the government “a long list of my interests.” According to the Mail, “He said that he did not sit on the advisory body involved in the decision to purchase the Roche antibody tests, adding: ‘I did not know about the Roche contract until it was signed. I advised on diagnostic home testing kits, not these ones.’”
Winnipeg Transit and their passengers are opposed to your suggestions.Then they must not care about safety then, because my suggestion would have clearly saved lives.
I think Winnipeg Transit and their passengers are a better judge of safety on BC Transit than you are. Strip searching Winnipeg Transit passengers does seem nonsensical.
Winnipeg Transit and their passengers are opposed to your suggestions.Then they must not care about safety then, because my suggestion would have clearly saved lives.
I think Winnipeg Transit and their passengers are a better judge of safety on BC Transit than you are. Strip searching Winnipeg Transit passengers does seem nonsensical.
I agree that my idea is nonsensical. That's why I brought it up, to illustrate that safety is not an absolute in all situations, and there are times when we are tolerant of some degree of risk.
I agree that my idea is nonsensical. That's why I brought it up, to illustrate that safety is not an absolute in all situations, and there are times when we are tolerant of some degree of risk.
Luckily our health experts are helping us determine how to make decisions regarding the risks related to Covid-19. We would be a lot better off if we had more respect for science and experts. Disrespect and disregard for science, experts, and scientists seems to be leading the world down a dark path during our "post-truth" era.
I agree that my idea is nonsensical. That's why I brought it up, to illustrate that safety is not an absolute in all situations, and there are times when we are tolerant of some degree of risk.
Luckily our health experts are helping us determine how to make decisions regarding the risks related to Covid-19. We would be a lot better off if we had more respect for science and experts. Disrespect and disregard for science, experts, and scientists seems to be leading the world down a dark path during our "post-truth" era.
The current Chief Medical Officer would be more appropriate to listen to.
OXFAM: Campaigners warn that 9 out of 10 people in poor countries are set to miss out on COVID-19 vaccines next year.
https://reliefweb.int/report/world/campaigners-warn-9-out-10-people-poor...
"Rich countries have hoarded enough doses to vaccinate their entire population nearly three times over...Canada tops the chart with enough vaccines to vaccinate each Canadian five times."
Alliance mobilises for a people's vaccine
"The COVID-19 pandemic, like a scab torn off a wound, has exposed sytemic inequality and racism throughout our healtcare system. Now, the distribution of a desperately needed vaccine is revealing even further the depth of inequality and immorality at the core of our globalized economy. Rich nations, representing just 14% of the population have bought up 53% of the most promising vaccines so far..."
The current Chief Medical Officer would be more appropriate to listen to.
Why? Chief Medical Officer of Health is a political appointment. If the government says either, "we have this covid pandemic and we want you to find a way to use it to control people," or "my big business donors are upset because we can't have large gatherings and we want you to find a way to allow large gatherings to happen," the Chief Medical Officer of Health either goes along with it or finds another job. A former Chief Medical Officer of Health not only has the relevant experience assessing and managing public health risks, but also has more freedom to express an independent opinion than someone employed by the government.
I agree that my idea is nonsensical. That's why I brought it up, to illustrate that safety is not an absolute in all situations, and there are times when we are tolerant of some degree of risk.
Luckily our health experts are helping us determine how to make decisions regarding the risks related to Covid-19. We would be a lot better off if we had more respect for science and experts. Disrespect and disregard for science, experts, and scientists seems to be leading the world down a dark path during our "post-truth" era.
But why would you feel the need to say it doesn't provide 100% safety. NO ONE is saying a single measure or all the measures will give everyone 100% safety. That is a bar you are putting up as a measure of success.
I don't agree with the way Canada managed Covid nor the goal of just keeping the hospitals from getting over-loaded. I think we should have been much more ambitious and I still do. Nevertheless this is better than nothing.
Answering Questions About the Vaccines
https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=2100400
Dr Abdu Sharkawy.
WATCH: Here I describe a brief overview of how the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna mRNA vaccines work. Taking a vaccine is one's personal choice and I hope this video can help someone make that decision rooted in science.
https://twitter.com/ScientistSwanda/status/1335988328362090500
I'm in no rush to get the vaccine - if I get it at all.
Do you believe that the risk of harm from the vaccine is greater than the risk of harm from infection with covid? And when I say "risk", I mean it in the technical sense of "probability of harmful event" times "damage caused by harmful event". I'm not being critical, just curious about how you come to this decision.
I appreciate the respectful question.
You probably won't like my response, but my reluctance has little - if anything - to do with concerns about the vaccine's safety. I'm inclined to believe it will be overwhelmingly safe for the vast majority who get it.
The answer, frankly, is that I just don't feel motivated to get it. I don't hold out any hope that the post-COVID world will be any better than the pre-COVID world. "We're all in this together" has been a charming platitude, but I'm just not feeling it. COVID could very well kill me. But even if it doesn't, poverty certainly will. And I'm not alone in that. I can't turn on my computer anymore without finding at least one fellow member of the disabled community or another speaking openly and candidly about suicide, or about beginning the process of seeking approval for Medical Assistance in Dying.
When CERB was first announced, I was feeling a little more hopeful. Even if most of us on ODSP weren't eligible to receive it (and those who were, saw it clawed back into Doug Ford's provincal slush fund), it seemed as though the general public was almost ready to admit that neither the $733/month provided by Ontario Works, nor the $1169/month provided by the Ontario Disability Support Program are anywhere near adequate amounts for people to survive on. But that brief window of public empathy started to close even before the first COVID wave crested.
Instead, months later, things look bleaker than ever for disabled poor people. Despite the skyrocketing cost of living, social assistance rates have been frozen for a second straight year. Instead of providing adequate assistance, Doug Ford is creating 17 new positions in Ontario's civil service to look for "welfare fraud", as he dismissively tells disabled people to look for jobs. And yet there's nary a peep about it from anyone except those of us within the disabled community who are directly affected.
It's really sinking in for many of us. Our lives are disposable. There's not going to be a post-COVID economic recovery that includes us. I'm seeing suicidal ideation running rampant within the disabled community like never before.
So why the fuck would we bother with a vaccine?
That is so distressing, Douglas. I too thought that our collective eyes were opened at the start of the pandemic to the importance of taking care of the most economically disadvantaged. It seemed, at the time, that serious consideration was being given to such societal improvements as an equitable guaranteed income program (one that doesn't mean cuts to other social supports). You're right that the mood and spirit of generosity has changed over the past many months. Some are even bragging about making more money than ever through investments, real estate and, of course, those benefiting from the gig economy. But certainly not a rosey picture for brick and mortor retail, services and restaurant workers and even essential services workers LOST their wee bump up in pay for working through the first wave of COVID. And for those on social assistance, disability or on the street, any generosity or understanding there was seems to have evaporated. All is back to usual where the best we can collectively do is fundraise and contribute to freaking FOOD BANKS (something that has become an industry in itself rather than a temporary emergency measure).
Your choice for not being interested in the vaccine is completely understandable but a very bleak one.
You assume media will let this die. I live in Ontario, restricted to red control level, where public health tracks by case per hundred thousand. 40 cases in a week of a pop of 100000 means essentially dictatorship. It doesn't matter only 0.013 percent of cases have been fatal. It doesn't matter our local hospital, only has 10 ICU beds. Governments need to spin this for their lack of investment in healthcare - how one is blind in seeing that number is staggering to me. The billions spent, which do come with a promise, we can hopefully not invest that amount next year, is mind boggling. So you are willing to lock down livelihoods over 0.013 percent of lives becoming fatal? Instead of addressing the underlying issue.
Those are not other issues. If you lock down people, tell them to stay home, public health becomes an enabler in inequality, abuse and other issues. If you take away the supports people find, many couldn't find a therapist for months outside virtual, yet a doctors appointment, all for a contagion I'm sorry is not justifying this response is not justification for your line of thought.
But we can just simply trust, government is doing all it can.
Winnipeg Transit and their passengers are opposed to your suggestions.
The laws and regulations that have been established to mitigate Covid-19 are primarily aimed at mitigating Covid-19 and have little or nothing to do with opposing climate change or income inequality. Those are other issues.
Once "this thing" is over our lives will improve including the lives of children living with abusive parents. Hopefully these children, their parents, and grandparents, will have vaccine shots.
Your choice for not being interested in the vaccine is completely understandable but a very bleak one.
I've been trying for a couple of days now to think of how to express my feelings about DFP's post, but I can't do any better than Laine Lowe's quote above. I realized after reading the post that I should have anticipated the answer based on past postings by DFP, but I was too thick to get it. I am struck once again by how lucky I have been to have had good health, and to have been able to make a reasonable living, and how terrible it is that so many people don't have a chance for a decent life.
Me too. I just retired last year after a decade of precarious employment under the most godawful conditions at minimum wage, and although things are tight and my pension small, I no longer have to take crowded public transit for 4 hours a day to work in crowded warehouses, packing plants, recycling operations etc, where covid is allowed to run free, or so I hear from others still unlucky enough to have to work in these places. Many thanks Douglas Fir for your serious consciousness raising about how things really are. And how urgent, more than ever, for all to redouble efforts to change things for the better, so that some don't have to contemplate leaving. How bloody awful.
The answer, frankly, is that I just don't feel motivated to get it. I don't hold out any hope that the post-COVID world will be any better than the pre-COVID world. "We're all in this together" has been a charming platitude, but I'm just not feeling it. COVID could very well kill me. But even if it doesn't, poverty certainly will. And I'm not alone in that.
poverty is not an abstract threat to me, and scares me way more than covid.
i have poverty, but i don't see society locking down in solidarity.
Live Map: Where Canada's COVID-19 Vaccines Are Being Distributed
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/live-map-where-canada-s-covid-...
"Canada has secured more than 400 million vaccine doses from multiple manufacturers. Once approved by Health Canada, vaccines will be given to Canadians as new shipments arrive. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his target is to immunize all Canadians by the end of 2021. Every province is responsible for their own vaccine rollout plan. With vaccines shipped to every province, here's a look at where doses are being distributed..."
It's really sinking in for many of us. Our lives are disposable. There's not going to be a post-COVID economic recovery that includes us. I'm seeing suicidal ideation running rampant within the disabled community like never before.
So why the fuck would we bother with a vaccine?
I have two friends on ODSP and what you've expressed reflects what they've told me (I'm also on disability, but it's from the feds - much less restrictive and punitive). Ontario has been making life hell for its most vulnerable citizens since the Harris years, and it did a pretty shit job even before that. Neoliberal austerity doesn't seem to recognize that when everyone has a decent secure source of income, the entire economy benefits. Instead the poor are demonized as frauds, freeloaders and burdens on society. It's all so bloody inhuman. And completely unnecessary.
I have personal experience with deep, grinding poverty, the kind that sucks all optimism from you, so I get it to some degree, but know this: the government may not give a shit about you, but a lot of other people do, including us, here on babble. I hope the ongoing fight for a living wage/source of income becomes a reality sooner rather than later. Poverty costs lives.
Echoing everyone else. I also read the post earlier on but didn't know how to respond. I wish so much there was something more I could do. I want to offer cheering words yet they would be so inadequate. "How bloody awful" indeed.
'This is a massive step by Twitter. If implemented across the board, it could largely shut down many denialist accounts.'
https://twitter.com/GidMK/status/1339453736809185280
"Moving forward and beginning next week, we are expanding the policy and may require people to remove Tweets which advance harmful false or misleading narratives about COVD-19 vaccinations..."
[Posted for info only. Don't agree with Twitter's action. The PTB first 'manufacture consent' with 'acceptable' free speech restrictions and then expand them to suppress other 'problematic' discussion and narratives.]
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who with a long list of his far-right newspapers and TV channels spread conspiracy theory Covid-19 was fake, receives Covid-19 vaccine in the UK.
https://twitter.com/killingbritain/status/1339989875102244866?s=20
I don't see it that way. No matter how powerful Twitter is a private company so freedom of speech does not apply. I support Canadian laws against hate speech. As we have seen to our dismay Trump has been able to spread and promote misinformation to an astounding degree even with fact check warnings.
I don't agree that the slippery slope is more dangerous than anti-vaxxers spreading false information. It's fine if they want to spread real information to promote their argument against vaccinations. Allowing it to stand with nothing but a fact check just indicates that it hasn't been proven to be a fact or is not generally accepted as a fact but that it remains a valid perspective. It might be a fact but other people disagree so there is a fact check.
I first noticed the trend of treating all views as if they are equal in the climate change debates. Giving both sides a fair hearing was not fair it was an abdication of duty. The media has turned to simply reporting what people say which brought us to Trump. People claiming Bill Gates and a pedophile ring are orchestrating Covid-19 is not covered by labeling it with a fact-check.
Maybe social media companies should have committees with citizens and various experts to judge the big current conspiracies circulating.
Free speech should never cover promoting racism with demonstrably false or misleading information as an example.
COVID-19 Vaccines and Herd Immunity
https://twitter.com/mlipsitch/status/1339711689705598979
"How many people in a population will need to get a COVID-19 vaccine before herd immunity is achieved?"
COVID-19 Vaccines and Herd Immunity
https://twitter.com/mlipsitch/status/1339711689705598979
"How many people in a population will need to get a COVID-19 vaccine before herd immunity is achieved?"
Excellent link. There is no firm answer as of yet.
here's another:
Science will tell us what the reality is
"RT talks to Stanley Alan Plotkin, an American physician who works as a consultant to vaccine manufacturers and biotech firms, about the recent vaccine developments..."
FDA Investigating Allergic Reaction to Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine after Multiple Incidents
"Peter Marks, director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, announced on Friday that at least five cases of allergic reaction to the vaccine, which began being administered last week ,are being looked into by the agency. Reports of allergic reactions came from Alaska and other states last week, following similar instances reported from the UK..."
Health Canada approves Moderna vaccine.
Late to this thread, but I also want to add my support to Douglas (which others have so eloquently posted), and I don't know what to say except I wish for better days for you and your community.
How Canadians Are the Worst Vaccine Racists
https://indica.medium.com/how-canadians-are-the-worst-vaccine-racists-78...
"Canadians are real polite bastards. They signed up for COVAX -- to procure a vaccine globally -- and then immediately undermined it by hoarding - Canadians are per capita the worst vaccine hoarders in the world - They have enough for at least 4 X their population..."
I don't see it that way. No matter how powerful Twitter is a private company so freedom of speech does not apply. I support Canadian laws against hate speech. As we have seen to our dismay Trump has been able to spread and promote misinformation to an astounding degree even with fact check warnings.I don't agree that the slippery slope is more dangerous than anti-vaxxers spreading false information. It's fine if they want to spread real information to promote their argument against vaccinations. Allowing it to stand with nothing but a fact check just indicates that it hasn't been proven to be a fact or is not generally accepted as a fact but that it remains a valid perspective. It might be a fact but other people disagree so there is a fact check.
I first noticed the trend of treating all views as if they are equal in the climate change debates. Giving both sides a fair hearing was not fair it was an abdication of duty. The media has turned to simply reporting what people say which brought us to Trump. People claiming Bill Gates and a pedophile ring are orchestrating Covid-19 is not covered by labeling it with a fact-check.
Maybe social media companies should have committees with citizens and various experts to judge the big current conspiracies circulating.
Free speech should never cover promoting racism with demonstrably false or misleading information as an example.
I'm curious as to why you feel that misinformation around covid vaccines is a line in the sand to be drawn, especially since it seems from the tone of coverage that any perspective short of "the vaccine works, is safe, and is the only thing that will return us to normal" is considered to be misleading information. I can think of a really pertinent example of rampant misinformation costing lives off the top of my head. For decades, media in the United States have lied aobut our health care system, which has interfered with public support for a single payer health care system that would have saved so many American lives. Why is that misinformation okay, but "misinformation" about the vaccine is not?
You also mentioned climate change? When the big tech compaies get involved in taking sides on that question, do you think they are going to side with the truth? They will side with the oil companies, and will censor environmentalist groups. In fact, that is already happening.
Free speech is pretty simple: people can basically say what they want, and everyone else can think whatever they want. Dissemination of misinformation is the price you pay for living in a free society. Defense of free speech means nothing if you're not concerned about the free speech rights of people you disagree with. Once you start going down the road of censoring speech as unacceptable, there is no going back.
I agree that my idea is nonsensical. That's why I brought it up, to illustrate that safety is not an absolute in all situations, and there are times when we are tolerant of some degree of risk.
Luckily our health experts are helping us determine how to make decisions regarding the risks related to Covid-19. We would be a lot better off if we had more respect for science and experts. Disrespect and disregard for science, experts, and scientists seems to be leading the world down a dark path during our "post-truth" era.
I am stunned by this attitude of blind deference to experts, as if they should be deciding everything for us. Your doctor is an expert. Are you saying if you went to the doctor, you wouldn't ask your doctor questions when your doctor presents your options? Why are public health experts any different and above questioning? Speaking of public health, we know that very often the system fails certain people. Why do we suddenly expect that in the effort of handling coronavirus this would be any different? To "trust the experts" without question is to put your faith in a system where shit like this is far too common.
Let's be real about the vaccine:
Every autumn, the NHS impressively administers 15 million flu vaccines over three months. But all these Covid vaccines require two carefully timed doses. To achieve its extraordinary target of universal adult vaccination by April, the NHS would have to improve on its flu-jab delivery rate several times over. Should the service merely manage to double its flu-jab rate, we’ll be at the mercy of government ‘measures’ until next winter.
Let’s keep hoping for Oxford’s vaccine, because Pfizer’s super-cold storage is bound to slow its rollout. Scaling up doesn’t always improve efficiency; massive operations can strain logistical capacity and implode into fiascos. A sufficient supply of constituent chemicals remains uncertain, and international competition for both compounds and finished products will be fierce.
The UK government may shy from outright compulsion, but a year from now, just try getting on a plane, or even a bus, if you haven’t yet taken part in the largest medical experiment in human history. Nevertheless, sceptics uneasy about hastily developed drugs whose long-term consequences are unknowable are certain to spoil the fun for everybody. For travel to resume, must a global population of nearly eight billion all be immunised? How long could that take?
...
Having extended the costly furlough scheme ‘only’ through March, this government clearly anticipates exercising oppressive social control at least into the spring. For many once-viable businesses, four more months of closures and profit-sapping regulations will mean the difference between survival and bankruptcy. Should a bureaucratic boot remain on the economy’s neck well into next year, kiss your local, your favourite bistro, your high street and perhaps your own job goodbye.
But the most important point?
Life is temporary. Which is why what’s now guaranteed to be a full year of our lives being blighted by misguided governmental arm-twisting constitutes no small loss. On average, we’ve only 81 of these annual sovereigns to spend, and many of us have already drained our mortality accounts to spare change. So for God’s sake let’s not extend that blight to two years.
Will vaccines help control covid on Manitoba First Nations?
Northern First Nations are pushing the province to make Indigenous Manitobans more of a priority for COVID-19 vaccines.
"We're out here making sure that our Indigenous people in the north are considered, and that they are prioritized, because of the vulnerability and the risk that they have," said Garrison Settee, grand chief of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak.
"I'm very optimistic, but we want to be included and we should be included in all these discussions."
As of Tuesday, First Nations patients make up one third of the COVID-19 caseload in Manitoba hospitals, according to the Manitoba First Nations Health and Social Secretariat.
First Nations make up just under 11 per cent of Manitoba's population.
I'm torn on this. On the one hand, First Nations have shown to be particularly vulnerable to covid, and vaccinating vulnerable populations can be key to reducing the harm from the disease. On the other hand, I'm not convinced that the current vaccines being released have been clearly shown to be safe and effective, and that is a main reason why I do not want the vaccine for myself. So is it fair for me to advocate something for someone else that I'm not convinced about?
There's another issue that needs to be raised. Covid spreads like wildfire through communities affected by poverty and overcrowded residences, which is a major issue on First Nations. The pandemic has shown that. By releasing the vaccine, will that be taken as a silver bullet to end the pandemic while structral issues that gave rise to the poverty and overcrowding are ignored, as life goes "back to normal?" Ideally you would want to have both. If, however, the choice was between releasing the vaccine or addressing poverty, I would choose to address poverty.
The answer, frankly, is that I just don't feel motivated to get it. I don't hold out any hope that the post-COVID world will be any better than the pre-COVID world. "We're all in this together" has been a charming platitude, but I'm just not feeling it. COVID could very well kill me. But even if it doesn't, poverty certainly will. And I'm not alone in that.
poverty is not an abstract threat to me, and scares me way more than covid.
i have poverty, but i don't see society locking down in solidarity.
I hear you both on that. The reality is that on the current trajectory, the post-covid recovery is going to leave many people (perhaps the majority of the population) behind.
I'm torn on this. On the one hand, First Nations have shown to be particularly vulnerable to covid, and vaccinating vulnerable populations can be key to reducing the harm from the disease. On the other hand, I'm not convinced that the current vaccines being released have been clearly shown to be safe and effective, and that is a main reason why I do not want the vaccine for myself. So is it fair for me to advocate something for someone else that I'm not convinced about?
I think we should advocate for whatever they want.
I'm torn on this. On the one hand, First Nations have shown to be particularly vulnerable to covid, and vaccinating vulnerable populations can be key to reducing the harm from the disease. On the other hand, I'm not convinced that the current vaccines being released have been clearly shown to be safe and effective, and that is a main reason why I do not want the vaccine for myself. So is it fair for me to advocate something for someone else that I'm not convinced about?
I think we should advocate for whatever they want.
If they want the vaccine that is up to them. I'm guessing they want a number of other things (like decent, affordable housing) that will end up falling by the wayside and not happening once the pandemic ends and we go "back to normal."
Vaccine distribution fiasco continues in the United States
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/12/31/vacc-d31.html
"...At the current rate of about one million doses administered per week, it will take another 329 weeks, or more than six years, to administer the vaccine to everyone in the country. A retired Pittsburgh nurse, commenting on the state of vaccine distribution, said: 'There is no plan, it's a total clusterfuck..."
Correction
I'm torn on this. On the one hand, First Nations have shown to be particularly vulnerable to covid, and vaccinating vulnerable populations can be key to reducing the harm from the disease. On the other hand, I'm not convinced that the current vaccines being released have been clearly shown to be safe and effective, and that is a main reason why I do not want the vaccine for myself. So is it fair for me to advocate something for someone else that I'm not convinced about?
I think we should advocate for whatever they want.
If they want the vaccine that is up to them. I'm guessing they want a number of other things (like decent, affordable housing) that will end up falling by the wayside and not happening once the pandemic ends and we go "back to normal."
Yes, that is what I said. We should advocate for what they want not what we think they should have.
