Viewing post #2609015 by Australis

Sorry, Kathy, but your post is full of misinformation and misleading claims.

Kathy547 said:Of the 50 million unvaccinated individuals to which he refers — and as an epidemiologist would KNOW — at least one-third of those have already been exposed and infected by the virus, and therefore have varying levels of natural immunity working BETTER against reinfection, severe illness, hospitalization, and death than does any of the available vaccines.

See my previous post referencing the median immunity timeframe for SARS-CoV-2. Half of the individuals infected 16 months ago will no longer have immunity (and even fewer prior to that).

Kathy547 said:As an epidemiologist, he also KNOWS the infection fatality rate (IFR) is still approximately 0.3% as an average across that entire group — all ages and health conditions — and that for a majority of that group, their IFR is MUCH lower than the overall average. Considering that 80+% of the aged and most at-risk groups are already vaccinated, this remaining "50 million" are going to average a significantly lower overall IFR.

We have increasing evidence that the Delta variant has a higher IFR in younger people.

Kathy547 said:"We still have a number of unvaccinated people — taking into account known epidemiological numbers — about 50,000 of which, (or less), are still at risk of getting really sick from this disease and potentially dying."

The author is pulling the figure of 50,000 out of thin air and doesn't substantiate it.

Kathy547 said:"Deaths with confirmed or presumed COVID-19 . . . COVID-19 deaths are identified using a new ICD–10 code. When COVID-19 is reported as a cause of death – or when it is listed as a "probable" or "presumed" cause — the death is coded as U07.1. This can include cases with or without laboratory confirmation."

( https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/... )

Note these key words and phrases:

"deaths with" - (not "from" or "of")
"presumed" - (not confirmed)
"probable" - (not confirmed)
"with or without laboratory confirmation" - (self-explanatory)

We've seen this argument before over CDC terminology and it highlights a lack of understanding by the author. "With" is used because it is not always possible to determine whether COVID or the comorbidity killed a person (and if the comorbidity did kill them, did it kill them earlier than it should have because of COVID?). "Presumed" means that there are signs of COVID but not a test result yet. I'm sure Rosie could add more information on medical terminology here.

I would also add that the author seems intent on suggesting that all the cases that are likely to be COVID (captured by the probable and presumed groups) are actually not. This is misleading and the inverse is true - the majority of these assessments are likely to be accurate.

Kathy547 said:Anecdotally . . . I am related to an ER trauma nurse from central Florida, who is now working as a "travel nurse" in understaffed "hot spots." He is being paid . . . (wait for it) . . . $9,500 PER WEEK in his current location. As far back as December of last year, The NY Post reported travel nurses earning as much as $11,000 PER WEEK just giving COVID vaccines. ( https://nypost.com/2020/12/19/... ) How is it possible for ANY hospital to pay a NURSE an annual rate of $500,000 per year, or more?

Answer: FEDERAL dollars being received for every death coded as "with," "presumed," or "probable." That is, "with or without laboratory confirmation" of the patient having actually died "of" or "from" COVID-19.

There is so much wrong here it's not funny. The NY Post article quoted even says in its headline "Temp travel nurses" - the implication that all these nurses are being employed for a full year is just wrong. The author goes on to make yet another unsubstantiated claim that the money is coming from COVID diagnoses (in reality it's payments for treatment - see link below). Where's the evidence?

https://www.factcheck.org/2020...

Kathy547 said:I can't help but keep going back in my mind to that FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) dump of Dr. Fauci's emails, in which I reported, via links and screenshots, the email exchange between Mark Zuckerberg and Fauci, in which FB's CEO promised Fauci his full support in promoting the vaccine roll-out. Dated . . . February 28, 2020! Long before there was any national dialogue about potential COVID vaccines. The very same email dump that revealed Fauci knew about and participated with US taxpayer dollars in the funding of "gain of function" coronavirus research at the Wuhan lab. (About which he later brazenly lied to Congress.)

Ah, Fauci's emails. I actually downloaded them and checked through them for the gain-of-function references. Anyone claiming he lied to Congress about this and that the emails discuss gain-of-function at Wuhan is provably wrong. The only gain-of-function discussion in those emails was around the research carried out in the US by Baric in North Carolina.

Read them for yourself: https://www.documentcloud.org/...

The email mentioned (Zuckerberg's exchange with Fauci) is on pages 242-243. Zuckerberg's entire message is this:

Tony:
I was glad to hear your statement that the covid-19 vaccine will be ready for human trials in six weeks. Are there any resources our foundation can help provide to potentially accelerate this or at least make sure it stays on track?
Mark

To claim that this is "full support in promoting the vaccine roll-out" is misleading at best. Does Baker have a problem with companies being philanthropic?

As for Baker's tweets, they are meaningless - quoting numbers without any context and trying to imply the vaccine is to blame. Disingenuous at best! Plus he tries to suggest that the vaccines don't lower the transmission rate (they do, although not as effectively for Delta as they had with the previous strains).

I've said it before, but as the percentage of the population that is vaccinated increases, there will be a threshold where more deaths occur in the vaccinated group than the unvaccinated. This is just mathematics! There is nothing sinister about it.

Apologies if I have been a bit abrupt, but much of this has been covered and addressed in previous posts with sources to back it up.