Let's go through this a false point at a time.
Brad Mortensen wrote:
I didn't say it doesn't help. I said there have been no long-term studies. But it doesn't seem to be as safe as advertised (some make it sound riskless) and since it's only 65% effective for two to six months, it's not so effective either.
This is incorrect. While it's not 100% effective at preventing infection, you're much less likely to get it, less likely to be hospitalized if you do get it, and less likely to die if you're hospitalized. Not by small margins either, in Washington State unvaxxed individuals are 5 times more likely to catch Covid and 18 times more likely to be hospitalized than others in the same age group.
www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Documents/1600/coronavirus/data-tables/421-010-CasesInNotFullyVaccinated.pdf
Brad Mortensen wrote: As the population gets the shot, you're going to be more likely to catch it from a fellow vaxxed person.
That is how numbers work, yes. However as the percentage of the population that are vaccinated go up everyone is less likely to get it. You're less likely to get Covid from a vaccinated individual who's infected than you are from an unvaccinated individual. Waiting on more studies for good numbers, but it's looking like roughly 30% less likely.
Brad Mortensen wrote: I honestly try to be logical about things, but when our leaders resort to blackmail I wonder why they can't just be honest and point to facts and data?
Who is being blackmailed, and who is being dishonest?
Brad Mortensen wrote: And why have 40k nurses and doctors chosen unemployment over taking the vaccine? One assumes they put some thought into their decision.
There are roughly 5,000,000 nurses and 118,000 doctors in the US. Why do you consider the opinion of .7% of them to be more valid than the opinion of 99.3% of them?
Brad Mortensen wrote: But you can't get it in the US. The only ones we can get are still the experimental shots under EUA which are NOT fully approved, despite what most people assume..
You can absolutely get Pfizer in the US. I did. If that was your reason for not getting it you'll be glad to know that you can get the fully approved shot. I look forward to hearing about your vaccination.
Brad Mortensen wrote: And since my doctors have already told me to be careful with my ticker, I don't want to risk taking shots that could make my already-above-average chance of a heart attack become 71-times more likely. Will studies prove or disprove that number? Who can say. Let's find out. I'll wait.
If you want hard numbers, let's look at Israel and find out. By May 31st, 2021 5,100,000 Israelis had been fully vaccinated. 142 people got myocarditis following their shot. Studies have shown that the risk is slightly higher after getting vaccinated, especially in young men, but still very low. Most of those cases were extremely mild as well, there was 1 death. Incidentally, in the US the rate of myocarditis for those with Covid bad enough to require inpatient care was 16x higher than the rate of it with people that hadn't had Covid, meaning your chances of myocarditis if unvaccinated are way higher than your chances if you are vaccinated.
Brad Mortensen wrote: We also know they changed the definition of "vaccine" and "unvaccinated." It doesn't mean "never vaxxed." When they say "vaccinated" they mean "got the shot two or more weeks ago." Everyone else is considered "unvaxxed."
This isn't true. Vaccinated has always meant fully vaccinated. If you are vaccinated for polio, you've had 4 shots.
Brad Mortensen wrote: The test detects all corona viruses, including common cold and flu, which is why the number of common flu cases went to almost zero last year; they all got called "COVID" instead.
Where are you getting your information? This isn't true at all. Covid-19 tests check for Covid 19. The flu isn't even a coronavirus. The reason flu cases were so much lower last year is because a lot of people wore masks and social distanced, which is effective to prevent the spread of pretty much any pathogen spread through droplets in the air.
Brad Mortensen wrote: Even noted opposite-of-a-right-wing-extremist Bill Maher (not a doctor) has said the pandemic is over, and it's time to get back to normal.
If you're getting your health advice from hack comedians you have big problems. Otherwise I fail to see how that's relevant.
Brad Mortensen wrote: So I don't understand this antipathy against people who think their risk from the shot is greater than the disease, or why the assumption that the vaxxed need to be protected from the unvaxxed.
There's a lot of reasons for this. You're much more likely to spread Covid if you're unvaccinated than vaccinated. If you're unvaccinated you're much more likely to be hospitalized, and hospitals have been stretched to their limits caring for unvaccinated individuals. That means that people who get sick or injured in other ways either can't get care or don't get as good of a care, because everything is so strained right now. It's because mutation is more likely to happen in unvaccinated individuals, making Covid a greater threat to all of us than it has to be. It's because we could have, and should have, been done with this a long time ago but tons of people are still getting sick and dying because a huge chunk of the country won't get the vaccine and won't wear masks.
I am not saying that you're a bad person for any of this. I don't know you, and based on my experiences with the TD community as a whole everyone seems to be amazing. I don't think that you're malicious in any way, which is required to be a bad person. But you and everyone else who chooses not to get vaccinated based on wildly incorrect data objectively make every one of us less safe. You're not a bad person, but you are making a bad decision that has negative impacts on everyone.
