The FDA's Decision To Pause J&J Vaccination Will Kill People

The risks of blood clots are much lower than the risks of COVID-19 illness, hospitalizations, and deaths.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a statement today "recommending a pause in the use" of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine. The agencies took this step "out of an abundance of caution" based on six cases of a rare blood clot disorder in people who had been inoculated with the one-dose vaccine. There have been six cases out of 6.8 million people who have already been inoculated with the vaccine. The blood clot incidents all occurred in women between the ages of 18 and 48. Those odds amount to one in 1.13 million, which is comparable to your annual chances of being struck by lightning (1 in 1.22 million).

For comparison, a November 2020 meta-analysis in The Lancet found that more than one in five very ill hospitalized and post-mortem* COVID-19 patients experienced venous thromboembolism—that is, blood clots in their veins. A 2010 study in the Journal of American Preventive Medicine reported that the annual incidence of thromboembolism between the ages of 15 and 44 was about 1.5 cases per 1,000 people. In addition, the risk of blood clots from taking oral contraceptives is about 1 in 1,000 annually.

A March 2021 study in Science reports that more than 70 percent of new COVID-19 infections have been driven by Americans between the ages of 20 and 49. The faster that people in that age group get vaccinated, the less likely it is that other Americans who remain unvaccinated or immunocompromised will become infected.

Unfortunately, many states have declared that they are following the pause recommendation from these federal agencies. Officials in the Biden White House have declared that the pause in the rollout of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine "will not have a significant impact on our vaccination plan." The New York Times notes, however, that instead of being able to deliver enough doses by the end of May to cover 260 million Americans, the pause will result in only enough for health authorities to fully vaccinate 230 million.

Before the Johnson & Johnson pause was announced, the good news has been that COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among Americans had been steadily dropping. Interestingly, some public health experts apparently believe that the pause will increase Americans' confidence in the COVID-19 vaccines. For example, FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee member Dr. Paul Offit tells Forbes that the pause "should be largely reassuring" because it shows the agencies are "still looking" to determine possible side effects even after the vaccine was approved.

Offit's optimism seems dubious given that public confidence in the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine plunged according to a YouGov poll, after various European governments paused its distribution in March over reports of similarly rare anomalous post-vaccination blood clotting incidents. The good news is that public confidence in the safety of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines remained steady among Europeans.

By focusing on the not-yet-proven, very low risk of blood clots versus the known risks of the increased misery, hospitalizations, and deaths that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine would have prevented, our overly cautious public health bureaucrats will likely cause more sickness and deaths among Americans than would otherwise have occurred.

* CORRECTION: This article originally misstated the findings of the Lancet study, which focused on blood clots in hospitalized COVID-19 patients, not on blood clots in all COVID-19 patients.

Comments

[Longtobefree]

"The FDA's Decision To Pause J&J Vaccination Will Kill People"

And how is this new?

The FDA's Decisions Will Kill People

[Unicorn Abattoir]

As will their indecision.

[JesseAz]

Based on the actual death rates and who has been vaccinated already.. it won't actually kill many people at all.

[Kazinski]

Yes, they should not be looking at the overall covid death rate but the death rate for those that haven't been vaccinated but want to get vaccinated. Since the vaccination rate of those that are over 65 that want to get vaccinated is at least 90%, then the risk to the unvaccinated population that plans to get vaccinated is very low.

Plus the fact there are still plenty of doses of the very well tested Pfizer and Moderna vaccines available.

I'll also say these problems with the J&J and Astra-Zenaca vaccines show the wisdom of the Trump Administration's Warp Speed shotgun approach of contracting with 7 vaccine manufacturers to ensure at least one vaccine would be effective and safe. Looks like we got at least 2.

[BrianL.]

Pfizer was not part of Operation Warp Speed

https://fortune.com/2020/11/09/pfizer-vaccine-funding-warp-speed-germany/

[Kazinski]

That's not true. They signed a contract to deliver 200 million doses of the vaccine for 20$ a dose with the Trump Adminstration. That was one of the main facets of Warp Speed, a contract to deliver a guaranteed amount of doses with no market risk.

The article you cite says the same thing:
"What the U.S. did, meanwhile, was commit to buying hundreds of millions of vaccines in advance to ensure Americans were among the first in line if it clinches an emergency-use authorization or approval from the FDA. The Trump administration agreed in July to pay almost $2 billion for 100 million doses, with an option to acquire as many as 500 million more, once that clearance comes."

The fact that the upfront development was not funded by Warp Speed doesn't mean that they weren't part of other major elements, because they were.

[Duelles]

And the CDC’s idea that only their test for the Corona Virus was good eliminating others from the mix.

[Roberta]

Especially since this vaccine came out after the mRNA-liposome based preps' administration were already well under way, new infection rates were already dropping, death rates are down, and the usual seasonal pattern of viral respiratory diseases seems to be followed. By the time I get my booster next week and it's had time to have effect, this may be a dead issue.

[Nardz]

The campaign against HCQ as an early stage treatment, which Ron enthusiastically participated in, killed people too.

[Roberta]

How much do you think it influenced clinicians?

[Nardz]

Quite a bit apparently, as many came forward to spew the party line on it

[Tionico]

Far too many. Once gummit decided HCQ was a bit NO NO NO, docs who COULD ahd WOULD have adminstered it before could not. The stuff has a safety record for decades, all over the world, not even self-administered problems ever were staitistically signficant. I know, when the WuFlu escaped and began attacking folks here in the USA, any homsemama in COlombia who thought her kid had been bitten by a malaria carrying mossie could walk her self on down to the local farmacia or quimico, plop down about two dollars fifty equivalent, and go home and treat her child. Everyday stuff in most of the third world. But OH NO, the dread Faut Chee uttered a pronouncement HCQ bad, the vaccines we don't have yet good.
And he NEVER even mentioned normal immune system building dietary supplements that are cheap and readily availble, and even less risk than CHQ. Take those supplement, you body =now has the tools and equipmemt it needs to build a rock solid immune response to any virus. Proven over many decades We now HE takes about 6,000 IU of vitamin D daily, and quitea healthy dose of vitamin C. Didn't metnioin other items, but I'll lay high stakes at long odds he's taking zinc, and somd form of an ionophore.... resveratrol, quercitin, hydrochloroquine... alll do the same thing. His mantra. YOU do what I SAY, and I'll do what I know is best ofr MY sorry self. The rest ofyou? Go fly a kite or somthing.. but make certain you do it indoors, and wearing your mug nappie.

[JV]

What horseshit.

[buybuydandavis]

You beat me to it.

The Federal Death Administration has been administering Death to Americans for decades.

[Hopeful_One]

The covid "vaccines" have already killed people. Others have been injured to one degree or the other and most did not have a reaction....yet. There is no question the vaccine can kill. There is a big question if it will really help anyone. It is all a guessing game of probability. They can't prove it saved any life, but they will sure tell you it did and how can you prove them wrong?

[raspberrydinners]

To be this stupid.

[kenvandoren]

Not to mention, CDC discouraging hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin has itself killed most of those counted as C19 victims. Says researcher, pulmonologist and former professor of Medicine at UW-Madison, "IF YOU TAKE IT, (ivermectin) YOU WILL NOT DIE!!

I wonder how the science editor at Reason could be so ignorant of these findings?

[kenvandoren]

Still reviewing or did my comment pass?

[Longtobefree]

6 patients, 6.8 million doses administered.
"When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout".

And oh by the way, the "normal" incidence of that particular, very rare, clotting disease normally occurs in 5 out of 1 million people. So the J&J case rate is 20% of normal.

[mad.casual]

“When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout”.

In all fairness, Ron has been running in circles, screaming and shouting since Zika. To the point that his insistence that now people should take a measured look at the statistics, draw their own conclusions, and act appropriately is laughable.

[JoeJoetheIdiotCircusBoy]

In all fairness, you obviously don't read much of Bailey and are just imposing your own meaning on his writings that bear little resemblance to his actual writings. But that's alright...'bout what I would expect from the Reason commentariat these days

[Ginette SteaIey]

He's not gonna fuck you bro.

[mad.casual]

Sure. I'm sure if you go back and read the comments on Bailey's articles you'll see that you've been reading his article for years and I just showed up a couple weeks ago.

So, stupid, irrelevant ad hominem aside which conclusion to my statement would you prefer; that I've followed Ron for some time and am speaking with first hand knowledge or that I'm a complete noob speculating *correctly* out of hand?

Well, since it's all democratic and so forth that means that no one is forcing anyone to do anything, right? The New York Times quotes Key Haven resident and GMO-phobe Ms. Jitka Olsak: "We are not going to be laboratory mice. Nature takes care of its own things."

Yeah, just like it did malaria, yellow fever, polio, smallpox, guinea worm ….

So, in light of the above, got an article from Ron clarifying how exactly nature took care of Zika the same way it took care of polio or smallpox? Or maybe even just an out-of-hand explanation why he equated a disease transmitted almost exclusively via animal-vectors to diseases with
no known animal vectors.

[Squirrelloid]

What's the particular condition? I can't find a media outlet saying something other than 'blood clots'.

[Longtobefree]

The Fox news doctor guy ran off some long latin thing that was the reported diagnosis. Good luck finding it anywhere else.

[Set Us Up The Chipper]

It will be interesting to see if those numbers hold up. Do something new to enough people, if the underlying distributions of conditions present before the new thing are unmodified due to the "new thing", then one has to consider that the new thing is not the driver of the condition.

[Roberta]

5 in a million in that same amount of time? This stuff could be protective!

It wouldn't be the first time vaccination produced temporary benefits against unrelated conditions, both infectious and non-infectious.

[Kazinski]

All we know right now is that both the J&J and Astra-Zenaca vaccines were ordered by Trump, and both have killed people.

So Trump has blood on his hands.

[Iridium]

I really wish it was easier to tell whether you are joking.

[Ron]

its not really about protecting the people from a possible bad vaccine its about extending the shut downs and the fear.

[Don't look at me!]

^This

[NoVaNick]

Seconded

[justabill]

3rded

[Anomalous]

Fourthed.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

Power is, after all, the most powerful of aphrodisiacs.

COVID or rhino horn, which will it be?

[Just thinkin aloud]

It's about making sure everyone gets one of the RNA versions that change one's DNA, so one is a GMO, no longer a human with human rights. Who owns the RNA patent now legally OWNS YOU! Might want to ask the owner what your rights will be...or you could just read the declarations on the Georgia Guide Stones. The ancient rite of discovery/disclosure is always followed, esoterically or even overtly.
Look to Monsanto or Bayer vs farmers and the one drop rule for legal precedent.
The vast majority of people are insanely stupid. If you don't agree, sit back and watch them vie for a place in line to voluntarily make themselves slaves for a virus with a lower kill rate than practicing medical doctors.

[JV]

you're out of your mind.

[Tionico]

BOOM!!!!!!

Meawhile over in Israel where above half the polulatioin have been poked, hundred,s, or maybe even thousand, sby now are dying wihtin a short time after the vaccine. Many mioreare actualy contracting the WuFlu within two weeks of getting jabbed. They seem to fare badly in hospital, too,.

I don't know which brand of shot they are using there.
Some European nations are refusing to let the J&J shots be adminstered in their countries.

[Iridium]

It's Pfizer. And given that the first folks vaccinated are usually the sickest, it isn't too surprising that hundreds died shortly after getting dosed. You could probably say the same thing about Jeopardy reruns.

[Jane Trucksis]

As we say in New Orleans, Yeah You RIGHT!

[n00bdragon]

I do wonder about the efficacy of giving every single person in a nation of 400 million a vaccine for a virus that, even if it infected every last one of them (which it won't), would kill less than 0.5% of them. I know that quite a few people are being knocked on their ass for a day from Shot #2. How many lives is 400 million days of missed work/school worth?

[Iridium]

Even though COVID will only kill 0.5% of people, there are 30+% who get 'knocked on their ass' after catching COVID. Many for multiple days. About half of people vaccinated will have side effects, nearly all of which clear up within a day. If we assume that pretty much everyone is either going to get the vaccine or the virus, from a 'days of inconvenience' standpoint, I think it is a close call, but the vaccine still wins.

[Iridium]

That being said, I wish they had studied giving a single dose of the mRNA vaccines. As you point out, the side effects are more common with the second dose, and real world data indicates that infection is rare after the first dose. Unfortunately, we don't know how durable the protection would be after 1 dose, so it is hard to blindly recommend.

[n00bdragon]

I'm not saying that the vaccine is a bad thing in general and certainly not saying people should avoid the vaccines. I'm just wistfully wishing that more consideration was given to whether the cure or the disease, on the average, is worse. This should be (and for many decades, up until COVID-19, has been) the standard by which treatments are judged. Since early 2020 however the equation has been completely flipped. It no longer seems to matter what the costs of anything might be. Absolutely infinite harm is acceptable to mitigate any amount of risk, no matter how small.

[Rich]

I’m just wistfully wishing that more consideration was given to whether the cure or the disease, on the average, is worse.

This. When the, um, "Blue Ribbon Panel" investigates this whole kerfuffle, one of the first questions should be "For each of the cost-benefit tradeoff decisions you made, please show us your work."

[Iridium]

For the vaccine, I am pretty sure the cure is better than the disease. After all, the vast, vast majority of the side effects are due to the immune system responding to what it thinks it's the virus. One would imagine the real virus would almost always have a worse result.

For locking people down for nearly 2% of their lifespan in order to try to slow down a virus with a 0.5% IFR? HELL NO. Cure was so much worse than the disease.

[ProgramThyself]

It is difficult to trust the people who pushed #2 (lockdowns) when they are now arguing for #1 (vaccines), especially when long-term safety data is absent. A lot of college students are being forced to take this experimental vaccine even though their COVID risk is minimal.

[KenInd]

But that’s exactly what the clinical trials did. The J&J trial involved 45,000 people. Half got placebo. In that group, five people died of Covid-19. No one in the vaccinated group died of Covid and there weren’t any serious side-effects. You could expand the test to half a million people if you wanted, but those are still human beings; if you did have a bad side-effect, now you’ve shot it into 10 times as many arms and more people suffer. Isn’t it better to run a smaller but much faster test to prove that the vaccine is, in fact, far more likely to cause benefit than harm and then let people read the data and decide whether or not to get it? That’s where we’re at. All medical treatments can have side-effects. That’s why people need to weigh the risk and decide.

[JesseAz]

Can you define "Many" for us in your "Many for multiple days". I bet it is a lot less than healthy and asymptomatic days lost. By an order of magnitude.

[Roberta]

If we assume that pretty much everyone is either going to get the vaccine or the virus,

then we're making a bad assuption.

[Tionico]

from whence your "30% get knocked on their keisters after catching COVID"? If by returning a positive tPCR test report you mean "cases" I'll have to sharply disagree with you. A CASE is a potive test result ( (a real test, not that pumped up unreliable PCR joke) PLUS clear symtoms concistent with the disease alledgedly being diagnosed. REAL cases number somwehere below ten percent of positive PCR test rreturns.

And these vaccines are NOT said to be able to prevent either contracting or spreading the WuFlu. They may reduce sympoms in some real cases.

[Wise Old Fool]

Except it's 2% not 0.5%

[Kazinski]

No it's not 2%. It's about 0.45%

The CDC has said that at least 4 times as many people have contracted Covid as there are confirmed cases. Which makes sense considering many people who had covid symptoms were told to stay home and not seek medical attention unless their symptoms got worse or they had trouble breathing. And all the asymptomatic cases.

Just dividing deaths by confirmed cases overstates the death rate by at least a factor of 4, if you believe the CDC.

[Rossami]

I know a couple people who had an adverse reaction after shot #1. I know of none who had an adverse reaction after shot #2.

The timing, by the way, suggests that the folks who had an adverse reaction to shot 1 might have had asymptomatic covid before the shot. It is unclear whether the shot made things worse or whether their preexisting disease simply manifested.

[Echospinner]

The symptoms after vaccination are because the immune system is being triggered which is what is supposed to happen. I felt crappy the next day after #2.

In people who have had Covid or exposure they already have some immunity so they likely have a more robust response to the vaccine.

[bonesbrigade]

They are pussies, so minimal loss to society

[JFree]

IMO - the known cases of clotting are almost certainly the tip of the iceberg. Covid is NOT really a respiratory disease. It is a vascular disease with respiratory transmission. Which means blood clot tendencies are a huge problem since the way venous clots become arterial clots (and hence strokes and heart attacks) is when the blood goes through the lungs for oxygenation. Strokes in particular is one of the main 'excess deaths' category in 2020 NOT attributed to covid. So this is not just about covid-attributed deaths but also about cardiac and cerebro vascular.

That doesn't mean the vaccine should be pulled. It does mean that that side-effect is a potentially much bigger problem than just what is recorded.

[D-PizzIe]

"IMO"

I already don't care.

[Mark Thrust, Sexus Ranger]

That would cover nearly every comment here, and most other places.

[Echospinner]

Not quite. Covid infection can effect the blood vessels but that is not how it works. Clots cannot pass through the lungs. A venous clot can break up going through the right side of the heart lodging in a pulmonary artery in the lungs. That is a pulmonary embolus. The terminology is a bit confusing because we call them arteries but they are carrying venous blood and are a continuation of the venous system.

A clot in an artery carrying oxygenated blood which comes from the left side of the heart to the aorta and all the branches that arise from that can lodge anywhere or can develop in the arterial branch itself. Those can cause strokes or other conditions.

Covid pneumonia does not have to do with that. It is an inflammatory immune response to the virus itself in the alveoli of the lungs. The immune cells responding cause the little air sacks to fill up with fluid and gunk. They then cannot do their job of exchanging gasses from the air coming in and out.

Why it seems that this vaccine is being associated with clots is not clear. It may be a statistical anomaly or may be real. It could also be even due to an adjuvant or something else in the mix.

[Set Us Up The Chipper]

"inflammatory immune response"

That is why it kills fat people with metabolic syndrome. They are already systemically inflamed.

[JFree]

The venous clot itself can't pass through the lungs (we'll ignore the possible hole in the heart stuff) - but the clotting factor/protein in the blood can and it can also affect blood oxygenation.

Covid pneumonia would obviously be respiratory not vascular. So ignore that particular. the pneumonia stuff would have big elements of a survivor bias in mortality data. It would kill older sicker people quickly but that also changes the demographics of those who either survive that pneumonia or who never got that as a manifestation. I'm not sure enough autopsies have been done to really figure out the range of effects of covid - beyond the simple respiratory. All we've done is stop LOOKING at data after the 'die in two weeks' stuff.

The vaccine seems to cause venous SINUS clots. IOW - right at the first point (not the only point) where the virus could enter the vascular system. And women - of childbearing age in particular - the age group where the JnJ vaccine is causing clots - always have higher bloodclotting risk precisely because of childbirth and menstruation. Offset by other protections. But this is yet one more reason why these clots are not some simple side-effect problem

[JFree]

Edit: ignore my explanation of venous sinus. It has nothing to do with respiratory sinus. It is cerebral sinuses

[Ginette SteaIey]

No worries everyone just ignores all of your delusional ramblings anyway.

[JFree]

And yet - you replied

[Dillinger]

apparently J&J vaccination kills people

[Iridium]

Nobody with the clotting has died, have they?

[Don't look at me!]

Not yet. But they will die. Someday.
And they will be listed as a Covid death.

[Dillinger]

give it a week dude they're live-testing the thing

[Wise Old Fool]

I almost guarantee they'll find the "rare blood clotting" disease happens more often in the general populace than the the people it showed up in. These is a no brainer. It's less than one in a million whereas the kill rate of covid is around 2%

[mad.casual]

It’s less than one in a million whereas the kill rate of covid is around 2%

That's only if you rely on assertion that 'all cases' = 'all confirmed cases', which even the CDC and/or WHO asserts is stupid.

[KenInd]

Not all Covid cases are confirmed by testing, so the overall death rate is thought to be about 0.26 percent, but your point remains valid. Covid kills about one in 400 who get it. At my age (55) my risk of Covid death is about one in 250. That's a very high death rate, as modern-day communicable diseases go. And of course it's much higher with older age and/or other medical conditions. If you're a gambler, your money goes on the vaccine. Mine did - I got J&J in early March.

[Echospinner]

You get to the point where the largest barrier is trust. A lot of the people who would get the vaccine anyway already have or soon will. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines already have a good reputation as safe and effective. They are seen as the top brands.

Even if there is a grain of mistrust of the J&J vaccine some may choose to just skip the whole thing.

[Commenter_XY]

And the CDC just spoiled any modicum of trust that J&J built. You think the lack of trust just stops with their vaccine? Nope, J&J makes a lot of products. How do you disentangle a lack of trust in a vaccine versus other manufactured products.

They had experience with this with tainted tylenol, correct?

Hope that you are enjoying the good life in GA. Chag Semeach (belatedly).

[The White Knight III: Army of Canuckness]

The Tylenol incident was almost 40 years ago. Not sure that’s going to pop into anyone’s head as related to their vaccine and blood clots, not even anyone at Johnson & Johnson.

[NoVaNick]

Also baby powder more recently

[Echospinner]

J&J is massive with over 20 subsidiaries all over the world. People would be amazed at how many drugs and medical products they make.

It is difficult to blame them for this even if it turns out to be something. The reported incidence is so low that you just won’t see it in the data. Then you need to compare it with the normal incidence in the population.

[Squirrelloid]

Blood clots are more common than the reported incidence of this. I wish the media would use the medical term of whatever this is, so i could do an apples to apples comparison.

[JFree]

The medical term is cerebral venous sinus thrombosis. All of which has occurred in women of childbearing age - so who have more clotting proteins/factors in their blood. And from that link - Cerebral venous sinus thrombosis is rare, with an estimated 3-4 cases per million annual incidence in adults.

idk what portion of the JnJ vaccinated were exposed to the covid virus but it's obviously a ton less than 6.8 million. 1% would prob be way high as a guess - but hell go with 5%. So 6 cases in 340,000 - in a lot less than an annual timeframe.

[Paul 3]

The Tylenol was tainted by a criminal who tampered with the bottles when they were on store shelves. It wasn't something that happened in the manufacturing or packaging process. That's why so many products today come with shrink wrapping around the caps of the bottles.

[Ron]

there may be politics at play here since Astrazenica is having the same issues but they are not stopping them. J&J just needs to lobby more

[The White Knight III: Army of Canuckness]

Isn’t it the case that AstraZeneca hasn’t yet been approved for use in the U.S. in the first place.

[Kazinski]

Europe went all in on Astra-Zenaca, they don't have a backup plan like we do. Pfizer and Moderna do have plants in Europe but their capacity is limited.

[lwhalen]

I seem to recall a certain writer decrying the panic-pants "b-b-b-but people will die!" hyperbole not too long ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWhbUUE4ko

For my age-group, comorbidities, etc, I have a 99.9% chance of surviving covid. I think I'll pass on participating in what amounts to the world's biggest drug trial to eke out that extra .1% of additional assurance.

[Don't look at me!]

You say that now, but pretty soon you won’t be able to go anyplace without it.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

I lost a friend and colleague to COVID a few weeks ago; not old, no serious health related problems, and for reasons that will now be forever unknown, chose to not get the vaccine.

Take your chances.

[MT-Man]

No offense I'm not planning on getting it at this point (and I may in the future if people regain sanity)and it's not fear over the vaccine. Its a year of being treated as a leper, seeing abject fear of passing by someone for 2 seconds, watching people hug through plastic, and told to follow capricious rules based on a medieval failed practice refined by a 14 year olds science project. If I can leave some fear and doubt in the Karen's heads at this point great it's worth the slim to none chance I also have of dying.

[MT-Man]

Also Fauci is a rat bastard.

[SierraLima]

Bummer, but that's useless anecdotal evidence. The statistics overwhelmingly say the dangers of COVID are pretty insignificant to anybody but the very old or those with existing serious health conditions. Basically the people who are at non-negligible risks of COVID are statistically likely to die soon anyway.
COVID is the most overblown danger in the history of mankind (maybe next to global warming) and hands down, by far the most overblown reaction to a negligible problem in history.

[Aladdin's Carpet]

"The statistics overwhelmingly say the dangers of COVID are pretty insignificant to anybody but the very old or those with existing serious health conditions."

How old is very old? It targets people who are around age 60+ most effectively, those who are 60 have at least 10 years that covid took away.

And it has attacked people who are younger.

Again, it has killed over 500,000 people. A lot of them were old, sure, but they were not about to die the next day old ...

[SierraLima]

Last I checked the average person who died from COVID was 73, not 60 and had on average 2.5 serious preexisting conditions.
Yes, it has considerably younger victims, but not at any statistically significant numbers.
Actually, 500,000 people died with COVID, not of COVID. The number of perfectly healthy, young or working age people isn't high at all. At best it was 500,000 people died with COVID as the straw that broke the limping camel's back.
I crunched the numbers a few months ago using the CDC's number of COVID deaths in each 10 year age bracket along with the social security expected age of death actuarial tables. At the time, COVID reduced the average life span of an American by about 6 days, now it may be 7 or 8 days. So no, COVID isn't that dangerous.
Let presume we did nothing and it would be 2 weeks instead of a 1 week. Can you tell me with a straight face that enduring the totalitarian hell and societal destabilization of the last year was worth living 1 week longer? Or how many people will die prematurely, commit suicide, take up self destructive drug/alcohol addictions, be considerably poorer and unhappier thanks to the lock downs especially in the long term? The last year thanks to emergency COVID spending each American now owes another $15k+ in debt. And you know what the biggest killer in the world is? Poverty, and the lockdowns have created a huge amount of poverty between the millions of jobs lost and 100,000s of business that will permanently close. In terms of man days of life lost, the lockdowns will prove FAR deadlier than COVID itself. So as I said, the most overblown reaction in history.

[Aladdin's Carpet]

"I crunched the numbers a few months ago using the CDC’s number of COVID deaths in each 10 year age bracket along with the social security expected age of death actuarial tables. At the time, COVID reduced the average life span of an American by about 6 days, now it may be 7 or 8 days. So no, COVID isn’t that dangerous."

Yeah ... no. Sorry, that is bullshit. I am not sure exactly how you crunched those numbers but that is completely off. Also you cannot simply subtract the age people died with their expected age of death using actuarial tables. That is not how that works.

If a virus kills an 80 year old, based on that method, that person would be dead anyway so who cares. It may even decrease aggregate "years lost." Which is dumb which is why people who actually crunch the numbers don't do that! What you have to do is to calculate a net years left for each individual who died, which is nowhere in the vicinity of a few days.

If you want an actual estimate, look at the following: the number of excess deaths in the months where covid was happening ... was roughly on par with the number of covid dead. If everyone who died was gonna die in a few days anyway ... then that would not make sense!

[SierraLima]

"Yeah … no. Sorry, that is bullshit." I can give you links to my source data if you'd like. You can crunch the numbers yourself. I am also happy to share the spreadsheet I used to make these calculations.
"Also you cannot simply subtract the age people died with their expected age of death using actuarial tables. That is not how that works. " Actually that's exactly how it works if you wanna figure out the number of man days lost with datasets consisting of averages and groups. What is statistically/mathematically wrong with that approach? Get back to me when you have a more precise method that doesn't require a crystal ball. Or get back to me when you have a more detailed dataset to form conclusions with.
I'll agree that I wish I had more precise data than just a 10 year age group with no information about the pre-COVID health condition of the average COVID death. I'd bet If I had more complete data including actuarial tables on the medical conditions of those that died of COVID already had, the numbers of man days of life lost would seem even lower.
"That person would be dead anyway so who cares". So you're argument is that I'm insensitive because I believe in using numerical analysis instead of feelings and that invalidates my conclusion?
"What you have to do is to calculate a net years left for each individual who died, which is nowhere in the vicinity of a few days. " It's not in the vicinity of a week and I never said it was. If I remember that figure was a few thousand days of life lost per average COVID death. I said about a week's worth of life lost PER AVERAGE AMERICAN, only of which 1 in 650 died of COVID. After factoring that significantly less than 1% of Americans died of COVID, it comes out to about a week of life lost per average American. That's not a lot. if every American jogged just a few more times and ate just a few less double cheeseburgers, the average American lifespan can be easily brought back up to pre COVID levels.
"If you want an actual estimate, look at the following: the number of excess deaths in the months where covid was happening" That computes the number of deaths which is a lot less useful then number of days of life lost when dealing with a disease that overwhelmingly kills those that only had a few years of life left as is. Like it or not, the death of a 75 year old who would have died at 78 is far less tragic than the death of a 15 year old who had half a century of life left. I'm factoring that in, you aren't.
You are correct that most COVID deaths were not people who were already on their deathbed. But the actuarial tables show most had a few years to live, not decades left. And the younger ones that died overwhelmingly had very serious preexisting conditions which would significantly lower their life expectancies relative to the age group average and that would make my conclusion of average days of life lost per American look even more insignificant. However, unfortunately I have no data on that, so I don't know by how much.
So again, to the AVERAGE AMERICAN, COVID isn't a very significant threat and certainly doesn't warrant throwing your life, society, the economy or freedom upside down,

[Aladdin's Carpet]

"Actually that’s exactly how it works if you wanna figure out the number of man days lost with datasets consisting of averages and groups. What is statistically/mathematically wrong with that approach? Get back to me when you have a more precise method that doesn’t require a crystal ball."

Sigh ... that is not how averages work. Which, if you had taken a statistics class, would be immediately obvious.

Suppose you hava a dataset:

71, 72, 75, 77, 78

That is age of people, and suppose their average age of death is 76 years.

If you kill off the 78 and 77 aged person, you lower the "years lost". Except that is not how averages work. Bayes rule, those people already loved to 78, so the prior probability of them dying at 76 IS ZERO.

This is just bad statistics. I'm sorry, its a good effort, but you are wrong. It's a common mistake. Aversges are not distributions. And you can find datasets with the distribution.

And I suppose you can divide by the total number of people, but that is also bad. Young people will get older, and will be more vulnerable as they get older. You can't measure at current levels hoe they would fare ... you have to look at people who already died.

I'm not knocking you, you made a good effort, but no that is not how statistics work. And you shouldn't make sweeping claims and dismiss actual statisticians who are concerned about all this based on some back of the envelope math you did.

[SierraLima]

Ugg, reason blocked my response as "awaiting moderation". I linked my data sources, maybe it didn't like that.

[SierraLima]

Your criticism regarding averages/distributions is fair enough. Consider the actuarial tables are down to the resolution of a year, unlike the COVID deaths data (which is at the resolution of a decade). Let's say for the 75-84 age group, assuming an even distribution (which it isn't, it would almost certainly be skewed towards the old side, but I have no data to support that, so I ignore it), I get 8.622 years of life expectancy as opposed to what I did which is just pull the expectancy from the midpoint of 80 resulting in 8.28 reading straight off the actuarial table. In that age group case, an error of under 5%. I saw similar fairly small errors for other decade duration age groups.

[JFree]

I crunched the numbers a few months ago using the CDC’s number of COVID deaths in each 10 year age bracket along with the social security expected age of death actuarial tables. At the time, COVID reduced the average life span of an American by about 6 days, now it may be 7 or 8 days. So no, COVID isn’t that dangerous.

Your calculation is shit. CDC itself did that calculation for the first half of 2020 - and life expectancy was down by one YEAR. Three years for African-American men.

[SierraLima]

Did you read the article? It doesn't calculate the number of man days lost to the average American from COVID like I did. It estimates the effect of COVID and (more importantly the negative side effects of the lockdowns) on life expectancy. For example:
"Life expectancy for all Americans likely also took a hit because the pandemic prompted people to forgo health screenings that would have caught potentially life-threatening illnesses, said Jesse Schold, director of the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute's Center for Populations Health Research." -> Side effect of lockdowns and panic, NOT COVID.
"Many people lost their jobs due to the pandemic. People in lockdown also were more likely to eat poorly, drink more alcohol and use drugs. Schold noted that overdoses have increased during the pandemic, a sign that progress has faltered in the nation's struggle with its opioid epidemic." -> Side effect of lockdowns and panic, NOT COVID.
"Further, a substantial number of people who did contract COVID-19 have suffered long-term health problems that could ultimately limit their life span, Schold added." -> Since COVID has been around for just a bit over a year, we don't know the long term side effects yet, so this is conjecture at best.
This article is also obviously woke bullshit considering half the article was spent talking about how COVID disproportionately effects blacks, which means it shouldn't be taken seriously cause it's propaganda. It even fails to link to the original studies and sources.

[JFree]

half the article was spent talking about how COVID disproportionately effects blacks, which means it shouldn’t be taken seriously cause it’s propaganda.

Just because you prefer stormfront at your local klavern. The fact is - that information is TRUE. And it is proven even without trying to attribute a cause of death - via excess deaths - where mortality among blacks has risen by 30% - 100% (depending on the week) since Feb 2020.

It even fails to link to the original studies and sources.

Ah ok. so you are a bigot and, like 100% of your ilk, perpetually stuck on stupid re the virus. And apparently incapable of using google to find the original report from CDC-NCHS. Or at least you are all those when in furtherance of some BS political narrative - which makes you a useful idiot as well.

[SierraLima]

So regarding their pointless emphasis on blacks. Are you saying that isn't a clear sign this is biased propaganda? Or that despite that it's propaganda, we should listen to it anyway? Or that you like the propaganda? When I see garbage like this left or right, I dismiss it immediately because it's clearly pushing a narrative which makes it quite likely they are cherry picking data to support their conclusions.
Accusing me of racism because I have an expectation that articles list their sources, classy! That CDC study you linked is also clearly anti-racist/woke/whatever propaganda garbage considering half of it was also focused on racial groups.
I also can't help but notice that you didn't address my points that this is largely conjecture about long term effects and about the long term effects of lockdowns/societal upheaval/panic as opposed to the virus itself.

[JFree]

Accusing me of racism because I have an expectation that articles list their sources, classy!

No I am accusing you of racism because you deny that major racial disparities CAN exist or be mentioned in something like mortality rates or changes in mortality rates. Everything like that is deemed 'propaganda' - and your refusal/denial is ONLY applied to particular minorities and (likely) only to those situations in which you prefer to construct a narrative that racism doesn't/can't exist. IOW - an article about crime/imprisonment that obsesses about blacks would NOT be deemed propaganda but an article about mortality is deemed propaganda.

Further - it is very clear that you KNOW that you are full of shit with your accusation because you also accuse the source itself of being propaganda. And ignore the fact that that source is the actual entity that calculates life expectancy - and even EXCLUDING race and just looking at the aggregate numbers, the change in life expectancy is 50 TIMES the change in life expectancy that you supposedly calculated. That's not a margin of error. You were either incompetent in your calc or lying about it. And I suspect - indeed am certain about - the latter.

And I have the same expectation about linking to sources that you do and it annoys me that journalists often don't. But that has nothing to do with the reader and not much to do with the actual content of the article if the source can be found and matches the content of the article.

[JFree]

I also can’t help but notice that you didn’t address my points that this is largely conjecture about long term effects and about the long term effects of lockdowns/societal upheaval/panic as opposed to the virus itself.

Who gives a rat's ass about 'conjectures' that are based on numbers that are both lies and that you pulled out of your ass.

[SierraLima]

I didn't deny that there are racial discrepancies. I denied that it's remotely important in relation to COVID or worth mentioning. I further asserted that if it's mentioned with such considerable effort and emphasis (by WebMD or the CDC), whoever wrote it obviously has an agenda and should be taken with a grain of salt. So shoot me, I don't trust people who are incapable of not bringing race into absolutely every topic.
The original article isn't wrong about their point on people missing health screenings or becoming druggies or alcoholics. Again, that isn't a side effect of COVID, that is a side effect of god awful government policies and intense, widespread panic towards COVID. So apples and oranges comparisons of my estimate vs theirs. I'm looking at what has happened (those that actually died of COVID). They have estimates about the reduction in lifespans due to COVID itself (fair enough), government/public behavioral reactions to COVID (which I rightfully consider completely separate). They also have wholly premature conjecture about the long term health effects of COVID survivors (which I outright ignore because although possible, there is no data on this and there won't be for years). I guess my point isn't valid cause I'm racist or something.
"Who gives a rat’s ass about ‘conjectures’ that are based on numbers that are both lies and that you pulled out of your ass." FYI, my source data is from the CDC and social security administration, whether you like my conclusion or not. I guess when I use them, their numbers are lies now too.
Care to argue how I'm wrong or do you want to do the typical leftists thing and cry wolf about racism with anybody you disagree with? That last question was rhetorical, so unless you want to provide an argument of substance, I'm out.

[justabill]

It's your decision but seems like a pretty dumb one to me. Do you think that you have less than a 99.9% chance of surviving the vaccine?

[MT-Man]

I think it's his/hers choice to make. Deriding it or calling it dumb isn't a benefit to anyone. How about not driving then seems risky that we'd get in the car when we can use the internet as a truly safe to live our lives as we know that's reduces our driving deaths to null

[JFree]

It is someone else's choice to make.

Deriding that choice because it is stupid is also someone else's choice to make. So stop acting like a fucking snowflake - snowflake.

And since that crowd is also passing on its hospital/treatment costs to others then it is not really purely their choice to make.

[Just thinkin aloud]

Remember that 3-5 years from now when you're about to be euthanized, because you took an unproven, untested, therefore EXPERIMENTAL and UNSAFE substance into your body because your masters chanted "safe and effective" ad nausea.

[CLM1227]

Now do AIDS and HIV.

[KenInd]

I agree with you that it's pointless to call it a smart or a dumb choice because everyone has different ideas about what risk they want to accept, and why. For me, the biggest fear of Covid was not that of dying, although that's certainly there, but worrying about being hospitalized and incapacitated, as I have no one else to support me or take care of the things I need to do in life if I'm laid up for a month or more. I'm not a big fan of hospitals, either. Reading the J&J clinical trials, I saw that there weren't any really bad side-effects that happened to 22,000 people who got it rather than placebo, and five people who got placebo died of Covid. That was good enough for me, given how I weighed it against other fears and concerns of what could happen to me if I did get Covid. Not everyone would see it the same way.

[Aladdin's Carpet]

Hey your choice, but thats hardly the point. Pulling the vaccine means people who would otherwise want to take it would not be able to. It is a decision that limits choice, which the video was criticizing.

Also, you have every right not to take it, but I have every right to say that choice is fucking stupid. There are zero ill effects associated with the vaccine long term. And there are people who do get seriously sick by this that you are actively putting in, even a little bit, of danger, by not getting the vaccine. 500,000 people dead is a lot, regardless of how you want to measure that risk.

I'm not even justifying the lockdown or anything like that. This isn't even a government enterprise these are private corporations. There are a number of old people who are extremely concerned for good reason, and not everyone can get the vaccine.

And it has nothing to do with politics or any of that bullshit. It is just a matter of a simple action that has zero costs to yourself and keeps you and the people around you safer.

"If I can leave some fear and doubt in the Karen’s heads at this point great it’s worth the slim to none chance I also have of dying."

Like wtf, that is one of the most sadistic things I have heard. Also, again, a lot of people have very good reason to be concerned, and also think the current lockdown scheme is bullshit. The more people get vaccinated the easier you make it for them to get back to enjoy the freedom they would otherwise have.

[Don't look at me!]

There are zero ill effects associated with the vaccine long term
It is impossible for this to be true. It hasn’t existed for a long term.

[Andrew Bays]

Agreed. This is patently false. Long-term studies for vaccine side effects take years to complete.

[NoVaNick]

The six cases of blood clots here all occurred in Women. So yes, it’s politics at play here. After all Joe Biden doesn’t want to be blamed for killing women, just sticking his hand up their skirts.

[Adans smith]

This is the precautionary principle that Dixie Lee Ray warned us about.

[Squirrelloid]

The annual incidence of veinous thrombosis is 1-2 per 1000 in the United States. The incidence of blood clots with the J+J vaccine is no worse than 1 in ~100,000 on an annualized basis. That means J+J vaccine recipients are doing significantly better than the population as a whole in terms of blood clots. Doesn't sound like there's any causality here at all.

(Of course, the media reports are just saying 'blood clots'. Veinous thrombosis is a blood clot condition, but that doesn't mean they're the same. It would help if someone would actually use the medical term for whatever the FDA is urging caution over).

[Krup]

You aren't taking into account everything needed to make that comparison. Is the normal incidence of veinous thrombosis 1 or 2 per thousand in the same demographic that is getting it post vaccine (women under a certain age) or does it work out to 1 or 2 per thousand in the general population because a whole bunch of elderly people get it?

[Squirrelloid]

I don't know anything about the particulars of the 6 cases, so why would i condition this on particular age? Nor do i have a breakdown on risk of veinous thrombosis by age. All i can do with the data i currently have is note that the apparent risk for the whole sample is less than the population as a whole. Which is suggestive, considering vaccines have been age biased towards older people on the whole.

[Larvell Blanks]

It's important to remember that the risk being guarded against is not the risk of blood clots or the risk of getting COVID -- it's the risk of the government getting blamed if someone gets blood clots because of a vaccination. If more people get COVID, that's too bad, but that's a fuzzy thing that is really hard to trace to a specific decision made by the government. But if Jane Smith gets harmed by the vaccination itself, that's a real, identifiable person saying "They told me it was safe!"

The same thing applies to government lockdown orders and the like. The point is not to weight the pros and cons of a lockdown and come to a reasoned decision about which course of action is best -- the point is to avoid being blamed for not doing something. If a governor orders lockdowns and the state suffers economically without really reducing the harm from the virus itself, well, at least he did something.

[Essie Hoscheid]

It's equally important to remember that there are 2 other vaccines on the market. Each with their own side effect profiles and a cumulative death toll of around 2,000 so far, and increasing by the day. All for the 90% chance of protecting against a virus that is fatal in .01% of cases and causes hospitalization in less than 5% of cases.

[Squirrelloid]

Nonsense. You can't treat all people who have been vaccinated and then died as deaths caused by the vaccine.

There have been 3,005 people who have gotten the vaccine and then died in the US (CDC's numbers right now). There is no medical pattern to those deaths that suggests the vaccine was responsible, ergo, their dying and them getting vaccinated are likely unrelated to each other. (People die. Some people who get vaccinated were going to die from something in the near future anyway - that doesn't make the vaccine responsible. And remember that we prioritized elderly people for the vaccine, who have a higher risk of dying from any cause anyway - they also have a significantly higher chance of dying from getting covid-19).

Regardless, over 189 million doses of vaccine have been administered. Let's make the most adverse assumption possible, that those are all double doses (ie, 94.5 million people vaccinated). That's a 0.003% chance of getting vaccinated and dying. (Not dying because you were vaccinated, dying for any reason after having been vaccinated.) That actual probability is going to be lower, because those aren't all double doses - more people have received at least one shot than 94.5 million.

So if the virus is fatal 0.01% of the time (which sounds like 18-44 year olds?), and vaccination co-occurs (regardless of cause) with death 0.003% of the time, getting vaccinated is probably still the right decision.

Keep in mind it's been ~3 months since we started administering vaccines, over which time the expected death rate from all causes (based on 2019 figure of 8.3 per 1000 over the course of a year, ie, absent covid-19) would be ~2 per 1000 over 3 months, which is a 0.2% chance of dying for any reason. (Now, we care about order here, so mathematically it's a little more complicated than just saying that's bigger than the number of people who have received a vaccine and died, but as a first-order approximation we can certainly say the number of people who have been vaccinated and then died doesn't look unreasonable if they're causally unrelated events).

[Ginette SteaIey]

You can’t treat all people who have been vaccinated and then died as deaths caused by the vaccine.

LMFAO. Oh that only works for the virus huh?

The CDC that has counted every death with COVID present as a COVID-caused death doesn't even tabulate all deaths from vaccine complications. It's based on self-reporting and the honor system. But by all means count the angels on the head of that pin and make sure you take an emergency-use authorized vaccine with no long-term efficacy or side effect testing because it will reduce your overall risk fraction by a few hundredths of a percent.

[Squirrelloid]

No, its bad logic for Covid-19 too.

[CLM1227]

I know exactly what you mean. It’s why I’m so irritated with how people are diagnosed with Covid. Did you know PINK EYE is listed as a symptom of COVID???

Seriously, someone just took every symptom present in people who threw back a positive test and tagged it COVID symptom. Every childhood illness is now Covid.

I can’t believe they are doing the same thing with the vaccine.

[Squirrelloid]

Yeah, it's been aggravating with Covid-19 reporting (both media and medical), too. I wonder if we're going to have good enough data to ever sort this out after the fact, given how badly the data collection has been handled.

[buckleup]

As per usual the feds are more interested in things other than normal hetero white people living their lives.

[Essie Hoscheid]

PEOPLE WILL DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I bet many of them will be CHILDRUNZ!!!!!!!!!!! too!

Ron was always among the most stupid writers for this place even when he used to pretend to be a squishy libertarian transhumanist. It's gotten sadder by the day since "2 weeks to flatten the curve" a year and a half ago.

2,000 people have died from complications of the various vaccines. For a disease with .01% fatality rate. Since you """""libertarians""""" oppose government involvement in drug approval or health care unless it's providing free needles to crackheads and forcing people to receive a vaccine with 3 months of testing using an experimental technology that's never been used before and would normally require 3-6 years of trials for approval, how about you just fuck off and let people decide if they want to risk the .01% risk of dying from COVID or the .001% risk of dying from the vaccine? Oh that's right. Because you're actually foaming at the mouth bootlicking Marxist statist pieces of fucking shit, that's why.

You know what's fucking hilarious? Ron is going to die from cancer. Probably in the next 10-15 years. Your secular eternal life fantasy will never be realized. I hope it's pancreatic. And lingering.

[Aladdin's Carpet]

2,000 people have died from complications of the various vaccines.

No, no they haven't. That many people died in total after getting vaccinated. Which is normal, people die, and when you are vaccinating millions of people some of them will die at some point. Which is significantly less than the number of people that would have died had they not gotten the vaccine.

"testing using an experimental technology that’s never been used before and would normally require 3-6 years of trials for approval"

No one is forcing anyone to do anything, we are asking you to do something. And there is article after article on this website about how the 3 to 6 period does nothing and is a waste of everyone's time and yet, when they finally relax it because its dumb, now your are concerned that they are relaxing it?

[Ginette SteaIey]

Which is significantly less than the number of people that would have died had they not gotten the vaccine.

I'm sure you have evidence for this counterfactual right? Oh wait, you can't, because it's a claim that can't be evaluated or falsified. SCIENCE!

No one is forcing anyone to do anything

Tell that to the students, government contractors, government employees, and military personnel who are being offered the "choice" of receiving the untested experimental vaccine or lose their livelihood and academic careers.

And there is article after article on this website about how the 3 to 6 period does nothing and is a waste of everyone’s time and yet, when they finally relax it because its dumb, now your are concerned that they are relaxing it?

Yes there are dozens of articles making unsupported assertions. I'm all in favor of doing away with the FDA. That doesn't mean I think 3 months is sufficient testing to support a mandatory vaccine for 7 billion people. So how about this: if you actually believe your own bullshit about free markets and deregulation let's take away the federal blanket liability immunity from vaccine makers so that they can be sued for whatever damage and death is cause by their products. Then let's allow private testing facilities to conduct double blind clinical trials on the vaccines for long enough to evaluate long-term side effects. And then let's allow people to make their own choice about getting vaccinated against a disease about twice as deadly as the seasonal flu without being coerced with the loss of their livelihood. You statist piece of fucking shit.

[Liberty Lover]

There is one truth in life, you will die. Get over it.

[Roberta]

Yeah! I died, but I got over it.

[Longtobefree]

OK, here it is, from the CDC website;

In these cases, a type of blood clot called cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) was seen in combination with low levels of blood platelets (thrombocytopenia). All six cases occurred among women between the ages of 18 and 48, and symptoms occurred 6 to 13 days after vaccination.

(As a personal side note, it appears that this side effect has not yet become woke, and thinks men and women are different somehow)

[mad.casual]

(As a personal side note, it appears that this side effect has not yet become woke, and thinks men and women are different somehow)

Assumes CDC/media wouldn't write off a dozen men, dead from the same cause, as background noise.

[Squirrelloid]

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/STROKEAHA.116.013617#:~:text=The%20incidence%20of%20cerebral%20venous,5%20per%20million%20per%20year.

It's apparently not *that* rare. They've got 105 cases over ~6 years (2005-2011) across ~1 million people. That's 17.5 cases per year per million people. Given the number of people who have been vaccinated, 6 cases doesn't sound unusually high.

[JFree]

Depends if you think the vaccine itself is causing the CVST - or if the vaccine is merely causing a complication in the subset of the vaccinated who also get exposed to the corona virus.

[Squirrelloid]

How would you know if the 6 cases were "exposed to the coronavirus"? I certainly don't have their medical histories. And do you mean 'diagnosed with coronavirus (at some point) before getting vaccinated', or 'were exposed after getting vaccinated'? The latter might be unknowable. Even if we did know they'd been exposed, that's not necessarily something to condition probabilities on - we'd need to have similarly granular data on the exposure of the entire vaccinated group's exposure, and we'd need to prove statistically it wasn't likely the result of random chance.

Anyway, I'm not convinced the vaccine is 'causing it' in any sense. 6 cases seems to be within expected frequency for the number of people vaccinated if it was independent of the vaccine. If the vaccine was 'causing' CVST through any mechanism, however attenuated, you'd expect an unusually high number of cases, not something within normal frequency. (And you should have statistics to prove the difference was significantly different than the normal frequency).

6 is an incredibly tiny number to start with. It's almost certainly not enough to prove any sort of causality.

[Squirrelloid]

Also, the more complicated your causality story, the less likely it is to be true. You need even more evidence to persuade for a more complicated story. Interaction between the vaccine and exposure to covid-19 is a more complicated story, so it requires even better evidence, which seems markedly lacking.

(Per the logic embedded in Bayes theorem, every additional step reduces the probability, and needs specific evidence for that step to overcome that reduction. Consider a simple model where every complication creates a binary dilemma, each with equal probability. A one-step explanation has a 50% prior. A two-step explanation has a 25% prior. Three-step: 12.5%. Evidence about a step moves the probability of that step in the hypothesis being true, so more steps require more evidence. And a prior of 50% either way in a dilemma is standard when you don't know anything - knowledge gained is evidence, and Bayes is iterative, ie, gaining knowledge shifts your posterior probability, which becomes your new prior as you investigate further).

[JFree]

How would you know if the 6 cases were “exposed to the coronavirus”?

I don't know that. But considered that that information determines the denominator, the denominator determines how big a problem it is, and the difference between one number and another is 'orders of magnitude' - well it seems like a more than reasonable question.

And I mean exposed after vaccination.

Anyway, I’m not convinced the vaccine is ‘causing it’ in any sense. 6 cases seems to be within expected frequency for the number of people vaccinated if it was independent of the vaccine.

It could be:
a)the vaccine directly causing it
b)the virus causing it with no effect whatsoever from the vaccine
c)the virus causing it because of a change (caused by the vaccine) in the way the body deals with the virus
d)something else entirely

It may well be d or b. But there is a huge difference between both a and c - and until you have some handle on what the problem is, it is entirely reasonable to suspend giving the vaccine to people.

[Squirrelloid]

For a 0.003% risk? I'd expect a higher standard of proof to stop administration of a vaccine when we've made vaccination essential to getting back to normal.

We can probably reject b unless the virus has previously been associated with the condition, in which case why potentially blame it on the vaccine?

We can probably reject a because the frequency is not higher than the background rate in the population.

Option c is probably unknowable, since its unlikely we'd be able to detect evidence of the virus post-vaccination if they did encounter the virus. (It's also highly implausible - it flies in the face of everything we know about how vaccines and the immune system works - you'd have a substantial burden of proof to demonstrate this, and you're nowhere close).

Option d, based on current evidence, is almost certainly correct. That the number is, at worst, in line with the background certainly suggests its just the normal incidence of the condition. The bayesian posterior probability of 'd' being right is very very high. Sure, there's uncertainty, but there's *always* uncertainty - that high posterior probability means you should treat it as true until better information comes along that changes your evidence substantially.

This is especially true when there are costs to delaying vaccination, not just in bodies, but in terms of the path to herd immunity and reopening the economy. The benefits of continuing vaccination significantly outweigh the very minor costs.

And ultimately, people have a choice whether to get vaccinated or not. They can weigh the risk and decide appropriately. There's no reason for the CDC and FDA to step in here.

[americanstalker]

This might take work, but here’s what should happen:

Find out where these vaccines were given. A pharmacy? A vaccination event (community center, etc)? Then find out the lot number. If they came from the same lot number, then have those destroyed and go to the facility where they were manufactured. Find out what happened there. Who dropped the ball where? Then deal with everything and start again. But nooo, everyone has to have a panic attack. *eyeroll*

[Lady Dada]

OMG PEOPLE WILL DIE!

You guys remember when reason was a libertarian publication? Yeah, me too.

[Ajsloss]

Not just people, but grandmas.

[Commenter_XY]

You can thank Kathleen Mangu-Ward for the pronounced Left turn.

[spec24]

So it's about the same odds as dying from Covid. I'd rather take my chances with Covid than inject some mad-scientist shit into my veins that may or may not have any long term effects. Plus, if everyone in this country wasn't a fat ass, everyone's odds would be a lot better!

[PG23COLO]

Ronald Bailey should stop pretending he knows anything about science. His latest achievement: Bailey wrote "post-mortem COVID-19 patients experienced venous thromboembolism." Not likely, since they were dead.
J&J will want to do exactly what the CDC and FDA say, to protect themselves from lawsuits. Lawsuits blaming J&J for vaccine-related deaths are inevitable.

[Kaye Fijul]

In the U.S. you cannot sue a vaccine maker for a vaccine injury. You can only ask the federal government for compensation for that injury. The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund pays out billions of dollars, very quietly. This has nothing to do with potential lawsuits against vaccine makers, as they are barred by federal law.

[Kaye Fijul]

In the U.S. you cannot sue a vaccine maker for a vaccine injury. You can only ask the federal government for compensation for that injury. The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund pays out billions of dollars, very quietly. This has nothing to do with potential lawsuits against vaccine makers, as they are barred by federal law. Also, totally agree about Ron Bailey. Which pharmaceutical company is sponsoring his articles? Your guess is as good as mine.

[Carter Mitchell]

Reason needs to get rid of Ronald Bailey. This headline and his entire article are bullshit. "Covid" is no more serious than any other flu variant for OVER 99.1% of the general population. Certainly not serious enough to risk your life on unknowns, although Mr. Bailey should certainly be welcome to assume that risk for himself.

But he should not be spuing state-sponsored terror propaganda in a supposedly libertarian forum.

[XM]

"The FDA's Decision To Pause J&J Vaccination Will Kill People"

This is the kind of panic induced hysteria Reason used to mock. The transition to "Libertarian Lincoln Project" is now all but complete.

Blood clots are a bit more serious than nausea, headache and vomiting. A gazillion people probably had Covid without ever realizing they had it, the issue is the transmission rate. Flatten the curve and all that.

Maybe the government should not have made this recommendation. But you're not going to die because you didn't get a vaccine. I've been vaccinated for flu maybe twice in my life and survived the flu even though the disease kills hundreds of thousands a year. Covid is a more serious flu with a higher transmission rate, but the picture remains the same - there is NO cure for the flu, and you'll still get the flu even if you get vaccinated.

Once you get the vaccine, you can't take it out. If you get Covid there are things you can do. Risks, reward, personal discretion. Former libertarian values.

[The Movement Laboratory]

Pretty tough rules. Learn about spin classes and exercises

[raspberrydinners]

Dumb decision to suspend. Should keep going and study it in the meantime. With such a low incidence rate it makes no sense to prefer the chance of covid to a vaccine with super, super low risk of blood clots.

[Beezard]

The real reason to hate J&J is the neo-Prohibitionist and smoke-nazi, curb all personal choices to make things cheaper for insurance companies bent of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

That said, I want the one and done, non-mRNA J&J shot if they force me to get jabbed to travel. Of course we’ll all just have to get jabbed again next year (because this is SO just going to become another flu shot with stricter mandates).

[Echospinner]

Brazil still getting slammed with the new P-1 variant. This one is affecting younger people. Half of the hospitalized patients are 40 or younger. It has been detected in the US.

[Bradlux]

The U.S. is recommending a “pause” in administration of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine to investigate reports of potentially dangerous blood clots.
In a joint statement Tuesday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration said they are investigating clots in six women in the days after vaccination, in combination with reduced platelet counts.
https://worldabcnews.com/u-s-recommends-pause-for-johnson-johnson-vaccine-over-clot-reports/

[ckfred]

The FDA always plays it safe with drugs that are experimental. Have we forgotten Vioxx and the myriad of strokes and deaths that it caused, after the regular, long process of FDA approval?

Medicine works on the notion that the cure is not supposed to kill or harm the patient.

[ckfred]

People mock the notion of getting Covid. But, a gentleman who owns a bakery in my town is now being told that Covid did such a number on his lungs that he now should consider a lung transplant.

Yikes.

By the same token, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is typically the result of not taking sufficient time to recover from a viral infection. My mother-in-law has CFS. It's so bad that even a car ride of a few hours leaves her wiped out for a day or two. She literally has to rest for a day or two, before coming over to our house for a holiday dinner, because a drive of 20 minutes, spending three hours at our house, and a 20 minute drive home leaves her physically exhausted.

Yes, a lot of people have pretty good immune systems. I didn't get the chicken pox until age 22, and I recovered in about 1/3rd of the time my dermatologist predicted. The last two times I got the flu, I was recovered in about 36 hours from the first symptoms appearing. But, I don't feel like I should keep taking advantage of my really good immune system.

[Squirrelloid]

Your immune system is really good, in part, because you keep taking advantage of it. (Also, getting lots of vitamin D from being outside during the summer helps).

[dougwesterman]

Some contraception drugs and protocols have a higher incidence of clotting issues than the J & J vaccine. This is the sort of information that needs to be disseminated. If you don't see the statistics for other medical drugs and treatments with blood clot side effects, you just don't get the whole picture.

[NEWS]

Legal Translation Dubai

[Mother's Lament]

Sullum or a spambot?

[Frances Roper]

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[Frances Roper]

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[Rise of the Impedance]

A Sullumbot?