I spoke with a friend on Thursday who's wife has had major vax complications and her doctors refuse to file her case into the VAERS system citing "the vaccine is safe" rhetoric. So he tried to do it himself and it was a 25 page long form that took an hour. If a doctor had 8 such cases per week he'd lose an entire day of work just running the forms. It is unthinkable that VAERS isn't undercounting.
To be fair, we both said it was experimental. We both said it needed to be compared against getting the virus. We both said the vaccine is safer than the virus.
And we both were overly optimistic about herd immunity. You put it at 55% infected, for a total of 900k deaths.
I put it at 60-90% infected, with 1.2 - 1.8 million deaths.
Seeing as we're at over a million deaths even with vaccines, treatments, etc, I think we can conclude that the base case of letting covid rip through America in spring 2020 would have been bad, with a lot more than 1 million deaths.
There are some more interesting differences. You trusted Bret Weinstein. I used to like Bret Weinstein. I started to doubt him after the podcast with Kory and then realised he was totally full of shit after the podcast with Malone and Steve Kirsch.
Everything about Steve Kirsch's arguments has been wrong.
He had a false argument for 25,000 vaccine deaths. I debunked that. Other people debunked that. He admitted it was wrong. And then, instead of retracting it, he went on to claim 150,000 vaccine deaths. And then kept increasing it. Last I checked he was up to 750,000 deaths. You should be well aware that's impossibly high.
Bret never distanced himself from any of that stuff. And then his own case against vaccines and for ivermectin just kept getting crazier from there.
Anyways, I don't think that your 1 in 5,000 death rate estimate for covid vaccines is correct.
At the time of the EUA, 2 people had died in the Pfizer trial vaccine group (out of ~20,000) and 4 died in the control group.
There should have been 4 extra vaccine deaths in the trial, if that was the case.
There is a possible caveat that the average person in the trial was healthier than the average person in America. The trial didn't use the oldest, sickest people in America. So it could kill a higher number of people, if you include nursing home residents. We've already established that you don't care much covid killing large numbers of nursing home residents, so I doubt you should care about the vaccine killing a smaller number of nursing home residents.
I also read a lot of VAERS reports and worked with the VAERS numbers. There's a theory that all the VAERS deaths were caused by the vaccine. There's a theory that they're all vaccine deaths and they're also underreported. And there's also a theory that VAERS deaths are overreported, that many of those are just random deaths that happened soon after we vaccinated a bunch of nursing home residents.
There are ways you should be able to distinguish between the two. Like, if they're unrelated deaths, they should have the same age distribution as natural deaths. The death rate should be equal for every vaccine. If they're caused by RNA vaccines, the effect should be dose dependent and worse for Moderna than Pfizer, since Moderna uses a higher dose. If the deaths are random, they should be split about 50/50 for 1st dose vs. 2nd dose. If they're caused by the vaccine, there might be a big systematic bias towards 1st or 2nd.
Anyways, I ran all those tests and the VAERS deaths look like random deaths. They're mostly old people, half are over 75. The age distribution of the VAERS deaths is identical to natural deaths. The rates are the same for every vaccine, Moderna is the same as Pfizer. There was a slight bias towards death reporting after 1st dose vs. 2nd.
You can run all the same tests for myocarditis, something that the vaccines do sometimes cause. And the results are the opposite. Moderna causes more myocarditis than Pfizer. It's much more common for men than women. It's much more common for young people than old people. It's much more common after the 2nd dose than the 1st. It's obviously a real signal, not a random one.
I also made multiple efforts to comb through the excess death data looking for any signal of vaccine deaths, but I've never found any.
If there are vaccine deaths, the numbers are small.
I have seen a credible argument for about 1,000 vaccine deaths in America, based on population wide tracking of elevated stroke rates, and other adverse events.
So, that would be a 1 in 220,000 risk of death, not 1 in 5,000.
You are correct that people are incentivized to lie about vaccine deaths and inflate the numbers to drive more traffic. You might not realize just how severely they have inflated the risks.
Of course, the people that are lying know exactly what game they're playing:
Where did you get your data on fatality rate of COVID-19 vs Flu for different age groups? This is something I've been interested in and have casually searched for but couldn't find.
I believe a significant number of the vaccine fatalities occur in extremely sick individuals. I recall a study in Norway where a large number of people were dying from the vaccine and all of them were literally already on their deathbed prior to being vaccinated. I would expect fatality rate for younger and healthier individuals to be significantly lower than the rate for older and sicker people.
There is no way it’s 1 in 5,000 because of the vaccine, that rate is just insanely high. It’s possible that 1 in 5,000 people who got the vaccine died, since over 50% of the American public has received it, and many of them have been vaccinated for months. Since “vaccinated” status lasts forever, and “COVID” status lasts only the duration of the infection (~2 weeks), I expect more and more of these mismatched-denominator comparisons.
Numbers from where I live are confirming the known 1 in ~100,000 to die of a weird rare type of blood clot after taking one of the adenovirus-vectored vaccines (https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/vaccine-safety/). The mRNA-based vaccines used in the US haven’t shown such a problem, and they should be even safer, as there really isn’t anything in them that could cause an adverse reaction in the body. It’s reasonable to be concerned about long-term impacts, and promote caution towards vaccinating the young, but I think basing an article on this comedically suspect rate is irresponsible. The bureaucratic overreaction (imo) to the 1 in ~100,000 clotting issue in J&J by shutting down that vaccine (which probably killed more people than it saved) really gives me a lot of confidence that the medical establishment is taking vaccine side effects seriously, and there isn’t mass underreporting.
BJ: How is it you have a better understanding of how science works than some of our official scientists? Looks, too, like we made a similar decision on the vaccine. I'm having some second thoughts now given persistent cramping issues, but I'm confident my body will eventually adjust. Lord knows it adjusted to a lot of other drug use in my college years.
As for children, where does the Hippocratic Oath kick in here, ie. "First, Do No Harm?" The data at this point says there is no threat to healthy children, ie. those lacking serious, serious co-morbidities. How do doctors justify giving an experimental vaccine to children who face no risk? Yes, it could be safe. But we really have no way of knowing that at this point.
Predicting future outcomes is a flip of the coin no matter whether you're a doctor, an economist, a political pollster or anyone or anything else.
“First off, this could be complete bullshit. It’s a statement on a discussion board with no references and no math shown. I have not independently verified any of these numbers, and if some journalist wants to actually do the legwork to do so themselves, I highly encourage it. But this number, one in five thousand vaccinated people die from the vaccine, seems reasonable to me and I’d like to move forward pretending it’s true”
I stopped reading after this. Can you really not see yourself?
Might have agreed if there "weren't" safe and effective treatments and prophylactics available for treatment (see the interview with Bret & Kory): https://www.bitchute.com/video/qHjNQIynVb5O/
Given that their 'are' treatments and alternate ways (proven in other countries) to prevent getting this illness, the prick isn't a wise course of action.
Unless I misunderstand the situation, the emergency use authorization REQUIRES that there not be a Safe and Effective treatment and if one was then found (it has been) then the emergency use authorization would no longer be valid. It is my assumption that THIS IS WHY the information about treatments is being buried and banned on the Interwebs, i.e if their is a treatment they'd have to Can the rollout of said pricks and the pricks are the science/medical communities favorite new toys and 'You can't take our toys away!!!/snarl'.
I spoke with a friend on Thursday who's wife has had major vax complications and her doctors refuse to file her case into the VAERS system citing "the vaccine is safe" rhetoric. So he tried to do it himself and it was a 25 page long form that took an hour. If a doctor had 8 such cases per week he'd lose an entire day of work just running the forms. It is unthinkable that VAERS isn't undercounting.
Great job, BJ. You're great explaining the math, as always. Thanks
This article is interesting. I made a similar effort around the same time in 2021 and came out more enthusiastically pro-vaccine than you:
https://medium.com/an-idea/how-safe-is-the-covid-vaccine-5a61d7d6d91a
To be fair, we both said it was experimental. We both said it needed to be compared against getting the virus. We both said the vaccine is safer than the virus.
And we both were overly optimistic about herd immunity. You put it at 55% infected, for a total of 900k deaths.
I put it at 60-90% infected, with 1.2 - 1.8 million deaths.
Seeing as we're at over a million deaths even with vaccines, treatments, etc, I think we can conclude that the base case of letting covid rip through America in spring 2020 would have been bad, with a lot more than 1 million deaths.
There are some more interesting differences. You trusted Bret Weinstein. I used to like Bret Weinstein. I started to doubt him after the podcast with Kory and then realised he was totally full of shit after the podcast with Malone and Steve Kirsch.
Everything about Steve Kirsch's arguments has been wrong.
He had a false argument for 25,000 vaccine deaths. I debunked that. Other people debunked that. He admitted it was wrong. And then, instead of retracting it, he went on to claim 150,000 vaccine deaths. And then kept increasing it. Last I checked he was up to 750,000 deaths. You should be well aware that's impossibly high.
Bret never distanced himself from any of that stuff. And then his own case against vaccines and for ivermectin just kept getting crazier from there.
Anyways, I don't think that your 1 in 5,000 death rate estimate for covid vaccines is correct.
At the time of the EUA, 2 people had died in the Pfizer trial vaccine group (out of ~20,000) and 4 died in the control group.
https://www.fda.gov/media/144245/download#page=43
There should have been 4 extra vaccine deaths in the trial, if that was the case.
There is a possible caveat that the average person in the trial was healthier than the average person in America. The trial didn't use the oldest, sickest people in America. So it could kill a higher number of people, if you include nursing home residents. We've already established that you don't care much covid killing large numbers of nursing home residents, so I doubt you should care about the vaccine killing a smaller number of nursing home residents.
I also read a lot of VAERS reports and worked with the VAERS numbers. There's a theory that all the VAERS deaths were caused by the vaccine. There's a theory that they're all vaccine deaths and they're also underreported. And there's also a theory that VAERS deaths are overreported, that many of those are just random deaths that happened soon after we vaccinated a bunch of nursing home residents.
There are ways you should be able to distinguish between the two. Like, if they're unrelated deaths, they should have the same age distribution as natural deaths. The death rate should be equal for every vaccine. If they're caused by RNA vaccines, the effect should be dose dependent and worse for Moderna than Pfizer, since Moderna uses a higher dose. If the deaths are random, they should be split about 50/50 for 1st dose vs. 2nd dose. If they're caused by the vaccine, there might be a big systematic bias towards 1st or 2nd.
Anyways, I ran all those tests and the VAERS deaths look like random deaths. They're mostly old people, half are over 75. The age distribution of the VAERS deaths is identical to natural deaths. The rates are the same for every vaccine, Moderna is the same as Pfizer. There was a slight bias towards death reporting after 1st dose vs. 2nd.
You can run all the same tests for myocarditis, something that the vaccines do sometimes cause. And the results are the opposite. Moderna causes more myocarditis than Pfizer. It's much more common for men than women. It's much more common for young people than old people. It's much more common after the 2nd dose than the 1st. It's obviously a real signal, not a random one.
I also made multiple efforts to comb through the excess death data looking for any signal of vaccine deaths, but I've never found any.
See here:
https://medium.com/microbial-instincts/2021-excess-deaths-in-the-us-pinpointing-where-they-come-from-5ca1386e108c
Or here:
https://medium.com/microbial-instincts/debunking-steve-kirschs-latest-claims-97e1c40f5d74
If there are vaccine deaths, the numbers are small.
I have seen a credible argument for about 1,000 vaccine deaths in America, based on population wide tracking of elevated stroke rates, and other adverse events.
https://shinjieyong.medium.com/looking-at-pfizers-vaccine-alone-in-the-table-totaling-ischaemic-and-hemorrhagic-stroke-gives-203-98e3ead3cab1
So, that would be a 1 in 220,000 risk of death, not 1 in 5,000.
You are correct that people are incentivized to lie about vaccine deaths and inflate the numbers to drive more traffic. You might not realize just how severely they have inflated the risks.
Of course, the people that are lying know exactly what game they're playing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G59zsjM2UI#t=2h01m08s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G59zsjM2UI#t=1h56m20s
A few questions and comments.
Where did you get your data on fatality rate of COVID-19 vs Flu for different age groups? This is something I've been interested in and have casually searched for but couldn't find.
I believe a significant number of the vaccine fatalities occur in extremely sick individuals. I recall a study in Norway where a large number of people were dying from the vaccine and all of them were literally already on their deathbed prior to being vaccinated. I would expect fatality rate for younger and healthier individuals to be significantly lower than the rate for older and sicker people.
There is no way it’s 1 in 5,000 because of the vaccine, that rate is just insanely high. It’s possible that 1 in 5,000 people who got the vaccine died, since over 50% of the American public has received it, and many of them have been vaccinated for months. Since “vaccinated” status lasts forever, and “COVID” status lasts only the duration of the infection (~2 weeks), I expect more and more of these mismatched-denominator comparisons.
Numbers from where I live are confirming the known 1 in ~100,000 to die of a weird rare type of blood clot after taking one of the adenovirus-vectored vaccines (https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/vaccine-safety/). The mRNA-based vaccines used in the US haven’t shown such a problem, and they should be even safer, as there really isn’t anything in them that could cause an adverse reaction in the body. It’s reasonable to be concerned about long-term impacts, and promote caution towards vaccinating the young, but I think basing an article on this comedically suspect rate is irresponsible. The bureaucratic overreaction (imo) to the 1 in ~100,000 clotting issue in J&J by shutting down that vaccine (which probably killed more people than it saved) really gives me a lot of confidence that the medical establishment is taking vaccine side effects seriously, and there isn’t mass underreporting.
BJ: How is it you have a better understanding of how science works than some of our official scientists? Looks, too, like we made a similar decision on the vaccine. I'm having some second thoughts now given persistent cramping issues, but I'm confident my body will eventually adjust. Lord knows it adjusted to a lot of other drug use in my college years.
As for children, where does the Hippocratic Oath kick in here, ie. "First, Do No Harm?" The data at this point says there is no threat to healthy children, ie. those lacking serious, serious co-morbidities. How do doctors justify giving an experimental vaccine to children who face no risk? Yes, it could be safe. But we really have no way of knowing that at this point.
Predicting future outcomes is a flip of the coin no matter whether you're a doctor, an economist, a political pollster or anyone or anything else.
“First off, this could be complete bullshit. It’s a statement on a discussion board with no references and no math shown. I have not independently verified any of these numbers, and if some journalist wants to actually do the legwork to do so themselves, I highly encourage it. But this number, one in five thousand vaccinated people die from the vaccine, seems reasonable to me and I’d like to move forward pretending it’s true”
I stopped reading after this. Can you really not see yourself?
re: Bret's censored YouTube discussion
this audio only version seems to still be available:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2GkYPouJqLMnMqDzMsdaeh?si=Q0h2y1Q6R_-X_RuzLhRSEw&dl_branch=1
Might have agreed if there "weren't" safe and effective treatments and prophylactics available for treatment (see the interview with Bret & Kory): https://www.bitchute.com/video/qHjNQIynVb5O/
Given that their 'are' treatments and alternate ways (proven in other countries) to prevent getting this illness, the prick isn't a wise course of action.
Unless I misunderstand the situation, the emergency use authorization REQUIRES that there not be a Safe and Effective treatment and if one was then found (it has been) then the emergency use authorization would no longer be valid. It is my assumption that THIS IS WHY the information about treatments is being buried and banned on the Interwebs, i.e if their is a treatment they'd have to Can the rollout of said pricks and the pricks are the science/medical communities favorite new toys and 'You can't take our toys away!!!/snarl'.