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[Madflavor]

You have nothing to fear. If anything you're having your second jab too soon.

I looked it up. I got my first dose May 18th, and my second is scheduled for June 8th.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Why are UK cases going up? (3k+ at this point and upward trend... Germany is at 4.4k)
It's not something I'd expect given the number of vaccinated... =/

Israel is in low double digits.

As long hospitalizations and deaths don't go up, then I think we can say the vaccines are working well.

 

[Madflavor]

I really fucking hate this age of disinformation. I really don't know what to believe or who to trust these days. On one hand, everything is censored and a conspiracy to Conservatives. On the other hand, it's not small wonder why Conservatives are such paranoid mother fuckers, because big tech companies do in fact, at the very least, censor a lot of shit that makes the Left look bad. But the line between conspiracy and truth is so blurred nowadays, because everyone has their own goddamn agenda, instead of genuinely looking out for the public's best interest. We really do deserve whatever eventually comes for us.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

I really fucking hate this age of disinformation. I really don't know what to believe or who to trust these days. On one hand, everything is censored and a conspiracy to Conservatives. On the other hand, it's not small wonder why Conservatives are such paranoid mother fuckers, because big tech companies do in fact, at the very least, censor a lot of shit that makes the Left look bad. But the line between conspiracy and truth is so blurred nowadays, because everyone has their own goddamn agenda, instead of genuinely looking out for the public's best interest. We really do deserve whatever eventually comes for us.

All you can do is to look at what evidence you can find and make a decision for yourself that you feel makes the most sense for your situation.

 

[CGiRanger]

The new Vanity Fair article on the lab leak theory is long but very interesting.

Main takeaways:

*the Chinese military was conducting gain of function research on bat coronaviruses using humanized mice in the WIV at a time that lines up with the outbreak, and Shi Zhingli lied about the military involvement in research at her lab

*the three WIV scientists who were hospitalized in Sept. 2019 were working on gain of function research

*the WIV removed its online virus database in Sept. 2019 and the WHO investigation team incredibly didn't even request to look at it

*even more incredibly, online autists pieced most of this together because elements in the US government resisted looking into it so as to not kick the hornet's nest about US funding of gain of function research and because it might help Trump. Scientists were scared to do it because their friends would think they were uncool. The media didn't do it because it was "racist."

I hate all this. Basically every "check and balance" to help uncover the truth behind what happened was buried and cast aside because it was "politically inconvenient" due to "Orange Man Bad" or "racism" or whatever stupid ass excuse these people who we supposedly consider "The Experts" came up with.

What was worse was that again, all this was labeled and dismissed as "Pure Conspiracy Theory" with certainty, and thus even asking the questions was "Bad Optics". It's one thing to say "We don't know for sure, but we'll look into it" and "No, it didn't happen and you better not question it!" when something is an unknown. And it seems everyone in authority went with the latter.

 

[Chaplain]

"NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci joins Morning Joe to discuss the release of thousands of his work emails from March and April 2020 via FOIA requests. Dr. Fauci discusses the search for the origins of the coronavirus and what he expects from this summer." (6/3/21)

 

[JimmyRustler]

I looked it up. I got my first dose May 18th, and my second is scheduled for June 8th.

That is pretty soon mate. My two shots are over 5 weeks apart.

 

[Airola]

I really fucking hate this age of disinformation. I really don't know what to believe or who to trust these days. On one hand, everything is censored and a conspiracy to Conservatives. On the other hand, it's not small wonder why Conservatives are such paranoid mother fuckers, because big tech companies do in fact, at the very least, censor a lot of shit that makes the Left look bad. But the line between conspiracy and truth is so blurred nowadays, because everyone has their own goddamn agenda, instead of genuinely looking out for the public's best interest. We really do deserve whatever eventually comes for us.

All you can do is to look at what evidence you can find and make a decision for yourself that you feel makes the most sense for your situation.

Yeah.

My opinion is that if you don't want to take it, don't. If you want to take it, take it.

Don't let anyone pressure you to take it or not take it.

 

[12Goblins]

I really fucking hate this age of disinformation. I really don't know what to believe or who to trust these days. On one hand, everything is censored and a conspiracy to Conservatives. On the other hand, it's not small wonder why Conservatives are such paranoid mother fuckers, because big tech companies do in fact, at the very least, censor a lot of shit that makes the Left look bad. But the line between conspiracy and truth is so blurred nowadays, because everyone has their own goddamn agenda, instead of genuinely looking out for the public's best interest. We really do deserve whatever eventually comes for us.

If you have half a brain, it's really not that hard.

AP
Reuters

And if you need someone to hold your hand as many of us do, you can find many credible partisan sources:

Left leaning: wapo, nyt, npr, bbc
Right leaning: WSJ, Reason, Forbes, and my personal fav The Economist

And many others, but you have to put in the work yourself in the end.

 

[Bladed Thesis]

If you have half a brain, it's really not that hard.

AP
Reuters

And if you need someone to hold your hand as many of us do, you can find many credible partisan sources:

Left leaning: wapo, nyt, npr, bbc
Right leaning: WSJ, Reason, Forbes, and my personal fav The Economist

And many others, but you have to put in the work yourself in the end.

Wallstreet Journal is considered right-leaning?

Jesus christ.

 

[12Goblins]

Wallstreet Journal is considered right-leaning?

Jesus christ.

Care to elaborate?

I won't ask CGiRanger to because I know that he can't

 

[Bladed Thesis]

Care to elaborate?

I won't ask CGiRanger to because I know that he can't

Why would you tell somebody the Wallstreet Journal is right leaning? It's very moderate for sure but probably leans slightly left of center if anything.

Or can you elaborate about what you mean when you say "right"? Is it like anything right of anarchism or socialism is suddenly rightwinger kind of "right"?

Damn, my dad really was correct when he told me John F Kennedy would be a Republican today.

 

[EviLore]

WSJ is considered to be center/center-right, with the opinion page being more firmly to the right.

 

[Bladed Thesis]

WSJ is considered to be center/center-right, with the opinion page being more firmly to the right.

Never heard that. But if thats the prevailing thought, I think its mistaken. Don't really take into consideration op-eds since thats by definition opinion pieces of anybody but I would agree the op-ed leans to the center-right.

But like the WSJ itself, no way is it right leaning imo.

 

[FireFly]

Why are UK cases going up? (3k+ at this point and upward trend... Germany is at 4.4k)
It's not something I'd expect given the number of vaccinated... =/

Israel is in low double digits.

Israel has given a much greater proportion of its population 2 doses, and a single dose of the vaccine only seems to be about 33% effective against symptomatic disease with the Indian variant. As long as the transmission rate stays above 1, cases will continue to double.

 

[CGiRanger]

I really fucking hate this age of disinformation. I really don't know what to believe or who to trust these days. On one hand, everything is censored and a conspiracy to Conservatives. On the other hand, it's not small wonder why Conservatives are such paranoid mother fuckers, because big tech companies do in fact, at the very least, censor a lot of shit that makes the Left look bad. But the line between conspiracy and truth is so blurred nowadays, because everyone has their own goddamn agenda, instead of genuinely looking out for the public's best interest. We really do deserve whatever eventually comes for us.

Case in point from this past year:

All saying "This is debunked conspiracy nonsense!". Funny now how it isn't.

 

[BouncyFrag]

From:

The Lab-Leak Theory: Inside the Fight to Uncover COVID-19’s Origins

Throughout 2020, the notion that the novel coronavirus leaked from a lab was off-limits. Those who dared to push for transparency say toxic politics and hidden agendas kept us in the dark.

www.vanityfair.com

‘Trust the science’.

 

[Chaplain]

 

[BouncyFrag]

The caller should have also fit in a question about Taiwan.

I’ve posted this before but is worth a watch:

 

[ntropy]

I’ve posted this before but is worth a watch:

here's Dr Kory with Bret Weinstein recently:

 

[Ascend]

It's time to ditch the idea that governments and corporations care about you, and, "science" is included in this as well. If there was ever any doubt, recent events show how things really are. If they are willing to not only lie about what actually transpired, but actually demonize anyone that questions what happened, you have to wonder what else they are lying about, or are manipulating everyone with/towards. And hopefully, things will no longer be dismissed on the mere fact that it has been labeled as a conspiracy theory.

In any case...;







And now I'm wondering if the Fort Detrick story has anything to do with this at all.
In case anyone hasn't heard;

Why China just regurgitated its Fort Detrick COVID-19 conspiracy theory - Washington Examiner

Desperate to deflect growing international interest in discovering the source of the COVID-19 pandemic, China is regurgitating one of its more absurd conspiracy theories.This being the theory that the coronavirus did not originate in China but actually escaped from the U.S. Army's Fort Detrick...

www.washingtonexaminer.com

China is saying that the virus was developed at Fort Detrick. It might be China's way of trying to absolve themselves from responsibility. But then again, I wonder how necessary that is at this point, considering all the focus is on Fauci's emails and funding. So... Yeah... Whatever is being called a conspiracy theory in the mainstream media, kind of deserves some more in depth scrutiny imo.

 

[EverythingsOverrated]

Notice how Fauci slyly moves the goal posts here by saying its absurd that the Chines government would deliberately develop something to kill themselves and others. Blatant. The majority of the lab leak purveyors believe it to have been a mistake.

This man truly is a fraud and I say that after telling people not to go so hard on the guy

EDIT: This really annoys me. I'm so tired of politicians and bureaucrats being such arrogant condescending dingleberries.

 

[Rentahamster]

I got my first dose of Pfizer a week and a half ago. Now I'm very hesitant to get my 2nd dose next week.

I really fucking hate this age of disinformation. I really don't know what to believe or who to trust these days. On one hand, everything is censored and a conspiracy to Conservatives. On the other hand, it's not small wonder why Conservatives are such paranoid mother fuckers, because big tech companies do in fact, at the very least, censor a lot of shit that makes the Left look bad. But the line between conspiracy and truth is so blurred nowadays, because everyone has their own goddamn agenda, instead of genuinely looking out for the public's best interest. We really do deserve whatever eventually comes for us.

Educate yourself on how the world works (socially, and physically), and hone your ability to separate credible sources from bullshit sources. As someone of a skeptical nature, I tend to question mostly everything. All that I currently know regarding how human biology works, the history of vaccines, how vaccines work, the history of Western medicine in general, the approval process for these COVID vaccines, and my current understanding of the cost/benefit of either taking or not taking the vaccine leads me to conclude with a high degree of confidence that it's a good idea to get it.

Here's some easily digestible info:





How the mRNA vaccines work:





Explanation of the expedited approval process:

 

[Rentahamster]

People keep saying this, but then why did they have to be put through an "Emergency use" approval? If they are safe, they would have been used without issue.

Emergency use still requires it to be safe and effective. They're doing all of the steps simultaneously instead of sequentially. That means lots of time savings if everything works out, but lots of money lost if it doesn't. The regular process requires a lot more time because of bureaucracy and red tape. The emergency use provision eliminates a lot of that in the name of speed. If we did all our medicine approvals that way, it would be a lot more costly and risky for the businesses, so there is no compelling reason to always do it that way except for emergencies.

This Reddit thread explains it well.

TL;DR - FDA approval is designed on purpose to be a slow ass process to make sure a product is safe, pure, and potent. It's a process made hard on purpose.

Meanwhile, an emergency use authorization slims down the red tape while still requiring a proven safety and efficacy record.

ETA: If normal FDA approval is like a 300-guest wedding event, then emergency use authorization is a small courthouse wedding six months in advance of the main event so that they can file joint taxes and one spouse can technically be on the other's health insurance and dental.

---

Right now the FDA has cleared just three of many vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna, J&J) for use via Emergency Use Authroization (EUA). To get there, they had to go through three phases, and at each stage demonstrate both a) effectiveness and b) safety.

• Phase 1: given to a small number of healthy people to see if it's safe at various doses and prompts an immune response (if OK, move to 2)
• Phase 2: given to hundreds of people, randomized and controlled, to see short term side effects and immune response at varying doses (if no major short term side effects, move to 3)
• Phase 3: given to thousands of people to measure effectiveness and more safety information vs. a placebo

For an EUA to be issued for a vaccine, for which there is adequate manufacturing information to ensure quality and consistency, FDA must determine that the known and potential benefits outweigh the known and potential risks of the vaccine.
From a safety perspective, FDA expects an EUA submission will include all safety data accumulated from phase 1 and 2 studies conducted with the vaccine, with an expectation that phase 3 data will include a median follow-up of at least 2-months (meaning that at least half of vaccine recipients in phase 3 clinical trials have at least 2 months of follow-up) after completion of the full vaccination regimen. In addition, FDA expects that an EUA request will include a phase 3 safety database of well over 3,000 vaccine recipients, representing a high proportion of participants enrolled in the phase 3 study, who have been followed for serious adverse events and adverse events of special interest for at least one month after completion of the full vaccination regimen.
So far only 3 have made it to EUA. That means we know it works, we know for sure it's safe in the short term, and we know it's manufactured correctly and consistently. You have a vaccine, you proved it works, and you proved it's safe - you can produce it while you go through the rest of the slow-on-purpose process.

Now to have full approval, and under normal circumstances, the vaccine makers have to get full approval through a Biologics License Application (BLA) submitted to the Food and Drug Administration. This is a 3-stage process.

The BLA application itself includes:

• Applicant information
• Product/Manufacturing information
• Pre-clinical studies
• Clinical studies
• Labeling

1. They schedule a bioresearch monitoring inspection. FDA comes out to inspect the production process and facilities.
2. Then they file a Form FDA 356th which includes:

• A summary of information submitted as part of the application.
• Information on the applicant submitting the biologics license application.
• A preclinical data section.
• A clinical data section that includes safety and efficacy data on the product.
• Draft labeling of the product to be licensed.
• Information on the manufacturing, chemistry, and controls of the product.
• A data summary of validation of important processes and assays involved in the manufacture of the product.
• A description of the facility where the product is manufactured.
• Case report form tabulations on the manufacturer’s clinical experience with the product.
• Case report forms and serious event narratives.
• An index.

1. Then we wait for the FDA review. This can take as much time as it needs to take.

Sources:

https://www.thefdagroup.com/blog/2014/07/test-the-biologics-license-application-bla-process/

https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/vaccines/emergency-use-authorization-vaccines-explained

https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-r...iontech-initiate-rolling-submission-biologics

It's the difference between "Good enough" and "Over engineered".
Imagine you want to build a bridge. You have design requirements (bridge must be able to hold x-number of cars at a time, must cross the river of x-width, etc). A quick solution is to design and build a bridge that meets all those requirements. That's good enough. The bridge does what it's designed to do. But an over-designed bridge exceeds those standards. You want to be able to hold 10 cars at once? Well lets design it to be able to hold 50, just in case someone decides to drive several double decker vehicle transports over the bridge at the same time. It needs to be able to last 10 years before maintenance is necessary? Lets design it so it could last 50 years without maintenance (but still do checkups every 10 years to be safe). etc.
EUA is 'good enough'. We know the vaccine works. We know it is, for the most part, safe without serious side effects most of the time. We know that it has high efficacy. The people made it did it with some over-engineering in place, but we haven't verified that overengineering by overtesting the hell out of it and waiting 5 years to make sure that we have every single side effect, every single reaction, every single tiny thing that could happen recorded. We've seen some of those (the allergic reactions) come up that would have typically likely been caught during a full FDA approval, mostly because there would be more time to test more doses on more people. But at this point, we're getting down to splitting hairs on a vaccine that has enormous benefits which outweigh any remaining undiscovered risk.
This is especially true given that the vaccines aren't all brand new tech or anything. They're all built off of existing tech that has been tested and used for other clinical trials before, just with a different target. They're mRNA vaccines, which have been studied and worked with for decades, and one of the big benefits of them is that they aren't using live virus.
So are there risks that haven't been caught, but might be with the full FDA approval? Sure, maybe. Is that a reason to avoid taking it? Given the high risk and infectiousness of the disease, no. It's worth whatever small risk there is in order to protect yourself and those you come in contact with.

 

[mango drank]

Why China just regurgitated its Fort Detrick COVID-19 conspiracy theory - Washington Examiner

Desperate to deflect growing international interest in discovering the source of the COVID-19 pandemic, China is regurgitating one of its more absurd conspiracy theories.This being the theory that the coronavirus did not originate in China but actually escaped from the U.S. Army's Fort Detrick...

www.washingtonexaminer.com

China is saying that the virus was developed at Fort Detrick. It might be China's way of trying to absolve themselves from responsibility.

Someone's feeling the walls closing in ...

Watch the WIV be turned to ash in a "mysterious" and "unexplained" fire soon.

 

[BouncyFrag]

 

[dave_d]

Emergency use still requires it to be safe and effective. They're doing all of the steps simultaneously instead of sequentially. That means lots of time savings if everything works out, but lots of money lost if it doesn't. The regular process requires a lot more time because of bureaucracy and red tape. The emergency use provision eliminates a lot of that in the name of speed. If we did all our medicine approvals that way, it would be a lot more costly and risky for the businesses, so there is no compelling reason to always do it that way except for emergencies.

This Reddit thread explains it well.

Personally I figured at this point it's gotten as much testing by being used on the public as it would have gotten under the "normal" anyway and it looks mostly ok. Admittedly the second dose wasn't fun for me.(Made me sick with a 101F fever but at my age Covid is more of a concern than the vaccine would be.)

 

[betrayal]

I will certainly get vaccinated towards the end of the year, depending on how the infection numbers develop in the fall, but this scaremongering is really annoying, especially since it's been going on for ~1.5 years now.

I know from private and work environment about 70-80 corona cases. All have managed well, most of them were certainly not what you would call a healthy living person and most of them were already a bit older. I myself use masks here and there, but do not see it quite so strictly, but use them 100% whenever it comes to the protection of others.
I was often on vacation, was actually every weekend on the road and had never been sick. So if you feel "locked in" even though you are healthy and mobile, you might want to rethink your general life.
In my girlfriend's company, almost all of the 30 people were sick with corona. Some of them even already got it twice (last year and this year) and some of them came to work sick (which is stupid but whatever). She was in the office almost every day. There were several times where she was in a room with currently infected for several hours, they talked a lot, no masks...and she never got sick.

Sure, it's just a personal anecdote, but I think if you're healthy and fit and live like that (we both are very active, she eats healthy, i eat shit 50%, we both supplemented vitamin D even before corona), you should just relax and get vaccinated if you want to. If not, that's fine for me too. Just live your fucking life without endangering others (masks!) and stop waiting for some politicians or vaccination to give you permission.

 

[llien]

Israel has given a much greater proportion of its population 2 doses, and a single dose of the vaccine only seems to be about 33% effective against symptomatic disease with the Indian variant. As long as the transmission rate stays above 1, cases will continue to double.

33% is a scary figure.

PS
I think Germany got lower number of new cases than UK (3.1k cases only) today.
45% of the population got at least one jab, 20% got two.

It should be said that the claimed efficacy of BioNTech vaccine is higher than Oxford's, 94% vs 64% (against the orig virus) after second jab.
It was also said to give about 85% protection two weeks from the first jab alone.

 

[Birdo]

Some interesting information about Spike Proteins:

 

[ValiantTraveler]

So my mom got the vaccine a few months ago, and now her arms are magnetic. Coins easily stick on both of her arms. I've checked it in person, and it doesn't work on me as I'm not vaccinated.

Naturally I look this up on the internet and every single single search result insists that this is fake, that you mustn't believe the cOnSpiRaCy ThEoRisTs and that the vaccine doesn't make you magnetic. You know when a liar insists too much on something to make you believe him? Yeah. Articles from mainstream media jumping to tell you there are no microchips when you haven't even considered it yet only makes their claims more suspicious.

This is not me watching some random viral video (as you can't tell anymore if something is true or not on the internet), this is something I tried in person several times. And I've yet to find an online page or video that explains why people's arms are becoming magnetic.

What do you think, Gaf?

 

[infinitys_7th]

So my mom got the vaccine a few months ago, and now her arms are magnetic. Coins easily stick on both of her arms. I've checked it in person, and it doesn't work on me as I'm not vaccinated.

Naturally I look this up on the internet and every single single search result insists that this is fake, that you mustn't believe the cOnSpiRaCy ThEoRisTs and that the vaccine doesn't make you magnetic. You know when a liar insists too much on something to make you believe him? Yeah. Articles from mainstream media jumping to tell you there are no microchips when you haven't even considered it yet only makes their claims more suspicious.

This is not me watching some random viral video (as you can't tell anymore if something is true or not on the internet), this is something I tried in person several times. And I've yet to find an online page or video that explains why people's arms are becoming magnetic.

What do you think, Gaf?

Don't worry, that's just her Quirk starting to manifest. It's a feature, not a bug. Just be glad she didn't turn into a orca woman or something.

Now you've just got to figure out her hero name. I think Magneta has a good ring to it.

 

[ManaByte]

Most vaccinated workers in California will have to keep masks on

Conflicted California workplace regulators approved controversial rules Thursday night that allow workers to go maskless only if every employee in a room is fully vaccinated against the coronavirus…

ktla.com

FOLLOW THE SCIENCE (until the science doesn't allow for easily enforceable and finable rules)

 

[ValiantTraveler]

Don't worry, that's just her Quirk starting to manifest. It's a feature, not a bug. Just be glad she didn't turn into a orca woman or something.

Now you've just got to figure out her hero name. I think Magneta has a good ring to it.

Man I wish that was the case. What if I told my last name is very close to the word magnetic?

 

[Chaplain]

 

[llien]

There is enough confusion already, could we please make a distinction:

1) It could "come from bats" on a wet market (somebody ate it). Now, the problem with this theory is that the bats in question are 2000 kilometers away
2) It could come "form bats" but at the same time "from lab" (we know that Wuhan lab wasn't exactly exemplary at handling dangerous shit)
3) It could come "from lab" as in "assholes tried to create new bio weapons"

 

[Rentahamster]

Some interesting information about Spike Proteins:

That guy isn't interpreting the data right. The spike protein that the mRNA vaccines generate is not the same as in live COVID 19. It's engineered to be more inert, and less mobile. It's also trapped for the most part in your muscle tissue, and any mRNA that happens to enter the bloodstream and then produce spike proteins there are very small. Much smaller dose than that of the studies.

Spike Protein Circulating in the Vaccinated: What does it mean? — Deplatform Disease

A recent paper has found spike protein antigens in the blood of people who received the mRNA-1273 vaccine from Moderna, and this is naturally being spun to mean the vaccines are dangerous. But actually there are several points about this paper that are very reassuring. Firstly, the reason some are

www.deplatformdisease.com

This finding is initially a bit surprising. A key mechanistic point regarding the safety of the vaccines has been that the spike protein does not get to freely float around in the blood where it might be able to cause these deleterious effects we discussed earlier. We know that the spike protein does not get secreted because it lacks the signal sequence for that, and the protein as specified by the mRNA is membrane bound. However we need to be aware of a few things. Firstly, this assay is measuring picograms per milliliter quantities of the proteins. A picogram is a trillionth of a gram, so this is a very small quantity indeed. Additionally, we see quite clearly that the S1 and spike proteins both disappear from the blood despite their initial tiny concentration (note the day scale). And intact spike is scarcely detectable in any of the participants (though there weren’t many). In other words, a test that doesn’t get to this level of sensitivity- picograms per milliliter- will likely show that no spike antigens are detectable in the vaccinees. The question now, however, is how small this really is- how does this compare to those studies that did find a concerning effect from spike protein alone?

Ah but I hear you protesting- the experts lied! They said no spike circulating- clearly there’s spike circulating. Not exactly. For one thing, the data available until this point didn’t show evidence of spike circulating, and we have a tendency in shorthand to say that that means there is no spike because we can’t prove a negative. All assays have limits of detection (in this case it’s labelled). A 10 nM concentration is very small- and yet this is still about 100,000 times more spike than what we find in plasma. This assay is pretty special to be able to find anything reliably at this concentration and I would be skeptical of its accuracy at this level if not for the time points that these things are appearing. Also note that this isn’t evidence of spike protein being secreted by the cells that receive the mRNA, which was the key consideration behind such claims and indeed based on the tiny quantities noted, that doesn’t appear to be happening. The appearance of intact spike in the plasma of this admittedly small sample is very rare and transient.

So in short, this study is interesting- but it in no way impugns the safety of mRNA vaccines for COVID-19, or mRNA vaccines as a whole. In fact I would take it a step further and say we don’t need to know anything about the biology of a pharmaceutical to make judgments about whether or not it’s safe. That determination is based on epidemiologic surveillance. To date, the epidemiologic data on mRNA vaccines is exceptional and reassuring: anaphylaxis can occur but is rare and very treatable. Otherwise no events have produced safety signals in these vaccines to date, and outcomes in pregnant patients are reassuring. We have given out hundreds of millions of doses of these vaccines and despite a pharmacovigilance system sensitive enough to detect an adverse event reported in fewer than 1 per million doses, we are seeing no such problems with mRNA vaccines. Papers analyzing the mechanisms of how these vaccines work are valuable because they can be used to guide smarter vaccine design. But they cannot tell us anything definitively about safety. All of this data must be held in context. COVID-19 has killed nearly 600,000 Americans, and the death toll globally is staggering. People are additionally experiencing disabling complications after getting over even seemingly mild cases. Vaccines are the way out.

Science | AAAS

blogs.sciencemag.org

So I’ve been getting questions about what this means for vaccination: if we’re causing people to express Spike protein via mRNA or adenovirus vectors, are we damaging them just as if they’d been infected with coronavirus? Fortunately, the answer definitely seems to be “no” – in fact, the pseudovirus paper notes near the end that the antibody response generated by vaccination against the Spike protein will be beneficial in two ways, against infection and against the Spike-mediated endothelial damage as well. There are several reasons why the situation is different.

Consider what happens when you’re infected by the actual coronavirus. We know now that the huge majority of such infections are spread by inhalation of virus-laden droplets from other infected people, so the route of administration is via the nose and/or lungs, and the cells lining your airway are thus the first ones to get infected. The viral infection process leads at the end to lysis of the the host cell and subsequent dumping of a load of new viral particles – and these get dumped into the cellular neighborhood and into the bloodstream. They then have a clear shot at the endothelial cells lining the airway vasculature, which are the very focus of these two new papers.

Compare this, though, to what happens in vaccination. The injection is intramuscular, not into the bloodstream. That’s why a muscle like the deltoid is preferred, because it’s a good target of thicker muscle tissue without any easily hit veins or arteries at the site of injection. The big surface vein in that region is the cephalic vein, and it’s down along where the deltoid and pectoral muscles meet, not high up in the shoulder. In earlier animal model studies of mRNA vaccines, such administration was clearly preferred over a straight i.v. injection; the effects were much stronger. So the muscle cells around the injection are hit by the vaccine (whether mRNA-containing lipid nanoparticles or adenovirus vectors) while a good portion of the remaining dose is in the intercellular fluid and thus drains through the lymphatic system, not the bloodstream. That’s what you want, since the lymph nodes are a major site of immune response. The draining lymph nodes for the deltoid are going to be the deltoid/pectoral ones where those two muscles meet, and the larger axillary lymph nodes down in the armpit on that side.

Now we get to a key difference: when a cell gets the effect of an mRNA nanoparticle or an adenovirus vector, it of course starts to express the Spike protein. But instead of that being assembled into more infectious viral particles, as would happen in a real coronavirus infection, this protein gets moved up to the surface of the cell, where it stays. That’s where it’s presented to the immune system, as an abnormal intruding protein on a cell surface. The Spike protein is not released to wander freely through the bloodstream by itself, because it has a transmembrane anchor region that (as the name implies) leaves it stuck. That’s how it sits in the virus itself, and it does the same in human cells. See the discussion in this paper on the development of the Moderna vaccine, and the same applies to all the mRNA and vector vaccines that produce the Spike. You certainly don’t have the real-infection situation of Spike-covered viruses washing along everywhere through the circulation. The Spike protein produced by vaccination is not released in a way that it gets to encounter the ACE2 proteins on the surface of other human cells at all: it’s sitting on the surface of muscle and lymphatic cells up in your shoulder, not wandering through your lungs causing trouble.

Some of the vaccine dose is going to make it into the bloodstream, of course. But keep in mind, when the mRNA or adenovirus particles do hit cells outside of the liver or the site of injection, they’re still causing them to express Spike protein anchored on their surfaces, not dumping it into the circulation.

So the reports of Spike protein trouble are interesting and important for coronavirus infection, but they do not mean that the vaccines themselves are going to cause similar problems. In fact, as mentioned above, the fact that these vaccines are aimed at the Spike means that they’re protective in more ways than we even realized.

Update: there’s another level of difference that I didn’t mention. In the Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech, J&J, and Novavax vaccines, the Spike protein has some proline mutations introduced to try to hold it in its “prefusion” conformation, rather than the shape it adopts when it binds to ACE2. So that should cut down even more on the ability of the Spike protein produced by these vaccines to bind and produce the effects noted in the recent papers. That comes in particularly handy for the Novavax one, since it’s an injection of Spike protein itself, rather than a vaccine that has it produced inside the cells. Notably, the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine is producing wild-type Spike (although that’s still going to be membrane-anchored as discussed above!)

COVID-19 Vaccines and Spike Proteins

A review of new research published in the journal Circulation Research shows that the concerns raised by vaccine doubters are much ado about nothing.

covid19resources.ca

A Twisted Tale​

Shortly after Lei and colleagues published their study, vaccine skeptics touted the findings as proof that newly developed COVID-19 vaccines are dangerous. Afterall, if COVID-19 vaccines produce spike protein to trigger immunity, and that same spike protein causes injury, then vaccines are really no different than the disease they are designed to prevent.

The problem with these claims is that science doesn’t support their arguments.

The Long Road to Perdition​

COVID19 vaccines are injected into the deltoid where they are taken up by muscle cells. The vaccine remains largely contained near the site of injection (2). Local muscle cells that take in the vaccine produce the spike protein and place it on the surface of the cell where it is recognized by the immune system. Vaccine that is not taken up by muscle is drained into the local lymph nodes where lymphatic cells absorb the vaccine and similarly make spike protein. The lymphatic cells are responsible for activating T and B cells, which are important steps in generating immunity.

In order to damage the endothelium of blood vessels, COVID-19 vaccines have to enter the vascular system and infect cells that circulate in the blood. Data collected by the European Medicines Agency shows that no significant amount of vaccine enters the circulation (3). The confinement of the expressed spike protein away from the circulatory system significant prevents it from causing damage to the vascular endothelium.

Redesigning the Spike Protein​

The spike protein attaches SARS-CoV2 to cells through a receptor called ACE2. In order to fully interact, the spike protein must undergo a conformational change (4).

A research team lead by Dr. Barney Graham from the Vaccine Research Center at the NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases created an engineered form of the spike protein that is unable to make the shape change required to effectively bind to cells (5). The Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, Novavax, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines all use this inactivated spike protein, which means any spike protein that is produced by the vaccine is not able to be activated. This safety-switch limits the ability of the spike protein to bind ACE2 and limits its ability to cause damage.

Stuck in a Hole​

In addition to engineering the spike protein so it can not be fully activated the protein is tagged with an extra piece called a “transmembrane anchor” (6). The transmembrane anchor allows the spike protein to appear on the surface – or membrane – of the cell, but it is held in place by the anchor. This prevents the spike protein from drifting away and creates a fixed target for the immune system to recognize the foreign protein.

Three Strikes Against Misinformation​

The significance of the work by Lei and colleagues has been overshadowed by the concerns raised by vaccine skeptics. Their claims of a looming vaccine catastrophe brought about by vaccine-induced spike proteins fails to consider that the spike protein of vaccines is different than the natural form; that its engineered shape prevents activation; and that multiple elements confine spike protein expression to a highly localized collection of cells whose purpose is to activate the immunity vaccines are designed to produce.

Ironically, the same study cited by vaccine skeptics as proof of their arguments draws a very different conclusion than the negative ones they espouse. Lei and colleagues conclude their paper by noting that their study “suggests that vaccination-generated antibody and/or exogenous antibody against [spike] protein not only protects the host from SARS-CoV-2 infectivity but also inhibits [spike] protein imposed endothelial injury.” (1). In other words, the spike proteins used by currently available vaccines actually offer a double layer of protection.

 

[Raven117]

I really fucking hate this age of disinformation. I really don't know what to believe or who to trust these days. On one hand, everything is censored and a conspiracy to Conservatives. On the other hand, it's not small wonder why Conservatives are such paranoid mother fuckers, because big tech companies do in fact, at the very least, censor a lot of shit that makes the Left look bad. But the line between conspiracy and truth is so blurred nowadays, because everyone has their own goddamn agenda, instead of genuinely looking out for the public's best interest. We really do deserve whatever eventually comes for us.

You and me both amigo.

 

[BouncyFrag]

 

[Raven117]

It may be worth checking out Era on this (a small thread only 3 pages), who are absolutely in denial that Fauci could have been misleading in some of this stuff. The mental gymnastics. They cannot comprehend that they were mislead.

 

[ManaByte]

It may be worth checking out Era on this (a small thread only 3 pages), who are absolutely in denial that Fauci could have been misleading in some of this stuff. The mental gymnastics. They cannot comprehend that they were mislead.

Edit: Went looking for the thread and after 1 minute of looking at thread titles there:

 

[DragoonKain]

Data from the UK shows Pfizer vaccine produces less antibodies for the "delta variant." Which would be an interesting story except I had to spend time googling wtf the "delta variant" is because they decided to make it more difficult by renaming them "bc racism" or something I guess. Anyway, it's the one from India apparently.

 

[Insane Metal]

It may be worth checking out Era

That is never the case.

 

[12Goblins]

It may be worth checking out Era on this (a small thread only 3 pages), who are absolutely in denial that Fauci could have been misleading in some of this stuff. The mental gymnastics. They cannot comprehend that they were mislead.

What did he mislead us on? In your words, concisely

 

[Raven117]

What did he mislead us on? In your words, concisely

He absolutely understood that Covid-19 could have possibly come from the Wuhan lab. Possibly. Him (with the help of the media), spun it where they could not possibly ever be the case and pushed another theory. That is deliberately misleading when the answer was "We don't know where it originated other than it first was identified in China."

The mask thing, that one is not as egregious to me (other than him absolutely knowing it didn't do much to stop the transmission of the virus), but then he went on to say "two masks" later on.

 

[12Goblins]

Apparently fauci telling some lady that it was safe to fly domestically back in Feb 2020 is a "murderous email" is what I learned from that thread

 

[Raven117]

Apparently fauci telling some lady that it was safe to fly domestically back in Feb 2020 is a "murderous email" is what I learned from that thread

Lol, yeah. Nah.

 

[12Goblins]

He absolutely understood that Covid-19 could have possibly come from the Wuhan lab. Possibly. Him (with the help of the media), spun it where they could not possibly ever be the case and pushed another theory. That is deliberately misleading when the answer was "We don't know where it originated other than it first was identified in China."

The mask thing, that one is not as egregious to me (other than him absolutely knowing it didn't do much to stop the transmission of the virus), but then he went on to say "two masks" later on.

At best, he's managing spinning plates trying to appease the white house, the american public, the scientific community, and the CCP
At worse, he course corrected on these issues when none in the sitting administration did

 

[Raven117]

At best, he's managing spinning plates trying to appease the white house, the american public, the scientific community, and the CCP
At worse, he course corrected on these issues when none in the sitting administration did

I don't envy his position, but he didn't really course correct. That's the issue with me.

He knew the Wuhan Lab Theory was real (and that the U.S. donated to it). He spun it that it came from animal to human directly.

He knew masks were not helpful (or at best very marginally). Instead, of saying what the science really showed (that its marginal), he let the media spin that the mask was essential. Same with lockdowns. That they were the only way.

My issue is that he tried to spin the science to where he wanted the policy to go, and didn't let the science drive his decisions and recommendations. And he damn sure didn't come off of those recommendations in the face of contrary evidence.

 

[12Goblins]

So masks don't work and Fauci spins science to fit his policies.