Cornell will force students to get “COVID vaccines” (aka experimental untested gene therapy for an illness that poses no risk to them) to be able to return to campus in the Fall.
Of course, as I said before, students won’t protest because this is a generation that doesn’t protest if the tech oligarchy doesn’t approve.
Semi OT: Politically driven testing in Spain…
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1378728702624825351.html
It seem (I’m a graph dummy) that rather than the usual testing policies, in Madrid the lower the number of cases the more they tested (trying to drive up numbers for a holiday lockdown?)
This has been obvious in Poland as well, where ‘record’ numbers of positive cases are driven by record numbers of tests with a real ramp up before Easter.
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I showed these numbers in class last Fall with no comment. Just the graphs. The students tortured me for 30 minutes about how it’s possible and why it’s being done. I said, I don’t know. Draw your own conclusions. I’m here to present information, not to interpret it.
But yes, it’s everywhere. In Quebec it’s done like this precisely to drive numbers around holidays. Absolutely pathetic.
This “experimental untested gene therapy” is going to put an end to this pandemic two years earlier than otherwise.
We’re so spoiled we even get to choose a less experimental type of vaccine if that’s desired.
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I know, but this is more about the older more vulnerable professors/staff that can catch the virus from the students.
And seriously, if you don’t trust mRNA vaccines, there are classical vaccines that use the same method used for many decades. At some point, the risk of having COVID complications is much greater than the risk of having bad side effects with a vaccine. I think it’s becoming abundantly clear that vaccines are being very effective without a significant increase in complications/hospitalizations.
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Professors should get vaccinated if they feel like it. But puting the onus on the younger generation is ridiculous. Nobody knows what the long-term effects will be. Nobody. And nobody ever claimed to know.
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There is a ton of things we don’t know the long-term effects for. We don’t know the long term effects of 5 G electromagnetic radiation, the increasing amount of microplastics in our bodies and food, the effects of social networks on our brains, etc. But even then, here we are. Still using Twitter, Facebook, smartphones, and plastics.
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My point is not wanting a vaccine that is showing great promise because you don’t know the long-term effects is a weak argument. There is a ton of things that we don’t know the long term effects of, and we still willingly engage in them on a daily basis. There is even more things that we know for sure are unhealthy and bad for us in the long term, and we still do them.
Requiring vaccines for 18 year olds is definitely a low hanging fruit. However, I think this is more of a liability issue. If there is a big outbreak due to unvaccinated people on campus, that can be a big liability and bad PR for a university. We already saw that with UNC in October:
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6939e3.htm
No university wants to be on the CDC website as a case study of COVID outbreak.
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We still do them against our will? That’s new to me. Every unhealthy thing I’ve done was freely chosen. Eating donuts because you feel like it is very different from having them stuffed in your mouth while being held down and kicked in the stomach.
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“There is a ton of things that we don’t know the long term effects of, and we still willingly engage in them on a daily basis.”
I agree with you. The keyword, though, is willingly. There is a significant difference between the voluntary and mandatory.
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“I agree with you. The keyword, though, is willingly. There is a significant difference between the voluntary and mandatory.”
Yeah, I agree is a big difference and I don’t think anybody should be forced to get a vaccine. I was addressing mostly the objection to vaccines on the grounds of unknown long-term consequences.
I think requiring them for college admission is more of a PR/liability issue.
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@ed
“ Yeah, I agree is a big difference and I don’t think anybody should be forced to get a vaccine. ”
I am glad to hear that.
“I was addressing mostly the objection to vaccines on the grounds of unknown long-term consequences.”
For vaccines to make sense, the side effects of the vaccine should be less than the effects of the virus. For a population of college students who, statistically speaking, have only very mild manifestation of Covid, the safety bar that the vaccine should meet before being mandated has to be very high. If the virus was as mild for the entire population as it is for 18-24 year olds, there would be no pandemic to talk about and no one would bother with any vaccines. The question of long term side effects is an important one and should be answered before making the vaccines mandatory.
“I think requiring them for college admission is more of a PR/liability issue.”
But they are not required for college admission, they are required for attendance. Let’s say you are a senior who needs to take a couple of in person classes in Fall ‘21 in order to graduate. Your choices are to either (1) take the vaccine or (2) quit, thereby loosing all the money you have already paid to the school for your education. How nice.
“For vaccines to make sense, the side effects of the vaccine should be less than the effects of the virus. ”
As of today more than 673 million vaccine shots have been given. By the time Fall semester starts, well over 1 billion people will have been vaccinated. So far there is no indication the effects of the vaccines are worse than getting and spreading the virus; quite the opposite actually.
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I don’t like this whole line of argument. So, respectfully:
“I know, but this is more about the older more vulnerable professors/staff that can catch the virus from the students.”
The issue is that at no point in time was consent given by students for their bodies to be trashed by a practically untested medication in order to save professors or staff.
One of the most important precedents in medical ethics is the Tuskagee experiment, which was ruled unethical on grounds that study participants did not give informed consent and also because it was judged that the benefits of nontreatment outweighed the benefits of treatment.
Regarding these so called vaccines, no one has any idea what the benefits of either treatment or nontreatment are, which means that informed consent is not possible, while knowing whether treatment or nontreatment with these vaccines is also not possible.
So, the ethics of compelling students to be vaccinated by essentially ransoming their education are comparable to the ethics of the Tuskagee experiment, which is to say, badly unethical.
“And seriously, if you don’t trust mRNA vaccines, there are classical vaccines that use the same method used for many decades. ”
Presenting the issue as a choice between mRNA (so-called) vaccine and classical vaccine is a form of false dilemma, which is one of the logical fallacies. Choices have been restricted to either this or that vaccine rather than a true choice between this and that vaccine or no vaccine at all.
“At some point, the risk of having COVID complications is much greater than the risk of having bad side effects with a vaccine. ”
Yes. That point happens when vaccines are adequately tested at some point in the future, which cannot be now, because now is the present. Right now in the present it is not possible to determine whether COVID complications or vaccine side effects are worse due to a poverty of information.
“I think it’s becoming abundantly clear that vaccines are being very effective…”
If that were true then it wouldn’t be necessary to give 2nd and 3rd doses.
“…without a significant increase in complications/hospitalizations.”
Again there is a poverty of data in relation to late stage side effects, which means that this position is at best poorly supported, and at worst flat out wrong in the case of side effects being subclinical or misunderstood (which I think is going to happen regarding clotting and other blood disorders brought on by the vaccines).
“The issue is that at no point in time was consent given by students for their bodies to be trashed by a practically untested medication in order to save professors or staff.”
This is wrong. At this point in time these vaccines have been administered to hundreds of millions of people without any discernible side effects or hospitalization due to vaccine complications.
“Yes. That point happens when vaccines are adequately tested at some point in the future, which cannot be now, because now is the present. Right now in the present it is not possible to determine whether COVID complications or vaccine side effects are worse due to a poverty of information.”
I’m sure if these were normal times, that would the the course of action. These are not normal times.
“Again there is a poverty of data in relation to late stage side effects, which means that this position is at best poorly supported, and at worst flat out wrong in the case of side effects being subclinical or misunderstood (which I think is going to happen regarding clotting and other blood disorders brought on by the vaccines).”
Tremendous decrease in hospitalizations in countries/areas with vaccinations are showing a very positive trend for vaccine use.
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“This is wrong.”
Respectfully, no, what I said is not wrong. No university anywhere in the USA presented students with a contract that essentially said “If there is a communicable illness that threatens professors or staff, you have to inject yourself with whatever medication we tell you to, no matter what side effects you may develop (including death) or you aren’t allowed on campus to receive the education you have purchased from us.”
“At this point in time these vaccines have been administered to hundreds of millions of people without any discernible side effects or hospitalization due to vaccine complications.”
Several countries halted the AstraZeneca vaccine after side effects including unexpected blood clotting and death were discerned, with the Netherlands specifically forbidding use on people under 60. Using simple reason, it is obvious that the Netherlands, at least, conducted a risk assessment regarding the vaccine across different age ranges concluding that the risk to under 60 year olds exceeded the expected benefit.
“I’m sure if these were normal times, that would the the course of action. These are not normal times.”
Well, no. Your original comment was about the risk of side effects and the risk of COVID complications. Neither of those things change depending on how easy or hard times are for human beings.
I understand that many people feel a sense of urgency because of the health, economic, or social effects of this pandemic and speak as if they can bend the rules of biology because of that sense of urgency, but that is false. Biology stays the same no matter how upset everyone is, which is why, like it or not, it will take a couple years to develop a vaccine that isn’t outright so hazardous that it should be avoided by anyone who is sane, and a decade or so to develop one that is of an objectively good quality.
“Tremendous decrease in hospitalizations in countries/areas with vaccinations are showing a very positive trend for vaccine use.”
No, I’m not falling for that one. The way vaccines work is to prevent infection. If a person takes a vaccine and is infected afterwards, then the vaccine failed. It doesn’t matter if the person suffered a bad infection requiring hospitalisation or a slight infection, because all that matters is if they were infected or not.
To use different words, vaccines are like condoms. The point of using a condom is to prevent pregnancy. If you had a dozen women who got pregnant during unprotected sex followed by giving birth to really big fat babies in a hard labour, and then you had a dozen women use condoms who got pregnant despite using condoms followed by giving birth to teeny tiny babies in an easy labour, then the fact that the second group of women only had tiny babies with ease instead of big fat ones with great difficulty wouldn’t prove that condoms work.
In point of fact it would prove condoms didn’t work, because the woman using the condom to avoid pregnancy still ended up with a baby, which would mean that the condom failed as a contraceptive device in the same way these vaccines that still allow people to get sick fail in their purpose as well.
Note: in this age of disclaimers, I just want to say that condoms do not affect the size of babies when they are born.
“Respectfully, no, what I said is not wrong. No university anywhere in the USA presented students with a contract that essentially said “If there is a communicable illness that threatens professors or staff, you have to inject yourself with whatever medication we tell you to, no matter what side effects you may develop (including death) or you aren’t allowed on campus to receive the education you have purchased from us.”
By the time classes open up for the Fall semester, literally over 1 billion people will have been vaccinated. So far more than 673 million have been vaccinated. All this without any serious side effect that would make getting COVID preferable for the majority of the population.
“Several countries halted the AstraZeneca vaccine after side effects including unexpected blood clotting and death were discerned, with the Netherlands specifically forbidding use on people under 60. Using simple reason, it is obvious that the Netherlands, at least, conducted a risk assessment regarding the vaccine across different age ranges concluding that the risk to under 60 year olds exceeded the expected benefit.”
How many is that, a few dozen out of literally millions?
I find it hilarious how all of the sudden you’re so concerned about the side effects of vaccination but totally downplay the side effects of getting COVID, which has demonstrably pushed hospitalization to limits not seen in modern times and increased excess mortality by hundreds of thousand in the USA alone. I think your risk analysis is completely wrong on this one.
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“By the time classes open up for the Fall semester, literally over 1 billion people will have been vaccinated. So far more than 673 million have been vaccinated. All this without any serious side effect that would make getting COVID preferable for the majority of the population.”
So what. That has nothing to do with what we were talking about, which is the issue that students never gave consent to be injected for the sake of protecting professors and staff.
“How many is that, a few dozen out of literally millions?”
The actual number is totally irrelevant so long as it is equal to or more than one, since the reason I mentioned the AstraZeneca vaccine that has been halted after side effects and death were observed is because you had stated that the vaccine had been given to millions of people without any – meaning zero – side effects or complications being observed.
If you say that no complications were discerned followed by me stating that whole countries had stopped giving the vaccine out because they had discerned (more than one) side effect(s) and/or death(s), it means that your information is incorrect. So now, rather than asking me an irrelevant question, it would be better if you took some time to upgrade your knowledge by learning about which side effects had been discerned, why, and what it means.
“I find it hilarious how all of the sudden you’re so concerned about the side effects of vaccination but totally downplay the side effects of getting COVID, which has demonstrably pushed hospitalization to limits not seen in modern times and increased excess mortality by hundreds of thousand in the USA alone. I think your risk analysis is completely wrong on this one.”
Respectfully, I think that you’re making this up a little bit. In point of fact, I consider both the virus and the mRNA so-called vaccines to both be bad enough to avoid, and have been demonstrably consistent in that since the beginning. Nor have I offered a risk analysis anywhere.
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What do you mean without any serious side effect?
AstroZeneca causes thrombosis: https://www.barrons.com/amp/news/ema-official-links-astrazeneca-vaccine-and-thrombosis-01617701713
Pfizer and Moderna are worse. Each country that vaccinated aggressively experienced large spikes in excess mortality in two months after vaccination. These are countries as different as Israel and Hungary, for example. What happens at 3 months (or 3 years) nobody knows yet.
As for a few dozen out of millions, COVID survival is 99,97% for everybody who isn’t a very elderly end of life patient. For very elderly end of life patients, it’s 95% survivable. The logic of putting the entire population on life-long experimental therapy to beat this kind of extremely long odds is incomprehensible. COVID is not only extremely survivable, it’s very treatable. Doesn’t it make more sense to simply treat those who actually get sick (meaning, develop serious symptoms, which is a very tiny percentage) with existing time-tested very cheap meds than to preventatively medicalize everybody?
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As for “COVID is more deadly,” a recent study by a Stanford researcher shows that its IFR is lower than originally thought and is close to that of the flu. The big difference being is that the flu is deadlier to kids.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eci.13554
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“I am having a flu vaccine today, so I am worried that I will not make it to work/class tomorrow, as many people I know felt sick the day after.” said no one ever. These are, however, comments I hear from people working/taking classes with me about taking their Covid shots.
Now, repeat every 6 months. One of the reasons mRNA was a failed therapy for a long time is that there was a problem with repeated doses. I wonder how is it going to work out will all the boosters for all the new strains that await us in the future.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/12/can-multibillion-dollar-biotech-prove-its-rna-drugs-are-safe-rare-disease
https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/10/moderna-trouble-mrna/
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/12/messenger-rna-gave-us-covid-19-vaccine-will-it-treat-diseases-too
Even a very optimistic Science magazine article from 2020 acknowledges that the problem with repeated doses of the mRNA therapies has not been solved yet. Also, if you read carefully, you will understand that the inflammatory response after getting the vaccine is not the sign that your immune system is working to learn to fight Covid, as the MSM would have you believe, but a body’s response to the foreign mRNA and lipid nanoparticles.
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I know 3 people of my age and one a little older who had side effects from the vaccine they described as “brutal, debilitating and hellish.” Those lasted between 2 and 3 days. One of them actually had COVID and the symptoms were a lot milder.
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But do we now know that being vaccinated = not transmitting the virus?
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We don’t, which is part of the problem.
The other part in the US at least is that it’s not fully approved by the FDA, and under the terms of the Emergency Use Authorization each person must be given the choice whether to receive the vaccine or not. There are a few lawsuits in progress to determine whether mandates are really legal based on the EUA contract.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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