LightDreams wrote:

It's important to correct the previous, very serious, outright disinformation posted here.

FIRST)  Dr. Fauci did NOT claim natural immunity as a result of a previous Covid infection was better than a vaccine.

As the major fact checker sites all point out, DR. FAUCI ANSWERED (ON VIDEO) A QUESTION RELATED TO *THE FLU*.  Specifically a question asked by someone who had caught THE FLU, as to whether he should still go out and needed a vaccine.  That video answer was used by Rand Paul, to falsely claim that Dr. Fauci stated that when asked about COVID.

Dr. Fauci NEVER SAID THAT NATURAL IMMUNITY (as a result of a previous COVID infection) WAS BETTER THAN GETTING A COVID VACCINE.   PERIOD.

His video answer about THE FLU is being distributed (including here) as deliberate misinformation regarding the COVID vaccine







Actually Dr Fauci did say natural immunity was better then a vaccine. To be far the date of that interview was not listed at the time. He was being interviewed on CSPAN for the Washington Journal. He was insistent and he assured the host that the most potent vaccination was getting it yourself. Now, I see that he has walked that interview back. And when it was fact checked it was dismissed as miss information. Which is funny don't you think? You can not have it both ways. If you have followed this from the beginning, you will remember it started out as a suggestion.  Then it was escalated to we were killing people and some suggested you could be jail f you didn't get it.  Have you seen all the studies done around the world?  You know Phifser is under investigation in Europe for their vaccine that does not work as promised. Have you seen the unexpected deaths? Did you follow the money? You have to be slightly concerned that something isn't right? It has not accused to you that maybe we were lied to? No matter there is now plenty of studies that have come out around the world to better prove the vaccines did not do what they promised.  I took my dad last week to be tested along with myself to check the levels of antibodies from covid.  He had it after he had all the shots plus a booster. Which was odd? He is fine he does not need another booster. I had covid two years ago this month, My antibodies are just as strong as they were 8 months after I tested the first time. You can do what you want Im not going to tell you otherwise. And I am not going to be bullied into putting something in my body because I am told to. I will say I do like the research and learning more everytime it helps to understand I am not always right and sometimes its nice to show others they may not always be right.


SECOND)  Here's the latest ACTUAL SCIENTIFIC DATA:

"Large, real-world study finds COVID-19 vaccination more effective than natural immunity in protecting against all causes of death, hospitalization and emergency department visits

Date: December 15, 2022

Summary:
In one of the first large, real-world studies comparing the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines versus natural immunity in protecting against death, hospitalizations and emergency department (ED) visits for any cause, including COVID, researchers report that people of all age groups benefited significantly more from vaccination than natural immunity acquired from a previous COVID infection.

The lower death rate of vaccinated individuals was especially impressive for adults ages 60 years or older."

(as reported by Science Daily and many other scientific and major media publications)

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I know that MM has posted very clear rules regarding those who post COVID and vaccine disinformation.  Whether those rules are still in play, I have no idea.  But regardless, everyone should clearly understand that THE SPECIFIC COVID VACCINE CLAIMS POSTED HERE ARE COMPLETELY FALSE / DANGEROUS MISINFORMATION.

rick lesser wrote:

You on the other hand, have made statements without any sort of reference to factual information of any kind (true or false) whatsoever. Just a bunch of "bla bla bla" as far as I can tell...

rick lesser wrote:
Actually Dr Fauci did say natural immunity was better then a vaccine. To be far the date of that interview was not listed at the time. He was being interviewed on CSPAN for the Washington Journal. He was insistent and he assured the host that the most potent vaccination was getting it yourself. Now, I see that he has walked that interview back. And when it was fact checked it was dismissed as miss information. Which is funny don't you think? You can not have it both ways. If you have followed this from the beginning, you will remember it started out as a suggestion.  Then it was escalated to we were killing people and some suggested you could be jail f you didn't get it.  Have you seen all the studies done around the world?  You know Phifser is under investigation in Europe for their vaccine that does not work as promised. Have you seen the unexpected deaths? Did you follow the money? You have to be slightly concerned that something isn't right? It has not accused to you that maybe we were lied to? No matter there is now plenty of studies that have come out around the world to better prove the vaccines did not do what they promised.  I took my dad last week to be tested along with myself to check the levels of antibodies from covid.  He had it after he had all the shots plus a booster. Which was odd? He is fine he does not need another booster. I had covid two years ago this month, My antibodies are just as strong as they were 8 months after I tested the first time. You can do what you want Im not going to tell you otherwise. And I am not going to be bullied into putting something in my body because I am told to. I will say I do like the research and learning more everytime it helps to understand I am not always right and sometimes its nice to show others they may not always be right.

There are a lot of claims in there.  Do you have any references at all?  There are tons of claims going around right wing media that are proffered as fact, and they aren't, and what you find to be odd may be consistent with the data gathered in the studies that you are, without evidence, contradicting.  So, without references, your rebuttal is just a bunch of unverified claims.  I will not dispute the results for your personal tests.  But they may also fall inside of the data.  Even if they are outside of the data, there is a reason that scientific studies do not test one person and extrapolate that across the entire population.

As knowledge grows, the goal posts may move.  We also know there were other factors at the beginning- like the need to prevent the complete depletion of PPE so that medical personal- those most likely to be exposed- would have some PPE to use.  Without examining why the goals posts moved, it is irrelevant if the goal posts moved.

rick lesser wrote:
And I am not going to be bullied into putting something in my body because I am told to.

What you call:
  ...being "bullied into putting something in my body because I am told to",

I call:
  "listening to the worldwide scientific evidence and their latest medical recommendations to protect myself, my family, and those around me".

But that's just me.

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And I do hope that your Father gets through this unscathed.

I don't want you to go through what my family went through (as some of you will remember).

rick lesser wrote:

Strange that in your reference-free  diatribe you fail to mention the biggest purveyor of false information and utter ignorant bullshit in the history of the pandemic - DONALD J TRUMP, assuming. of course "If you have followed this from the beginning."

10 OF DONALD TRUMP’S BIG FALSEHOODS ABOUT COVID-19

99% of COVID-19 cases "are totally harmless."
On the Fourth of July, Trump played down the danger of COVID-19.

"We have tested over 40 million people," Trump said July 4. "By so doing, we show cases, 99% of which are totally harmless."

At the time he said that, 4.5% of cases had ended in death; 4% of each day’s new cases sent people to the hospital.


We rated this claim False.

"Only 6% of the people actually died from COVID." The others "died from other reasons."
In an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham, Trump fed the belief that official reports greatly exaggerate the death toll.

"I saw a statistic come out the other day, talking about only 6% of the people actually died from COVID, which is a very interesting — that they died from other reasons," Trump said Sept. 1.

Ingraham pushed back, correctly noting that the death reports didn’t say that at all.

COVID-19 can trigger a cascade of organ failures in vulnerable people. It can, for example, cause a person with a heart condition to go into cardiac arrest. That doesn’t change the pivotal role of the coronavirus.

"The people dying were not going to die but for the acquisition of COVID," said Dr. Myron Cohen, director of the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The government found that of the death certificates that mention coronavirus, 94% called COVID-19 the "underlying cause of death."

We rated this claim Pants on Fire.

Children are "almost immune from this disease."
"This thing is going away, it will go away like things go away. My view is that schools should be open," Trump said on Fox and Friends Aug. 5.  "If you look at children, children are almost, I would almost say definitely, but almost immune from this disease."

At the time he said that, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that children accounted for about 7.3% of cases, and represented fewer than 1% of deaths. 

"Children as a group are clearly less impacted by this virus than adults, but to say they are almost immune does not provide a truthful message," said University of South Florida public health professor Dr. Marissa J. Levine.

Strictly speaking, immunity means a person has antibodies to defeat the virus, but that’s impossible with a virus it hasn’t encountered before.

Trump also overlooked the potential for students to transmit the virus, even if they remain outwardly healthy.

We rated this claim False.

"If we stopped testing right now, we'd have very few cases, if any."
While the wording has varied, this remains one of Trump’s preferred talking points. As the U.S. massively ramped up testing, the case count rose.

"If you don't test, you don't have any cases," Trump said at a June 15 roundtable discussion at the White House. "If we stopped testing right now, we'd have very few cases, if any."

This is wrong.

Testing reveals cases only if they are there to be found.

A key yardstick of the infection’s spread is the percentage of tests that come back positive. Through much of July and into August, the U.S. had a positivity rate over 7%. It has come down to 5.8%, but that still puts the U.S. in the middle of the pack globally. Germany’s rate is 0.8%. The United Kingdom is at 1.3%.

Not testing wouldn’t reduce the number of cases, but it would make it harder for hospitals and health officials to know what was going on in their communities.

We rated this claim Pants on Fire.

"Our (COVID-19) numbers are better than almost all countries."
At a rally in Oshkosh, Wis., Trump said the country was "doing great."

"We're coming back and our numbers are better than almost all countries," he said Aug. 17.

The White House has numbers to back that up, but even the source it uses says it hinges on a measure that doesn’t tell you much.

Judged by the number of deaths per case, the U.S. has a death rate that’s half that in Europe and a hair under the global average.

But by a tougher standard — the risk of dying based on the entire population — the United States has the 10th-highest death rate in the world. It’s doing better than the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Sweden and Chile, but worse than France, Canada and Germany, to pick a few examples.

We rated this claim False.

The health insurance industry has "agreed to waive all co-payments for coronavirus treatments."
In a rare Oval Office address, Trump reassured Americans that getting treated for COVID-19 wouldn’t break the bank.

"Earlier this week, I met with the leaders of the health insurance industry who have agreed to waive all co-payments for coronavirus treatments, extend insurance coverage to these treatments, and to prevent surprise medical billing," Trump said March 11.

The co-payment part was wrong.

Insurance companies had promised to waive co-pays on testing, not treatment.

And even testing came with pitfalls. Some patients who followed their doctor’s advice and went to an emergency room for testing ended up getting bills well over $1,000. The test might be covered, but emergency room fees were another matter.

We rated this claim False.

Multiple statements that minimized the threat of the virus
This September, we learned about the gap between what Trump knew and what he told the public in the early phase of the pandemic.

During that period, Trump had a couple of key interviews with Washington Post investigative reporter Bob Woodward.

On Feb. 7, Trump told Woodward, "This is deadly stuff."

"You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed," Trump said. "That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flus."

But a week later, Trump told Americans "We have a very small number of people in the country, right now, with it. It’s like around 12. Many of them are getting better. Some are fully recovered already. So we’re in very good shape."

On Feb. 24, he tweeted "The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA."


Events quickly overwhelmed those reassuring words.

On March 13, Trump declared a national emergency. Four days after that, he called on "everyone to work at home, if possible, postpone unnecessary travel, and limit social gatherings to no more than 10 people."

By April 1, over 5,000 people had died, and cases topped 200,000.

In a March 19 interview, Trump explained himself to Woodward.

"To be honest with you, I wanted to always play it down...I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic."

Hydroxychloroquine is "having some very good results."
Trump was quick to focus on the promise of hydroxychloroquine, a drug used for treating lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

"I hope they use it, because I'll tell you what: What do you have to lose?" he said April 4, one of many times he spoke of the drug.

The problem has been twofold: The drug can trigger heart problems for people with underlying conditions. And it doesn’t help against COVID-19.

Trump continued to tout hydroxychloroquine through August.

But as assistant secretary of health Adm. Brett Giroir, put it, "There have been five randomized controlled, placebo-controlled trials that do not show any benefit to hydroxychloroquine."

Using disinfectants and sunlight to treat COVID-19
During the April 23 White House coronavirus briefing, William Bryan, undersecretary for science and technology at the Department of Homeland Security, outlined a new DHS study that found sunlight and household disinfectants adversely affect the coronavirus on surfaces and in the air.

Trump focused on that.

"Supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that too," he said to Bryan. "Then I see the disinfectant knocks it out in a minute, one minute. Is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?"

Trump’s comments echoed online hoaxes about how to prevent and treat the virus. Health experts say ingesting disinfectants and exposing oneself to ultraviolet light is not only ineffective, but also dangerous.

"We inherited a broken test" for COVID-19
The lack of widespread testing put the country at a disadvantage as the virus took hold in cities from coast to coast. Countries such as South Korea and Germany quickly distributed tests that made it possible to spot outbreaks and isolate infected people.

In contrast, the first tests from the federal government were flawed and had to be retooled, costing many valuable weeks.

Trump deflected blame for the slow start of testing for the new coronavirus in the United States.

"We inherited a broken test," he said on Fox News’ "Fox and Friends" March 30, pointing a finger at the previous administration.

https://www.politifact.com/article/2020 … -covid-19/

rick lesser wrote:

People who voted for Donald Trump have died, therefore voting for Donald Trump could kill you. Proven science, because I say so.