Thanks for your open and honest discussion. I think at least one major difference is that I experienced things in Europe, with many separate governments doing their things, and many different specialists, politicians, etcetera, explaining things. The vaccines were shown to be safe and effective, preventing infection (but indeed not 100%, which wasn't openly stated but I got the right expectation, though many others didn't and commented that the claims they heard from specialists were as you said, though here they weren't), reducing the need to isolate and lock down, and no, I didn't see that claim about being better than natural immunity around here anywhere. I clearly recall lots of wishful thinking, mostly by politicians and the media coverage, which lots of what you have said falls into. So I get your point. I've just experienced things differently. In your shoes, I would probably be very hesitant about any specialist and politician's message too, though never to the point of applauding anything RFK though, there are limits...

What was most important to me, was the percentage of ICUs available, and in all of the countries I kept track of, this was managed, though in many cases very much just. Italy had a short moment in various regions where they sadly had to do triage, though luckily only very briefly.

One thing I found out later, is that many who were critical about loads of countermeasures were also in 2022 of the opinion that Ukraine belongs to Russia and Putin. So then it became clear they got their news off of Russia Today, Telegram and similar sources, which explains why many of those who would normally not think as much about many things suddenly got so verbal about things they don't have much understanding about ...

Again I agree on some things and totally disagree on others. I think the misleading happened by media and politicians, not specialists. None of those claimed full sterilisation, because such a thing doesn't exist. However, the vaccinations did allow to open up so they worked as advertised the way I understood the medical specialists explain things. Politicians and media trying to oversell the idea however, did claim many things, either too eager to push the message to people who seriously wanted to get past the lockdowns or just to have a joyful message.

Again, where is (the hurt from) all that risk that shouldn't have been taken? Nowhere in (western) Europe do I see that. In locations with low vaccinations rates, the lives lost are a matter of public record. So looking back, the choices made were okay by me considering the alternatives. Yes, that includes the lockdowns, the masking, the vaccinations with certificates, and people without them being forced away from good citizens. There's only minor details that should have been handled differently because they actually knew better, and some that are now known to have been handled sub optimally, but at the time that wasn't so clear.

Lastly, regarding my appeal to authority, at some point, you have to, because you can't be a specialist at everything. You in your case insist that the specialists and other authorities don't have your well being at heart, and I applaud your reactions to that. But at the same time, you are guided by an amateur...

Slight addition: assume 100ppm deaths due to mRNA flu shot, and in the worst case, a 0.5% mortality of the flu, versus in the regular case about 0.15% (yes indeed, the flu is a leading cause of death in the developed world, after cancer and heart disease, and on bad years on par or even ahead of those), it's still better to get the mRNA shot. The only reason why you're not wrong is that the alternative double or triple variant flu shot is also available. So then the mRNA shot will likely be geared towards people who can't take the regular shot due to incompatibility with the chicken egg protein. And for those people, 100 to 1M are preferable odds to 1500 or even 5000 to 1M.

My statement must have been unclear, I meant that mRNA as active ingredient in the jab needs additional liquids, which are lipids that are commonly used like in the flu shot and such.

The COVID jab was not released with lower testing, it was indeed released much faster than most other vaccines (this is true for all kinds, mRNA or other such as Sinovac and Jansen), but the situation didn't only call for that but it also allowed for that due to the vast amount of infections going around. So any statement of emergency is to be seen in that light.

Sure, but like I said, the numbers are in no way alarming, and there are ample other logical explanations. You get 90 million people to a hospital for a jab, some will have an accident on the way, others will pick up an infection whilst there, etcetera. Plus, I stand by a double or low triple digit ppm number for any vaccination, mRNA or not.

Your position seems to make sense, but considering the total worldwide quantity of mRNA vaccinations administered, plus all evaluation after that (I've seen/read the Swiss, Dutch, Belgian, German and French evaluations after the pandemic about the handling in general and the vaccinations plus circus around it, plus comparisons on Portuguese, Austrian and Italian handling, plus voted on those countries handling from work colleagues) and in most cases, there is agreement that some details should have been handled differently, but overall, it was done okay. No specialists came to the conclusion that mRNA was in any way more dangerous than Johnson/Jansen and other broadly administered vaccinations (no Sinovac on Europe in any real numbers). And take into account that in Portugal, vaccine rollout was done by a military guy with very high participation.

So what are your qualifications to claim that you know better than the specialists of all these countries? Please don't tell me all of them have vested interests. Recall also that the nay-sayers claimed that people would start dying en-masse from the vaccinations, none of those voices have been vindicated yet many would have liked to. Some were actually specialists, I recall French medical specialists speaking out against countermeasures including broad vaccination.

I know how mRNA works, I was talking about the lipids you mentioned being the added ingredients aside the mRNA, which are commonly used in medicinally administrated injections, as far as I know other vaccines but also the anti cancer mRNA that have been under development since the late 90s.

Regarding adverse advent databases, until 2020 outside of the medical world, people didn't know about those, and all the clamouring of anti vaxxers has made it impossible to compare numbers straight away.

Regarding Japan, with 120 million people so roughly 90 million in the above 12yo age group that got jabbed, you're wondering about 903 deaths...?

Also, more payments being made than before, wouldn't that have to do with media attention? There's so many other logical possibilities, including the mentioned undiagnosed Omicron variant for the excess deaths. Take into account that COVID-19 had been downgraded, since there were no longer great risks of the healthcare systems being overwhelmed, and many deaths just wouldn't be diagnosed. On top of that, imagine a culture of elderly who have been distancing and keeping safe for two years, the sheer fact of opening up gives rise to loads of additional health problems, including the below excess deaths that had likely occurred due to being more isolated before, in other words, the grim reaper catching up. Recall that some flu strains have been completely eliminated from the planet. Now imagine that others weren't and now came back to make their claim.

That said, we stopped taking jabs in my family when it became clear the pandemic came to an end, the viral strains became endemic, the healthcare system wasn't at risk of being overloaded anymore, and the at risk people could have their risk managed, especially the elderly in our family. 3.5 jabs average per population seems over the top. And like I said, a regular vaccine may be between 10 and 50 ppm lethal, don't take that risk if you're not reducing a much bigger risk.

Thanks for your views. Regarding a, there is no data regarding VAERS analysis after COVID-19. I have looked things up about a year ago in European equivalents, and at the time, no such indication was made. On top of that, even if the case, the danger of taking a vaccine should be weighed against the alternatives. Which meant not taking any vaccine, or the later Johnson and Johnson, or an even less effective Chinese or other variation, if even available. Taking no vaccine wasn't an option for the general population because people weren't behaving well anywhere, except perhaps Sweden, regarding distancing, masking, staying in, etcetera, all which have limited affect. So to enable life going on, anything drastically reducing the number of required IC places (well ventilators, really) to approach the number of available ones was necessary.

Regarding point b: there's still a number of less lethal strains going on, the pandemic being over just means that the world has accepted that COVID-19 viral strains are now endemic. There is no reason to assume increased excess deaths are due to mRNA instead of viral offspring. I find no logic in your assumption.

Regarding point c, I'm not sure if you're talking about the added components in mRNA jabs, but if so, my understanding is that that content is a standard component in various vaccines, which is one reason why mRNA vaccines could be released so quickly: most components except the mRNA itself were already in common use.

Therefore I find your final position not very solid, but comprehensible through your explanation.

Thanks for the effort of looking things up - much appreciated. I'm not sure how to interpret all the numbers, but what is clear to me is that you are comparing the VAERS reported data to the study encompassing all 1.4M data points (vaccinees) that were considered valid. The excess deaths aren't included in VAERS data, for instance. Most VAERS and similar databases reports do not typically get data for deaths or other effects that occur much later, simply because often no connection is made.

Do you have a link for this?

Because without that, I think you don't actually have any point. And your view on any signal that something else / bad would be going on makes for a strong contrast with your previous statement of 100x higher mortality rate of mRNA vaccines. Again, if the numbers are even 5 to 10 times higher than with other vaccines, it would have gotten detected. Unless you think that all countries with adequate medical science levels are keeping things under wraps.

Thank you for connecting the dots.

Between 10 and 50 ppm deaths occur after widespread vaccination. I checked this after a friend told me his sister died ages ago after receiving a government forced polio vaccination. 100x 50 ppm is 0.5%, half the death rate of COVID-19, which would have been ultra obvious anywhere. 100x 10 ppm is 0.1%, which any field related scientist would have gotten onto the table anywhere. I call your 100x point nonsense.

Agreed, it's similar to when decent people take the wheel and become impossible a-holes. A cure for that would be nice, off-ine and online. Yeah I'm dreaming. And: you're to blame! ;-)

I thoroughly enjoyed this above post in the discussion, since it so aptly puts into practice your argument of norms, or as I would word it, common decency and politeness. So thank you, well done.

The guy said his "ancestors did not eat as much as we did", which you countered with "the average early human ate significantly more", to which I say, you're both right, because he's American and to him, a big mac menu is just the appetizer, and you argue from human averages. BTW please keep it up, your posts are often educational.

I don't have such a giant library, but I do have some stuff that I may want to view away from home, and I use a VPN on my home server plus my Samsung phone with USBC plus adapter with HDMI out (actually just a laptop "docking station"), to play back on any hotel TV. This avoids needing an extra box for playback. Plus, I can use my Bluetooth headset for audio, better quality than tinny speaker sound...

Late to the party, I think your above message deserves to be modded up. If read with enough attention, both posts from your hand actually describe clearly what you're on about. With a kid in my household who'd like to get checked for ADHD because even their friends (but not teachers or parents/other adults) think there may be something there.... But you're talking statistics and assumptions, not to be taken directly for a specific case.