By Kit Knightly
Off Guardian, December 2, 2020: The United Kingdom government has today announced its approval of the first Covid19 vaccine for general use. 800,000 doses are slated to be released for general use by the end of the week, and has already signed a contract for 40 million more doses (to go along with over 300 million doses of as-yet-unreleased vaccines from other companies).
With the newest phase in the Covid19 roll-out set to begin, it’s time we addressed the five biggest questions about this vaccine, its effectiveness, its safety and whether or not we’ll be forced to use it.
1. DOES IT WORK?
Clearly, the company claims it does, and the UK government seems to believe them. The Guardian, in their coverage of the vaccine, claim it has a 95% efficacy rating, but does not provide a source for this or any kind of data at all.
Fortunately, better journalists and researchers are writing for the British Medical Journal, including this piece from Peter Doshi just last week.
| The above-cited article by British Medical Journal Associate Editor, Peter Doshi, should be essential reading for anyone wanting to make a reasonable assessment of the utility and value of the current drive by governments to vaccinate everyone. What is particularly important to note is the limited significance of the evidence of vaccine safety and efficacy from the trials conducted so far. For example, as Peter Doshi points out, the trial results: ... (show) a relative risk reduction..., not absolute risk reduction, which appears to be less than 1%. This point is explained by Malcolm Ripley, commenting on above-linked article by Kit Knightly: of 22,000 unvaccinated people, only 162 caught Covid, meaning that 21,838, or 99.26% did not. In the vaccinated group only 8 people caught Covid, meaning that 21,992, or 99.96% did not. So in this trial vaccination reduced the infection rate by less than 1%. In addition, Peter Doshi notes that the trial results ... refer to the trials’ primary endpoint of covid-19 of essentially any severity, and importantly not the vaccine’s ability to save lives, nor the ability to prevent infection, nor the efficacy in important subgroups (e.g. frail elderly). Those still remain unknown. ... reflect a time point relatively soon after vaccination, and we know nothing about vaccine performance at 3, 6, or 12 months, so cannot compare these efficacy numbers against other vaccines like influenza vaccines (which are judged over a season). ... children, adolescents, and immuno-compromised individuals were largely excluded from the trials, so we still lack any data on these important populations. But apparently governments in Britain, Canada, and elsewhere can't wait to start bullying everyone to get vaccinated or suffer penalties, such as the loss of freedom to travel by air, and if stubborn resistance is maintained, most likely by train or bus too. Yes, it's not just the Communist Party of China that now delights in the power to make the life of a citizen virtually impossible if they fail to conform to what ever bullshit. humiliation, or exploitation the government happens for the moment to be intent upon. It's just about anyone with the power. In Britain its Sleazeball Boris and our future king, God help us, Charles the Turd, in America it's Joe the Illegitimate, and here in docile Canada its the Great Resetter himself, Justin-it-for-the-Money Trudeau. |
We knew this was coming. The only remaining uncertainty is how strict or brutal the world government is going to be forcing compliance.
ReplyDeleteYes. That's my only reason for hoping that the Don can edge out Joe the Illegitimate on the recount. Not that I have any great confidence in the Trumpster, but thus far, at least, he's shown no enthusiasm for demolishing Western civilization, the white race, or the US Constitution.
DeleteBut for the long-term, those for nation-state democracy must have a plan for perpetuating national sovereignty that neither creates instabilities such as those that caused the World Wars, nor depends on the risk of nuclear catastrophe, which has existed since WW2.