Very complete and compelling. I would just add that we are facing additional contextual liabilities, namely that Trump doesn't understand or care about science or public health--the person who started Op Warp Speed is long gone, replaced by Operation Fascist America. So not only does this impact how his cult followers perceive public health officials and recommendations, it also is a significant headwind due to the fact that he is firing people in important roles, and underfunding the whole apparatus on purpose. It is meant not just to save money but also to subvert the functioning and success of the field. Think of how he is handicapping FEMA and NOIA--then people are going to be more likely to say, "This damned FEMA doesn't work! Let's totally get rid of it! Let's rely on ourselves or on free enterprise" or blah blah blah. It's the gutting of institutions we're talking about here, and there is always a cost when functional and useful institutions are gutted. If we think that government hasn't functioned well in the past--and feeding into Americans' sense of individualism and skepticism--wait until two years from now.
Trump was and is disastrous as relates to the response to covid. But let's not forget Biden, who prematurely "ended" a global pandemic before proper indoor air quality medications were in place, resulting in the death of over 800,000 Americans during his four years in office! He promised to follow the science, but then he didn't. Lives could have been saved if he chose truth over economic expediency
You neglected to address one of the most important factors, which was an abject failure of political leadership. With a president who consistently misunderstood the stakes and undermined his advisors at almost every turn, a breakdown in trust was inevitable. His inconsistent attitude towards science, at first embracing it fully as in Operation Warp Speed and then denigrating it constantly even endorsing remedies like bleach and ivermectin was disorientating for his followers. All this while availing himself of the latest medical advances.
Yes, the public health response wasn't perfect and some hard lessons learned, but had Trump not been actively trying, and succeeding, to damage and destroy the whole process we wouldn't have anywhere near the trust issue and subsequent fallout we have today. A glaring omission from this post and most others I've read over the years, which I always find very frustrating. Again, there still would have been lessons to be learned and improvements to be made. But without his interference, I think we could have survived the imperfections and ultimately ended up with decently robust public support for mitigation measures. Think seatbelts, a public health issue with a similar history but with a very different outcome. When seatbelt laws were first introduced there was initially widespread and intense opposition with, at one point, polls showing as much as 75% of people against them. People organized and protested, arguing infringement on individual liberty, government overreach, authoritarian implications, and potential harm caused by seatbelts. All sounds very familiar does it not? Over time, with education campaigns and scientific evidence attitudes shifted, and here we are today with most of us wearing our seatbelts without a second thought. I dare say, however, that had in the 70s and 80s the president of the United States been constantly churning out unfounded criticism and misinformation and ideological attacks against the use of seatbelts, that campaign would have suffered the same debilitating damage that we've seen during and from the covid pandemic. I do wish this factor would be accounted for in publications and posts.
It is interesting to look at comparable countries where the political leaders supported the efforts of science to battle a novel enemy. Australia and Germany come to mind. Both of these countries had a substantial anti science contingent prior to Covid, but they emerged with a significantly lower mortality rate and preserved a good deal of people’s faith in science.
Thank you for this insightful and enjoyable. The hyper-individualism of American culture and not failed community engagement by public health officials is the root cause. Covid pandemic deniers and their current progeny always base their perceptions on the outcomes assuming masks, isolations, and vaccines had no effect. In the hybrid Covid response of vaccines, non-pharama interventions, and non-compliant voluntary infections, 1.4 million died. Modeling suggests 300,000 to 400,000 of those were avoidable had the non-compliant participated. Thatt is the population of Tusla, Oklahoma. Put in that context, the real choice was hyper-individualism is morally equal to killing ever person in Tulsa - a Mengela type choice. What would the body count have been with the no intervention plan of the deniers and the Barrington Declaration? Three million under infection fatality rate? The turning point was after the initial early lockdowns and after the arrival of the miracle mRNA vaccines drove the severe hospitalization rates down. Then people started to question, only to be hit again with Omicron. With Omicron arrived people were only to happy to put those masks back on until an updated vaccine drove the hospitalization rate back down. Public health may have to adapt interventions to sub-optimal choices due to the US cultural political reality, but have no need to apologize for the choices they made during the early scientifically uncertain pandemic.
In this part of the world, though, we eased restrictions when the vaccination rate of adults reached 80% and then ceased them completely removed once 95% of adults were vaccinated.
That, of course, would not have worked in the US where the vaccination rate never went above 70%.
Indeed. But, in fact, nothing is being done to rectify this problem even though it would help reduce transmission of all air born viruses including the annual flu virus. People just want to forget.
Yeah, everything is easier using the retrospectroscope, as they say.
The scientists and health care workers did their best to save lives.
Conversely, the politically motivated antivaxx social media influencers did their best to prevent them from doing so, resulting in the deaths of 250,000 unvaccinated Americans in the first 12 months of the vaccine roll out
The thousand pound Gorrilla in this skepticism falls directly on many elected officials with the biggest being Trump (who still is) sowing seeds of mistrust towards science in general. Blaming it on public health officials and the medical community is a disservice. In the recent political polarization where everyone in the other camp is the enemy and trusted officials most aligned with our own confirmation bias beliefs using the trust they have with their bubble for political or economic gain, it is impossible for the scientific community to overcome. As always happens, it will swing in the other direction the next time a horrific event occurs thet impacts them and those same false trusted sources that have no answers are forced to call on science to save lives
I think that this article contains good advice and I urge everyone to read it. However, I believe that as long as Trump Is president and/or RFK Jr. is head of HHS, there will be little change in the current anti-science sentiment. Do what you can and you may eventually convince enough people that their leaders are not well equipped to give health advice. In the meantime VOTE and encourage everyone you know to vote too. If you live in a state that still thinks Trump is great write your State and Federal representatives often and let them know how all of this affects your patients and you.
"Masks worked then and work now". Really? You link to a meta-analysis that only includes observational studies - the weakest type of evidence other than basic anecdote. Why not link to the Cochrane review that was a sytematic review of Randomised Controlled Trials? Ah yes, because that showed no benefits to masking re viral transmission.
I struggle with, but mostly understand, your position. And thanks for italicised piece towards the end which softened my response here to mostly one of support.
But while you lash yourself for minor errors while saving millions of lives, and while you search for better ways to counteract the nefarious influence of politically motivated anti-vaccine social media influencers, THEY are busily re-writing the history of their pandemic failures and predictions.
Never forget that most of the adverse public sentiment was stoked up by these bad actors who knew exactly what they were doing. And don't forget that next time they will be ready to misinform the public from day one and with the bags of cash that they made during the pandemic.
You did all the hard work and earned pennies while they clacked away at their keypads from the comfort of their own houses and earned a fortune in the process.
My thing is about the vaccine is, how was it tested before it got out to the general public? How were they able to test the long-term effects of the vaccine from the onset of COVID in 2020 to the distribution in 2021? I feel like the Americans who did take it were like guinea pigs who were just testing a new medicine. How did they gather enough data to ensure that the vaccine was SAFE and EFFECTIVE?
I find it pretty understandable TO BE SKEPTICAL of a perfect vaccine being created from an illness that seemed to appear all of a sudden. Most vaccines take 5-7 years to properly test, so the fact that it had less than one year of testing should be suspicious to anyone really.
I am curious about how they were able to gather data that quickly, or was it a half-baked cake that the governments demanded so we could resume life as normal?
Seriously, I am curious to the WHO's thought process on this.
You can't really test long term effects when the house is on fire. The concept of emergency approvals based on modelling and low risk of greater harm comes into play.
I figured that was going on. What I didn't know is that there was prior research going on since 1980s. That makes more sense as to why the testing was so fast for the “makeshift'‘ vaccine. I was confused about that at the time
Scientists first identified a human coronavirus in 1965. It caused a common cold. Later that decade, researchers found a group of similar human and animal viruses and named them after their crown-like appearance.
Seven coronaviruses can infect humans. The one that causes SARS emerged in southern China in 2002 and quickly spread to 28 other countries. More than 8,000 people were infected by July 2003, and 774 died. A small outbreak in 2004 involved only four more cases. This coronavirus causes fever, headache, and respiratory problems such as cough and shortness of breath.
MERS started in Saudi Arabia in 2012. Almost all of the nearly 2,500 cases have been in people who live in or travel to the Middle East. This coronavirus is less contagious than SARS but more deadly, killing 858 people. It has the same respiratory symptoms but can also cause kidney failure.
COVID-19 is one of seven coronaviruses that are known to infect humans. SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is genetically related to the virus that caused the 2003 SARS outbreak. There is still no definitive theory as to coronavirus disease's origins. Scientists aren't sure whether it jumped from animals to humans or was developed in a lab. Because the coronavirus disease outbreak began in Wuhan, China, there has been a rash of anti-Asian language and behavior unlike what's been seen in previous disease outbreaks. Several years after the pandemic began, the history of this novel coronavirus is still being written.
"There is still no definitive theory as to coronavirus disease's origins. Scientists aren't sure whether it jumped from animals to humans or was developed in a lab"
Bull. Shit.
There is no evidence that the virus was genetically engineered. In fact all the evidence suggests that this was not possible both from looking at the mutations in the virus itself or looking at what was actually possible to do by virologists.
There is no evidence that a virus bought into the lab from the wild by laboratory technicians escaped either accidentally or deliberately.
All the evidence - epidemiological, virological, and genetic - strongly favours the natural evolution of the virus by recombination of co-infecting viruses in wild bats in SE Asia, the spread of these viruses to farmed and wild animals in southern China, and their transmission to humans initially in the south-western section of the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan were these animals were known to be slaughtered and sold and from which most of the early cases have been traced.
I never wanted to hear anything but what is actually true. Keep in mind that while the rest of you spent your free time looking this stuff up from some resources, I was struggling to keep my cleaning business afloat and trying to survive this helldemic that the WHO and even our government didn't bother to fully inform us about until we finally have the means TO find the right people to answer our questions. The laymen were given so much misinformation that most of us didn't know which way was up. This article cleared up by a bit, and with me asking questions that you didn't like, I got answers.
So, let me get this straight: you were too busy to keep up with what was going on but, in your self-proclaimed ignorance, you were certain that the public health experts were not fully informing but, despite not having enough time, you were still able to find the right people to answer your questions.
Please tell us how you were able to tell who were the "right people" to inform you.
"The laymen were given so much misinformation"'
Not by public health experts who were working 16 hours a day 7 days a week to try and save your sorry arse, and who saved millions, but by the politically motivated anti-vaccine social media influencers who were sitting comfortably at home clacking away on their keyboards and killing 250,000 unvaccinated Americans during the first 12 months of the vaccination roll out.
"This article cleared up by a bit, and with me asking questions that you didn't like, I got answers.''
Just remember that scientists who helped save millions of lives - like the one who wrote this article - are now beating themselves up for minor errors that they made that were almost inevitable while the bad actors who helped end the lives of those 250,000 unvaccinated Americans, are now busily rewriting the history of their pandemic failures and false predictions and counting the money in their bank accounts and jockeying for favours from their political masters.
"I got answers."
You also got a wrong answer.
The virus originated in the wild by a process of recombination in co-infected bats that then transmitted the mutated virus to farmed and wild animals in SE Asia that then transmitted the virus to humans at the market where these animals were known to be slaughtered and sold.
Why are you insulting me? I don't even KNOW you. Honestly, chill out. At least I'm asking questions NOW. Isn't that better than not at all? I know that no matter what I say, you will think negatively of me and probably others who aren't as "educated" as you are.
I believe the SARS-2 vaccine (the basis of the SARS covid 2 vaccine) started development around the time that the SARS-1 vaccine was being developed (in 2003). And before that, there had been 50 years of research and testing to develop the MRNA vaccine technology. Once SARS-CoV 2 hit, all of those decades of research we're able to come together to create good quality vaccines. Obviously changes and tweaks had to be made, but the foundational vaccine research and technology had already been in development for a 18 to 50 years.
"My thing is about the vaccine is, how was it tested before it got out to the general public?"
Why, after 5 years, do you STILL not know the answers to these oft repeated and fully answered questions.
" I feel like..."
I feel like I should get a dollar for every time I've had to read such a stupid introduction to, what almost inevitably, turns out to be an ignorant assertion with no basis in fact.
"How did they gather enough data to ensure that the vaccine was SAFE and EFFECTIVE?"
Phase I, II, and III clinical studies as with all the vaccines that came before it.
- 43,000 participants in the Pfizer phase III trial.
- 30,000 participants in the Moderna phase III trial.
All confirmed safe and effective after the roll out through:
- numerous pharmacovigilance studies.
- post-marketing surveillance of 5 billion doses
" I feel like the Americans who did take it were like guinea pigs"
The real guinea pigs were those who refused to be vaccinated, but perhaps they could be better described as "lambs to the slaughter. After all, the mortality rate for the first infection was 13 times higher for the unvaccinated compared with the vaccinated.
"that it had less than one year of testing should be suspicious to anyone really"
The reason why the process took only 10 months was because hundreds of Americans were dying of the infection. At the time the vaccine was eventually rolled out, 4,000 Americans were dying of the infection every single day! So, they cut the red tape, eliminated the usual waiting times between each facet of the approval protocol, ran phase II and phase III clinical trials concurrently rather than sequentially, and had the vaccines ready to go as soon as the vaccines were approved.
The other reason is that the high prevalence of the infection in the community meant that they could reach their trial end-points very quicky.
"was it a half-baked cake"
No, you just have half-baked questions that, if you were genuine, you would have found the answers to a long time ago just like the rest of us. All the answers were available to you mostly at the end of 2020 and certainly by the end of 2021.
"Seriously, I am curious to the ... thought process on this."
No, I don't think you are serious. Any serious person could not be seriously STILL asking them in mid-2025!
Very complete and compelling. I would just add that we are facing additional contextual liabilities, namely that Trump doesn't understand or care about science or public health--the person who started Op Warp Speed is long gone, replaced by Operation Fascist America. So not only does this impact how his cult followers perceive public health officials and recommendations, it also is a significant headwind due to the fact that he is firing people in important roles, and underfunding the whole apparatus on purpose. It is meant not just to save money but also to subvert the functioning and success of the field. Think of how he is handicapping FEMA and NOIA--then people are going to be more likely to say, "This damned FEMA doesn't work! Let's totally get rid of it! Let's rely on ourselves or on free enterprise" or blah blah blah. It's the gutting of institutions we're talking about here, and there is always a cost when functional and useful institutions are gutted. If we think that government hasn't functioned well in the past--and feeding into Americans' sense of individualism and skepticism--wait until two years from now.
Trump was and is disastrous as relates to the response to covid. But let's not forget Biden, who prematurely "ended" a global pandemic before proper indoor air quality medications were in place, resulting in the death of over 800,000 Americans during his four years in office! He promised to follow the science, but then he didn't. Lives could have been saved if he chose truth over economic expediency
*indoor air quality MITIGATIONS
sorry for the typo!
You neglected to address one of the most important factors, which was an abject failure of political leadership. With a president who consistently misunderstood the stakes and undermined his advisors at almost every turn, a breakdown in trust was inevitable. His inconsistent attitude towards science, at first embracing it fully as in Operation Warp Speed and then denigrating it constantly even endorsing remedies like bleach and ivermectin was disorientating for his followers. All this while availing himself of the latest medical advances.
No wonder his followers were confused.
*** THIS ***
Yes, the public health response wasn't perfect and some hard lessons learned, but had Trump not been actively trying, and succeeding, to damage and destroy the whole process we wouldn't have anywhere near the trust issue and subsequent fallout we have today. A glaring omission from this post and most others I've read over the years, which I always find very frustrating. Again, there still would have been lessons to be learned and improvements to be made. But without his interference, I think we could have survived the imperfections and ultimately ended up with decently robust public support for mitigation measures. Think seatbelts, a public health issue with a similar history but with a very different outcome. When seatbelt laws were first introduced there was initially widespread and intense opposition with, at one point, polls showing as much as 75% of people against them. People organized and protested, arguing infringement on individual liberty, government overreach, authoritarian implications, and potential harm caused by seatbelts. All sounds very familiar does it not? Over time, with education campaigns and scientific evidence attitudes shifted, and here we are today with most of us wearing our seatbelts without a second thought. I dare say, however, that had in the 70s and 80s the president of the United States been constantly churning out unfounded criticism and misinformation and ideological attacks against the use of seatbelts, that campaign would have suffered the same debilitating damage that we've seen during and from the covid pandemic. I do wish this factor would be accounted for in publications and posts.
It is interesting to look at comparable countries where the political leaders supported the efforts of science to battle a novel enemy. Australia and Germany come to mind. Both of these countries had a substantial anti science contingent prior to Covid, but they emerged with a significantly lower mortality rate and preserved a good deal of people’s faith in science.
Thank you for this insightful and enjoyable. The hyper-individualism of American culture and not failed community engagement by public health officials is the root cause. Covid pandemic deniers and their current progeny always base their perceptions on the outcomes assuming masks, isolations, and vaccines had no effect. In the hybrid Covid response of vaccines, non-pharama interventions, and non-compliant voluntary infections, 1.4 million died. Modeling suggests 300,000 to 400,000 of those were avoidable had the non-compliant participated. Thatt is the population of Tusla, Oklahoma. Put in that context, the real choice was hyper-individualism is morally equal to killing ever person in Tulsa - a Mengela type choice. What would the body count have been with the no intervention plan of the deniers and the Barrington Declaration? Three million under infection fatality rate? The turning point was after the initial early lockdowns and after the arrival of the miracle mRNA vaccines drove the severe hospitalization rates down. Then people started to question, only to be hit again with Omicron. With Omicron arrived people were only to happy to put those masks back on until an updated vaccine drove the hospitalization rate back down. Public health may have to adapt interventions to sub-optimal choices due to the US cultural political reality, but have no need to apologize for the choices they made during the early scientifically uncertain pandemic.
Very well said.
It should have been:
- shelter in place to slow the spread and prioritize PPE for healthcare workers and essential workers
- identify airborne particles as primary the means of C19 transmission
- ramp up production of N95 respirators and HEPA air filtration systems
- re-open schools once respirators and/or HEPA air purifiers and/or improved ventilation in place
- new indoor air quality standards in all public buildings
- once C19 cases are lower than 1 in 1000 people (per county), drop mask mandates/recommendations except for all medical facilities
- if cases rise above 1 in 1000 people infections, 1-2 weeks of encouraged use of respirators anytime indoors with other people
All very easy in retrospect, right?
In this part of the world, though, we eased restrictions when the vaccination rate of adults reached 80% and then ceased them completely removed once 95% of adults were vaccinated.
That, of course, would not have worked in the US where the vaccination rate never went above 70%.
That's a very good insight! I would love to see individuals, communities, and governments take steps NOW to address indoor air quality.
Indeed. But, in fact, nothing is being done to rectify this problem even though it would help reduce transmission of all air born viruses including the annual flu virus. People just want to forget.
I agree with all of that. That would have been the proper protocol. Not whatever actually happened.
Yeah, everything is easier using the retrospectroscope, as they say.
The scientists and health care workers did their best to save lives.
Conversely, the politically motivated antivaxx social media influencers did their best to prevent them from doing so, resulting in the deaths of 250,000 unvaccinated Americans in the first 12 months of the vaccine roll out
The thousand pound Gorrilla in this skepticism falls directly on many elected officials with the biggest being Trump (who still is) sowing seeds of mistrust towards science in general. Blaming it on public health officials and the medical community is a disservice. In the recent political polarization where everyone in the other camp is the enemy and trusted officials most aligned with our own confirmation bias beliefs using the trust they have with their bubble for political or economic gain, it is impossible for the scientific community to overcome. As always happens, it will swing in the other direction the next time a horrific event occurs thet impacts them and those same false trusted sources that have no answers are forced to call on science to save lives
But even you have been contaminated.
Seriously, inform yourself about the origins of the virus.
I think that this article contains good advice and I urge everyone to read it. However, I believe that as long as Trump Is president and/or RFK Jr. is head of HHS, there will be little change in the current anti-science sentiment. Do what you can and you may eventually convince enough people that their leaders are not well equipped to give health advice. In the meantime VOTE and encourage everyone you know to vote too. If you live in a state that still thinks Trump is great write your State and Federal representatives often and let them know how all of this affects your patients and you.
"Masks worked then and work now". Really? You link to a meta-analysis that only includes observational studies - the weakest type of evidence other than basic anecdote. Why not link to the Cochrane review that was a sytematic review of Randomised Controlled Trials? Ah yes, because that showed no benefits to masking re viral transmission.
This contains multiple high quality studies that may interest you: https://youhavetoliveyour.life/masks-dont-work
I struggle with, but mostly understand, your position. And thanks for italicised piece towards the end which softened my response here to mostly one of support.
But while you lash yourself for minor errors while saving millions of lives, and while you search for better ways to counteract the nefarious influence of politically motivated anti-vaccine social media influencers, THEY are busily re-writing the history of their pandemic failures and predictions.
Never forget that most of the adverse public sentiment was stoked up by these bad actors who knew exactly what they were doing. And don't forget that next time they will be ready to misinform the public from day one and with the bags of cash that they made during the pandemic.
You did all the hard work and earned pennies while they clacked away at their keypads from the comfort of their own houses and earned a fortune in the process.
My thing is about the vaccine is, how was it tested before it got out to the general public? How were they able to test the long-term effects of the vaccine from the onset of COVID in 2020 to the distribution in 2021? I feel like the Americans who did take it were like guinea pigs who were just testing a new medicine. How did they gather enough data to ensure that the vaccine was SAFE and EFFECTIVE?
I find it pretty understandable TO BE SKEPTICAL of a perfect vaccine being created from an illness that seemed to appear all of a sudden. Most vaccines take 5-7 years to properly test, so the fact that it had less than one year of testing should be suspicious to anyone really.
I am curious about how they were able to gather data that quickly, or was it a half-baked cake that the governments demanded so we could resume life as normal?
Seriously, I am curious to the WHO's thought process on this.
You can't really test long term effects when the house is on fire. The concept of emergency approvals based on modelling and low risk of greater harm comes into play.
I figured that was going on. What I didn't know is that there was prior research going on since 1980s. That makes more sense as to why the testing was so fast for the “makeshift'‘ vaccine. I was confused about that at the time
Coronavirus Evolution
Scientists first identified a human coronavirus in 1965. It caused a common cold. Later that decade, researchers found a group of similar human and animal viruses and named them after their crown-like appearance.
Seven coronaviruses can infect humans. The one that causes SARS emerged in southern China in 2002 and quickly spread to 28 other countries. More than 8,000 people were infected by July 2003, and 774 died. A small outbreak in 2004 involved only four more cases. This coronavirus causes fever, headache, and respiratory problems such as cough and shortness of breath.
MERS started in Saudi Arabia in 2012. Almost all of the nearly 2,500 cases have been in people who live in or travel to the Middle East. This coronavirus is less contagious than SARS but more deadly, killing 858 people. It has the same respiratory symptoms but can also cause kidney failure.
COVID-19 is one of seven coronaviruses that are known to infect humans. SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is genetically related to the virus that caused the 2003 SARS outbreak. There is still no definitive theory as to coronavirus disease's origins. Scientists aren't sure whether it jumped from animals to humans or was developed in a lab. Because the coronavirus disease outbreak began in Wuhan, China, there has been a rash of anti-Asian language and behavior unlike what's been seen in previous disease outbreaks. Several years after the pandemic began, the history of this novel coronavirus is still being written.
"There is still no definitive theory as to coronavirus disease's origins. Scientists aren't sure whether it jumped from animals to humans or was developed in a lab"
Bull. Shit.
There is no evidence that the virus was genetically engineered. In fact all the evidence suggests that this was not possible both from looking at the mutations in the virus itself or looking at what was actually possible to do by virologists.
There is no evidence that a virus bought into the lab from the wild by laboratory technicians escaped either accidentally or deliberately.
All the evidence - epidemiological, virological, and genetic - strongly favours the natural evolution of the virus by recombination of co-infecting viruses in wild bats in SE Asia, the spread of these viruses to farmed and wild animals in southern China, and their transmission to humans initially in the south-western section of the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan were these animals were known to be slaughtered and sold and from which most of the early cases have been traced.
Thank you so much for sharing this information. That brings a lot of light on how they were able to create a vaccine.
I think we need to get to the bottom of what caused the outbreak in China. That might help explain what happened and what to do going forward.
Nope. This badly informed person told you what you wanted to hear. That's all. Shame on him.
I never wanted to hear anything but what is actually true. Keep in mind that while the rest of you spent your free time looking this stuff up from some resources, I was struggling to keep my cleaning business afloat and trying to survive this helldemic that the WHO and even our government didn't bother to fully inform us about until we finally have the means TO find the right people to answer our questions. The laymen were given so much misinformation that most of us didn't know which way was up. This article cleared up by a bit, and with me asking questions that you didn't like, I got answers.
So, let me get this straight: you were too busy to keep up with what was going on but, in your self-proclaimed ignorance, you were certain that the public health experts were not fully informing but, despite not having enough time, you were still able to find the right people to answer your questions.
Please tell us how you were able to tell who were the "right people" to inform you.
"The laymen were given so much misinformation"'
Not by public health experts who were working 16 hours a day 7 days a week to try and save your sorry arse, and who saved millions, but by the politically motivated anti-vaccine social media influencers who were sitting comfortably at home clacking away on their keyboards and killing 250,000 unvaccinated Americans during the first 12 months of the vaccination roll out.
"This article cleared up by a bit, and with me asking questions that you didn't like, I got answers.''
Just remember that scientists who helped save millions of lives - like the one who wrote this article - are now beating themselves up for minor errors that they made that were almost inevitable while the bad actors who helped end the lives of those 250,000 unvaccinated Americans, are now busily rewriting the history of their pandemic failures and false predictions and counting the money in their bank accounts and jockeying for favours from their political masters.
"I got answers."
You also got a wrong answer.
The virus originated in the wild by a process of recombination in co-infected bats that then transmitted the mutated virus to farmed and wild animals in SE Asia that then transmitted the virus to humans at the market where these animals were known to be slaughtered and sold.
Why are you insulting me? I don't even KNOW you. Honestly, chill out. At least I'm asking questions NOW. Isn't that better than not at all? I know that no matter what I say, you will think negatively of me and probably others who aren't as "educated" as you are.
I believe the SARS-2 vaccine (the basis of the SARS covid 2 vaccine) started development around the time that the SARS-1 vaccine was being developed (in 2003). And before that, there had been 50 years of research and testing to develop the MRNA vaccine technology. Once SARS-CoV 2 hit, all of those decades of research we're able to come together to create good quality vaccines. Obviously changes and tweaks had to be made, but the foundational vaccine research and technology had already been in development for a 18 to 50 years.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/history-disease-outbreaks-vaccine-timeline/covid-19
"My thing is about the vaccine is, how was it tested before it got out to the general public?"
Why, after 5 years, do you STILL not know the answers to these oft repeated and fully answered questions.
" I feel like..."
I feel like I should get a dollar for every time I've had to read such a stupid introduction to, what almost inevitably, turns out to be an ignorant assertion with no basis in fact.
"How did they gather enough data to ensure that the vaccine was SAFE and EFFECTIVE?"
Phase I, II, and III clinical studies as with all the vaccines that came before it.
- 43,000 participants in the Pfizer phase III trial.
- 30,000 participants in the Moderna phase III trial.
All confirmed safe and effective after the roll out through:
- numerous pharmacovigilance studies.
- post-marketing surveillance of 5 billion doses
" I feel like the Americans who did take it were like guinea pigs"
The real guinea pigs were those who refused to be vaccinated, but perhaps they could be better described as "lambs to the slaughter. After all, the mortality rate for the first infection was 13 times higher for the unvaccinated compared with the vaccinated.
"that it had less than one year of testing should be suspicious to anyone really"
The reason why the process took only 10 months was because hundreds of Americans were dying of the infection. At the time the vaccine was eventually rolled out, 4,000 Americans were dying of the infection every single day! So, they cut the red tape, eliminated the usual waiting times between each facet of the approval protocol, ran phase II and phase III clinical trials concurrently rather than sequentially, and had the vaccines ready to go as soon as the vaccines were approved.
The other reason is that the high prevalence of the infection in the community meant that they could reach their trial end-points very quicky.
"was it a half-baked cake"
No, you just have half-baked questions that, if you were genuine, you would have found the answers to a long time ago just like the rest of us. All the answers were available to you mostly at the end of 2020 and certainly by the end of 2021.
"Seriously, I am curious to the ... thought process on this."
No, I don't think you are serious. Any serious person could not be seriously STILL asking them in mid-2025!