An October 20, 2020, article9 in the Observer lists the known side effects that have emerged in the various trials. Chills, fever, body aches and headache are the most commonplace, but at least two cases of transverse myelitis — inflammation of the spinal cord — have also occurred.
Even the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that the vaccine’s side effects are “no walk in the park,”10 and Saad Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, has stressed the need for a broad-based outreach campaign to discuss the reality of side effects, as patients might not come back for the required second dose if the side effects take them by surprise.11
Dr. Eli Perencevich, a professor of internal medicine and epidemiology at the University of Iowa Health Care, has suggested essential workers should be granted three days of paid leave after they’re vaccinated, as many will feel too sick to work.12
A December 1, 2020, CNBC article,13 which looked at the frequency of adverse reactions, noted that 10% to 15% of participants in the Pfizer and Moderna trials reported “significantly noticeable” side effects.
Buried way down at the bottom of the article is a suggestion from a past advisory committee member, who proposes the nomenclature of “serious adverse reaction” be changed to "immune response," so they can reprogram how people think about these side effects, even if they end up having to stay home from work because of them.
The article also admits they have no idea what, if any, long-term reactions there might be, which means (as we already knew) that this is a great big public health experiment and, of course, anything that happens post-marketing will be labeled a "coincidence."
In related news, a participant in India’s AstraZeneca trial is now suing the company claiming the vaccine caused “serious neurological damage,”14 and a group of researchers warn the COVID-19 vaccines could potentially increase your risk of HIV infection.15 Then there are the concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine permanently altering your DNA, effectively turning you into a transhuman.16 As you can see, there’s a lot to consider before taking this vaccine.
Do We Really Need a COVID-19 Vaccine?
Berdine also points out that most of his colleagues believe “the uncertainties about safety exceed what they perceive to be a small benefit.”17 Indeed, at this point, a range of data suggest the COVID-19 vaccine may be completely unnecessary. For example:
• COVID-19 mortality is extremely low outside of nursing homes — 99.7% of people recover from COVID-19.18 If you’re under 60 years of age, your chance of dying from seasonal influenza is greater than your chance of dying from COVID-19.19
• Data clearly show that COVID-19 has not resulted in excess mortality, meaning the same number of people who die in any given year, on average, have died in this year of the pandemic.20,21 This is true even among the elderly, as evidenced in a Johns Hopkins University article published just before Thanksgiving. According to the article:22
“The deaths of older people stayed the same before and after COVID-19. Since COVID-19 mainly affects the elderly, experts expected an increase in the percentage of deaths in older age groups. However, this increase is not seen from the CDC data. In fact, the percentages of deaths among all age groups remain relatively the same.”
As soon as the article started trending on Twitter, Johns Hopkins deleted it saying it “was being used to support false and dangerous inaccuracies about the impact of the pandemic.”23
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• Studies24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31 suggest immunity against SARS-CoV-2 infection is more widespread than suspected, thanks to cross-reactivity with other coronaviruses that cause the common cold.
• Asymptomatic people are highly unlikely to spread SARS-CoV-2 — A study32 looking at PCR test data from nearly 10 million residents in Wuhan city found that not a single one of those who had been in close contact with an asymptomatic individual (someone who tested positive but had no symptoms) had been infected with the virus. In all instances, virus cultures from people who tested positive but had no symptoms also came up negative for live virus.
Will COVID-19 Vaccine Save Lives?
Peter Doshi, associate editor of The BMJ, also questions the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines, pointing out that current trials are not designed to tell us whether the vaccines will actually save lives. And, if they don’t, are they really worth the risks involved? Doshi writes:33
“What will it mean exactly when a vaccine is declared ‘effective’? To the public this seems fairly obvious. ‘The primary goal of a COVID-19 vaccine is to keep people from getting very sick and dying,’ a National Public Radio broadcast said bluntly …
Yet the current phase III trials are not actually set up to prove either. None of the trials currently under way are designed to detect a reduction in any serious outcome such as hospital admissions, use of intensive care, or deaths. Nor are the vaccines being studied to determine whether they can interrupt transmission of the virus.”
Doshi points out that when Dr. Paul Offit was asked in an interview whether a recorded “event” in these trials meant moderate to severe illness, he replied yes, “that’s right.” But that’s not, in fact, correct. All Phase 3 trials count mild symptoms, such as a cough, as a “COVID-19 event,” and all will finalize their analyses after a mere 150 or 160 of the volunteers develop symptomatic COVID-19 — regardless of severity.
“Part of the reason may be numbers. Severe illness requiring hospital admission, which happens in only a small fraction of symptomatic COVID-19 cases, would be unlikely to occur in significant numbers in trials.
Data published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in late April reported a symptomatic case hospitalization ratio of 3.4% overall, varying from 1.7% in 0-49 year olds and 4.5% in 50-64 year olds to 7.4% in those 65 and over.
Because most people with symptomatic COVID-19 experience only mild symptoms even trials involving 30,000 or more patients would turn up relatively few cases of severe disease,” Doshi writes.34
“Hospital admissions and deaths from COVID-19 are simply too uncommon in the population being studied for an effective vaccine to demonstrate statistically significant differences in a trial of 30,000 people.”
These trials also do not tell us anything about the vaccine’s ability to prevent transmission, as this would require testing volunteers twice a week for long periods of time — a strategy that is “operationally untenable,” according to Tal Zaks, chief medical officer at Moderna.35
COVID-19 Vaccine Poses Rare Distribution Challenges
Questions have also been raised about the potential for the COVID-19 vaccines to “go bad” due to improper storage. Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine has to be stored at an unheard of cold temperature even for Antarctica — minus 70 degrees Celsius, or 94 degrees below zero, Fahrenheit. Moderna’s can be kept a bit warmer, at “just” minus 20 degrees C, or 4 below zero F. Both pose a problem for providers who will be administering the shots.
To get an idea of why the vaccines have to be frozen, NPR compares them to chocolates that melt easily.36 The reason the vaccines are so fragile is because they’re made with messenger RNA (mRNA), which turn your own cells into little factories that produce SARS-CoV-2 protein that in turn trigger antibody production.
The problem is that mRNA is easily broken down, so it needs the freezing temperatures to keep stable. Pfizer said its special packaging keeps the vaccines frozen with the help of dry ice. Even so, providers will still have to abide by strict guidelines, one of which says the freezer compartment storing the vaccines cannot be opened more than twice a day, and when opened, must be closed within one minute. Once thawed, the vaccine can be kept refrigerated for five days.
The whole situation makes distribution a challenge, too since the smallest amount you can order is 975 doses. That means the vaccines most likely will have to go to places capable of administering large numbers of vaccines in a short period of time to avoid spoilage. What happens if the vaccine is mishandled and spoils? No one knows. At best, it may be ineffective. At worst, it may cause completely unexpected side effects.
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