I like this story because of the pithy phrase in the title, “pandemic of [the] unvaccinated.” The phrase is sort of a Rorschach test in that it reveals the inner thoughts and assumptions of those who respond to it.
My own initial response was to wonder, When was Covid-19 not a pandemic of the unvaccinated? Since there were no vaccines when the pandemic started one could say Covid-19 has always been a pandemic of the unvaccinated; in that sense, nothing has changed.
Of course, vaccines have been created since the pandemic began and about half the population has taken them. These are important developments which have changed the world, but they don’t give new meaning to this unusual group of words.
Another possible response is to see guilt in the unvaccinated, as if ownership of the pandemic has shifted recently from all of us to just the unvaccinated. To my mind, this response might be psychologically symptomatic. It isn’t normal to assign guilt to human beings when natural disasters occur.
A final possible response is to exploit the propaganda value of the phrase, as the story in which it occurs clearly does.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
One thing that struck me was that the FDA doesn’t anticipate full approval before January 2022.
Really?
A hundred million people vaccinated with the vaccine isn’t a large enough sample?
Is it any wonder some people doubt when the FDA drags the process out until there is no one left to vaccinate?
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RE: “A hundred million people vaccinated with the vaccine isn’t a large enough sample?”
That’s an interesting question. I’d say it might be a large enough sample to gauge risks that are likely to show up in the short term, but a short-term sample doesn’t help much in predicting long-term or unknown risks. Certainty can only come from actual experience, not projections.
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Certainty is not terribly useful for decisions which must be made on the information available.
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Understood. In this case I would prefer the EUA period to be extended indefinately because the data set — while large — is of short duration.
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If the engine on your airplane quits, do you wait to get a full diagnostic analysis or do you follow restart procedures?
If you wait to determine long term side effects, there is no point in developing the vaccine at all, as everyone will have either died or recovered before you have a long term study.
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RE: “If you wait to determine long term side effects, there is no point in developing the vaccine at all, as everyone will have either died or recovered before you have a long term study.”
I don’t want to wait to determine long term side effects before allowing people to take the vaccine. I simply want the full Phase III protocols to be completed rigorously and transparently.
I especially want everyone, including myself, to understand the pandemic and response better.
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Especially in light of the hoops they had Pfizer and Moderna, et al, jump for the EUA.
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“One thing that struck me was that the FDA doesn’t anticipate full approval before January 2022”
Source please. Because the last I saw concerning full approval was this fall.
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It was near the end of the originally cited article.
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Thank you. Again, I heard the fall of this year. We shall see. The FDA could easily fast track full approval if so inclined. If they do, that is a good thing. If it is spring of 2022, I think they took TOO long.
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If they took past last October they took too long.
AS I pointed out at the time, Phase 3 trials make sense for the next ED drug or a slightly better blood pressure drug, but for a vaccine when people are dying by the thousands each week, it is insane.
https://tidewaterforum.blog/2020/09/02/ending-phase-3-trials-early/
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What does full approval do for the public that EUA doesn’t?
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“What does full approval do for the public that EUA doesn’t?”
There has been a lot of reporting about people who are waiting for full FDA approval before they will take the vaccine. I know of one personally who feels that way. I wish he felt differently, but he is NOT listening to misinformation; he is waiting for his own personal comfort level to be met.
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It changes billing procedures and reporting requirements. Everything else is moot.
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Sometimes even the most hard line conservatives have epiphanies.
“I don’t know. You tell me,” Ivey said. “Folks [are] supposed to have common sense. But it’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks. It’s the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down.”
Kay Ivey, Governor of Alabama
Now, to be fair, that statement is nothing more than the right wing shifting blame from liberal “mask warriors” to the real problem: hesitancy for months based on misinformation. The fact that her state was suffering badly is not good for a sitting Governor. Especially when other Blue states are doing much better with regards to COVID.
She is not the lone cry in the wilderness either. Other conservative governors are shifting gears as their hospital fill up again.
Reality in the face of posturing is no fair match when people start dying.
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This kind of captures the GOP “ideals” wrt to the vaccine.
https://theweek.com/political-satire/1002951/steve-scalise
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Scalise already had a mild case of COVID and tested positive for anti-bodies. He waited until recently to add the vaccine to natural immunity because of concerns over the Delta variant.
He has been a booster for the vaccine since OWS was announced.
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You really believe the spin he spun when he – and a lot of other Republicans – finally did a 180 on vaccination? BTW, I have shares in a dandy bridge over the East River you might want to buy.
En masse they are trying to re-write their records. Scalise included. The cartoon was generous. I have diligently Googled and cannot find any encouragement from him for people to get vaccinated until just the other day. He was asked by home town journalists in April and again in May when HE was going to get vaccinated. “Soon” was the answer. It is now July. Some booster!
Reality is a cruel task master – hopefully these Republicans are paying attention to the lesson.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/suddenly-some-republicans-are-all-in-on-the-vaccine
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Actually if you search prior to June, you will see most articles mentioning Scalise on vaccine are about his rage that Biden was vaccinating illegal aliens before citizens, He has been advocating the vaccine for citizens who lacked natural immunity all along.
He had COVID and recovered and until very recently it was really improper for people who had antibodies to get vaccinated before those who wanted to be vaccinated had their turn. Now that supplies have caught up with demand is the time for those who choose to add vaccination to natural immunity to do so.
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Actually, Scalise trying to score political points around vaccine issues is NOT encouraging people to get vaccinated. One of the points Scalise tried to score was excoriating the proposed budget for an information campaign to get people vaccinated. Some booster!
It is worth noting here that Trump did not use his widely covered talk in Arizona to encourage vaccination.
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Gov. Ivey’s comment is one of the reasons I elected to write about the meaningless phrase, “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
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You may believe it is “meaningless”. But I ask you this: If the unvaccinated get the shot, even about 50% of them, will it not go a long way to SLOWING the pandemic for ALL?
Don’t answer the rhetorical question I posed. I already know what you will say. Your lack of belief in factual data, not cherry picked oopsies that occur in real life, is well documented.
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RE: “Don’t answer the rhetorical question I posed.”
OK. Here are two questions for you to ponder, factually speaking:
Is the pandemic growing or shrinking?
What percentage of new infections occur in vaccinated people?
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“. . . factually speaking”
Growing
About 3% as measured by hospitalizations.
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“Meaningless phrase?”
Hardly. It is tragically accurate because so many deaths occurring now would not be happening except for the foolishness of the victims. What could be more pathetic than a man on his deathbed asking to be vaccinated?
Just one example, in the great state of Texas there have been 8,787 deaths of Covid-19 since early February. Of those, 99.5% were unvaccinated.
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/07/21/coronavirus-texas-vaccinated-deaths/
Nationwide about 97% of new hospitalizations are among the unvaccinated.
This is indeed becoming – in this country – a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” Denying the obvious truth of that fact is absurd. IMHO.
As the unvaccinated are dying from Covid in the thousands every week deaths that can be causally related to the vaccines are almost non-existent with a tiny handful that MAY have been caused by a reaction to it. And that is after 339 Million doses.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html
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RE: “Just one example, in the great state of Texas there have been 8,787 deaths of Covid-19 since early February. Of those, 99.5% were unvaccinated.”
A good example of meaninglessness. At one time, 100% of Covid-19 deaths were unvaccinated. You can arbitrarily choose to see the 99.5% as either a vaccine success story or a vaccine failure story.
RE: “As the unvaccinated are dying from Covid in the thousands every week deaths that can be causally related to the vaccines are almost non-existent with a tiny handful that MAY have been caused by a reaction to it. And that is after 339 Million doses.”
Yes, that’s what everybody believes, but then there are stories like this one reporting high infection rates among the vaccinated:
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/vaccinated-people-singapore-make-up-three-quarters-recent-covid-19-cases-2021-07-23/
It is a mistake to assume science is truth; it is, rather, a process.
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“You can arbitrarily choose to see the 99.5% as either a vaccine success story or a vaccine failure story.”
There is no meaningful way to see the data from Texas as a vaccine failure story.
No one has claimed that the vaccines are foolproof, but the overwhelming difference in outcomes between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated is not theory or a speculation. It is a cold hard and very cruel fact.
I made the point that there are virtually no deaths from the vaccine. Your rebuttal is that some vaccinated people get infected. Uh, infected is NOT dead. You cite Singapore as evidence. Did you read the article? Here is the headline . . .
“Vaccinated people make up 75% of recent COVID-19 cases in Singapore, but few fall ill”
BUT FEW FALL ILL!
When you have highly vaccinated population like Singapore, then whatever cases there are will likely be among those who have been vaccinated. And even if these not ill people can still be spreaders as the story suggests that is MORE reason to get everyone vaccinated.
There is no “assuming” in these facts. It is a FACT that almost no one is dying from being vaccinated. It is a FACT that the overwhelming majority of deaths from the virus are among the unvaccinated. It is a FACT that those who have been vaccinated but still get ill do not get as seriously ill as the unvaccinated. Science has nothing to do with it. This is data.
You talk about “mistakes.” I hope you are not one of those who see the foolishness of their choice when it is too late to save them.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/22/us-coronavirus-covid-unvaccinated-hospital-rates-vaccines
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RE: “It is a FACT that the overwhelming majority of deaths from the virus are among the unvaccinated.”
A meaningless fact, since this has always been true.
RE: “It is a FACT that those who have been vaccinated but still get ill do not get as seriously ill as the unvaccinated.”
So what? Virus weakening would be expected with or without vaccines. It remains true that a high rate of infection among the vaccinated would indicate vaccine failure.
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“RE: ‘It is a FACT that the overwhelming majority of deaths from the virus are among the unvaccinated.”
A meaningless fact, since this has always been true.’ ”
Yes, it has always been true. The point is, however, that it will remain true in the future.
The unvaccinated will die. The vaccinated will not.
Before the vaccines you did not get to choose – the living group (there was none) or the dying group.
Now you can. And choosing the dying group is a very strange, selfish and cowardly choice.
My free advice – face down your fears and save your life.
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No vaccine prevents you from becoming infected(except smallpox, which has been irradicated)
You have to be infected before your immune system can act. What vaccines do is to stop an infection before you become clinically ill and hopefully, before you can spread the disease. That is true for every vaccine from measles to polio.
i note that while Mr Roberts has defended people’s right to refuse vaccination, I don’t remember him disclosing his own status. I hope he is safe and just playing devil’s advocate.
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“I hope he is safe and just playing devil’s advocate.”
I have asked many times but he simply ignores the question – have you been vaccinated? Based on that and his MANY absurd rationalizations for going unvaccinated leads me to believe that he is practicing what he is preaching and has decided to let others deal with the pandemic while he sits it out. I would be pleased to hear that I am wrong – nobody should risk their life without very compelling reasons to do so.
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RE: “I note that while Mr Roberts has defended people’s right to refuse vaccination, I don’t remember him disclosing his own status. I hope he is safe and just playing devil’s advocate.”
Be careful not to assume too much. I certainly defend peoples’ right to refuse vaccination, but that doesn’t mean that I believe people should.
I don’t disclose my vaccination status for the same reasons I don’t name my former employers. That kind of personal information is irrelevant and no one has a need or a right to know.
I try not to play devil’s advocate. The post I wrote for this thread is positively sincere on its own merits. A difficulty I see consistently is that readers don’t take my commentary here at face value; they see what they want to see, not what I offer.
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Since the current surge and hospitalizations are 97.5% non-vaccinated, one might just speculate how much less impactful this would be if every eligible person were vaccinated.
I am now starting to wear my mask in the more crowded stores because of the threat of break through infections that could impact me or my wife due to age and some health issues.
Thank you.
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RE: “Since the current surge and hospitalizations are 97.5% non-vaccinated, one might just speculate how much less impactful this would be if every eligible person were vaccinated.”
Not really. If 60% of the population is vaccinated, then the 97.5% of unvaccinated hospitalizations is 97.5% of 40% of the population.
Put another way, if only 1% of the population were unvaccinated, you could still have 97.5% of hospitaliztions being unvaccinated persons.
Do you see? A high percentage of unvaccinated hospitalizations tells us nothing.
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“Do you see? A high percentage of unvaccinated hospitalizations tells us nothing.”
You need to think again.
Your 1% example would be resounding evidence of the effectiveness of the vaccines. If virtually all hospitalizations were among that 1% and almost none among the other 99% you really want to say that this data tells us nothing? Uh, it tells us emphatically that if you get vaccinated you will not end up in the hospital with Covid-19.
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Len, you constantly make this a partisan thing, but unless statistics are controlled by age and race, you can’t craw that conclusion. Younger states with a lot of children will have lower rates, for example. If you had numbers comparing Republicans and Democrats over 60, that would be meaningful.
Note that here in our area, the Redder communities have the higher vaccination rates and the Bluer much lower rates.
https://www.pilotonline.com/news/health/vp-nw-coronavirus-case-numbers-july-25-20210724-kgvbglgm5vgprhuvrq5s7iiqpi-story.html
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Your attempt to refute Len’s accurate assertion is pretty weak sauce. You urge Len to use apples to apples comparisons but try to refute him by comparing very different communities with a very different socio-economic profiles.
There are many ways to slice vaccine hesitancy but within ANY group you want to isolate, Republicans in that group are less likely to be vaccinated than non-Republicans. A
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And that is according to polling by a variety of organizations. It is noteworthy in recent days how Republican leaders have FINALLY woken up to this reality and are changing their tunes. It is pretty clear that we are heading to a very bad patch because of the hesitance they have encouraged and these people – like Scalise – don’t want to catch the blame they deserve.
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You have age and race adjusted rates for Republicans and Democrats?
Cite?
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Cite?
There are MANY polls that show very significant differences between Democrats and Republicans on vaccine hesitancy. Pick which ever one you want.
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So, you have no vaccination data filtered for race and age. You just jumped to that conclusion.
We’re not talking about polls, we’re talking vaccination rates controlled for age and race.
Alabama is not Virginia.
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You also need to control for population density. Generally speaking, being young in a rural environment correlates with low vaccination benefit.
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Do you think Missouri, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Florida, Oklahoma are all just coincidentally red with a bunch of Democrats ruining their stats for the jab?
Do you think the surveys, left and right, are way off with Democrats hugely in favor of the vaccine and Republicans not so much?
Believe whatever you want. This has been so politicized since the beginning. First it was the Democrats and the media crying wolf to make Trump look bad. Then it was the mask business. Then opening the states. Then the reclosing . Then another reopening. Then the vaccine was “experimental”. Then an outreach is compared to the Holocaust.
And all this is from the right. Carlson deaths after vaccination. Greene…Hannity…
Don’t you get weary of Republicans screwing around with this to fit some half-assed agenda regarding COVID.
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Again, without age and race data, vaccination rates do not impute partisan difference.
In states with large young, Black populations, as in the states you mention(except Florida) , a very low rate in that demographic can skew the whole states rate even if old, white Republicans have a very high rate.
So, the state rating, absent control for age and race, do not impute partisan differences.
Quite simply, you don’t know what you don’t know.
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“Again, without age and race data, vaccination rates do not impute partisan difference.”
Polls do. Period.
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Polls are talk, vaccination rates are data.
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“Polls are talk, vaccination rates are data.”
“Again, without age and race data, vaccination rates do not impute partisan difference.”
Yadda yadda yadda
With more than all due respect, you are an partisan pretending to be looking for objectivity. You cannot be as dumb as this line of “logic” makes you seem.
Let me ask you this . . . When you jumped the queue and made your way to Podunk NC to get vaccinated did they ask you what your political party was? I know that when my turn came here and I got vaccinated, nobody asked for that information either. Nobody doing vaccinations has asked that anywhere. Duh!
But you say we need vaccination rate data before we can say that Republicans are disporportionately shunning the vaccine. Polling by a variety of reputable organizations is just “talk.” I am tempted to label such sophistry with an expletive filled description, but I will leave it at that.
Believe it and own it. Your second favorite party is full of people stupidly killing themselves and their fellow travellers. And the cause is their leaders and their lying liar sources of “information” like Tucker Carlson.
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You are making assumptions not supported by facts. True, the facts are hard to get, but that does not make your speculations true,
I know a number of libertarians who strongly support a person’s right to reject vaccination but who took the choice to vaccinate themselves.
So, if a poll asked those people if the they support mandatory vaccination, they would answer ‘no’ but if asked if they were vaccinated the answer would be ‘yes.’
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What is it that I have said that you want to call “speculation?”
And rather than admit the obvious documented facts, you demand data that does not and cannot exist. We have hard data on the age, gender, residence, race of actual vaccine recipients. We have no such data on their political affiliations.
All we have are polls and they universally show marked vaccine hesitation among people who self-identify as Republicans. That is a FACT. Not a speculation. You can speculate that the polls are wrong but you have ZERO evidence to show that your speculation is true.
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All of the finger pointing, animosity, name calling, attempted shaming and politicization of this by the left is not helping. In fact it is making things worse. The young, black, some Republicans, some Democrats and even the green people don’t trust a government sponsored vaccine program or just feel bulletproof for some reason. Human nature is to dig in your heels when being constantly badgered. The left is so hell bent on shoving far left wing agendas on everyone while claiming elitist superiority only feeds divisiveness. A unified effort through persuation is all that will make this vaccine effort a success and the left has to stand down, now!!
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So sorry you feel that way.
Elitist superiority? Conservatives are constantly harping on their superior patriotism and we are all communists.
Most right wingers could define either word, but they are superior. Not to mention persecuted daily. 😇
Damn if I don’t see snowflakes in July.
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Thank you for very clearly proving my point!!
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The “left” as you out it, has been advocating for people to take the vaccine when available FROM THE JUMP. It is the “right” (Johnson, Grteene, Hannity, Carlson, Ingraham, etc.) that is JUST NOW starting to stand down.
You once again get the facts BACKWARDS. It is similar to your thinking on race, gender issues and damnd near EVERYTHING else you ever comment on.
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Sorry you don’t like the truth but that’s your opinion I guess.
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That there are snowflakes in July?
Glad to help.
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Oh, I forgot to mention, Head and Shoulders works well for your snow flake problem. You also might want to brush your shoulders off periodically as it does look unsightly. You are welcome..
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