.
Covid now has mutated to be about like it was before 2019 - a run of the mill upper respiratory virus with about 50% barely knowing they are ill, about 5% I'll enough to need meds like an inhaler, and about one out of 500 (older or frail) hospital-sick, and one of 10,000 or so dying. That puts it on par with most of the other seasonal viruses.
Since 95% improve quickly, they will be convinced that whatever they did saved them, be it a vaccine, Paxlovid, Remdesevir, Ivermectin, or Juicy Fruit Chewing gum, so I don't bother trying to educate people as to any actual factual data any more.
Back when the virus had a 1 in 2,500 or so fatality rate it was worth trying to push people to treatments that cut that rate maybe 90%, but at this point the virus is so wimpy it isn't much of a threat.
Now what we are seeing is that the vaccinated and boosted are the ones getting sickest now, AS PREDICTED by serious virologists, due to the difference in the way covid mutates vs influenza, but people are fear-driven, and the vaccine as currently offered seems a bit safer, but still is causing cardiac risk in about 1 out of 100, and may still be killing one in 3,000 to 6,000, but that's a low enough risk it doesn't scare people (although the current covid seems to scare them more than the vaccine, which is illogical).
The vaccines were finally shown not to reduce transmission or risk of infection or serious infection by much at all, and the recent ones don't even have enough human data to show any reliability OR safety, nor does Paxlovid, and Remdesevir showed to be dangerous and deadly, and no more effective than placebo.
But compared to the tactics that actually reduce viral spread and severity, like vitamin D and zinc and quercetin and so-far still ivermectin, the patented drugs are advertised heavily, promoted not only to doctors by pizza-bearing drug reps with pushup-bras, but also lucrative hospital contracts due to bonuses and rebates. So it is not possible to compete with that.
I try to help those who are interested and don't bother with those who aren't, because I'm not going to convince them their choices are wrong, and at least the vaccines aren't causing much immediate harm at this point other than recipients getting statistically sicker than non-recipients, but the gaslighting has been so successful in the U.S. vs other places that I won't ever be able to counter it. It's like convincing vegetarians that they should eat meat.
Do what you want, and if it gives you confidence and allays fear, that's a good thing, even if it may actually increase risk, since the risks so far seem fairly small regardless of what treatment path you choose. I just hate to see a treatment worse than the disease, but that's not unusual in medicine.
The current booster is clearly in that category.
https://twitter.com/backtolife_2023/sta ... ediaviewer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmZzZIcqIrI
As Baltasar Gracián probably originally commented, but Samuel Clements got credit for, "it's easier to fool someone the first time than it is to convince them they've been fooled". Nowhere has that been greater than with covid. I've a patient who is a physician who got vaccinated and ridiculed any hesitation, "almost everyone in our group got vaccinated and none have had any issues". Later on when one in the group had clot-related side effects and nearly died, the one who was my patient started acknowledging "there may be some serious risks with the vaccines..."; That small of a sample size (their medical group) makes a rational inference of safety impossible - yet adding "n plus one" and all of a sudden the signal is there...
Most covid 'science' so far has been based on three things: anecdotes, mice, and fear, when medicine is
supposed to be based on scientific studies, done on humans, and analyzed objectively.
