Statistics and charts.
COVID isn't just about numbers. A Guest Post contributor wanted to remind me that we are talking about real people here.
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| Marc Heller |
His overall orientation is toward natural treatments, and he wanted to talk to me about vaccinations.
Here is his first email to me.
Here is his first email to me.
My wife’s first cousin David Brush died of COVID, a couple of days ago.
He lived in Colorado Springs and he and his wife decided not to get the vaccine, because of all of the stories they heard about the dangers of the vaccine.
I do not fully know why he and his wife chose not to get the vaccine. I strongly suspect that within his “world"--his social set of friends, neighbors, work-colleagues--the vaccine was not popular. It was some Democratic thing.
He was 67. From childhood, he was a type-1 diabetic. He had some health challenges, typical for diabetics. He had a couple of toes amputated; he could not walk well. He was kind, he loved his wife and daughter, he was active in his church. He had a productive and happy life, having worked for at least 30 years at Hughes Aircraft in Orange County, California. He was not obese; he ate healthy food. His co-morbidity was his diabetes. That diabetes wasn't his "fault." He didn't over-eat or over-drink or otherwise somehow bring this on himself so that I or anyone else could mentally blame him for his early death. He caught a bad break with childhood diabetes and then managed it like a responsible person, then he got COVID and died.
His death, in hindsight, was obviously preventable. It makes me sad. Misinformation is very dangerous.
The other case is my eldest son, Jason Heller.
Jason is 50 years old.
He was so very heathy, extremely fit, had a great diet. He wore a mask; he was careful. He had no known co-morbidities. He lived in Portland, and worked himself to the bone running a restaurant.
He got COVID in October of 2020.
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| Marc, wife Beth, and Jason at age 5 |
At first it seemed relatively mild. And then, it turned into Long COVID. He has not been healthy for the last 8 months. He has lung problems, heart problems, digestive challenges, and on and on. He is basically disabled. He used to be able to run four miles. Now he struggles on bad days to walk up a single flight of stairs.
There are no clear-cut medical answers for this condition. It is a chronic disorder of the immune regulatory systems.
He got vaccinated recently, while dealing with his lingering malady. He had severe reactions to both the first and the second vaccine; he was wiped out like with a bad flu for several days, but it may have helped a bit with his Long COVID
I don’t have a moral or conclusion to impart. Jason sure wishes the vaccine was around before he was exposed. It probably would have protected him. COVID has profoundly changed his life, but he is still alive. There's that. David lost his life and left a hole in the lives of his wife and daughter.
I am writing to encourage everyone who reads this to get the COVID vaccine. It’s all about the risk vs. the reward. In the US, people are still getting sick and dying every day from COVID. Writing on June 9, the number of cases is down, but people--particularly unvaccinated ones--are still catching the disease.
COVID is a terrible illness, especially for older people or those with other health conditions. For people in my age group I calculate about a 10% change of being hospitalized, a 3% chance of ending up in Intensive Care, and over a 1% chance of dying--if we contract the virus. But, of course, I am vaccinated, so my chances of getting it and getting very sick are very, very low. Some people, including people my age, say they are "too busy" to get it, or say they don't want it. They are taking a big risk.
A serious risk for people of all ages is Long COVID, which affects 10-20% of those who get infected and have up to 70% chance of long-term damage. If you are younger and get COVID, you also put your older friends and family at risk.
What about the newer mRNA vaccines? Are they risky? There is a tiny risk, yes. Maybe someone has gotten a little ill from it, but the risk and outcome is negligible compared to the risk of COVID itself. For a younger person, the vaccine is at least 40 times safer than choosing to not get vaccinated. For older people, it is at least 1600 times safer to choose the vaccine.
I am a natural medicine doctor and I encourage people to live a healthy life. I have no great love for big Pharma, but unprecedented situations call for different actions. How do the mRNA vaccines work? The vaccine injection carries a small stretch of genetic material known as messenger RNA or mRNA. It instructs cells in the body to make a small piece of material that looks like a part of the virus. Those bits, in turn, get recognized by the immune system as a foreign invader, and your body starts to make antibodies and immune cells that can recognize and neutralize the virus if you are exposed to the virus. The vaccinations are very effective. What they do is consistent with my whole approach to medicine. The vaccination does what good food, good exercise, strong muscles, and healthy living does: it prepares your body to deal with the things that come along.Get the vaccine!
6 comments:
Thank you for sharing your heartbreaking stories. I hope it will encourage some to reconsider their reluctance.
In a way I do understand how some people who are already struggling with an illness would be hesitant to get vaccinated and how the very speed that we the vaccine was developed would seem risky. What doesn't seem to be widely enough reported is that we were fortunate that these new technologies were already well established when COVID hit.
While perhaps the media could have done more, the blame rests squarely on the Republican anti-science rhetoric, pandering to religious fanatics, and general disinformation related to the pandemic response. At this point so many people are ill-informed and frightened that it will needlessly prolong the pain and suffering we are enduring.
Thanx for your post on Peter’s blog. Sharing your story was a real mitzvah.
We too have family and friends who have either passed away or are suffering from long COVID, our 27 yr old niece keeps spiking mysterious 102 degree fevers. Oi!
I sent the link to your post to an acquaintance of mine who is vaccine resistant. Her sister who is a nurse at Asante, discouraged her from getting the shot due to unknown long term effects. It’s maddening that a health professional could be so ignorant. Hopefully your heartfelt words will change her mind.
Thank you Peter for publishing this.
What's sad and alarming is the disinformation about vaccines spread by bad actors like the so-called Children's Health Defense, and all the poor souls being duped by it. When lies cause harm, the liars should be accountable.
Tragic stories, and as Art said, a real mitzvah. Sharing this link, maybe, just maybe it will change a few minds.
Case Series of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Adults Associated with SARS-CoV-2 Infection — United Kingdom and United States, March–August 2020 (Archived CDC article).
Evidence grows stronger for Covid vaccine link to heart issue, CDC says (June 19th, 2020).
As of May 28th, 2021 the VAERS data for just the state of Oregon, info pulled just now, has 3960 total adverse reaction events among all dose/producers of the COVID-19 vaccines. 70 of these include palpitations. 58 events involving loss of consciousness. 44 events where the patient died. 43 om the lovely category of "Loss of personal independence in daily activities," 41 with "gait disturbance," 39 got an ILI (flu-like illness) anyways, 30 with cerebrovascular accident, 29 seizures, 25 anaphylactic reactions. Lots of other stuff.
For those wondering, VAERS data reports any symptom reported or anything that might be useful for correlating, including pre-existing conditions. However, that's nearly 4000 reports from people who had reactions to the vaccine that in a sufficient number of cases could have ended in death if the fates aligned just right. A form of cosmic gambling if you may.
You are asking people to join in this gamble willingly. Maybe they save a life, maybe they get COVID anyways, maybe they have a reaction, maybe it might be debilitating, maybe nothing happens at all. There is an old understanding that if you take up martial arts you are more likely to be injured than your general chances of actually needing to fight at all. Some don't take martial arts for this reason and hope the universe doesn't provide a random fight. They want nothing to do with violence so they gamble with pacifism and hope for the best. There is not much difference with a covid vaccine denier. They also hope it doesn't happen to them and as far as I can gather they hope it doesn't happen to others, yet they don't wish to take a personal risk for the benefit of society.
And that is where we are today. The crossroads of whether we will have a society where at any time you may be asked to take one for the team because of the numbers. Humans profit if you run medical decisions like a food plant, where a little waste is acceptable if it keeps the production efficient enough to justify the loss.
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