Recent Comments

1. 8 months ago on Monty

   Well, I’m glad he keeps running Sedgwick arcs despite them always getting a comment like these. They’re my favorite part of the strip. They’re always the ones I introduce people to as well. I’ve been doing my part to build up a fanbase that likes these in particular to reduce the chance Jim ever caves to these comments and stops running them.

2. about 1 year ago on Monty

   There’s a saying that’s something like: American’s think they won the War of 1812. Canadians KNOW they won the War of 1812. The British forget the war ever happened.

   Seriously though, it’s not just education propaganda. Even at the time Americans considered it a victory in what was essentially a second Independence War for them and it ushered in the Era of Good Feelings.

   There’s disagreement even among historians, but the prevailing opinion seems to be that taking over Canada wasn’t one of the main goals for America in the war. Generally considered more important were ending British maritime restrictions/press-ganging of Americans and getting Britain to stop supporting Native American tribes so America could continue subjugating them and expanding westward.

3. about 2 years ago on Monty

   We can argue semantics, but I consider taking data deliberately out of context to make a claim unsupported by the data to push an agenda manipulated. I’m not claiming that’s what you’re doing, but it’s very clear that there is a strong movement to do just that. Fairly large and influential sites that are pushing an anti-vaccination agenda with no real regard to the actual science or any sense of journalistic integrity. Gateway Pundit, for example.

   As for the interview, I just watched it. She made it very clear the vaccines remain extremely effective at preventing hospitalizations and deaths. And I’m pretty certain their data showed it can reduce the risk of even catching COVID, what it can’t do anymore, as she pointed out, is prevent transmission.

   Even if everyone were vaccinated, there would be enough breakthrough cases for COVID to continue to spread among the population. Preventing the disease completely would be ideal, but stopping deaths and hospitalizations is still huge.

   I remember midway through last year, there were a host of state and federal level studies in the US showing that 98 or even 99+% of recent COVID deaths were among the unvaccinated, despite more than half the population being vaccinated.

   I don’t have more recent numbers from data of the quality and scope of those reports. So while it’s likely the protection fell somewhat from those lofty highs with Omicron, but I haven’t seen any data yet to suggest that number had even fallen below 90%.

4. about 2 years ago on Monty

   The conclusions the vaccinated are more likely to get COVID are not from a study, but from a manipulation of raw data to make it look that way. There are multiple factors that throw off the conclusions drawn, but here are some of the big ones:1. The UK believes they are underestimating the percentage of the people vaccinated. If that’s true, then the rates for vaccinated are lower and the rates for unvaccinated are higher in all categories of cases/hospitalizations/deaths.2. Testing rates may not be uniform among the vaccinated and unvaccinated populations. It’s easy to see that those who think COVID is a scam or simply not dangerous wouldn’t run out to get tested at the first sign of symptoms.3. Vulnerable populations have a significantly higher vaccination rates. When someone who is at elevated risk dies, it’s far more likely they’ll have been vaccinated than if you pulled a random member of the general population.

   Most importantly, there have been many studies done, not just by the drug manufacturers, but by health organizations of a wide variety of countries as well as third parties showing the vaccine are very effective at reducing the risk of COVID. Not quite as strongly with more recent variants, but still quite high.

   Unless you believe all these studies are some big conspiracy my various world governments (as a frightening number of people do) the evidence in favor of vaccines is staggeringly strong. And if it is some huge conspiracy, why even put out data that could be misconstrued as easily as what you reported? Why not fake those numbers too?

5. about 2 years ago on Monty

   It sounds like you’re suggesting that vaccination death rates are somehow higher than COVID deaths, and it’s absurd to think it’s even within a few orders of magnitude of it based on any data we have.

   As I already pointed out, excess deaths in 2020 were 17.3%, but vaccinations didn’t start in the US until the second half of December and took time to ramp up. There’s no realistic way the vaccines could have had any real impact on the 2020 excess deaths.

   Even if you’re one of the people who believe vaccine deaths are being falsely attributed as COVID deaths, the data just doesn’t support it. Deaths spike as new variants make their way through the country, but have no real correlation with vaccination rates.

   In fact, I’ve seen several charts making a big point of the spike in deaths, especially among younger age groups following the vaccine mandates, but the vaccination rates at those times were still far lower than in 2020 when demand for vaccines was higher than our ability to supply them, yet the spike of deaths during that peak of vaccinations was far lower.

   Even more importantly, if vaccines were so dangerous relative to the benefit they provide, one would expect that death rates would be higher in areas with higher vaccination rates, when in fact there’s a strong correlation to the opposite.

   Interestingly enough, due to how sadly political COVID vaccinations became, as of November 2021, 91% of Democrats were vaccinated, but only 59% of Republicans. It was found that county by county the more pro-Trump they were, the higher their COVID death rates. In November 2020, counties that went 60%+ for Trump had over 2.73 times the death rate of those with 60%+ for Biden. The top 10% most pro-Trump counties had 5.5 times the death rate of the top 10% pro-Biden. And the date was robust even when controlling for age.

   https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/12/05/1059828993/data-vaccine-misinformation-trump-counties-covid-death-rate

6. about 2 years ago on Monty

   Comparisons of any sort using VAERS between vacccines are kind of difficult because of the nature of it being a passive reporting tool, as you mentioned.

   If the number of deaths occurring in society, the number of vaccinations, or the percentage of deaths being reported increases, it ruins the comparison, and we have evidence both likely happened.

   First, we were in the middle of a pandemic. Data for 2020 shows an excess deaths of 17.3%, and while I don’t believe we have the full report for 2021 yet, most estimates show it being significantly higher than even 2020. Vaccination numbers also went up dramatically.

   Second, and far more importantly, we already have a study showing that percentage of cases reported rose drastically following the H1N1 vaccine when there was more of a focus on vaccine safety. In fact, the study showed that 76% of cases of anaphylaxis were captured by VAERS following that vaccine.

   Any estimate assuming it’s 100x higher than reported assumes that reporting will remain at the percentage occurs in lull years when there are no new vaccines of interest instead of rising like it did with H1N1. Given that there has been no recent vaccine that has had anywhere near as much attention on safety as the COVID vaccines, it’s difficult to imagine it wouldn’t rise to levels similar to, or even higher than with H1N1.

   If you assume that only 1% of cases are reported most years, but COVID years are even half as good as the 76% from H1N1, then quick math shows that 5 months of data would be expected to balloon to the equivalent of 15 years of data from periods if it was as safe as any other vaccine. Right in line with what you reported.

   If you factor in the higher vaccination rates, higher excess deaths, or expect it to be even closer to half as good as H1N1, your data might indicate COVID vaccines are actually even safer than other vaccines. Though as I said before, VAERS is not a study and it poorly suited any sort of real, precise comparison.

7. about 2 years ago on Monty

   Just another reminder for everyone that VAERS is not for reporting problems caused by vaccines, it’s for reporting problems that occur after vaccines. There’s a big difference because when you’re vaccinating over half your population, some people will coincidentally have bad things happen to them after getting the vaccine that has nothing to do with the vaccine.

   It can still be useful as a tool to compare to the general population and see if there’s an unusual increase in those events, but thankfully, there are already more thorough studies on the matter.

   Myocarditis is one that’s brought up a lot, largely, because it’s one of the few claims of risk with any truth. There was a very good study I read on that did specifically show a small increase in risk, especially among young me for those who had the Moderna vaccine in particular. Interestingly, for both Pfizer and J&J, the myocarditis risk was actually lower than the general population.

   Although this is speculation, it’s most likely because COVID has been shown to have a higher risk of myocarditis than even the Moderna vaccine. Likely there’s actually some risk of myocarditis from both of those vaccines as well, but reduced chance of catching COVID more than countered that risk to lower the overall number of cases.

8. about 2 years ago on Monty

   Suppressed the immune system. I believe that was the “study” that recently came out that didn’t actually study anything but was just wild speculation on “might” or “could” based on a few bits of cherry picked data.

   It was run by a strongly anti-vax Computer Scientist (not even trained in the right field for the study) and funded by an organization that makes money off of anti-vax lawsuits and right on their front page warns you about your 5G health.

   It’s funny how anti-vaxxers ignore the heaps of large, well-run studies published in highly respected journals showing the safety and efficacy of vaccines, or the ineffectiveness of hydroxychloroquine or Ivermectin as being fake, but latch onto any study, no matter how dubious, that confirms their biases.

9. almost 3 years ago on Monty

   Just compare the number of deaths to COVID to the number of deaths to the vaccines. Fear of the vaccines sounds far more irrational to me.

   COVID isn’t just going to disappear overnight. Your odds of running into someone with it may not be very high today, but it’s hardly unlikely to happen eventually. I think just about everyone knows someone that’s had it by now. My father and two siblings living in different states have all had it.

   And we’ve seen in India how fast it can still flare up again. That’s somewhat less likely to happen in the US right now, but only because so many people are going out and getting vaccinated, greatly cutting the potential for exponential growth.

   That’s right, getting vaccinated helps not just yourself, but everyone you could potentially chain the virus to. I won’t say I’m sacrificing for them, because I’d wager driving to the vaccination site is the most dangerous part of getting the vaccine, so there’s really no sacrifice to speak of involved, but it still feels good to work together to conquer the disease.

   As for what information is invalid, I’m always willing to re-examine what I think I know, but if you’re just going to make claims like that without so much as a hint as to what part is off, it doesn’t give me much to work with.

   As for propaganda, there’s been a strong anti-vax movement long before COVID-19 that will happily fearmonger and spread propaganda for anything vaccine related.

   Sadly, what should have been a non-partisan issue became politicized, and there will be plenty of people on both sides who will dig in and do whatever they can to help “their side” win regardless of the science, so you may want to take your own sources with a grain of salt as well.

10. almost 3 years ago on Monty

    As for your comment on the bet (which you posted while I was writing my reply) absolutely nothing is completely safe.

    We already know any vaccine can cause severe allergic reactions in extreme cases. But I would absolutely bet my life that the vaccines end up being safer than COVID and saving many lives.

    It’s about risk management. It would be silly to eat raw meat because you’re afraid of a house fire if you cook it. This is the same thing.