Hi mhaze,
I guess the question you're asking is whether the vaccine did more harm than good.

Risks of harm caused by vaccine V's Risks of harm from Covid prevented by vaccine.
- It may have depended on the individual, their age and level of immunity.

As you know I did not take the vaccine or the boosters.
I made it clear I did not want Covid, and I did not want the vaccine either.
I did eventually get Covid though, twice I think.

My position was basically that people should have the right to decide for themselves whether they want the vaccine, and be free from discrimination.
But with that, comes a higher responsibility to protect yourself and others so I wasn't all that opposed to the mask mandates, though I'm not sure how well the masks actually worked.
Thankfully we only had lockdowns for very short periods in Brisbane.

I was totally opposed to the vaccines myself and openly shared that view, but I also thought it was understandable if an older Australians with a lower immunity were less worried about the vaccine than they were about the coronavirus.

I thought and hoped I was still young / healthy enough to survive Covid, so thought the vaccine was an unnecessary added risk with too many unknowns.

People were not treated with respect or dignity, it was all about vaccine rates and targets, reaching herd immunity, coercion including blaming the unvaccinated like they were putting everyone else at risk and there was not a balance between respecting peoples own choices and protecting the population.

I imagine it would've been a totally different experience being in full lockdown for months on end.

"That’s my error on sequencing. The substantive point still stands, though."

Oh, so the facts change but the conclusions don't? Words fail me.

AC,

There is little doubt that the vaccine was efficacious in reducing the severity of the disease if someone caught it. But it didn't stop that someone from passing the disease around; probably didn't even reduce the likelihood that they'd pass it on.

The problem with the vaccine is that it wasn't entirely safe, despite what they originally told us. Giving it to people who were genuinely at risk from the virus was correct on a cost-benefit basis ie the benefit of having it was greater than the potential costs of it being unsafe.

But that was reversed for the majority of the population. Basically anyone under 60 who was in reasonable health was safe from the virus even if they caught it. It wasn't going to kill them. But the vaccine might. This was especially the case for children unless they had significant underlying health issue.

That is why the targeted lockdown policies of places like Sweden were the right call. Sequester the truly vulnerable while the rest of the population developed a societal herd immunity.

"I did not take the vaccine or the boosters."

Personally I had the shot and one booster. Not because I believed in it but because, at the time, I had my two parents in lockdown facilities (one in hospital, one in a nursing home) and couldn't get into to see them without the vaccine certificate. So love of parents overrode fear of the vaccine. Additionally I had a wife who was recovering from chemo and was therefore immuno-compromised and as such we created our own lockdown. She spent eight months without ever coming into contact with anyone but me.

I never caught the virus, one of the 20% of people who never did.

"That is why the targeted lockdown policies of places like Sweden were the right call. Sequester the truly vulnerable while the rest of the population developed a societal herd immunity."

Yes that's true, they focussed too much on vaccination targets when they should've been focusing on a plan to protect the vulnerable in a way that bought time to manage the situation better.

And I only just thought of it now, but I wonder maybe instead of ensuring health workers were vaccinated, maybe just as important was to have the people looking after the elderly and vulnerable be health care workers who had already caught Covid and had developed some natural immunity.

"Personally I had the shot and one booster. Not because I believed in it but because, at the time, I had my two parents in lockdown facilities (one in hospital, one in a nursing home) and couldn't get into to see them without the vaccine certificate. So love of parents overrode fear of the vaccine."

No-one can criticise you for willfully putting yourself at risk of harm to be there for elderly parents.
It's kind-of unfair you were forced to make that choice.
Many people were coerced into jabbing their kids, and some ended up with side effects, I'd hate to be a parent that carries that guilt.

No, mhaze, the chronology changed. The methodological point did not.

The Bulgarian Medicine piece predates the 2026 paper. That was my sequencing error.

But whether the author used cautious language in 2024 or stronger language in 2026, the evidentiary question is the same:

What in the 2026 methodology justifies moving from ecological correlation to “near-certainty”?

Correcting a date doesn’t alter the standard of evidence required for that conclusion.

If you believe it does, explain how.

"I never caught the virus, one of the 20% of people who never did."
- Well you definitely didn't need the shots then.
You must have some kind of natural super-immunity, I wonder why that is and whether they should've been studying people like yourself.

They came out with the vaccine too quick and they hadn't even sequenced the virus properly yet at the time I think, then I looked up and saw that it was actually an experimental gene therapy not a vaccine per se, and it just didn't feel right to me.
Especially since I felt like the WHO was too slow in labeling it a pandemic and it had already spread to many countries.
Denying people ivermectin.

Also I already knew about the lab closures at Fort Detrick, as well as the nursing home deaths in Maryland, the reports of this unknown suspicious respiratory condition linked to vaping, and on top of that, Event 201.

Interestingly, Garland mentioned some of these things a couple weeks back..

With all the stuff I'd heard already before it really took hold here in Australia, I was just too suss on the whole thing, and I didn't buy into the Chinese 'wet market' story either.

There were just too many red flags, and my internal bs detector was sounding off an alarm to not trust it.

- tempted to listen to it again..

COVID ORIGINS - SOME VERY INTERESTING EVIDENCE
http://www.youtube.com/live/JxJ1UXfd6as