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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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For people under 20 specifically - for myocarditis from covid infections - here we get "Results: For the 12-17-year-old male cohort, 6/6,846 (0.09%) patients developed myocarditis overall, with an adjusted rate per million of 450 cases (Wilson score interval 206 - 982). For the 12-15 and 16-19 male age groups, the adjusted rates per million were 601 (257 - 1,406) and 561 (240 - 1,313).". This is higher than even your estimate of 1.5/10k. Now, this is comparing 'covid cases' to 'covid vaccination recipients' - which obviously aren't the same, if only 1 in 100 adolescents ever got covid (or, if they all got covid but only the severe cases were counted as 'cases'), that'd mean the vaccine was worse (again assuming those numbers are fine). But they probably are given the large-scale testing etc.

The choice isn't between getting the vaccine and getting Covid, even if you're vaccinated you're almost certainly going to get Covid eventually. So why does this matter at all? It does nothing to show that e.g. getting the vaccine will meaningfully reduce your chances of cardiac injury if you do get Covid, especially if you're young.

It does nothing to show that e.g. getting the vaccine will meaningfully reduce your chances of cardiac injury if you do get Covid, especially if you're young.

I'd strongly expect it to do so in the same way that 'natural immunity' does, though. I don't have any evidence it does that in adolescents, but it intuitively makes sense that it does.

Either way, all of these numbers are just low. Adolescents getting vaccinated doesn't matter much. Either for their covid death risk or their myocarditis risk. Any 'public health' effort focused on that and not mcdonalds or packaged muffins is hilariously wasted.

If you have a specific study on the effects of vaccination on post-Covid cardiac injury, especially among e.g. young men, then please share it.

The effects of the Covid vaccine in reducing the likelihood of infection are distinctly time-limited, and the reduction in symptoms and severity likewise seems to fade with time, but more slowly. The real question is whether the time-averaged reduction is enough to compensate for whatever increase in risk of cardiac injury the vaccine itself induces. And it seems like a legitimate question whether the vaccine helps with cardiac injury if that’s the primary adverse effect it tends to cause. It’s not like there are a bunch of other Covid symptoms the vaccine is associated with too.

This is false.

No, it's not. Large-scale studies, e.g. from Qatar, have found that protection against infection rapidly wanes to around 20% within 6 months. That's negligible. Raw CDC data is totally inadequate, it has no cohort-matching, no time-matching, and no controls.

It depends on what you mean by "fade". [Etc.]

We agree here.

The statistics are very clear that vaccination reduces the odds of negative outcomes from getting COVID, and as has been shown many times in this thread, themselves have less severe outcomes than COVID.

What I said is perfectly compatible with Covid vaccines offering some reduction in your chances of cardiac injury. But the vaccines themselves pose a risk of cardiac injury, so the question is what the combined risk ends up being. And no one in this thread, especially not you, has given any data on that question. This is especially salient because the demographic at most risk of cardiac injury from the vaccine, young men, are among the least at risk from severe Covid symptoms.

The reason it can cause cardiac injury is that it causes an inflammation response.

Oh, silly me, it's an inflammation response. Well, everyone knows that only heart tissues can get inflamed, so that perfectly explains things!

Please explain to me the proposed biological mechanism by which your theory could operate. Does the immune system decide to let the COVID virus run amuck in the hearts of only vaccinated people?

Does the vaccine have some kind of an "immune system training weak spot" that only afflicts interactions between it and cardiac muscle tissues?

If a vaccine messes with a particular tissue that the virus it's supposed to stop also messes with, why should I take that as a positive indicator in favor of its protecting that tissue from the virus, especially if it doesn't induce symptoms of the virus in general besides that?

Just dropping in to say that after the last 2 years I don't think using the CDC as a source has the punch you think it does.