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Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): Conspiracy Theories & Claims

As someone who uses military NBC training as the main source of information... this is a virus where air filtration is needed to ensure safety. Paper masks don't do that.

At any rate, the US CDC used to have figures on their website about the lethality of Covid-19.... Less than 1% and this is NOT factoring out the cases where it's someone listed as a Covid Casualty solely because they were exposed before they died. So the actually figures would be even lower. At that point the figures showed around half the population to get exposed were in fact passive carriers of it, and most of the rest had weak symptoms. Then you add in how we don't actually know the ratio of deaths that are actually due to Covid because the official figures include people who didn't even die of illness.

Sure it's a real virus, and might kill people, but... personal anecdote? More people close to my family have died of the vaccine than the virus. :/
Paper and fabric masks do stop the bigger droplets.

‘One category of evidence comes from laboratory studies of respiratory droplets and the ability of various masks to block them. An experiment using high-speed video found that hundreds of droplets ranging from 20 to 500 micrometers were generated when saying a simple phrase, but that nearly all these droplets were blocked when the mouth was covered by a damp washcloth. Another study of people who had influenza or the common cold found that wearing a surgical mask significantly reduced the amount of these respiratory viruses emitted in droplets and aerosols.’

Taken from here you might want to read it
https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/06/4...s-heres-science-behind-how-face-masks-prevent
 
As someone who uses military NBC training as the main source of information... this is a virus where air filtration is needed to ensure safety. Paper masks don't do that.

At any rate, the US CDC used to have figures on their website about the lethality of Covid-19.... Less than 1% and this is NOT factoring out the cases where it's someone listed as a Covid Casualty solely because they were exposed before they died. So the actually figures would be even lower. At that point the figures showed around half the population to get exposed were in fact passive carriers of it, and most of the rest had weak symptoms. Then you add in how we don't actually know the ratio of deaths that are actually due to Covid because the official figures include people who didn't even die of illness.

Sure it's a real virus, and might kill people, but... personal anecdote? More people close to my family have died of the vaccine than the virus. :/

I'm really sorry but I'm struggling to accept that
 
Paper and fabric masks do stop the bigger droplets.

‘One category of evidence comes from laboratory studies of respiratory droplets and the ability of various masks to block them. An experiment using high-speed video found that hundreds of droplets ranging from 20 to 500 micrometers were generated when saying a simple phrase, but that nearly all these droplets were blocked when the mouth was covered by a damp washcloth. Another study of people who had influenza or the common cold found that wearing a surgical mask significantly reduced the amount of these respiratory viruses emitted in droplets and aerosols.’

Taken from here you might want to read it
https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/06/4...s-heres-science-behind-how-face-masks-prevent
I knew that already. As is said in some circles: "That's a partial solution".

It reduces your exposure, not eliminates it. This level of protection from something that's truly deadly would be woefully inadequate.

I once asked someone what VX smells like... the answer was that nearly everyone who smelled it died before they could record the smell, and those who lived... just didn't remember since they were too ill.

VX is that deadly. But it's not a virus and has a much smaller particle size.

But this approach of a partial solution to protection relies on the concept of acceptable exposure levels. With VX that number is 0, but with stuff like the common cold it's much higher. The methods you discussed for protecting against Covid-19? are.. about as strong as those used for protecting against the Common Cold.
I'm really sorry but I'm struggling to accept that
I could give you names, but the names would mean nothing. So short bios:

First up is a cousin-in-law who got hospitalized for something unrelated and not believed to be life-threatening, and they gave him a vaccine just because he hadn't had one... and he died shortly after.

Second is a friend of the family. He was elderly but otherwise in good health. He got a vax because he was told it was good for him and suddenly had a heart attack shortly after.

Thern there's the mother of my sister's husband. not really sure what killed her, but she was probably exposed to Covid-19, and had some respiratory symptoms.... but also a whole bunch of other health problems that had been getting worse over time.
 
I knew that already. As is said in some circles: "That's a partial solution".

It reduces your exposure, not eliminates it. This level of protection from something that's truly deadly would be woefully inadequate.

I once asked someone what VX smells like... the answer was that nearly everyone who smelled it died before they could record the smell, and those who lived... just didn't remember since they were too ill.

VX is that deadly. But it's not a virus and has a much smaller particle size.

But this approach of a partial solution to protection relies on the concept of acceptable exposure levels. With VX that number is 0, but with stuff like the common cold it's much higher. The methods you discussed for protecting against Covid-19? are.. about as strong as those used for protecting against the Common Cold.

I could give you names, but the names would mean nothing. So short bios:

First up is a cousin-in-law who got hospitalized for something unrelated and not believed to be life-threatening, and they gave him a vaccine just because he hadn't had one... and he died shortly after.

Second is a friend of the family. He was elderly but otherwise in good health. He got a vax because he was told it was good for him and suddenly had a heart attack shortly after.

Thern there's the mother of my sister's husband. not really sure what killed her, but she was probably exposed to Covid-19, and had some respiratory symptoms.... but also a whole bunch of other health problems that had been getting worse over time.
I'm sorry to hear of these losses but that's not empirical evidence, I'm not doubting these events took place but they appear to be tangential the the vaccine, a cousin who was hospitalised and died, someone who was previously healthy but had a heart attack and then finally by your admission you're not sure what killed her but she was "probably" exposed to covid but had a lot of other health problems
 
I'm sorry to hear of these losses but that's not empirical evidence, I'm not doubting these events took place but they appear to be tangential the the vaccine, a cousin who was hospitalised and died, someone who was previously healthy but had a heart attack and then finally by your admission you're not sure what killed her but she was "probably" exposed to covid but had a lot of other health problems
Right, so it's a coincidence that they died a day or so after getting the vax? Sure... whatever. It's a known side effect (that the vax manufacturers publicly admitted to, but claim is super-rare), of that mRNA crap, and the time window fits. You can say it's not "proven", but.. the shoe fits.

Also, the third one is the only person in our family who might have had her health negatively effected as part of the circumstances leading to her death. At this point most of my family has had it probably. Lots of mystery flu symptoms, and then nothing. A few actually had positive antibody tests. But given the way the virus spreads, those we KNOW had it... probably exposed the rest. Which is actually the only reason we have to think my sister's mother-in-law was exposed, my sister tested positive.
 
Right, so it's a coincidence that they died a day or so after getting the vax? Sure... whatever. It's a known side effect (that the vax manufacturers publicly admitted to, but claim is super-rare), of that mRNA crap, and the time window fits. You can say it's not "proven", but.. the shoe fits.
Well to be fair, there have been 10.8 billion doses of the vaccines injected into people. Even if we say that 0.0001% may die from it, that still means over 1 million people will die from it. I know that it doesn't make the loss of a loved one any easier to know that they drew the short straw but I think that's really what it is - really bad luck.

If we gave 10.8 billion doses of alka seltzer out then some people somewhere will die from that too, doesn't mean there's any danger in using alka seltzer.
 
Well to be fair, there have been 10.8 billion doses of the vaccines injected into people. Even if we say that 0.0001% may die from it, that still means over 1 million people will die from it. I know that it doesn't make the loss of a loved one any easier to know that they drew the short straw but I think that's really what it is - really bad luck.

If we gave 10.8 billion doses of alka seltzer out then some people somewhere will die from that too, doesn't mean there's any danger in using alka seltzer.
Enh, maybe, but my original point can be summed up as:
Deaths in family:
Vaccine:2
Virus: 1(maybe)
 
Well to be fair, there have been 10.8 billion doses of the vaccines injected into people. Even if we say that 0.0001% may die from it, that still means over 1 million people will die from it. I know that it doesn't make the loss of a loved one any easier to know that they drew the short straw but I think that's really what it is - really bad luck.

If we gave 10.8 billion doses of alka seltzer out then some people somewhere will die from that too, doesn't mean there's any danger in using alka seltzer.

No one is trying to force you to use Alka seltzer.
 
I'm sorry to hear of these losses but that's not empirical evidence, I'm not doubting these events took place but they appear to be tangential the the vaccine, a cousin who was hospitalised and died, someone who was previously healthy but had a heart attack and then finally by your admission you're not sure what killed her but she was "probably" exposed to covid but had a lot of other health problems

Who are you to minimize Marhawkman's family losses. Sure you start by saying sorry and then "but" your way through the rest of this insult you consider justification.
 
Who are you to minimize Marhawkman's family losses. Sure you start by saying sorry and then "but" your way through the rest of this insult you consider justification.

Mouldy13 did no such thing ... He merely challenged marhawkman's personal interpretation of what caused the losses.
 
No one is trying to force you to use Alka seltzer.

Well no-one is forcing me to get a vaccine, it's a choice here. But I understand your point. Certain countries are making it compulsory. But when the risk factor is so low, it's the greater good for the greater number.

I had 3 jabs and then caught the milder Omicron strain. It knocked me sideways for in total over 3 weeks. I was coughing, wheezing and short of breath to the point of dizziness. I'm convinced that I would have ended up in hospital and possibly died without the vaccines.
 
I could give you names, but the names would mean nothing. So short bios:

First up is a cousin-in-law who got hospitalized for something unrelated and not believed to be life-threatening, and they gave him a vaccine just because he hadn't had one... and he died shortly after.

Second is a friend of the family. He was elderly but otherwise in good health. He got a vax because he was told it was good for him and suddenly had a heart attack shortly after.

Thern there's the mother of my sister's husband. not really sure what killed her, but she was probably exposed to Covid-19, and had some respiratory symptoms.... but also a whole bunch of other health problems that had been getting worse over time.
All of those fit into the same type of category as "died but was covid positive at time if death so we are marking it as covid" that people post in this thread as inflating the number of covid deaths.

In these case it's "died but had the jab so we are marking it as vaccine caused". It is the same causation error.
 
Enh, maybe, but my original point can be summed up as:
Deaths in family:
Vaccine:2
Virus: 1(maybe)
You’re claiming covid deaths are inflated because they died with covid, not because of it.
Then go on to claim vaccinations killed 2 people , without any evidence or causal factor.
Two people , one of whom was elderly and had a heart attack, out of the blue. That’s how heart attacks generally happen.
The other was already in hospital, so was ill, then died after getting the vaccine.
That doesn’t mean it killed them.

Your logic is flawed and one sided.

Also, frankly , I don’t believe a word of it.
 
All of those fit into the same type of category as "died but was covid positive at time if death so we are marking it as covid" that people post in this thread as inflating the number of covid deaths.

In these case it's "died but had the jab so we are marking it as vaccine caused". It is the same causation error.
Is it? The difference is time. Getting a vax and dying withing a day or two after is quite sus. And in this case is a known side effect.

The question is the cause of death in both cases. The vax doesn't directly kill you. It causes a heart attack, which in elderly people is common enough that it may get written off as natural causes. It got added as a side effect of the vax because of cases where there was no logical reason for the person to die of a heart attack, IE relatively young people with no pre-existing conditions.

Doing an autopsy to figure out IF it was the vax? Good luck with that. You could rule out other causes, but the specific mechanism in play here would be hard to find. "positive" prof is... reliant on testing to find incredibly tiny details.

Which leads into the flaw in your argument. The reason the inflated numbers thing got brought up so many times is because of the primary cause of death in cases being unrelated to illness (Covid or otherwise) in some cases. IE it didn't logically make sense. To go back to the shoe analogy "the shoe didn't fit".

In this case, the cause of death AND timing match a known risk. The shoe fits, as the saying goes. Is it "possible" it was a coincidence? Maybe... but.... one hell of a coincidence and it happened twice.
 
You’re claiming covid deaths are inflated because they died with covid, not because of it.
Then go on to claim vaccinations killed 2 people , without any evidence or causal factor.
Two people , one of whom was elderly and had a heart attack, out of the blue. That’s how heart attacks generally happen.
The other was already in hospital, so was ill, then died after getting the vaccine.
That doesn’t mean it killed them.

Your logic is flawed and one sided.

Also, frankly , I don’t believe a word of it.
You know what, just because you pissed me off. Answer me this, what would you consider valid proof? I'm serious. You dismiss the evidence I presented as "flawed". Ok... Tell me what you think would be non-flawed.
 
Is it? The difference is time. Getting a vax and dying withing a day or two after is quite sus. And in this case is a known side effect. ...

No, it's not ... There are multiple studies and reviews of studies that have concluded the mRNA COVID vaccines do not increase the risk of a true heart attack (myocardial infarction). The rumor that there was such a risk originated with over-extrapolation of results from a preliminary (non-peer reviewed) abstract for a study published some time ago - an abstract that has since been revised to clarify that the specific results others claimed to indicate a heightened risk of myocardial infarction did not in fact indicate any such thing.

This January 2022 article is the most recent one I can find explaining what happened to generate the rumor:
There’s not currently any credible evidence that the COVID-19 vaccine increases your risk of a heart attack.
These concerns initially came about due to an abstract in the journal Circulation, which is published by the American Heart Association.
This abstract presented a short summary of preliminary research that had not yet been peer reviewed by other scientists. ...
https://www.healthline.com/health/covid-vaccine-heart-attack#heart-attack-risk

The mRNA vaccines are associated with myocarditis (an inflammation of the heart tissue), which is overwhelmingly documented as almost always temporary and limited to significantly younger males (adolescents and young adults).

In any case, even the myocarditis inflammation side effect and others aren't documented as being evident in as little as the "day or two" you cite for the two patients' deaths. Documented instances of myocarditis attributed to mRNA immune system reactions aren't reliably detectable until up to 2 - 4 weeks following the injection.

Furthermore, such myocarditis most often occurs following the second - not the first - injection.

On the other hand, there are two issues which could lead to a cursory diagnosis of a heart attack (though still not attributable to mRNA reaction in the space of 1 - 2 days following a first injection):

(1) Misdiagnosis of a sudden heart failure as a true myocardial infarction when it was really what's sometimes called a myocardial infarction of type 2 (a sudden heart failure mimicking a heart attack but not actually the result of impaired O2 supply to the heart tissues).

(2) A sudden heart failure resulting from stress or any of a number of pre-existing cardiovascular conditions - most especially hypertension or any of a number of cardiovascular diseases.
 
You know what, just because you pissed me off. Answer me this, what would you consider valid proof? I'm serious. You dismiss the evidence I presented as "flawed". Ok... Tell me what you think would be non-flawed.

There are some background facts you didn't provide that would help set the context:

- the ages of the two older men who died;
- their specific histories of cardiovascular issues;
- which specific vaccine(s) they were given;
- whether they died after a first or second injection;
- whether they'd been previously infected with the COVID virus; and
- what other issues / conditions either of them was being treated for.
 
There are some background facts you didn't provide that would help set the context:

- the ages of the two older men who died;
- their specific histories of cardiovascular issues;
- which specific vaccine(s) they were given;
- whether they died after a first or second injection;
- whether they'd been previously infected with the COVID virus; and
- what other issues / conditions either of them was being treated for.
Hmm reasonable, but I don't have most of it since neither was someone I was close enough to to have that info.
 
You know what, just because you pissed me off. Answer me this, what would you consider valid proof? I'm serious. You dismiss the evidence I presented as "flawed". Ok... Tell me what you think would be non-flawed.
Validity and reliability are both necessary to draw useful conclusions. I routinely read or hear people use these terms without understanding their meaning – or, even worse, think that they are interchangeable. In the normal course of experimental design, validity is necessary before one works on reliability, because if a poor linkage exists between your goal and your data, then any reliability is meaningless.

Validity pertains to the degree of logical linkage between the goal of your measurement and what you actually measure. So, for example, if you are looking at obesity and lifespans, you would not look at favorite colors of clothing of the persons in your data set, because this is not a valid measurement.

Reliability pertains to the degree of error in the measurement. There are a couple of aspects which nonscientists usually don’t think about: 1. minimum numbers needed for useful conclusions: statistics in this case since I am unaware of population parameters for covid and its vaccines; and 2. The measurement tools’ precision and accuracy.

Internal and external consistencies are other concepts which are important in designing research, especially in social sciences or medicine, because they address potential errors in the analysis of the data.

What would be required for drawing useful conclusions from your personal data set is more specific information about the cause of death and documented, actual comorbidities for the two dead persons. This specific information would come from autopsies, perhaps autopsies looking very specifically for the markers of types of vaccine reactions. If you do not have this information, you can draw NO useful conclusions. You can conjecture and perhaps suspect a linkage, but you cannot present a credible, testable hypothesis.

So, when you extrapolated from your personal very small sample set (N = 2. Two persons, with incompletely known comorbidities or cause of death!) to the billions of persons who may get covid or get the vaccine or both, this is flawed logic. It is flawed both in terms of validity and reliability.

Science is fucking hard work. It requires expertise in the specific area of inquiry. It also requires the scientist to know, acknowledge, and plan for, one’s own inadequacies.

Well, EG beat me to the posts, as usual :)
His requesting background facts in post #2658 is addressing the points I made about specific information being needed before drawing useful conclusions.
 
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Validity and reliability are both necessary to draw useful conclusions. I routinely read or hear people use these terms without understanding their meaning – or, even worse, think that they are interchangeable. In the normal course of experimental design, validity is necessary before one works on reliability, because if a poor linkage exists between your goal and your data, then any reliability is meaningless.

Validity pertains to the degree of logical linkage between the goal of your measurement and what you actually measure. So, for example, if you are looking at obesity and lifespans, you would not look at favorite colors of clothing of the persons in your data set, because this is not a valid measurement.

Reliability pertains to the degree of error in the measurement. There are a couple of aspects which nonscientists usually don’t think about: 1. minimum numbers needed for useful conclusions: statistics in this case since I am unaware of population parameters for covid and its vaccines; and 2. The measurement tools’ precision and accuracy.

Internal and external consistencies are other concepts which are important in designing research, especially in social sciences or medicine, because they address potential errors in the analysis of the data.

What would be required for drawing useful conclusions from your personal data set is more specific information about the cause of death and documented, actual comorbidities for the two dead persons. This specific information would come from autopsies, perhaps autopsies looking very specifically for the markers of types of vaccine reactions. If you do not have this information, you can draw NO useful conclusions. You can conjecture and perhaps suspect a linkage, but you cannot present a credible, testable hypothesis.

So, when you extrapolated from your personal very small sample set (N = 2. Two persons, with incompletely known comorbidities or cause of death!) to the billions of persons who may get covid or get the vaccine or both, this is flawed logic. It is flawed both in terms of validity and reliability.

Science is fucking hard work. It requires expertise in the specific area of inquiry. It also requires the scientist to know, acknowledge, and plan for, one’s own inadequacies.
So, (related to reliability) you're saying the sample size is too small to matter? Um... that's not in question though. population percentage is not part of the discussion at all.

Ok, classifying this as conjecture, fair, but, at the same time, is there a competing conjecture more likely to be true?
 
So, (related to reliability) you're saying the sample size is too small to matter? Um... that's not in question though. population percentage is not part of the discussion at all.

Ok, classifying this as conjecture, fair, but, at the same time, is there a competing conjecture more likely to be true?
Competing conjectures – duelling conjectures – are endless, both in science and in laymen’s world. Although I am a scientist, I am a scientist in a very well-defined area of expertise – meaning that I am not qualified to offer an informed opinion about most research.

I suspect that there are millions of competing conjectures. Without good evidence, they really don’t matter. I think that one can inadvertently do harm by presenting a conjecture (argument) based on incomplete information and small sample sizes.

You have promoted the “suspicion” that vaccines cause deaths. What you term population percentage is implied in your arguments.

What EG has presented seems to me to be a better (fits the facts) conjecture.

If you wish to continue this discussion, I would request that you present your reasons why you think a sample size of 2 (!!!) is not related to problems with reliability.
 
So, (related to reliability) you're saying the sample size is too small to matter? Um... that's not in question though. population percentage is not part of the discussion at all.

Ok, classifying this as conjecture, fair, but, at the same time, is there a competing conjecture more likely to be true?
To take it to its ‘n’th degree you are effectively claiming that you know two people who ate a banana for the first time in their lives then got hit by a bus.
Therefore bananas are lethal.
 
To take it to its ‘n’th degree you are effectively claiming that you know two people who ate a banana for the first time in their lives then got hit by a bus.
Therefore bananas are lethal.
Interesting way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is: this guy died, how many possible causes of death are there that haven't been ruled out already?
 
Competing conjectures – duelling conjectures – are endless, both in science and in laymen’s world. Although I am a scientist, I am a scientist in a very well-defined area of expertise – meaning that I am not qualified to offer an informed opinion about most research.

I suspect that there are millions of competing conjectures. Without good evidence, they really don’t matter. I think that one can inadvertently do harm by presenting a conjecture (argument) based on incomplete information and small sample sizes.

You have promoted the “suspicion” that vaccines cause deaths. What you term population percentage is implied in your arguments.

What EG has presented seems to me to be a better (fits the facts) conjecture.

If you wish to continue this discussion, I would request that you present your reasons why you think a sample size of 2 (!!!) is not related to problems with reliability.
Mnnnn, carefulyl considered this and.... no.

Why?

Because you're telling me to defend a position I didn't make. I posted a personal experience and explained how I came to a conclusion. If you disagree? Ok... so? I don't have any illusions that you'd actually agree if I did what you say.... not that I COULD, and I suspect that's why you demanded it.
 
I saw a tweet earlier which was from the Reddit Conspiracy thread.

Basically it said that there is a theory the alien greys are actually humans from the future after some kind of DNA disaster left them looking like that and infertile. The reason they visit us and abduct people is to harvest DNA for research and reproductive purposes.

Now, bear with me, this is where it gets good.

The person, having presented all this, goes on to speculate what if the DNA disaster that resulted in us turning infertile and looking like the greys was the mRNA vaccine!

Truly, the special ones walk among us.
 
I saw a tweet earlier which was from the Reddit Conspiracy thread.

Basically it said that there is a theory the alien greys are actually humans from the future after some kind of DNA disaster left them looking like that and infertile. The reason they visit us and abduct people is to harvest DNA for research and reproductive purposes.

Now, bear with me, this is where it gets good.

The person, having presented all this, goes on to speculate what if the DNA disaster that resulted in us turning infertile and looking like the greys was the mRNA vaccine!

Truly, the special ones walk among us.
Hmmm this is... less silly than some of the stuff out there though.
 
Apparantly there's some kind of new conspiracy afoot. The Wuhan lab leak theory dates apparantly dont line up with cases recorded outside of China in 2019.

As someone who is most definitely not a virologist but thought the lab leak was a credible idea I can honestly say I have no idea.
 
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