The actual numbers no longer matter ... remember that deaths have already exceeded all the projections, and there are many more to come.
Also exceeded the atomic bomb deaths from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which was considered a pretty big deal back then.
And exceeded World War II deaths in the US in raw numbers. If you consider excess deaths (the 900,000+ estimate) then it's clear that even
per capita the US just took a bigger hit than we did in World War II
even per capita, and that was in 15 or 16 months, not over the course of years.
Also, it's called the VAERS database, not VARES! Science is often messier than we'd like to admit, and sure, typically, VAERS will understate deaths, because it's a passive system and relies on spontaneous reporting. This isn't news, it's something anyone with a postgraduate or even graduate degree in health care or hard sciences should know. It's a methodological problem; sometimes it's exploited by Big Pharma selling snake oil, but not always. It depends who is doing the research, and how shady they are. The people who shilled for drugs like SSRIs in medical journals, and who have actively worked for decades to suppress access to abandoned clinical trials that demonstrated severe adverse effects, are very different from the folks who developed the vaccine over the past year.
My own back-of-the-envelope is that while adverse reactions to the vaccine-- including death-- are likely considerably higher than reported, the vaccine is still
by far the safest bet for most people. I encourage rougly 90% of my own clients to speak to their primary care providers and see if they are eligible.
When I have a client who is a cancer survivor, or who has MS or Lupus or Lyme disease, my approach is a bit different. Since I'm a psychotherapist, I cannot give medical advice about a treatment, but my scope of practice does allow me to provide education and referrals, and I strongly encourage clients to contact their
specialists, and not to be afraid to ask hard questions. It hasn't happened with the vaccine yet, but when a doctor is pushing a drug or a dosage that seems unreasonable to me, I do sometimes ask for a release to speak with that doctor so they can explain it to me. I have been known to stand at a nursing station with my arms folded across my chest, and demand that a physician or nurse explain why a particular medication is prescribed for one of my hospitalized clients.
There is a learning curve to this. It is starting to seem like cancer survivors and folks on immunosuppressive drugs may not be at much elevated risk. I am frustrated that it's taking so long to identify the patients who might be at risk of severe side effects-- particularly for blood clots. I do understand why it's hard-- even if VAERS is off by an order of magnitude, 30,000 deaths would still be a pretty small population for research purposes, and we don't know what medical conditions or side effects we are looking for. In human terms, 30,000 or 3,000, it's still a lot of people-- and we should look out for them.
One thing encourages me: When I search for information about my own illness and the vaccine online, I almost always stumble across requests to join clinical trials. So I do think we're learning more, but it may take a while.
Personally, I believe that those who cannot take the vaccine, or who have credible medical reasons for choosing not to take it, have a particular obligation to continue distancing and mask up. I no longer wear a mask on most trails, but I always carry one, and when it's crowded, I wear it. I wear a P100 respirator whenever I go inside a public place-- and I filter the exhaust valve as best I can from the inside. I don't take public transportation or eat in restaurants. This is for my own protection, for the protection of others,
and for the protection of animals. I am concerned that some new variants have spread among minks, dogs, cats, mice, and chimps, among other species.
I also believe that what's happening in Brazil and Delhi could happen here. What I fear most is a variant with a longer incubation period-- that could be an ELE, extinction level event, and I don't see why that couldn't happen.
I agree that the war metaphor. Let's all stand together-- and go kick ass.
