TallGuyJohninBKK

No, the 86% is just the portion who did NOT report having Long COVID at some point... You're missing the overall 47% in the survey who reported they had had COVID... And of course, the 1.1 million Americans who weren't around anymore to answer the survey because they had already died from COVID.

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No, that's not what that means. Because, for starters, a sizeable portion of the 1.1 million U.S. COVID deaths occurred during 2020 before COVID vaccines became widely available in 2021... "The final, official tally of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. for 2020 was 350,831." https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/podcasts/2022/20220107/20220107.htm And then after that, sizeable portions of the U.S. public both a] either didn't complete primary vaccinations at all (30%), and didn't get the subsequent booster shots needed to combat subsequent COVID variants (83%), and b] sizeable portions of the U.S. public resisted/ignored common-sense, recommended protective measures like face masking and social distancing. So the bottom line is, lots of Americans never did fully follow the various measures aimed at protecting them from COVID that, while not providing any 100% guarantees, certainly helped substantially reduce the COVID risk for those who did follow them. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-people-booster-percent-pop5

For U.S. issued bank cards, the federal consumer protection rules regarding fraudulent debit card transactions are very similar to those covering credit cards, so long as the cardholder notifies the card issuing entity promptly upon become aware of the fraud. By law, the debit card holder MIGHT be on the hook for the first $50 of a fraudulent transaction, though in my experience banks often don't pursue that, whereas a US VISA or MC cardholder typically would have zero liability. "In most cases, federal law limits your liability for unauthorized debit card purchases to $50, provided you report the fraud within two business days of discovering it. If you report debit card fraud after two business days, but less than 60 calendar days after receiving your account statement, you could be liable for up to $500. If you don't report the fraud within 60 calendar days of receiving your statement, you could be liable for any amount stolen from your account." Note that the 2-day reference is NOT 2 business days from the occurrence of the fraud, but rather, two business days after the cardholder becomes aware of the fraud. https://www.usnews.com/banking/articles/are-debit-cards-protected-from-fraud

With credit and debit cards, it depends on the banking laws/rules in the country where the card was issued. Thailand has very little legally enforced national consumer protection against fraudulent credit and debit card charges. But U.S. issued VISA and MCs have total or almost total protection against fraudulent transactions that's written into federal law and enforced, as long as the cardholder notifies the card issuer promptly after becoming aware of the fraud.

"One in seven people in the US reported having had long COVID by the end of 2022, suggests a large-scale investigation of long COVID and symptom prevalence by academics at UCL and Dartmouth. Having had long COVID is associated with anxiety and low mood, as well as an increased likelihood of continued physical mobility problems and challenges with memory, concentration or understanding, according to the findings published in PLOS ONE. ... The researchers found that nearly half (47%) of people surveyed reported having had COVID-19 at some point, while 14% of the total had had long COVID at some point, half of whom (7% of the total) still had long COVID symptoms when answering the survey." (more) https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-11-americans-covid.html At least 14% of Americans have had long COVID Peer-Reviewed Publication University College London ... "The researchers reviewed data from 461,550 people who responded to the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey from June to December 2022. They were comparing people who said they had never had Covid-19, with those who had had a Covid-19 infection without lingering symptoms, and those who currently or previously had long Covid. In line with the World Health Organization (WHO), they defined long Covid as the continuation or development of new symptoms at least three months after the initial infection." https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1006678 Also: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/study-1-7-americans-have-had-long-covid

Report spotlights 52 US doctors who posted potentially harmful COVID misinformation online August 17, 2023 "Two new studies describe a couple sources of the COVID-19 "infodemic" on social media: US physicians and proponents and practitioners of "doing your own research." Vaccine untruths, conspiracy theories A mixed-methods study published yesterday in JAMA Network Open finds that 52 physicians practicing in 28 different specialties across the United States propagated COVID-19 misinformation on vaccines, masks, and conspiracy theories on social media and other online platforms from January 2021 to December 2022. ... They noted that about a third of the more than 1.1 million reported COVID-19 deaths in the United States as of January 18, 2023, were considered preventable if public health recommendations such as vaccination and physical distancing had been followed." (more) https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/report-spotlights-52-us-doctors-who-posted-potentially-harmful-covid-misinformation-online

A medical tribunal, sitting in Manchester, found that her actions fell below standards expected of a doctor A doctor who had claimed medical profession and government agents had schemed against her after she publicly called into question Covid jabs for young people has been suspended for a further six months. ... The tribunal found that Dr McCloskey's actions fell below standards expected of a registered doctor and that this amounted to misconduct, which was considered serious. ... She was suspended after her comments, including that young people were being coerced, bullied, bribed and cajoled into receiving the vaccine, attracted a number of complaints. (more) https://www.sundayworld.com/news/irish-news/derry-doctor-who-called-covid-jab-into-question-suspended-for-further-six-months/a682511071.html Background: GP gets 6-month suspension for 'vitriolic' Covid jab comments A tribunal said her comments risked undermining public faith in other medics ... "Londonderry-based Dr Mary McCloskey claimed the pandemic was a 'figment' of the media and the Government and that jabs don't work and were killing people. She also claimed tests and face masks were being used as a psychological weapons to spread fear and experts were 'laughing' at the public via how they named variants of the virus. In one of her most inflammatory statements on Covid vaccines, she claimed parents were being 'told to line up our children to get something that might kill them, to protect them from something that can’t kill them'." (more) https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/health-news/gp-gets-6-month-suspension-for-vitriolic-covid-jab-comments/ar-AA1jjNFs Note - various of the news reports on this indicate the doctor originally in September 2021 had been given an 18 month interim suspension by authorities, so this latest action added an additional 6 months term. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-foyle-west-58667747

Re the J&J vaccine, yes, and that showed that the vaccine safety monitoring system in the U.S. is and was working, that vaccine-related deaths in the U.S. have been minimal, and that the absurd survey results reported in the OP are pure nonsense. But several more things to know: 1. As opposed to 1.1 million official deaths due to COVID in the U.S., and about 100,000 normal thrombosis blood clotting deaths in the U.S. per year, the impact of the J&J vaccine blood clots issue was as follows: May 17, 2023 "The Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) COVID-19 vaccine is no longer available in the U.S." "...an updated safety analysis showed that, as of March 18, out of more than 18 million people who got J&J, 60 cases of TTS were reported and nine people died.... The risk appears to be greatest—1 in 100,000—in women ages 30 to 49." "The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, both of which are mRNA vaccines and use a different method to protect against the virus, have not been linked to blood clots at this time." https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/coronavirus-vaccine-blood-clots And 2. separate research also has shown that getting COVID the illness actually leads to higher rates and risks of the same kind of blood clotting that getting other COVID vaccines. April 14, 2023 "BUFFALO, N.Y. – A study led by University at Buffalo researchers has confirmed that contrary to claims by anti-vaccine proponents, COVID-19 [mRNA] vaccines pose only trivial risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE), or blood clots. In addition, the study found that becoming infected with COVID-19 poses a significant risk of blood clots. https://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2023/04/015.html AND And the higher risk issue with the J&J vaccine doesn't extend to the mRNA vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna: Do COVID-19 vaccines cause blood clots too? Feb. 16, 2023 "The mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna do not have the same association with blood clots, Das explains. "If anything, the vaccine is going to be protective (against blood clots) because it's going to decrease the severity of infection," Das says. "So there's absolutely no question in my mind — we'll be better off being vaccinated." https://www.today.com/health/coronavirus/covid-blood-clots-warning-signs-rcna70086

The Bangkok Beef operation run by the owner of Sunrise Tacos is a great deal. They have quality beef of all different cuts imported from Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S., primarily -- at much better prices than you'll find in the supermarkets. They'll ship here as desired, but are located in BKK Soi 10 and purchases can be picked up there. They also have various related products like large baked potatoes, sliced pickled jalapenos and more. Contact by FB Messenger and pay by bank transfer or cash. Product list with prices available on their FB page.

Andrew Bridgen... wow... now you're really plumbing the depths of the anti-vax rubbish pile. Andrew Bridgen wrong to call mRNA vaccines gene therapy "Andrew Bridgen MP, who we have fact checked before for his false and misleading claims on vaccines, has repeatedly wrongly described the Covid-19 mRNA vaccines as “gene therapy”. He has made at least eight references to gene therapy or therapies on Twitter in regard to the mRNA vaccines since the start of the year. Describing the mRNA vaccines as “gene therapy” is a common form of vaccine misinformation. https://fullfact.org/health/andrew-bridgen-gene-therapy-vaccines/ "Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen made a number of claims about the safety and efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines during a ’Vaccines: Potential Harms’ adjournment debate he raised in the House of Commons on 13 December. Some of these claims were missing important context, so we’ve fact checked four of them in detail. We have previously fact checked Mr Bridgen’s claims about Covid-19 vaccines twice in recent weeks—once when he made an inaccurate claim at Prime Minister’s Questions about vaccines during pregnancy and breastfeeding, and separately during a larger debate on Covid-19 vaccines." https://fullfact.org/health/andrew-bridgen-vaccine-safety-debate/ "In the UK, the most obvious recent proponent of the anti-vaccine conspiracy theory has been former Conservative Party (now Reclaim Party) MP Andrew Bridgen, who has also claimed he knows that the Covid virus was designed in a specific US military lab (not, I hasten to add, a Chinese one; and it’s the same US lab, just coincidentally, that conspiracy theorists in the 80s claimed was the source of the HIV virus)." https://inews.co.uk/news/covid-vaccines-not-linked-excess-deaths-anti-vaxxers-believe-2342492 Tory MP slammed for repeating debunked COVID vaccine claims Updated 8 December 2022 "A Conservative MP has been criticised after repeating a debunked claim that mRNA vaccines are not recommended for pregnant women or those who are breastfeeding. Tory MP Andrew Bridgen made the unsubstantiated claim while criticising the health regulator's decision to authorise a COVID-19 vaccine for children aged six months to four years old. The NHS, The Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists and The British Fertility Society all support pregnant women getting COVID-19 vaccines and say they are "strongly recommended in pregnancy"." https://uk.news.yahoo.com/tory-mp-andrew-bridgen-covid-vaccine-192457505.html Andrew Bridgen has whip suspended for ‘spreading Covid vaccine misinformation’ 11 Jan 2023 "Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen has been suspended from the Tory party after comparing the Covid-19 vaccine to the Holocaust. Tory Chief Whip Simon Hart said: ‘Andrew Bridgen has crossed a line, causing great offence in the process. ‘As a nation, we should be very proud of what has been achieved through the vaccine programme. The vaccine is the best defence against COVID that we have." https://metro.co.uk/2023/01/11/andrew-bridgen-has-whip-suspended-for-spreading-covid-vaccine-misinformation-18079201/ Andrew Bridgen: What has suspended MP said about vaccines? " in recent months, he has made increasingly misleading statements about vaccine safety. ... In December 2022, Mr Bridgen called in Parliament for a "complete suspension" of Covid vaccines based on what he described as, "robust data of significant harms and little ongoing benefit". This went against the overwhelming weight of evidence, from a number of different independent teams of researchers, that found that Covid vaccines' benefits far outweigh any known harms." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64237949 etc etc etc...

Why??? "False and misleading information about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines on social media often exaggerates the frequency and severity of side effects. Misinformation also wrongly attributes unrelated medical events to the vaccines. ... False information on COVID-19 vaccine safety is dangerous and can contribute to the growing problem of vaccine hesitancy. It can also affect trust in other life-saving routine childhood vaccinations." ICMRA statement on the safety of COVID-19 vaccines (International Coalition of Medicines Regulatory Authorities) https://icmra.info/drupal/strategicinitiatives/vaccines/safety_statement https://icmra.info/drupal/sites/default/files/2022-10/icmra_fact_sheet.pdf

Not for treatment of or prevention of COVID, which is the subject here: Here’s What You Need to Know about Ivermectin The FDA has not authorized or approved ivermectin for use in preventing or treating COVID-19 in humans or animals. Ivermectin is approved for human use to treat infections caused by some parasitic worms and head lice and skin conditions like rosacea." https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/why-you-should-not-use-ivermectin-treat-or-prevent-covid-19

The answer is the same, either way, even for mRNA vaccines: 5 Reasons We Know The COVID-19 Vaccines Don't Have Long-Term Health Effects February 1, 2022 "2. Neither mRNA technology—nor viral vector technology—is new. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine was created using viral vector technology, which has already safely been used in Ebola vaccines. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were created using messenger RNA (or mRNA) technology, which has been used for about 10 years in cancer treatment, with no long-term effects detected." AND "5. The mRNA vaccines might feel futuristic, but their ingredients actually are not. Almost all of the ingredients in the COVID-19 vaccines are ingredients found in foods: fats, sugars and salts, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)." https://www.henryford.com/blog/2022/02/5-reasons-we-know-the-covid-vaccines-dont-have-longterm-effects

November 1, 2023 (CNN) -- Vaccine misinformation, which first began spiraling during the Covid-19 pandemic, has grown in the United States in the years since, according to a new survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. ... The percentage of Americans who believe that vaccines are approved for use in the US are safe dropped 6 percentage points since April 2021 to 71%, while the share of adults who don’t think the approved vaccines are safe nearly doubled in the same time frame – increasing from 9% to 16%. “There are warning signs in these data that we ignore at our peril,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center and director of the survey, in a news release. “Growing numbers now distrust health-protecting, life-saving vaccines.” (more) https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/01/health/vaccine-misinformation-survey/index.html Vaccine Confidence Falls as Belief in Health Misinformation Grows "Americans have less confidence in vaccines to address a variety of illnesses than they did just a year or two ago, and more people accept misinformation about vaccines and Covid-19, according to the latest health survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania. ... Despite concerted efforts by news organizations, public health officials, scientists, and fact-checkers (including APPC’s project FactCheck.org) to counter viral misinformation about vaccination and Covid-19, the survey finds that some false or unproven claims about them are more widely accepted today than two to three years ago. Although the proportion of the American public that holds these beliefs is, in some cases, still relatively small, the survey finds growth in misinformation acceptance across many questions touching on vaccination." https://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/vaccine-confidence-falls-as-belief-in-health-misinformation-grows/

‘We were going to be great’: UK’s Covid failings laid bare in week of damning testimony Evidence from Downing Street insiders during inquiry paints devastating picture of response to pandemic "As Italy took the drastic step of imposing a nationwide lockdown in early March 2020, senior officials in Downing Street sat “laughing” as Britain’s European neighbour desperately tried to contain the spread of Covid-19. The revelation came as a series of damning testimonies to the UK’s official pandemic inquiry this week laid bare a “toxic” and “macho” culture at the heart of government that hampered Britain’s response to the health crisis. In the weeks before the UK’s first lockdown, with the country unprepared for the pandemic, then prime minister Boris Johnson, other ministers and Whitehall mandarins went on holiday, the inquiry heard." https://www.ft.com/content/791e6d5e-c42a-4012-b159-299aad34bc36

Regarding Cahill, Owl's hero: Video: Irish Professor Makes Unfounded Claims About Long-Term Effects of mRNA Vaccines Posted on August 10, 2021 | Updated on February 10, 2022 "while the vaccines were developed quickly in response to the pandemic, they have been proven to be safe and effective not only in standard clinical trials but in real-world conditions. Contrary to those facts and without any evidence, Dolores Cahill — a professor in Ireland who until recently was the chair of the right-wing Irish Freedom Party — baselessly claimed in a viral video that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines will cause widespread deaths in the coming years. ... But there is no medical evidence for such claims." https://www.factcheck.org/2021/08/scicheck-video-irish-professor-makes-unfounded-claims-about-long-term-effects-of-mrna-vaccines/

And CNN and others have commented on Rasmussen's questionable polling methods in the past: "CNN doesn’t report results from Rasmussen because they conduct automated polls incorporating interactive voice response (IVR) that don’t meet our polling standards. (IVR just means an automated voice conducts the poll rather than a human being.) The main issue with IVR polling is who is being called, who responds and whether the overall sample is actually representative of the district, state or country being polled." https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/19/politics/rasmussen-poll-donald-trump-joe-biden-2020/index.html And ABC News also appears to have doubts about the veracity of Rasmussen's results: Rasmussen Claims ABC News Threatening to Ban Pollster From FiveThirtyEight Unless It Can Explain Political Ties And Methodology "Rasmussen Reports insisted this week that a senior ABC News editor sent the pollster a letter demanding the right-of-center organization answer a series of questions regarding its political ties and methodology or face a ban on FiveThirtyEight — the popular political news and forecasting website." And the ABC letter recounted: “First, Rasmussen must explain the nature of its relationship with several right-leaning blogs and online media outlets, which have given us reason to doubt the ethical operation of the polling firm. please tell us whether questions are ever suggested to Rasmussen from these outlets, including Fox News and “Steve Bannon’s War Room“, where Rasmussen’s head pollster regularly appears, with the promise of coverage in return for “public” fieldwork?” adds the letter, insinuating Rasmussen is engaged with a quid-pro-quo with right-wing media." https://www.mediaite.com/news/rasmussen-claims-abc-news-threating-to-ban-pollster-from-fivethirtyeight-unless-it-can-explain-political-ties-and-methodology/

Well, I guess we now know who was answering in the affirmative to the misleading vaccine deaths question in the Rasmussen poll.... 🙂 "1* Do you know someone personally who died from the COVID-19 virus? 2* Do you know someone personally who died from side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine?" https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/public_surveys/questions_covid_19_october_26_and_29_30_2023 When you get a robocall out of the blue that starts out asking whether you know anyone who's died from the COVID virus, what's the likelihood that people not paying very close attention to the robocall will mistakenly think the very next question also relates to people who died from the virus (even though the wording is different)? Especially when the poll does nothing to verify they really understood the difference between the two questions being asked.

Not surprisingly, you've totally mischaracterized the meaning of the CDC's data on the effectiveness of the annual flu vaccines. If in a given year the vaccine has a 36% effectiveness rate, that does NOT mean, as you claim above, that "you have a 64% chance of getting the flu if you got the shots." Rather, as common sense would suggest, the annual flu vaccine effectiveness numbers are an estimate of the amount of the REDUCED RISK that benefits people who have been vaccinated. So in your 36% example given above, that would mean the vaccinated person's risk of getting sick from the flu would be reduced by about one-third vs an unvaccinated person. What are vaccine effectiveness point estimates and confidence intervals? "CDC typically presents flu vaccine effectiveness (VE) as a single point estimate: for example, 60%. This point estimate represents the reduction in risk provided by a flu vaccine." https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/effectivenessqa.htm

Long-term Side Effects of COVID-19 Vaccine? What We Know "To answer this question, scientists study the available evidence, and while the rules of science do not allow scientists to say that long-term effects can never happen, the evidence is strong that these vaccines will not cause long-term harm. ... Vaccine history The history of vaccines shows that severe effects following vaccination can occur. But when they do, these effects tend to happen within two months of vaccination." https://www.chop.edu/news/long-term-side-effects-covid-19-vaccine

Ya, it's only been 13 BILLION COVID vaccine doses administered worldwide over the past almost three years.... Tens of millions of lives saved by vaccines from COVID death, and confirmed vaccine-related deaths vanishingly small.... as with the UK government report earlier this year cited above, 52 COVID vaccine-related deaths out of 150 million doses given in the UK. And that's weighed against more than 1.1 million deaths from COVID disease in the U.S. even with the vaccines, and another 200,000+ COVID deaths in the UK. https://aseannow.com/topic/1311088-rasmussen-reports-poll-24-of-us-citizens-say-someone-they-know-died-from-covid-19-vaccine/?do=findComment&comment=18471900 But go ahead.... you keep waiting for your imagined vaccine doomsday to come true.

"Since HV.1 is similar to other, existing Omicron-related subvariants, the U.S.’s COVID tools will likely be equally effective against it, experts agreed. ... [Thomas Russo, MD, SUNY distinguished professor and chief of the division of infectious diseases at the Jacobs School of Medicine at the University at Buffalo] explained that while updated vaccines are “imperfect” when it comes to preventing infections, that doesn’t mean they don’t significantly help keep people safe. "We’re still learning about this, to be clear,” said Russo. ... If you get the updated vaccine, it’s in the Omicron family, and it’s predicted that that will afford good protection.” https://www.health.com/hv1-variant-covid-19-8364827

Yep, that's exactly when it was. I was in touch with PE at the time on the subject, and they came to realize they were having a non delivery problem with their Planet Mail carrier.... It's not clear to me whether that ever was fully resolved. After long discussions with their management on the issue, we ended up some months later doing some additional test mailings to me here in BKK... And one of the two test packages I sent via them still never arrived here. I gave up after that.

It's worth noting that other past polls have shown that around 10% of Americans also BELIEVE the following blatantly fake conspiracy theories: 9% - COVID vaccines implant microchips 10% - the Earth is flat 12% - the Moon landings were faked Conspiracy vs. Science: A Survey of U.S. Public Beliefs April 25, 2022 "Conspiratorial thinking or conspiracist ideation has become a prominent feature of current U.S. politics, shaping how many people think about elections, the COVID-19 pandemic, and other issues. ... The statements about Moon landings, flat Earth, and vaccine microchips have no basis in science; people who say they agree with these statements are embracing conspiracy beliefs instead, and even those who are unsure indicate that they are at least open to such unfounded beliefs." https://carsey.unh.edu/publication/conspiracy-vs-science-a-survey-of-us-public-beliefs The above survey also conducted their polling in a credible way that apparently Rasmussen here (given the way their back to back COVID deaths followed by COVID vaccine deaths questions) did not: "As recommended with most online surveys, the design included attention checks to screen out thoughtless respondents—such as those who answered too quickly, or “straightlined” their agreement or disagreement with incompatible statements."