Shingles is same virus as chicken pox. You get it first time as Chicken Pox and then it hangs out in your nerves and recurs as Shingles. So your body already has an immune response from the Chicken pox which leads to it deciding to attack the nerve cells the virus is hanging out in.
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Can’t tell from your statements if you do or do not know that polio is a virus. It was effectively shutdown with vaccination. I don’t think “drastically different” is an appropriate tag to apply to a situation where a globally present virus can infect a person with potentially life threatening results. It was true before and true today that people will worry about whether a vaccine will be available in time. Especially when the target virus is unpredictable as to who will be severely impacted and who will be unfazed. Until science has developed a much greater understanding of the reasons individuals have profoundly different outcomes, the folks who catch it are in a bit of a lottery … will I have it bad or not? Apparently @Julie-Harris is an example of a person who was concerned about her children when they were not eligible for vaccination … virus, potential acute health risk, potential chronic health risk … there are enough similarities with the world’s polio experience to be guidance in trying to contain Covid-19.
As for dishonest reasons being harmful, imagine the harm that could be caused if people with a large public bully pit were to throw shade on vaccines at the very point in time there was a chance to do to Covid-19 what the Salk vaccine did to polio. You would probably find yourself in a world where a large breeding ground exists for the virus to keep growing and mutating because that’s what viruses do. Even worse you might have mutations start escaping the protection gained by the vaccinated and shift the problem back to the starting point and get to relive all the fun of Covid-19 early days.
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Just curious, what’s everyone’s experience with your insurance and the Shingles vaccine? I asked a couple years ago and it was gonna be in the hundreds of dollars. I’m right on the cusp of the age they start recommending it, maybe it gets cheaper in a couple of years…
Pre-age 65 I had the old vaccine and is was $200, insurance didn’t cover. When I got my booster on Monday, I asked about Shingle and they said Medicare would pay for it. I’ll find out in January. Will get my Fly shot first.
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I was looking this up yesterday…the Shingrex website has a cost page:
And GoodRx thinks costs are something like the following for out-of-pocket:
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Really 200$ isn’t that bad. My kids growing up, their vaccines we ended up paying for out of pocket because our insurance didn’t pay for it. I wanna say it was like 700$ for their shots. Our insurance would only pay 300$ a year (at the time)for wellness checks on kids.
It is hard to take your response seriously, because you are saying Covid and Polio are the same because they are both viruses and have health consequences. This is exactly what I mean by over simplifying to the point of being incorrect. The Flu and Polio are both viruses and have health effects, are they the same? Why hasn’t the flu been nearly irradiated by vaccines like polio, with them being the same and all. I’ve had easily 20+ Flu Vaccines I’ve taken over my life. I guess it might be because the virus are notably different.
Fear is not always bad. But, it can be bad when used as irrational reasoning for taking undue risk. Same with leaning on false reasoning for taking those risks, like politically driven decisions.
We are all seeing the guidance for COVID changing, this is because the first responses are not performing as they were sold to us. We are also seeing the inevitable percentage error in the vaccines play out at global levels which is scary in it’s own right, as .1% of billions becomes a real and large number. Then there are the improved vaccines which are not getting the same treatment as the original vaccines. There are Delta Vaccines already developed, but not approved. And Omicron vaccines can be developed in months not years now.
As to why humans react differently, it is because we are all different in numerous ways. This is something that science already knows. But, the economics of developing and testing numerous different options for each group are not economical at our current efficiency.
I’m not anti-vaccine, I’m pro knowledge and anti-fear subversion / mandates. I want people to be able to make an informed decision or at least follow the examples of other’s informed decisions.
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Back at you exactly. I yield to your proven expertise to distort just about anything to make it align with your position. Congrats on being wise enough to get vaccinated. I am and will continue to support vaccination of all who are truly medically able. As for those who make the choice based on politics, magnetism, electronic tracking, etc. … I will despise forever. Science (or Nature, if you prefer) will do it’s thing relentlessly whether humans understand or not.
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They’re free to decide to not get a vaccine based on those things. But that freedom to decide doesn’t free them from the consequences of that decision, and that’s where we’re struggling. “I don’t want to get a vaccine because microchips” is a valid stance, however idiotic. “I don’t want you in my store or makerspace if you’re not vaccinated and/or masked” is also a valid stance based on freedom and liberty and stuff, and to recognize one as “freedom” and condemn the other as censorship or oppression is baldfaced hypocrisy.
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Hmm, words. Not sure I agree with valid any more than I can agree that Flat Earther’s have validity. But I got zero problems with “idiotic”!
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I do not share the malice you attribute to me. I chose to change covid to flu in restating your argument to highlight it is broad enough to fit with your use of Virus and Health Effects as defined traits. This approach is an honest one as it can often highlight issues in a point of view.
Had my booster, sore arm, tired, but all in all happy to see that we’re on the road to have a better oversight of this than we had 2 years ago… hopefully
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The endemic flu is a virus family, just one of a huge number in the world. The novel coronavirus commonly referred to as COVID-19 may indeed to an evil distant family member. But it is novel (new) to humans. The endemic viruses have existed a very long time and certainly predate any vaccines, much less the ability to design a vaccine at the pace demonstrated with the pandemic effort. Once something becomes endemic, about the best humans currently know to do is develop vaccines targeting what appears to be the most prevalent strains at any given time. That is a hit or miss guessing game between scientists and Nature.
One of the early successes of virus vaccines was smallpox. And the government pushed hard for the military and the public to vaccinate. As a result, it never became endemic. Same with polio.
Human behavior today has ensured COVID will be endemic with periodic strains being more deadly than others. The world will roll through the years with periodic waves of evil versions of both influenza and COVID. That this must be the future for society was self imposed on everyone by a substantial quantity of short sighted humans.
Thankfully past generations acted responsibly and kept smallpox and polio from being the same type of ongoing menace.
Peace to you Nick. Stay vaccinated and consider being less accommodating of those whose actions allow novel bad things to become endemic bad things.
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I wonder if that exposure had your immune system on high alert, and that resulted in the larger reaction to the booster.
Seems at least a plausible explanation of the variability in reactions.
Glad you didn’t get it from your wife and daughter. Hope they’re doing ok.
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Thanks. It could have been exposure to them. I figured it was probably because I’d already been vaccinated twice. No telling.
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Polio and smallpox do not have vast animal reservoirs which made it possible to mostly eradicate them by vaccinating humans.
https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/transmission/index.html
Corona viruses and flu viruses can not be eradicated unless we vaccinate every mammal on the planet, especially bats. I guess we can start by vaccinating all deer in the US for corona. https://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/one_health/downloads/qa-covid-white-tailed-deer-study.pdf
It is scientifically false to imply that corona virus can be eradicated with human vaccinations.
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Influenza’s natural reservoir is waterfowl.
In a sense, all flu is avian flu.
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Small correction 
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I think you may be splitting hairs here a bit. If by “eradicate” you require it to be non-existent, then yes I would agree. If you were to be a bit more pragmatic about it and use “eradicate” in the same sense as smallpox, maybe you can. The US still has about 1000 cases of smallpox a year. It is considered “eradicated” but it isn’t actually gone. The corona virus strains have existed for a very long time and they haven’t jumped from critters to humans very often. SARS, MERS, & COVID are the most significant examples. The low transmission capability of SARS and MERS made them manageable even though fatality rates were worse. COVID is the most transmissible of the 3, but fortunately is not as deadly.
The scientists do project eradicating COVID is a very tough challenge, but if you have enough vaccinated souls to greatly expand the difficulty of the COVID virus to find an infectible person, you start heading in the direction of polio control. There are actually 3 strains of polio and only two are actually gone. The third one still lingers with India being a prominent host nation for it.
In all likelihood, COVID-19 started with bats and then with maybe another host or two along the way, finally got to humans. Just because the stars aligned once doesn’t mean they will always do so or will do it on any given frequency.
I dare say most humans care more about making COVID hard to transmit in humans no matter what other critters may support it in the wild. Vaccinations are the only real tool we currently have to make that happen. And if humans can stop giving it to each other, it becomes more like smallpox and polio … not absolutely gone, but substantially gone.
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