cd318, "diabetes is largely ignored". Really? Having been a physician for 45 years, I was completely unaware that diabetes was being ignored. How could I possibly have missed that? Why don’t you and Iso start your own thread. There will be others to join you. If you think big pharma is making out from the pandemic, the amount of profit made in relation to treating diabetes, every day of the year, would blow you away. Why aren’t you exercised about that? By the way, you don’t "catch" diabetes. Therefore there is no good preventative.
As to your claims about COVID:
Antibodies: Yes, people who recover from COVID do have protective antibodies. But actual data derived by measuring the persistence of those antibodies in blood over time shows that the antibodies derived from the RNA vaccines outlive antibodies derive from natural infection. Furthermore, the initial concentrations of virus neutralizing antibodies are on average higher from the RNA vaccines than they are from natural infection. Moreover, it can only be a good thing for the individual to be vaccinated after natural infection, albeit there is no rush, because the vaccine then can both broaden and enhance the pre-existing immune response. I personally don’t give a darn whether you ever get vaccinated, however.
Masks: The paper masks that most of us have had access to were not believed to protect the wearer from close contact with an infected person who is shedding virus in secretions. The paper mask was thought to protect others from the person wearing the mask. This is why we are or were all better off if all of us wear or wore mask. The crux of the question is whether the virus is excreted as an aerosol or in large particles or droplets. If the latter, the mask is good protection. If the former, not as good but still better than nothing. Were you around about a year or more ago when there was a shortage of N95 masks for frontline workers? An N95 mask, or a mask that conforms to N95 standards, is needed for 2-way protection from the virus. The US never had enough for the general population. Among the unvaccinated, of course, it is still advisable to wear even a paper mask in public. Wearing a mask is an altruistic act, so you probably wouldn’t want to do it. Longer experience with this disease and this virus does suggest that there may be some level of 2-way protection afforded to the person wearing the (paper) mask. It is impossible to say exactly how broad that protection might be. What I don’t get is why you think all of this is sinister. You seem to feel threatened.
Actually, a very few persons did die after having received one of the adenovirus-based vaccines. The cause has nothing whatever to do with the COVID antigens expressed by those vaccines; it is due to a cross-reactive antibody elicited by adenovirus that affects blood platelets. The total deaths are well under 50, but of course that is not acceptable. The cause is now understood and the entity can be prevented or safely treated. There have been a few severe adverse events but no deaths among those who have received either of the two RNA vaccines. Again, the causes are now understood and the problems are very treatable. Hundreds of millions of doses of vaccine have been delivered; the very very low incidence of serious problems could never have been uncovered a priori even in the large scale trials that were performed. (This is evident if you know anything about statistics.) On the other hand, more than 600,000 persons have died from COVID in the US alone. Many tens of thousands more would be dead by now were it not for the vaccines. I am sure you don’t believe that. But THOUSANDS of people have NOT died from the vaccines; that is a lie, and you ought not to be repeating it.
