Sam Darnold Gets His Vax Facts
With literally no surprise at all, it is becoming pretty clear that a lot of NFL players aren’t vaxxed and aren’t going to be. Just another glorious consequence of making a global health crisis a political dividing line. Cole Beasely went on a Twitter tirade, Josh Allen isn’t vaxxed, Montez Sweat said he needed to get more information before he makes a decision…after Ron Rivera brought in literal experts to give the team all the necessary information, showing that he’s not looking for facts but someone to confirm what he already believes. Sam Darnold also apparently hasn’t gotten the shot, which at this point means he likely won’t. It seems the league is around 50% vaxxed from what I’ve seen reports about.
I’m astounded all these guys are willing to risk the paychecks more than anything. You catch covid and you’re sidelined for a while and you don’t play thanks to illness or just quarantine. If it could flatten Miles Garrett, nobody is safe, NFL body or not. You’d think of all people Sam Darnold would understand the benefits of not being sidelined for weeks due to a preventable illness. This dude caught Mono and was done for half a season. Mono sucks and from the sound of it seems close in symptoms to what Covid can do. If you can get a pop in the arm and basically prevent that from happening, why wouldn’t you? You’d hope that all the people who have been vaxxed for months now being absolutely fine would help assuage vaccine hesitancy in those not too far down the rabbit hole of conspiracy. Guess not. I’m fully vaxxed, the second shot knocked me out for a day, and that was it. The peace of mind since has been a godsend.
The worst part is how the vaccine keeps being framed as a personal choice, an individual decision. It’s not. It affects literally everyone around you. Montez Sweat not getting protected literally puts his cancer survivor coach in more harm’s way. This isn’t like a cancer drug or most drugs. You can’t catch cancer from another person. You can’t catch drunk, or high, or diabetes from another person. You can catch covid. By not getting yourself protected, you put everyone around you at further risk, you reduce herd immunity, which just means this stupid fucking disease that has killed almost 600k people in the US alone (as of writing) is just going to keep on sticking around being a pest when we could realistically move beyond it if just a little bit more of the population got the jab. To everyone who has gotten the jab, thank you. Even a shut-in like me wants some things to return to normal without feeling like I risk my life every time I go to the grocery store because some Karen read a Facebook post that Bill Gates is tracking her movements. Why would they need to put microchips in a shot, they just track us through our smartphones already.
Curious to see what happens when an NFL player does catch it and misses the game checks. Hopefully that changes some minds.
A free thinker is someone who will believe literally anything as long as it doesn’t come from a credible source.
“My ignorance is as valid as your expertise.” – Isaac Asimov
Hahahahahahaha, that’s not right, but whatever.
Oh boy, a vaccine opinion piece! I’m sure these comments will be 100% civil and nobody will get upset!
PS: Get your god damn shots.
Unless this link goes viral for some reason I think by now any lingering right wing nuts who read the site have probably moved on once I openly supported BLM. The few times a mean comment like that shows up all you fine folks down here rip them to shreds before I can, and I already delete anything explicitly hateful so they can’t come in and spam bullshit because anyone new goes through moderation first
The comments and commenters are pretty good these days and the only heated fight came from spoiler discussion because of course it would
“Viral” I see what you did there.
#neverforgetbutifyoudodontletanyonelsespoilitforyou
The most hilarious part is the Bill Gates puts microchip into you. Dudes! The world is big and full of countries not the USA! (the night is dark and full of terrors). Given the fact that there are 3 Russian 2 Chinese vaccines and British and many under development its safe to say either you are an idiot to believe its a grand conspiracy by arch enemies where Bill Gates, Putin, China, Merkel, Biden selling you shit. Oorrr the commies, liberals, conservatives capitalists all in it. Dig your bunker now!!!
I used to enjoy following conspiracy pages to see some of the ‘hidden’ things I wasn’t getting from my regular media/news consumption.
Over the last few years, those pages have dived fully into “the pandemic isn’t real, the election was stolen, vaccines are actually worse than the diseases they prevent”… I could go on and on.
Not to paint it with a broad brush, since there are some nuggets like powerful people and politicians engaged in sex crimes and such that should bear greater investigation, but a lot of conspiracy stuff is turning into uneducated people who feel the need to be the ‘smartest’ guy in the room.
I’m not trying to bring in politics, but if that guys red hat doesn’t say MAGA……. Some people will choose not to take the vaccine, a good portion of people will. In some cases (definitely not all) waiting may be acceptable. At one point of time, Sweat was diagnosed with a heart issue. While it may have been a misdiagnosis, as an athlete, especially a young one, finding out that what you love to do could kill you messes with your head. Even after the misdiagnosis, he probably would tend to play it safe because he’s already had one scare. There absolutely is a case for him to get the shot. But I understand his reasoning, if that’s the case.
If he has a heart issue, that makes it even more ridiculous that he won’t get it, considering one of the widely believed severe effects of covid is heart trouble iirc.
I liked how Arians handled his team about it: “I am the specialist, get vaxxed”
The only amendment I’d make is this: People say that by not getting vaxxed you’re putting everyone else at risk, whereas in actuality, you’re only putting yourself and other non vaxxed people at risk. I think it’s downright stupid not to get vaxxed, but If you’re a vaxxed person around someone or many people who aren’t, the risk of you getting sick is still less than that of getting the flu.
The people who are vaccinated are at no added risk by idiots not getting vaxxed. It’s all the people who aren’t vaxxed who are at risk.
And I feel like that’s something that people are missing here.
And, I might add, that the severity of the illness once you somehow catch it is like, a tiny fraction of the severity otherwise.
if you aint vaxxed, you’re still putting vaxxed folks at risk, although less directly. the more cases of covid-19 there are, the more likely a new, worse mutation will pop up that the vax is less effective at preventing or ameliorating.
You’re not entirely right there – people who are vaccinated ARE still at an added risk by idiots not getting vaxxed because the vaccine is not 100% effective. No vaccine is. Therefore, if you’re in the admittedly small percentage that it doesn’t work for, your risk IS still elevated. And since we don’t know who those people are, everyone is potentially at more risk as a result. Your statements are GENERALLY true, but for those who are the exceptions to the rule – especially those like me who have pre-existing conditions that put us at great risk if we get it – we still might die because someone “didn’t have all the facts yet” and chose to not get vaccinated.
But you still pass it on. The Vax isn’t full protection, and you could infect a vaccinated person and they could infect another person and the cycle continues as long as there are enough people to let it happen, which is why they want us to reach 70% so herd immunity can take a real effect. So now, it really does put everyone at risk still, even vaxxed folks
You’re right, but some of the people who don’t get vaccinated aren’t by choice, which may include people less than a year off of cancer treatment like Ron Rivera, so they are risking giving COVID to people who would get vaccinated if they could, not just people who don’t want it.
Two issues with that–
1. Not everyone can get vaccinated, for example children or people going through chemo. The idea of herd immunity is that enough of the rest of us who can handle it get the vax, making it much harder for the disease to spread amongst the public, and thus protecting the people who are unable to get the shot(s).
2. Variants. The more the virus spreads, the greater the chances of a mutation developing that can affect people who are vaccinated. So yes in the short term, anyone vaccinated is pretty much safe (from a fatal case), but unfortunately if too many people stay unvaccinated because “it’s just my health at risk”, then the rest of us are going to be dealing with more strains down the line.
So no, you’re not just putting yourself at risk by dodging the vaccine. In the immediate term, you’re putting children & cancer patient at risk too. Kind of a dick move. And you’re also upping the chances at another major worldwide crisis. Major dick move.
Please stop spreading the notion that it’s a personal decision & risk to avoid the vaccine. Our world is too interconnected, and this virus is too contagious and dangerous for that to be the case. If you can safely get the vaccine and you choose not to it is an extremely selfish, ignorant, and short-sighted decision.
Like Dave said, I don’t understand how someone who lost half a season to a communicable virus wouldn’t do everything in his power to avoid getting a communicable virus that could potentially knock him out for half a season.
First of all, thank you for not choosing a Bills anti-Vaxxer to make fun of (we don’t deserve it).
I may be desperately trying to defend my username here, but I just want to pump the brakes a little on lumping in Josh Allen with Beasley, Sweat, and Darnold. I think he had the question sprung on him unexpectedly in an interview, and tried to awkwardly both-sides it on the fly. It was a truly cringy answer, no doubt, but it seemed like he was caught off guard and just trying to please both sides of his fan base (mentioning both science and the constitution), and of course failing spectacularly. And his true feelings probably Freudian slipped out on the side of not getting it, but that was back at the start of April, and he’s kept quiet while his teammates have been spouting much worse more recently all over Twitter. But again, this may be self-delusion.
Sean McDermott, on the other hand, is TRULY a “big statistics and logical guy.” Dude was DEDICATED in keeping the mask over his nose last year, watch his mic’d up video. If anybody can drag that team kicking and screaming over 85%, it’s him.
Sorry, but Darnold and Allen said almost the same thing in very similar circumstances.
I can understand why Minorites and the black community in particular may be hesitant overall to getting the vaccine. The government does not have a great track record in that regard. I also can understand how people are unwilling as a whole to trust the American government with any guidelines regarding what is best for them. When the news changes week to week on what is actually happening and how much protection it actually offers, it makes sense to have reservations (not justifying the crackpot theories though). They don’t know if or when boosters will even be needed at this point.
Furthermore if I were hesitant about something and the only feedback I received was people ridiculing me and calling me an idiot I’m pretty sure I would not want to go to that persons side of the argument, right or wrong. The truth is nobody knows. Is the vaccine safe now? Sure seems like it. Will it have lingering side effects in 5 years? Nobody knows. Will asymptomatic Covid survivors have after-effects in 5 years? nobody knows. Having reservations isn’t a crime it’s only logical. From my personal experience with the people who I know who have not been vaccinated they aren’t crackpot theorist they are people who want to wait until more is known about the vaccine long-term. I can’t fault them for that.
But what’s about the long term problems of a COVID infection? We know that those are more severe and more common.
Thank you. The mRNA vaccine technology is new and no one really knows if there won’t be issues years down the line. We don’t think they will but we have no hard data. Meanwhile the classical vaccines (AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson) have both had documented blood clot issues. I would still recommend anyone to take their chances with them over COVID because it’s been like 65 deaths in 25 million people vaccinated for AstraZeneca and as far as I know none for Johnson & Johnson but I wouldn’t mock anyone for choosing not to use them. And the fact that the vaccines with technology we do know having demonstrable links to clotting muddies the waters and I wouldn’t blame anyone for getting nervous about the vaccines using new technology causing issues too.
Except blood clots in the vaccinated population are no more common than they are in the unvaccinated population. The vaccine only lessens the impact of covid, it doesn’t make you immortal.
it’s “new” in the sense that this is the first approved vaccine using it
but the technology has been known, tested, and used by researchers for
literally
decades
Yeah that’s part of what cured me of any hesitancy, they’ve been working on this for decades before and the pandemic just suddenly increased their research funding to move it along faster now that they had a specific target to work on. They didn’t just start from scratch on it. We still don’t know the true long term effects, but covid’s potential long term effects scare me way more
See, this is a fine opinion to have. I happen to share it. I’m more scared of COVID than the vaccines’ potential effects, but I respect anyone who has the opposite opinion and I think dismissing them as crackpot conspiracists is a harmful stance. The world needs to be less polarised, not more
thats why we have clinical trials and an fda staffed with brilliant scientists who review the evidence and the trial data and yield their professional assessment of the vaccine’s safety and efficacy?
like, i get being cringey when it comes to injecting something into your body
but “what about potential side effects” is a question that, if put forward in good faith, has a LOT of great answers to it that are easily accessible. problem is that question is used not in good faith but as a FUD grenade to halt discourse in its tracks
leading directly to the very polarization you mentioned
First of all, appeal to authority is bad debate form. Second of all, I don’t deny that there are people who don’t argue in good faith and are crackpot conspiracists. My issue is that there are smart people who have genuine misgivings about long term effects that we just have zero data for and dismissing them and lumping them with the crackpot conspiracists is harmful.
well far be it from me to use a shit argument with flawless debate form, i forgot that shiny rhetorical turds are the method circle jerk de jour at internet locales like lesswrong and redpill
i would say we have a lot of data about the long term, that it’s all there for those who care to find it, that it’s just a fact that scientists are the ones on the front lines building this data, but if an argument from authority blows it all to hell well then by all means let’s entertain factually wrong arguments from otherwise smart people, because smart people never make boneheaded mistakes either inside or outside their areas of expertise
just admit you have no fucking clue what you’re talking about, i guarantee the scientists have admitted as much and are still the ones id rather listen to than some internet blowhard who is more interested in online “debate” “form” than the substance of it
And now let’s add ad hominem and strawman to the mix. Brilliant arguing there chief. Here’s the upshot:
1. mRNA vaccine technology was first theorised in 1990 and has been worked on since 92, but the delivery method wasn’t stabilised until the 2010s. No large-scale clinical trials of mRNA vaccines were conducted before the covid epidemic (source: University of Cambridge’s Introduction to RNA vaccines https://www.phgfoundation.org/briefing/rna-vaccines).
2. Clinical trials for vaccines are conducted at the scale of 1-in-10 000, meaning that’s the probability they’re seeking and that’s what they’re tailored for. The chances of developing blood clots for the AstraZeneca vaccine are 1-in-250 000 (1-in-1 000 000 lethality rate) per the BBC; for Johnson & Johnson, it’s about 1-in-1 000 000 per the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (https://www.chop.edu/news/long-term-side-effects-covid-19-vaccine). These would’ve been virtually impossible to detect in clinical trials, and this is what I meant by “muddying the waters” earlier.
3. For deactivated (or attenuated) virus, viral fragment, and carrier virus vaccines, potential long-term side effects manifest within 45 days of the dose being administered, per Fauci. We do not believe mRNA vaccines would be any different and so far we have the evidence is that they are no different. However, given that pre-pandemic there was no large-scale clinical trials, that even clinical trials are limited in the information they can give you, and only when vaccines are rolled out and the first few million doses are administered can you really know, we cannot conclusively say they are no different. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
This is why I don’t blame anyone for being leery. Now this is what I argue when I come across someone who is reluctant to get vaccinated. Covid-19 has killed roughly 1 in 500 Americans so far. That’s 20 times more likely than any side effect that would get caught by clinical trials. Of the known complications of Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, which is technology that has been in use for a long time and we really know, the chances of dying of Covid are 2 000 times higher than developing blood clots due to the J&J vaccine and dying of the AZ vaccine, and 500 times greater than developing blood clots due to the AZ vaccine. So, if they’re really worried about potential long term effects that haven’t shown up yet – which we don’t anticipate happening at all, but can’t guarantee it – you should pick the option that’s got 2 000 times less chance of happening than dying of Covid.
Finally, the reason I got into your debate form is that the attitude and rampant usage of logical fallacies and insults are the reason you’ll never be able to convince anyone. Which is fine if you want to stay in your echo chamber and feel superior to other people, but if you actually want to make a difference…
i dont understand making my argument for me and then claiming the opposite–no, wait, i get it: youre saying you like what i said just not how i said it
except your entire argument is predicated on the assumption of context: that the majority of vaccine-skeptics are these idealistic unicorns who will take the vaccine if only a logical argument from someone with all the facts would come forward and educate them
trump made sure that wasnt the case when he politicized the issue while still in office
now im all for convincing people through steely logic and rigor of research, but where you cry at “rampant logical fallacies” i have to laugh because these vaccine skeptics arent wary of mrna vaccine technology because its relatively new, nor are they even wary of covid vaccines per se
theyre wary because some talking used condom on tv told them to be scared, aka “muddying the waters”. you cant logic someone out of a position they didnt logic themselves into
i will gladly put forward that my attitude fucking blows but when we have a public health crisis that on our hands that not only dwarfs any other in the last half century but was –entirely– the fault of the worst fucking human beings on the planet making sure they go down in history as such, youll pardon my “form” for not adhering to your code of conduct with random internet people on a web comic blog
Well, no. You claimed that mRNA vaccines had been tested for decades – as the Cambridge introduction says, this is false. You claimed that this would be easily found out by anyone doing a search in good faith (this is appeal to authority, which is saying that some nebulous experts say something but not citing sources) – if they did, they would find that in actual fact, there had been no large-scale clinical trials done for this kind of vaccine until last year. Now let’s get to the crux of the issue. Something like over 85 million adults are reluctant to get the vaccine (per polls, it’s something like 35% who are unlikely to get it off an adult population of roughly 254 million). That’s a lot of people and it might be naive of me to think there can’t be smart, reasonable people there but I do believe there plenty who can be reached. I dunno, maybe it’s different in white communities than with minorities but even then, I still find it hard to believe they’re all quacks. Anyway, I’m going to leave you with this (taken from MSN):
“Dr. Bill Jenkins was my first public health professor in college, but more importantly, he was the CDC epidemiologist who outed the CDC for the unethical work done to Black men with syphilis at Tuskegee. He taught me to use data and my voice to create change,” explains Barlow, *adding that instead of harping on people’s perceived fears, they should be met where they are and by people who identify similarly.*
Similarly, Bhatia also recommends having “open discussions about the effectiveness of vaccines with the latest data.” There’s so much misinformation out there that simply hearing accurate accounts and details about the vaccine from trusted sources — such as your very own doctor — can have a powerful impact on those who are reluctant to get immunized. This includes teaching people about vaccine technology and explaining that if they’re really skeptical about how the immunizations are made, in particular, they should consider getting “other COVID-19 vaccines developed using older techniques, such as the J&J vaccine,” says Bhatia. “It was developed using viral vector technology, which has been around since the 1970s and has been used for other infectious diseases such as Zika, flu, and HIV.”
Continuing to having open and honest conversations with friends or family members who might feel iffy about getting the COVID-19 vaccine is one of the best ways to help encourage vaccination, according to the CDC.
No one really has an excuse. Yes Tuskegee is a blight on humanity but it was experimental science nearly 60 years ago.
Covid affects everyone and everyone is getting the vaccine.
I’m totally vaxed and agree with getting the vaccine, but Tuskegee STARTED in 1932, but it continued until the early 70s. That’s not 60 years ago, that’s 44 years ago. And then, the full extent of it remained under government seal as classified until the mid 90s, and the government didn’t even acknowledge wrongness until 1997.
And we only just recently disclosed that we did the same experiment through US based pharmaceutical companies on Guatemalans in the 50s. There’s no reason to believe experiments are not being conducted on minorities to this day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala_syphilis_experiments.
The only reason much of this is becoming public record NOW is because of classified records laws and freedom of information act laws. There’s no telling what’s going on now that is under seal.
All that is to say there’s absolutely a history of abuse there, and distrust IS warranted, even to this day. Instead of acting like it happened a long time ago, we need to admit it’s a problem and focus on addressing concerns.
This is a great point. While I disagree with the decision, I do understand why a lot of black players are hesitant about getting a vaccine, and I don’t think it’s as simple as them just being ignorant. When you learn about some of the fucked up things the government did within black communities, it’s hard not to hold severe reservations. It’s just a shame really.
I also agree that it’s counterintuitive to ridicule people for simply holding reservations about getting a vaccine. Berating people for not getting one is not going to convince them to get one. It’ll do the exact opposite. And trying to lump them in with people spewing crackpot conspiracy theories is disingenuous.
Vaccinated people can still easily test positive for COVID. I know multiple people who are fully vaccinated and tested positive for COVID and couldn’t travel where they want as a result. The same could happen for NFL players. They could be vaxxed and still lose game checks as a result of COVID. Even if they show no symptoms because they are vaxxed.
If they were worried about Gates microchipping vaccines, just wait until they learn where potatoes for McDonalds french fries come from!
If you are scared of the government trying to track you, I hope you don’t own a smart phone…
Problem with a lot of these people is they only look at the deaths. They see that percentage and think “it’s not that bad, the risk of death is so small”. Thing is, it’s not about the deaths (I mean it is), it’s about the “recovered”. My job entails me moving people through and out of the medical system. I take a lot of recovered people home, and let me tell you, that is not something you want to endure. Recovered just means you are not infectious anymore. A lot of these people who get through covid spent a couple weeks in a coma and ventilated. Now, they’re weak as hell. Most need steady oxygen, some will always need it now. Some of these people have lost the use of their legs. This shit isn’t to be taken lightly.
Matt LaFleur brought in an outside expert, as well. I doubt it will help, as there are a lot of morons in this country and that also includes a lot of football players.
I don’t think I could possibly agree less with today’s comic, or many of your political beliefs actually. Yet I appreciate your comics and don’t think for a second that I’m about to let heartfelt commentary come between me and my love of football or the delicious satire of said sport. Keep it up my dude. Or don’t, I’m not your mom.
Trump and many Republicans also advocate getting the vaccine. I don’t see how crackpot conspiracy theorists are political.
And yet, here we are.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/12/politics/vaccinations-blue-red-states-analysis/index.html
Basically, there’s a 15% gap in vaccination rate between states Biden won and states Trump won. And the more that Biden or Trump won a given state by, the greater the vaccination difference is.
I have to admit though, any argument that starts with “listen to your team’s doctor” or “listen to the NFL doctors” is going to go over like a lead balloon for a good reason.
You know that’s a fair point and might be why the teams have brought in outside experts
*Tyrod Taylor has entered the chat*
My body, my choice.
read the above comments concerning how not getting the shot puts others at risk. it aint just your body. it’s a highly COMMUNICABLE disease. it’s similar to how you can’t just build any damn thing you want on YOUR LAND, because a fire or gas leak or flooding on your land rapidly becomes everyone else problem.
That’s not how infectious disease works bruh. Your unprotected petri dish of a body is now a larger and more active threat to everyone you meet and know
says the dude bro who wants to outlaw abortion except when he gets his mistress pregnant
Do…. do you think Im actually Tim Tebow?
Oh boy! Another Draw Play about my team! Let’s see what’s going on…
Oh. Oh….
Goddamit. Why do we always have the crazies?
What bothers me the most when people say “I need to get more information” is that I know they’re not checking anything that even approaches a scientific journal
Well no one ever accused Darnold of being smart, so it kind of fits the bill.
Got my second shot in mid May. I’m 28 years old and my mother who is retired, elected to stay up past midnight to spam search for appointments in April when they first became available for my age group. So I was able to get my shots almost immediately and I couldn’t be happier. Just get your fucking shot, it’s not hard and it’s not like you have to spend time fighting for a time slot anymore. Just be tired and have a sore arm for a day like a halfway decent human being.