The lead question of the 2021 CWS ...

@baseballhs posted:

I completely disagree. 300 total deaths from Covid in that age group and already 1200 documented cases of myocardia. Most kids that age don’t even have symptoms.

What are the numbers of 18-24 year olds who caught COVID and developed myocardia (my 20 year old nephew is one) or other longer term health risks?  Good luck finding those numbers but it’s a heckuva lot more than 1200.

Its not a case of death from COVID vs myocardial symptoms  from the Vaccine.  It’s longer term health issues or death from COVID, plus the chances of passing it along to others vs myocardial symptoms from the vaccine (which has occurred in 0.002% of Americans age 18-24 who have received the vaccine so far)

So the FDA waived gathering info after getting vaccinated so these numbers are probably low. For 16-24 year olds are at 150/100,000 hospitalizations "with" covid in the last 16 months. 16-24 year olds have 200/100,000 hospitalizations with in 7 days  of getting vaccinated with Pfizer that were reported. Short term the vaccines are more dangerous for young people than the virus. No one on earth knows the long term affects of the vaccines. There is a reason they take 7 to 10 years to make. There's also zero evidence that the shot stops transmission. Although I disagree with someone having their kid vaccinated it's their choice. I draw the line with someone wanting to mandate it and put my kids in danger when there's no benefit to stopping transmission. If this was about saving lives they would tell everybody to get their vitamin D level above 50, lose weight and eat healthy. They would be pushing for prophylactic use of Ivermectin which has actually shown to stop transmission. They would do whatever it takes but they're not.

Let's not make this about Covid and vaccinations.

Thank you.

D1 baseball has the timeline of what occurred beginning Sunday, June 20.

You all can draw your own conclusion from their timeline.

@TPM posted:

Let's not make this about Covid and vaccinations.

Thank you.

Pretty sure the ncaa already did that….it is the conversation

Thanks for the heads up on that, TPM. Good article.

@Stuckinnewengland

I can understand that someone would not want to be forced to take a vaccine, or any other medicine, or have their kids be forced to take it. That makes sense.

But the reasons you cite for your refusal contain some inconsistencies:

"For 16-24 year olds are at 150/100,000 hospitalizations "with" covid in the last 16 months. 16-24 year olds have 200/100,000 hospitalizations with in 7 days  of getting vaccinated with Pfizer that were reported"

a- No vaccine is fully effective immediately. For covid, the time to T cell recognition is about 14 days.

b- The two-part mRNA vaccines are not fully effective until 14 days after the *second* injection. That's about 35 days after the first injection, assuming 21 days between jabs. In other words, there's a 35 day window where infection can occur post-vaccination.

c- Vaccines are necessarily tested in areas where the transmission rate of the virus is high....if there's no outbreak, there's no way to test whether the vaccines work. See (b) above.

"There's also zero evidence that the shot stops transmission."

If I don't have the flu, I can't transmit it to you.

Same with covid.

@Senna posted:

Thanks for the heads up on that, TPM. Good article.

Same here. Based on the content of that article (assuming it was accurate) the conclusion I draw is that NC State has a very legitimate complaint about how the NCAA conducted the testing and the unexplained delay in getting results back to them.

@adbono posted:

Same here. Based on the content of that article (assuming it was accurate) the conclusion I draw is that NC State has a very legitimate complaint about how the NCAA conducted the testing and the unexplained delay in getting results back to them.

To the grandkids of a NCST baseball player in  year 2065

"...and that's how we forfeited didn't get to go to the CWS finals."

I'm considered one of the covid vaccine hesitant.  I don't have any issues with vaccines, esp growing up in Asia.  I'm conservative but never been political about vaccines.  I was troubled by all the pushback and resistance to mask mandates/guidelines for example.  Masks are an inconvenience that I don't have a problem of putting on regardless of whether I believe in it's effectiveness or not.

However, putting something in our body is a different issue altogether.  I've been trying to read up a lot on the vaccines, trying to get beyond the rhetorics and soundbites.  It's been hard to find objective information.  The article below is the best I've found that describes the story of the R&D of the mRNA technology, how it works, and the process of developing a marketable medical treatment out of it.  The end result is that it justifies my concerns.

https://www.statnews.com/2020/...-covid-vaccine-race/

The issue isn't the technology itself (I find it very intriguing and exciting).  The issue is that there has never been any drugs or treatment that has been developed and used in the real world using this technology until the covid vaccines.  There's a lot of exciting possibilities.  But if not for the covid emergency, it probably would still have taken years for a drug/treatment based on this new technology to be tried in the real world.  And even then, it will be done initially in very small scope.

Some of the questions that comes to my (non medically trained) mind are:

1. Is there an off switch for this mRNA (once enough spike proteins are created) and does the off switch work all the time?

2. Are we dealing with this with too large of a hammer by training our bodies to reject all spike proteins?  Are there going to be something in the future that we realize our bodies need that has the spike protein, and by the it's too late bec our bodies are trained to reject it?

3. What if a particle/virus/etc in the future that would have been harmless to human becomes widespread but has the same spike protein?  If our bodies have been trained to develop an immune response to all particles with spike protein, could this inadvertently result in a unnecessary allergic (or worse yet, a fatal cytokine storm) in our bodies (much like how pollen produces reaction in some people but not others)?

4. Are there any other unintended consequence that we haven't thought of that when we find out, it would have been too late as there's no way to reverse the instructions we've already programed to our immune systems.

I know we don't want to turn this into a vaccine and/or covid discussion, but I think the story is inherently about that.  I do agree that we should keep it as objective as possible and refrain from political and inflammatory rhetorics.

One excerpt from the article:

--------------------

Some experts worry about injecting the first vaccine of this kind into hundreds of million of people so quickly.

“You have all these odd clinical and pathological changes caused by this novel bat coronavirus, and you’re about to meet it with all of these vaccines with which you have no experience,” said Paul Offit, an infectious disease expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and an authority on vaccines.

--------------------

I do recognize that this article was written back in Nov 2020.  This person may have changed his mind now after seeing all the clinical trials and real world result.  But it doesn't change the validity of his initial concerns.  The result so far at least shows there's minimal short terms negative results.  But I don't think we have enough info yet to conclude that there's no unintended long term impact.

@atlnon posted:

I'm considered one of the covid vaccine hesitant.  I don't have any issues with vaccines, esp growing up in Asia.  I'm conservative but never been political about vaccines.  I was troubled by all the pushback and resistance to mask mandates/guidelines for example.  Masks are an inconvenience that I don't have a problem of putting on regardless of whether I believe in it's effectiveness or not.

However, putting something in our body is a different issue altogether.  I've been trying to read up a lot on the vaccines, trying to get beyond the rhetorics and soundbites.  It's been hard to find objective information.  The article below is the best I've found that describes the story of the R&D of the mRNA technology, how it works, and the process of developing a marketable medical treatment out of it.  The end result is that it justifies my concerns.

https://www.statnews.com/2020/...-covid-vaccine-race/

The issue isn't the technology itself (I find it very intriguing and exciting).  The issue is that there has never been any drugs or treatment that has been developed and used in the real world using this technology until the covid vaccines.  There's a lot of exciting possibilities.  But if not for the covid emergency, it probably would still have taken years for a drug/treatment based on this new technology to be tried in the real world.  And even then, it will be done initially in very small scope.

Some of the questions that comes to my (non medically trained) mind are:

1. Is there an off switch for this mRNA (once enough spike proteins are created) and does the off switch work all the time?

2. Are we dealing with this with too large of a hammer by training our bodies to reject all spike proteins?  Are there going to be something in the future that we realize our bodies need that has the spike protein, and by the it's too late bec our bodies are trained to reject it?

3. What if a particle/virus/etc in the future that would have been harmless to human becomes widespread but has the same spike protein?  If our bodies have been trained to develop an immune response to all particles with spike protein, could this inadvertently result in a unnecessary allergic (or worse yet, a fatal cytokine storm) in our bodies (much like how pollen produces reaction in some people but not others)?

4. Are there any other unintended consequence that we haven't thought of that when we find out, it would have been too late as there's no way to reverse the instructions we've already programed to our immune systems.

I know we don't want to turn this into a vaccine and/or covid discussion, but I think the story is inherently about that.  I do agree that we should keep it as objective as possible and refrain from political and inflammatory rhetorics.

One excerpt from the article:

--------------------

Some experts worry about injecting the first vaccine of this kind into hundreds of million of people so quickly.

“You have all these odd clinical and pathological changes caused by this novel bat coronavirus, and you’re about to meet it with all of these vaccines with which you have no experience,” said Paul Offit, an infectious disease expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and an authority on vaccines.

--------------------

I do recognize that this article was written back in Nov 2020.  This person may have changed his mind now after seeing all the clinical trials and real world result.  But it doesn't change the validity of his initial concerns.  The result so far at least shows there's minimal short terms negative results.  But I don't think we have enough info yet to conclude that there's no unintended long term impact.

I've read similar articles and when people say it is selfish or uninformed to say you don't want the vaccine, I know they haven't really read up on it.  You may be ok with any risks (and everyone should be able to weigh the risks for themselves), but to say there aren't any (or that they are minuscule) is just not true.  Moderna was ready to abandon the technology completely just a few years ago.  In some of the earlier testing of mRNA, results were fantastic until the 8-9 month.  We aren't even there yet...

I just believe that it is a major overstep to expect 18-22 year old kids to take this in order to play a sport.  Vaccinated players are "protected" and those that aren't know the risks.   Play ball.

A friend of mine (age 64) was fit and healthy until she got vaccinated. How many 64yo do you know with a washboard stomach? She’s been sick since March. She has headaches and nausea. She’s also developed a condition (can’t remember the name) where her feet feel like they’re on fire. On days she physically feels like exercising she has to ice her feet afterwards. The specialists agree the vaccine didn’t cause the feet on fire effect. But the vaccine likely triggered it. It may not have ever happened without the vaccine.

Fortunately, she has a mentally tough attitude. She was a top high school athlete who choose not to compete in college. She’s still out biking or kayaking on days she doesn’t feel nauseated.

There are rational reasons to fear vaccines, especially new ones. And if people know others who got sick after taking a vaccine, it's understandable they would feel more cautious.

But here are some points of clarity:

- mRNA vaccines for influenza were in mid-stage clinical trials (early stage human trials) when Covid-19 emerged.

- mRNA technology in its current form has been around for over 10 years.

- each mRNA vaccine is tuned to one specific type of virus. If one vaccine could protect against all types of influenza, one against all rotoviruses, and one against all coronaviruses, that would be nirvana. But that's not possible today.

- accordingly, the T and B cells that get primed to fight a specific virus won't fight what they don't recognize. That's why the spike protein is the target for mRNA and other vaccines - it is the defining feature and specific to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.

- SARS-CoV-2 variants so far have not escaped mRNA vaccine protection because the infection mechanism for each variant is the same. Say you changed the paint color on your car, or put in a bigger engine, or better tires - your eyes would still perceive it as your car. It might look different than it did before, but you would recognize it as your car and you wouldn't confuse it with your neighbor's car.

- our immune systems respond to infection only as much as they are challenged, i.e. they will create immunity to the extent they are primed. That’s why vaccine doses vary based on body weight, age, etc.

- once human bodies build immunity against a virus, it generally stays around for a long time. Recent tests on the cellular immunity of very old people, those who live through the 1918 pandemic, show continued immunity to that virus (which has now mutated into one of the 4 varieties of the common cold). So once cellular immunity has been built, it lasts pretty much forever.

- helpful viruses - I love it!  That is such a great idea. Imagine some virus that could make us stronger, smarter, more attractive, or better baseball players! Sign me up!

@DD 2024 posted:

- mRNA vaccines for influenza were in mid-stage clinical trials (early stage human trials) when Covid-19 emerged.

- mRNA technology in its current form has been around for over 10 years.

I understand this.  But if the covid emergency didn't happen, it would have progressed much more deliberately through the next stages of human trials, and months (if not several years) to see any long term effect.  And this delivery technology has not been used yet at all for any other medical applications.  The other vaccine (J&J) uses a similar approach of getting the body's cell to create the spike protein, but uses virus vectoring.  This technology has been successfully used already in real world application (for the Ebola vaccine).  The medical industry has had several years to see if there are any unexpected effect.

@DD 2024 posted:

- accordingly, the T and B cells that get primed to fight a specific virus won't fight what they don't recognize. That's why the spike protein is the target for mRNA and other vaccines - it is the defining feature and specific to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.

- SARS-CoV-2 variants so far have not escaped mRNA vaccine protection because the infection mechanism for each variant is the same. Say you changed the paint color on your car, or put in a bigger engine, or better tires - your eyes would still perceive it as your car. It might look different than it did before, but you would recognize it as your car and you wouldn't confuse it with your neighbor's car.

This may be my ignorance talking, but is it definitive that only the "undesirable" sars-cov-2 virus that has ever, and will ever have the spike protein as the defining characteristics?  Is it definitely impossible that training our body to reject all molecules/antigens with spike based proteins will not have unintended consequence in the future?

To expand on your analogy, if I trained a process to recognize my car using what I thought was a characteristic only unique to my car (i.e. Tag number), I may get burned bec I didn't think that cars from other countries may have the same Tag number and that it turned out to not be unique. If we had tested this process for a couple of years, we may have discovered this and tuned our process to look at the VIN, not just the tag of the vehicle.

I am not saying that we shouldn't have rushed these vaccines or issued emergency authorization.  The benefit definitely outweighs the risk for the high risk population.  The same thing happened with the polio vaccine before. The live attenuated vaccine was a major breakthrough.  It saved a lot of lives.  High risk people should definitely have gotten the vaccine.  However, that vaccine also has more harmful risk compared to the next breakthrough of inactivated vaccine.  If the lower risk people have the privilege and choice of waiting, they could have benefited from the research showing the danger from live vaccine and the new breakthrough of inactivated vaccines.  And if they can afford to wait some more, they could have waited for the production issues to be discovered and fixed (see the Cutter incident).  If my kids are high risk, then I would not have any issue with the decision to have them vaccinated with V1 of the vaccine.

I am not anti-vax.  I am arguing that the risk-benefit calculation may be different for each family/individuals.  We should educate but not pressure and force.

@DD 2024 posted:

- our immune systems respond to infection only as much as they are challenged, i.e. they will create immunity to the extent they are primed. That’s why vaccine doses vary based on body weight, age, etc.

- once human bodies build immunity against a virus, it generally stays around for a long time. Recent tests on the cellular immunity of very old people, those who live through the 1918 pandemic, show continued immunity to that virus (which has now mutated into one of the 4 varieties of the common cold). So once cellular immunity has been built, it lasts pretty much forever.

One of the other concerns I have is the focus on vaccines but not as much discussion on natural immunity.  Our whole family got Covid already (which factored into my risk/benefit calculation for my family).  I tried researching the immunity developed from vaccines vs. the natural immunity from recovering from covid.  When I read separate articles talking about these topics, it reads like the end effect is the same (the observed behavior and response of the body).  But when I read articles comparing both, the immunity from vaccine is always highlighted and pumped up, but the natural immunity from recovering from Covid is downplayed and minimized.

@adbono posted:

Same here. Based on the content of that article (assuming it was accurate) the conclusion I draw is that NC State has a very legitimate complaint about how the NCAA conducted the testing and the unexplained delay in getting results back to them.

Depending on the most reliable test, PCR, it can take up to 6-8  hours from test to results.

So maybe that is why there was a delay.

A heads up folks, Florida cases are up so if you are bringing your unvaccinated son to play in an event, make sure that you are aware of event protocols.

Whistler, you win. I’m changing the channel to watch a MLB game. You’ve ruined the viewing experience.

I’ve watched almost every game of the CWS and a lot of college ball starting with the regionals. I’m switching off the game because the Whistler is out of control tonight. Watching without the sound eliminates too much of the excitement and intensity of the game.

I’ve known several kids who played for Vanderbilt. I used to pull for them. Due to the Whistler I can’t stand Vanderbilt. I hope they get eliminated in regions every year from now on.

@SomeBaseballDad posted:

New coronavirus cases increased 9.4% in Florida in the week ending Sunday as the state added 11,048 cases. The previous week had 10,095 new cases of the virus.

Florida ranked sixth among the state's where the coronavirus was spreading the fastest on a per person basis, a USA TODAY Network analysis of John Hopkins University shows.

This is not the entire article.  If you have questions about the data or story, contact Mike Stucka at mstucka@gannett.com

34 state's did not report new cases, Florida being one of them who has not reported in weeks so the 0 means NOTHING.

So according to @TPM, the Whistler must have a summer home in FL. If he is from Nashville then it’s probably somewhere in the panhandle. We’ve got to find a way to track him down. This is the greatest conspiracy theory ever!!!

@ReluctantO'sFan posted:

So according to @TPM, the Whistler must have a summer home in FL. If he is from Nashville then it’s probably somewhere in the panhandle. We’ve got to find a way to track him down. This is the greatest conspiracy theory ever!!!

According to me? Where did I say that?