[HN Gopher] Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine ma...
___________________________________________________________________
Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine mandates
Author : alexrustic
Score : 298 points
Date : 2022-01-26 13:32 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ntdca.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (ntdca.com)
| roody15 wrote:
| The Omicron variant has so far shown itself to be milder and
| overall less dangerous to the vaccinated and unvaccinated. So far
| it appears to leave patients with good immunity after recovery.
|
| This trend is playing out in the US and western Europe. Ireland
| has dropped its restrictions .. Denmark also just announced
| dropping restrictions.
|
| The board member is correct here, despite anyones personal
| thoughts on covid vaccinations, vaccine requirements etc.. at
| least for now this latest variant seems to be forcing a change in
| narrative.
| Bhilai wrote:
| I am done. I did my part, wore masks (sometimes double masks,)
| three shots of vaccines and took all reasonable precautions that
| a sane person could do. But there are still unmasked people and
| unvaccinated people (sure, blame me for putting everyone in this
| binary category) and I am done caring about this class of people.
| I could not see my family for two years due to one or the other
| international travel restrictions. I am done being a respectful
| citizen who does their duty towards society. There are "experts"
| on all sides providing conflicting science mixed with opinions
| and research keeps changing every few weeks. Call it an endemic
| and do away with all the mandates they are yet another source for
| causing division by the political class.
|
| Sorry about this fatalist and flippant tone.
| [deleted]
| neaden wrote:
| Well hope you don't need to be hospitalized for any other
| reason then because the beds might be full, there probably
| won't be enough providers because of burn out, and costs will
| be going up. We are nearing a collapse of our medical system in
| a way that people don't seem to be recognizing or doing
| anything about.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Nearing collapse, are we?
|
| Predict the time of collapse and define "collapse". I will
| take a 1:1 $10k bet for the other side if it's soon enough
| and reasonable enough. Soon enough and reasonable enough and
| I'll raise it to $100k.
|
| $10k is enough for you to medical tourism to the third world.
| $100k is enough for you to medical tourism to many parts of
| the first world. So I think this is fair.
| xattt wrote:
| What's your perspective on small kids too young to be
| vaccinated?
| ryan93 wrote:
| zero risk of death from covid
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Not zero, but so incredibly low as not to be matter for
| concern in terms of risk assessment. One of the few upsides
| of this pandemic is that young children are the least
| affected, and with vaccines available for ages 5 and up
| this risk is well mitigated for older children (teens in
| particular).
| Izkata wrote:
| > and I am done caring about this class of people.
|
| And their response will be "Finally! This is all we've wanted
| this entire time!"
|
| I don't think most here understand just how much "this class of
| people" value freedom over safety.
| tomrod wrote:
| > I don't think most here understand just how much "this
| class of people" value freedom over safety.
|
| No, the problem is that we do, and also see the selfishness
| of the position with regards to highly communicable diseases.
| "My body, my choice" is a fantastic principle when the
| outcome of the choice has negligible impact on people
| breathing the same air. Many of these same folks would raise
| a stir if their neighbor started throwing their trash over
| the fence. In my mind there is no distinction. Their choice
| to not be vaccinated or wear masks results in people we love
| dying. It's not their individual freedom that is the risk.
| Their choice threatens our collective freedoms to life and
| liberty which we individually enjoy.
| walterbell wrote:
| _> Their choice to not be vaccinated or wear masks results
| in people we love dying._
|
| If they are one of the 146 million Americans who recovered
| from Covid, they are at low risk of reinfection and thus
| transmission.
|
| The same cannot be said for Covid-naive, vaccinated people
| who can be infected and silently infect others due to
| symptoms being suppressed by the vaccine.
| packetlost wrote:
| That's not at all how immunity or the vaccines work.
| [deleted]
| walterbell wrote:
| UK data showed a ~1% chance of reinfection with Delta.
| Omicron is higher, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.
| uk/government/uploads/...
|
| _> To the end of week 43 in 2021 (to 31 October 2021)
| 72,264 possible reinfections have been identified ... 7.9
| million first positives_
|
| For Delta transmission from vaccinated individuals, a
| study of Vietnamese healthcare workers found that 70% of
| infections were pre-symptomatic, https://papers.ssrn.com/
| sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3897733
|
| _> 69 healthcare workers were tested positive for SARS-
| CoV-2. 62 participated in the clinical study. 49 were
| (pre)symptomatic ... Breakthrough Delta variant
| infections are associated with high viral loads,
| prolonged PCR positivity, and low levels of vaccine-
| induced neutralizing antibodies, explaining the
| transmission between the vaccinated people. Physical
| distancing measures remain critical to reduce SARS-CoV-2
| Delta variant transmission._
| tomrod wrote:
| This isn't a classification problem of COVID-naive+vaxxed
| versus COVID-exposed versus COVID-naive+unvaxxed, and
| hasn't been since Delta.
|
| The issue is not vaccine denial by itself, its resistance
| to any public health measures, including vaccines,
| masking and other non-pharmaceutical interventions, and
| so forth. In short, these folks actively pursue a course
| of not behaving rationally because (usually) of misguided
| politics.
|
| It's ill-informed. If you have a prior COVID infection,
| you should still maintain active vaccination status,
| including boosters. If you get COVID, you should get
| tested and try to not get others sicks.
|
| Instead, the pantheon of behaviors we observe from anti-
| vaxxers is spiteful and irrational. Which supports my
| initial point that this is a self behavior.
| walterbell wrote:
| Is early treatment considered a public health
| intervention, https://c19early.com/?
| [deleted]
| johnnyb9 wrote:
| > Their choice to not be vaccinated or wear masks results
| in people we love dying.
|
| It's hard to see how vaccines stop the spread when places
| like NYC or Israel (some of the most vaccinated places in
| the world) had record setting numbers in the recent wave.
|
| If vaccines work, shouldn't the "people you love" be
| vaccinated and thus not impacted by unvaccinated people?
|
| I understand masks can be effective in some cases, but is
| it really reasonable to demand people wear surgical or N95
| masks all the time to prevent "people you love" from
| getting an illness with a 99.99% survival rate?
| boring_twenties wrote:
| > 99.99%
|
| This is an extraordinary claim that runs counter to all
| available evidence and should be backed up by
| extraordinary evidence.
| [deleted]
| abduhl wrote:
| https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.11.222690
| 45v... indicates that death rate is less than 0.1 per
| 1000 for omicron. Sample size is high:
|
| Our analyses included 52,297 cases with SGTF (Omicron)
| and 16,982 cases with non-SGTF (Delta [B.1.617.2])
| infections, respectively
| boring_twenties wrote:
| My mistake, I didn't realize you were referring to
| Omicron specifically (which makes sense). Even so, that
| is much better than I thought. Thanks for providing the
| link.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| > Even so, that is much better than I thought
|
| I forget the source but survey's suggest the average
| american thinks if they catch covid they have like a 10%
| chance of dying. This is in some cases 1000x wrong.
| People are badly, badly mis-informed on how survivable
| covid is.
|
| If people knew the actual statistics around covid
| severity, I don't think we'd be doing any of this at all.
| cameldrv wrote:
| These numbers don't add up for the U.S. as a whole. 0.1
| out of 1000 of the entire U.S. population has died of
| COVID just in the past 19 days.
| lambdaba wrote:
| Of Covid or with covid? With omnicron being so widespread
| my sense is it's almost impossible not to catch it in a
| hospital.
| cameldrv wrote:
| You tell me. Cite primary sources.
| 01100011 wrote:
| Until they get seriously ill and then they start crying.
|
| My dad's physician, of all people, was anti vax until he
| ended up in the ER. Then he started telling all of his
| patients to get vaxxed.
| tehjoker wrote:
| The best part is though that whenever an anti-vax person
| gets sick, survives and tells people to get the vax,
| they're treated like they are spreading a disease lol
| oversocialized wrote:
| If you want safety, go to prison
| rajup wrote:
| You say that like it's a bad thing
| Hamuko wrote:
| Considering the number of videos I've seen with people
| yelling at masked people, I'd say that they don't care about
| freedom at all (since apparently people shouldn't be free to
| wear masks whenever they want).
| kbelder wrote:
| You don't think that happens the other way around as well?
| There's obnoxious morons on both sides of this debate.
| Hamuko wrote:
| I don't think the other side is masquerading their point
| as some sort of exercise in freedom.
| aldebran wrote:
| I don't think they value freedom. I think it's mostly a cult
| following.
|
| People made their decision then looked for reasons to support
| it.
| jaywalk wrote:
| This type of thinking is the core of the problem. Both
| sides ascribe the worst to the other. "They're just too
| stupid to realize why I'm right!"
|
| Get off your high horse.
| aldebran wrote:
| Why do you think I'm on a high horse?
|
| People complaining about masks taking away freedom don't
| seem to be rioting about freedom of drinking and driving
| as an example.
|
| I'm all for freedom. Heck I donate to EFF and ACLU
| annually. I'm also for personal responsibility when it
| affects others as we live in a society.
| MagnumOpus wrote:
| Freeloaders value freedom, what a surprise.
|
| As long as they don't mix with the rest of society and are
| willing to bear the full cost of their 10x higher risk of
| hospital and ICU care, it is a perfectly fine stance. Sadly,
| they don't - and once they find out that "this covid is no
| joke", they have already become a massive burden to society
| who has to pay for their care.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| Are you equally critical of the obese? Or those who ride
| motorcycles on the highway?
|
| As someone who is vaxxed, I struggle to see how the harm
| done by the unvaccinated is _categorically_ worse than the
| risks taken by others at society 's expense. I imagine you
| have none of the _disdain_ for motorcycle riders that you
| do for the unvaccinated.
|
| Edit: For those replying to my comment, please note the
| comment I replied to listed the cost of hospitalization and
| the crowding out of ICU beds for others as costs society
| has to bear; if you are crowded out of an ICU bed, whether
| it be from someone who is unvaccinated or someone who is
| obese, you are dead nonetheless.
| wilde wrote:
| The obese can't kill me from across the room. A better
| analogy would be smokers, who I am also frustrated with
| but at least nicotine is addictive.
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| This is a bad argument. Omicron is massively spreading
| among the vaccinated as well as the unvaccinated. The
| difference in likelihood of catching COVID from a vaxxed
| vs unvaxxed is negligible over any decent time interval.
| You're not catching COVID from the unvaxxed, you're
| catching it from other people. Given this reality, how do
| you justify a vaccine mandate?
| wilde wrote:
| You got data on that? The studies I've seen show that
| boosters help slow the rate of infection. Ex.
| https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-
| deta...
| peteradio wrote:
| Slow the rate of infection means I'm infected tomorrow
| instead of today. There is no stopping it.
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| Yes, being boosted helps, but a vaccine mandate should be
| in service to very clear and significant public health
| goals. Herd immunity is such a goal, but that was likely
| impossible once Delta hit, let alone Omicron. At this
| point what is the goal? At best we can only delay
| infection, but not for very long.
|
| https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.30.212685
| 65v...
|
| This study shows that being boosted gives you 37%
| protection from infection over a period of maybe a month.
| But this means at peak spread, you can expect an
| infection rate among the boosted population of 63% of the
| unvaxxed infection rate.
|
| If we assume we can get every vaxxed person boosted,
| you're still more likely to get infected by a fully
| boosted individual since the vaccination rates are
| something like 70%. That is, for every 70 vaxxed people
| there are 30 unvaxxed, and 70 * .63 > 30. If we assume we
| can get everyone vax+boosted instantly, the estimated
| infection rate drops to .85 percent of the current rate.
| With an estimated r0 of 10 for Omicron, such a small
| reduction in infections has no chance of substantially
| slowing the spread. At this point mandates are merely a
| punitive measure against those the majority have deemed
| moral degenerates.
| jules wrote:
| A vaccinated person can still spread the disease. Perhaps
| at a lower rate, but a lot of lifestyle choices affect
| that rate. The singular focus on that one choice is
| irrational and the obsession with what other people
| inject into their bodies is unethical, since the free
| choice of a person to inject or not inject a substance
| into their body is more fundamental than many of the
| other choices that affect the rate of spread.
|
| I have personally been vaccinated but I feel a pang of
| guilt whenever I use the government mandated vaccine
| passport to make use of restaurants and so on. So I stop
| using those facilities that require a vaccine passport,
| with the exception of the gym.
| wilde wrote:
| The rate is what matters. Vaccination is one of the
| easiest things we can do to affect that rate.
|
| In terms of ethics, yeah I care what other people do. I
| also care that they stop at red lights so they don't
| murder me with their car. We set rules as a society when
| individual decisions can affect group outcomes.
| jules wrote:
| The rate only becomes highly relevant if it makes the
| difference between R>1 and R<1. Otherwise the disease
| will still exponentially expand, just over a more spread
| out period of time. Even countries with very high
| vaccination rates now have R much above 1, so the idea
| that COVID can be stopped by vaccines is unfortunately
| not tenable any more.
|
| We have traditionally not violated bodily autonomy for
| very low probability of benefit to other people, and I
| think the precedent that some countries have set is a
| grave mistake. I understand that you are upset and afraid
| of death, but I would encourage you to look at the
| statistics. If you are vaccinated then COVID is a very
| survivable disease. Without vaccination, the average
| person's risk of dying of COVID is approximately 0.5%.
| The vaccine trial showed that it is 98% effective, so it
| cuts your risk by another factor of 50. As a point of
| comparison, if you are unvaccinated then COVID is ~10x
| more dangerous than the flu. Vaccination changes that
| picture. Consider whether your reaction is proportionate,
| when compared to what your reaction to "people murdering
| you from across the room with the flu" would have been.
| Ethical violations have historically happened quite often
| when people are irrationally afraid. It is true that the
| vaccines are less effective against Omicron, but on the
| other hand Omicron is a milder disease than Delta.
| Current data is looking like we are net very lucky to
| have Omicron displace Delta.
| Izkata wrote:
| > Without vaccination, the average person's risk of dying
| of COVID is approximately 0.5%. The vaccine trial showed
| that it is 98% effective, so it cuts your risk by another
| factor of 50. As a point of comparison, if you are
| unvaccinated then COVID is ~10x more dangerous than the
| flu.
|
| Also covid is heavily weighted towards the elderly, the
| flu is not (or at least not as much). IIRC ages 30-50
| have around the same risk as the flu, and under 30 have
| more risk from the flu.
| wilde wrote:
| I guess for me "bodily autonomy" is not some bright line.
| We mandate other vaccines for school. We have loads of
| regulations around what goes in our food and water and
| air. Why is this suddenly different?
|
| I think I'm as guilty as anyone at binarizing the issue
| though. You're right that I have a low risk of death. We
| don't have enough data around long-COVID to really talk
| about other risks. I'm not talking out of fear. I'm
| talking out of frustration that I've made lifestyle
| changes to help others who clearly don't feel the need to
| reciprocate.
| jules wrote:
| Food, water, and air regulations are completely
| different. To be analogous, they would have to be
| regulations about food and drinks you _must_ consume, or
| gasses that you _must_ breathe in. Even if that were the
| case, it would still be less invasive than an injection
| with RNA, which enters your cells, which causes your cell
| to produce spike protein, which causes your immune system
| to attack those cells. Note again: I personally did take
| the vaccines, the point is that this is not comparable to
| food regulations. When I did take the vaccine I already
| knew that medically there was no necessity: due to my age
| and no comorbidities the risk of complications from COVID
| was known to be extremely low, and I knew that it wouldn
| 't help other people either because it would not get R<1,
| but I simply made the decision because I did not want to
| lose my sense of smell for a couple of months. I was
| under no illusion that I was saving the world with that
| decision. If one was under such illusion, I can certainly
| understand the frustration with other people not saving
| the world. But this is not reality.
|
| Your point about schools mandating vaccines is good. I'm
| not categorically against vaccine mandates. For a
| sufficiently transmissible disease, which is also deadly,
| and where spread can be stopped by vaccination, it can be
| justified. Measles may be a candidate: very transmissible
| (more so than COVID) and deadly for children (2.6 million
| deaths in 1980), and a vaccine which is extremely
| effective (99% immunity against infection) and has a long
| term safety record (complications <1 per million). COVID
| is not such a disease, and the COVID vaccines are not
| such vaccines.
|
| Even so, in my country it is not compulsory to get
| vaccinated against the measles, not even in schools.
| Certainly one does not have to show a measles vaccination
| proof when entering a non-essential business like a
| restaurant, which one does have to show for COVID. Nor
| does one have to get a booster every 9 months, which one
| does, by law, for COVID.
|
| > I'm talking out of frustration that I've made lifestyle
| changes to help others who clearly don't feel the need to
| reciprocate.
|
| Ok but this is not a good reason to compel other people
| to vaccinate. These people likely did not ask you to make
| the changes that you did. Nor are the changes that you
| made likely to have made much difference in the lives of
| these people, and whether or not these people do get
| vaccinated has a very minimal impact on your life, other
| than your frustration.
|
| The fact that you feel like it would be a nice gesture
| from them if they "reciprocated" by getting vaccinated
| does not weigh against the negatives. Many of these
| people are probably genuinely afraid to take the vaccine.
| They may be very misinformed, but the fear is real. If
| you put sufficient pressure on these people via the
| government, for instance by threatening to take away
| their job and their ability to provide for their
| children, then they may well take the vaccine. But these
| people may resent those who forced them into it for the
| rest of their lives, and feel alienated from a society
| that made them do it. And some of them will feel ill for
| a day or two (as many do after getting the vaccine),
| which may cause them to think that any future pain or
| health problems were caused by the vaccine. It this worth
| it to you in order to act out your frustration that they
| "don't feel the need to reciprocate"?
| guimplen wrote:
| not only can, but there is evidence that current covid
| vaccines can only higher you chances of milder disease.
| The probability of you getting infection and being a
| spreader is the same whether you are or not vaccinated.
| bityard wrote:
| A motorcyclist can (realistically) only risk themselves
| with their choice to ride on the highway.
|
| The vaccines are not 100% effective and not everyone can
| safely take the vaccine. The unvaccinated put others at
| risk, not just themselves. I think it's perfectly fair to
| scorn those who _can_ be vaccinated but choose not to out
| of ignorance or religious/political ideology.
| native_samples wrote:
| A risky argument. That sword cuts in two directions. The
| COVID-panicked hysterical set have imposed insanely high
| costs on society, now surfacing as rapidly rising
| inflation, a huge gap in GDP, and exploded government
| debts.
|
| So I'd be fine with the following deal:
|
| 1. I work out some arrangement with my health insurance
| firm w.r.t. COVID hospitalization costs, possibly just
| paying the costs myself or possibly paying a higher premium
| for not taking the vaccine. It's been two years now and I
| never caught it, all the people I know who did never
| required a hospital visit and Omicron is very mild so this
| seems like a safe bet.
|
| 2. In return governments force higher taxes on everyone
| under the age of 65 who took vaccines they didn't
| clinically need (and almost nobody under that age does).
| Those taxes will pay for the costs of the vaccines
| themselves of course but also all the indirect costs and
| debts caused by their insistence on shutting society down.
| golergka wrote:
| You may have written this as an attack, but this is 100%
| compatible with libertarian worldview:
|
| > As long as they don't mix with the rest of society
|
| Private discrimination is your right -- if you don't want
| to admit unmasked and unvaccinated to your premises, you
| should be able to. As a pro-vaccine libertarian, it would
| make me prefer your establishments over others.
|
| > are willing to bear the full cost of their 10x higher
| risk of hospital and ICU care
|
| Of course. Nobody can claim the rights to other people's
| labour, and we don't want others to be obliged to pay for
| our healthcare -- and healthcare providers should have the
| same right of private discrimination.
| ghostwriter wrote:
| Privatize healthcare to the level there are no forced
| regular contributions anywhere, and stop taking my money at
| the point of the government coercion, then we'll see who
| actually is a freeloader in this society.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| But what about free and unlimited Healthcare is a
| fundamental human right
| packetlost wrote:
| I disagree with this. Healthcare is a absolutely a
| privilege offered by society, not a fundamental human
| right.
| wezen wrote:
| But who gives you that entitlement?
| hatware wrote:
| > But there are still unmasked people and unvaccinated people
|
| I'm not sure how you're convinced it's only the unmasked or
| unvaccinated people that are responsible for the spread of the
| virus at this point. In many countries they are not allowed to
| go anywhere.
|
| How is the virus crossing oceans so quickly if the unvaccinated
| are unable to cross borders?
| pedrosorio wrote:
| > if the unvaccinated are unable to cross borders?
|
| Unless regulations across the world have changed drastically
| in the last couple of weeks, this is just false.
| scohesc wrote:
| If you're Canadian, you're not allowed to leave the country
| if you're not vaccinated.
|
| https://travel.gc.ca/travel-covid/travel-
| restrictions/domest... - the part specifically about "You
| need to be vaccinated to travel in and out of Canada"
|
| They've made it a requirement to be vaccinated to use any
| form of federally regulated transportation - plane, train,
| boat - personal vehicles are the last option, but good luck
| trying to drive on the pacific ocean since you're not
| allowed to enter the US unvaccinated either AFAIK.
| pedrosorio wrote:
| Thanks for the info, but nothing in the thread I was
| responding to gave me the impression the GP was referring
| exclusively to Canada when they said:
|
| "How is the virus crossing oceans so quickly if the
| unvaccinated are unable to cross borders?"
|
| > but good luck trying to drive on the pacific ocean
| since you're not allowed to enter the US unvaccinated
| either AFAIK
|
| Until 5 days ago you could: https://www.forbes.com/sites/
| sandramacgregor/2022/01/24/cana...
| galfarragem wrote:
| > But there are still unmasked people and unvaccinated people
| and I am done caring about this class of people.
|
| Humm, I wish it was that clear. I'm from Portugal, one of the
| countries with higher vax rate (anti-vax movement here is
| negligible) and a few days ago we were on world top 5 for new
| infections.
|
| Disclaimer: I'm fully vaccinated. However I respect who isn't.
| PerfectElement wrote:
| New infections is not a very relevant metric at this point.
| 01100011 wrote:
| Agreed, and we just lost my wife's grandma to Covid. She could
| have been fine but that part of the family swallowed the anti-
| vax lie. My wife's aunt almost died from Covid. They should
| have known better too, having lost a brother in Vietnam to
| Covid, but the Trumpian lies had a stronger hold on them.
|
| We do still need to think about the people who can't get vaxxed
| for medical reasons. My sister has MS and has been on
| immunosuppressants which prevented her from getting it.
| Thankfully she took a break and got vaxxed because now she has
| covid.
|
| If we get to, say, April without a serious spike in the death
| rate, I think the protocols will be rolled back. That assumes
| we don't see a new variant but it looks like the variants are
| getting less serious, not more.
| Pungsnigel wrote:
| "Trumpian lies"?
|
| Trump is actively promoting vaccination.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| > Trumpian lies
|
| Trump supports the vaccines that he helped fund and create.
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/24/politics/trump-covid-
| vaccine-...
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| How do you feel about people who are vaccinated but will still
| likely have permanent serious consequences or shortened life
| span due to a "mild" infection?
|
| I'm in this category and it doesn't seem particularly rare.
| Rarely accounted for in these "I am done" type posts though.
| rajup wrote:
| Ok but what do you propose though? The vaccinated still
| spread COVID granted at a lesser rate. A permanent mask
| mandate? COVID is not going away.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| If we're doing masks permanently I am going to invest in
| some bespoke Darth Vader style of head dress or a space
| suit, because I am completely done with masks.
|
| I've made and used home sewn masks using one of the
| recommended sewing patterns for the past two years, and
| I've managed to get a good fit that only fogged up my
| glasses partly, but since last week these masks have been
| banned here in the Netherlands. Not because they are proven
| to be worse than the type II surgical masks that are
| recommended now, but because the government wants to
| standardize. So now I wear disposable masks that mean my
| glasses fog up every damn time I enter a building. Great.
|
| Then there is that constant feeling of not getting enough
| oxygen, all while being confronted with the 5% who simply
| refuse to wear a mask in the shops, and shop staff refusing
| to remark on it for fear of getting into an altercation.
| I'm thoroughly through with masks. I'll wear them where and
| when mandatory, but certainly not indefinitely.
| alamortsubite wrote:
| Motorcyclists have a great trick to eliminate fogging-
| after cleaning, rub a little shaving cream onto the lens.
| It's simple, cheap, and effective. Add a proper-fitting
| KN95 mask and the difference will be like night and day.
| There's no need to dress up like Darth Vader (though that
| might be fun, regardless).
|
| Masks can be uncomfortable. My biggest gripe is actually
| the awkwardness that sometimes accompanies taking them
| off and putting them on again. Especially when also
| wearing glasses, a hat, and/or a helmet. But given my
| girlfriend wears full PPE for her 12-hour shifts treating
| COVID patients without ever complaining about getting
| enough oxygen, I hope the rest of us will bear masking up
| while we're in the AH or on public transport. Compared to
| the shit she deals with, it's a minor inconvenience, at
| best.
|
| Also, maybe I'm wrong but my feeling is the fear of
| altercation over mask wearing is overblown. I live in a
| semi-rural part of the United States where masks are a
| very political and contentious issue (probably more so
| than in NL). I regularly interact with people strongly
| opposed to them, and am often in crowds where few if any
| other people are wearing one, but in the past two years
| have never experienced any kind of confrontation. Perhaps
| I'm lucky and my size and physical appearance is
| intimidating to those who would otherwise pick a fight.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Trust me; I've tried all of the remedies and solutions.
| Only a really good fit seems to help a little bit, but
| not completely. Better fitting N95 or FFP2 masks may
| bring some relieve, but they're relatively expensive and
| barely available in supermarkets as it is. There is also
| the feeling that it seems statistically pointless to wear
| these as long as the majority of people use surgical
| masks; many not even bothering to cover their noses.
|
| I don't know why, but while I can wear a mask for up to
| half an hour, anything beyond that becomes torture
| (doubly so when you are travelling with a toddler who
| needs you as a parent, which means talking through a mask
| increasing the out-of-breath feeling). This has made
| travelling longer distances fairly impossible for me,
| which again adds to the 'so fucking done' feeling that is
| gaining the upper hand.
| pohl wrote:
| The idea of cooking food stayed. Sanitation stayed. The
| practice of washing hands stayed. Refrigeration of food
| stayed. Why the heck shouldn't the use masks stay?
| topher515 wrote:
| I don't understand this position. Are you honestly
| proposing that we permanently require masks in all
| public, indoor environments? For the rest of our lives?
|
| I don't see how you can flippantly propose this as an
| option. How can you be ok with wearing masks for the rest
| of your life--if it can at all be avoided?
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| Last I checked, people generally enjoy cooked food more,
| there isn't a washing hands mandate (outside of certain
| workplace), no fridge mandate (and it comes with strict
| benefits of longer lasting food).
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Then we should adapt to it in ways that preserve life?
| Cholera didn't go away either we just have sewers and wash
| our hands a lot now.
|
| I'm not a medical or public health expert, it's not up to
| me to figure it out.
|
| But to start with, the idea that you can be "done" because
| you've already done "enough" and experienced inconvenience
| and made sacrifices needs to go. People need more from each
| other still, sorry!
| spookthesunset wrote:
| > I'm not a medical or public health expert, it's not up
| to me to figure it out.
|
| Those people don't have the right to tell you what to do.
| They are not politicians and they aren't elected. They
| can tell me to wear a mask for the rest of my life, but
| it is my right to say "nope".
| guimplen wrote:
| I'd appreciate if you point me to a study showing that
| vaccinated spread COVID at a lesser rate. As far as i know,
| currently the findings are inconclusive at best. Lower risk
| of serious infection and death is more or less established
| though.
| 3glkjlkjlkg wrote:
| tzs wrote:
| Something from the NYT mailing list yesterday:
|
| > The Covid vaccines are remarkably effective at preventing
| serious illness. If you're vaccinated, your chances of getting
| severely sick are extremely low. Even among people 65 and older,
| the combination of the vaccines' effectiveness and the Omicron
| variant's relative mildness means that Covid now appears to
| present less danger than a normal flu.
|
| > For the unvaccinated, however, Covid is worse than any other
| common virus. It has killed more than 865,000 Americans, the vast
| majority unvaccinated. In the weeks before vaccines became widely
| available, Covid was the country's No. 1 cause of death, above
| even cancer and heart disease.
|
| At this point if an adult in the US is unvaccinated it is (1)
| almost certainly by choice (there are some people who cannot get
| it for medical reasons but they make up only a very tiny fraction
| of the unvaccinated), and (2) it is very unlikely that any
| evidence or logical arguments will chance their minds.
|
| With COVID becoming endemic everyone is going to get antibodies,
| with the only choice being whether you get your first antibodies
| by vaccination or by getting COVID.
|
| The only question really then is how fast do we want the
| unvaccinated to do the getting antibodies by getting COVID thing.
| The faster they get it, the faster we can be as done with COVID
| as we are ever going to be.
|
| I'd say the answer to that should be determined by the hospital
| capacity. If a region has sufficient hospital capacity that it
| would not be overwhelmed by the increase in COVID cases among the
| unvaccinated go ahead and lift most restrictions.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| Hospitals are overwhelmed by people who are vaccinated, have
| mild or even asymptomatic covid, and are certain they are going
| to die.
|
| https://www.wcax.com/2021/12/22/covid-positive-vermonters-wi...
|
| I'm sure there's plenty of actual sick people too. But we need
| a serious change to our messaging.
| cletus wrote:
| I agree.
|
| My sense is the government has silently taken this stance and
| that hospitals aren't at risk of collapse like they were a year
| or more ago. I also get the feeling the vaccinated have given
| up on the unvaccinated too just based on how rarely I now see
| posts on social media. It's like a tacit acceptance that if
| people are going to choose to die, so be it.
|
| I actually wonder if this not caring is what will actually
| defuse this particular anti-vaxx movement. Or it'll just be the
| next vaccine and the Covid vaccine issues will be completely
| forgotten. I mean when was the last time you heard about
| vaccines causing autism?
|
| what's interesting here is the underlying psychology that makes
| people susceptible to manipulation by thinking they're in the
| know on some Big Lie. This seems to be nothing new however and
| I can't help but think of this quote from Goebbels of all
| people [1]:
|
| > "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people
| will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained
| only for such time as the State can shield the people from the
| political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It
| thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its
| powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of
| the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy
| of the State."
|
| [1]: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/joseph-goebbels-on-
| the-...
| JPKab wrote:
| I saw that email. David Leonhart I believe, who is one of my
| preferred NYT journalists.
|
| Something that was conspicuously absent from the paragraph
| regarding the unvaccinated vs. the vaccinated paragraph
| preceding it:
|
| Risk stratification by age. When talking about the vaccinated,
| he calls out the "even in people over age 65".
|
| There is zero question that vaccines reduce the relative risk
| for people under 65, however, it should be noted that the
| absolute risk for healthy people in this category is orders of
| magnitude lower purely by virtue of their age. Unhealthy people
| in this category should be vaccinated, of course.
|
| Just an example of narrative bias creeping in, even from the
| relatively top-flight Leonhart.
|
| Anyway, not disagreeing with you, just calling out a specific
| example of why the journalism on COVID has been, primarily
| unintentionally, misleading.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > If a region has sufficient hospital capacity that it would
| not be overwhelmed by the increase in COVID cases among the
| unvaccinated go ahead and lift most restrictions.
|
| This is basically the reasoning used in Ireland; the hospitals
| weren't overwhelmed as Omicron peaked in the first week or so
| of January, so overnight we went from really quite restricted
| to all restrictions except mask requirements gone. Over 95% of
| Irish adults are vaccinated, so this isn't a trick that will
| work everywhere, but... for now it seems to be going okay.
| deegles wrote:
| > With COVID becoming endemic everyone is going to get
| antibodies
|
| Vaccines provide better protection than infection, just to be
| clear. It's not true that you're safe because of a previous
| infection.
|
| See: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-
| pr...
| reducesuffering wrote:
| I see your Aug. '21 CDC paper, and raise you 1 more recent
| Jan. '22 CDC paper:
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e1.htm
|
| "By the week beginning October 3, compared with COVID-19
| cases rates among unvaccinated persons without a previous
| COVID-19 diagnosis, case rates among vaccinated persons
| without a previous COVID-19 diagnosis were 6.2-fold
| (California) and 4.5-fold (New York) lower; rates were
| substantially lower among both groups with previous COVID-19
| diagnoses, including 29.0-fold (California) and 14.7-fold
| lower (New York) among unvaccinated persons with a previous
| diagnosis, and 32.5-fold (California) and 19.8-fold lower
| (New York) among vaccinated persons with a previous diagnosis
| of COVID-19. During the same period, compared with
| hospitalization rates among unvaccinated persons without a
| previous COVID-19 diagnosis, hospitalization rates in
| California followed a similar pattern. These results
| demonstrate that vaccination protects against COVID-19 and
| related hospitalization, and that surviving a previous
| infection protects against a reinfection and related
| hospitalization. Importantly, infection-derived protection
| was higher after the Delta variant became predominant, a time
| when vaccine-induced immunity for many persons declined
| because of immune evasion and immunologic waning (2,5,6)."
|
| TL;DR only vaccine did not provide better protection than
| only previous infection
| lliamander wrote:
| Not necessarily: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021
| .08.24.21262415v...
| systemvoltage wrote:
| No they don't, indisputably now. See the massive 15 million
| people study from CDC Jan'2022 paper and here is an article
| that summarizes it: https://thepulse.one/2022/01/24/cdc-
| admits-the-obvious-natur...
| kmonad wrote:
| I think the hospital capacity is a key argument indeed. But
| there is another aspect to consider. Each viral replication is
| a potential event where a new variant can arise, thus the fewer
| viral replications the better since each new variant has
| unknown risks. An unvaccinated person will on average be host
| to many more viral replications after exposure to the virus
| than a vaccinated person after exposure. Thus, if a large part
| of the population remains unvaccinated, the virus has more room
| room to evolve than necessary given we have easy access to
| effective and safe vaccines. Therefore, this should also factor
| into a debate around vaccination policies and personal choice
| vs societal risk.
| mikem170 wrote:
| > Thus, if a large part of the population remains
| unvaccinated, the virus has more room room to evolve than
| necessary given we have easy access to effective and safe
| vaccines.
|
| Word was that Omicron diverged from an earlier version of
| covid in mice, over the course of about a year, then jumped
| into humans [0].
|
| I think this detracts quite a bit from the point you were
| trying to make above, since we are not vaccinating mice, nor
| all the other animals that harbor covid such as bats, cats,
| dogs, primates, and deer [1].
|
| Since we can't vaccinate or destroy all of the non-human
| hosts for this coronavirus, and the virus already has evolved
| in animals and made the jump to humans a couple of times, I
| don't agree that the point you made above is relevant.
|
| [0] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/covid-19-did-
| omicr...
|
| [1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-
| coping/...
| nradov wrote:
| I encourage everyone eligible to protect themselves by
| getting vaccinated but this is unlikely to prevent new
| variants from evolving. The current thinking is that new
| variants are most likely to evolve in immunocompromised
| patients who experience prolonged infections. Vaccines are
| less effective for them.
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/covid-variants-
| ma...
| roenxi wrote:
| I've never heard a convincing argument about why the COVID
| restrictions weren't literal violations of human rights. Often
| I got a variant of "I'm scared we're just going to do it". Most
| (all?) of the arguments for it turned out to be wrong - eg,
| vaccination has not slowed the spread, even marginally,
| according to the experience in Australia where COVID _tore_
| through a highly vaccinated population. In my state (~95%
| adults 12+ vaccinated) we have had more than a million cases
| (population 8 million) in 1.5 months. And the testing systems
| collapsed, probably quite a bit more in reality.
|
| This is now taking it one step further - this argument is as an
| assumption - suggesting people have to give up their freedoms
| because people paying for their own hospital capacity is
| unacceptable to you. I say that because the sort of person who
| is pro-freedom to the point of not wanting a vaccine might well
| overlap with the population of people pro-freedom enough that
| they want individuals to pay for their own healthcare.
|
| This is not a sustainable position against 2019 business-as-
| usual. I agree with the headline.
| i386 wrote:
| I'm Australian. Vaccination and restrictions were why we
| never saw refrigerated containers of dead people on street
| corners, like NYC did in the first wave. Many people would
| have died or needed to be hospitalized.
| musicale wrote:
| Manhattan (not to mention Staten Island, as well as Queens
| and Brooklyn which are geographically on Long Island) is
| also an island, just like Australia (and Tasmania.) Clearly
| they should have isolated themselves before covid took
| hold. ;-)
| nsxwolf wrote:
| You are proportionately about as bad as the United States
| is in deaths right now.
| clouddrover wrote:
| False. The US has had 2,687 deaths per million population
| since coronavirus began. Australia has had 128.
|
| In the last 7 days the US has had 46 deaths per million
| population. Australia has had 17.
|
| See for yourself:
| https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
| ceejayoz wrote:
| (Australia is starting from near-zero natural immunity,
| too.)
| bsder wrote:
| Cite your data.
|
| Start here: https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-
| visualization/
|
| Showing new deaths per day with 1 week averaging
| normalized by population, the US is about 2-3x Australia
| right now.
|
| As for new confirmed cases per day normalized by
| population, everybody is about the same because Omicron
| is so infectious. I suspect the US number is a bit
| undercounted because the number of cases spiked so fast
| that confirmed cases simply couldn't keep up.
| mint2 wrote:
| >" At this point if an adult in the US is unvaccinated it is
| (1) almost certainly by choice (there are some people who
| cannot get it for medical reasons but they make up only a very
| tiny fraction of the unvaccinated), and (2) it is very unlikely
| that any evidence or logical arguments will chance their
| minds."
|
| This typical line of thought ignores a huge issue. Vaccine
| mandates don't help per se, but it's an issue that is pretty
| bad to just gloss over.
|
| Articles like this really need to describe some sort of policy
| or plan for the 7 million or so immunocompromised people in
| America.
|
| Like at least mention them and advocate something. Don't just
| gloss over 7 million people. Propose something like Priority
| access to the new Pfizer pills and additional assistance with
| other things to avoid high risk activities.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > Articles like this really need to describe some sort of
| policy or plan for the 7 million or so immunocompromised
| people in America.
|
| Wear good masks, social distance, etc. Basically do
| everything that's recommended to prevent the spread of covid,
| besides getting a vaccine. As a bonus, doing these things
| will help keep them safe from a large number of other
| airborne illnesses that put them at risk.
|
| Plus, there has been an increased awareness about preventing
| the spread of airborne diseases in general. Lots of stores
| and businesses have installed filtration systems that help
| keep everyone safer. Contactless delivery / checkout is much
| more mainstream, and it's now socially acceptable & legal to
| wear a mask, which is something certain people are going to
| continue to do. So while it has certainly been a nightmare
| for immunocompromised people, some positive changes have also
| resulted.
| rcpt wrote:
| > With COVID becoming endemic everyone is going to get
| antibodies, with the only choice being whether you get your
| first antibodies by vaccination or by getting COVID.
|
| That's not what endemic means.
| nu11ptr wrote:
| Apologies in advance for getting on my soapbox, but this has
| been on my mind for a while.
|
| The way in which the media has gotten everyone to say "the
| unvaccinated" is a 'disease' against basic science (not even
| getting into the divisive nature of this). I would go as far as
| saying if you read any paper, study, or other that refers to
| the "unvaccinated" as a single cohort, you are reading vaccine
| propaganda, not science, or certainly not good science.
|
| This must stop. Prior infection immunity is basic science that
| we've known for eons, and ignoring it is so blatantly glaring
| an omission, it should make the most staunch pro-vaccine person
| pause and say: "why are they so adamant to vaccinate those with
| prior infection?". One would expect prior infection to be
| robust, and multiple studies, including even the CDC's most
| recent shows it to be easily as good if not better and longer
| lasting than the vaccine. This should not come as a surprise to
| anyone.
|
| If you think any of the above is "anti-vax" then I would
| suggest the media has won and science is dead. I'm not
| suggesting the vaccine doesn't work. I'm not suggesting it
| doesn't provide protection against severe disease and death.
| I'm not suggesting anyone go out and intentionally try to get
| COVID, but a HUGE # of people have already had it and ignoring
| them is downright unscientific. If you are a rational person
| who wants to see good science and are unemotional and detached
| from outcomes, then you will want to see proper study cohorts,
| and combining prior infection in with the "unvaccinated"
| cohort, is just bad science. This bad science fuels the anti-
| vaxx movement even more, and honestly, it is hard blame them.
| henrikschroder wrote:
| Yes, this is a prime example of bad data being worse than no
| data.
|
| In the UK, for months now, the _rate_ of infection has been
| higher among the vaccinated cohort than among the
| unvaccinated cohort, for most age groups. [1]
|
| The antivaxxers are of course pointing to this data and
| claiming it's evidence that the vaccines make you more likely
| to get infected, and therefore the tinfoil hats were right
| all along.
|
| But what's actually happening is that the unvaccinated cohort
| contains a lot of people with natural immunity, who are
| dragging the numbers down, while the vaccinated cohort
| doesn't have as many people in it who have had a prior
| infection.
|
| I strongly suspect that if you were you properly separate
| people by vaccination status _and_ prior infection, you would
| see that the group of unvaccinated+no prior have a much
| higher case ratio than any other group. But since we don 't
| have this good data, the antivaxxers are running hog wild
| with the bad data, drawing the wrong conclusions.
|
| [1] https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/t.coddington/viz/U
| KRe...
| namdnay wrote:
| Isn't it just simpler to vaccinate everyone and be done with
| it? Instead of tracking who already had an infection etc.
| Just like we do for all the other vaccines we get.
|
| I don't understand why it's so controversial. The upside is
| huge and there is literally no downside.
| SamPatt wrote:
| "literally no downside"
|
| Adverse reactions to vaccinations exist. Some are severe /
| fatal.
|
| Ignoring this feeds into vaccine skepticism.
| ipaddr wrote:
| There is no downside to force vaccinating a population with
| something new that doesn't expect the first long term study
| to be in until 2024? How could that be controversial?
|
| A woman has a right to say my body my choice. You think
| removing that choice is without controversy?
| ballenf wrote:
| But we don't do it with every other vaccine. There are
| vaccines targeted at specific groups and vaccines that are
| optional regardless of group.
|
| And there are zero mandatory vaccines that require 6-month
| boosters for life.
|
| And zero mandatory vaccines that have efficacy rates under
| 90+% (probably more like 99%).
|
| I think it's ok to acknowledge we're in totally novel
| territory with covid.
| dekhn wrote:
| I'd like to make sure I understand your underlying position
| before proceeding.
|
| I think what you're trying to say is that you believe there
| is an adequate enough case for people who had prior infection
| to avoid what they believe is an unnecessary medical
| procedure which may have some risk. And, scientifically, you
| believe it's absolutely certain that in this specific
| situation, prior infection immunity provides very good
| protection, enough to override any benefits we might see that
| happen at very high vaccination rates.
|
| Hope that's a good summary....
|
| Are you a scientist?
|
| You made a number of statements about what is good and bad
| science, but some of the reasoning you make doesn't
| completely add up. In science nobody has epistemic certainty,
| but scientists and public health people act as if they do. In
| reality public health decisions are made using imperfect
| information and balance utilitarian and emotional concerns,
| as well as prior knowledge of patient compliance. Sometimes
| it may be necessary to not change a message, even if it's
| somewhat wrong, too quickly.
|
| The calculus is very simple at this point. I believe CDC and
| others are saying that the additional risk from taking the
| vaccine is very very small, and the marginal benefit of
| having even people with prior infection get vaccinated
| presents a greater (overall) health outcome (presumably in
| the form of people who had infection immunity but still were
| re-infected, and then infected others).
|
| Beyond that I don't think anybody has enough scientific data
| that is certain enough to say that you're right in your
| statements, and I think it's pretty poor taste to just keep
| attacking people who disagree with you as doing "bad
| science". Science is a subtle art, and anyway, public health
| is an entirely different field that has to concern itself
| with effective communication and people-emotions and ethics,
| so sometimes what CDC announcements may not be identical to
| what the state of the art of science is saying.
|
| I think making a simpler and weaker point would work better.
| I'd criticize the media for unnecessarily creating additional
| fear, uncertainty, and doubt, around COVID (there was a lot
| of early reporting about how omicron was going to destroy the
| world, that was entirely baseless speculation). And too many
| people, both media and generally, are quick to criticize
| people who don't "follow the CDC to the letter", especially
| around vaccines. I think that kind of cropped up politically
| in the US after the unnecessary autism/vaccine scare and
| ended up representing a dividing line.
|
| BTW, I'm an ex-scientist, worked in medical biology for
| decades, and I don't think many vaccines (flu, covid) are
| nearly as effective as the medical establishment suggests
| (look at the numbers of people who died of flu even in years
| with very high vaccination rates). And people do have
| significant side effects from getting vaccinated, but very
| rarely are the side effects more dangerous than the value of
| being vaccinated (in cases of flu and covid), which is why I
| support them. Finally, I think that herd immunity doesn't
| actually work in diseases like flu or covid. So I have some
| sympathy to your message but ultimately, just get vaccinated
| and boosted unless you can truly articulate some huge risk to
| your personal biology.
| muaytimbo wrote:
| I think you hit the nail on the head when you said the
| vaccines are less efficacious than initially reported (~94%
| decrease in the probability of disease incidence). I just
| don't understand how you square that with your conclusion,
| just keep getting boosted some indeterminate number of
| times by vaccines we know are 1) not as good as advertised,
| and 2) seem to be providing less and less protection over
| time as new variants emerge.
|
| The best protection based on my knowledge of biochemistry
| would be natural immunity to the current variant in
| circulation.
| dekhn wrote:
| I give that recommendation for the same reason I floss my
| teeth when asking my children do so; it's modelling good
| behavior to establish life-long health habits. It's not
| that I think flossing is particularly effective at
| countering gum disease (compared to just brushing alone),
| but it's the mainstream position and I think it's better
| to model "follow mainstream science" than "repeatedly
| question the medical establishment without data". I watch
| the news and literature for occasional reviews of
| flossing and I would update my parenting if warranted.
|
| The clear public health trend seems to be that we're
| going to see 2-3 revs of the vaccine booster per year,
| not that we're going to depend on natural immunity. I
| think it is almost certain that most COVID deaths were
| front-loaded and this will look almost exactly like flu
| vaccines in 3 years.
| mlac wrote:
| If you skipped this wall of text, stop and read it. Well
| said.
|
| Adding on, immunity declines over time, so to maintain it
| would either mean reinfection or booster...
| nradov wrote:
| Cellular immunity is quite durable over a lifetime. It's
| really only antibodies that substantially decline over
| time.
|
| https://peterattiamd.com/covid-part2/
| bobbyasdfasdf7 wrote:
| ipaddr wrote:
| Just do what you are told. Follow your leaders. Everyone
| else is doing it...
| nsxwolf wrote:
| Every time you express an attitude like this you cause
| fewer vaccinations to happen.
| dekhn wrote:
| yeah, I think the solution is to give $$ incentives for
| vaccination and not try to shame people, because shamed
| people often just double-down on their resistance.
| dpark wrote:
| Is there any evidence that this is effective? Who refuses
| to get vaccinated but decides to do it for $100 or
| whatever?
| dpark wrote:
| Pretty sure at this point none of this affects anyone's
| choices because people have chosen "sides" and dug in
| their heels.
| ArchOversight wrote:
| > One would expect prior infection to be robust, and multiple
| studies, including even the CDC's most recent shows it to be
| easily as good if not better and longer lasting than the
| vaccine.
|
| I got COVID back in March of 2020. I got two vaccines and a
| booster, and then in late December I caught COVID again
| (probably Omicron based upon symptoms and the prevalence).
| unethical_ban wrote:
| >If you think any of the above is "anti-vax" then I would
| suggest the media has won and science is dead.
|
| Your hyperbole is as disgusting to me as the term
| "unvaccinated" is to you. Please come off it. I say this as
| someone who understands and respects your broader point,
| while still dissenting somewhat.
|
| Why focus on the "get vaccinated" message? Because the
| vaccine is free. It's widely available. There is absolutely
| low, low risk to taking it - less risk by far than getting
| COVID or long COVID. Because prior to Omicron, the goal
| wasn't "let everyone get sick and be done with it", it was
| "prevent anyone from getting sick". I just thought of one as
| I type this: To say "we accept natural immunity as a viable
| strategy" could have encouraged thousands upon thousands of
| ignorant or otherwise actively anti-authority citizens to get
| sick on purpose to stick it to the man, then end up in the
| hospital.
|
| I don't want lies to win, and I don't want to ignore the
| science. Natural immunity should be acknowledged for its
| benefits. I think a government could do that, and _still_ say
| "tough shit, get vaxxed" just to make sure people don't
| commit bio-warfare on communities by trying to get ill.
| ynx wrote:
| > If you are a rational person who wants to see good science
| and are unemotional and detached from outcomes, then you will
| want to see proper study cohorts, and combining prior
| infection in with the "unvaccinated" cohort, is just bad
| science.
|
| Not sure what you mean. Science detached from outcomes is bad
| science. Science is trying to suss out cause and effect, not
| to avoid reality.
|
| > This bad science fuels the anti-vaxx movement even more,
| and honestly, it is hard blame them.
|
| Ah. There it is. Nope. It's still easy to blame them. It's
| not a sufficient criticism to cede moral superiority. "You
| didn't adjust your tone to distinguish 'unvaccinated' from
| 'immune-because-infected' from 'vaccinated'." does not
| suggest that antivaxxers are any less morally bankrupt for
| promoting the course of action which results in serious
| illness and death.
| bonzini wrote:
| > why are they so adamant to vaccinate those with prior
| infection
|
| Because the data shows they don't matter.
|
| This is the same thing as deaths due to covid vs. deaths
| while positive to covid. Sure some people might have been
| miscounted as covid deaths but actually died due to
| cancer/car accident/whatever. Despite this the excess deaths
| over the past two years is much higher than the number of
| covid deaths; thus showing that miscounts must be a small
| minority which, in any case, is absolutely dwarfed by excess
| deaths not counted as covid deaths. It might even grow a
| little as testing improves but it still remains mostly
| irrelevant.
|
| Likewise it may be that some people do not need a
| vaccination. However, we have a 30/70 split in number of
| covid hospitalizations, with 30 being vaccinated people, in
| countries where the split in the normal population is 90/10.
| This means that _despite_ some unvaccinated people having had
| prior infection the vaccine reduces hospitalizations by 20x.
| Given this data the most effective strategy is to just
| vaccinate everyone without what is effectively a pointless
| distinction.
|
| As the number of unvaccinated but protected people will grow
| (through a combination of more infections, more vaccinations
| and more deaths), the proportion above will revert to 90/10
| and unvaccinated people will not be an issue anymore. For now
| however analyzing the proportion of naturally immune people
| among the unvaccinated is, again, mostly irrelevant.
| nu11ptr wrote:
| My point is that it is NOT a pointless distinction, and
| there is a huge discrepancy between "unvaccinated - prior
| infection" and "unvaccinated - no infection" cohorts.
| Countries that track prior infection (there are a few) show
| this in their data, and if you separate them you will see
| the "unvaxxed - no infection" get worse and the other much
| better. If the subject matter were something less
| politically polarizing I'm suggesting this would be a split
| group in everyone's data.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| The only people who make getting vaccinated a political
| matter are those who refuse to get vaccinated. If you
| look at the data (and not just the convenient headlines)
| "unvaccinated, prior infection" have a lot higher chance
| of reinfection and a lot higher chance of a severe
| outcome than vaccinated. Sure it is still better to be
| "unvaccinated, prior infection" vs "unvaccinated, no
| prior infection" but not the same order of magnitude as
| "vaccinated and boosted".
|
| Roughly speaking this is the difference between your risk
| of driving with no seat belt and no air bags
| (unvaccinated), no seat belt and no air bags but with a
| bicycle helmet (prior infection), seatbelt (vaccinated),
| and seatbelt and airbags (vaccinated and boosted).
| JPKab wrote:
| > Roughly speaking this is the difference between your
| risk of driving with no seat belt and no air bags
| (unvaccinated), no seat belt and no air bags but with a
| bicycle helmet (prior infection), seatbelt (vaccinated),
| and seatbelt and airbags (vaccinated and boosted).
|
| It's absolutely not the same delta there. Not even close.
| The relative risk and absolute risk are completely
| different in magnitude, and unvaccinated cohorts are
| concentrated in younger, healthier populations with a
| minimal level of risk.
|
| The most distinguishing characteristic of COVID is it's
| age-risk gradient. There is LITERALLY a 1000X delta in
| IFR between the youngest and oldest demographics. The
| fact that the vaccine policies don't take this into
| account has resulted in the greatest erosion in trust of
| public health authorities in history. Your analogy
| doesn't even take this into account, which further
| demonstrates the shallow aspect of it.
| JPKab wrote:
| The assumption that excess deaths can be attributed to any
| single cause is simply not based on data and/or science.
|
| What is the age breakdown of these excess deaths? If the
| distribution doesn't mirror the age distribution of known
| COVID deaths, that's an immediate indicator that it's
| factoring in multiple sources.
|
| Drug overdoses, attempted suicides and actual suicides are
| way up, for example. Drug abuse is way up. Child abuse is
| way up.
|
| I'm not saying you are wrong. I'm simply saying that you
| can't know that you are right without a careful analysis of
| the data. It should be noted that the "excess deaths are
| way up" is also used as a tool of people claiming that the
| vaccines are killing people as well.
|
| Again, I want to emphasize, I don't know the detailed data
| behind the excess deaths. COVID is certainly one factor,
| but what percentage does it constitute? I'm not claiming I
| know, but you are. That's the difference.
|
| You are also ignoring the studies out of Israel (sample
| size of 2.5 million people), Qatar (sample size of 400K
| people), the recent CDC study in other replies to your
| comment, etc. It's a long list of studies that show that
| prior infection is a superior, more durable form of
| immunity to Delta than vaccine-only populations.
|
| Additionally, it's rather absurd to use hospitalizations as
| a metric for the general population. I'm sure you are
| extremely aware that the bulk of unvaccinated people
| getting hospitalized are not young or healthy. "Some
| unvaccinated people" is also a statement ignoring the
| shocking prevalence of prior infection in seroprevalence
| studies, which isn't really shocking when considering a
| respiratory virus that has an R0 that has been at minimum 3
| in the beginning with the original variant, and is now 6-7
| with omicron.
|
| The data has changed, but many people's opinions have
| remained fixed. I don't understand what motivates this, but
| it's become tiresome as it continues to drive policies that
| are intuitively foolish and violate centuries of
| immunological knowledge.
| MatteoFrigo wrote:
| In case you haven't seen it before,
| https://euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps has graphs of excess
| data for most of Europe (plus Israel) by age groups.
|
| I find it a great resource to cross-check the
| misinformation of the mainstream media. For example, I
| challenge anybody to look at the 0-14 and 14-44 graphs
| and tell me when covid actually occurred.
|
| Note that excess is not defined as a deviation from a
| typical year, but as a deviation from a typical year when
| no diseases are circulating. The goal of the euromomo
| website is to detect things like flu outbreaks, so the
| number of excess deaths is usually greater than 0,
| capturing the flu, heat waves, and presumably other
| disasters.
| rcpt wrote:
| > Drug overdoses, attempted suicides and actual suicides
| are way up, for example. Drug abuse is way up. Child
| abuse is way up.
|
| Just to be clear, you're saying that the reason we've
| seen hundreds of thousands of excess deaths last year is
| because of drugs, suicides, and child abuse.
| throw_nbvc1234 wrote:
| https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-
| fatalit... https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/mortality-
| dashboard.htm#
|
| If people want to explore some "crude" (CDC's word) data
| by age group. Cherry-picking some data, there were 10-15
| times more drug overdoses then covid deaths in 2020
| (Q2-3) for 25-34. Similar ratios for 15-24. And I'm sure
| it'll be the exact opposite for higher age groups or if
| you focused on people with comorbidities. Yet these
| demographics are grouped together without any nuance when
| it comes to mandates. Note this is pre-vaccine and pre-
| delta so not really representative of current state of
| things.
| dahfizz wrote:
| > Because the data shows they don't matter.
|
| Source? Because the CDC says otherwise.
|
| > In the first full week of October, vaccinated New Yorkers
| with a prior Covid-19 case were 19.8 times less likely to
| catch the virus than their unvaccinated and uninfected
| peers, whereas people who were unvaccinated but previously
| infected were 14.7 times less likely, and vaccinated but
| uninfected New Yorkers were just 4.5 times less likely.
|
| In other words, natural immunity alone can be up to 5X more
| protective than the vaccine alone, according to the CDC.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2022/01/19/cdc-
| prior-c...
| eli wrote:
| I don't think your math is correct there and that data is
| pre-Omicron.
|
| https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/232698/omicron-largely-
| evade... estimates that prior infection offered 85%
| protection against Delta but only 19% against Omicron.
| mlac wrote:
| There is a behavioral component.
|
| Is that because people who have caught it are more likely
| to take precautions against catching it again?
|
| Those who were vaccinated but previously uninfected may
| have had a "it can't happen to me and if it does, I'm
| vaccinated" attitude.
|
| I'd expect unvaccinated people to be in the bucket with
| covid deniers and anti-maskers, which would have the
| highest base rate of COVID.
| animal_spirits wrote:
| I think what they are suggesting is that natural immunity
| + vaccine is also more protective than just natural
| immunity
| lwkl wrote:
| The person you are replying to is talking about
| hospitalizations for severe ilness. The study you are
| quoting is talking about covid infections in general.
| These two are not the same and the vaccine protects from
| the former (severe illness and death).
| [deleted]
| jeeeb wrote:
| Here is the actual study: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volume
| s/71/wr/mm7104e1.htm?s_cid=mm...
|
| Importantly it doesn't account for the effect of boosters
| and looks at pre-omicron data.
|
| That noted the best protection seems to be had by a
| combination of vaccination _and_ prior infection, which
| is perhaps unsurprising.
|
| Also other CDC studies suggest that natural immunity
| declines quicker than vaccine induced immunity (https://w
| ww.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7044e1.htm?s_cid=mm...).
|
| Given these results it would seem like generally a good
| idea to get vaccinated, even if you have had prior
| infection.
| timr wrote:
| > Importantly it doesn't account for the effect of
| boosters and looks at pre-omicron data.
|
| Don't just read the summary. Look at figure 1:
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e1.htm#F1_do
| wn
|
| There are unvaccinated, uninfected people...and then
| there is _everyone else_. Once you have been infected
| _or_ vaccinated, the difference between is so small as to
| be academic. And as the authors note, the importance of
| natural infection increased over time, as the virus
| escaped the vaccines:
|
| _" Importantly, infection-derived protection was higher
| after the Delta variant became predominant, a time when
| vaccine-induced immunity for many persons declined
| because of immune evasion and immunologic waning."_
|
| To your other claim:
|
| > other CDC studies suggest that natural immunity
| declines quicker than vaccine induced immunity
|
| No. That's not what that study said. First, it followed
| _symptomatic infection_ , not severe illness. As we're
| seeing now, Omicron pretty handily bypasses vaccine-
| induced immunity to cause minor illness.
|
| Also, methodologically, the study you're citing was bad.
| It only gave credit for natural immunity to those people
| with _confirmed infections_ , which was/is an
| underestimate, and made vaccines look more effective than
| they are. A substantial fraction of the "only vaccinated"
| group almost certainly had undiagnosed covid infection.
| bonzini wrote:
| You are confusing the effect on individual people with
| the effect on the whole community. I do not debate the
| effect of natural immunity on individuals who have had
| COVID in the past, but it is not widespread enough to
| cause a dent in the infection or to alleviate the stress
| on the healthcare system.
|
| The effect exists but the data shows it does not matter.
| MatteoFrigo wrote:
| > The effect exists but the data shows it does not
| matter.
|
| You may have been right at a time where almost nobody had
| a previous infection. However, estimates by reputable
| sources https://covidestim.org/us show that a large
| percentage of people have been infected by covid at least
| once. The data are by state, I see ~75% for MA, 80% for
| CA and NY, and you can pick your favorite state.
|
| At this point it is more correct to say that the vaccine
| does not matter, and immunity by prior infection is the
| dominant effect. Either that, or the Yale school of
| public health, the Harvard school of public health, and
| the Stanford Medicine institutes who run the
| covidestim.org site are full of shit.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Data has been showing 80/20 vaxed/non vaxed
| hospitalizations for this new variant. How does that change
| your worldview?
| mlac wrote:
| Source? That might mean we're approaching herd immunity
| and critical mass for vaccinated people in the
| population, which would be fantastic.
| bonzini wrote:
| I would like a source, but still: no need to even ask me,
| as it's exactly the case I mention in the last paragraph.
| listenallyall wrote:
| Isn't that highly subjective, however? Two people show up
| to the hospital feeling equally lousy, both test positive
| for Omicron. First guy says he's vaxxed and boosted, doc
| suggests he's fully protected, this is the worst of it,
| go home and rest up (which is exactly what a doctor told
| my father). Second guy says nope, I'm unvaxxed. Doc is
| probably going to admit this guy overnight for
| observation.
|
| Multiply by tens of thousands, and you can project the
| effects on hospitalization stats, which aren't
| necessarily tied to the degree of illness.
| timr wrote:
| > However, we have a 30/70 split in number of covid
| hospitalizations, with 30 being vaccinated people, in
| countries where the split in the normal population is
| 90/10. This means that despite some unvaccinated people
| having had prior infection the vaccine reduces
| hospitalizations by 20x. Given this data the most effective
| strategy is to just vaccinate everyone without what is
| effectively a pointless distinction
|
| No. This is wrong. As the parent noted, the CDC's _own
| data_ shows that prior infection provides robust protection
| against severe disease. Both without vaccination:
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e1.htm#F1_down
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e1.htm
|
| As well as a substantial additional benefit _after_
| vaccination:
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7101a4.htm
|
| > Previous COVID-19 illness was associated with reduced
| odds of severe outcomes (aOR = 0.27; 95% CI = 0.09-0.84).
|
| Moreover, the CDC estimates that over 150M people in the US
| (out of a country of 330M) have had Covid:
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-
| updates/burd...
|
| That's 45% of the US population (before Omicron). There's
| no rational way to characterize this as insignificant.
| JPKab wrote:
| I completely agree with your comment and to help
| summarize why you are having to explain all of these
| things to these people, I suggest everyone on this thread
| read the following link to understand their error.
|
| Dividing groups of people up without going deep enough
| into categorization creates contradictory conclusions.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox
| bonzini wrote:
| I did not say that prior infection does not reduce severe
| outcome. It does but _it does not change the fact_ that
| the severe outcomes are much more rare among vaccinated
| people. This means that there are still too few people
| with prior infection, for this to be an important factor
| in policy making. It will be once the proportion of
| unvaccinated people in hospitals starts to resemble the
| proportion in the general population.
| JPKab wrote:
| The severe outcomes are even more rare amongst prior-
| infected, unvaccinated people.
|
| I suggest you look up seroprevalence surveys. The bulk of
| COVID infections (barring mandatory and regular testing
| being extant in a given locality) go undetected, due to
| the mild symptoms in the vast majority of the population.
| The seroprevalence surveys have shown this since May
| 2020.
| bonzini wrote:
| And again I do not debate that. But they are _too few_ to
| have an impact on the overall statistics of unvaccinated
| people. It they were not such a small minority, you would
| not be seeing so many more severe outcomes among the
| unvaccinated.
| MatteoFrigo wrote:
| See https://covidestim.org/us for an update to your "too
| few" statement. The number of previously infected people
| is at least 70% in all US states I have looked at (80% in
| NY and CA).
|
| While not directly comparable, an official report from
| the UK [1, Figure 3] estimated that effectively 100% of
| blood donors were either vaccinated, previously infected,
| or both. This was in September. Blood donors are not a
| representative sample of the population, but it's not
| hard to believe that by now effectively everybody (in the
| UK) has some kind of immunity.
|
| [1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/u
| ploads/...
| timr wrote:
| You said:
|
| > Given this data the most effective strategy is to just
| vaccinate everyone without what is effectively a
| pointless distinction
|
| The data clearly shows that protection from natural
| infection is at least as substantial as from vaccination,
| and that ~half (if not more) of the US population has had
| it. This fairly obviously impacts the most effective
| strategy. Mandating vaccines (and now boosters) in young,
| healthy people who were _already_ at small risk,
| including those _who have already had the virus_ , is so
| absurd that I can't even characterize it as science. It
| is simply punitive behavior.
|
| Most countries recognize prior infection. We're in a
| small, small club of scientifically illiterate nations
| here, and it's rather embarrassing.
|
| > It will be once the proportion of unvaccinated people
| in hospitals starts to resemble the proportion in the
| general population.
|
| If the total number of hospitalizations is a manageable
| number, the _percentage that are vaccinated_ is
| irrelevant. It 's a metric of punishment, not a realistic
| policy goal. I have no idea what the future will bring
| with regard to the ratio of unvaccinated
| hospitalizations, but I know that hospitalizations in
| general will fall as the population achieves broad
| immunity -- and natural infection certainly counts toward
| that goal.
| MatteoFrigo wrote:
| Your ~half estimate is more like 70-80% these days. See
| https://covidestim.org/us
|
| (This makes your case stronger, of course.)
| timr wrote:
| Absolutely. I'm being intentionally conservative here.
| kevhito wrote:
| > Mandating vaccines (and now boosters) in young, healthy
| people who were already at small risk, including those
| who have already had the virus, is so absurd that I can't
| even characterize it as science. It is simply punitive
| behavior.
|
| The idea that a vaccine is a punishment is disturbing.
| I'm glad to have been able to get it.
| timr wrote:
| I said the mandate is punitive, not the vaccine.
|
| If you feel more comfortable getting an unnecessary
| vaccination, nobody is stopping you. Other people should
| not be coerced into doing the same against their will.
|
| College kids are currently being expelled for refusing
| _boosters_. Children are being refused classroom
| education. Prior infection is not taken into account, and
| risk /benefit is not a factor. There's no other way to
| frame this than as coercive behavior.
| crummy wrote:
| Zeynep Turfekci talks about this in this thread, and about
| why she thinks prior infection offers less protection than
| the vaccines, to the point that she supports vaccinations for
| those who have already caught COVID.
|
| https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1484930583214100481?t=UDTW.
| ..
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Lost a lot of respect for Zeynep after reading that. The
| argument boils down to unvaxxed have more hospitalization,
| some unvaxxed also have prior infection, therefore prior
| infection isn't effective. There is no data in her post
| that those with prior infection are the ones being
| hospitalized. Meanwhile, there is real data elsewhere on
| this topic.
| xdennis wrote:
| > to the point that she supports vaccinations for those who
| have already caught COVID
|
| It's so ridiculous now they're requiring vaccination for
| the vaccinated too.
| ChrisClark wrote:
| Because the vaccine protects so much better than just a
| previous infection. We've been over this, over, and over. But
| you just won't accept the numbers now will you?
| ravar wrote:
| I hope this is sarcasm
| ChrisClark wrote:
| If you were infected with the original strain, you'd have
| had less immunity to Delta than if you were vaccinated.
| The exact same thing for Delta vs Omicron.
|
| The mRNA vaccines give a broader immunization that covers
| more. That's not even up for debate, you're only
| pretending it is.
|
| I hope your comment is sarcasm.
| throwaway1777 wrote:
| This is wrong according to the CDC. Prior infection is
| better than the vaccine by itself but vaccine + prior
| infection is best.
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2022/01/19/cdc-
| prior-c...
| bink wrote:
| It's been awhile since I read about that study but didn't
| it determine that previous infection provided better
| resistance to infection than vaccination without a
| booster, but that vaccination provided better resistance
| to serious illness and death?
|
| Either way I find it weird that the study clearly shows
| vaccination + infection provides the best protection yet
| people are using this to argue that they don't need a
| vaccination at all.
| ipaddr wrote:
| It is also the combo most likely to give you side
| effects.
| dahfizz wrote:
| Source? Because the CDC disagrees
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2022/01/19/cdc-
| prior-c...
| nsxwolf wrote:
| What do you mean by "broader"? The mRNA vaccines present
| the original spike protein to your immune system. A viral
| infection exposes you to the spike protein as well as
| every other piece of the virus.
| [deleted]
| walterbell wrote:
| Until the CDC changed the definition of vaccine in Sept
| 2021, most vaccines were understood to provide sterilizing
| immunity against infection, not only "protection" against
| illness/death.
|
| Intramuscular/serum vaccines cannot stop respiratory
| infections, by definition. They are non-sterilizing. Only a
| nasal/mucosal vaccine or nasal infection can provide
| sterilizing immunity against a respiratory virus.
| gmnash wrote:
| "Most" vaccines. The reason why they didn't have to
| invent "non-sterilizing" as a term just for COVID
| vaccines, is because some existing vaccines had this same
| property. The acellular pertussis vaccine (the aP in
| TDaP) is non-sterilizing for example, yet I bet you never
| took any issue with it.
|
| Does measles count as a respiratory infection? It causes
| coughing, is airborne, and infection happens via nasal
| passages. The intramuscular measles vaccine seems to work
| pretty well.
| posguy wrote:
| Immunoglobulin A versus Immunoglobulin G, we still don't
| know how to stimulate a response (outside of exposure to
| a virus) to create Immunoglobulin A, which protects our
| upper respiratory tract.
|
| This is the technological limits of what vaccines are
| capable of. Vaccination limits the damage, ensuring a
| much lower likelihood of catching a 1 to 3 day cold
| affecting only my upper respiratory tracts rather than
| risking the lungs and the rest of my body on a
| potentially multi-week infection.
|
| The longer the infection, the more likely pneumonia or
| another co-infection will injure or kill you.
| ChrisClark wrote:
| You rewriting history? The vaccine was never said to be
| 100% effective. Stop trying to twist reality to face your
| own political views.
| ravar wrote:
| delusion is a funny thing.
| orang2tang wrote:
| This is simply a lie and you know it.
|
| "If you're vaccinated, you won't get COVID" - Joe Biden
| AshleyGrant wrote:
| Joe Biden, well known epidemiologist.
|
| From the beginning, there has not been a COVID-19 vaccine
| that purported to be 100% effective. There are
| vanishingly few vaccines that provide 100% immunity, if
| for no other reason than the immune system is not
| perfect.
|
| In human history, we have only completely removed 1 virus
| from humanity: smallpox. That is literally the only 100%
| effective vaccine ever produced. And even then, it is
| only 100% effective after the fact.
| walterbell wrote:
| A collection of headlines on vaccine efficacy,
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=TSZMtSPX3iE
| dekhn wrote:
| pretty much all those quotes are "very effective", which
| is not really quantitative enough to say that fauci and
| the media were "wrong".
|
| Is it super important that they are technically wrong on
| something, anyway? Like, do you think Fauci is going to
| be cancelled because he said something wrong? I doubt
| that's going to occur based on his prior messaging.
| onefuncman wrote:
| This didn't happen all of a sudden in Sept 2021. The flu
| vaccine has always been about harm reduction and began
| seeing widespread civilian use in 2007-2008.
| ballenf wrote:
| Maybe it's just where I live, but I've never heard the
| "flu shot" called a vaccine.
| chipotle_coyote wrote:
| The CDC calls them "Seasonal Flu Vaccines":
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/flushot.htm
|
| So does the Mayo Clinic:
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/flushot.htm
|
| I won't go on, but by definition, a medicine that you
| take that's intended to build up your immune response to
| a disease is a vaccine. I saw someone upstream write
| "Intramuscular/serum vaccines cannot stop respiratory
| infections, by definition," and as far as I can tell this
| is just point-blank wrong. Whooping Cough -- pertussis --
| is a respiratory bacterial infection we've been
| vaccinating against with intramuscular shots since the
| 1940s.
| [deleted]
| headmelted wrote:
| Not disagreeing with this (although my understanding is that
| there have been studies that show vaccination has been more
| effective), but how would you seperate the unvaccinated /
| previously-infected-and-recovered cohorts?
|
| Even by reconciling PCR testing data (which I imagine is
| incredibly patchy at best), you still would only know
| historically how many people tested positive (ignoring what
| is in all likelihood a majority of the cases that never got
| tested) and be able to reconcile it against numbers of
| vaccinated, which tells you nothing useful without being able
| to intersect the two sets (which you can't do without
| uniquely identifying every PCR test and matching it to an
| individual universally).
|
| i.e. the better data you would need doesn't exist.
| teh_infallible wrote:
| Currently, people who only got one shot or got their second
| one less than two weeks ago are being counted as
| "unvaccinated" which seems disingenuous at best.
| wongarsu wrote:
| If that data doesn't exist then that's just because it
| isn't tracked. Here in Germany if you test positive on a
| PCR test you have to quarantine for 14 days, then you get a
| proof of recovery which for 6 months you can use like a
| proof of vaccination (which you need for non-essential
| shops, gyms, etc when the 7-day incidence is too high, like
| right now). As a result, tracking numbers for the
| "recovered" cohort isn't a problem. Obviously the
| "unvaccinated" group will always contains some unknown
| number of recovered people we don't know about, but at
| large enough effect sizes that isn't a problem.
| dexen wrote:
| There's a recent (January 19, 2022) CDC publications with
| numbers on exactly that. Forbes provides a brief overview:
| "CDC: Prior Covid Infection Offered More Protection Against
| Delta Than Vaccines -- But Both Together Did Best"
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2022/01/19/cdc-
| prior-c...
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > but a HUGE # of people have already had it and ignoring
| them is downright unscientific.
|
| Unless they went to the hospital or had a positive test, then
| they just think they had it right?
|
| We get data like this:
|
| All we know are things like: Unvaccinated
| 12-34 year-olds in Washington are * 2 times more
| likely to get COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 12-34
| year-olds. * 5 times more likely to be hospitalized
| with COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 12-34 yearolds.
| Unvaccinated 35-64 year-olds are * 3 times more likely
| to get COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 35-64 year-
| olds. * 7 times more likely to be hospitalized with
| COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 35-64 yearolds.
| Unvaccinated 65+ year-olds are * 4 times more likely
| to get COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 65+ year-olds.
| * 7 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19
| compared with fully vaccinated 65+ year-olds. * 11
| times more likely to die of COVID-19 compared with fully
| vaccinated 65+ year-olds.
|
| (from https://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Documents/1600/coronav
| irus/..., so local to where I live).
|
| But it unfortunately doesn't break down things like "had a
| confirmed prior infection" or "thought they might have had a
| prior infection". It would be interesting to see how the data
| works, but right now unvaccinated people are on average in a
| very bad spot. For all we know, the unvaccinated are just
| more likely to have comorbidities (e.g. obesity) that lead to
| their higher fatality rates. But for now, getting vaccinated
| is so easy, I wouldn't take the risk.
| eloff wrote:
| I've also noticed this. I have covid right now. I'm double
| vaccinated. I was planning to get my booster shot, but now
| that I've had covid what's the point. It's not likely to
| increase my immunity and it comes with risks.
|
| At some point the government will probably change the
| definition of fully vaccinated to three shots and then I'll
| be in that unvaccinated group I usually make fun of.
|
| Somebody I know lost their job because they wouldn't get
| vaccinated (but they'd already had confirmed covid). That
| seems very unfair.
|
| I'm very angry at the dumbasses who haven't been infected and
| refuse to get vaccinated, including family of mine who died
| because of that. But no distinction is being made of those
| who have natural immunity. Which, as you say, is
| unscientific.
|
| I feel like partly that's because many people think they had
| it, but didn't, and partly because it's easier for the
| government to just tell everyone to get vaccinated.
| reedjosh wrote:
| > partly because it's easier for the government to just
| tell everyone to get vaccinated.
|
| Do you make no allocation in your mind for the potential
| that the government is corrupted and the motivations have
| nothing really to do with public health?
| umvi wrote:
| Around half of my immediate family members had pretty bad
| reactions to the booster (fever/chills, aches for several
| days). And all of them got omicron anyway and had the same
| symptoms as family members who hadn't gotten the booster.
| I'm debating getting the booster but part of me thinks "why
| punish myself with high probability of fever/chills if in
| all likelihood I'm just going to get omicron anyway and
| suffer the same symptoms as everyone else"
| orang2tang wrote:
| >I'm very angry at the dumbasses who haven't been infected
| and refuse to get vaccinated, including family of mine who
| died because of that.
|
| You use your dead relative as proof for your case in the
| same breath as calling them a dumbass.
|
| This goes to prove a point. Does it matter if everyone is
| vaccinated & "safe", at the expense of our dignity and
| respect as a species?
| bink wrote:
| > It's not likely to increase my immunity and it comes with
| risks.
|
| Can you explain what risks you're referring to here?
| mlac wrote:
| There have been side effects from the vaccine, including
| documented cases of really bad reactions [1],[2]. I'm
| double vaxxed, boosted, and got covid. But to say the
| shot is without risks is disingenuous.
|
| That said, the risk of dying unvaccinated from COVID is
| much greater than the risks of vaccine. And it's unclear
| if side effects from the shot are correlated to worse
| outcomes from COVID (e.g. It's unknown if these people
| who were paralyzed definitely would have died when they
| contracted covid, so paralysis is a potentially better
| outcome).
|
| [1] https://www.wpxi.com/news/top-stories/every-day-that-
| i-work-...
|
| [2] https://www.wkrn.com/news/nashville-woman-partially-
| paralyze...
| edmundsauto wrote:
| The relevant risk for your situation is vaccine risk,
| versus risk of reinfection (not just hospitalization, but
| also long term effects).
|
| The math may still work out for your preferred choice,
| but i wanted to point out that it's fallacious to dismiss
| the (rare) risks from reinfection, especially when
| focusing on the (rare) risks from the vaccine.
|
| You may have said this and I just missed it, but both
| those risks are small and honestly boils down to a
| preference IMO. I may just have missed in your comment
| where you made the right comparison, in which case I'm
| being a bit pedantic without cause and I apologize.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Inflammation, memory loss, swollen lymph, chest pains,
| feeling sicks for months, no energy, trouble breathing.
|
| You thought the vaccines were risk free?
| AshleyGrant wrote:
| The ability for humans to focus on a vanishingly small
| risk of side-effects to justify taking a much larger risk
| by refusing to vaccinate is mind-boggling to me.
|
| It's the same argument that people use to justify not
| wearing a seat belt. "There's types of wrecks where being
| unbelted is actually safer!" Well, sure, but those are an
| extremely tiny portion of wrecks, and you're vastly safer
| in the vast, vast majority of wrecks wearing a seat belt.
|
| Get the damned vaccine. If you experience side effects,
| then that sucks, you lost the lottery. The CDC reports:
|
| * Anaphylaxis happens to 5 people per million vaccinated.
| (0.0005% rate)
|
| * Thrombosis with TTS after J&J vaccine. 57 confirmed in
| more than 18 million doses (0.0003% rate)
|
| * GBS after J&J vaccine. 302 cases in more than 18
| million doses (0.0017% rate)
|
| * Myocarditis. 1233 reports in total.
|
| * Death. 11,657 deaths among vaccinated. Note that this
| is death for any reason. A vaccinated person mauled to
| death by a bear is counted here. (0.0022% rate)
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety
| /ad...
|
| * edit for formatting
| lilsoso wrote:
| For young males, the risk of myocarditis strikes me as
| underappreciated. To quote the NYT
| (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/09/health/researchers-
| find-a...):
|
| "Males between 16 and 29 years of age have an increased
| risk of developing heart problems after receiving a
| second dose of coronavirus vaccines made by Pfizer-
| BioNtech or Moderna, according to a large new analysis
| published on Wednesday in the New England Journal of
| Medicine.
|
| The study, conducted in Israel, estimated that nearly 11
| of every 100,000 males in that age group developed
| myocarditis, inflammation of the heart, a few days after
| having been fully vaccinated."
| PickledHotdog wrote:
| Isn't myocarditis something you can get when you have a
| virus (even non-Covid). I wonder what the myocarditis
| rates are for covid patients in that age range
| autokad wrote:
| my first 2 shots were fine, but my booster f'ed me up. I
| was in lots of body pain for 36 hours. 5 weeks later I
| caught omicron. I imagine by some point this year Ill be
| considered not fully vaccinated, but right now my desire
| to get another booster is very small.
|
| right now we know that even the booster provides little
| ability to stop you from getting omicron. likely by the
| next mandated booster the variant of the time will also
| easily surpass the booster.
| AshleyGrant wrote:
| > right now we know that even the booster provides little
| ability to stop you from getting omicron
|
| This is true, but the data is showing that being boosted
| means that catching Omicron when boosted means you are
| much, much more likely to have a very minor illness.
| Refusing future boosters comes at the risk of your own
| health, as well as the health of the people around you.
| cguess wrote:
| I'm fully boosted, sat _directly_ across from a friend in
| a bar booth for over an hour last weekend (figure about
| 2.5 feet /80cm). She tested positive the next days. I
| tested negative with PCR twice in the last week however.
| If was unboosted, much less unvaccinated, I'm 100% sure
| I'd be positive.
| throw_nbvc1234 wrote:
| > Refusing future boosters comes at the risk of your own
| health, as well as the health of the people around you.
|
| And some scientists think that repeated boosters will
| backfire and lead to waning immunity or at least immunity
| better centered around the exact strain the vaccine is
| made (so could be mitigated by different boosters). Plus
| downsides of repeatedly have to make time to get
| boosters, taking doses from people who haven't even had
| the opportunity to get a single dose. Differences in risk
| between a healthy under 30 and an unhealthy over 65.
|
| It's possible that your statement is correct for some
| demographics and incorrect for others. But that nuance is
| not in the current discussion or the current mandates;
| and that nuance could save lives in less-developed
| countries.
| rcpt wrote:
| The mRNA vaccines were developed in February 2020. The
| virus has had ample opportunity to change since then so
| it's not surprising that you still got sick.
|
| I don't think it makes sense to extrapolate this to a
| hypothetical new shot which is developed for the new virus.
| buryat wrote:
| simple numbers show that unvaccinated get covid at higher
| rates and the number of hospitalizations is higher which puts
| strain on the hospitals. If something happens to me I dont
| want an unvaccinated taking a spot I need.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Are you worried you won't have care at a hospital because
| of someone is unvaccinated? Has that ever happened? Are
| hospitals full where you live? Where did you get a fear
| like that?
| nradov wrote:
| How many times do you typically get hospitalized per year?
| nostromo wrote:
| What about smokers? What about the obese? What about people
| who took risks and acquired HIV?
| bantha_poodoo wrote:
| nu11ptr wrote:
| Your comment could not illustrate my point better if you
| had tried
| djmips wrote:
| It doesn't illustrate your point. You, on your soapbox
| pretend you have it all figured out. You, on the side of
| science. But as some of the responses have shown, you
| haven't really thought it through. I agree however, that
| the media hasn't either. But when was that ever true?
| nu11ptr wrote:
| First, apologies for slight snugness of that that reply -
| probably not needed, and I've received some probably well
| deserved downvotes for that.
|
| Second, it does prove my point in that the poster
| referred to the "unvaccinated" as a single group, a
| position that I'm suggesting results in a very inaccurate
| set of conclusions (which other responders have commented
| on) because of skewed cohorts.
|
| Third, I most definitely do NOT have it all figured out -
| I'm as confused as anybody else on most of this stuff,
| which is why my post was on a single focused point, and
| not on issues where I have an opinion, but much less
| research and data supporting my position.
|
| Lastly, I've read all the replies and thought it was good
| discussion. I didn't see anything to suggest I hadn't
| thought it through or disprove my position, just
| disagreements on how useful it would or wouldn't be,
| which is fair.
| ezoe wrote:
| By the same logic, just leave the thief and murderer as is
| because it is very unlikely any education will change their
| mind.
| tehjoker wrote:
| This totally discounts reinfections and long covid. A lot of
| people are going to die and get disabled.
|
| Antibodies seem to not last very long at levels that prevent
| infection. This is a very severe crisis that doesn't end
| because people get tired. It's like being tired of a war and
| laying down your weapons and then getting surprised when you
| get overrun.
| throwaway554349 wrote:
| nradov wrote:
| Antibodies are only one aspect of immunity and they tend to
| decline over time. Over the long run cellular immunity is more
| important.
|
| https://peterattiamd.com/covid-part2/
| gibspaulding wrote:
| >It has killed more than 865,000 Americans
|
| It looks like that's more Americans than have been killed in
| combat in all of the wars of the 20th century combined [1]
|
| Granted it's less than the UK lost in WW1 alone, so it's
| perhaps more a testament to how few the US managed to loose in
| the world wars (compared to Europe), but it's still wild to
| realize.
|
| [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1009819/total-us-
| militar...
| rkk3 wrote:
| >> It has killed more than 865,000 Americans
|
| > It looks like that's more Americans than have been killed
| in combat in all of the wars of the 20th century combined [1]
|
| Like all deaths tragic, but let's not pretend young men,
| effectively kids, dying in war is the same as elderly &
| chronically sick populations dying of disease.
| gibspaulding wrote:
| I would personally agree (though you will find people who
| won't), but I found it to be an interesting comparison just
| to get an idea of the scale.
| DanBC wrote:
| > Like all deaths tragic, but let's not pretend young men,
| effectively kids, dying in war is the same as elderly &
| chronically sick populations dying of disease.
|
| Where elderly means > 40 and chronically sick includes "has
| a bit of high blood pressure".
| nradov wrote:
| Elderly doesn't mean > 40. More than 81% of COVID-19
| deaths occur in people over age 65.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-
| precaut...
|
| Fortunately the vaccines and other treatments are still
| very effective in preventing deaths among the elderly
| population.
| rkk3 wrote:
| > chronically sick includes "has a bit of high blood
| pressure".
|
| The CDC says > 40% of US adults are obese (> 100 Million
| people!) and 13% of US adults have diabetes. If that's
| not a chronically sick population I don't know what is.
|
| [1] https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html [2] https
| ://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pdfs/data/statistics/national-d..
| .
| Melatonic wrote:
| This is the elephant in the room I was trying to talk to
| people about at the very start of this pandemic. People
| are endlessly willing to talk about how divided we are
| about all kinds of issues and yet the fact that we cannot
| at minimum rally behind the fact we need to deal with the
| obesity epidemic is a bad sign.
|
| My big problem with the initial lockdowns was not really
| about the larger lockdown at all - we just (obviously in
| hindsight) went too far with locking down larger, wide
| open places where people exercise.
|
| Spring break in Miami with people crammed onto a beach?
| Probably a bad idea. A few surfers going in the water a
| hundred feet from one another and some other people doing
| a morning run? Likely a net benefit to Covid outcomes.
| dehrmann wrote:
| That's true, but not if you make the deaths per capita. WWII
| was per-capita deadlier in the US than covid (so far).
| walterbell wrote:
| These numbers can be further separated by "with Covid" and
| "from Covid" causality, as well as co-morbidities and
| expected lifetime. E.g. if someone was soon to die from
| illness A, but died 3 months earlier from complications
| induced by Covid, and the hospital received a financial
| payment for classifying this as Covid-related treatment, that
| should be broken out into a separate reporting category. Such
| deaths would not much change all-cause mortality for the
| year.
| barbazoo wrote:
| > the hospital received a financial payment for classifying
| this as Covid-related treatment
|
| Can you explain this more? Surely a hospital doesn't just
| get money for simply classifying it. How does a hospital
| benefit from classifying someone's treatment as Covid
| related other than being paid for the necessary treatment?
| walterbell wrote:
| There are probably better sources,
| https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/cdc-director-
| acknowl... (Aug 2020)
|
| _> U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
| Director Robert Redfield agreed that some hospitals have
| a monetary incentive to overcount coronavirus deaths as
| they do deaths for other diseases. "I think you're
| correct in that we've seen this in other disease
| processes, too. Really, in the HIV epidemic, somebody may
| have a heart attack but also have HIV -- the hospital
| would prefer the [classification] for HIV because there's
| greater reimbursement," Redfield said during a House
| panel hearing Friday when asked by Rep. Blaine
| Luetkemeyer about potential "perverse incentives."_
|
| For families, Covid classification for a death enabled up
| to $9000 for funeral expenses,
| https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/covid-funeral-
| reimburs...
| barbazoo wrote:
| There is very little substance on that page plus it's 18
| months old and the other fact you posted isn't an
| incentive for hospitals. I really wonder if that's
| actually a thing.
| walterbell wrote:
| U.S. Congressional testimony by a CDC Director is not
| substantive?
|
| The 2nd point offers a financial incentive for families
| to agree with hospital (mis)classification, i.e. it
| aligns the financial incentives of family and hospital
| towards Covid attribution.
| nradov wrote:
| Hospitals do receive extra payments for treating COVID-19
| patients.
|
| https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/24/
| fac...
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Excess mortality is higher than reported COVID deaths.
| Australia contained the virus in 2020 and saw negative
| excess mortality. Official COVID deaths understate the true
| toll.
| argvargc wrote:
| ...of lockdowns?
| xadhominemx wrote:
| COVID denialists often attribute excess deaths to
| lockdowns as opposed to undercounting of deaths from
| COVID. I was just preempting that line by pointing out
| Australia had severe lockdowns but negative excess
| deaths.
| argvargc wrote:
| COVID what-ists? You mean all manner of people who have
| all manner of opinions and reasons for them that just so
| happen to differ from the views presented as scientific
| consensus by government, media and celebrities?
|
| Here is a summary of over 400 studies demonstrating
| lockdowns are ineffective or harmful:
|
| https://brownstone.org/articles/more-than-400-studies-on-
| the...
|
| Prepare a sufficiently convincing argument against each
| and every one of them, and against the credentials of
| each and every author, before using the term "denialist"
| in application to anyone other than yourself.
| FabHK wrote:
| I can also give you a number of studies that purport to
| show that homeopathy works or that astrology works. Yet,
| it is fine to dismiss them with the scientific consensus,
| and not incumbent on you then to "Prepare a sufficiently
| convincing argument against each and every one of them,
| and against the credentials of each and every author".
| argvargc wrote:
| Won't even examine 400 counter-claims? That's
| "denialism".
|
| Lockdowns working/not-working and/or causing collateral
| damage potentially eliminating other gains is not even
| remotely on par with astrology.
|
| Lockdowns used in this manner are entirely unprecedented,
| and the long-term results cannot be known by anyone, only
| guessed at.
|
| Your rigid adherence to them as beacons of purity only
| demonstrates your religious-like faith in them, which
| strikes me as having far more in common with astrology
| than well-evidenced arguments by well-credentialed
| individuals that they might not work or be
| counterproductive.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| You just said it's been proven that lockdowns are
| harmful. Now you're saying the longterm results can't be
| known by anyone, only guessed at.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Ok. I don't care what the purported "studies" say. China,
| Taiwan, Australia had hard lockdowns. Taiwan and
| Australia have accurate statistics -- they had virtually
| no COVID deaths and no excess deaths.
| argvargc wrote:
| Sweden is 62nd on a list of 180 countries on deaths per
| capita. We can argue back and forth like this but why
| bother? If you don't care what the studies say, your mind
| is made up, making discussion with you valueless - for
| you.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| I'm not saying there's a huge difference between light
| and lighter lockdowns (ie, Denmark/Norway/Germany vs
| Sweden). I'm saying lockdowns themselves don't produce
| excess deaths vs baseline (as evidenced by Australia and
| Taiwan). Therefore, the excess deaths that occurred in
| the US, which are greater than official COVID deaths,
| indicate COVID deaths are being under counted, not over
| counted
| ggy5567 wrote:
| As I recall the basis of the argument against lockdowns
| (which yes was made by legitimate epidemeologists before
| covid made everything so politicized and tribal) is that
| the disease eventually comes right back and infects
| everyone once the lockdown ends. I do think there is a
| good argument about allowing vaccines to be developed and
| delivered though. But benefits like preventing hospitals
| from being overwhelmed were believed to already be
| achievable with social distancing alone. So one must be
| careful to not give to much credit to the lockdowns
| alone.
|
| As for excess deaths, it presumably depends on how well
| the country can endure the self-inflicted downsides (such
| as a recession) that comes with it. Countries where it
| causes severe problems probably are the very ones who
| didn't have the political will to maintain the lockdowns,
| leading to some biased conclusions. We also have lots of
| other issues caused by covid response such as shortages
| and spiking prices all over. Being outright dodged by
| pointing blame at some indermediate actor like "corporate
| supply chains" or "hoarders" or whatever.
|
| The point is there are arguments that can be made on all
| sides. No need to insult and dismiss people.
| Izkata wrote:
| Leading cause of death in the US, 2015-2020:
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2778234
| (see table a few paragraphs down)
|
| Heart disease, unintentional injuries, Alzheimer disease,
| and diabetes all jumped more than the expected trend.
|
| 2021 numbers I don't think will be finalized for another
| month or so.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Yes so it seems if anything COVID deaths are being
| misclassified as Alzheimer's, diabetes, etc
| acdha wrote:
| One thing I've heard multiple doctors comment on is that
| they are seeing more patients who were successfully
| managing a condition have significant declines after a
| bout of COVID, even a mild one. That's definitely a bit
| of a philosophical question trying to assign fractional
| responsibility but you can also side-step this to some
| extent by looking at it as years of life lost -- e.g. if
| someone with a manageable heart disease where patients
| tend to die 10 years older dies after having COVID,
| that's something like a decade where they could have been
| around their friends and family.
| notahacker wrote:
| In places with good nationwide data like the UK and
| national level lockdowns, the excess mortality spikes
| also line up very well with the case outbreaks
| (especially pre vaccination), and considerably less well
| with other plausible causes of excess mortality (lockdown
| and unemployment induced stress, [long term effects of]
| reductions in access to treatment for chronic conditions)
| tjr225 wrote:
| I know this is going to sound conspiratorial but I think
| you'd have to be pretty naive to accept the reported deaths
| in the US due to Covid to be that accurate. Hospitals(which
| in the US are for profit mind you) were quite literally given
| more money for reporting a death as a Covid death for a
| period of time. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck
| /2020/04/24/fac...
|
| Actually you could say it's difficult to trust the numbers
| coming from any country for a variety of reasons, whether it
| be under or overreported.
| rcpt wrote:
| You're right that does sound conspiratorial
| shafyy wrote:
| Actual people dying because of Covid is probably even
| higher than what the official data reports, see: https://tw
| itter.com/MaxCRoser/status/1486075272638119936?s=2...
| walterbell wrote:
| _> difficult to trust the numbers coming from any country
| for a variety of reasons_
|
| This must be a golden age for those doing a dissertation on
| media studies. So many quant-driven narratives, so little
| time. Hopefully cross-country data and narratives are being
| archived and aggregated into an open-data academic
| repository that can be studied in coming years.
| djbebs wrote:
| Given that raw data of vaccine trials aren't even being
| made public I doubt that any reliable data is being
| collected, let alone analysed
| walterbell wrote:
| Progress is slowly being made on transparency. For the
| Omicron-specific Pfizer vaccine, the clinical trial in
| humans must be completed before approval and clinical
| trial data must be submitted at the same time (no 75-year
| delays).
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-
| pharmaceuticals/...
|
| _> recent study from Israel showed that while a fourth
| dose of an mRNA vaccine boosted antibodies, the level was
| not high enough to prevent infection by the Omicron
| variant ... the debate appears to have shifted with the
| European Medicines Agency (EMA) saying on Friday that
| international regulators now preferred clinical studies
| to be carried out before approval of a new vaccine ... it
| may not be possible to realise a current plan to launch
| an Omicron-targeting vaccine by the end of March ...
| Inclusion of clinical trial data in the regulatory
| filings may have an impact on the delivery of initial
| batches._
| vkou wrote:
| At this point, given that the quantity and quality of the
| public data of vaccine _rollouts_ dwarfs the data of
| vaccine trials in both scope and usefulness, anyone still
| grousing about vaccine trial data is just playing
| political football, for the sake of FUD.
|
| It's like arguing about the raw data of the Wright
| brothers flight, when millions of people are flying
| around the world on 747s. Was it relevant in the past?
| Yes. Is it relevant today? No.
|
| You want to know about vaccine safety? Look at excess
| mortality, hospital admissions, and long-term health
| problems of the vaccinated and unvaccinated populations,
| today. Ten billion COVID vaccines have been administered
| around the world in the past year. Any of the data we've
| gathered from that is about a thousand times more
| relevant to literally anything we could be doing, than
| raw study data on a few thousand people.
| xdennis wrote:
| If a policeman breaks into your house without a warrant
| it's illegal even if he is right and you are a criminal.
| Procedures have to be followed.
| sofixa wrote:
| You can use excess deaths then, those numbers are even
| higher. And even _if_ official Covid numbers are inflated,
| even tenfold, it 's still a disease that resulted in a lot
| of death.
| Karunamon wrote:
| A non trivial portion of excess deaths can be laid at the
| feet of the response to the virus, not necessarily the
| virus itself.
|
| This would include the things like firing healthcare
| workers, leading to other problems being undiagnosed, and
| worsening instead of being treated. I would also include
| lockdowns and mask mandates as being responsible for
| increased amounts of depression, which has a known poor
| impact on survival over time, and that's not just
| counting suicide.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| > I'd say the answer to that should be determined by the
| hospital capacity. If a region has sufficient hospital capacity
| that it would not be overwhelmed by the increase in COVID cases
| among the unvaccinated go ahead and lift most restrictions.
|
| You forget the second order effect here: the more unvaccinated
| people hospitals have to treat, the more likely their nurses
| and doctors are to quit, even if "the hospital is not
| overloaded". The more likely they are to quit, the more likely
| people are to die of other preventable causes in the future
| (because once they're burned and quit, they're not coming
| back).
| CWuestefeld wrote:
| The exact operation of this effect isn't clear, I think.
|
| If we could wave a magic wand and make it all immediately
| end, that would be preferable. But that's not going to
| happen.
|
| That leaves us with two choices. We can let it drag on and
| on, or we can tear off the bandaid quicker. It's not clear to
| me which of those two is worse for the healthcare
| professionals you're talking about.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| CDC's new paper throws a wrench in all of these arguments from
| NYT: https://thepulse.one/2022/01/24/cdc-admits-the-obvious-
| natur...
| skillpass wrote:
| I agree - I am worried about taking hospital capacity claims at
| face value though.
|
| From what I've seen, it was common for hospitals to report
| being overwhelmed even during flu seasons pre-covid. I wouldn't
| classify that level of 'overwhelmed' worthy of mandates upon
| society.
|
| I don't doubt that during these periods of time hospital
| resources are strained in some way, but there's a difference
| between this routine level of being overwhelmed and a level
| where freedoms should be restricted from the general public.
|
| I don't have a good model for where the line should be drawn,
| but I lean towards not imposing restrictions unless massive
| benefit can be shown beyond a reasonable doubt.
| walterbell wrote:
| There are operations research PhD's who use decades of
| aggregate demand data in dynamic pricing algorithms for the
| purpose of revenue and queue management in perishable
| services, e.g. software for pricing of airline seats, rental
| cars and hotel rooms.
|
| In countries with universal healthcare, price cannot be used
| for queue management, but the US isn't one of those
| countries. Did any hospital use queue management software to
| adjust pricing as a mechanism for demand throttling, due to
| limited capacity in 2020-2021?
|
| In any case, if supply-vs-demand is both a policy driver and
| metric of intervention performance, we need public, detailed
| hospital capacity data for analysis and optimization of net
| societal costs vs benefits. Utilization of space and skills
| is eminently quantifiable and software already exists for
| demand mgmt.
| zrail wrote:
| > Did any hospital use queue management software to adjust
| pricing as a mechanism for demand throttling, due to
| limited capacity in 2020-2021
|
| No one shops for healthcare in the US based on price, for
| three reasons. First, prices are unknowable in advance.
| Second, if you have insurance the insurance will fulfill
| their end of the bargain if you need to be admitted (i.e.
| they will pay as agreed upon in the insurance contract).
| Third, emergency rooms in the US are required by law to
| stabilize any emergent patient that walks in the door,
| which means anyone can go to any ER anywhere and get
| treatment.
| depereo wrote:
| Isn't there a new law, partially rolled out, that
| requires US hospitals to disclose the cost for a
| procedure or treatment in advance?
| vel0city wrote:
| They're required to publish their prices, which results
| in giant PDF documents with thousands of different charge
| codes and prices. Its almost incomprehensible to analyze
| unless you're in healthcare billing. Plus, you'd need to
| know what services/medications/equipment you'll need
| before you even get to the hospital, which is pretty dang
| tricky unless you're a doctor yourself.
|
| I was recently in the hospital for abdominal issues. How
| would I know what drugs they would give me? How would I
| know if they were going to give me some kind of scan? If
| they were going to give me a scan, are they going to use
| a portable machine or use a stationary machine? Are they
| going to need to use some kind of endoscopic scope? Will
| I need other things to assist with those scans
| (sedatives, contrast materials, etc)? Which blood work
| tests is the doctor going to order? Which urine tests is
| the doctor going to order? Are they going to order stool
| samples? How many samples are they going to need, how
| many times are they going to need to re-run tests? What
| if I get there and determine I need surgery? How should I
| have known I needed that ahead of time? What kind of
| surgery is it going to be? What drugs are involved in
| that?
|
| Its not like you can walk up and see a board that says
| "INTESTIONAL DISTRESS -- $175"
| brimble wrote:
| > Its almost incomprehensible to analyze unless you're in
| healthcare billing.
|
| Considering that hospitals seem (anecdotal evidence only)
| to fuck up their own billing codes like 20% of the time,
| I'm not even sure that's enough.
| abduhl wrote:
| Hospitals don't comply with it. What is the government
| going to do, shut them down or fine them into closing
| during a pandemic?
|
| Private companies have coopted the power over our
| government during this pandemic, and we have gladly given
| it to them in fear.
| ericd wrote:
| I briefly tried using the results of that, they're
| totally unnormalized, so even lining up identical line
| item charges is difficult. We have a deep learning
| language model that normalizes the language and lines up
| potential matches. But even if that works, it still
| doesn't get you the bill, because a single encounter
| includes a big batch of billing codes, depending on what
| the doctor tries to give you. And to get normal baskets,
| you probably want claims data. And the claims data
| providers we spoke to wanted 6-7 figures for a small
| dataset.
|
| It's an incredibly parasitic industry, I've never seen
| anything quite like it. It's a pretty stark contrast to
| the largely altruistic motives of many of the healthcare
| professionals themselves.
| nradov wrote:
| Pricing is mostly fixed for at least a year at a time by
| contracts with payers (insurance companies), or by Medicare
| fee schedules. Hospitals have almost no legal flexibility
| to dynamically adjust prices based on demand.
| Tade0 wrote:
| A few of my friends are doctors. When it hits, it's hell.
| Here in Poland 300h of work during the month the infections
| are at their peak is not unheard of.
| sib301 wrote:
| Dude go to a hospital in a populated area during this surge.
| My wife sat in the waiting room for 3 hours with SEVERE
| abdominal pain, DURING A PREGNANCY and was unable to be seen.
| We went home. If she'd had an ectopic pregnancy, she would
| probably not be here anymore.
| dont__panic wrote:
| Ugh, I'm so sorry you had to go through that. For other
| folks reading this: yes, three hours doesn't sound like
| that long a wait. But I'm willing to be those felt like the
| three longest, most stressful hours of your life when your
| mind is racing with possibilities and fears about the
| future of your wife and/or baby.
| brimble wrote:
| If it's anything like my Dad's recent trip (I went with
| him--kids who haven't had to deal with hospitals, always
| make sure someone else is with you to watch out for you
| if you have to go in, there is a good chance you'll have
| a bad time if you don't) the waits are super-long even
| for people who are obviously in a lot of distress, and
| they also don't communicate _at all_ about where you are
| in the triage pool, so you 're looking at people who you
| overheard saying they've already been there three hours
| _when you got there_ , and they do seem like they need
| help, and you're like... how fucking long am _I_ going to
| have to wait? And there 's no answer, which I get, but if
| they could at least tell the ones who definitely aren't
| getting in "you're low-priority and we have no hope of
| seeing you today, we're just waiting until you get
| frustrated and leave" (this was the end result for like
| 50% of the people in the ER that day, from what I could
| tell, some of whom _really did_ seem like they needed to
| get in) exactly that, it 'd relieve some stress to know
| you're _not_ in that group. The lack of communication
| bordered on abusive, for that reason, and I get they can
| 't give an exact wait time, but at least saying "yes we
| do actually intend to get you in at some point" would be
| nice.
| bko wrote:
| Hospital capacity is a technical problem and can be solved
| by building more hospitals, hiring more workers or changing
| the roles to allow nurses to handle more issues. The
| hospitals are meant to serve people, not the other way
| around. Covid didn't arrive overnight. If there are
| capacity issues they should be addressed independent of
| everything else.
| skillpass wrote:
| I'm sorry about your experience. I do wish your wife would
| have received better care, but I'm not sure we can jump to
| the conclusion that the experience you had implies mandates
| and restrictions upon society are worthwhile.
|
| Do you know that it would have been a shorter wait time
| during a period where the hospital wasn't overwhelmed? If
| so, how much shorter? Perhaps the medical staff were able
| to tell the signs of ectopic pregnancy in a way that
| allowed them put your wife lower on the triage priority
| list than you thought she should have been.
|
| Does your area have any sort of restrictions? If not, how
| would the amount of time you had to wait be changed in a
| world where your area did have restrictions?
|
| Even if you can show some benefit from the restrictions,
| are the benefits great enough to be worthwhile given the
| costs?
| iskander wrote:
| Similar experience in my family, father-in-law spent 18
| hours waiting in a ER. Needs a biopsy and imaging which are
| taking weeks to get done because, as several doctors have
| admitted, the hospital is both overwhelmed with Covid
| patients and short-staffed due to infections among doctors
| and nurses.
| lowercased wrote:
| My mom had to wait for ~ 5 hrs in ER waiting room in
| relatively severe pain. Was another 8-9 hours 'inside' just
| to be sent home. Years ago she'd had been admitted and
| stayed overnight to be on the safe side (older adult, known
| health issues, etc) but ... no room, over capacity,
| stretched way too thin.
| mfer wrote:
| I know a lot of nurses and have been following what's
| happening in hospitals. It's complicated. Here are a couple
| things I've learned...
|
| 1. Many hospitals are under staffed. Schools that produce
| nurses have stayed steady state while demand has increased.
| This was before the pandemic. During the pandemic many
| nurses left due to mandates, being treated poorly (by
| hospital mgmt and people in the hospital), being overworked
| during shortages, and more. This has all made staffing a
| huge problem.
|
| _When hospitals don 't have the staff they close beds down
| and can't operate at full capacity._
|
| Hospitals that used to only hire RNs with bachelor degrees
| and wouldn't consider an associates (it's the same amount
| of schooling in the nursing portion) are now trying to hire
| LPNs.
|
| 2. Some emergency rooms are seeing a crazy number of
| people. More than usual. This is for a variety of reasons.
| COVID is one but also people putting off having things
| treated so they are now emergencies is another. Couple this
| with the staffing shortage and it's even worse.
| avs733 wrote:
| I had an extremely traumatic accident a week ago and came
| into a major city hospital as a level one trauma patient.
|
| I came in with absolutely no wait..ambulance directly to a
| trauma bay, no waiting, no clothing, no nothing.
|
| After about six hours they figure out I was not going to
| die and was relatively okay. Okay here means two broken
| legs not "walking around". Half of the patients at this
| hospital had covid and I have a five month old at home who
| isn't vaccinated (obviously).
|
| Once I got admitted to the trauma floor for a couples days
| it was like I didn't exist. The staff seemed totally
| overwhelmed and it took hours to get some simple things
| like water. Without visitors, a bag of belongings got
| delivered by being isolated in a chair well out of my
| limited reach. Took me eight hours to get my laptop from
| that bag. I was okay with that because I wanted to interact
| with as few potential covid vectors as possible but wow.
|
| I think, from my experience there are a couple of things
| happening:
|
| 1) staff are overwhelmed to day with the ratio of patients
| to staff. I can't comment why but the nurses I saw weren't
| sitting they were constantly moving.
|
| 2) staff are demoralized and frustrated. You could hear it
| in their voices and tone and body language. They were
| trying but grumpy.
|
| 3) shit rolls down hill. Drs. (Save one angel who talked
| with me for 30 minutes about life) where in and out for
| brief profunctory conversations that had no communicative
| value about what was
|
| They need more nurses. And like everywhere else it seems no
| one is willing to pay them more or treat them better. We
| can pay execs millions with no qualms and no evidence it
| works. But as a patient having the worst day of my fucking
| life, I interact with front line staff and they are out
| there getting run into the ground and being treated like
| shit for it.
|
| I'm so sorry for your wife, I was so lucky I had a
| different experience. But the shared thing, I think, is
| that the American medical system is going through a full
| and complete collapse and no one with the power to change
| things is willing to do anything.
|
| I'm terrified.
| irthomasthomas wrote:
| Is the explanation simply that so many nurses are being
| forced to isolate with Omicron? Since even vaccinated
| staff can still spread it, so they still take the tests
| often, and isolate for 2 weeks if positive.
| kube-system wrote:
| This has been relaxed greatly in 2022 at many hospitals.
| Most are isolating only for 5 days now under the new CDC
| guidelines, and some only if the person is symptomatic.
| avs733 wrote:
| I would suggest the explanation is similar to the supply
| chain.
|
| In the interest of profits we have wrung every ounce of
| every part of the system that runs healthcare. And at the
| end of all of those elements are human beings. Such
| systems are unstable. They work but are not fault
| tolerant at scale because no one ever really looks at the
| whole system they just look at a part of the system they
| control. I'm okay if healthcare is more like an a320 as
| opposed to an F22 because the F22 needs 50 man hours of
| maintenance to fly and the a320 does it's thing in a much
| more germane fashion. Jwst can have 184 single point of
| failure actuators because it's the bleeding edge,
| healthcare needs to have -184.
|
| The problem is we see humans as humans. A machine breaks,
| it is not perceived as having agency, autonomy, or
| humanity we don't blame it. When people die waiting in an
| er or healthcare personnel are short with patients or
| quit in droves there is a person whose actions and
| motives we can question and blame. We understand that
| experience slightly more and can find ways to question
| it.
|
| It isolates the problems from view. When no one's looking
| at the whole system (and being listened to) no one can
| shift course. It was not efficient to build capacity for
| truly abnormal events, so it didn't make financial sense
| For anyone to do so. And now nurses are testing and
| isolating...and. Not just. And.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "Is the explanation simply that so many nurses are being
| forced to isolate with Omicron?"
|
| A explanation why people are frustrated, who work hard
| and intense, take all the risk - but only get low pay?
| kurthr wrote:
| Exactly, "you've been a nurse for 30 years, you're 60yrs
| old, you tested positive for COVID and you still have
| symptoms, but if you don't come back into work after 5
| days (without pay) you'll also face punishment when you
| return". Of course, if a patient get's COVID while under
| your care (and symptomatic) and chooses to sue you,
| "you're on your own babe!". Also, "it is mandatory that
| you get vaccinated/boosted, but also come into work the
| next day or you won't be paid and it will count as one of
| 4 unscheduled days off per year before termination".
|
| And people wonder why nurses are pissed off?
| avs733 wrote:
| We focus on human causes because we connect to them
| better. And because for many many people these are the
| concrete things that can understand when I'm a stressful
| situation. Abstract problems like decades of "capacity
| management" "workflow improvements" and "right sizing"
| are so abstract they don't resonate with someone who is
| standing in an er in pain. They aren't dumb they are
| stressed out. Stress is basically fight or flight...it
| makes us stupid.
|
| Stress is why I made the firefighters put in safety
| glasses and got angry at them that I couldn't find my
| glasses. Both while trapped under a literal oak tree
| Lammy wrote:
| To be fair I had exactly that same experience at the UCSF
| Emergency Room in 2017. Four hours in the waiting room, and
| then the only bed they could give me was against one wall
| of a busy hallway.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Yes its very common even in richest places. Case point #2
| - Geneva, Switzerland has the biggest public hospital in
| whole country (HUG). They employ around 10k personnel
| overall, and Geneva is relatively small city (they call
| it the smallest metropole for a reason). There is no
| shortage of money or high tech equipment.
|
| But if you came pre-covid during say weekend night and
| you were not clearly about to die, 10+h waiting time in
| emergency was not unheard of (wife was serving there for
| some time as doctor, those folks deserve some proper
| respect). Simply overwhelmed, not enough staff comprised
| mostly by junior doctors. Now they are properly good in
| diagnosing whether your excruciating pain is life-
| threatening or not, but it must suck big time to be on
| patient's side.
|
| This is by far the biggest emergency in whole canton. Any
| private clinic or smaller medical centre will send
| serious cases straight there.
|
| Its not something discussed frequently but that's just
| how things are, in one of the richest and well-organized
| countries in whole world. Don't expect much better
| experience if you have bad luck with timing.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Well, here in germany it is quite similar.
|
| That means, I had to wait only a short time once, but
| that was after a dog bite to my face and it just looked
| horrible with blood all over it.
|
| But the next time, with an deep open wound in my leg,
| which was actually way more dangerous, I had to wait
| quite some time, before they even checked.
| christophilus wrote:
| I think I'd read your biography.
| smileysteve wrote:
| 2012 checking in.
| dekhn wrote:
| this describes many ER visits I've had, ones with my kids
| and ones I had myself. ERs are the worst possible places
| to go for medical care, except for near-immediate death.
| Over time, especially in the US, more and more people use
| the ER as first-line care (especially on the weekend).
|
| Last week, my son had COVID (tested positive) but mild
| symptoms. At some point he says "I have a blue tongue, I
| don't remember having that before". Doctor and wife want
| to rush him to the ER and I say no. My daughter and I
| debugged it a day later (he had just taken a blue gummy
| pill, and somehow didn't think to mention that). What
| would have happened if we went to the ER? Shrugs from the
| doctor after sitting around the ER at midnight-5AM ("yeah
| I guess it's not cyanosis and it's gone now"), my wife
| and I have increased exposure to COVID in the ER, and a
| $3K bill for looking at a tongue.
| ipaddr wrote:
| 3 hours? In the best of times it's an 8 hour wait before
| covid.
| umvi wrote:
| Busy ERs are not unique to covid. I've had many experiences
| with multi-hour ER waits pre-2020
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| Coming from the UK and Italy - 3 hours is nothing. If
| you're about to die they'll send you to emergency,
| otherwise you'll have to wait hours. If you're unhappy, pay
| for a private insurance and get decent service.
|
| Actually I had to go to the hospital (not covid) and it was
| almost deserted with reception coming to check the desk
| they were supposed to be attending half an hour after we
| were supposed to be there. People generally went less to
| the hospital because of the pandemic (which causes other
| problems).
| ectopod wrote:
| Where can you find a private A&E in the UK?
| cogman10 wrote:
| IDK if it's gotten worse, but circa 2004->2006, my
| experiences with the NHS were nothing but pleasant. I
| mostly dealt with northern hospitals and GPs, but it was
| pretty much in and out. Appointments didn't take long, we
| were in and out in almost all cases.
| mrcrumb1 wrote:
| Can you give me an example of a scenario where you would be
| in favor of restriction like the ones that have been
| implemented?
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| The thing they don't always mention is that hospital capacity
| is always close to being overwhelmed, by design, because
| otherwise you're sitting around with a large amount of
| extraordinarily expensive idle hospital capacity. A small
| change is enough to go from "almost full" to "over capacity."
|
| The seemingly obvious thing to do would be to build some
| temporary capacity specifically for COVID patients. We've had
| quite a long time to do this now so I'm not sure what's
| preventing it. Maybe it's caught up in that thing where
| captured regulators are gatekeeping medical certifications to
| maintain labor scarcity or some such thing?
| hutzlibu wrote:
| This is a hard problem, because you do not only need beds,
| but also humans tending to the patients.
|
| And while you can just build another hospital if you have
| the cash - you cannot just build another doctor, if you
| need one.
| jstarfish wrote:
| > you cannot just build another doctor, if you need one.
|
| So take your pool of existing NPs and give them a
| temporary promotion.
| cma wrote:
| Hospitals have been overflowing into parking garages and
| tents. Antivaxxers would be very expensive for society if
| we had to build out hard assets at the interior/exterior
| finish level of the hospital itself to support brief surges
| of them.
| notriddle wrote:
| > The thing they don't always mention is that hospital
| capacity is always close to being overwhelmed, by design,
| because otherwise you're sitting around with a large amount
| of extraordinarily expensive idle hospital capacity. A
| small change is enough to go from "almost full" to "over
| capacity."
|
| If that was true, it would not be okay. There needs to be
| enough capacity to handle unpredictable spikes in load.
| This can be described using the same sort of queueing
| theory that anyone legitimately operating at scale needs to
| worry about: you don't just track average latency, but also
| track _tail latency_.
|
| Luckily, emergency hospital buildings are not "always close
| to be overwhelmed." _Their staff_ is always close to being
| overwhelmed, but the buildings are not. Instead, they
| maintain a reserve capacity of temp nurses, who get called
| during brushfire season and New Year 's Midnight to handle
| the unusually high load. They are paid well by the hourly
| wage, but don't get any benefits, and either have a second
| job or a retirement plan to carry them over the rest of the
| year.
|
| Only this time, they were never sent home. And, since some
| of them are being forced to quit their jobs, they're
| demanding the benefits package, which is getting expensive.
|
| Edit: and, of course, this all goes to crap once a
| brushfire happens on top of the pandemic
| Fomite wrote:
| I work with a lot of clinicians.
|
| Normal flu seasons don't leave them with 1000 yard stares.
| nradov wrote:
| 2018: "Hospitals Overwhelmed by Flu Patients Are Treating
| Them in Tents"
|
| https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-
| patie...
|
| This pandemic has been extremely hard on many healthcare
| providers. But hospitals in many areas were routinely
| overwhelmed during winter respiratory virus season in
| previous years. They dealt with it as best they could, and we
| didn't impose mandates or restrictions on the rest of
| society.
|
| https://peterattiamd.com/covid-19-current-state-omicron/
| frickinLasers wrote:
| Covid has been something like ten times as deadly as the
| flu. I imagine those hospital beds put way more strain on
| the system as a whole than a bad flu season (see:
| ventilator sharing). I think any human with a shred of
| empathy for their tribe would agree, that this level of
| misery warranted collective action on the level of our
| response to measles, mumps, rubella, tuberculosis,
| diphtheria, pertussis...
|
| And though I really hope it's the case, I've heard no news
| yet that Omicron will be the last significant variant.
| nradov wrote:
| Did you actually listen to that panel discussion I linked
| where several leading physicians explain what's been
| happening and the mistakes that have been made?
| tynpeddler wrote:
| The vaxxed and unvaxxed populations both rely on the same
| medical infrastructure. So when the unvaxxed fill hospitals to
| recover or die, they are consuming scarce resources that are
| required by the population at large for other things like
| birth, cancer, surgery, etc. Sadly, we don't have an ethical
| way to let all the unvaxxed get covid without impacting the
| medical system negatively for the rest of us.
| ipaddr wrote:
| The numbers are equal now with the new variant.
| rglullis wrote:
| Cigarette use kills 480000 people every year in the US alone.
| 300 billion dollars estimated to be spent per year with
| treatment of smoking-related illness.
|
| I don't want even to look at the numbers of the more critical
| epidemic on the US: obesity and metabolic diseases.
|
| By arguing that "the unvaxxed" are a burden and that they
| deserve discrimination, you are opening the gates for those
| arguing that smokers should be forced to stop smoking, or
| that obese people need to be forced to stricter diets.
| mattigames wrote:
| Smokers, obese people and metabolic diseases are not
| filling up hospitales at the unsustainable rate unvaxxed
| people are; and none of those can be quickly fixed with a
| pinch in the arm, not even nicotine addiction.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Well that is not true actually - they likely are filling
| up hospitals quite a bit. The big difference is that
| smoking, metabolic diseases, car accidents, etc etc are
| all relatively PREDICTABLE diseases year to year. Our
| medical system then sizes to be able to deal with these
| predictable rates of disease.
| akomtu wrote:
| Actually, they do. It's not the young unvaxxed athletes
| who end up in ICUs, it's those people with obesity and
| other comorbidities who fill up hospitals.
| mattigames wrote:
| You are being pedantic, in this context I obviously meant
| vaxxed smokers, vaxxed obese people, et al.
| rglullis wrote:
| Yeah, at this time of the year they are being filled by
| all types of seasonal respiratory diseases, like it
| happened for most years in recent times, even before
| Covid. The flu shot is widely available and recommended
| for most over-55 (I think?), but you don't hear anyone
| claiming that it should become mandatory.
| mattigames wrote:
| So let me get this straight, what you are asking is why
| not add one more huge problem to an already near-collapse
| system because there are already huge similar issues that
| caused it to be in that state?
| rglullis wrote:
| What I am saying is that we have for two years already
| heard that the restrictions and mandates were to avoid
| overloading a then-unprepared-and-taken-by-surprise
| health system, but the US still can't even have large-
| scale availability of rapid tests.
|
| I am also saying that if problem of the health system is
| lack of personnel, then firing healthcare workers who
| refuse the vaccine (even after being infected) is
| counter-productive and can only be seen as a bone-headed
| political move.
|
| But most of all what I am saying is that we should not
| accept the policy theater. Making this about vaxxed vs
| unvaxxed is just yet-another way for governments
| (worldwide) to hide their ineptitude.
|
| It's been two years already. Countries in Europe with
| comparable levels of vaccination to the US are already
| treating Covid as "just a endemic, seasonal respiratory
| disease". Yet the US still wants to pretend that things
| just don't get solved because of rednecks and
| "problematic people" that need to submit to the will of
| the elite.
| mattigames wrote:
| So vaccines are "the will of the elite"? I can't wait
| until this guy finds out most vaccines are mandatory to
| enter the public education system and has been that way
| in most countries for decades, even in red states like
| Texas.
| rglullis wrote:
| Don't be stupid.
|
| It is not the vaccination, per se[*]. It is the political
| maneuvering and using the unvaxxed as a cover for their
| failures, this perpetual "if only they did what we are
| asking of them", etc. The will of the elite is that we
| accept this perpetual terror until we give them carte
| blanche for them to do whatever "Big Reset" they want.
|
| In Germany we are testing our kids twice a week at a
| minimum, and _everyday_ when /if a positive test is found
| in the school. Case numbers are high, measures are in
| place, but people are mostly living their lives without
| waiting for Mary from Bumfuck Alabama to get her shot.
| Why is it so hard for the US to drop the empty pointless
| rhetoric and get their shit together?
|
| [*]If it helps you, I am not against the vaccines. I got
| mine, boosters and all. What I am against is the policy
| theater. What I am against is schools being closed and
| causing a lot more long-term harm to kids than the
| potential risks of them getting covid. What I am against
| is firing health care workers for political reasons
| _while claiming that the system will collapse unless
| everyone complies_.
| mattigames wrote:
| I actually think children are much better off with what
| you call "long-term damage", this generation will now be
| way more likely to be ready for the next pandemic which
| is _not_ a question of if but _when_, with this first-
| hand experience hopefully they will avoid many of those
| failures you complain about (when many of the reach
| political positions in their adulthood); and is not like
| they are getting anywhere near serious long-term damage
| like during the black plague when most children saw half
| of their family die and there was no internet, or
| electricity or any of the niceties they now enjoy.
| rglullis wrote:
| You are kidding, right?
|
| Granted, a very cynical view of the educational system is
| most Western countries is that it is a glorified time-
| waster for kids to be busy while parents work. But even
| that was lost during the pandemic. Most schools basically
| have given up on getting students to learn anything this
| past year. Lockdowns have acted as prolonged stunt on
| children's socialization opportunities. Anxiety levels
| for teenagers are through the roof.
|
| The effects of these two years on younger kids will be
| profound and long-lasting. They are paying a lot more
| than their share of risk. And saying "they are not dying"
| is not a consolation because - unlike with the Plague -
| kids are basically zero-risk compared with other age
| groups.
|
| > At least they had internet and other niceties
|
| Are you serious? The last thing you should want for kids
| is for them to become dependent on something like the
| Internet. Such a comment is almost offensive to a parent
| that does not want to see their kids turning into
| mindless, socially-inept drones like the average HN-
| commenter.
| bsder wrote:
| Actually, that's not true.
|
| We have some hypotheses that _children_ are the flu
| reservoir and that if we required them to get an annual
| shot it would tamp down flu seasons.
|
| The primary difference is that the flu vaccine is
| predictive and can _miss_. It 's kind of hard to demand
| that people take something that may not work.
|
| If we got something genuinely terrible like Spanish Flu,
| yes, everybody would be demanding that people get a flu
| shot.
| lliamander wrote:
| And most of the people (vaxxed or not) who need critical
| care with COVID have those pre-existing conditions.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Unvaxxed are not filling up the hospitals at a higher
| rate than vaxed now. The two doses you got in the summer
| doesn't work anymore.
| jatone wrote:
| We already have discrimination in medical care its called
| 'triage', unfortunately it doesn't involved removing care
| once granted.
|
| We also charge smokers more for health care due to the
| burden they put on the system, yet another form of
| discrimination.
|
| You're also making the naive mistake of relating a stable
| system (smokers with health issues) with an unstable system
| (covid patients). These two types of systems have VERY
| different impacts on the medical infrastructure.
|
| QED: no one is opening any flood gates. we've had this shit
| in place for over a century. we use to let you just die at
| home when you caught the plague.
| rhino369 wrote:
| >We already have discrimination in medical care its
| called 'triage', unfortunately it doesn't involved
| removing care once granted.
|
| Based on seriousness of the case, not really on whether
| it was preventable in the first place. For extremely
| limited resources like organs there is consideration of
| future risks, but that isn't really the same thing.
|
| >We also charge smokers more for health care due to the
| burden they put on the system, yet another form of
| discrimination.
|
| So let insurance adjusters charge different rates for
| vax/unvac'd people covered by insurance like they do for
| smokers.
| jatone wrote:
| > Based on seriousness of the case,....
|
| incorrect its based on likely hood of survival. no point
| in wasting resources on a soon to be dead individual when
| you can save someone who actually has a chance.
| nradov wrote:
| The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) doesn't allow medical
| insurers to set premiums based on vaccination status.
| rglullis wrote:
| Then go charge more for those who are at risk and reject
| the recommendation for vaccine. I'd argue that would be a
| lot more effective (and fair) to get people to vaccinate
| then any of the current sociopolitical pressure and
| ostracization.
| d12345m wrote:
| I've wondered why increased healthcare premiums for
| unvaccinated persons isn't a tool we're using.
|
| I'm assuming it's a bad idea for reasons that I haven't
| thought through; I'd love to hear them from anyone who
| has spent time on the issue.
| abduhl wrote:
| They're illegal because of Obamacare, I believe. My
| understanding is that smoking is the only pre-existing
| medical condition that can be used to discriminate.
| dham wrote:
| But we could already charge more for certain things like
| being overweight and cover this issue anyway. IMO if your
| BMI is over a certain amount you should probably be
| required to take a Covid vaccine, but not everyone.
| edanm wrote:
| I mean, that's a pretty decent comparison. Society has
| spent the last few decades encouraging people not to smoke,
| using everything from campaigns to actual laws that make it
| harder to smoke. This has caused smoking to go down a lot.
|
| So in that sense, the response to COVID is similar - though
| on an accelerated time scale, because the epidemic is much
| worse.
| zanderz wrote:
| This is one of the reasons for motorcycle helmet laws and
| maybe seat belts
| biomcgary wrote:
| To be consistent, we probably shouldn't be covering people
| who ride or drive vehicles.
| https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2014/p1007-crash-
| injuries...
| mbesto wrote:
| > you are opening the gates for those arguing that smokers
| should be forced to stop smoking, or that obese people need
| to be forced to stricter diets.
|
| Honestly, then good, we should open that can of worms.
|
| > 300 billion dollars estimated to be spent per year with
| treatment of smoking-related illness.
|
| AFAIK this treatment doesn't include "clogging an ICU
| because these people are on ventilators". I could be wrong
| though.
| rory wrote:
| I'd be interested to see a poll of pro-vaccine-mandate
| individuals asking these questions:
|
| 1. Should smoking be banned? (by smoker status)
|
| 2. Should obese people be forced by the government to
| restrict calories? (by obesity status)
|
| I honestly have no idea how it would go. Most people are
| more coy about those opinions.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Some countries are starting to ban smoking - look at New
| Zealand. Personally I am not against it specifically - if
| you are going to do some kind of extra harmful drug it
| might as well at least be one that is not so damn boring
| like Nicotine.
|
| Obese people is a more complicated issue and I would
| argue that (at a societal level) it is an indicator of a
| larger social problem that is then causing the issue
| downstream just like other issues of addiction. I think
| we would be better off targeting that issue upstream.
|
| That being said I do really like that in some countries
| (Japan, from what I hear) your general doctor can
| prescribe you basic things like "exercise". It must be
| painfully obvious to so many doctors out there that the
| best solution to some problems is to get the person
| actually moving more but instead they have to beat around
| the bush with after the fact duct tape type medical
| fixes.
| rory wrote:
| > _I think we would be better off targeting that issue
| upstream._
|
| I'm not sure I understand. You mean like banning certain
| foods?
| [deleted]
| akomtu wrote:
| The same reasoning can be applied to obesity.
| kritiko wrote:
| I highly recommend reading this series if you think obesity
| is a personal failure:
| https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/07/a-chemical-
| hunger-p...
|
| Obviously, yes, medical conditions do place burdens on
| health systems. That's why we tax cigarettes highly.
| However, in spite of considerable public health
| initiatives, the obesity rate continues to rise...
| GavinMcG wrote:
| Not really. Various groups may disproportionately take up
| health resources, but the risk we're talking about is
| _acutely overwhelming_ health systems.
| rory wrote:
| This is definitely the most pressing issue, but shouldn't
| we also, as a society, build the ability to e.g. double
| ICU capacity when needed? We're not talking about 100x
| here.
|
| As much as I support vaccination, it feels like gaps in
| vaccination are also used as an excuse to blow off
| repairing an extremely fragile public health system.
| We've had two years at this point.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Two years doesn't seem like very long to double ICU
| capacity. How are you going to staff them? Nursing
| degrees take 3 years. Medical degrees much longer. And
| capacity to train doctors and nurses is also stretched by
| the pandemic and non-trivial to expand.
|
| I do agree that this is something governments ought to be
| looking into over the long term though.
| rglullis wrote:
| If the short-term problem is specific to Covid, you just
| need to bring/train people for that.
|
| Training people to assist Covid cases, run PCR tests,
| should be a matter of weeks, not years. Germany did it, I
| have 4 (four!) test centers on within a block of
| distance, all of them are filled with students and
| otherwise-unemployed people who got some minimal
| training.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I don't think test centres are the problem. I live and
| the UK and the only time tests were scarce was a few days
| around Christmas when there was very high demand.
| rory wrote:
| A _standard nursing degree in Europe_ takes three years.
| That 's not a scientific law, it's not like it takes 365
| * 3 * 2/3 = 17520 hours to learn how to be useful in an
| ICU. An LPN can be done in a year. We trained mechanical
| engineers in as little time during WWII.
|
| If we're to treat this like an emergency, why aren't we
| treating it like an emergency?
| wk_end wrote:
| ...only if (and if only!) obesity were a problem that could
| be solved by a couple of quick, free shots at the local
| pharmacy.
| bluedino wrote:
| It'd be interesting to see what big pharma could come up
| with in a year.
| rtikulit wrote:
| Obesity isn't exogenous, infectious or subject to
| exponential growth. Even a superficial consideration of the
| facts shows that analogies between obesity and covid are
| unsound.
| tehjoker wrote:
| Obesity isn't contagious and doesn't have spiky behavior in
| hospitalizations. We also know a reliable cure even if its
| very difficult to put into practice (impossible for some).
| heurisko wrote:
| Obesity is one of the big contributors to Covid
| infections that require complex hospital care. The two
| are linked.
|
| That's why I think vaccination schemes that offered free
| food were undermining the "following the science" bit.
|
| As was the banning of the popular "Parkrun" in the UK,
| which is a collective outdoor exercise event, during the
| lockdown.
|
| So many policies have undermined the "follow the science"
| bit in my mind.
| tehjoker wrote:
| one run and one meal is not gonna make or break someones
| weight. one vaccine might save their life
| heurisko wrote:
| You edited your comment.
|
| > one run and one meal is not gonna make or break
| someones weight
|
| On the contrary, we have had two years of this pandemic.
| Government messaging could have been a lot stronger on
| the benefits of exercise. That's 2 years for people to
| become healthier.
|
| And "one vaccine" has turned into one vaccine plus
| boosters. Everyone is going to get Covid at some point.
| General fitness will remain one of the best long term
| ways of combating the virus.
|
| The Parkrun is a weekly occurrence, and is popular even
| for those who do not have an interest in exercise as a
| hobby, as it is informal. As such, it acts as an
| important gateway to a healthier lifestyle.
|
| I'm by no means alone in seeing banning it as
| counterproductive, and not "following the science".
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-59816344
|
| If the government wants to serverely curtail individual
| liberties, then I expect good reasons for doing so. It's
| not good to encourage blind adherance to illogical
| policies.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| Next time I have to postpone an elective surgery for 3
| months because obesity cases have filled the ICU, then you
| can apply the same reasoning.
| trinovantes wrote:
| Junk food has consumption tax
|
| Also, assuming their obesity is a life style choice instead
| of type 1 diabetes, I suspect many obese people would be
| willing to take a easy vaccine if it exists considering how
| big the lose-weight-quick industry is
| loceng wrote:
| "... has killed more than 865,000 Americans, ..."
|
| Can we start holding people and publications to differentiating
| for past variant vs. Omicron, etc? It deserves and necessitates
| such nuance.
| histriosum wrote:
| I don't see how we could ask that of either people or
| publications - the data simply doesn't exist. Only a tiny
| fraction of Covid cases get genetically sequenced.
| baq wrote:
| > it is very unlikely that any evidence or logical arguments
| will chance their minds
|
| Disagree. Anecdotally a relative dying of Covid traumatizes
| some (not all) just enough to start questioning their beliefs
| and get the jab.
| legitster wrote:
| This seems to be the near consensus opinion of reasonable
| people I know. People are really downplaying how effective the
| vaccines have been. My one unvaccinated friend has stated
| several times that they would rather sign a waver denying
| themselves access to an ICU bed than get vaccinated. I don't
| know what we are waiting on as a society to reopen other than
| enough people to get it.
| varelse wrote:
| New variants are now emerging every 30 days. Good luck with
| that plan. Why is the concept that life finds a way so hard to
| accept? We're getting our asses kicked by this thing.
|
| But I would agree with you if the variants would just stop
| creating themselves. But it doesn't seem like any immunity
| really lasts. So this leads to repeatedly infecting yourself
| with variants as they emerge (1 in 6 chance of a bad outcome of
| long covid or worse), become a bit of a test rat for the latest
| vaccine, or some combination therein.
|
| I'm hoping we eventually get a vaccine that transcends the
| evolutionary range of this thing. And then we could do exactly
| what you're suggesting. But that's a science project and you
| never know how those will go.
|
| The main concern I have is will we be a nation crippled with
| PTSD and long-term healthcare concerns when this is finally
| over with?
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| > I'd say the answer to that should be determined by the
| hospital capacity. If a region has sufficient hospital capacity
| that it would not be overwhelmed by the increase in COVID cases
| among the unvaccinated go ahead and lift most restrictions.
|
| Having anyone's freedoms dependent on available hospital
| capacity is a terrible way to run a society. Note that these
| freedoms were debated and won in an era where medicine was
| terrible.
| x3n0ph3n3 wrote:
| Especially since hospital capacity is induced scarcity due to
| government regulation and the AMA.
| tzs wrote:
| We'd be having the same shortages right now even in a
| completely unregulated free market hospital system. A free
| market isn't going to build and maintain a bunch of extra
| capacity that goes unused except during once in a hundred
| year outliers like major pandemics.
|
| All that an unregulated free market would change is how we
| decide who gets treated when there isn't enough capacity to
| treat everyone.
| [deleted]
| walterbell wrote:
| Or firing doctors and nurses who recovered from Covid and
| declined vaccination.
| vanusa wrote:
| _Having anyone 's freedoms dependent on available hospital
| capacity is a terrible way to run a society._
|
| So is letting people die from otherwise treatable injuries
| and infections so someone else can enjoy their "freedom" to
| ... you know what I'm driving at.
| enchiridion wrote:
| Yes, exactly. The world is dangerous and full of risks.
|
| Freedom is literally worth sacrificing lives for. This is a
| fundamental founding idea of the US.
| vanusa wrote:
| Other people's lives, you mean.
| notch656a wrote:
| Yes exactly. When the lock down and mask mandates
| resulted in neuroplastic infants and toddlers not seeing
| as much lip and face movement during critical speech and
| socialization age (and in many case, daycares and schools
| being shut down resulting in less critical
| socialization), you sacrifice younger children in the
| hopes some others will be saved.
|
| So we sacrifice other lives (young children) so our own
| adult lives can perhaps be saved.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| Also consider that young children are the demographic
| least affected (symptoms and death) by COVID. It was
| obvious a few months in, but these debilitating policies
| continued.
| vanusa wrote:
| _So we sacrifice other lives (young children) so our own
| adult lives can perhaps be saved._
|
| The lives of their _grandparents_ (and of older folks not
| related to us), you mean. You know, the ones actually the
| most vulnerable to this epidemic.
|
| I agree that the choices are difficult, no matter what we
| do. But there's no need to distort the basic equation,
| and make this particular choice appear to be something
| plainly selfish (young and mid-life adults snubbing the
| kids to cover their own asses) when it plainly is not.
| notch656a wrote:
| No I don't mean just our grandparents. I benefit way more
| from any reduction in exposure to covid than my kid does.
| The difference between a 2 year old and a mid 30s person
| is significant.
| vanusa wrote:
| The point is it's misleading to say "so our own adult
| lives can be saved" when that's not the main motivation
| for these policies.
|
| If the health system becomes incapacitated, and we have
| to push people out of ICUs to make way for the "freedom
| fighter" who won't vaccinate (which is already happening
| in some areas), then _everyone_ suffers -- not just "mid
| 30s adults".
| notch656a wrote:
| So you want "freedom fighter" (whatever you consider that
| to be) to sign their death warrant? How are you going to
| keep them out of the hospital? I'd happily sign a death
| warrant today if it means the end of this tired argument
| of people complaining that people seek healthcare when
| they are ill.
|
| >If the health system becomes incapacitated
|
| If the health care system isn't working, then we need to
| look at expanding healthcare; perhaps by eliminating a
| lot of the regulations that drag it down. You don't have
| the right to force someone to make sure there are beds at
| a hospital. I don't think the answer is compelling non-
| consensual activity in private business such as masks.
|
| ------------------
|
| >It's not that they "seek healthcare". But that they
| expect to have critical resources like ICU beds available
| to them (and therefore, denied to others) so they can
| enjoy their "freedom" (to ignore common sense) -- that
| folks take issue with.
|
| You're seriously complaining that when someone seeks
| healthcare they are using a bed? You know how many people
| using beds are there for non-essential activities
| (motorcycling, roofing a non-essential shed, snake bite
| because they went hiking, whatever). Should we outlaw any
| non-essential activity that could send you to the ED?
|
| It's 'common sense' to me that my (almost) 2 year old's
| speech development will be harmed if she can't see me
| speak (and at least one initial study suggests that is
| correct), so I don't wear a mask anywhere when she's with
| me nor do I enter establishments that require me to.
| Maybe that makes me a 'freedom fighter' for my kid's
| development.
| vanusa wrote:
| _You 're seriously complaining that when someone seeks
| healthcare they are using a bed?_
|
| No, not when they "seek healthcare". But when they go out
| and inevitably get themselves covid because they think
| they're making bold, individualist statement (as many of
| these people apparently do think) by not masking and not
| getting vaccinated.
| vanusa wrote:
| _we need to look at expanding healthcare;_
|
| Not happening in the short term.
|
| _complaining that people seek healthcare when they are
| ill._
|
| It's not that they "seek healthcare". But that they
| expect to have critical resources like ICU beds available
| to them (and therefore, denied to others) so they can
| enjoy their "freedom" (to ignore common sense) -- that
| folks take issue with.
| drugstorecowboy wrote:
| I think you are making an important point here that I
| would love somebody to answer. Why is covid different
| than riding a motorcycle? Nobody is required to ride a
| motorcycle. We know for a fact, it's more dangerous than
| driving a car as a mode of transport. It's a person
| needlessly putting themselves in danger purely for their
| own reasons. Why is there no talk of denying a hospital
| bed to them? The same applies to obesity and a 1000 other
| things.
| ipaddr wrote:
| You choose to leave your house. Isn't that your choice?
| lost-found wrote:
| Ahh yes because everyone knows heart attacks, strokes,
| aneurisms and burst appendixes _never_ happen in your own
| home.
| laurent92 wrote:
| And many people, given the choice between money or
| freedom, choose freedom, even if it can make them poor.
| Heck, Snowden chose to relinquish wealth to defend
| everyone's liberty.
| e40 wrote:
| I hate this casting of the issue as "freedom". It's absurd.
|
| My "freedom" to live because I have a medical issue but
| cannot get treatment will be severely impacted if hospitals
| are overrun with patients and worn out workers.
|
| See, we can both play the "freedom" game.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| > See, we can both play the "freedom" game.
|
| The doctors and nurses you're asking treatment from are
| people who deserve freedom and work-life balance, too. Many
| have been fed up and are quitting. Would you support the
| government forcing them to continue working? Would you
| force young people to be doctors and nurses?
| laurent92 wrote:
| We don't owe you the right to live with a deadly disease.
| You cannot mandate others to perform actions just so you
| can live, if you wouldn't live naturally.
| e40 wrote:
| We do it all the time. You are mandated to get a license
| to drive a car so that you don't have a higher chance of
| killing people.
| notch656a wrote:
| Not on private property you don't need a license.
| Similarly, a business on private property should be able
| to dictate a mask or vaccination isn't required. You
| shouldn't have a right to dictate what kind of consensual
| conduct happens on private property.
|
| In Texas, I can get hammered, drive a car drunk without a
| license behind a fence 10 feet next to the highway
| (property-side). And there's not a damn thing you can
| legally do about it, despite any fears I may plow through
| that fence. The suggested (stricken) OSHA mandates were
| basically forcing non-consensual penetration, or lose
| your job.
|
| ---------
|
| >That's not totally true. This Texas-based DWI defense
| attorney says:
|
| You conveniently skipped the top of the page where it
| explicitly says DWI in Texas must occur in public (a
| fenced in private property is almost never considered
| public). Sure a cop can probably find a reason to arrest
| you no matter what you're doing, if they want to.
|
| >Obviously you should be able to be unvaccinated only on
| private property then...
|
| Most businesses are on private property. Given that the
| fourth amendment protects us from handing over documents
| except on subpeona/court order or probable cause of crime
| (a few states do compel revealing your identity, although
| you don't have to reveal your age if the crime is age-
| related such as alcohol violation), and you can't tell by
| looking at someone if they're vaccinated, it would
| essentially be meaningless to make it a crime to be
| unvaccinated while walking to work for instance.
| Controlling vaccination is far easier on private
| property, where you have no freedom to travel and can
| thus be stopped and checked before entering.
| smileysteve wrote:
| You give Texas as an example; but important for your
| example, its government disincentivized and removed the
| rights from companies, private property, and small local
| governments to require masks, vaccines, or reduction in
| capacities.
| notch656a wrote:
| Can you point to me where it was made illegal to require
| a mask on private property in Texas (other than perhaps
| for certain disabled persons per ADA)?
|
| My understanding is masks mandates were only banned in
| places like public schools, where the owner is the public
| thus the individual public student has the decision to
| wear a mask or not. I would certainly disagree with this
| sort of control on private school, although I might add
| it could be a public health risk to mandate masks in
| school as it could harm the linguistic health of some
| young children developing language skills.
| Domenic_S wrote:
| That's not totally true. This Texas-based DWI defense
| attorney says:
|
| > _The police can arrest you if they have probable cause
| to do so for driving under the influence. Even if you are
| operating your motor vehicle on what you believe is your
| own property, the police still may have probable cause to
| believe your conduct is a threat to yourself or others.
| Therefore, you should not assume that you are completely
| safe from arrest or conviction if you are driving drunk
| on your own property._ - http://jackpettit.com/blog/dwis-
| and-drunk-driving-on-private...
| nicoburns wrote:
| > The suggested (stricken) OSHA mandates were basically
| forcing non-consensual penetration, or lose your job.
|
| Is that really so different? If you need to drive for
| your job and try to do so without a licence you'll lose
| your job too. Conversely, if you're in your own home then
| nobody is going to make you wear a mask (well certainly
| not the government anyway).
| kube-system wrote:
| Driving is a bad example. Almost any other public safety
| regulation is a better example; most of them apply to
| private property. Almost never do private companies get
| to "choose" to follow safety regulations. McDonalds must
| follow food safety regulations, construction companies
| must follow building codes, industrial companies must
| follow occupational health and safety standards, aircraft
| operators must follow FAA regulations, etc.
| notch656a wrote:
| Being forced to wear a mask or vaccinate could be a
| public health risk: - Infants/Toddlers
| (mask): linguistic development health risk - Adults
| (vaccine): risk of anaphylaxis, TTS, GBS, Myocarditis,
| Pericarditis
|
| Individuals should weigh these risks and determine
| whether it makes sense in their particular scenario. None
| of McDonalds food safety regulations I'm aware of involve
| penetrating a human with a needle.
|
| Also the driving thing was somebody else, I just
| responded to it. If you didn't like it, it would have
| made more sense to have told them it was a bad example
| instead of me. It wasn't my example.
| greysphere wrote:
| Obviously you should be able to be unvaccinated only on
| private property then...
| pessimizer wrote:
| Of course you can. You're just making this up.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| Your example is a transaction between people (the doctor
| and you). You don't have a right to that transaction. The
| other party can withdraw for whatever reason (including not
| having time).
|
| The freedom to roam is freedom. I understand the point
| you're trying to make, but the parent comment is correct in
| the usage of the world freedom, whether you like it or not.
| kube-system wrote:
| >You don't have a right to that transaction. The other
| party can withdraw for whatever reason
|
| This is not always the case, even with hospitals in the
| US. Few markets are 100% laissez-faire in the US, and
| definitely not regulated industries like healthcare.
|
| For example, if you are a hospital in the US that
| participates in Medicare, you must provide basic
| treatment to stabilize a patient with an emergency
| medical condition, or transfer the patient to another
| facility that can.
|
| https://www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-
| Guidance/Legislation/EMT...
| jatone wrote:
| no its not, you can't roam into another's house.
| another's place of business. or a government building
| without following the rules of said environment.
|
| nor do mask or vax mandates limit this concept of
| 'roaming' in any way.
| tzs wrote:
| > Note that these freedoms were debated and won in an era
| where medicine was terrible.
|
| That was also an era when the US was subject to numerous
| epidemics and pandemics of diseases such as cholera, typhus,
| yellow fever, bubonic plague, smallpox, and influenza, and it
| was debated and found that placing restrictions to try to
| limit the harm from those epidemics was a legitimate exercise
| of the state's police power and not an infringement of civil
| rights.
| CWuestefeld wrote:
| _Having anyone 's freedoms dependent on available hospital
| capacity is a terrible way to run a society._
|
| You should note that government regulations are designed to
| keep hospitals running nearer capacity. See "certificates of
| need", which are (in most places) required to get
| authorization to build a new hospital. You've got to prove to
| the gov't that a new hospital really is necessary. And thanks
| to regulatory capture, the tendency is for existing providers
| to try to sink such applications.
| sanderjd wrote:
| What freedoms are you talking about here?
| nlarion wrote:
| I recommend you do some basic research on the history of
| quarantine and the united states as well as colonial america.
| You'll quickly see your assertion stands on shaky ground.
| https://www.ushistory.org/laz/history/index.htm
| Nbox9 wrote:
| I'd like to know that if I have a heart attack or get hit by
| a bus then I'll have access to top quality healthcare --- not
| burnt out understaffed hospitals.
|
| Sharing limited resources is a major role of the government,
| and managing hospital capacity seems to fall under "promote
| general welfare" to me.
|
| My $0.02
| enchiridion wrote:
| It definitely is, but they're addressing it from the wrong
| end.
|
| If the pandemic could be fixed by the government managing
| individual behavior we'd be done with it by now.
|
| Instead the government should be focused on expanding
| highly covid specific care capacity. That is by far a
| better way to spend the covid relief money than
| distributing it to sustain a nebulous lockdown.
|
| As far as I understand from talking with doctors, at no
| time within the last year have hospitals been at maximum
| emergency covid capacity, as in hospital beds in the hall
| ways, cafeteria, etc. This tells me that we are close to
| the amount of beds we need, and it would be feasible to
| build out additional capacity quickly, relieve the strain,
| and get back to normal.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| > Instead the government should be focused on expanding
| highly covid specific care capacity. That is by far a
| better way to spend the covid relief money than
| distributing it to sustain a nebulous lockdown.
|
| This is not something the government can do. It's not
| something anyone can do. What you're asking for (though
| you may not know it) is for their to suddenly be more
| nurses and medical practitioners. That's not a thing that
| can just suddenly happen, or even happen with 2-3 years
| of prep. You need a decade to actually functionally
| increase the supply of nurses and specialists.
|
| Now there are lots of short term fixes the government has
| done, such as activating the national guard in locations
| (to reduce non-medical load on nurses) and hospitals can
| pause elective services to free up space and time, but
| that has huge downsides since it means people get life
| saving nonemergency surgeries like cancer removal.
| coryfklein wrote:
| > You need a decade to actually functionally increase the
| supply of nurses and specialists.
|
| Similar things were said for the vaccine.
|
| There is so much gatekeeping in the medical community
| that is not totally necessary. A doctor or nurse that
| immigrates to the US from a different country which has
| _better_ health care than we do cannot practice were
| without jumping through tons of hoops. That is a pretty
| straightforward way the government - in a state of
| national emergency mind you! - could instantly and
| functionally increase the supply of nurses and
| specialists.
| mrcrumb1 wrote:
| Are you suggesting that people rely on unprecedented
| medical advancements as a policy solution?
| coryfklein wrote:
| :lol_sob: Why can't we have nice things mrcrumb1??
| Hahaha.
|
| But yes. Yes, I'm advocating that people be just a little
| bit more open minded and flexible about this issue and,
| ideally, the so many others like it. Sometimes it's quite
| depressing to consider the giant gap between how society
| functions today and how it _could_ function if it
| operated by different rules.
| Nbox9 wrote:
| Isn't the shortage of healthcare workers world wide? How
| does reducing the friction of moving into the US do
| anything but shift the problem around?
| coryfklein wrote:
| Consider the already immigrated medical professionals
| living in the United States right now that are unable to
| practice because of the above described licensing issues.
|
| To give a couple examples. If a nurse moves to the US and
| learns he can't practice without going back to medical
| school, he may opt instead to work a different job and
| defer his medical career. If a doctor moves to the US and
| is in the same position, she may choose to remain a stay-
| at-home mom and let her husband be the primary
| breadwinner.
|
| There's also the _arbitrage_ aspect here: globally we may
| have a healthcare worker shortage, but it may be more
| severe in one place than another. Reducing the friction
| involved in moving the workforce could allow workers that
| are in relative over-supply to move to an area with
| relative under-supply, improving the overall efficiency
| of the system.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| > Consider the already immigrated medical professionals
| living in the United States right now that are unable to
| practice because of the above described licensing issues.
|
| New York and New Jersey did this. In early 2020 (so two
| years ago). Despite this, they ran into extreme
| shortages. So now that we've done that, what next?
|
| > If a doctor moves to the US and is in the same
| position, she may choose to remain a stay-at-home mom and
| let her husband be the primary breadwinner.
|
| And is she just going to suddenly start working if the
| licensure requirement goes away? Some might, but a lot
| won't because they are already parenting. This is what I
| mean by these policies require years to have an impact.
| enchiridion wrote:
| From what I've seen the current shortages are primarily
| due to lack of sufficient pay and firing nurses who don't
| want to get vaccinated. Additionally it seems like
| current nurses are over qualified for covid care.
|
| How long would it take to train someone from a nursing
| adjacent field to treat 95% of what they are likely to
| see when treating a covid patient? Is anyone even asking
| that question? If not, why not?
|
| It seems like we're willing to take drastic action when
| it comes to mandate public behavior, but not when it
| comes to reforming bureaucracies, processes, and
| regulations.
| dpark wrote:
| > _firing nurses who don't want to get vaccinated._
|
| I would love to see stats on that. From what I can tell,
| the actual percentage of medical practitioners quitting
| due to vaccine mandates is very small. My family work in
| the medical field in a red state and the set of people
| actually quitting over the vaccine requirement (as
| opposed to making a lot of noise and then deciding
| unemployment is unattractive) is tiny, but this may not
| be representative.
| mlyle wrote:
| > Sharing limited resources is a major role of the
| government, and managing hospital capacity seems to fall
| under "promote general welfare" to me.
|
| Sure. It's a pretty delicate balance between individual
| liberties and preventing bad collective outcomes, though.
|
| If you lock down 340 million people for a week-- maybe the
| net effect is stealing 3.5 days of life's "enjoyment" or
| "quality" from each. That's 3.3 million years of quality
| life taken.
|
| You need to save 20 years of quality life for 165,000
| people to break even. In the first wave we probably
| exceeded that benefit, but it's highly doubtful any
| subsequent time passes that bar.
|
| And, IMO, if there's ever anything close to a "tie", you
| need to favor individual liberty.
|
| Maybe making people mask "costs" 0.2 days per week-- much
| smaller cost, but also a smaller effect. I think it's still
| justified, but only barely... It won't be soon.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Okay, then instead of punishing the general public, how
| about they go build more capacity? They've had 2 years at
| this point and they are still freaking out about
| "overflowing hospitals". It's not fair, ethical or moral to
| push mandates on citizens at this point.
| azakai wrote:
| It takes a long time to train doctors and nurses and
| other relevant staff. Worse, the hard working conditions
| those people have been enduring since 2020 has led to a
| lot of burnout and attrition.
| [deleted]
| spookthesunset wrote:
| That sounds like excuses. This thing is an emergency,
| right? Well, fix it!
|
| Punishing the public with these awful mandates because
| "it's too hard" is a huge failure of our government.
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| Are you opposed to laws mandating seatbelts or criminalizing
| heroine?
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| Not OP, but I am. I don't mind laws mandating that cars
| HAVE seatbelts. But I think it's your choice if you want to
| wear them.
|
| With Heroin, I'm not sure criminalization really had much
| affect at all on the percentage of heroin addicts. And I'd
| bet that it had less effect than the rate of prescriptions
| for synthetic opiates did.
| Terretta wrote:
| what about laws mandating cloth triangles on your
| face^H^H^H^H chest at the beach?
|
| what about laws banning second-hand smoke indoors?
| skeptical3 wrote:
| hbn wrote:
| Yes to both of those things. The government shouldn't get
| to take money from me because I endangered myself.
| Domenic_S wrote:
| You think not wearing a seatbelt only endangers you?
| yibg wrote:
| Freedoms aren't considered in isolation. Maintaining freedom
| for some means removing freedom for others some times. In
| this case the "freedom" to get timely treatment for those
| that need it.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| > In this case the "freedom" to get timely treatment for
| those that need it
|
| So why not build more capacity instead of forcing the
| public to adhere to a bunch of toxic and socially corrosive
| mandates?
| ipaddr wrote:
| Are you not getting timely treatment? Is this your reality?
| xdennis wrote:
| > the "freedom" to get timely treatment for those that need
| it.
|
| That's not freedom. Freedom is not putting up barriers.
| yibg wrote:
| Interesting. In this take, what are the limits to
| freedom? Your right to swing your fist and all that. If
| your actions are limiting what I can do, is that not
| curtailing my freedoms?
|
| Edit: to be clear on where I stand. I think you can do
| whatever you want, as long as it doesn't affect me. If it
| affects me, maybe you should still be able to do it, but
| then we need some thought and discussion and isn't an
| automatic right because "freedom".
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| > In this case the "freedom" to get timely treatment for
| those that need it.
|
| That's not freedom, that's an entitlement.
| truted2 wrote:
| " It has killed more than 865,000 Americans, the vast majority
| unvaccinated."
|
| Could someone please put a number on "vast majority"? I keep
| hearing this adage but a majority is 51% and there's a big
| range between 51 and 100% that a word like "vast" doesn't
| precisely capture..
| acdha wrote:
| You'd have to adjust for the period of time where vaccination
| wasn't available but currently the difference is best
| characterized as vast -- the weekly rate is 10 per 100k
| versus 0.71 for fully vaccinated without a booster and 0.10
| for boosted individuals:
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-
| co...
| omgwtfbyobbq wrote:
| I would guess something like 5-25%, but it's a subjective
| term, so who knows.
|
| Table 1 on page 3 has unvaccinated covid deaths at ~20% of
| the total.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/pdfs/mm7104e2-h.pdf
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| > The faster they get it, the faster we can be as done with
| COVID as we are ever going to be.
|
| This reminds me of the arguments that unvaccinated were the
| cause of COVID-19 and were endangering those who are
| vaccinated. Vaccinated people get and spread COVID still. In
| fact, recent studies show natural immunity or vaxxed plus COVID
| causes much more antibodies than simply getting vaccinated,
| especially with a vaccine that targets an old mutation that has
| proven much less effective against Omicron and the likes. The
| vaccinated people will prob continue to get vaccinated a few
| times a year until they get a less dangerous variant.
| eli wrote:
| Given the topic of the post, it's funny you didn't mention one
| measure that does convince holdouts to get vaccinated:
| mandates.
|
| https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/01/22/do-vacci...
| (https://archive.fo/g2vHF)
| skeptical3 wrote:
| 3glkjlkjlkg wrote:
| jrockway wrote:
| I wanted to comment a little on the "choice" thing. I'm not
| sure that every person who is unvaccinated chose that. I had to
| try very hard to get my three doses. For the first series, I
| had to go to a faraway FEMA-run site. For the booster, I
| scheduled three appointments with CVS; the first two times,
| they canceled my appointment on the walk over (I made the first
| like 3 weeks in advance, and they canceled with 10 minutes
| notice -- "sorry, we ran out".) I did eventually get that third
| dose; but each signup took me about 15 minutes of typing in all
| of my medical information (`insert into form_responses (email,
| json_blob_that_is_passed_to_the_final_appointment_making_system
| ) ...`?). I imagine some people just gave up after their first
| appointment was canceled.
|
| I never saw anyone talking about this; the government websites
| are like "go to CVS, you can just walk in!" but in reality no
| CVS locations were accepting walk-ins if you asked. And even
| appointments were tenuous.
|
| I feel like it's fair to place 90% of the blame on individuals,
| but I also think big companies are misrepresenting themselves
| to the government, or the government isn't asking if they
| actually have vaccines or not.
| coryfklein wrote:
| How long ago was that? I have to think the situation today is
| quite different from when the major vaccines were approved
| months ago, but I could be wrong.
| kevingadd wrote:
| fwiw, I put myself on the King County (seattle, wa area)
| booster waiting list months ago and only got an email the
| other day that my turn was up. They wanted me to drive ~30
| minutes out of town for a booster, and I don't have a car.
|
| The situation is not great. I have no idea how a poor
| person would navigate this system.
| lmkg wrote:
| Access is also a larger issue in under-served populations.
| I'm fortunate enough, as probably are many on this site, to
| be able to just swing by CVS during some downtime while WFH.
| A person who is paid hourly for an in-person job and reliant
| on public transportation will have a much harder time.
|
| I wish there were stats on "want to vaccinate, but haven't
| been able to."
| jrockway wrote:
| Very true. I'm the best possible case, right? I get my full
| salary and benefits to wander over to CVS only to be told
| they're out of vaccine. I get my full salary and benefits
| while filling out all the paperwork. And if I do get COVID,
| guess what -- full salary and benefits while I recover.
|
| Most people are not that lucky, and unfortunately have to
| choose to roll the dice on COVID to avoid the certainty of
| being fired for missing work.
|
| I would love it if there was data on "want a vaccine but
| couldn't get it". The vaccine finder website could have you
| indicate "I'm interested" and then email you every month
| and ask you to confirm that you got a vaccine or that you
| gave up or that you're still looking. I fear that people
| don't ask questions they don't want to know the answer to;
| "300 million people are looking for a vaccine but only 200
| million got it" would not look good. Sigh!!
| throwaway098567 wrote:
| Ethically I think it's the people who cannot get vaccinated
| through no choice of their own that need to guide policy. If we
| can protect these people, and there was a fair amount of
| hospital capacity, I'd be all in on letting the anti-vaxxers
| just get it. I live in a country with health care. So I'd even
| be in favour of charging the anti-vaxxers the cost of care.
| Give the nurses the extra money.
| vkou wrote:
| > The only question really then is how fast do we want the
| unvaccinated to do the getting antibodies by getting COVID
| thing. The faster they get it, the faster we can be as done
| with COVID as we are ever going to be.
|
| No, there's one other question - how much of our limited health
| resources do we want to allocate to people still refusing to
| get vaccinated.
|
| In all fairness, I think they should be allocated
| proportionately. If 20% of a region's population is
| unvaccinated, and there's a bed shortage, they should get ~20%
| of hospital beds.
| maskil wrote:
| Done with Covid?
|
| Are you aware that vaccines are failing spectacularly with
| regards to Omicron infection?
|
| Hospitalizations are another story, but this notion of the
| vaccines ending Covid is just not holding up with new variants.
| jwagenet wrote:
| What? I thought it has been pretty clear that even with
| Omicron, the vaccine dramatically reduces risk. In WA, the
| unvaccinated are 2-4x more likely to get covid and 5-11x more
| likely to be hospitalized.
|
| https://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Documents/1600/coronavirus/.
| ..
| ggy5567 wrote:
| I certainly hope so, but the numbers (how great the benefit
| is) keep getting lower. And your stats are just per
| population. Maybe the people who refuse to get vaccinated
| are also 2-3x as likely to refuse to wear masks or avoid
| crowds. We need real stats somehow by randomly testing
| populations then seeing how they fare.
| maskil wrote:
| Data from Australia, Israel, Denmark, all highly vaccinated
| countries, show a very different picture, and yes, even on
| a per Capita basis
| [deleted]
| walterbell wrote:
| The media's binary separation of populations into vax and unvax
| is a false dichotomy. More causal factors would be represented
| by: 1. Covid-recovered 2. Vaccinated
| 3. Partly-vaccinated (< 14 days after 2nd shot) 4. Covid-
| naive + Unvaccinated
|
| CDC reporting bundles #3 and #4. UK reports all 4 categories
| separately.
|
| #1 was already a high percentage in 2021 and is now higher due to
| Omicron.
|
| Edit: CDC estimated pre-Omicron #1 as 146 million people (as of
| Oct 2021), https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-
| updates/burd...
| xienze wrote:
| There's also a further separation that is veeery relevant: age
| groups. There are sometimes graphs that split them out if you
| go digging far enough, but the graphs that make headlines are
| usually along the lines of "death rate, fully vaccinated versus
| unvaccinated" (which as you point out has its own issues). Not
| splitting it out into age groups gives casual readers the
| impression that mortality is evenly distributed along all age
| groups, which it most definitely is not.
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| It is so amazing to me how many people don't seem to recognize
| this.
|
| My (somewhat baseless) speculation on this is that a lot of the
| people in forums like HN are early adopter types who mostly
| work from home, and so were able to avoid exposure and got the
| vaccine relatively early. From this standpoint, I could see it
| being harder to empathize with folks who were exposed in
| everyday life (it's just a simple jab, I did it, why can't
| everyone else? Or maybe even those folks must be bad/lesser
| people if they didn't stop themselves from being infected).
|
| Combine that with the constant onslaught of media time that
| pointedly ignores the categories that you breakdown above, and
| maybe it's no wonder that people have the opinions on this that
| they do.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| These days you have to add 'eligible for booster and chose
| not to get it', 'got booster shot' and 'not eligible yet for
| booster shot'.
|
| In the Netherlands we started the booster campaign on
| November 18, but we get graphs claiming 'hardly any people
| with boosters in hospital!' with the data including
| hospitalizations from November 19 onwards.
| [deleted]
| wallacoloo wrote:
| > From this standpoint, I could see [..]
|
| there are _so_ many different standpoints you could take from
| the HN population.
|
| - "HN focuses on tech; novel tech tends to be anti-regulation
| => HN must be anti-mandate."
|
| - "HN focuses on engineering; engineering is often an
| optimization game that involves balancing tradeoffs => HN
| must believe COVID response relative to all the other risks
| we face is an over-reaction."
|
| - and of course the one you presented.
|
| _my_ theory is that opinions within any group are just more
| divergent than people realize. some groups do a better job
| than others in (a) understanding that and (b) working with
| that. it 's almost all cultural: do people in your culture
| publicly voice their non-conforming views, and to what degree
| do people in your culture update their beliefs when they hear
| new information?
| hatware wrote:
| Not to mention all of the vaccine injuries that do exist but
| are rarely reported on.
|
| It's almost like there's a narrative here.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Vaccine injuries are reported from official sources just
| the same as covid-related injuries. There's not a big media
| buzz around it because the numbers are so small, and
| everyone knew going in that there would be a small number
| of adverse reactions.
| hatware wrote:
| Were you used to seeing myocarditis and pericarditis in
| the news regularly before 2019...?
| creato wrote:
| No, and after seeing the rates of cases related to both
| the vaccine and COVID, it probably should have stayed
| that way.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Are those more likely to be a) a side effect/risk of the
| vaccine, or b) a known result of the disease, which is
| present in people who have had COVID, even unvaccinated?
|
| I'm not sure what you're trying to imply, but it
| certainly seems like you're saying it's newsworthy due to
| the vaccine.
| tharne wrote:
| > Not to mention all of the vaccine injuries that do exist
| but are rarely reported on.
|
| Source?
| walterbell wrote:
| Oct 2021, https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/covid-
| vaccine-injur...
|
| _> More than 1,300 COVID vaccine-related injury claims
| are now pending before an obscure government tribunal ...
| Lawyers tell me the vaccine is so new that there's
| virtually no definitive research on injury causation to
| cite ... In the meantime, people like McFadden face a
| strict one-year deadline from the date of vaccination to
| file a claim with the CICP._
|
| Unproven causality, but here's a database of 2021-2022
| news reports on heart issues in athletes (missing
| baseline numbers for prior years):
| https://airtable.com/shrbaT4x8LG8EbvVG/tbl7xKsSUIOPAa7Mx
| twofornone wrote:
| Consider for a moment that the "antivaxxers" are correct,
| that there is enormous bias in our medical,
| pharmaceutical, and media establishments in favor of
| vaccine safety. Could you really expect a reliable source
| on the subject if this were the case? What proportion of
| people are willing to speak out and risk career and
| social suicide for being labeled an "antivaxxer"? It is a
| self reinforcing chilling effect - few people speak out,
| data does not surface, fewer people look for evidence of
| adverse events, and over time it becomes riskier and more
| difficult to convince people that something is amiss.
|
| Meanwhile the internet is awash with anecdote of severe
| symptoms following vaccination, and particularly
| concerning are frequent reports of doctors who are
| dismissive and/or refuse to submit reports on adverse
| effects. And then there are occasional claims of
| specialists in various neurological or heart related
| disciplines who claim to be seeing an unprecedented spike
| in certain normally rare symptoms among vaccinated
| patients.
|
| Yeah, they could all be lying or this could be the nocebo
| effect or it's an army of bots spreading antivaxx
| propaganda...or maybe you can't magically accelerate a 5+
| year testing and evaluation schedule for a novel
| technology merely because the president says he wants a
| vaccine yesterday? Note that the clinical data from
| pfizer and moderna is not available to the public - we
| are essentially relying on the manufacturers good faith
| with respect to the safety data that lead to approval by
| the FDA (moderna still isn't approved, by the way).
|
| https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2635
|
| https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o102
| binaryblitz wrote:
| A massive global coverup of the vaccine being bad, or
| conspiracy theorists using facebook to spread their
| narrative.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor
| allturtles wrote:
| > Consider for a moment that the "antivaxxers" are
| correct, that there is enormous bias in our medical,
| pharmaceutical, and media establishments in favor of
| vaccine safety. Could you really expect a reliable source
| on the subject if this were the case?
|
| I'm sorry, but this is just classic conspiracy theory
| thinking. "The very absence of evidence that I'm right is
| proof that I'm right."
| twofornone wrote:
| The point is that it is borderline disingenuous to ask
| for a source when the allegation is that the sources are
| deeply biased in favor of their own consistent and
| pervasive "safe and effective" propaganda. I'm not
| alleging that this proof of anything.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Antivaxxers rail against all vaccines. Your "less than
| five years testing" straw man is problematic when they
| have issues with polio and smallpox vaccines, MMR, etc.,
| some of which have been around nearly half a century.
|
| Being honest, NO amount of testing would be an acceptable
| amount/duration for a significant portion of that group.
| hatware wrote:
| Even if you spell it out for them, something tells me
| this person will keep calling you names, and finding
| every excuse not to question how they got to "believing"
| what they do.
| tharne wrote:
| I'm the one who originally asked for a source - there was
| no name calling, nor should there be.
|
| If someone is going to make a bold claim about something
| generally considered to be safe, actually causing a
| significant number of injuries, it's irresponsible not to
| provide a source.
| Terretta wrote:
| > _they could all be lying or this could be the nocebo
| effect or it 's an army of bots spreading antivaxx
| propaganda_
|
| or a more prevalent pop-social affliction: "nonsense
| amplification syndrome"
| joshuamorton wrote:
| You've presented an unfalsifiable story. There's no way
| to prove it wrong, that's just more evidence of the
| conspiracy.
| pengaru wrote:
| Myocarditis and "long covid-like" side effects have both
| been widely reported...
|
| Just search in this page for "vaccin":
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myocarditis
|
| Full disclosure: I'm vaccinated, am pro-vaxx, but every
| choice has risks.
| e40 wrote:
| And myocarditis is caused by the COVID virus. Search for
| that on the same page.
|
| I would imagine that it's highly likely that people who
| get myocarditis from the vaccine would have gotten
| myocarditis from the virus. Certainly more than the
| general population.
| pengaru wrote:
| Sure, but there are people who believe they can avoid
| catching covid-19, and they might be capable of that.
| Especially if you're living like a hermit or in an
| otherwise isolated and/or sparse community, you may be
| well positioned to just ignore this whole mess.
|
| Somewhat orthogonally, I never caught chickenpox, at
| least nothing symptomatic...
|
| Edit: I think it's also worth noting the history of mRNA
| vaccines is fraught with toxicity issues [0], and even to
| this day the stuff I read is pretty damn handwavy
| surrounding the "modified" pseudouridine toxicity fix
| which took _7 years_ to find. One just can 't make the
| argument that the real virus and this synthetic soup of
| poorly understood nanoparticles are analogous.
|
| [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02483-w
| [deleted]
| srcreigh wrote:
| Encouraging natural immunity is asking for hospitals to get
| filled up by people giving themselves covid on purpose. This
| affects non covid patients too.
|
| I suspect that's why the media doesn't do it.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Recognizing that naturally acquired immunity exists for
| tens of millions isn't the same thing as encouraging people
| to intentionally catch covid to gain natural immunity.
| Failure to differentiate between the two is just another
| way the injection maximalists look out of touch or
| unempathetic.
| loudtieblahblah wrote:
| Yeah all those Oklahoma gunshot victims can't be seen by
| the ER.
|
| https://taibbi.substack.com/p/moral-majority-media-
| strikes-a...
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| This response is actually an example of what I'm talking
| about.
|
| The comment that I replied to was explaining how the
| segment of the population that is a candidate for giving
| themselves covid while being high risk is (and has been)
| shrinking out of existence.
|
| Meanwhile, there is a much larger (and growing) cohort that
| continues to be harrased if they (fairly) decide they don't
| need these vaccines, and the harrasment is justified by
| claims like yours.
|
| Even the CDC has finally come around and published data
| along these lines (despite numerous studies suggesting the
| same starting from early last year). But after bullshitting
| people for so long, I guess we just have to expect there
| will be a ton of inertia behind the idea that every human
| needs these vaccines, no matter what.
| yibg wrote:
| How about we do this. For people that can and "should be"
| vaccinated but don't by choice due to their own risk
| assessment, if they catch Covid and need hospital
| treatment they don't get it.
|
| That way they have their freedom and hospital capacity
| isn't put at risk. If the people refusing to get
| vaccinated are willing to shoulder the risk themselves I
| have no problems with it.
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| > If the people refusing to get vaccinated are willing to
| shoulder the risk themselves I have no problems with it.
|
| This is the point: the people who are refusing to be
| vaccinated that have recovered from a prior infection are
| not at a higher risk of severe outcomes than the folks
| who got vaccinated and didn't have a previous infection
| [0].
|
| So maybe if your definition of "should be vaccinated" is
| narrow enough, then maybe you can justify some kind of
| priority order for treatment. That's not a topic I'm
| going anywhere near though.
|
| [0] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e1.htm?s
| _cid=mm...
| yibg wrote:
| There are going to be gray areas. Some individuals should
| not or cannot get the vaccine. What qualifies for that
| exactly is a bit muddy as well. So I agree what is
| "should" isn't very clear.
|
| As an individual, it's really the numbers around the
| ratio of unvaccinated individuals in hospital / ICU
| consuming resources unnecessarily and therefore depleting
| them for the rest of us unnecessarily that's maddening.
| That plus the regrettable stories about people that are
| vocally anti-vax that end up dying from covid.
|
| So for me it's like fine, freedom is important and you
| can choose to go against whatever recommendation you
| want. But at the same time you have to shoulder the
| consequences for it too. You can't have it both ways.
| Have the freedom to do whatever you want but also not
| bear the consequences of those actions.
| juiiiced wrote:
| I agree. This is really the critical point: If you are in
| a low risk group, but get covid you have no way of
| knowing whether you will consume hospital resources or
| not. In that case it's best to get vaccinated if you can
| to protect others who made need the hospital.
| srcreigh wrote:
| Why doesn't someone make the point that 95%+ (or 98%+
| etc) of Americans are protected via natural immunity or
| vaccines and back it up with data?
|
| Once that point is made, the discouraging natural
| immunity argument can stop because hospitals can't
| overfill anymore.
|
| However until that point can be made[0] I think the
| "don't encourage natural immunity" position will prevent
| the most deaths.
|
| By the way, I also don't condone harassment of
| unvaccinated people or vaccination as a requirement for
| employment etc either. Those are separate issues to me.
|
| [0]: I tried looking for it but CDC data is only sept
| 2021 and estimated only 146M infections
| https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-
| updates/burd...
| MatteoFrigo wrote:
| https://covidestim.org/us has estimates on the percentage
| of people ever infected by state. I looked at MA, NY, and
| CA, and they all hover around 80% (with error bars). I
| can't find a cumulative US estimate.
|
| I have no idea how they came up with the estimate, but
| the site is maintained by reputable institutions, so I am
| inclined to believe these numbers unless proven
| otherwise.
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| I attempted to make an argument like that 2 weeks ago.
|
| I was using an estimate of 120m instead of the 146 that
| you quoted. And I'm just a dummy on the internet, so I'm
| probably at least a little wrong. But the gist was that
| if you could jab everyone tomorrow (which you can't), you
| might get a little bit of a benefit in the stats, but
| politically you'd be dead
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29914681
|
| There's no reason hospitals can't still fill up anyway if
| you have enough volume.
|
| EDIT: I should mention that I really appreciate what you
| said above:
|
| > By the way, I also don't condone harassment of
| unvaccinated people or vaccination as a requirement for
| employment etc either. Those are separate issues to me.
| srcreigh wrote:
| I'm in Canada where the mandates are quite extensive but
| also change frequently.
|
| I'd like to think the govt is hoping that each time
| restrictions are loosed, some type of immunity has
| developed and restrictionz can be loosed more. When
| things seem to get worse and worse again, the
| restrictions are added to ensure hospitals can work.
|
| At the end of the day, a large decrease in severity will
| be the deciding factor. We can try to model when that
| will happen, but it will have to actually happen
| regardless of what the models say.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| > Encouraging natural immunity is asking for hospitals to
| get filled up by people giving themselves covid on purpose.
| This affects non covid patients too.
|
| So uh, what is that.... 0.01% of the entire population?
| Less? Yes, some people will cheat the system but people
| cheat all systems all the time. That's just life.
|
| Most people will do the right thing. We cannot build a
| society around 0.01% of us who cheat.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| That's also why many governments do not accept proof of
| recovery in lieu of proof of vaccination. Those who do have
| vaccine-skeptic people catching the virus intentionally and
| risking death.
|
| https://globalnews.ca/news/8524409/hana-horka-czech-
| singer-c...
| eggy wrote:
| So there playing the I am ignoring it or lying about it
| for your benefit card like Fauci about masks early on?
|
| It was a while ago that the CDC estimated recovered COVID
| numbers to bre around 146 million. It is more like over
| 200 million at this point with overlap of vaccinated
| people.
|
| I am sick of being ignored of having recovered, and
| people making the excuse that if they let us know how
| good natural immunity is, or even talk about it, the
| idiots will go out and get COVID. I don't want a nanny
| state, or police state for that matter. The WHO and a lot
| of the world are at odds with the CDC especially on
| masking and boosting of under 12 year-olds.
|
| Besides boosting one after the other may be weakening the
| immune system [1]. It makes sense. It raises antibodies,
| but wanes quickly. Natural immunity lives in B- and
| T-cell long-term memory of the immune system. SARS-COV1
| recovered are still testing strong for immunity for over
| 18 years now.
|
| I am getting repetitive, but let's address obesity,
| diabetes, poor lifestyle choices, and their kind before
| mandating anyone's personal health choices or shaming
| them for their decisions. If I call out obesity it is fat
| shaming..., but go ahead and lump the recovered in with
| the unvaccinated and try and shame and steer the course
| of our lives with mandates and policing.
|
| [1] https://newsrescue.com/covid-boosters-could-weaken-
| immune-sy...
| mulletbum wrote:
| You negated your entire comment by starting it with the
| line about Fauci.
| Daishiman wrote:
| The difference is that I can't catch diabetes or obesity
| from others.
| walterbell wrote:
| Let's remember that the best case for vaccinated people
| is Covid recovery. Wilful ignorance of the best case
| would be unwise.
|
| https://cbs12.com/news/local/new-covid-variant-detected-
| in-a...
|
| _> "Omicron is acting like a super booster," Unnasch
| said. "People who have gotten omicron are going to be
| really well protected against infection, not just disease
| moving forward, which is a really good sign."_
| smnrchrds wrote:
| The best case is never catching COVID again. Even
| vaccinated people put themselves at risk (albeit less
| than non-vaccinated people) if they catch COVID
| intentionally. No one recommends just going out there and
| catching COVID. But when proof of vaccination systems
| allow for it, some people do it anyway and some of them
| die instead.
|
| Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/2557/
| walterbell wrote:
| Not going to happen with a coronavirus, even with self-
| isolation forever.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Yes, yet another way the government is dishonestly
| manipulating people into a single course of action even
| when it is of little benefit to anyone other than those
| who mistake metrics for what the metrics were designed to
| manage. There appears to be no bottom to the depths of
| credibility destruction that the government will plunge
| in order to put compliance above all else.
| benstrumental wrote:
| You may even split up (1) into _omicron-recovered_ and _other-
| variants-recovered_ , since recovering from omicron strain
| seems to give a stronger resistance against reinfection for
| both omicron and delta, whereas recovering from delta offers
| little reinfection resistance to omicron[1].
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/28/health/covid-omicron-
| anti...
| walterbell wrote:
| Good point, thanks.
| creato wrote:
| This, along with a large number of other trends related to
| COVID ( _including_ vaccine effectiveness), can be simply
| explained by immunity just not being very long lasting (4-6
| months?). The Delta wave predates Omicron by around that much
| time.
|
| I think when all the dust settles around COVID, we're going
| to learn that both vaccines and "natural immunity" last 3-6
| months, and that explains almost all of the noise and
| confusion about what "works" and what doesn't. And that also
| suggests that "herd immunity" was never a realistic goal,
| whether by vaccines or infection. Maybe some future vaccine
| can be developed which targets a different signal and can
| last longer.
| benjaminwootton wrote:
| The other thing that needs bringing into the discussion is
| vulnerability.
|
| The average of death with Covid in the US is 80.
|
| If every healthy 30 year old and under in the US declined the
| vaccine, this would barely move the needle. They personally are
| not vulnerable and are not likely to end up in hospital.
|
| Reading this discussion, you would think that vaccinated =
| safe, unvaccinated = certain doom. Age is a much stronger
| predicter than vaccine status.
| partiallypro wrote:
| Age and also just health status in general, people with
| diabetes or heart issues are vulnerable; but to your point
| most of those vulnerable are now vaccinated.
| benjaminwootton wrote:
| My point was that triple jabbing the worlds healthy 5-30
| year olds will not move the needle on hospital demand. They
| are simply not vulnerable to the disease in a significant
| way.
|
| So sure, let's discuss unvaxxed/1 shot/2 shot/boosted
| splits, but in the relevant population. To focus on 20 year
| olds is a red herring.
| Daishiman wrote:
| COVID vaccines reduce the incidence of long COVID
| symptoms, which most definitely affect young people.
| thex10 wrote:
| Good breakdown. I'd propose further breaking out of each
| category based on whether the person is immunosuppressed (for
| example from medication given to organ transplant recipients)
| or otherwise immunocompromised.
| walterbell wrote:
| Yes, someone else mentioned 7M people in the US. This group
| is usually prioritized, e.g. for boosters.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| At this point, "3" represents a tiny fraction of the population
| so isn't even really worth breaking out
| walterbell wrote:
| To the contrary, #3 includes everyone receiving a booster,
| because immune system suppression/DoS immediately after a
| vaccine makes it the period of highest risk for both
| infection (from Covid or anything else) and vaccine injury.
| If we don't have separate reporting for #3, those negative
| effects will be attributed to #4. How many people know they
| should minimize physical exertion and crowds for 14 days
| post-vax?
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Ok, that's different from the definition you just provided
| but in any event it's still a very small proportion of the
| population
| walterbell wrote:
| _> it's still a very small proportion of the population_
|
| At present yes, but this was 100% of the now-vax
| population at a prior point in time (everyone passes
| through #3 to enter #2), so it should be separated in the
| historical record.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Everyone "passes through" the 10 second duration during
| which the vaccine is actually being collected, but we
| don't collect statistics on those people
| walterbell wrote:
| If you're comparing the duration of an injection with the
| medically and legally mandated 14-day period of
| exclusion, look into the scientific reasons for the
| 14-day period.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| The 10 second and 14 day period both have approximately
| the same effect on aggregate statistics, which is zero
| daveguy wrote:
| > How many people know they should minimize physical
| exertion and crowds for 14 days post-vax?
|
| I didn't know that. What's the source for that medical
| advice?
| walterbell wrote:
| Jul 2021 in the context of myocarditis risk for men,
| https://www.leisureopportunities.co.uk/news/Should-
| people-av...
|
| _> The government of Singapore has become the first to
| recommend that people who 've received the Pfizer or
| Moderna vaccine should avoid strenuous physical activity
| after getting their shots, something of urgent importance
| to gym operators as vaccine programmes continue to roll
| out around the world._
|
| Transient blood clots, lymphocytopenia, similar to a
| Covid infection:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29216083
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| How do you know that?
| xienze wrote:
| It's actually larger than you'd think, because OP didn't also
| include "only one of the first two shots" in the "partially
| vaccinated" category.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| That's a fair point. Between shot one and two weeks after
| shot two is meaningful
| chaostheory wrote:
| I feel that you need to include the people for masks and those
| against it. Unlike vaccines, masks do not lose efficacy over
| time or due to new variants. Both anti-vax and pro-vaccine
| supporters can fall into the anti-mask category. I don't
| understand why people in the West are so anti-mask. It's been
| two years since I've gotten sick with anything.
|
| 1. Covid-recovered and Vaccinated + pro-mask
|
| 2. Covid-recovered and Partly-vaccinated + pro-mask
|
| 3. Covid-recovered + pro-mask
|
| 4. Vaccinated + pro-mask
|
| 5. Partly-vaccinated (< 14 days after 2nd shot) + pro-mask
|
| 6. Covid-recovered and Vaccinated + anti-mask
|
| 7. Covid-recovered and Partly-vaccinated + anti-mask
|
| 8. Covid-recovered + anti-mask
|
| 9. Vaccinated + anti-mask
|
| 10. Partly-vaccinated (< 14 days after 2nd shot) + anti-mask
|
| 11. Covid-naive + Unvaccinated + anti-mask
| wallacoloo wrote:
| > I don't understand why people in the West are so anti-mask.
|
| "anti-mask" has an implicit spin where it sounds like you're
| claiming a person is against the idea of anyone wearing a
| mask, but then often apply the label to a person who is
| perfectly fine with masks so long as the person wearing the
| mask is doing so of their own volition.
|
| so i say split that category, and then the major categories
| might be more like "pro-universal-masking", "anti-universal-
| masking" (i.e. "individual choice"), and "anti-mask-wearing-
| in-public" (not only doesn't want to wear a mask, but doesn't
| want the people around them to be wearing a mask).
| nimbleplum40 wrote:
| Scott Gottlieb is also a former FDA commissioner and an MD, not
| just a Pfizer board member.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| He's also been a prolific public commenter during the pandemic
| and one of the few who has been able to navigate the politics
| of explaining the situation accurately but still being accepted
| by many conservatives.
|
| In terms of the headline, being a Pfizer board member is a lot
| less important than knowing the comment is from Scott Gottlieb.
| cies wrote:
| I could not care less, but then it seems these guys --through
| lots of lobby and special interest groups-- basically dictate
| governmental policy the world over.
| [deleted]
| 3glkjlkjlkg wrote:
| jpgvm wrote:
| Actually seems like a very level headed guy.
|
| His record at the FDA is better than I would have expected from
| someone with such deep industry ties but it looks like he took
| the job to heart and did it well.
|
| At this point with the rate Omicron has been spreading here in
| Australia I don't think masks are making much/any difference
| anymore - seems like this variant is just off the charts w.r.t
| transmissibility.
|
| Vaccine mandates though I think make sense for the same reason we
| have mandated immunization in Australia for many other diseases.
| Unlike somewhere like the US you can't attend a school (any
| school, not just public schools) without the appropriate vaccines
| or a medical diagnosis exempting you. So a vaccine mandate for
| Covid-19 isn't really anything new here. Despite that there is
| now some political debate about it because we seem to have
| imported a lot of US hysteria the last decade or two.
|
| Vaccine mandate will help keep herd immunity maintained which
| reduces deaths among those that actually can't get the vaccine
| rather than just anti-vax nonsense.
| andrewclunn wrote:
| > "The only way to get compliance from people and get
| accommodation [is] if we demonstrate the ability to withdraw
| these [mandates] in the same manner in which we put them in,"
| Gottlieb added.
|
| Nope. That line was crossed a long time ago. I can't imagine
| people suddenly regaining trust in pharma companies and health
| care agencies now because they backed off at this point.
| 015a wrote:
| Correct, with the key word being "suddenly". Nothing happens
| suddenly; but its a necessary step toward longer-term healing
| of trust.
| odiroot wrote:
| I do trust pharma companies now, more than ever. They offered
| us a way out of this mess, after all.
|
| On the other hand, I do trust the politicians much less.
| twofornone wrote:
| They made tens of billions of dollars with zero liability and
| a rubber stamp from the fda...these are still the same toxic
| companies that have been sued for billions of dollars and
| benefitted from decades of lobbying and regulatory capture.
| They have an army of lawyers on standby on the off chance
| that someone does find a loophole through which to sue them
| over adverse effects if they prove to be substantial.
| Meanwhile the pandemic rages on a year after introducing
| these vaccines, which have gradually been proven less and
| less effective than these faceless megacorps repeatedly
| claimed.
|
| Why on earth would you suddenly trust them "more than ever"?
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Do you really think Republicans are not getting vaccinated
| because they "don't trust" pharma companies?
| throwaway51235 wrote:
| andrewclunn wrote:
| Speaking as a Republican who has not gotten vaccinated, yes.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| covidsux73 wrote:
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Before COVID vaccines, Republicans on average trusted
| pharma way more than Democrats. In general, distrust in
| pharma is the effect, not the cause, of anti-vax sentiment.
|
| I don't know what's going on in your specific case. I
| suspect you are comparing the health risk of vax to not
| vax, instead of the risk of vax to COVID, which is the
| comparison you should be making since everyone is going to
| get omicron eventually, but whatever.
| andrewclunn wrote:
| I already got Covid. If you spent a little less time
| assuming other people's positions (and their
| motivations), you might find the space to hear them
| instead.
| good8675309 wrote:
| Same boat as Andrew. I've already had Omicron. I'm also
| at a healthy weight, take all recommended supplements and
| exercise. According to mainstream sources natural
| immunity is basically the same as the vaccine if not
| better. The war is over, people just haven't realized it
| yet.
|
| > On the whole, studies found that the efficacy of
| infection-induced immunity was about the same as what
| you'd get from a two-dose mRNA vaccine, and sometimes
| higher.
|
| https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-omicron-upended-
| wha...
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Who hasn't realized it? The country is fully open and
| other than mask requirements in schools and public
| transit, there are essentially no restrictions for
| vaccinated individuals
| good8675309 wrote:
| > no restrictions for vaccinated individuals
|
| We're talking about natural immunity
| xadhominemx wrote:
| So it sounds like you didn't get vaccinated not because
| you don't trust pharma but because you already were
| infected and don't need the vaccine?
|
| In any event, the risks of the vaccine are still probably
| much lower than the risks of a second infection,
| especially if you were infected more than a year ago
| webdood90 wrote:
| peytoncasper wrote:
| As someone who struggled as well to put myself in the
| mindset and having just finished reading Empire of Pain
| which documents the Sackler Family and Purdue's
| responsibility in the opioid epidemic.
|
| It might be worth reading through it to view a mindset
| that has developed around pharmaceutical companies and
| doctors in places that were hit the hardest by the opioid
| epidemic such as mining towns, old industry towns and
| other rural areas that are predominately Republican.
|
| They may vote Republican, but I think its fair to say
| that its likely not the image that first comes to your
| mind when talking about pro-business, well off
| Republicans.
| [deleted]
| quaffapint wrote:
| I'm vaccinated and boostered by my own choice. My problem with
| mandates is where does it end? Why this mandate and not other
| mandates? Who gets to decide that?
| eli wrote:
| This sort of vague "slippery slope" argument can be applied to
| argue against almost anything.
|
| It is common and logical to regulate activities that could harm
| those around you. What cars are allowed on the road and who's
| allowed to drive them is carefully regulated because cars can
| kill or injure people. You can drive around your property with
| an unsafe vehicle but if you want to bring it on a public road,
| it needs to have working brakes and so on. Vaccine are similar
| because unvaccinated people are more likely to injure those
| around them.
|
| Who decides? My city recently created a vaccine mandate to dine
| indoors at a restaurant. It was decided by the city council and
| the mayor, same as any other law. I think most citizens support
| it, but if they didn't they have all the usual ways to make
| that known or overturn it.
| fernandotakai wrote:
| >Why this mandate and not other mandates?
|
| i don't know about the US, but where i live there are actual
| vaccination mandates for diseases like polio and measles. you
| cannot go to school if you don't have the mandatory vaccines.
|
| covid vaccines are just another one that you need to take.
| mgh2 wrote:
| I rather think of vaccination as a responsibility toward your
| fellow citizens, rather than a "choice".
|
| This belief might be to blame for many of society's crises.
| https://trendguardian.medium.com/free-will-a-rich-fairy-tale...
| someguy5344523 wrote:
| But it looks like the vaccines don't stop the spread of
| covid:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC8481107/
| soperj wrote:
| They stop the hospitals from filling up though.
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| Tobacco kills 8 million of its users, annually. Why is
| their presence in ICU beds not a topic of concern?
| fernandotakai wrote:
| you can't smoke inside anymore (honestly, nowadays you
| can only smoke outside and at your own place, and even
| then, some rentals prohibit smoking) -- that's was a
| "mandate" to decrease smoking related diseases.
| mgh2 wrote:
| I will think because it is not contagious and does not
| affect the global economy as such
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Probably because that number is fairly stable over time.
| Beds exist for that load. A new load is a problem,
| because staffed hospital beds take time to create. It
| takes years to make a new nurse or doctor, for instance.
| rajin444 wrote:
| Why can't we just group antivaxxers with smokers then?
|
| We've ignored the obesity problem for a long time and are
| taking 0 steps to correct after we've seen our health
| systems buckle in no small part due to it. If you're in
| favor of mandates but not forced weight loss you're just
| playing politics.
|
| Yes, one is easier than the other, but the magnitude of
| good done by reducing obesity dwarfs the good done by
| vaccines. If the US had ignored Covid and focused solely
| on obesity we would likely have been better off in terms
| of all cause mortality.
| rsynnott wrote:
| It's a significant topic of concern, and governments have
| been restricting the tobacco industry more and more since
| the 80s. Most developed countries now ban indoor smoking
| and the advertisement of tobacco; some are getting ready
| to ban tobacco outright.
| webdood90 wrote:
| The point is to reduce critical cases that cause hospital
| visits. Our system is overwhelmed as is.
|
| The fact that this still needs to be explained 2 years into
| this is ridiculous.
| mgh2 wrote:
| Quebec: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30090689
| MarkLowenstein wrote:
| _Was_ that really the point?
|
| When people anxiously awaited their chance to get the
| vaccine in January 2021, were they thinking "ooh I can't
| wait to free up hospital beds"? Or was it "great now I
| can be immune and be done with COVID"?
| [deleted]
| IneffablePigeon wrote:
| I mean, both? I think the vast majority of people I knew
| (UK, in my 20s) knew that the main reason we were locked
| down was to minimize the risk of the NHS being so overrun
| it couldn't perform basic healthcare.
|
| Of course personally we all just wanted to not be locked
| down any more but I don't actually think that many of us
| were staying in for our own sakes - we knew the long term
| risk to our own health if we were to catch it was fairly
| low. Very biased sample, of course.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| > Our system is overwhelmed as is.
|
| I have yet to see proof that most of the system is
| "overwhelmed". Sure there are hotspots here and there but
| this idea that the system is on the brink of collapse is
| hyperbole. And even if it is true, these dudes had _2
| years_ of our time to figure out how to deal with it. _2
| years_ of our short lives we 've given so they could fix
| this capacity issue. Where is the results? Why is it the
| general public's fault at this point?
| webdood90 wrote:
| Do you realize how fucking stupid you sound?
|
| Is there a time limit on a pandemic? Do you think these
| are trivial problems we're dealing with here? Like what
| world do you live in, bud?
|
| I don't have any patience with people like you anymore.
| How did you get your head so far up your fucking ass?
| Fucking christ man.
| someguy5344523 wrote:
| If the system is overwhelmed, then hospitals shouldn't
| have fired workers who didn't want to get vaccinated.
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| Respectfully, would you mind explaining how getting
| vaccinated against Covid helps fellow citizens? If it is only
| to reduce hospital loads then can't the same responsibility
| be applied to those who choose to engage in unhealthy
| behaviors?
| mgh2 wrote:
| You are protecting not only yourself, but others as well.
|
| Example: Culture difference (individualistic vs
| collectivist). In Japan, masks are used even for common
| flus, as they are seen as a polite gesture toward others
| dham wrote:
| > I rather think of vaccination as a responsibility toward
| your fellow citizens, rather than a "choice".
|
| We make decisions every day of our lives that impact our
| fellow citizens negatively. Your point is what?
| enchiridion wrote:
| Some people really just don't want an experimental vaccine
| which sidestepped the usual regulatory approval.
| malermeister wrote:
| That talking point no longer works. The vaccine has been
| taken by billions of people by now and has a larger sample
| size proving its safety than any other medicine in the
| history of humanity.
| enchiridion wrote:
| Remains to be seen based on the outcome of longitudinal
| studies.
|
| I have not seen a comprehensive general population safety
| study. I believe the last large scale safety studies are
| the ones used for EUA.
|
| Would love to be proven wrong though. I'm assuming that
| if there was new good safety data it would be blasted
| from the roof tops, just like the ~95% effective number
| was after the phase 3 studies.
| throwaway51235 wrote:
| FabHK wrote:
| Should get BioNTech/Pfizer then, which got the usual
| regulatory approval.
| canoebuilder wrote:
| > _I rather think of vaccination as a responsibility toward
| your fellow citizens_
|
| We also have data and prudence and we are long past the point
| where framing this in that manner is highly morally
| questionable to put it mildly.
|
| Your idea of responsibility to society is mandating that
| young healthy people take an injection(s) ostensibly to
| protect them from a disease they are at no great risk from,
| negative side effects of the injection be damned?
|
| Do it for grandma? It actually does nothing for grandma,
| that's always been a lie, the original study could make no
| claims about transmission. And now, just look around.
|
| Even if it did something for grandma and grandpa, mandating
| young healthy people undertake a medical intervention having
| value trade-off for their own health which is murky, for the
| supposed benefit of the superannuated or people who have
| eaten into a state of morbid obesity and premature aging is a
| horrendous inversion of social order and what is good.
|
| The young sacrificing for the old? What??
| [deleted]
| blain wrote:
| > I rather think of vaccination as a responsibility toward
| your fellow citizens, rather than a "choice".
|
| I don't understand this argument. Maybe I'm being ignorant or
| childish but since when do we live in a world that as a
| person you have to be responsible for "fellow citizens".
|
| Don't get me wrong I don't mean we shouldn't be nice or care
| about other people but no one owe me anything and I don't owe
| anybody anything. Don't we all learn that in life at some
| point?
|
| I get the COVID is dangerous and vaccines help but don't put
| me responsible for you.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| What's aggravating is all the "feel good" policies that fly in
| the face of the current state of the pandemic. We have gotten
| to the point where numerous officials have said something along
| the lines of "vaccines won't protect you against getting
| Omicron, masks don't really do anything either".
|
| So you think. Ok, we have gotten to the point where these
| measures are ineffective, so lets do away with the measures.
| And that is precisely where you bump up against these "feel
| good" policies.
|
| We know masks don't really work, but lets keep mandating them
| because they give us the sense of security that they are doing
| something. We know vaccines don't prevent you from getting or
| spreading Covid but we feel like it does something, so mandate
| it anyways.
|
| I'm afraid that we are moving from "we need mandates to keep
| people safe" to "we need mandates to keep people feeling safe".
| In 20 years we're all still going to be wearing masks at the
| airport because "it makes people feel safer".
| eli wrote:
| > _numerous officials have said something along the lines of
| vaccines won 't protect you against getting Omicron, masks
| don't really do anything either"_
|
| No they haven't. There's a pervasive anti-vax myth that Fauci
| "admitted" the vaccines don't work. Not true and didn't
| happen.
|
| The data are very clear that vaccines reduce your chances of
| getting infected (not just seriously ill or dying, but
| getting infected in the first place). https://www.cdc.gov/cor
| onavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/effective...
|
| Masks are also effective at preventing infection. Even "bad"
| masks are measurably better than nothing:
| https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118
|
| Vaccines and masks absolutely work to reduce your chance of
| getting infected with covid. Further, if you do get
| breakthrough covid, vaccines greatly reduce the chances you
| will end up hospitalized or dead.
| dahfizz wrote:
| Your links do not mention the omicron variant. The CDC
| estimates that an unboostered vaccine (2 doses) is only 38%
| effective against omicron. Boosting brings the
| effectiveness up to 82%.[1]
|
| So to be more precise - vaccines work against Omicron, but
| not as well as the original strains and only if you keep up
| with boosting every few months. Vaccines are less effective
| against omicron in general, and the effectiveness wains
| very quickly.
|
| [1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e3.htm?s_c
| id=mm...
| eli wrote:
| I think we're saying the same thing: vaccines protect you
| from getting covid, but you should get a booster and even
| then you obviously can't expect 100% protection. (Just
| the one booster is fine.)
| dahfizz wrote:
| > Just the one booster is fine.
|
| Its fine for right now. You will need another booster in
| a few months to remain protected (original estimate was
| every 6 months, CDC lowered that to 5 months already).
| Israel is already rolling out a fourth shot, and the CDC
| now recommends 4 doses for immune compromised people.
| eli wrote:
| Israel put that plan on hold actually. Just one booster
| is fine for now. It's possible that could change. I'm
| hoping we'll soon get a variant-specific booster that
| will provide much stronger and more lasting protection
| from omicron.
|
| I never understood the preoccupation with the number of
| shots. Is it the hassle and discomfort of the shot
| itself?
| dahfizz wrote:
| Personally, it makes me feel like we don't really have a
| handle on the situation. The vaccine was supposed to be a
| "virtually 100% effective" silver bullet; now we need
| constant doses just to maintain some level of protection.
| It does not inspire confidence.
|
| Is there any other vaccine that needs boosters every 5
| months?
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Several vaccines have 3 doses. Flu vaccines get new
| variants every 6 months.
|
| Every disease is different. Every vaccine is different.
| What would it prove?
| bonzini wrote:
| Kids have vaccines at 2 months, 6 months, 1 year and 5
| years.
|
| Considering that the initial schedule of 2 doses in a
| month was kinda rushed, and that Israel is not proceeding
| with a fourth dose because the current wave has been
| manageable despite the very high number of cases, it
| seems very unlikely that COVID will need periodic
| boosters in the general population.
| crackercrews wrote:
| You ignored the part about masks. Leana Wen referred to
| cloth masks as "little more than facial decoration".
| Unless there are mask mandates that require better masks,
| the mandates are effectively useless.
| eli wrote:
| I'm not sure I'd read too much into off-the-cuff remarks
| from CNN guest experts.
|
| Mask mandates aren't worthless, but I agree they'd be a
| lot better if they required better masks. I believe
| that's already the case in other countries and I wouldn't
| be surprised if it eventually comes to the US.
| crackercrews wrote:
| Leana Wen isn't just some talking head. She was the head
| of Planned Parenthood and is a nationally-known medical
| figure. She is especially respected on the political
| left. That makes her statement especially surprising
| because the left has been the side pushing the mask
| mandates.
| eli wrote:
| I'm confused why you think I'm supposed to defend or
| explain what a CNN guest said.
|
| The comment I was responding to said "masks don't really
| work," which isn't true. Even cloth masks provide some
| benefit. Whether that benefit justifies a mask mandate is
| something reasonable people can disagree about.
| kajecounterhack wrote:
| FWIW "the political left" in the United States is not so
| much a team and more a loose coalition of folks who have
| some range of views that don't agree with the more
| uniform political right. It's not that useful to call
| this out as a group as if surely 80% of folks in the
| political left care what Leana Wen has to say unless it
| happens to be particularly insightful. Most folks don't
| actually know this woman's name, nor do they particularly
| care.
|
| It might be healthier for you to see things less as
| "there are two sides" and reconsider how you analyze
| individual topics. When you say "this is the view of side
| L and this is the view of side R" you are in danger of
| missing nuance and views that cut across. If you identify
| with say, side R, you will bias yourself toward those
| specific viewpoints.
| crackercrews wrote:
| The point is that she is a well-known and respected
| person on the left. She is not loved on the right. If she
| had made this remark 6 or 12 months ago she would have
| alienated the people who love her. That would have ruined
| her reputation.
|
| Don't assume I have a manichean approach to everything.
| This was just one example where her popularity is very
| polarized along political lines.
| kajecounterhack wrote:
| Maybe this person's popularity only looks polar to you
| because you're making things out to have a team L and a
| team R, whereas it's more like team R is real and
| hallucinating a bogeyman team L where surely folks
| worship named figureheads as much as team R.
| crackercrews wrote:
| You think Planned Parenthood is not polarized? I
| guarantee you that Wen's favorables/unfavorables break
| down purely along partisan lines. Plenty of people don't
| know her. But prior to this statement, all of her
| favorables were Ds and all of her unfavorables were R's.
|
| Not everything is partisan. But abortion surely is.
| kajecounterhack wrote:
| My point is simply that it seems odd to describe an
| individual as "polarizing" when the people who know them
| are generally either the large number of haters (thanks
| to R media demonizing individuals) or their small group
| of personal supporters (because there isn't this huge
| group worshipping her as you might imagine).
|
| My other point is that Planned Parenthood and abortion
| are of course polarizing topics but pro-choice folks are
| not as monolithic in ideology as the core republican
| base, so it's weird to see statements like this which you
| made:
|
| > She is especially respected on the political left. That
| makes her statement especially surprising because the
| left has been the side pushing the mask mandates.
|
| This rings untrue, and like someone's been watching too
| much angry news. And characterizing mask mandates as some
| nonexistent "left-wing agenda" is also really unfair to
| folks who may not have progressive politics but support
| masking. My parents for example are Christian capital-R
| Republicans but think it's bonkers that we can't get
| folks to do what is best for the common good, in the name
| of "freedom." At least they understand, very minimally,
| the difference between fascism and emergency measures.
|
| There are not two sides to this issue until one angry
| group of people decide "you're either with us or against
| us" and generate those two sides out of thin air. It's
| really stupid to do that. Abortion and masking are not
| related. That are you surprised an individual has a
| unique opinion different from "their team" is very
| telling.
| twofornone wrote:
| I don't think you understand how many assumptions are baked
| into the current conclusions that vaccines and masks are
| effective. This relies on accurate reporting of vaccination
| status and accurate reporting of breakthrough cases.
| Meanwhile in the real world covid is spreading unabated,
| record case counts, regardless of vaccination rate or mask
| compliance.
|
| _Clearly_ something isn 't adding up. Meanwhile the rosy
| estimates of safety and effectiveness have been repeatedly
| and consistently walked back. I think it's time to
| recognize that our institutions have had their analyses and
| recommendations tainted by strong and pervasive political
| and social biases, from the laypeople who have no incentive
| to report breakthrough cases, all the way up through the
| chain past academics and policymakers who have their
| careers riding on the validity of 2 years of covid research
| and policy that cannot be contradicted without trashing
| credibility. That's not to mention the career and social
| stigma associated with speaking out or publishing
| negatively against the vaccines.
|
| It doesn't help that dozens of hours of testimony on behalf
| of researches and clinicians before congresspeople is
| simply being ignored[0]. Add media to the rabidly biased
| groups and you're getting closer to reconciling what is
| being published and communicated about the vaccines and
| virus with what is happening in the real world.
|
| 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jMONZMuS2U&t=1s
| eli wrote:
| The vaccines are extremely safe and the real world data
| from shows they protect you from getting covid in the
| first place (and are much more effective at preventing
| severe covid).
|
| Here's the data from Sen Johnson's state:
| https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/covid-19/vaccine-
| status.htm#ca...
| twofornone wrote:
| Again, this is based on the assumption that adverse
| effects are being sufficiently reported and/or attributed
| to the vaccines.
|
| And once again, the real world data shows that the virus
| is spreading across the globe at record pace _regardless
| of vaccination rate_.
|
| I know it sounds like dangerous conspiracy talk, but
| sometimes we need to think outside of our official
| sources. Ultimately it is up to the people to hold our
| institutions to account. The real world data does not
| line up with the official claims.
| eli wrote:
| You seem to be alleging a massive global conspiracy that
| must involve tens if not hundreds of thousands of health
| officials, academics, and scientists all working together
| to hide the truth for some unstated reason.
|
| You think Wisconsin health officials are cooking the
| books? Along with every single other state? C'mon
| twofornone wrote:
| No. This is the danger of blithely dismissing everything
| as a "conspiracy theory".
|
| None of this requires a conspiracy. None of this requires
| explicit communication or collusion. That's not how bias
| works. Bias works as subtle (sometimes not so subtle)
| pressure. Pressure against asking certain questions,
| against publishing certain results (this is hardly unique
| to covid), massaging data and models (often
| unconsciously) in favor of certain conclusions.
|
| And then there is the very real stigma - also something
| which does not depend on an overt conspiracy, just an
| army of true believers who will publicly castigate those
| who speak out, putting the livelihoods of dissenters at
| risk.
| eli wrote:
| Can you explain specifically what bias leads to Wisconsin
| reporting most covid cases are among the unvaccinated?
| moonshinefe wrote:
| There should be stigma for people who spread
| misinformation during a deadly pandemic, in my opinion.
|
| And yes, what you're implying heavily in your posts would
| require some sort of conspiracy to be plausible. You're
| going against dozens of countries' thousands of experts
| and numerous studies, then choosing to believe quacks on
| panels on youtube whose wikipedia articles have giant
| "covid-19 misinformation" sections in them with ample
| citations.
| twofornone wrote:
| >And yes, what you're implying heavily in your posts
| would require some sort of conspiracy to be plausible
|
| Look, regardless of whether what I'm saying is true, your
| primary argument is that it is implausible because of the
| logistics of organizing such a vast conspiracy. This is
| false. All it takes is an emergent culture to instill an
| implicit bias under threat of
| ostracization/unemployment/unpersoning and then without
| any overt conspiracy you will see discourse, studies, and
| policy all align in a single direction regardless of that
| direction's validity.
|
| This is the mechanism by which authoritarian governments
| flourish while simultaneously oppressing their peoples.
| Life in the Soviet Union was miserable, but the average
| person would not publicly speak against their leaders.
| Note that I don't mean to imply that anything about the
| covid response is "socialist" or anything to that effect,
| only that emergent consensus, especially when bolstered
| by propaganda, can influence individuals and society to
| together behave in an irrational manner in an emergent,
| implicit fashion.
|
| Let's try to materialize an example. Suppose that you
| indeed have a society which is irrationally biased in
| favor of the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, and you
| are trying to study adverse effects. Moving up the chain
|
| 1. Patients are less likely to connect adverse effects to
| their vaccines (e.g. it only recently came out that
| monthly cycles were disrupted, originally a "conspiracy
| theory")
|
| 2. Doctors are less likely to acknowledge that strange
| symptoms are related to vaccines (remember, I'm alleging
| that they're biased)
|
| 3. Researchers are less likely to look into adverse
| events, especially when from the bottom they now have
| substantially less data to review
|
| 4. Policymakers see this lack of evidence of adverse
| events as proof of safety when it is only bias which has
| an emergent muting effect on cataloging of adverse
| events. They continue to distribute "safe and effective"
| propaganda _in good faith_ (no conspiracy).
|
| 5. The cycle continues.
|
| You may not agree that this bias exists, but my point
| again is that none of this requires a conspiracy, only a
| pervasive bias.
|
| Now remember, the phrase "safe and effective" was
| repeated across media from day one, long before there was
| ample time to gather evidence of harm. The seed of bias
| was planted early. I hope you'll at least acknowledge
| that this is far more plausible than some cooky
| "conspiracy theory".
| throwaway51235 wrote:
| moonshinefe wrote:
| > I know it sounds like dangerous conspiracy talk, but
| sometimes we need to think outside of our official
| sources.
|
| ... to Dr. McCullough, this guy? https://en.wikipedia.org
| /wiki/Peter_A._McCullough#COVID-19
|
| Literally one of the main guys on the panel you cited
| yourself a post or two ago. Sounds like the definition of
| a conspiracy theorist / quack to me.
| saturdaysaint wrote:
| That's hours of "testimony" from conspiracy theorists who
| all have long records of making flagrantly incorrect
| statements on COVID. Johnson's big leadoff panelist was a
| Texas cardiologist who is far from a respected authority
| in epidemiology and seems to be courting attention by
| disputing every best practice that ER doctors and the
| scientific community have agreed works best with acute
| COVID patients and hyping up silver bullet drugs that
| have shown limited effectiveness in the best studies. I
| recommend everyone look up "Dr. Peter Mcullough" and
| getting a whiff of his reputation before investing any of
| their time in that panel.
| sofixa wrote:
| Any more details on the "masks don't work thing"? It's news
| to me, and i don't see how that could have changed - masks,
| even cloth ones, but even more so for surgical and N95 types,
| drastically limit how much virus you spread when you're
| contagious; and especially N95 also offer some protection
| against catching it. Especially for crowded places, masks
| seem like a no brainer.
| Izkata wrote:
| Around a month ago Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC,
| said in an interview (paraphrased) "cloth masks are
| ineffective against the transmissibility of omicron".
|
| (Edit: wrong person, here's video of what I'm remembering:
| https://mobile.twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1473305692714
| 9... ) (Anyway that was just intended as context for below,
| what I think may have been the starting point for a larger
| shift)
|
| Thing is, the virus didn't change size, so right after this
| it's as if people started to realize the droplets-vs-
| aerosols mistake from 2020 that a minority have kept on
| since then, and what they've been saying for over a year is
| slowly becoming accepted:
|
| Masks and social distancing were mandated under the
| assumption SARS-CoV-2 spread primarily through heavy
| droplets that would quickly fall to the ground, which were
| also large and heavy enough to easily be caught by masks.
| However, it turns out the primary spread vector is aerosol
| - too small for cloth masks to catch, light enough to
| quickly diffuse through a room, and light enough to easily
| slip around the sides of an unsealed mask.
|
| A well-sealed N95 might work, but considering how bad even
| pro-mask people are at wearing cloth masks correctly, I
| don't think very many would manage to wear the N95 right.
| Angostura wrote:
| > said in an interview (paraphrased) "cloth masks are
| ineffective against the transmissibility of omicron".
|
| That's a reallty dangerous thing to try and paraphrase -
| what did they _actually_ say? Less effective? Have
| limited effectiveness? There 's no evidence of any effect
| whatsoever? You have to be precise.
| drran wrote:
| Masks are effective against influenza. Swine flu + SARS-
| CoV2 can increase IFR up to 50x, i.e. we will have a
| "Spanish flu" level of epidemic again.
| eli wrote:
| No she didn't. She said cloth masks were the least
| effective type of mask. Here's the CDC guidance:
| https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-
| getting-si...
|
| And here's a quote not a "paraphrase": _" What I will say
| is the best mask that you can wear is the one that you
| will wear and the one you can keep on all day long that
| you can tolerate in public indoor settings and tolerate
| where you need to wear it," Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the
| CDC director, told reporters this week._ from
| https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/cdc-warns-loosely-woven-
| clot...
| Izkata wrote:
| Ah yeah I got two interviews mixed up - here's video of
| what I'm remembering: https://mobile.twitter.com/townhall
| com/status/14733056927149...
| eli wrote:
| I'm no longer sure what point you're trying to make. She
| didn't say "masks don't work" either.
|
| Masks absolutely work to prevent covid infection. Higher
| quality masks are much better than cloth ones, but any
| mask is better than no mask.
| Izkata wrote:
| I added a note to my first comment, basically I think
| this triggered a realization in a lot of people how
| assumptions have been wrong from the start.
| devmor wrote:
| The CDC has repeatedly changed their standpoint on
| multiple measures in response to political influence. I
| put more trust in the WHO, who still recommend using
| masks. https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-
| coronavirus-2...
| shin_lao wrote:
| Also N95 have a limited effectiveness over time (e.g. you
| need to change it regularly).
| dahfizz wrote:
| This typically applies to surgical masks as well. The
| reason is that the fibers of the mask have an
| electrostatic charge. This charge helps the mask filter
| particles much better, but the charge will wane over
| time.
| mindslight wrote:
| The official guidance on my P100 3M 2297 filters is to
| replace them when breathing becomes hard or the nuisance
| organic vapor protection isn't working as well as you'd
| like. Everything I've found concurs that the particulate
| filtration does not diminish with time/use.
| blub wrote:
| AFAIK some filters are mechanical and others require the
| electrosatic charge to reach their stated performance.
| Half-masks or full face masks are typically of the former
| kind, while smaller masks of the latter kind.
| mindslight wrote:
| The 2297 and 2097 filters (at least) are made with
| electrostatic media. The 2297 touts "Advanced Electret
| Media" for easier breathing.
| irthomasthomas wrote:
| From the only randomised controlled study of masks...
| https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577.long
| "The rates of all infection outcomes were highest in the
| cloth mask arm, with the rate of ILI statistically
| significantly higher in the cloth mask arm (relative risk
| (RR)=13.00, 95% CI 1.69 to 100.07) compared with the
| medical mask arm. Cloth masks also had significantly higher
| rates of ILI compared with the control arm. An analysis by
| mask use showed ILI (RR=6.64, 95% CI 1.45 to 28.65) and
| laboratory-confirmed virus (RR=1.72, 95% CI 1.01 to 2.94)
| were significantly higher in the cloth masks group compared
| with the medical masks group. Penetration of cloth masks by
| particles was almost 97% and medical masks 44%
|
| What type of masks do you see ~98%0 of people using? Here
| it is the cloth/fashion mask. The ones which, at the a
| beginning, had warnings about not being effective
| protection against covid.
| tarboreus wrote:
| Not OP. They work, but much more marginally and
| situationally than most people think. They're best thought
| of as a delaying factor in exposure, with cloth masks
| adding no or a few minutes and surgical masks adding
| somewhat more time. In many situations, this is irrelevant,
| because you're stuck with the group and the air for far
| longer than the mask differential affords. I'd say the
| optimal places for wearing masks are probably supermarkets,
| and maybe also communter transit. Can't find the damn paper
| now, and all information is false anyway.
| lambdaba wrote:
| If I'm not mistaken, these claims stem from studies
| modelling droplet diffusion, obviously no experiment
| could pass ethics for an actual infection exposure. I
| guess to each their own, but I am highly skeptical of the
| value of these kind of studies, also covid is aerosolized
| so why are we worrying about droplets again?
| ggy5567 wrote:
| > covid is aerosolized so why are we worrying about
| droplets again?
|
| Becasue we don't want sick people spitting all over the
| place when they talk, even when we aren't inhaling their
| breath.
| boring_twenties wrote:
| The good news is if you pay the $100 for TSA Pre-Check, you
| won't have to take your mask off to clear the checkpoint.
| monksy wrote:
| That is not true. They require you to remove your mask to
| verify your face for a few seconds, other than that you put
| it back on.
| boring_twenties wrote:
| That was my attempt at a joke, apparently unsuccessful.
| cbeley wrote:
| They've been making me take my mask off for precheck still
| at SFO and LAX.
| Angostura wrote:
| > We know masks don't really work
|
| "Don't really work" - they _do_ work, just with varying
| degrees of effectiveness.
|
| > We know vaccines don't prevent you from getting or
| spreading Covid
|
| Again, it looks like the vaccinations with booster _do_ still
| provide some, limited protection against infection and may
| also reduce viral load reducing infection risks
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2788105
| donohoe wrote:
| I'm vaccinated and boostered by my own choice
|
| Great! The problem is that vaccines don't protect society
| unless a critical-mass of people are vaccinated. The estimate
| for COVID-19 is that roughly 70% to 85% of the population will
| need to be vaccinated to reach the herd immunity threshold. USA
| is at about 63% fully vaccinated (76% had at least one dose).
| where does it end?
|
| It ends when the the threat subsides. Why this
| mandate and not other mandates?
|
| This mandate related to COVID-19 which has killed (at least)
| 870,837 people in America, and 5,614,744 people worldwide.
| Who gets to decide that?
|
| The people you elect to represent you (for those of us with a
| democracy-like government)
|
| Sources:
|
| https://health.clevelandclinic.org/how-much-of-the-populatio...
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html
| temp0826 wrote:
| >> The problem is that vaccines don't protect society unless
| a critical-mass of people are vaccinated.
|
| I'm having a harder and harder time believing this (that herd
| immunity is actually possible) considering that the vaccine
| does nothing to stop it from spreading.
|
| (Am vaxed and caught it, fwiw)
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| > considering that the vaccine does nothing to stop it from
| spreading.
|
| Completely untrue.
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01575-4
| ravi-delia wrote:
| Define nothing, there's definitely some effect from
| vaccination. It's just much less than the protection from
| sickness, which is in turn less than the protection from
| death.
| parkingrift wrote:
| >Great! The problem is that vaccines don't protect society
| unless a critical-mass of people are vaccinated.
|
| They don't protect society at all. The herd immunity goal
| flew out the window with Delta and left the galaxy with
| Omicron. We will not ever eradicate Covid-19 with
| vaccination.
|
| >It ends when the the threat subsides.
|
| It should end right now, then. The threat has subsided. We
| have vaccines and other treatment programs.
| mulletbum wrote:
| "We will not ever eradicate Covid-19 with vaccination" is
| the most small minded statement possible to make. We have
| eradicated so many diseases with vaccination.
|
| I think what you mean to say is "We cannot eradicate
| COVID-19 with the current vaccines," but to swear off
| vaccines as if they can't do the work is frankly, dumb.
| mikem170 wrote:
| > We have eradicated so many diseases with vaccination.
|
| I know that we eradicated smallpox, but only because
| there are no animal hosts.
|
| Covid has many animal hosts [0]. You'd have to vaccinate
| them all to eliminate covid, that includes bats, cats,
| dogs, primates, deer, etc.
|
| Otherwise covid will keep evolving in animals, and
| jumping back into the human population, as it appears
| happened with omicron over the course of about a year in
| mice [1].
|
| I believe that the parent you replied to is correct, we
| will not eradicate covid with vaccines.
|
| [0] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-
| coping/...
|
| [1]
| https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/covid-19-did-
| omicr...
| brohoolio wrote:
| Hospitals are full here. It's impacting everyone who gets
| sick or needs emergency care. Not over yet.
|
| I'd say it's over when Paxlovid is available widely
| whenever folks catch it, which should be in a couple
| months.
|
| Pazlovid reduces risk of death or hospitalization by 90%.
| Basically turns an unvaccinated into a vaccinated person in
| terms of outcomes.
| dr_zoidberg wrote:
| Question: does it have such a dramatic effect in
| vaccinated persons too? I just read a few headlines about
| the tests for this treatment, but haven't really had the
| time to read in detail.
| beams_of_light wrote:
| Eradication is not the goal. Making sure hospitals aren't
| overwhelmed with COVID patients is the goal. Catching COVID
| is potentially dangerous and often times results in long
| recovery window. Vaccination is harmless and works. The
| thread will never subside; this is a new virus we will have
| to live with for the rest of our lives - especially
| considering we can't seem to get everyone to do the right
| thing, even with government mandates.
| donohoe wrote:
| This!
|
| I should have said this, but they mail it.
| password321 wrote:
| >Vaccination is harmless
|
| Tell that to the increasing number of footballers facing
| cardiac arrest.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_association_footbal
| ler...
| lelandfe wrote:
| As far as I'm aware, you're spreading a rumor by claiming
| there's a link.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1N2SL1NJ
|
| > FIFA is not aware of a rise in episodes of cardiac
| arrests... and no cases have been flagged in relation to
| individuals receiving a COVID vaccine.
| myko wrote:
| "The report recorded worldwide deaths attributed to
| sudden cardiac arrest or other unexplained sudden death
| while playing (or shortly after playing) football between
| 2014 and 2018. There were 614 cases during the four-year
| period."
|
| Is there any evidence the deaths you're posting about
| were caused by the mRNA vaccines?
| hbn wrote:
| > Vaccination is harmless
|
| Oh please, if you want to say it's low-risk, or lower-
| risk than catching covid, go ahead. But don't just assert
| outright falsities.
| Fernicia wrote:
| It's a lot safer than other things we consider harmless.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| The thing is, hospitals aren't overwhelmed. Sure, maybe a
| handful in the most metropolitan of areas, but should the
| whole country pay for that? I don't think so. Of course,
| the news makes it seem like hospitals around the country
| are overwhelmed, but that's just agenda-based
| sensationalism, and should be taken with a grain of salt.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| As a critical care paramedic in a semi-rural area, most
| non-metropolitan hospitals are ill equipped to care for
| acute respiratory patients, and ship them to metropolitan
| hospitals.
|
| To quote you: "Should the whole country pay for that",
| too?
|
| Or maybe those metropolitan hospitals should say "sucks
| to be you", and let's just see how quickly those rural
| hospitals collapse under the weight.
|
| My local ER, which is certainly not "in the most
| metropolitan of areas", which used to _never_ have a bed
| unavailable, has got to the point where ambulance crews
| _routinely_ (as in dozens of times, every single day)
| spend 2 to 6 HOURS with a patient in a hallway, "holding
| up a wall" (and unable to respond to calls in their
| community), until the ER can free a bed for them.
|
| Anecdotal, I'm sure you'll scream. But "agenda-based
| sensationalism" is also entirely your opinion, too.
| crackercrews wrote:
| > The people you elect to represent you (for those of us with
| a democracy-like government)
|
| The problem is that so many elected officials don't abide by
| the rules that they push. Joe Biden, Gavin Newsom, Nancy
| Pelosi, London Breed, etc. When the powerful can ignore their
| own rules, they're more likely to enact sweeping mandates.
| kajecounterhack wrote:
| > When the powerful can ignore their own rules, they're
| more likely to enact sweeping mandates.
|
| The sweeping mandates are for our public health. These
| folks aren't asking us to mask up or vaccinate for their
| own benefit. And they can only sorta ignore their own
| rules, because aren't they being roasted in the media when
| they mess up? The fourth estate at work. It will affect
| their re-election chances.
|
| > The problem is that so many elected officials don't abide
| by the rules that they push.
|
| Hypocrisy sucks, everyone agrees. Gavin Newsom having
| maskless restaurant meals when asking the rest of us to
| stay home is wrong. But it's wrong mainly because _masking
| is good for public health_ and he didn't listen to the
| advice of the medical professionals that he was parroting,
| nor did he conduct himself in the way a public servant held
| to a higher standard should. It doesn't change that masking
| and staying at home _does_ help everyone, by keeping
| hospitals from exceeding capacity and minimizing needless
| death.
|
| There will always be virtue signalers and hypocrites but
| let's not allow them to stand in the way of sane public
| health policy.
| crackercrews wrote:
| > nor did he conduct himself in the way a public servant
| held to a higher standard should
|
| No one is asking for a higher standard.
|
| > aren't they being roasted in the media when they mess
| up? The fourth estate at work
|
| Was there any coverage in NYT/CNN/WaPo of Biden shopping
| maskless? I only heard about it because I happened to
| read some news from a right-leaning site.
|
| > It will affect their re-election chances.
|
| I'm pretty sure Nancy Pelosi is safe. This only affects
| politicians in purple districts.
| GiorgioG wrote:
| Yes because only democratic politicians ignore the rules.
| crackercrews wrote:
| Surely not. But I couldn't think of a single republican
| politician who has either created or advocated for a rule
| that he/she then broke. Can you help with examples?
| GiorgioG wrote:
| Republicans have faced fewer accusations because they
| have not implemented as many of the restrictions that
| public health experts have called for.
|
| It's hard to break rules that don't exist.
| x3n0ph3n3 wrote:
| It's particularly egregious because they ignore the rules
| that they themselves created.
| contravariant wrote:
| > The estimate for COVID-19 is that roughly 70% to 85% of the
| population will need to be vaccinated to reach the herd
| immunity threshold.
|
| That used to be the estimate, however with current vaccines'
| limited effect on new variants and the extreme infectivity of
| omicron it seems likely to me that herd immunity is
| unachievable. At the very least 85% vaccination isn't enough.
|
| Vaccines and booster vaccines seem to be _very_ effective
| against reducing the severity of an infection though. It 's
| not ideal but it's the best we can do for now. Well, I say
| 'can' but perhaps it's more accurate to say 'could'.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > The estimate for COVID-19 is that roughly 70% to 85% of the
| population will need to be vaccinated to reach the herd
| immunity threshold.
|
| The vaccines aren't completely effective against
| transmission, so those numbers were already underestimated
| for the original virus. With the low efficacy against the
| omicron (and higher transmission rates), I don't believe any
| amount of vaccination alone would be enough to stop it (but
| AFAIK, nobody actually knows it yet).
|
| Still, any amount of vaccination will reduce the transmission
| rate. What is not clear if it's enough to get it lower than
| 1.
| ggy5567 wrote:
| > It ends when the the threat subsides.
|
| You just skipped past their entire point, after helping build
| it (mandates to protect "society" indeed). Society will never
| be completely safe. Government has a tendency to hang on
| forever to powers gained during emergencies.
| president wrote:
| > It ends when the the threat subsides.
|
| > The people you elect to represent you (for those of us with
| a democracy-like government)
|
| The answers are not as simple as you have suggested. Problem
| is that there are unelected officials and scientists that are
| deciding these things, many of which have perverse
| relationships and incentives that may bias their decisions. I
| guess these things aren't obvious if you have blind trust in
| the politicians and media in power.
| RedBeetDeadpool wrote:
| Herd immunity is for the herd.
|
| The US is where it is because we have individuals willing to
| fight for individual rights. If casualty of individuals is
| the cost to keep individuality in this country then I say let
| it be.
|
| The vaccinated are protected and therefore you are safe
| (assuming you are vaccinated). So why do you need to
| proselytize your doctrine on those around you? You're allowed
| your own opinions, chant your religious beliefs, but don't
| turn it into law.
|
| You might believe a mandate might be the logical solution,
| and maybe by some computer models it will save the greatest
| number of people, but its still a breach of individual
| rights.
|
| I personally believe what makes the US great isn't the number
| of people but the quality of people. And I'd rather give up
| the quantity than the quality. Sure we may end up having a
| higher proportion of herd people if we dont mandate and many
| of the individuals end up dying, but we won't have a
| government that can control those individuals as easily, and
| that's what matters most.
| Fernicia wrote:
| The vaccine doesn't fully protect the receiver. In other
| words, they are still put in danger by the actions of
| unvaccinated people.
|
| My point is that you have to be reasonable and draw a line
| somewhere between respecting people's liberties, and
| holding them responsible / preventing them from harming
| other people.
|
| For instance, if someone wakes up with a sore throat and
| dry cough but does not postpone a visit to their
| grandparents in an old-folks home, shouldn't that person be
| held accountable for the danger they are putting other
| people in?
| mplewis wrote:
| > casualty of individuals is the cost to keep individuality
|
| This attitude disgusts me. Be better.
| throwaway51235 wrote:
| sunsunsunsun wrote:
| Individuality at the expense of human life. Seems very
| selfish, especially when preventative measures are so
| simple.
| RedBeetDeadpool wrote:
| The individuals chose it for themselves. Yes very selfish
| indeed. Selfishness when it concern's ones own self is
| very much a good thing. Its being able to stand ones's
| ground.
|
| But what's even more selfish is imposing one's will onto
| another. That is narcissism.
|
| To believe that you know better for another than he knows
| for himself. That's not just selfishness, thats
| narcissism.
| adbachman wrote:
| I think I lost you.
|
| > narcissism
|
| Is "narcissism" here the choice to be an unvaccinated,
| unmasked spreader and therefore imposing your sickness on
| your community, or the imposition of public health
| requirements on yourself, personally?
| RedBeetDeadpool wrote:
| > Is "narcissism" here the choice to be an unvaccinated,
| unmasked spreader and therefore imposing your sickness on
| your community, or the imposition of public health
| requirements on yourself, personally?
|
| From my previous comment:
|
| > To believe that you know better for another than he
| knows for himself. That's not just selfishness, thats
| narcissism.
|
| I never said "unvaccinated, unmasked spreader". You're
| putting words into my mouth to fit your argument. The
| narcissism comes from "the imposition of public health
| requirements", to believe one knows "better for another
| than he knows for himself".
| thekashifmalik wrote:
| Please follow the HN Guidelines:
|
| > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation;
| don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't
| sneer, including at the rest of the community.
| RedBeetDeadpool wrote:
| > > casualty of individuals is the cost to keep
| individuality
|
| >
|
| > This attitude disgusts me. Be better.
|
| You've said absolutely nothing. The entire response was
| to condescend.
|
| Many have died when people look downwards on others with
| disgust towards them without rationale. Just look at what
| hitler did to the rats he held power over. Its truly
| astounding narcissism to think oneself so much greater
| than another individual.
| [deleted]
| dehrmann wrote:
| The vaccine mandates are also getting a bit awkward because the
| justification was always that they protect others, but with
| omicron, that's a lot less true.
| teawrecks wrote:
| "I'm not swinging my battleaxe around in crowded places by my
| own choice. My problem with prohibiting people from swinging
| battleaxes around in crowded places is, where does it end?"
| peter422 wrote:
| It ends with covid vaccines because that is the only pandemic
| that is currently raging across the globe.
|
| The politicians we elect democratically makes the decisions.
| tarboreus wrote:
| I'm honestly jealous of your lack of cynicism.
| rhizome31 wrote:
| It would be more democratic if the people were making the
| decision themselves by directly voting the laws. With the
| elective system we delegate decision making to people we
| choose from a very limited pool of candidates which aren't
| selected democratically. In a way "elect democratically" is a
| bit of an oxymoron.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| I thought this last spring. Then, way too many people decided
| to refused to get vaccinated.
| robrorcroptrer wrote:
| Could the global obesity epidemic not also be handled through
| mandates?
| ouchjars wrote:
| If you could avoid getting obese with two shots in the arm
| and wearing a piece of cloth every time you leave the house
| for a couple years.
| josefx wrote:
| Closing all fast food restaurants until the obesity
| incidence is bellow a randomly chosen value could help.
| Not to forget making the sale of turkey around christmas
| illegal just because you can and no ice cream during
| summer, have to keep these bans seasonal. Also ban food
| services used for celebrations, with at most a two day
| warning, cant have people getting fat at weddings.
|
| I am not really good at translating the covid counter
| measures to fatness, are there a few points I missed?
| SheepSlapper wrote:
| It's been a while since this was a "covid
| countermeasure", but how about food curfews! Government
| mandated intermittent fasting between the hours of 8pm
| and 8am :)
| throwaway51235 wrote:
| Guest42 wrote:
| True, I imagine that would be quite frightening and have a
| lot of data to support a number of initiatives that the
| population would vehemently disagree with.
|
| Even in grade school, I remembered dreading when they would
| have us run a mile as fast as we could and record the
| times.
| generalenvelope wrote:
| Obesity is a complicated disease that manifests through a
| variety of biological, behavioral, and environmental
| factors. These factors differ widely between individuals. I
| think there are mandates that could help make the disease
| less prevalent, but it is very much ingrained in our daily
| life, so I'm cynical as to the efficacy of such measures.
| It's very difficult to mandate behavioral (look at how many
| people don't even want to put a mask on) or environmental
| (think what foods are available in a region based on
| scarcity, culture etc - and yes this is a real factor in
| obesity) changes. A concise video on the topic:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZC4rfSMq8c
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >Obesity is a complicated disease that manifests through
| a variety of biological, behavioral, and environmental
| factors.
|
| Obesity is not a _disease_. It is a _condition_ defined
| as a Body Mass Index (BMI) of >30[0].
|
| Yes, there are a variety of factors that contribute to a
| BMI >30, but like "tobacco use disorder," it's
| emphatically _not_ a disease. Some obesity may be related
| to actual diseases, but obesity in itself isn 't a
| disease.
|
| [0] https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/adult/defining.html
| VaxWithSex wrote:
| You don't get fat, because your neighbour coughs on you.
| aldebran wrote:
| You becoming obese doesn't affect me the way you catching
| Covid does. Yes obesity eats up healthcare resources as
| well but not to the degree and certainly not as quickly as
| Covid cases do.
| lambdaba wrote:
| Obesity is the #1 reason covid is a problem though. And
| metabolic syndrome, nearly the same thing.
| aldebran wrote:
| True but my colleague become obese doesn't make me obese
| by working next to him. (Unless he insists on sharing all
| his snacks lol. Even then I have a choice)
| [deleted]
| alamortsubite wrote:
| Fat taxes are a form of this. I think the primary
| difference is that they have strong economic incentives
| aligned against them. I don't see this as the case with
| vaccine and mask mandates.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_tax
| tyrrvk wrote:
| You can't catch obesity from someone coughing in the same
| room as you.
|
| But to extrapolate further: Sugar taxes have been tried in
| countries - Mexico for one. I think there was massive
| backlash from CocaCola/Pepsi etc, for infringing on their
| freedom to make obscene profits. I seem to recall
| discussions here about some of the lawmakers finding
| Israeli spykits on their phones (the ones pushing for the
| sugar tax). edit:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/11/technology/hack-mexico-
| so...
| coryfklein wrote:
| No, but on a higher meta-level it is contagious. Obesity
| is more prevalent in societies where high-caloric foods
| are more readily available. Now I'm more libertarian
| leaning myself so I wouldn't actually advocate for this,
| but if we mandated a cap on calorie-per-serving for
| "foods", you'd see a drastic drop in the availability of
| high carbohydrate foods (particularly sugar) which would
| essentially cause forced sugar-withdrawal in most of the
| population.
|
| A couple months later? Everyone's sugar-thermostats are
| reset, the lower-calorie food tastes nearly as good - if
| not better - and obesity rates would plummet.
|
| However, since we don't/can't coordinate such a thing on
| a national level, everyone gets exposed to constantly
| increasing carb content in their food, and maintaining a
| lower calorie diet requires significantly more effort. I
| can speak from personal experience, I simulated this on a
| personal level when I moved to South Korea for 2 years
| where sugar is nearly non-existent. As a modestly thin
| person I lost an additional 15-20 pounds while I was
| there without having to work hard or suffer with worse-
| tasting food (well, I did experience sugar withdrawal for
| the first couple months).
| ekanes wrote:
| Quoting the NYT for anything related to Israel is likely
| biased.
| ecdouvhr wrote:
| No matter what one's stance is on Israel, or the
| Palestine question, it's hard to blame the actions of one
| company on the Israeli government.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I'm not so sure about this. Call me a cynic, or even a
| Libertarian (gasp!) but it is generally not in the nature of
| government to wind down an apparatus that they paid so much
| for once "the threat" has passed. Now that governments have
| the infrastructure for requiring and/or showing proof of
| vaccination, it really isn't a stretch to think they will
| want to keep that system and have it be readily available for
| the next pandemic, whatever it may be.
| somedude895 wrote:
| Also, a lot of government employees' jobs now depend on
| keeping these systems in place in one form or another...
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Not really
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| Indeed, and I also sense a lot of Department of Healths
| at the state level will seek to track the yearly flu-
| shoot with this system as well. Not necessarily mandating
| it for public participation, but as a public health
| measure. The amount of productivity lost due to the
| seasonal flu is substantial, and the amount of data that
| can be gleaned from such a database is too tantalizing to
| ignore.
| rsynnott wrote:
| I mean, it probably depends on where you are, but at
| least here (Ireland) this isn't true. The contact tracing
| and vaccination apparatus was run largely with people
| borrowed from other civil service departments, or hired
| as contractors. When the mass vaccination capability was
| stood down last year, they went back to their normal work
| and it took a while to start it back up again for
| boosters.
|
| Did your local government actually hire large numbers of
| new permanent employees to administer this? This is (a)
| rather unlikely and (b) very much something you can
| check.
| agency wrote:
| Who is better situated to respond to a pandemic than the
| state? What is the alternative?
| josefx wrote:
| In Germany there were at least half a dozen members of
| parliament caught with their hands in the cookie jar for
| the money meant to buy masks alone. It would be
| interesting to see how many more used it to enrich
| themselves but the decisions enabling them where so
| hilariously badly written that nearly all the money spend
| on the masks was wasted.
|
| You can write entire lists of how fucked up the
| governments response was. Government money for tests done
| under supervision of a professional? The same Dr. listed
| as on site contact in half the country. Repeated calls to
| get vaccinated? Government repeatedly blamed Doctors and
| population but never bought enough vaccines.
|
| The government response around here can be summed up as
| corrupt incompetents fucking up the economy while playing
| the blame game. I could not think of a group objectively
| less qualified to respond.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >The government response around here can be summed up as
| corrupt incompetents fucking up the economy while playing
| the blame game. I could not think of a group objectively
| less qualified to respond.
|
| Assuming you live in a country with democratic (small
| 'd') institutions, you elected those folks. If they're
| corrupt and/or incompetent, that's on you and your fellow
| countrymen, no?
| josefx wrote:
| It is mostly the same parties sitting in government as
| back in Weimar when they helped Hitler ban the biggest
| competition. I am quite sure some of them even date back
| to our last Kaiser (not the soccer one). What is a single
| person to do against political parties that historically
| should be considered complicit in starting and losing two
| World Wars and survived without having their ideologies
| purged?
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| >"If they're corrupt and/or incompetent, that's on you
| and your fellow countrymen, no?"
|
| To an extent, yes, but I believe real-life has shown that
| removing incumbents is _very_ difficult. I sense that the
| makeup of the district and the composition of party
| strength is the major factor in determining whether or
| not a politician is reelected or replaced, rather than
| popularity or approval rating.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I wasn't proposing an alternative, just chiming in that I
| don't believe the GP's assertion that "It ends with covid
| vaccines". Mainly because the government now has a
| powerful tool at its disposal for fighting pandemics and
| it will not want to stop using it once the threat is
| finally past us because it has so much utility and
| expandability for future health crises.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| There is lots of precedent for winding down wartime laws.
| Libertarians think governments want to be authoritarian for
| the sake of being authoritarian, but that is not how
| democracy works.
| jaywalk wrote:
| Let me know when the USA PATRIOT act finally expires
| (without pieces being made into permanent laws).
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Many parts of the USA PATRIOT Act have expired.
| https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
| way/2015/05/31/411044789...
|
| Other parts have been modified.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_Freedom_Act
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Well we just had a once in a century global pandemic that
| killed one million Americans and vaccines that work extremely
| well and there is no mandate - so I think the better question
| is what would it take for there to be a mandate?
| lghh wrote:
| That's literally the case with every government-imposed rule in
| existence. You're asking a question that has been asked and
| answered 100 times.
|
| "Why seatbelts? Where does it end?"
|
| "Why can't I shoot someone? Where does it end?"
|
| etc etc
| rajup wrote:
| Answered how? Each one of those were debated and we have
| agreed on some of these rules. I don't think the debate for
| vaccine mandates has been settled though, much as some would
| like to see any discussion of it quelled.
| jrodthree24 wrote:
| I don't understand why people keep asking this like some kind
| of magic bullet.
|
| Obviously there is a governmental body that has the authority
| to do this wherever you are from. And in a democracy that
| governmental body will be acting based on the will of the
| people. Even if you disagree that the executive has that
| authority, the courts have the authority to interpret if they
| do. And the legislature ultimately has the authority to
| override it.
|
| In the United States if we all voted for it we could have
| mandates for every single vaccine ever created. But there is
| barely enough political will for this one. And that's only
| because COVID is much more of a threat than anything else at
| the moment.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Is it that hard to understand that many people are
| uncomfortable or unclear where the the line is drawn between
| civil liberties and state powers/majority rule. You might say
| that covid mandates are clearly inside the lines, but that
| isn't a declaration of where the line is.
| canoebuilder wrote:
| Am I the only one who finds it heinous that "Pfizer board member"
| is supposed to give this position more credence as opposed to
| what should just be clearly obvious to any level headed civic
| minded individual in the American/western tradition?
|
| "Okay y'all, weve profited at your expense quite enough, let's
| dial it back a little before causing _too much_ societal damage
| writ large" -"Pfizer board member
| bhouston wrote:
| Why is this comment being downvoted? What part isn't true?
|
| This statement seems very specific to the US cultural context:
|
| "The only way to get compliance from people and get accommodation
| [is] if we demonstrate the ability to withdraw these [mandates]
| in the same manner in which we put them in," Gottlieb added.
|
| In Canada, there have been experiments with slowly increasing the
| number of areas where you are required to have a vaccine in order
| to enter. They put it on Beer/Liquor stores recently and it saw a
| huge jump in the number of vaccine appoints.
|
| https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/first-dose-vaccinations-quadrupl...
|
| They are putting the requirement on big box stores (e.g. Home
| Depot/Lowes/Walmart, excluding the pharmacy areas) now and
| probably will see another jump.
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1995579971859
|
| That said, it does appear that this current wave is mostly over,
| but deaths are primarily among the unvaccinated, so it is
| probably still a good idea to aim for near full vaccination:
|
| https://twitter.com/OurWorldInData/status/148607668061993779...
|
| Covid vaccines should be treated similarly to other public health
| vaccines, like Polio. Although we really need more effective Gen2
| vaccines that do not require constant boosters and they need to
| outright prevent infection rather than just reducing the death
| rate. These Gen1 vaccines and their semi-effectiveness have been
| incredibly confusing to the general public.
| mizzack wrote:
| The beatings will continue until morale improves.
| msoad wrote:
| Why you care if others get the vaccine if it does not stop the
| spread and new mutations as we saw with the recent variants
|
| I'm fully boosted etc. I don't think it's fair to compare it to
| Polio
| bhouston wrote:
| It greatly reduces deaths, which is the point of a vaccine:
|
| https://twitter.com/OurWorldInData/status/148607668061993779.
| ..
| throwaway554349 wrote:
| rhino369 wrote:
| It's a point of a vaccine, but they usually do a really
| good job of reducing transmission too.
| msoad wrote:
| Eating five cheeseburgers a day increase the rush of death
| too. We don't have laws against it.
| bhouston wrote:
| Heart disease isn't contagious.
|
| The argument you are pushing is valid against all
| vaccination mandates for the point of public health.
| That's pretty hard core anti-vax.
| msoad wrote:
| Covid amongst vaccinated is still contagious
| bhouston wrote:
| I can not find studies about Omicron right now, but
| Nature reports that vaccination provably reduces the
| spread of Delta variant, but requires boosters in the 3
| month range to maintain effectiveness:
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02689-y
| tzs wrote:
| The effects of eating five cheeseburgers a day are spread
| out over decades. The result of a group of people
| choosing to each five cheeseburgers a day is a tiny
| increase in the average load on the health care system
| over many many years.
|
| The effect of COVID on the health care system is a large
| short term spike in load.
|
| It is almost always in almost all systems much easier to
| deal with a long term small steady increase in load than
| to deal with a short term massive spike.
| DSMan195276 wrote:
| Yeah this whole thing is extremely frustrating to me,
| it's simply ignoring reality. I would love to not care
| about other peoples choices, but I can't do that when I
| have family members who had surgery delayed because of
| COVID cases taking over hospitals.
| yonaguska wrote:
| > result of a group of people choosing to each five
| cheeseburgers a day is a tiny increase in the average
| load on the health care system over many many years.
|
| You are exaggerating and minimizing all at the same time.
| It doesn't take five cheeseburgers a day to wreck your
| body. The healthcare system is overloaded, and has been
| for years precisely because of how many health issues
| come from our poor diets.
|
| > The American Diabetes Association (ADA) released new
| research on March 22, 2018 estimating the total costs of
| diagnosed diabetes have risen to $327 billion in 2017
| from $245 billion in 2012, when the cost was last
| examined.
|
| > This figure represents a 26% increase over a five-year
| period.
|
| https://www.diabetes.org/resources/statistics/cost-
| diabetes
|
| These numbers have only gone up.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| We have entire government agencies dedicated to food
| safety and health (FDA and USDA). We also have laws
| governing trans fat and nutritional facts/disclosure.
| falcolas wrote:
| We're seeing mutations because of incubators who weren't
| vaccinated.
|
| But anymore, I'm beyond caring. Anti-vax stance is a self
| correcting problem.
|
| I mourn for the young being indoctrinated, and for the
| immunocompromised, but those who could help them have made
| their choices.
| peteradio wrote:
| > Anti-vax stance is a self correcting problem.
|
| Natural immunity is long and strong baby. You'll be waiting
| a while.
| falcolas wrote:
| "... researchers looking at SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in
| people who had recovered found that the difference
| between the highest and lowest levels varied by a factor
| of over 1,000. The researchers saw even more variability
| when they looked at neutralizing antibodies--those known
| to bind to the virus and prevent it from infecting cells.
| Neutralizing antibody levels in recovered people varied
| over a range of 40,000-fold, and up to 20 percent of
| people didn't have any detectable level of neutralizing
| antibody."
|
| https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/06/antibody-testing-
| sug...
|
| But hey, don't let mere science stand in the way of a
| good catchphrase.
|
| EDIT: I'm quite aware I won't change anybody's opinions.
| I'm also aware that providing opposing evidence will even
| strengthen beliefs. So, yeah, I shouldn't have risen to
| the bait. Regardless, good luck!
| peteradio wrote:
| Serology studies are you kidding me right now? We can and
| have measured the clinical outcomes.
|
| edit: It's pretty rich to hear that you've taken my bait,
| "self-correcting problem" was masterful baiting.
| fn-mote wrote:
| This would be a lot more constructive if you included a
| link. Or at least explained more.
|
| Not everyone reading will have the same background you
| do, especially when the issue is something technical like
| discounting a serology study because you know of more
| convincing ones.
| xyzzy123 wrote:
| https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-
| pharmaceuticals/...
|
| There's a lot of talk of antibodies because researchers
| studying vaccine effectiveness _prior_ to everyone being
| exposed need something to measure.
|
| It's hard to measure the overall effectiveness of a
| person's immune response, so they measure antibodies,
| which are not the whole story. It might not even be the
| important part. I think this is why GP is derisive of
| serology.
|
| The immune system is quite complicated.
|
| Personally I suspect that advising people who had
| breakthrough infections to keep getting boosters will
| turn out to be bad advice. We'll see I guess.
| jaywalk wrote:
| Your article is from June 2020. Believe it or not, we
| have more data now!
| tacitusarc wrote:
| > We're seeing mutations because of incubators who weren't
| vaccinated.
|
| I've been tracking this closely and all research thus far
| appears to indicate that statement is inaccurate.
| falcolas wrote:
| Links? Mutations occur in infected hosts, which vaccines
| _were_ limiting.
|
| Even with Omicron, a report that hit HN a day or two ago
| indicated a 5x difference in infection rates created by
| vaccines.
| xyzzy123 wrote:
| I think parent post is implying that the situation with
| Omicron is much more complicated.
|
| Alpha, Delta variants, sure, we can see them evolving
| pretty much site by site to become the things that they
| are. There are enough uploaded sequences you can
| basically watch it happening.
|
| I suppose you can blame the unvaxxed for increasing the
| probability of such variants.
|
| But Omicron turns up with a freakishly weird number of
| synonymous vs non-synonymous mutations in the spike, lots
| of adaptions for immune evasion and... it's rooted in the
| phylogenetic tree back in 2020? So it just evolved in
| secret for 18 months, becoming incredibly transmissible
| while managing not to infect a single person who got
| sequenced? Bear in mind that is conservatively 100
| generations, usually. It's super weird. Whatever process
| produced Omicron, it was radically different than regular
| infection and transmission.
|
| This is not something we could reasonably have expected
| from say, increased infections due to some people not
| being vaccinated.
|
| In fact all the variants from "regular" transmission over
| the course of this pandemic - the result of hundreds of
| millions of infections - are being out-competed by this
| bolt from the blue.
| throwaway554349 wrote:
| nicoburns wrote:
| It doesn't stop the spread, but it slows it and reduces the
| severity of the disease. Both of which help our health
| services to cope. You might care because you want healthcare
| to be available for yourself or your loved ones should they
| need it.
| walterbell wrote:
| _> slows it_
|
| Not necessarily. Because vaccines suppress symptoms, people
| who would otherwise isolate in the presence of symptoms
| could be unaware they are infected and transmitting to
| others.
| nicoburns wrote:
| My understanding is that people with suppressed symptoms
| are also less likely to transmit it. This makes sense
| given that we know coughing and sneezing is a primary
| transmission vector. So if you're not coughing and
| sneezing you're much less likely to transmit it. Of
| course you still _can_ transmit it just by breathing, but
| it 's just less likely.
|
| I would also add that I'm speaking in the context of the
| UK. Here we have freely and widely available lateral flow
| tests (you can order packs of tests online or pick them
| up from local chemists, and there is no charge in either
| case), and people are encouraged to test regularly,
| especially if attending a social event and even if you
| have no symptoms. And a lot of people are required to
| test regularly as part of their jobs, or in order to
| attend to school. In this context, it's quite likely that
| asymptomatic cases get picked up anyway.
| yonaguska wrote:
| Ok, so if suppressed symptoms means less likely to spread
| it- then restrictions based on vaccination status mean
| nothing. Restrictions based on symptoms are the only
| restrictions that make sense. I'm not arguing with you,
| but just pointing out one of the most ridiculous things
| that I'm currently going through here in Chicago. I am
| not allowed to workout at a gym, sit down and eat at a
| restaurant, but if I'm vaccinated, even if I'm sick, I
| can live my life unrestricted. I am now driving an extra
| 20 miles daily to workout as my partner was kicked from
| her gym for not being vaccinated. Great for the
| environment. Meanwhile- she caught covid a few weeks ago,
| and despite being pregnant, was recovered within 2 days.
| We isolated for a week, and I never had symptoms
| whatsoever. Natural immunity. Meanwhile, and this is
| anecdotal, but everyone we know that has has had a really
| bad time with covid during the past month, has also been
| vaccinated and boosted. And if they had mild cases, they
| didn't isolate like we did- they just assumed that they
| were fine because they are vaccinated. But we are the
| selfish ones.
| bhouston wrote:
| You wrote: "Meanwhile, and this is anecdotal, but
| everyone we know that has has had a really bad time with
| covid during the past month, has also been vaccinated and
| boosted"
|
| Death is 10x more likely if you are not vaccinated, your
| anecdote aside:
|
| https://twitter.com/OurWorldInData/status/148607668061993
| 779...
| yonaguska wrote:
| Without controlling for age and comorbidities, this
| doesn't mean much. You can break down by age, but the
| categories are ridiculously broad, 18-49, then narrower
| age bands afterwards.
|
| Another breakdown that we will never see is the data
| broken down by death within two weeks of any shot(lumped
| in with unvaccinated) and death after full vaccination
| lapses. Which is an ever shortening window.
|
| Finally, how are the denominators being calculated? For
| the United States, we are basically guessing at this
| point, given that we only have an insanely large range of
| estimated undocumented people in the country alone.
| bhouston wrote:
| I think you should look at Canada and compare it to the
| US. In Canada there were lockdowns and aggressive
| vaccination campaigns with high compliance. Death and
| infection rates are 3x lower than the US per capita.
|
| It isn't a perfect test but the general populations and
| habits between Canada and US are somewhat comparable
| otherwise.
|
| I think it is fair to argue that maybe it wasn't worth
| it, as most of the deaths were primarily among the old
| and frail. But it does seem that the policy and cultural
| differences did have an effect.
| walterbell wrote:
| Cross-country or even cross-state comparisons are highly
| problematic for many reasons. Many narratives can and
| have been constructed, which are a far cry from a
| structured scientific study. Three macro differences
| between US and Canada: universal healthcare, obesity
| rates and 90% difference in population size.
|
| None of which changes the fact that vaccinated people can
| transmit unknowingly.
| tehjoker wrote:
| This guy said amid declining cases. What decline??
| reducesuffering wrote:
| The decline seen when looking at case counts in the US.
| https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us
|
| 7 day average is in decline, from a high of 800k daily cases to
| the current 600k cases.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| (USA point of view)
|
| I feel like given that vaccines do an acceptable job at reducing
| risk of hospitalization and death, there is only really a few
| things worth discussing, in relevant order:
|
| - Are hospitals actually being overloaded by covid cases to the
| point of being an issue (according to many, yes. but according to
| [1] Johns Hopkins, no, or only in some cases?).
|
| - Are the unvaccinated actually the majority of the covid related
| cases (as far as I'm aware, yes).
|
| - Is this localized (state or city specific), or is this a
| federal issue.
|
| - Are unvaccinated hospitalizations significantly worse compared
| to other personal decisions (diet, exercise, risky hobbies).
|
| - Finally, what actions, if any, should be taken to correct the
| hospital load? (nothing, vaccine mandates, accelerated hospital
| expansion, turning people away, etc)
|
| - If the answer to the previous is nothing, then what are we even
| doing?
|
| The focus on just asking "vaccine mandate, yes or no" feels like
| it's missing most of the discussion.
|
| [1] https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/hospitalization-7-day-trend
| Fernicia wrote:
| > - Are the unvaccinated actually the majority of the covid
| related cases (as far as I'm aware, yes).
|
| They needn't be a majority. The mandate acts to reduce strain
| on the hospital, so ask whether it achieves that (I think the
| answer is yes)
|
| > - Are unvaccinated hospitalizations significantly worse
| compared to other personal decisions (diet, exercise, risky
| hobbies).
|
| It is harder to fix these than getting a jab.
|
| > - Finally, what actions, if any, should be taken to correct
| the hospital load? (nothing, vaccine mandates, accelerated
| hospital expansion, turning people away, etc)
|
| An alternative would be to charge unvaccinated people a premium
| on hospital costs, as I'm sure health insurance providers would
| be keen to do.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| > > - Are the unvaccinated actually the majority of the covid
| related cases (as far as I'm aware, yes).
|
| > They needn't be a majority. The mandate acts to reduce
| strain on the hospital, so ask whether it achieves that (I
| think the answer is yes)
|
| Majority is _very_ important here. If vaccinated and non-
| vaccinated people were hospitalized at equal rate (or even at
| a rate where more vaccinated were hospitalized) a vaccine
| mandate isn 't exactly going to do anything.
|
| But I now realize that I gave "vaccine works" as a
| prerequisite, so this bullet point is redundant.
|
| ---
|
| > > - Are unvaccinated hospitalizations significantly worse
| compared to other personal decisions (diet, exercise, risky
| hobbies).
|
| > It is harder to fix these than getting a jab.
|
| Likely, but hard to say definitively without data, and I know
| I don't have such data on hand. I talk about it a bit more in
| another reply better, but many things are even easier than
| getting 3 jabs. They only require inaction.
|
| My ultimate question on this point is, why do we accept
| certain lifestyle injuries but not this? Ease of avoidance is
| a good reason, but I would like to see it compared to other
| lifestyle injuries.
|
| ---
|
| > > - Finally, what actions, if any, should be taken to
| correct the hospital load? (nothing, vaccine mandates,
| accelerated hospital expansion, turning people away, etc)
|
| > An alternative would be to charge unvaccinated people a
| premium on hospital costs, as I'm sure health insurance
| providers would be keen to do.
|
| I'm not against such an idea at all if it would solve the
| problem. The high-level issue is that the unvaccinated are
| costing the system more money / capacity than the vaccinated,
| so they should pay for it.
|
| However, there is a lack of capacity, not necessarily a lack
| of funding. If the unvaccinated are charged more, will they
| _actually_ have a lesser impact on capacity, or will capacity
| still be reached just with them paying more money? Which then
| circles back to needing more capacity. Who pays for the extra
| capacity is almost a separate discussion in itself.
| dham wrote:
| I mean fixing this stuff now will help us "flatten the curve"
| in the next pandemic.
| throw__away7391 wrote:
| Remember when the US invaded Iraq to "find weapons of mass
| destruction"? Then a year or two later that shifted to
| "fighting the terrorist there so we don't have to fight them
| here", then "winning hearts and minds" or something.
|
| Once you get a mandate for a large-scale, politically charged
| activity it will never stop; the goal posts will be moved again
| and again, as many times as it takes and as often as necessary
| to put the "other side" on the defensive.
|
| We're many weeks past "three weeks to flatten the curve", every
| week we hear more excuses. My friends pick them up and start
| parroting them in near perfect unison. I don't actually have
| any Republican friends, but if I did I'm sure I'd hear
| something similar from them too. This is no longer about
| fighting a disease, if it ever was (I also remember the
| response to AIDS being somewhat less dramatic than to COVID),
| this is about securing access to resources and power for one
| group over another. If it means thousands of your followers are
| discouraged from taking potentially life saving vaccinations
| (that you yourself have taken) and die as a result, so be it.
| If it means subjecting billions of people to years of
| unnecessary and demonstrably ineffective pandemic theater,
| crushing the financial future of the next generations, and
| destroying vast swaths of small businesses people have spent
| their lives building while realizing unprecedented returns on
| your own portfolio, so be it. The people running this do not
| care about any of this in the slightest, it's just an excuse to
| enrich themselves, and for a certain segment of the upper
| middle class to feel morally superior to others while they take
| Zoom calls from home and order dinners from Seamless. I guess
| this is getting boring for them now, so we're starting to be
| allowed to hear a trickle of stories like this.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > Are unvaccinated hospitalizations significantly worse
| compared to other personal decisions (diet, exercise, risky
| hobbies).
|
| I mean, clearly, yes. Those, in themselves, never (or at least
| virtually never) cause sudden exhaustion of hospital capacity.
| Now, many covid cases, particularly unvaccinated cases, have
| some sort of lifestyle problem as a comorbidity, but that's not
| really the point.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| It's not obvious to me.
|
| As an example, lets say hospitals have a capacity of 100, 40
| of the capacity is generally taken up by non-lifestyle
| factors, 40 is taken up by various lifestyle factors (things
| that could have reasonably been avoided from a better diet,
| exercise, or otherwise), and the remainder is left as buffer.
| Now, lets say covid takes up 25 capacity, which now overflows
| hospitals by demanding 105 capacity. Why is this new
| lifestyle factor (not getting a vaccine) obviously worse than
| the previously accepted and accounted for lifestyle factors?
|
| Is it the ease of avoidance? 3 jabs and you're done? If so,
| what about the injuries we accept that could be avoided
| entirely through inaction (sports, motorcycles, whatever)?
|
| Is it the magnitude? Looking at covid as a single factor, it
| could be argued that it has far greater impact than any other
| individual lifestyle factor. but that information sure hasn't
| come up in any discussion I've seen. It's always left as an
| exercise for the reader.
|
| Is it the suddenness? Covid sure has been a shock to the
| system that it was unprepared for, but that's only true
| through the lens of comparing pre-pandemic to current moment.
| Looking at the current state, it's no longer sudden. The
| existence of covid is now known, and so is hospitalization
| needs. Now it's just a question of capacity, not suddenness.
|
| I'm not saying the point can't be argued, but it's certainly
| not obvious to me. And if every discussion is left as "it's
| obvious, why can't you see it", the discussion won't go
| anywhere.
| tootie wrote:
| I think this is kind of a big "duh" statement. Mandates were
| issued in the face or surging numbers and we now have waning
| numbers. I'm very hesitant to declare victory too soon but the
| day is seemingly coming soon. Of course, we'll have to reverse
| course yet again if there's a new wave which very well might
| happen. The next stage should shipping billions of doses to the
| poor nations that haven't gotten any yet.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Millions of people died, there's no victory.
| cies wrote:
| Out of 8 billion that's not very impressive. Millions die in
| years without "pandemic". (quoted because in the past that
| mend >1% infection-deaths, this was <1%, yet still a
| pandemic).
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Yeah and I don't call those victories either. We lost and
| need to do better when it happens again.
| cies wrote:
| I dont have a problem with a natural cause "shaking out
| some dead branches". That's how things go. Someone else
| notes tobacco. And that's it, if we are so serious about
| extending human life, why not focus on lifestyle
| diseases? And even with that focus I think people should
| be able to choose their own vices (as long as it does not
| harm others).
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| We (the US, but also others) knew this virus was coming,
| and completely bungled the response on multiple
| occasions. Lots of people died that didn't have to die.
|
| We spend a lot of time and money avoiding lifestyle
| diseases. A virus isn't a lifestyle disease.
| cies wrote:
| > A virus isn't a lifestyle disease.
|
| No it but it seems to kill those that have 'm LS diseases
| underlying.
|
| > We spend a lot of time and money avoiding lifestyle
| diseases.
|
| I never saw lockdowns on McD and Dunkin'Dos :)
|
| And I'm no in favor of spending to stop diseases. I feel
| better about heavy taxes on unhealthy stuff, and tax
| breaks for healthy stuff. (While the other way around
| happens all over the glove with life stock and feed
| subsidies).
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Maybe we should outlaw tobacco, limit people's sugar
| intake via daily glucose testing, and ban alcohol while
| we're at it?
| cies wrote:
| I think people should be able to choose their vices.
| Suicide (slow or fast) is by it self not immoral to me.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Tobacco and sugar aren't contagious. If you want to
| continue down this path of false equivalence, many places
| have essentially outlawed second-hand smoke.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| And vaccines are supposed to protect you, so if people
| aren't allowed to make their own choices then might as
| well force them to make whatever groupthink thinks is the
| best for them.
| jatone wrote:
| vaccines do protect you from the virus, they don't
| protect you from an overloaded health care system because
| others decided they didn't want to get vaxed.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| The health care system is overloaded due to shortages of
| employees wanting to work in healthcare while being
| mandated to take an experimental vaccine, shortages of
| labor due to inflation and people re-evaluating whether
| they want to be wage slaves, and shortages of health care
| professionals who are taking time off of work due to
| being sick and many claiming COVID-19 despite being
| triple vaccinated. Hospitals are also incentivized to
| inflate the issue of shortages to get more funding.
| acdha wrote:
| The vaccines are hardly experimental at this point --
| Pfizer has full approval and all of them have far more
| data than usual showing high safety and efficacy -- and
| very few employees chose to leave. You don't get the kind
| of overload hospitals are reporting from 1% of your
| workforce choosing not to follow safety guidelines.
|
| > Hospitals are also incentivized to inflate the issue of
| shortages to get more funding.
|
| That's a conspiracy theory which has no supporting
| evidence -- which is highly unlikely given how many
| thousands of people would have to be keeping it perfectly
| secret -- and it doesn't fit with how the American
| medical system works. Hospitals have been reporting
| significant financial stress because they make most of
| their money from the elective procedures and other
| higher-profit treatments which are being canceled due to
| COVID-19 overload.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| It's mostly overloaded because there are more patients
| than usual though. Ask anyone that works in a hospital.
| Some literally ran out of physical space to put people,
| despite staffing. Do you think hospitals are faking their
| physical dimensions in order to get larger budgets?
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Do you think more people are going to hospitals because
| of the fear porn being broadcast nonstop by the media?
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Vaccines are also a public health measure, like smoking
| restrictions. You can't choose to keep a petri dish of
| ebola around either.
|
| You are subject to "groupthink" unless you self-sustain
| in the woods somewhere. We call it "society." Many things
| you do every day are a result of "groupthink." The pipes
| that deliver the water, the social contracts that say you
| need to wear pants.
| [deleted]
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Smoking restrictions are not permanent like forcing
| someone to get an experimental shot. The groupthink you
| are supporting also caused racism, wars, poverty and has
| created a mental health crisis. Youth suicide is at an
| all time high.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| The vaccine isn't permanent, as we've very quickly
| discovered. Death is.
|
| How would you have done things differently to avoid
| racism, wars, poverty, and mental health crises? Do you
| think the suicide rate would have been half as high if
| twice as many people died from the virus?
|
| These are not easy questions to answer. I certainly don't
| know, and I don't expect you to. It's very easy to act
| like you know better in hindsight.
|
| The only non "groupthink" way to approach this pandemic
| would have been to do nothing. There's not a datapoint on
| the planet that supports doing nothing. Everything else
| requires some societal "groupthink" effort.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Well for starters rather than force mandate/isolate
| everyone... people could have been given the option to
| isolate if they wanted to. Instead we had governors
| closing down beaches and hiking trails while getting
| caught fine dining in large groups in Napa. We've also
| determined that obesity and other contributing factors
| regarding health have a significant impact on the effects
| of COVID-19. If anything, the hypocrites have made things
| worse at times by preventing access to activities that
| would improve health and rewarding people getting
| vaccinated from an old variant with free beer, donuts and
| fast food.
| tootie wrote:
| I mean, we declared victory at the end of WWII. No one comes
| out from a battle unscathed.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| A year before becoming involved in WWII, Neville
| Chamberlain, the PM of the UK said: "In war, whichever side
| may call itself the victor, there are no winners, but all
| are losers."
|
| Call it a victory if you must, but looking back at the past
| 2 years there were very few winners.
| cyberge99 wrote:
| The B.A2 variant has emerged and is spreading. I'm not sure
| we're rounding the corner just yet.
| TimedToasts wrote:
| There will always be new variants.
| simiones wrote:
| Irrelevant. If the new variants keep killing people in huge
| numbers, we'll keep seeing restrictions (assuming our
| governments are doing their jobs). If this happens for the
| next 100 years, we'll have to keep living with restrictions
| for the next 100 years; horrible as it is, it's better than
| the alternatives.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| > It's better than the alternatives.
|
| That's an opinion. You will find people who would rather
| face the chance of becoming sick than live under quasi-
| lockdown for their entire lives.
|
| We are all dead in the end.
| devmor wrote:
| If those people's choices only affected themselves,
| that'd be fine. But they don't. Typhoid Mary was locked
| away for a reason.
| logitjoy wrote:
| I wonder the people who are questioning vaccine mandates (which
| evidently brings down the hospital admission rates, thereby
| saving the health system) also question no public nudity
| mandates?
| jlcoff wrote:
| zzzeek wrote:
| So he was referring to the "east coast".
|
| In New York State where I live, we have 95% first-dose
| vaccination status for adults and 73% for complete vaccine series
| (https://twitter.com/GovKathyHochul/status/148608338468219289...)
| .
|
| so here, continued vaccine mandates won't have much additional
| effect. However, I would venture to say a whole lot of that 95%
| has been vaccinated *because* of the mandates that were
| temporarily in effect at the national level as well as the
| mandates that continue to be in effect (health care workers,
| federal contractors, large employers that mandate vaccination in
| any case). My general sense is that the vaccine mandates, despite
| their being in the process of being torn down by a very broken
| supreme court, most certainly helped a whole lot in states where
| state-level leadership was on board with the general idea.
|
| in conservative states where vaccination rates are low, state
| governments are in varying degrees of defiance towards the
| federal government, vaccine mandates are not as effective because
| of the very great resistance to them in these states. you could
| argue that continued vaccine mandates will continue to not be
| very effective, and for that reason they should also be
| rescinded. I'd guess some replies here will make this kind of
| argument.
|
| I would disagree with that argument, and it's my opinion that
| vaccine mandates should stay in place to the degree that it's the
| right thing to do, as well as the completely normal and
| traditional thing to do from a public health standpoint. The
| fierce political interference with traditional public health
| measures is unfortunate but that should not be a rationale for
| sensible policies to just be switched off.
| walterbell wrote:
| A large percentage of urban NY populations were infected and
| recovered in 2020, gaining immunity to 2020 and Delta variants.
| Those who recovered from the recent wave of Omicron infections
| will also have immunity to more-dangerous Delta.
| dont__panic wrote:
| Keep in mind that NYC is a massive tourist destination -- I'm
| happy to keep vaccine mandates around if it keeps unvaccinated
| tourists from hopping in an uber, into a long airport line,
| eating food in a cramped indoor airport cafeteria, hopping on a
| plane, into another uber... and then to the table right next to
| me. At least get a vaccine before you do that.
| peteradio wrote:
| The policies are sensible in your opinion, you will find that
| is where you are in disagreement with myself at least. The
| policies might be sensible with rose colored glasses and a pint
| of hope, but its not like what we imagined it would be way back
| a year ago. Ultimately vaccines should be used for those who
| benefit but forcing it on those who don't need it is just
| checking a box. Quit pretending like we don't know that most
| Americans have had Covid by now and that this imparts
| significant immunity.
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| dang wrote:
| Please don't cross into the flamewar style, no matter how
| strongly you (and others) feel on a topic. We're trying to
| avoid that here, and need everyone to pitch in.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| This is far from crossing into flamewar style. It is one
| thing to allow someone to say that there should be mandates
| on someone elses body, but then when someone disagrees it
| crosses into flamewar territory?
| dang wrote:
| Plenty of HN users can, and do, disagree with that in
| ways that don't involve snark or personal attack. This
| isn't about your underlying views--it's entirely about
| comment quality. Comments like the GP lead to further
| inflammation and aggression in threads, which makes for
| boring, nasty, predictable discussion. We're trying to
| avoid that here.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| easton wrote:
| They were being snarky. Nobody would say "I want to
| control your body" (well, not in this context anyway).
|
| A better way to phrase it would probably be "Why should
| anyone be able to tell me what to do with my body?" (and
| another sentence or two elaborating on the thought)
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| A few sentences elaborating why abortion should be
| illegal would not be tolerated here, or a few sentences
| about why rape is okay. The commenter was just stating
| that the parent commenter who wanted to mandate vaccines
| should not be able to control other peoples bodies.
| yucky wrote:
| Interestingly enough, there doesn't seem to be any correlation
| between states like New York and Florida and their polar
| opposite approaches to mandates. In the end, the data says it
| made no difference. Why?
| peter422 wrote:
| Florida have had way more deaths after vaccinations were
| widely available. Also don't compare to NY... New York is
| such a unique state due to how it was hit so hard right away.
|
| Compare Florida and California. Florida has 50% more deaths
| per capita. That's a lot!
| anonfornoreason wrote:
| Adjust for median age and your argument is moot
| mike00632 wrote:
| No. The vaccine prevents death. More people are dying in
| Florida because they are unvaccinated, not because
| Florida trends older.
| kansface wrote:
| Risk of death from Delta was ~200x higher for the
| elderly. Obesity added another ~4x. It doesn't matter if
| vaccines lower that by ~90% because the baseline risk is
| still there. Florida skewing much, much older has a
| massive impact in absolute numbers! You can't naively
| compare Florida stats to CA stats just like you can't
| compare Utah stats (a very young red state) to CA stats.
| A more fair comparison is the percentage of the elderly
| who died in Florida vs CA - the last time I tried to do
| the math, Florida came out slightly ahead, but you'd
| probably need a few days for a semi-rigorous comparison.
|
| In truth, I don't think you can actually just multiply
| all of these numbers because they are correlated (and
| possibly non-linear). Also, the vaccines are less
| effective in the elderly population.
| mike00632 wrote:
| > It doesn't matter if vaccines lower that by ~90%...
|
| 1. Vaccines reduce the risk of death by more than 90%.
|
| 2. Given how effective vaccines are at preventing death,
| the extreme difference in per capita deaths between
| Florida and California is entirely attributable to the
| difference in vaccination rates.
| 3glkjlkjlkg wrote:
| rory wrote:
| I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but although the
| vaccine does greatly reduce probability of death, it's
| still very clear the substantially larger elderly
| population of Florida has a larger effect on their death
| rate than the 3.7% lower vaccination rate.
| mike00632 wrote:
| > ...it's still very clear...
|
| 3-4% of the people having a risk of death would explain
| entirely the ~50% more per capita deaths in Florida.
| rory wrote:
| Maybe if California was 93% vaccinated, not 68.5%. That's
| mathematically nonsense.
| kansface wrote:
| Florida is 25% old people, CA is not.
| mike00632 wrote:
| All the more reason for Floridians to get vaccinated.
| bthomas wrote:
| The % of the population over 65 is around 50% higher in
| Florida too. It's complicated!
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| I don't understand how you can say this in good faith. The
| state by state death rates were and are all over the map.
| Death rates seem to have far more to do with the prevalence
| of underlying conditions and some key decisions made
| regarding vulnerable sub groups early on. In light of this
| your comment basically boils down to "don't pick a state
| that has policy I like that's on the high end, pick one on
| the low end"
| xadhominemx wrote:
| There is a very strong correlation between county-level
| Trump vote share and COVID deaths since vaccines became
| widely available
| yonaguska wrote:
| Some of the more fringe commentators have been pointing
| out how the batches of vaccines with higher rates of
| reported adverse effects are also concentrated in red and
| purple states. This could be that people are more likely
| to report adverse reactions in this case, but it is
| interesting.
| kansface wrote:
| Trump voters (Republicans) are older and less healthy. It
| could just as well be that demographic has more adverse
| reactions.
| yonaguska wrote:
| But isn't the whole original point of the vaccine to
| protect those that are older and less healthy? Younger
| and healthier are at less risk to serious adverse
| reactions to Covid, having less comorbidities. Besides
| that, it seems that adverse reactions to the vaccine tend
| to skew younger, with the risk of heart issues going up,
| relative to a covid infection, the younger you are.
| peter422 wrote:
| Unless you are under 18 in which the myocarditis numbers
| are minuscule (due to the lower dose vaccine).
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Right wing media is completely fixated on VAERS and 99%
| of non-healthcare workers who do not consume right wing
| media have never heard of it. So it would stand to reason
| there is a difference in rate of reporting.
| dekhn wrote:
| I await the results, ten years int he future, where we
| integrate a wide range of data in less ambiguous ways to
| determine what the actual effects of vaccination, post-
| infection resistance, masking, etc were, and understand the
| underlying causes. I do agree that interventions (except for
| full shutdown like china) don't seem to have a huge variation
| in results.
| yucky wrote:
| Well we already know there has been a huge increase in the
| deaths of black children [1]
|
| [1] https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/nation/2022/01/2
| 5/chi...
| dekhn wrote:
| I am only interested in serious results from quantitative
| medical biology researchers related specifically to viral
| infection, not secondary causes.
|
| Also quotes from the newspaper article already point out
| some of the effects predate covid and thus couldn't have
| been caused by it.
| cortexio wrote:
| bencoder wrote:
| It's amazing to me that every post that has anybody arguing
| against the restrictions or similar gets flagged, no matter the
| source or rationale.
|
| It's really the most divisive issue I've ever seen in my life.
| mullingitover wrote:
| > no matter the source or rationale
|
| In all fairness, it doesn't get much less credible than the
| Epoch Times.
| walterbell wrote:
| Or there are financial incentives, which may justify paid
| interventions online to create the appearance of divisiveness.
| There are PR agencies which specialize in "grassroots PR".
|
| Users can email hn@ycombinator.com to ask for human review of
| flagged articles. If the article still remains flagged, only
| then is the flag sanctioned by HN moderators. Otherwise, flags
| could be anywhere on the spectrum between organic users, troll
| botnets and paid interventions.
|
| Is there an API to HN data which could report granular data on
| article flags, e.g. timestamps or user IDs doing the flagging?
| hatware wrote:
| If you've been playing pandemic longer than necessary, you'd
| clutch your pearls too.
| supperburg wrote:
| Flagging is how HN wages a war against non-left comments while
| avoiding being accountable for it like Iran and it's proxy
| terrorists. The ultimate effect is that the comments are white-
| washed and the moderators can just shrug their shoulders and
| say that it's what the community wants. The abuse of flagging
| on HN is disgusting and shameful.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Some people are saying that this is notable because Pfizer has a
| financial incentive to keep vaccine mandates.
|
| That is not true. Pfizer is going to be making a lot more money
| from their COVID treatments than from the vaccine.
| Arnt wrote:
| I think so too, but do you know? I mean, only a few per cent of
| infectees require much medicine, and Pfizer's market share
| won't be 100% of that. It's not obvious that x>y.
|
| Anyway, he may also well be thinking that the best policy is to
| have a history of assessments that turn out to be correct in
| hindsight. "Drop restrictions when the number of infections
| declines" is at least plausible.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Paxlovid is interesting in that it is only really effective
| if you take it as soon as you show any symptoms. Once
| production is scaled up, hundreds of millions of courses of
| treatment will be sold. Each around 100x more expensive than
| a vaccine dose.
|
| It will soon be Pfizer's financial benefit to have as many
| infections as possible.
| crackercrews wrote:
| They don't have enough supply yet for this incentive to be in
| effect. Once they reach the tipping point, look forward to them
| changing their tune. The good news is that it might actually
| align with the public's best interest.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Pfizer is going to be making 5.7 billion dollars in revenue
| from Paxlovid at the bare minimum in the next 6 months, in
| the US. That's around as much revenue as 300 million vaccine
| doses. We are already past the tipping point, as of around 20
| days ago.
| pessimizer wrote:
| And after mandates are over and with that the official crisis
| done, they will probably start charging for vaccines and
| boosters.
| buzzert wrote:
| They have _always_ been charging for vaccines and boosters,
| but the bill has been picked up by the taxpayers.
| barbazoo wrote:
| > Pfizer is going to be making a lot more money from their
| COVID treatments than from the vaccine
|
| If you're saying it's false you should please post a source or
| at least some kind of napkin calculation. It's not intuitive at
| all. Otherwise it just sounds like you're beating the already
| dead "pharma companies sole motivation is money" horse.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| That is a trivial conclusion. Much has been written about it.
| Pfizer themselves have written they estimate 67 billion
| dollars in revenue each year from Paxlovid, which is way more
| than their vaccine revenues and it's not even close. If you
| want my back-of-the-napkin calculation, here it is.
|
| The cost of a generic Paxlovid course of treatment is around
| 40$. The cost of treatment, negotiated down by the government
| (and thus higher for other parties) is around 600$. So the
| marginal profit from a course of treatment of Paxlovid is
| around 540$.
|
| On the other hand, a vaccine dose costs 20$, and it is very
| difficult to manufacture. A reasonable estimate of profit is
| 10$ per dose. This is an overestimate, because Pfizer has to
| share a sizeable portion of the Profit with BioNTech and
| other companies.
|
| Paxlovid is indicated to be taken as early as possible - and
| priced so that it makes financial sense for insurance
| companies to pay for it to avoid the cost of hospitalization.
| Therefore we can expect a sizeable proportion of people with
| COVID symptoms to take it.
|
| Paxlovid reduces the symptomatic illness period, so there is
| also a very strong incentive for individuals to take it as it
| allows them to be less sick. For the less fortunate, it also
| means less sick days to take, which may be crucial to make
| ends meet.
|
| If we're expecting everyone to take a vaccine dose every six
| months (which we all know will never happen), that's
| 20$/person.year from the vaccine.
|
| If we expect everyone to have COVID symptoms every year
| (which is almost certainly an underestimate), at
| 540$/person.year, we only need to have a 3.7% take rate for
| Paxlovid in order for it to generate more profit than
| everyone taking two doses every year (which, again, will
| never even come close to happening).
|
| So as long as 3.7% of the population takes one Paxlovid
| course of treatment every year, Pfizer will make more profit
| from Paxlovid than the vaccine.
|
| So it is trivially true that widespread COVID infection (and
| low vaccination numbers) is going to be Pfizer's financial
| incentive.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Paxlovid is (1) authorized for
|
| > the treatment of mild-to-moderate coronavirus disease
| (COVID-19) in adults and pediatric patients with positive
| results of direct SARS-CoV-2 testing, and who are at high
| risk for progression to severe COVID-19, including
| hospitalization or death
|
| It's not that everyone with a Covid infection will get the
| drug. That number should be far lower than 3.7% of the
| population, most of which will either be asymptomatic or
| likely won't require hospitalization due to low risk. I
| wonder what that means for your calculation.
|
| (1) https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-
| announcements/coronavi...
| chadash wrote:
| > Pfizer themselves have written they estimate 67 billion
| dollars in revenue each year from Paxlovid
|
| Source? I'm seeing estimates closer to 20-35B when I google
| "Paxlovid revenue"
| sudosysgen wrote:
| You are right and I misread. I will edit my comment. That
| being said 20-35 billion are estimates for the current
| year, which are already close to projected revenue
| estimates for Pfizer (not BioNTech) from the vaccine.
| fileeditview wrote:
| I doubt that. Consider no one was vaccinated and 1% of humans
| would need medication because of a "serious" case. Then the
| medicine would need to be 100x more expensive than the vaccine
| considering the alternative is everyone was vaccinated. Now
| consider many people got 3 or even 4 shots. It's 300x-400x now.
|
| Also you can give the medicine to already vaccinated people
| that also have serious cases. So you still can sell it in a
| lower capacity. Also you can sell both vaccines and medicine to
| states in large batches which is great.
|
| It's a big golden goose for the pharma industry.. let's never
| forget that.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Pavloxid works best if you use it at symptom onset, so it
| should be used on all symptomatic infections, not just
| serious cases.
| xscott wrote:
| > Then the medicine would need to be 100x [300x-400x] more
| expensive than the vaccine
|
| I'm not suggesting this is true, but it would need to be
| 100x-400x more _profitable_ , and that includes cost to make
| and store as well as the price is charged.
|
| Maybe making mRNA vaccines costs much more than a simpler
| molecule like Paxlovid [0], and hospitals generally seem to
| charge much more than the over the counter price for
| everything. You've seen horror stories about $25 aspirin [1]
| which is easily 400x more expensive than the penny per pill
| cost of 500 tablets in a $5 bottle [2].
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirmatrelvir
|
| [1] https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/blog/why-aspirin-
| taken...
|
| [2] https://amazon.com/Basic-Care-Aspirin-Regular-
| Strength/dp/B0...
| fileeditview wrote:
| This is what i meant (profitable). Sorry bad translation.
| However their vaccine research was highly funded by states
| (at least here in Germany and I suspect everywhere else
| too) so.. not sure how easy it would be to calculate all of
| that.
| xscott wrote:
| That's another subtlety. They've already been funded to
| make the mRNA vaccine, so maybe that has been milked dry
| and it's time to move on to the next profitable cow.
| Obviously I'm just speculating that it's possible.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| The medicine is not indicated to be given to serious cases.
| It is indicated for use as soon as possible, when you have
| your first symptom.
|
| Right now this isn't the case because there aren't enough to
| go around, but this is the premise of the trials, so this is
| how they will be sold.
|
| People also get COVID more than once.
| tazjin wrote:
| The vast majority of people isn't going to get a specific,
| probably expensive medicine for what amounts to a cold for
| most people. I certainly won't. If anything they'll take
| some aspirin/paracetamol and rock on.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| The medicine will almost certainly be heavily subsidized.
| Plenty of people take Acyclovir for cold sores and things
| like Buckley for colds.
| Hamuko wrote:
| So basically they're expecting everyone to have a pack in
| their medicine cabinet, next to the aspirin and bandages?
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Well, given they're selling it for thousands of dollars,
| I think not.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Wait, if it costs thousand of dollars, isn't it basically
| automatically going to be going only for the serious
| cases?
| sudosysgen wrote:
| No, because it's priced so that the expected cost of
| untreated illness is still going to be higher.
| Hospitalization is very very expensive! Also, they will
| probably be bought in bulk by the government and
| negotiated down by insurance companies to less than a
| thousand dollars per treatment,
| Hamuko wrote:
| But doesn't it still rely on a person getting early
| symptoms of COVID-19 seeking medical aid? I can't really
| imagine someone developing a cough and then immediately
| heading to their physician to get their antiviral pills.
| rsynnott wrote:
| ... Wait, can you not? That's basically how tamiflu
| works. And one relic of the pandemic will be that at-home
| covid testing will be cheap, easy and available in a way
| that at-home flu testing is not (antigen tests are
| already cheap and easily available in Europe, and soon
| will be worldwide).
|
| Now, I can imagine that not _all_ cases will be given the
| antiviral automatically. If you're a vaccinated 18 year
| old with no comorbidities, say, that is probably not
| going to be cost-effective (though, well, we'll see what
| happens with long covid); the chances of you landing in
| hospital are just very low. But if you're an overweight
| unvaccinated 60 year old, there's quite a good chance of
| you turning into a hideously expensive ICU case, and it
| probably makes sense to provide the treatment.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| It doesn't have to a prescription, they could distribute
| them after a telehealth meeting, or on the same basis as
| vaccines, or at any pharmacy after a talk with the
| pharmacian, etc...
| deelowe wrote:
| My guess would be to expand the current vaccine
| initiatives to include this medicine. Have the sniffles?
| Stop by CVS and get dosed. I can envision a cost model
| where this approach works out better for them over time.
| yucky wrote:
| Fortunately we can trust that they aren't using any of those
| billions they have made to manipulate public opinion on the
| issue, because that would be immoral and therefore off
| limits.
| peter422 wrote:
| It's literally a miracle drug for a virus that is killing
| thousands of people a day, that likely will work for all
| variants.
|
| Can you stop complaining for one second about the price and
| acknowledge that it is amazing that they invented it?
| soperj wrote:
| Oddest part about it is that they invented it in 2018.
| jbd28 wrote:
| What's your source on that little nugget
| soperj wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirmatrelvir
|
| It was invented for a cat coronavirus in 2018.
| fileeditview wrote:
| Thank god!
| missedthecue wrote:
| Why not promote both though?
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| At this point, the majority of people who would take a yearly
| booster are going to get it regardless of a mandate.
| missedthecue wrote:
| But if it's a mandate, that's tens (hundreds?) of millions
| of more vaccines sold every year.
|
| My point is that if we are going to act like everything
| they say is solely profit motivated, they should still
| support mandates.
| AndrewUnmuted wrote:
| I cannot recall another example in my lifetime of a global
| populous all agreeing to purchase a pharmaceutical company's
| medical product - not just once, but 2-3x per person - in under
| two years' time.
|
| The implications of this phenomenon on Pfizer's business model
| are enormous. Pfizer & others would be foolish to not pay close
| attention to this and figure out a way to exploit it for
| further gains.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Pfizer probably got an extra $50 for you this particular
| year, in addition to the hundreds or thousands of dollars it
| gets from you every year. If you want to attack drug pricing,
| drug patents and pharma profits, the time to do that is every
| year, not just special ones.
|
| The big question for this vaccine is why we rewarded this
| fully taxpayer-funded development and testing with a patent
| monopoly.
| yonaguska wrote:
| On the flip side, we're also going to witness a very large
| portion of the population that rejects most all
| pharmaceutical treatments due to lack of trust. Anyone that
| has had any vaccine injury, even if minor. Reproductive
| issues are in a weird classification as being "minor" in that
| they aren't life threatening, but they certainly are major
| for young women that are planning on having children. Another
| group that will have their trust shattered are the people
| that got vaxxed and boosted, and still caught covid in a very
| bad way. And finally, the group that has been turned off by
| the haphazard communication (at best) and downright creepy
| coercion to get vaccinated.
|
| My trust in the system has been thoroughly shattered, I've
| gone from looking down at anti-vaxxers with disdain from
| before the pandemic- to now being labelled as part of that
| crowd because I am anti mandates. The whole timing of that
| terminology in and of itself is interesting as well- but
| that's probably going too deep down the rabbit hole.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| > I cannot recall another example in my lifetime of a global
| populous all agreeing to purchase a pharmaceutical company's
| medical product - not just once, but 2-3x per person - in
| under two years' time.
|
| Well this is the first major global pandemic in a century, so
| that would stand to reason, no? Most of the world received
| the polio vaccine within a few years of its discovery btw
| res0nat0r wrote:
| Good article here about "endemic" and the still large problems
| that portend: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00155-x
|
| > The word 'endemic' has become one of the most misused of the
| pandemic. And many of the errant assumptions made encourage a
| misplaced complacency. It doesn't mean that COVID-19 will come to
| a natural end.
|
| > In other words, a disease can be endemic and both widespread
| and deadly. Malaria killed more than 600,000 people in 2020. Ten
| million fell ill with tuberculosis that same year and 1.5 million
| died. Endemic certainly does not mean that evolution has somehow
| tamed a pathogen so that life simply returns to 'normal'.
|
| > Stating that an infection will become endemic says nothing
| about how long it might take to reach stasis, what the case
| rates, morbidity levels or death rates will be or, crucially, how
| much of a population -- and which sectors -- will be susceptible.
| Nor does it suggest guaranteed stability: there can still be
| disruptive waves from endemic infections, as seen with the US
| measles outbreak in 2019. Health policies and individual
| behaviour will determine what form -- out of many possibilities
| -- endemic COVID-19 takes.
| CWuestefeld wrote:
| All of this is true, and none of it contradicts anything in the
| grandparent post.
| scarmig wrote:
| Something can be endemic and deadly and still something we
| accept the consequences of without government imposed
| restrictions.
|
| For example: HIV is something that is now endemic and (still)
| deadly. And yet we don't go around forcibly shutting down gay
| bathhouses, bars, and Grindr and implementing condom and prep
| mandates, even though they would be effective at reducing its
| spread. And for good reason: it'd be a massive (and homophobic)
| violation of civil liberties.
|
| But because mask and vaccine resistance is red tribe coded, a
| lot of people who would usually be level-headed about
| epidemiology and cost-benefit analyses end up in a stance
| driven more by moralizing than sound science.
| csdvrx wrote:
| > And yet we don't go around forcibly shutting down gay
| bathhouses, bars, and Grindr and implementing condom and prep
| mandates, even though they would be effective at reducing its
| spread. And for good reason: it'd be a massive (and
| homophobic) violation of civil liberties
|
| Actually, following some FUD by a now famous doctor, this had
| a lot of political and popular support back then:
| https://www.congress.gov/98/crecb/1983/07/14/GPO-
| CRECB-1983-...
|
| Check page 28, July 14 1983.
| depereo wrote:
| But we do strongly encourage condom usage and tests. There
| are education resources and awareness campaigns. Knowingly
| infecting someone or non disclosure of positive infection
| status during possible transmission activities is a jailable
| offense. It's not like HIV is something we simply ignore.
| There are still strong public health measures and laws
| protecting the public health.
| scarmig wrote:
| Most of the anti-mandate people (I'm not one, to be clear)
| would be quite happy with a world where the interventions
| around COVID were awareness campaigns. And just as some
| people insist on not wearing condoms despite the risks, the
| same will be true of mask wearing and vaccines.
| Terretta wrote:
| smoking, and indoor second hand smoking laws ... we know
| the principles here
| depereo wrote:
| Would they be happy with "Knowingly infecting someone or
| non disclosure of positive infection status during
| possible transmission activities is a jailable offense"
| for COVID?
|
| Ultimately these interventions, mandates and other public
| health measures, which wind up as a mix of education,
| awareness and mandates or laws become a balancing act
| between personal inconvenience and public good; so the
| work done for HIV is different from the intervention for
| covid-19 for that and other reasons.
| scarmig wrote:
| The standard for criminal HIV transmission (in
| California, at least; it varies by state) is not
| "accidentally infecting someone while not knowing your
| status." It's not even "infecting someone without
| disclosing that you're HIV-positive while knowing you're
| HIV-positive." It's "intentionally infecting someone with
| HIV." And, explicitly, your knowledge of your positive
| status is not sufficient to establish intent.
| rhino369 wrote:
| >But we do strongly encourage condom usage and tests. There
| are education resources and awareness campaigns.
|
| Nobody is saying we shouldn't strongly encourage vaccines.
| But there is a difference between education/awareness
| campaigns and a mandates.
|
| The same people trying to prevent unvaccinated people from
| being a part of society would have flipped out if you had
| to show PrEP status at gay bars in 2019.
|
| >Knowingly infecting someone or non disclosure of positive
| infection status during possible transmission activities is
| a jailable offense.
|
| But you aren't charged just because you don't wear a condom
| or take PrEP while you don't know you have HIV.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| So we did do that, and there is a bit of irony there. Back in
| the 80s AIDS was used to push homophobia and lots of states
| passed laws making promoting homosexuality illegal. At the
| time Dr.Fauci went on national television to tell the public
| you could get AIDS simply by touching or being in proximity
| to someone who had the virus. So if you want to talk about
| moralizing science, well actually...
| bruceb wrote:
| "states passed laws making promoting homosexuality
| illegal."
|
| Did they? Seems laws have only gone one way,
| decriminalizing since the late 70s
| TameAntelope wrote:
| It's not the fact that it's red tribe coded, it's the fact
| that the arguments against these things started from _very_
| stupid places.
|
| Mask and vaccine resistance is _stupid_ tribe coded, even if
| now there might be some valid reasons for talking about it.
| Stupid tribe and red tribe do happen to overlap, but it 's
| the stupid part that upsets people so universally, not the
| red part.
|
| Also, HIV is not even remotely as contagious as SARS-CoV-2,
| so it's not really a fair comparison. We absolutely would
| have shut down whatever we needed to if HIV were airborne.
| hhh wrote:
| I really don't see how you could reasonably talk with
| someone that isn't vaccinated and convince them to get
| vaccinated by calling them stupid. It's demeaning and
| completely dismissive of their apprehensions, fears, or any
| other reason they haven't been vaccinated.
|
| I would likely find myself much more reluctant to get
| vaccinated if the person attempting to convince me is
| calling me an idiot and just shouting that i'm wrong
| instead of providing me data on the subject, and being
| honest enough to openly discuss the subject.
|
| A small amount of humility and respect go a very long way.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Who said anything about convincing people? I'm explaining
| why it's a challenge to consider a position that may be
| more valid now, but wasn't valid or was substantially
| less valid in the past.
|
| It _was_ an abjectly stupid position, held by stupid
| people. Now, it 's possible that the situation has
| changed and it's marginally less stupid of a position, or
| even not a stupid position at all, given new information.
|
| It's hard for people to make that switch.
| fossuser wrote:
| I mostly agree, but I think the core difference with HIV is
| how it's transmitted. You're more in control of your
| transmission risk.
|
| That's less true with Covid given its contagiousness through
| the air.
|
| I'm of the opinion that private companies have every right to
| require restrictions they see fit. I'm more mixed about
| government restrictions now that we're post vaccine (with the
| exception that requiring vaccine mandates for healthcare
| workers seems reasonable).
|
| What gets to me about this whole thing is it's not binary but
| people often talk like it is (probably just political
| tribalism).
|
| Vaccinated people who are infected spread the disease like
| the unvaccinated, that's true - _but_ since vaccinated people
| are much less likely to get infected on exposure things like
| the vaccine mandates for restaurant entry _do_ have an affect
| and are not just theater. They reduce the overall probability
| of positive people in the restaurant.
|
| I think people like Bret Weinstein have done a lot of harm
| and I'm often surprised by the extent to which intelligence
| is independent from accuracy.
|
| It's really interesting in the context of this book review:
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/04/book-review-the-
| secret...
|
| Basically, the argument in that is a little reason
| (incompletely applied or understood) can be a dangerous thing
| and blindly following consensus is sometimes the adaptive
| behavior. It's a little misapplied to vaccines since in that
| case someone did actually know the details and understand the
| mechanism, but it's possible for a cultural understanding to
| be entirely selected by natural selection and the reason for
| it was never understood by anyone!
|
| When we see animals do complex behavior we don't usually
| assume it's because they understand fully why that mechanism
| is adaptive, but we often misapply this understanding to
| ourselves.
|
| Mostly getting off topic, but I thought this was an
| interesting thing to think about.
| app_gorilla wrote:
| fossuser wrote:
| Yeah, more likely to get infected on exposure than an
| unvaccinated person that has not previously had the
| disease.
|
| The source link supports that claim as far as I can tell
| from what's on that page and doesn't say anything about
| vaccinated people being more likely to get infected vs.
| unvaccinated (both without natural immunity).
| app_gorilla wrote:
| The study excluded previously PCR-positive individuals in
| both vaccinated and unvaccinated groups. So it's
| vaccinated and no prior exposure and unvaccinated and no
| prior exposure.
|
| The infection rate 60 days post-vaccination were higher
| in the vaccine group.
| fossuser wrote:
| "The negative estimates in the final period arguably
| suggest different behaviour and/or exposure patterns in
| the vaccinated and unvaccinated cohorts causing
| underestimation of the VE. This was likely the result of
| Omicron spreading rapidly initially through single
| (super-spreading) events causing many infections among
| young, vaccinated individuals."
|
| Yeah, I think it's more likely that this is the
| explanation. At least I'd need to be persuaded that the
| more unlikely explanation is the correct one.
| app_gorilla wrote:
| yah, difficult to control for that for sure. But most
| polling indicates unvaccinated folks are far less
| concerned about COVID in general and less likely to
| modify their behavior.
|
| Source: https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/poll-
| finding/kff-co...
| jjoonathan wrote:
| I don't have to worry about getting HIV every time I go out
| in public just because some jerk decided he has a god-given
| right to breathe viral particles into my lungs even though a
| simple and safe vaccine is readily available.
| scarmig wrote:
| This is perilously close to "people who get COVID are
| innocent victims so forcible interventions are justified,
| while people who got HIV chose to do it so those same
| nterventions are less justified."
|
| I agree that, for the average person, COVID is easier to
| contract than HIV. But by the same token, COVID is much
| less severe than HIV, even with modern treatment plans.
| It's not at core about some abstract principle about how
| preventing disease spread trumps all other concerns but is
| instead a cost benefit analysis. Keeping the country shut
| down perpetually is an extreme cost that we are continually
| incurring.
| reallyagain wrote:
| > But by the same token, COVID is much less severe than
| HIV, even with modern treatment plans.
|
| Do you have a source for this? This wouldn't surprise me
| for the Omicron variant, but I'm surprised that (for
| example) someone getting the Delta variant in 2021 was
| "much less severe" than someone getting HIV in 2021.
| TMWNN wrote:
| COVID19 has, since the beginning, had a 0.6% IFR. The
| odds of someone under 40 without comorbodities dying of
| it were and are more or less zero.
|
| HIV was and is invariably fatal. Yes, current drug
| regimens are remarkably effective. They are also very
| complex, required for the rest of your life, and do not
| affect the odds of you infecting someone else by
| unprotected sex.
|
| * _No one*_ , not even the most ill centenarian, would
| choose HIV over COVID19 if required to be infected by
| one.
| scarmig wrote:
| Minor point of correction: someone who is HIV positive
| but has an undetectable viral load is very unlikely to
| give someone else HIV. It's riskier to have sex with a
| random at a bar of unknown status than it is to have sex
| with someone with an undetectable viral load. (If you
| trust that they do indeed have an undetectable viral load
| and strictly adhere to their medication protocol.)
| jjoonathan wrote:
| > This is perilously close to "people who get COVID are
| innocent victims so forcible interventions are justified,
| while people who got HIV chose to do it so those same
| nterventions are less justified."
|
| Nope. The existence of simple, effective countermeasures
| and ease of accessing them set the level of moral
| culpability for refusing and then infecting someone else
| as a result.
|
| I'd agree that the cost-benefit is nearing the point of
| "fuck it, let the selfish jerks have what they want."
| scarmig wrote:
| Now disease is a matter of "moral culpability"?
|
| It's far easier to accidentally infect someone with COVID
| than it is to infect someone with HIV, and the harm of
| the former is less than the harm of the latter. The
| latter per incident is significantly more costly to
| society as well.
|
| Should the government require Grindr and gay bars to
| require customers to show an up-to-date negative status
| and proof of being on PreP in order to be allowed to
| participate? With poz people banned from participating at
| the venue/platform?
| danans wrote:
| > Keeping the country shut down perpetually is an extreme
| cost that we are continually incurring.
|
| Which country is this that is perpetually shut down? Even
| the most mask and vaccine forward (ergo "shut down
| perpetually") parts of the US are pretty operational.
| Offices are open as are restaurants and schools
| Disneyland is packed.
|
| We've learned how to keep society running during the
| pandemic: vaccines, masks, testing, and occasionally
| heightened indoor occupancy restrictions during large
| waves to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed.
|
| That's nothing at all like a "perpetual shutdown".
| [deleted]
| spookthesunset wrote:
| If you are so worried about covid... don't go outside. Or
| if you do, triple mask and wear a face shield. I don't
| care. Just don't force me into taking measures to make you
| less fearful--that's pretty selfish.
| jlack wrote:
| This makes no sense. It's incredibly clear at this point
| that vaccinated people with covid spread it just the same
| as an unvaccinated person with covid.
| stavros wrote:
| > just the same
|
| AFAIK that's not true.
| ashwagary wrote:
| My understanding, from a study that may be outdated by
| now, is the window to spread covid is slightly bigger in
| the unvaccinated, but not by much.
|
| 1-3 days of additional self-quarantine solves this issue.
| pengaru wrote:
| IIRC vaccinated people spread smaller quantities of the
| virus, and the viral droplets they do spread tend to
| include antigens since their body is actively fighting
| the infection while they spread it... you know, because
| their system was primed for the fight thanks to the
| vaccine.
|
| I think this Fridman podcast interview explored such
| things, either way it was quite informative on the
| subject:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G433fa01oMU
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Yeah, and a car crash does the same damage regardless of
| Blood Alcohol Concentration. We should still punish a
| drunk driver for irresponsible behavior.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| This seems entirely non-sequitur. We don't have condom
| mandates because there is no practical way to enforce them.
| We don't have mandates that you need to wear a mask in your
| bedroom, either. If we allowed sex in stores and restaurants
| and didn't have condom mandates for people having sex in
| stores and restaurants, you'd have a point, but we don't
| allow sex in public. Porn performers don't have condom
| mandates, but they do have a mandate requiring them to show
| proof of a recent negative test before they're allowed to
| perform. I suspect many people you think are level-headed
| would be entirely supportive of legally mandated condom usage
| for non-cohabitating partners if there was any remotely
| realistic way to do it.
|
| And, of course, we do have an absolute shit ton of mandated
| vaccines, so mandating one for Covid is not at all novel.
| It's even already a condition of federal employment in a lot
| of cases. If you're serving in the state department or
| military or something where you need to go overseas to places
| where anthrax or malaria are risks, you need to get
| vaccinated, and that's been normal and in-bounds for half a
| century.
| mbg721 wrote:
| Why is the opinion of a Pfizer board member relevant to legal
| policy? In other news, McDonald's board members are quite fond of
| wafer-thin beef patties.
| rory wrote:
| He's a former FDA commissioner, so his opinion is arguably
| relevant. I'm not sure why they called him "Pfizer board
| member."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Gottlieb
| xdennis wrote:
| Is it because he's a board member?
|
| I remember a time when people thought it worrying when
| regulators moved to highly paid positions of the companies
| they were in charge of regulating.
| guilhas wrote:
| "One hand washes the other"
| [deleted]
| j_m_b wrote:
| We need some good 'ol FOMO to encourage vaccination:
|
| First month, it's free, second month, it costs $10, third month,
| it costs $100, fourth mount, $1000.
| theodorejb wrote:
| Unscientific mask and vaccine mandates should be dropped
| regardless of the opinion of someone on Pfizer's board.
| cies wrote:
| Science seems to be a rather stretchable concept lately.
|
| What about "unconstitutional"? No people want to know your
| medical status, that used to be protected privacy. Also how can
| we block people from going outside or gathering?
|
| Maybe for 10% deaths that's a reasonable thing to ask, but for
| <1% this is waaaay out of proportion for my taste.
| YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo wrote:
| Unconstitutional seems to be a rather stretchable concept
| lately. Here are all the vaccine mandates in the US today:
| https://www.immunize.org/laws/
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| USA states make their own laws. Sometimes those laws are
| challenged as "unconstitional" and then the Supreme Court
| evaluates and maybe tells them to stop. Most of the time
| not though. They prefer to "leave it up to the states". The
| recent OSHA ruling (attempt at broad vaccine mandates for
| Americans) for instance. The Supreme Court said they can't
| do that.
| peteradio wrote:
| Those are states laws. Generally when someone says
| Unconstitutional without a state qualification they mean
| Federal Government.
| klyrs wrote:
| That's a rather pointless quibble. State laws that
| violate the constitution are challenged as
| unconstitutional, and overturned on that basis. There
| were antivaxers when the Smallpox virus was rampant.
| Smallpox is gone, because of vaccine mandates. Public
| schools require a whole panel of vaccines, both of their
| employees and students. Until now, that hasn't been seen
| to violate the constitution. But now, there's a
| supermajority in the Supreme Court, so really, _who
| knows_ what the constitution says?
| CodesInChaos wrote:
| Not quite. Often the reason that a law is
| unconstitutional is that the federal government lacks the
| authority to regulate this, but the same law would be
| constitutional if created by a state government.
| cies wrote:
| That's what I meant, the basic ones like.. right to
| privacy, freedom of assembly, bodily autonomy.
| dijit wrote:
| It's notable because the board member will lose financially
| with this statement.
|
| It's in their interest to keep quiet or push more vaccine
| mandates; especially as they have the "best" one as of now.
| waynesonfire wrote:
| I think OP is right.. since you can also make the claim the
| member is promoting unhealthy habits to sell a cure.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| That's not true. Every treatment of Paxlovid the company will
| sell is going to make a lot more profit that vaccines.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| You never know, maybe he invests heavily in hospitals and
| respirators.
| Animats wrote:
| Pfizer sells a coronavirus treatment.[1] So more cases are good
| for their bottom line.
|
| _" Cures are nice, but the money is in chronic conditions."_
|
| [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/22/fda-authorizes-pfizers-
| covid...
| balls187 wrote:
| This was from 1999.
|
| Language Warning.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRN3d5S_MTk
| umvi wrote:
| Tangential but... I've been seeing _tons_ of Pfizer ads on TV
| lately. They aren 't advertising anything in particular, just
| delivering a general message of "Pfizer has got your back;
| don't worry, we are watching out for you". It makes me a little
| uneasy.
| partiallypro wrote:
| I think everyone should get vaccinated, but at this point if you
| aren't...you aren't going to. So, it's a waste. I think it's time
| to move on from this. It is understandable that people are afraid
| of getting sick, dying etc., but 2-3 years is a long part of your
| life. It's ruining lives in more ways than just people getting
| sick.
|
| I feel bad for people that live in a constant state of fear in
| states/countries that have been incredibly strict. My state has
| been more or less the same now, nothing in my life has really
| changed aside from the price increases and shortages in both
| goods and labor. I can't travel to many places I want to though
| because of fear I'll get there, and everything will be locked
| down. When this first started I was upset with people going out,
| etc. but as time has marched on, we know enough about the virus
| in terms of prevention, treatment, and the low chance of serious
| infection.
|
| I think my opinion is pretty popular among the populace, but it's
| astounding how it has not been treated as such in the media and
| government.
| 3glkjlkjlkg wrote:
| djmips wrote:
| I didn't realize there were so many eccentrics on HN, or is there
| a campaign?
| exogeny wrote:
| Not a single person mentioning this is sourced from The Epoch
| Times?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-01-26 23:01 UTC)