Terrible first order logic. The threat from the virus is not only immediate risk to the individual, it is also further transmissions increasing the risk of creating new breakthrough variants. Every infected person is a gamble that risks nullifying the effectiveness of vaccines, so the goal must be to bring down infections as strongly as possible.
>We have never before justified such intrusive government policies based on the risks faced by these individuals
we should have. Tolerating disease spread and threats to vulnerable populations when vaccines are available that are practically risk-free (or the risk being magnitudes smaller than the payoff) is ridiculous. Maybe this finally shakes people awake and puts public health and safety to the top of the agenda rather than people throwing tantrums like children about government incursion.
edit: and another point I forgot, with such a significant unvaccinated population we will very likely see surges in admissions in winter again. Public health resources are limited. Unnecessary Covid hospitalizations cause immense opportunity cost in the form of crowding out care and driving costs. Which in many cases other sick people and the public will have to carry.
You can certainly go down this path, and dismiss everyone who disagrees with you as "children", but what you value is not the same as what everyone else values.
I am willing to balance the risk of never having a normal life again with an overall risk of illness and death that is on par with every other year I have been alive.
Eventually, I too will become old and frail, and become vulnerable to some virus or another. If I ever become so afraid of death that I demand that other people give up their basic human rights to "keep me safe", then I hope that illness takes me quickly after that. I don't want to live in the world you propose.
The excess death statistics would like to have a word with you, but more importantly:
> If I ever become so afraid of death that I demand that other people give up their basic human rights
Are basic human rights really what we're talking about here?
If so, they've always had limits when it came to impacts on others. The freedom to swing your fist ends at the tip of someone's nose; the freedom to spread certain pathogens might end there as well.
Of course, the article here is talking about vaccination as a condition for participation in venues where density and proximity is a concern. "Basic human rights" may well not quite reach into unqualified access to "indoor dining, in indoor fitness facilities, indoor entertainment facilities." Hell, it's hard to actually make an totally unqualified case for bodily autonomy itself, even though that's a good principle to start from, it isn't the only one.
Basic human rights were not lost from the world by smallpox or other vaccination mandates. They wouldn't be destroyed even if there were going to be a federal mandate for covid vaccination, which doesn't even seem to be on the horizon. They are certainly not going to be destroyed by proof of vaccination being required for entry to restaurants and gymns.
Independent of the rest of your argument, this one is not a good one to hinge on.
"Excess death" is a pragmatic term, not a normative term. The baseline death statistics doesn't mean those deaths were OK, or natural and acceptable to endure. They include many peer to peer (e.g traffic accidents) or institution to peer (many "lifestyle" diseases') deaths too, which in themselves are also excess deaths in comparison to another baseline (e.g. obesity related deaths in comparison to 1960s).
These feeds back to the arguments of risk tolerance and freedoms; there is a mutually tolerated, implicit risk of peer-to-peer death in driving too. I am not saying this is comparable to the risk of death by covid (it is obviously not), but we can't make principled arguments of absolute safety nor absolute freedom without keeping things proportional to the risks and freedoms we're already been balancing.
> Basic human rights were not lost from the world by smallpox or other vaccination mandates.
If we're being anal about it, it is not entirely true. People have a right to keep the functional and structural integrity of their bodies; and even enhancing immunization would be a change in that, and that has an element of intrusiveness to it. Again, being a transmitter of the virus and harming other people's bodies is also a threat to the functional and structural organization of those bodies, and that is (very) intrusive too, but two things can be true at the same time, and therefore this is not the principle to argue from.
The honest argument would be accepting the need for striking a balance, accepting the sense of anxiety from both sides, and not pushing conclusions into people. We have to have people participate in the rationality of the decision making, from a place of empathy and growth.
I hope this is a moment we can also realize that just like public health is a shared resource and lack thereof is a shared liability, public rationality and sound decision making capability is also a shared resource and lack thereof is a shared liability. We've been turning a blind eye to all sorts of media training people to be more and more polarized, using shaming as a short-term compliance tool that has long-term stupefying consequences. Now we depend on all of us coming to our senses to survive this thing; we need a herd immunity against irrational self-deception just as much.
Fully aware of that. The reason I invoked them is to make the pragmatic point that those statistics alone and the correlated rise with covid should tell an analyst that risks associated with the virus aren't the same as "every other year they've been alive." That's a descriptive observation.
Of course, it also invites a normative judgment...
> If we're being anal about it, it is not entirely true.
It's essentially true, and this is important. There have been genuinely compulsory vaccinations in modern free societies... and these compulsions turned out not to be slippery slopes into totalitarian oppression, but the corner case that you'd expect from societies that, as you say, realize this isn't about "absolute safety nor absolute freedom," that both risks and rights can be qualified (and in fact, for rights to be meaningful at all, they must be qualified, since there are always cases where a right reaches a point of tension with another right).
And NY isn't even talking about genuine compulsory vaccination, it's proposing vaccination as a condition of participating in things that people can opt out of. It's not even as compulsory as a fine or paying your taxes or any number of other carrots/sticks that states regularly use to "push conclusions into people" because if you're going to have a society, you're going to blow past the limits of voluntarism at some point, as lovely as it is to try and maximize it within those limits.
> People have a right to keep the functional and structural integrity of their bodies
Yes, I anticipated that and you can see it in my comment where I refer to bodily autonomy. It's a good place to start, but like every other right it isn't unqualified.
What? I have never heard anything like that at all. Rights are absolute.
That sounds like it is coming from the "Sure free speech is fine, so long as it doesn't offend me," crowd.
it's proposing vaccination as a condition of participating in things that people can opt out of.
People here are generally highly attuned to one of the big surveillance ad corps trying to massage people into accepting some invasion of their personal sovereignty, how is this different? You think if something like this is accepted there won't be pushes to go further?
If this infrastructure is put in place, it will be abused, and it will coopted for other things.
Sure you have. It's embedded in the common phrase (invoked earlier) about the right to swing a fist ending at the edge of people's noses. Or in the oft-invoked expression about yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Or the frequent refrain about rights being paired with responsibilities.
> You think if something like this is accepted there won't be pushes to go further?
We don't have to "think" it, we can point to historic and present examples where like compulsory actions existed without devolving into totalitarianism because we have a society shaped by people who understood it's possible to have both substantial general protections and specific exceptions.
If there are, that should be the exceptions, rather than the norm.
Also, the parent asked if there won't be "pushes". So the implication is that there will be an overwhelming push in that direction, and very weak countering "pull" in the opposite direction.
And it is clear what direction it will ultimately go. So that is the danger in setting a precedent. So that further pushes in a "bad" direction will require much less effort, and only matter of time it is accepted to be the "new normal"..
So the idea that "it is clear what direction it will ultimately go" is... kinda correct, actually. It is clear that general autonomy can remain a valued principle with specific exceptions. It is clear that they are the exceptions rather than the norm. And that the pull in the other direction isn't weak.
Sure. It is the ever increasing number of "specific exceptions" that people should be worried about.
1A text: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." [0]
So is the right to the freedom of speech absolute? Not according to the body authorized to definitively interpret the law, the Supreme Court, which ruled that laws abridging the freedom to defame people through speech or press are constitutional.
Thus the right to the freedom of speech has limits and is not absolute.
"In United States constitutional law, false statements of fact are statements of fact (as opposed to points of law) that are false. Such statements are not always protected by the First Amendment. This is usually due to laws against defamation, that is making statements that harm the reputation of another." [1]
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_Unite...
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_statements_of_fact
As an easy example: how do you reconcile that rights are absolute with the over-used “can’t shout fire in a theatre” case that curtails freedom of speech. Many would argue that rights must be qualified, or exist in relationship with each other. All of these are humanist arguments, mind you. Nobody is trying to throw human rights out with the humans.
Incorrect.
https://www.theusconstitution.org/news/there-are-no-absolute...
What are the odds that anyone is right about everything? We ought to be confident in our reasoned decisions, yes, but then not be surprised that someone else’s reasoned decisions disagree with our own.
Am I missing something? It seems to be clear for well over a year that "this thing" is not some existential threat that threatens our very survival. Why are people talking as if it is, and seeking to craft policy as if it is?
Personally, I believe that the global excess deaths figures will be bigger this year than last, due to all the developing world where vaccines are not available.
What do excess deaths of vaccinated people look like?
> "Basic human rights" may well not quite reach into unqualified access to "indoor dining, in indoor fitness facilities, indoor entertainment facilities."
This is disingenuous. Freedom of peaceful assembly is widely recognised as a basic right.
Who's doing this in a movie theater? It's clearly meant to protect public protests.
VAERS currently reports 11,000 deaths (50% in USA mainland) after Covid vaccines. VAERS only has a subset of data on vaccine adverse events, so the true number when private/HMO databases are included will be some multiple (5x to 100x) of the VAERS total, https://openvaers.com/. A German pathologist has estimated that 30% of post-vaccine deaths were caused by vaccination. We need more autopsies in other countries, along with earlier post-vaccine clinical observation, https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...
> pathologists therefore worked with public prosecutors, the police and resident doctors, reports Schirmacher. More than 40 people have already been autopsied who died within two weeks of being vaccinated. Schirmacher estimates that 30 to 40 percent of them died from the vaccination. In his opinion, the frequency of fatal consequences of vaccinations is underestimated
Existing Covid vaccines are non-sterilizing, i.e. they do not prevent infection or transmission. In fact, because a non-sterilizing vaccine suppresses symptoms, an infected vaccinated person doesn't know to isolate (unless they get tested after exposure, as recommended by CDC) and can infect others. A non-vaccinated person would show symptoms and can self-isolate, ending the transmission chain.
Natural immunity is sterilizing, i.e. NYC essential workers who have already recovered from Covid are much better for public health than anyone vaccinated with a non-sterilizing Covid vaccine, https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/558757-the-ill-advise...
> During the pandemic, the professional laptop class protected themselves by working from home while exposing the working class that brought them food and other goods. It is now the height of hypocrisy to recognize immunity from vaccinations but not immunity from those exposed while serving the laptop class.
US Covid deaths peaked in early January, three months before US daily vaccines peaked in mid-April (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/us-daily-covid-vaccine-do...), and VAERS deaths peaked in March-April, https://www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?GRAPH=ON&GRO...
To put that number into context, you are 944 times more likely to die if you catch covid than if you get a vacine in the US. That's right the anti-vaxer take on the VAERS numbers say getting a vaccine is 1000 times better than not getting a covid vaccine. Even in the country with the lowest reported (0.1% which is not necessarily the actual) death rate per covid case you are 100x better off getting the vaccine.
https://medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?TABLE=ON&GROUP1=...
Big piece of the puzzle you are ommiting there.
In the US, over 300 million doses of covid-19 vaccines have been administered so far. Reported deaths of any cause (regardless of any established connection with the vaccine) among this group was on the order of 6000 people as of the end of July. [0]
US covid-19 cases are around 35 million and 600k deaths. How many of those were "young to not that old"? Well, one count[1] would put us at about 28k under 50, 10k under 40.
Let's be generous to the "vaccines are a threat to the young" position and assume for the sake of argument that ALL of the 6000 VAERS reported deaths were in fact caused by the vaccine and were ALL people under 40. Even making those assumptions, the order-of-magnitude difference in vaccination events vs infection events makes it utterly clear that covid itself is at least 10x more dangerous to people under 40 than receiving a vaccination is.
And if you dig into the adverse vaccine event specifics, my bet is that you find a pretty similar distribution of adverse effects -- sure, some of them are young people, just like some covid deaths are young people, but not most of them.
[0] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/ad...
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-...
People do work with numbers like "Years of Life Lost," and FWIW I think that can inform some conversations even though I don't think it helps much with this one. It is not the end-all-be-all, though. You could, for example, look at the social costs of losing the accumulated experience/wisdom/social capital of people over a certain age, which may be why some societies emphasize respect for the elderly.
Considering that we still don't know the long terms effect of the vaccine, I can understand that someone between 20 and 30 without comorbidities would think that it's reasonable to wait and see, especially if he's less at risk (lives in the countryside for example, remote work, things like that).
> You could, for example, look at the social costs of losing the accumulated experience/wisdom/social capital of people over a certain age, which may be why some societies emphasize respect for the elderly.
That's a good point. You could also add a different value for years depending on the age, as people often value their youth more. 1.5 years lost when you're in college or starting your first job is not the same as when you're in your 70s and retired.
Otherwise, you risk being lumped in with the multitude of bad takes made by people who misunderstand what VAERS is, and don't understand statistics.
> US Covid deaths peaked in early January, three months before US daily vaccines peaked in mid-April, and VAERS deaths peaked in March-April.
I find an April peak in VAERS deaths entirely unsurprising, since that's exactly when the rate of vaccination was highest.
If so, they've always had limits when it came to impacts on others. The freedom to swing your fist ends at the tip of someone's nose
Whoa, you've got that horridly twisted.
It's not a human right to demand that others undergo a medical procedure for your own perceived interest. It's not a human right to demand others undergo a medical procedure, or be injected with something, because you've been told it will benefit you in some way. Every individual has complete choice and autonomy as to the medical procedures they undergo. That is the human right.
>Article 6 – Consent
1. Any preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic medical intervention is only to be carried out with the prior, free and informed consent of the person concerned, based on adequate information. The consent should, where appropriate, be express and may be withdrawn by the person concerned at any time and for any reason without disadvantage or prejudice.
http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=31058&URL_DO=DO_TO...
The obvious good reason is you have one of the many pre-existing conditions that prevent you from getting the vaccine without causing yourself further risk of long term organ damage/failure caused by you previously taking other mandatory vaccines on a regular basis (healthcare workers, vasculitis is one such group of diseases common among the RN population - but what do they know, those front line workers with their anti-vaxx mumbo-jumbo).
The other obvious reason is another simple one - it seems its completely unnecessary for any relatively "healthy" person such as myself to worry about this virus. Our immune systems are designed for this battle, and based on the death rates, it seems despite the US population being very obese and largely unhealthy with a fairly high diabetes rate, we're somehow not dying in droves.
Third reason, vaccinations against every single little virus that comes along is effectively practicing negative selection. I think we all can assume where that leads especially with a leaky vaccine like this one - large scale true extinction event. We're breeding superbugs by vaccinating large scale populations, instead of small targeted vaccine administration.
Because if I put something in my body only because my master tells me to, I am a slave. Through and through. Bodily autonomy is absolute. It's different than the Modern American definition of slavery, which is mostly based on the New World forms of slavery, which are related to but different than the Old World forms of slavery. But they are all slavery. Either you have control of your corpus or you do not.
It is about me. A population is made up of individual people. Those individual people have rights. Given a choice of a population of X size who surrender the rights to govern their body, vs a population of free willed humans of (X - (00.03 * X)), I would gladly take the latter, including as a casualty. Humanity under authoritarianism is never morally acceptable, regardless of how benevolent my dictator appears to be.
From your comment:
> Because if I put something in my body only because my master tells me to, I am a slave.
So don't do it for that reason. Do it because it will save your (and other people's) life.
That's an entirely reasonable position to take.
How do you know he wasn't already infected and thus has natural immunity? So how is this saving her or his life?
Why aren't we testing for those who actually need this vaccine or not (because antibody tests don't work very well and no one wants to improve that metric because thats not where the money is)
Concern over long term effects of the spike protein presented by COVID-19, both attached to the virus and free-floating within my body as a result of mRNA therapy.
Concern over long term ability for my cells to accurately recreate the spike protein. From what I've read, this is actually low concern on my scale, the capping seems pretty thorough.
Concern over my body creating an immunoresponse to organs/nearby cells/systems where the spike protein has accumulated
Concern over my immune system being able to form a strong defense in the future over different coronaviruses when it's been trained to work outside it's normal operational parameters.
Concern over the hubris of mankind and the house of cards that is our trust in the peer review system.
Concern over the lack of experiment replication done in the modern medical fields
Concern over the fact that some of these companies have shady history, including knowingly selling me asbestos to keep my testicle dry during the summer heat.
Concern over the lack of transparency in the bridges between pharma lobbyists and government, politicians and media, and media and pharma corps.
Concern over the lack of transparency in more broader sense.
Concern over the obvious astroturfing on social media, of multiple "influencers" posting the same copy and pasted messages, the bot responses, the general fiscal funding behind this debate.
Concern over the future implications of us accepting, as a society, the weaponization of fear, and the saving graces of corporations.
Concern over our willingness to change our lives in drastic manners because of the justification that it may save a life, which I see as an endless justification opportunity for future world leaders.
Concern over turning fear into a virtue.
The country’s Health Ministry reported last week that the two-dose vaccine is now just 39% effective in Israel where the highly transmissible delta variant is the dominant strain. The shot still works very well in preventing people from getting seriously sick, Israeli officials said, demonstrating 88% effectiveness against hospitalization and 91% effectiveness against severe illness.[1]
So 88% effective against Delta-strain COVID causing hospitalization. That seems pretty good!
I think many people saying "look at Israel" are looking at the decreased effectiveness in stopping any symptoms against Delta-COVID and think that - disappointing - headline figure (39%) is the protection against hospitalisation rate. It's not, fortunately.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/29/delta-variant-israel-to-give...
It sure is! Once it has had a look at the virus to know to act against it.
That is literally what a vaccine is - a way to give your immune system an early look at a pathogen so it knows to act next time it sees it.
because of the nanoparticle adjuvant that enacpsulates the subunit? yeah that's been on the top of my mind too, but covaxin is a traditional inactivated virus and it confers 70+% efficacy. my question is, if a vaccine that is the same genetic material (maybe a little less, but not heavily modified like mrna or run through the moth/tree approach like novavax) then why are we ignoring those who were actually infected?
food for thought: long covid is H O R R I B L E, and that should be everyones reason to take a vaccine.. but if you don't want to, just be prepared to sit on the sidelines for a year or maybe more. once the pandemic, as defined by the government, ends then you are on your own. there is already less patience for those who need to take extended time from work for a covid positive result
Your anecdotal evidence from a friend isn't data.
Your link shows what exactly? That yes, the majority of people with Covid currently, and majority of hospitalized (severely ill other words) are fully vaccinated.
You seem to think this is bad or something? As the vaccine rate increases of course more patients will be vaccinated. If the vaccine rate was 100% then 100% of people seen would be vaccinated!
The number of people being hospitalised has decreased hugely though.
> Everyone (each company) that has worked on mRNA vaccines in the last 10 years+ are facing the same ethical dilemma, as all of the compounds have not been approved for human use.
Well this isn't true at all.
> I would stay with Sputnik or the Sino vaccines especially if you have a history of blood clots or genetic predisposition to heart conditions.
I don't know much about the Sino vaccine, but Sputnik is a adenovirus-based vaccine (the same as AstraZeneca). It probably has the same blood clotting issues as AZ, but the places it has been deployed have much less robust post vaccine medical surveillance.
But it's good you'd take it! I'd encourage you to do so ASAP.
The blood clots from AstraZeneca have not been thoroughly investigated - we don't know the pathways involved. By the way, the mRNA vaccines are producing many more blood clot calls into triage lines and offices than AZ (prolly because of slow rollout here).
>I'd encourage you to do so ASAP.
Why would you encourage me to do something my body doesn't need?
It's now clear that these injections do not have the efficacy of what has traditionally been termed a "vaccination," but they're definitely being marketed as a preventative, or therapeutic medical intervention.
Weird comment this one...
Eroding liberty by restricting free association would have certainly been considered a violation of rights by the folks that listed them in the Constitution.
In fact, they put it first.
Like when we put barbed wire up in Chinatown, San Francisco in 1900 after allowing all the white people to leave? [1]
Or when we incarcerated 30,000 women in WWI because they may be "unclean" and held them even after their mandatory STD tests came back negative? [1]
Or what we did to immigrant Russian Jews in 1892? [2]
Did you know that up until 2009 we banned HIV positive people from entering the U.S.? [2]
Yes, of course the U.S. has a long history of quarantine. We also have a long history of abusing those powers for racist and political reasons.
The PA Supreme Court, at least, agrees. [3]
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2014/10/30/3601204...
[2] https://www.historytoday.com/history-matters/cure-worse-dise...
[3] https://www.alston.com/en/insights/publications/2020/09/cons...
I think you're misunderstanding the conversation. The thread is talking about the risk _to vaccinated people_. What excess death statistics are you thinking of that show a categorical increase in risk for those vaccinated?
There is a false equivalence here that freedom to opt-out of a commercial product, is excising one's freedom to "spread diseases".
To make it clear, would you want to pass a law that prevents someone with a genetic defect from marrying and having children? Because they would be "spreading" generic disorders, and by having offspring, they are "exercising their freedom to spread a genetic disorder", right?
You can say that any one that is not breathing through a mask is exercising their freedom to spread diseases, and so everyone should wear a mask all the time..
Basically, the point is there is a line where your right to be safe and the right of the rest of the world to exist in freedom is in balance. And arguments like the one that is being made is pushing that line to reduce the latter, and if we are not careful, the latter will be reasoned out, in the name of increasing the "protection" of the 0.01% of people from 95.02 to 95.03% (Just made up numbers to illustrate the point).
And it is not hard to imagine who benefits from it.
May be we need a "Citizen freedom index" for every country so that we will know when we are draining it.
Because if it is hard to improve what that cannot be measured, its hard to know when you are draining it as well..
Not true. Delta is showing increasingly worse numbers for younger people. Some children's hospitals are full from it. If you have another argument besides that one let's discuss.
"The study does note that “it appears that severe illness due to COVID-19 is uncommon among children.”
"Among the 23 states and New York City reviewed by AAP, children’s hospitalizations made up 1.3 – 3.5 percent of all COVID-19 hospitalizations for the week ending July 29."
"According to the study, children were 0.00 – 0.26 percent of all COVID-19 deaths, and seven states reported zero child deaths among data from 43 states, New York City, Puerto Rico and Guam, with 0.00 – 0.03 percent of all child COVID-19 cases resulted in death in those areas."
If you're trying to provide evidence that Covid does not present a serious threat to children, it'd be hard to do a better job.
If you believe that the left is pretty much every public health organisation in every country in the world, then yes.
Otherwise, your statement is false.
If Trump had won, and he had encouraged vaccination, would you be blaming the right?
If you get on that ventilatior you won't be thinking you made the right choice. You'll be wishing you took the vaccine like so many stories we see today. What an idiotic hill to die on.
Even if your young and healthy there's still a non-zero chance something could happen to you.
Why not just get it on the off chance?
> there's still a non-zero chance something somethin could happen to you.
That was true before the pandemic, and it is still true today. If I die, I die. No need to restrict the lives of everyone else just because you are afraid of death.
The problem with you "living however you want" is that it can impact other people...living. Every person the virus infects is a new chance for it to mutate and potentially get worse. We've already seen that happen once with the delta variant. You have an easy way to prevent deaths and you won't because?
Would you let someone "live their life" running around stabbing people? Some people might just get a nick, some could die, what does it matter?
People are largely unvaccinated in New York city (70% unvax), and yet, somehow, we don't see people lying in the streets (at least not from Covid). Hmmmm. Could it be that people's immune systems are functioning despite the human hubris and hysteria?
Where did you see that 70% of NYC is unvaxed? Over 50% of people in NYC are fully vaccinated against COVID and those under 12 are still not eligible.
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data-vaccines.p...
I got the 70% unvaxed from a nytimes.com article; apparently it was dated. Looks like only 40% are unvaxed now according to your link. What's the Covid death rate in that highly congested and dense city? In my state, it is .13%, and that's counting many many deaths that have nothing to do with Covid as a "Covid death" (according to my wife [RN] and her friends who work in local ERs and ICUs as well as a head administrator of our largest public state health network).
But guess what? They do save lives. That's why it's against the law to not wear a seat belt or bike helmet in most places or to not drink and drive. The vaccine can save lives too but it works best if as many people as possible to protect those who can't, to prevent breakthrough infections etc.
I'm not "obsessed" with death avoidance. I'm just not such a selfish asshat that I can give an hour of my time to go get vaccinated, reduce spread and maybe save some lives.
It's not like those people with comorbidities were going to die tomorrow without COVID anyways, they were going to live 5, 10, 20 extra years. Time to see children and grandchildren grow up, spend with friends etc.
>The vaccine can save lives too but it works best if as many people as possible to protect those who can't, to prevent breakthrough infections etc.
What works best is for sick people to stay the fuck home until they're not sick anymore. Healthy people's immune systems, won't allow a large viral load to allow for transmission. This is not a magic virus, there is nothing new here.
>I'm just not such a selfish asshat that I can give an hour of my time to go get vaccinated, reduce spread and maybe save some lives.
Homie, if you believe you're saving some lives by getting vaccinated...I don't know what kind of propaganda you've been feeding on along with those cheetos you were complaining about the other day.
The vaccine will not stop you from transmitting the virus to other immunocompromised people. Don't take my word for it, take Pfizer's.
An argument for driving drunk that sounds a lot like more than a few no-mask and no-vax arguments; "I drive drunk all the time and have never hurt anyone; I will probably never kill anyone. If you can't accept the risk of driving on the roads with me then stay home!".
And also, in both cases of course it's the potential harm to others that tends to make the laws acceptable. In the case of SCOTUS, it's settled that the government can take EXTREME measures in the name of public health.. Likely far beyond anything we have had to deal with so far.
But the courts acceptance (which is the source of truth of what is legal) is contextual. So the slippery slope arguments are off base IMHO because something upheld in the context of the pandemic could be struck down outside the pandemic..
We live by rule of law and it's a glorious thing. As much as I enjoy being cynical, getting together to agree on rules we wouldn't otherwise hold ourselves to(game theory?) is an amazing thing.
Educate people about the low risk and high benefit of getting vaccinated. Encourage them to do so as a generally good thing for society. But framing it the way you are right now is not just unhelpful, it actively makes unvaccinated people think you hate freedom and don't give a damn about anyone's personal opinions.
2) I don't give a damn about dumb opinions, and it's not my job to "educate" people that, let's be honest, don't really want to learn. The solution to stop deaths by DUIs isn't to try and convince people that they're wrong for driving drunk. The solution to stop deaths by lead poisoning isn't to try and educate consumers about the danger of lead in food.
Framing that as "hating freedom" is disengenuous. It would be nice if people did the bare minimum to not endanger lives, without requiring the force of law. Sadly, that's not always the case.
2) You just did it again - stating other people's opinions are "dumb" because they don't adhere to your personal mantra is exactly how you make other people completely disengage. Just like I'm going to do now.
You seem to think it means "I shouldn't have to think about other people's well-being because freedom." I think that's pretty callous.
I completely agree, we need to somehow get rid of all cell phones, so that people can stop with all of the distracted driving for one. Then we can make sure we force folks to eat right, exercise, and get 7-9 hours of sleep a night. No sleep, no car.
Even worse, where I live the current story is a bi-annual renewal!
I will fight this as long as I can. I dont want a dependency like that. Its a socially enforced drug abuse.
Laws exist to protect innocents from people like you.
With an R0 value of 6, you're statistically likely to infect 6 other people. Why is that acceptable to you?
Because I have been "statistically likely" to infect N other people every time I had a cold, a flu, or any number of other viruses, most of which are fatal to at least some segment of the population.
Moreover, those N other people can get vaccinated if they're worried about this particular risk. It's a great vaccine. It essentially prevents death from SARS-CoV2. If they don't, that's their choice.
Being alive is risky. You can try to eliminate all of that risk, but you will be dead long before anyone puts you in the grave.
Some of their "freedom" is now being stripped away by their vaccinated counterparts, who are growing increasingly impatient and frustrated, and who outnumber them.
This may also be selfish, but at least it's democratic.
Except for the people that are unable to get it due to a medical condition. Or unable to get it because they're too young. Or able to get it but it didn't work for them.
And then the fact that, as it spreads, it has a chance to mutate, so the more it spreads, the more we have to worry about dangerous variants.
Anyone who chooses not to get the vaccine just because "they don't want to" is putting the rest of society at risk... purely because they're selfish. As far as a lot of us are concerned, that's a pretty horrible type of person to be.
Of course, such people are welcome to not interact with the rest of society (nobody, not even other unvaccinated folks, per risk of mutation); live on farm and grow your own resources, etc. At that point, you're not putting anyone else at risk, so it's no longer selfish. However, I very much doubt many of such people, claiming "it's my body, so I can do what I want" are willing to actually follow through what's required to avoid putting _other people's bodies_ at risk.
> Of course, such people are welcome to not interact with the rest of society.
People who's bodies are at risk are free to avoid participating in society. Being sick sucks, but doesn't give you the right to force others to do medical procedures in order to protect you.
Yes, in our world, participating in society is often mandatory, and not a choice that you can make. That equally applies to people who are sick, and to the people who don't want to be forced to have things done to their body against their will.
There are many communicable diseases, and many things healthy people can be forced to do in order to protect the sick. The choice whether or not to force them is a tradeoff - safety for the society versus freedom for the individual.
People who value individual freedom more than they value safety are simply making a different tradeoff than you do. At some point, a society designed to minimize the risk at the expense of human freedoms becomes a nightmare to live in.
For example, we could significantly reduce the risk of rapes and murders (especially of vulnerable people) by forcing everyone to wear a bodycam and an ankle bracelet. We don't do that because we have decided that this is not a tradeoff worth making.
On the other hand, we did decide to reduce the risk of people dying from drunk driving, we have sacrificed our freedom to drink and drive for the sake of the safety of the other people on the road.
My point is, where you draw the line is a question of your values. Neither side is being "dumb" or "selfish". Some people value social prosperity and safety and are willing to sacrifice their (and other people's) freedoms to increase it. Others value individual rights and freedoms, and are willing to accept some risks and sacrifice some safety in order to not have these rights taken away.
Society without freedoms is better able to protect the vulnerable, and also the life in such society is less worth living.
Besides, if we go with your standards, those that can't take the vaccine would not be allowed to participate in a mandatory vaccine society anyway. So either they're forced to avoid participating, or they at least have the option to based on a personal assessment.
1. We all go a little out of our way to help those who need help (the sick, those the vaccine doesn't work for, those who cannot get the vaccine for other reasons), OR
2. Some people are selfish and only care about their own self gratification, so are unwilling to sacrifice a tiny bit to help everyone else.
I'll take the society with more 1 and push back on 2.
You're weighing guaranteed exposure to potentially unknown effects vs a non guaranteed risk of contracting the virus.
Versus a bunch of people that refuse to get the vaccine because ... they feel like they are better able to analyze the facts than those well educated people.
There was literally an interview with a woman on NPR recently who said, "I have grand children, so I'm not getting the vaccine". Like... she thought that having grand children was a reason _not_ to get the vaccine. And she followed it up with "they don't think we're smart enough to make good decisions for our families". Here's the thing; "they" are clearly correct.
I just get so frustrated by this stance of "Science and facts are propaganda; _I_ know better, because I trust my gut. The welfare of society be damned".
Yes, and that's precisely how good analysis and decision making is supposed to work. You're supposed to change your mind when the information you based your decision on changes. That's a _good_ thing.
For any given discussion, given enough people, there will always be a set of people that believe each of the possible things that _can_ be believed. We have people that believe the world is flat. However, the fact that _some_ of those people happened to believe what turned out to be true when the set of input information changed... doesn't make them smarted than everyone else. Unless they were basing their conclusions on a known and defensible set of arguments... it just makes them randomly lucky. You can have a watch to tell time... then ignore it and say it's always 12pm. When it happens to get to 12pm, you'll be right. But you'll still be stupid.
There's nothing stupid about rejecting "expert consensus" when the data backing the experts doesn't exist.
Most people are healthy enough to beat flu, coronaviruses, strep infections, etc. etc. etc. Most people are "good enough" immune-system wise, and are not at all a risk to anybody.
With your argument standing on the foundation of choice of vaccine+no death vs no vaccine+death, why are you accepting of the fact that lower vaccination rates has a non-trivial chance to strip away the individual choice of life or death of themselves and their loved ones?
I don't know a lot of things.
I don't know that I won't die in my sleep. I don't know if I won't walk out the door tomorrow morning and get hit by a taxi. I don't know that I won't get botulism and die from a bad pickle. I don't that I won't choke on that pickle. I don't know if the next SARS variant isn't festering in some pile of bat poop in a Cave in Kunming right now. I don't know that I won't end 2021 in a hospital, dying from some cancer that hasn't yet been diagnosed.
Life is risky. On the spectrum of "things I don't know but worry about", the third-order effects of someone else's personal decisions is pretty far down the list.
...in fact, this risk is way below the risk that other people seem to be actively trying to take away my freedoms on a daily basis, because they're scared of what "might" happen, and want everyone else to live according to their rules.
But yeah, I'm pretty comfortable with my level of protection from SARS-CoV2.
Just because you're the one smoking, doesn't mean that second hand smoke is harmless.
Well let me at least put your mind at ease here. The high vinegar content means getting botulism from a pickle is extremely unlikely.
Allowing the virus to propagate freely is asking for trouble in the form of mutations as well. If it had been possible to inoculate the majority of the population in India, for example, we probably wouldn't be dealing with the delta variant right now.
Edit: if a single assertion above is wrong, please reply with citations, and we'll all be that much better-informed for it. Downvoting something that's objectively correct just because it disagrees with your political agenda is the weakest of weak sauce.
If that's true, there's no reason to think that we understand 100% of the long term effects of the novel vaccines for this bug.
When it costs us virtually nothing to do the right thing, though, I don't see how the precautionary principle applies. Usually we see that principle come up in arguments over nuclear power, large-scale environmental projects, major technological paradigm shifts, or medical therapies with a real potential for harm. It just doesn't seem to be in play here. Wear a mask in public, exercise reasonable social distancing practices when possible, and get vaccinated with something that has already been used successfully over a billion times. Is that really asking so much?
OK, understood. It's good to see where people are coming from on this subject, even when disagreeing.
The good news is (assuming that they're not immune compromised in a way that would make them vulnerable to a panoply of other viruses) they're at essentially no risk from Covid. The data on this is unassailable:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28041775
The far bigger risk to children, at this point, is panicky parents doing things that negatively impact their psychological well-being.
https://www.phe.gov/emergency/events/COVID19/COVIDvaccinator...
“Following the money”, it would seem neither the industry nor the Government share your sanguine view on the vaccines. It would be easy enough to revoke the legal immunity now…it’s been nearly a year and a half since COVID was introduced into US, it’s not the emergency it was in the beginning. Yet I think it is still in place.
If the COVID vaccines are so good, why the failure to accept the typical financial liability that comes with every other medical intervention? There’s a difference between being an anti-vaxxer and an anti-inject-stuff-in-my-arm-without-professional-liability-er. Those who “follow the money” in such things would have reason to be skeptical.
We are nowhere near all people in a population being susceptible to infection with the vaccine rollout (and the people that are susceptible, it's their choice.)
What is effective R with the mRNA vaccines?
What we do know is that vaccinated people seem to be getting COVID Delta and spreading it to close contacts: but that's a self-selecting the sample too - people who are getting vaccinated are also vastly more likely to take adequate precautions if they get infected.
I can try to understand the other side, but please do the same. Pretty much everyone has been disappointed by humanity this year, and we’re all feeling roughly the same emotions even though we have radically different worldviews.
And to point your point back at you, please re-read my post as someone who is trying to understand them. I honestly have no freaking clue why you think otherwise, other than the fact that I disagree with them. I literally asked them a question so that I can understand them better!
You may have convinced yourself that this is true, but I don’t believe it. Your comment was mostly passive-aggressive rhetorical sniping:
> Okay, so then you die. Nihilism is your choice, so that's cool I guess. But your post is about you, and only you, fullstop. There are other people out there, despite whatever solipsistic beliefs you have.
And the “question” you ask at the end reads like just another attack:
> Why is that acceptable to you?
You gotta understand, friend.. what I think is at stake here are the lives of the people that I love. With that in mind, the seemingly callous disregard of even their own loved ones is... a difficult thing to parse. So again, please try to read my words from the perspective of someone who's desperately frustrated, and at least attempting to figure out why someone is explicitly okay with knowing that their actions will get others killed.
And note that the limit can't be 0. Real life always involves some risk.
Mandating an unapproved novel 'vaccine' while removing all responsibility from the manufacturers for the side effects is extremely reckless toward others.
What do we do now? Do we need to fight a war to decide who gets things their way? There won’t be any real winners in such an event.
Worst possible case regardless of likelihood is not a good metric. I'll bet the average drunk driver, and indeed the average sober driver, causes many more deaths than the average unvaxed unmasked person in a post-vaccination world.
In the 2 years of covid we have had 4.25 million deaths with still 90% us and 97% of the rest of the world left to catch it.
You only need a unmasked person to have an R value 1.64 times higher than a vaxed/masked for the proportional deaths to not reach parity even with 90% people vacinated.
That's completely ignoring the fact that driving is actually a productive activity with a goal. Where as most of the reasons people give for not wearing a mask are either easily debunked or work just as well as a retort to someone asking you "why are you continuously punching yourself?".
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...
And most antivaxers and the unmasked are welfare cases with nothing to do but look at reddit, and so are a burden on the state and a direct cost to me as a taxpayer even when there isn't a pandemic. Hey, maybe this will work out great in the end.
And how many of those were of fully vaccinated people?
Also the dynamics of how far any given infection would spread are very different in a post-vaccination world.
I'll admit something. I happen to love driving twice the speed limit after a few drinks. Feels great. And I indulge that sometimes on country roads when there's no one around. I know I'm a better driver after a few beers than most people are sober. If it were up to me, there would be a test, and a rating on my license that let me drive with a higher BAC than other people. But you know what? My personal pleasure isn't worth the damage of taking someone's life, or of entitling everyone else in society to do the same. So, on the whole, it's obviously better that it's illegal. Even though it infringes on my personal freedom and pursuit of happiness.
It’s not about you. It’s never about you. There are plenty of people who cannot legitimately get vaccinated. Since these people have no choice to get the vaccine, then your rights to choose for yourself are rightly curtailed.
I’m always curious about these arguments. Why do you think your rights are superior to the rights of others?
I see it as on par with indoor smoking bans and seatbelts. You are giving up a relatively small degree of freedom in order to stop a highly contagious, highly mutable virus; and yes, to protect people who aren't you.
A vaccine that also has a known chance of causing current harm, and an unknown chance of causing future harm.
Nothing is free. How much did pharma companies make from the vaccine? I don’t know the answer.
It's just become "a thing" now thanks to the rightwing using it as another way to aggravate their base, and thanks to "experts" who have an internet connection and think they know more than epidemiologists.
Unless these steps are taken this will never end and the daily hassles will be worse and go on longer for everyone.
Are you saying that the greater good in overall societal health is less valuable than your individual preferred method of existence? Genuinely curious.
(There's a stronger argument for refusing a vaccine being an absolute right)
If I run a private public space I shouldn’t (and can’t) discriminate arbitrarily on who can enter.
So if I don't like what your t-shirt says, that's all it takes.
And for instance, Walmart doesn't have to open to the public tomorrow just because they opened to the public today.
Please explain further what that means.
Also please explain how setting restrictions on use of the space based on conduct, such as being vaccinated or not, is more arbitrary than, say, a dress code.
You actually can. It might help the discussion for you to tell us where you picked up this idea.
> Tolerating disease spread and threats to vulnerable populations when vaccines are available that are practically risk-free (or the risk being magnitudes smaller than the payoff) is ridiculous
Those are very different justifications with very different policy implications, it is best not to conflate the two.
If breakthrough variants was the major concern (and it should have been) vaccine rollout should have been fast in addition to very high percentages, and vaccinated/unvaccinated population mix should have been minimized with policy. Anything less gives the perfect arena for evolutionary algorithm to learn its way around the vaccine immunity.
Second issue is the fading immunity of current vaccines in comparison to natural immunity. Vaccines got disproportionate attention and funding at the expense of covid treatment bets, which would have helped with developing higher natural immunity levels. To what degree conflicts of interests due to EUA play in this, we don’t know. But once booster shots enter the “mandatory” territory, that will cause an additional drop in compliance. How many boosters can we really mandate, for how many years?
We’re not talking about the total vaccination rate; it is a matter of how diffuse or concentrated it had to be for a particular locale to minimize variant training. Obviously it brings up questions of fairness thus was avoided by politicians.
> Vaccination is going as fast as possible, and policy was implemented to minimize all mixing of people, not just Vax/unvax.
It was a lofty aspiration but wasn’t/hasn’t been good enough. We could have had different levels of strictness from the beginning when lifting lockdowns, instead of going a full open and betting on a no variant scenario, instead of now with too late of an attempt, which will anger people and won’t be likely to work well.
It makes the case that previously infected individuals do not need to be prioritised for vaccination, not that natural immunity is better than vaccine driven immunity.
Perhaps you shared the wrong paper?
"Conclusions: Individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination, and vaccines can be safely prioritized to those who have not been infected before."
You can prioritize those who have not been infected before BECAUSE those who HAVE been infected are unlikely to see a benefit in vaccinating to begin with.
Like, I'm academically interested in this, and I know how easy it is to share the wrong paper, hence my final comment.
The idea that “if we all got vaccinated, we could have zero variants” reeks of “zero COVID” thinking
It's really that simple. We want as few active infections as possible globally so that existing vaccinations can work for the variants they were made in mind with. Otherwise we will be at the disadvantage in a perpetual arms race trying to quickly stamp out the global "fires" of new variants.
Unless we could magically get the cases to zero this problem isn’t going away. Mask mandates will slow things, but eventually you’ll need enough people to actually get infected to drop the replication rate.
Evolution is incremental. To become vaccine evading, the virus has to have a host it can replicate it, and a host that is a resistant target.
In fact it needs a big pool of them, since once infected develop immunity they no longer produce trial mutations.
So you need a pool of the unvaccinated, coming into frequently, regular contact with the vaccinated in order for any specific vaccine escape to evolve.
This is because, any incremental improvement needs to become a population dominant strain within the unvaccinated population: that you survived in a vaccinated person for a little bit is irrelevant if at the end of the day every virus with that trait dies without spreading.
Even if you successfully do spread from a vaccinated host, you need to either land in another vaccinated host (who then spreads you around: so isolation measures are effective), and while you're doing this you need to develop a better escape system: not guaranteed, because if overall viral loading or time to immunity is shorter, that's less time to generate variants.
But...a good way to optimize this, is to just spread to a pool of unvaccinated people. With luck you retain the vaccine-escape mutations, become dominant within the unvaccinated pool, and then get lots of opportunities to try and infect vaccinated people and get a little further.
This, incidentally, why viral evolution tends to consist of "the virus jumped between species several times" - because crossing a species barrier requires ongoing persistent contact between a host you can replicate it, and one you're trying to cross over into.
If that is happening, and the R0 from vaccinated to vaccinated is above 1, aren't we creating immense evolutionary pressure to defeat the current vaccines?
Can you please explain more?
Why can't both hosts A and B both be vaccinated folks?
Is'nt there a 3rd category - those who have immunity via past infection? How do it work in that case?
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If what you say above is correct, then why do we see new strains in flu?
Has'nt pretty much every person on earth been exposed to flu or vaccinated against it?
If 1 vaccinated person infects another say 3, but then those people fail to infect anyone else - then it doesn't actually matter what selective advantages that viral strain had - 100% of the virus has died out.
But if the same chain terminates in the vaccinated people then infecting an unvaccinated person...then the new mutation escapes and potentially becomes dominant within the reservoir (unvaccinated people) and a failure to spread through the vaccinated population doesn't lead to the destruction of the mutant strain.
the next question is what happens to those with acquired immunity, and why are they being forced to be vaccinated?
I see many studies that show that their levels of antibodies seem to be even better than ones from the vaccines.
Given enough time, a virus will tend evolve to become more infectious period.
Somebody else could confirm this, but it seems to me that the current known variants of concern are not responses to vaccination.
Or how the flu hits every single year.
Right from wikipedia.
Epidemiology as a field did not publish papers or study the idea of "natural" herd immunity till last year when politicians started throwing the term around and a whole lot of researcher's scrambled to see whether this insanity had any merit.
Of which the answer is what we already knew just spelled out more specifically: no, this doesn't actually happen in the wild without vaccines, because it's literally just spreading the virus. Viruses burn themselves out after infecting basically everyone, provided immunity is long lasting.
'Zero covid' or near-zero covid anyway does not 'reek' because it is perfectly attainable. The virus could be squashed pretty much completely. The fact that we cannot do it is the result of institutionalized failure, resignation and normalization of dysfunction, not actually a matter of fact.
We have in fact eradicated one highly transmittable, airborne virus through a global vaccination effort already, namely smallpox. And that was almost half a century ago.
Exactly. It was half a century ago when the global population was half what it is today and travel (especially international) was massively lower as well. Also Smallpox had a much lower mutation rate than COVID does, and it's not transmissable until obvious symptoms develop (much different than COVID). Thinking the same strategy would work today is kind of a pipe dream.
In Korea, we tried, succeeded for a couple of weeks, then failed.
This is historical evidences that covid viruses in humans evolve to become relatively benign, likely this happens faster if we let it kill more people more quickly, but, well, modern medicine. So what will it take for the current covid variant to reach this state - we'll need it to evolve a benign version that out competes the current covid-delta .
A benign version of a virus that out competes its more lethal cousins is something that we also call a "live vaccine".
So why shouldn't we help it along? if we know it's going to happen naturally why not make it happen faster? past attempts to generate live vaccines have mostly worked but have not always gone well, but they were made with technologies that essentially consisted of whacking them with a mallet and hoping they would stay dead - the mRNA vaccines are much more like engineering. Why not take an existing relatively benign vaccine and fit it out with a protein coat similar enough to C19 and release that?
Obviously this is not something one would do blindly, it would require lots of testing, especially with immunocompromised people. And testing (without releasing it early) would be hard - tested people would need to remain in lockdown.
Of course the crazy anti-vaxxers would scream bloody blue murder - but given that their current propaganda already paints the current vaccines as "live vaccines" and warns people to stay away from the vaccinated that horse would seem to have already bolted
People here pretend that if only USA was 100% vaccinated, then there will not be another variant.
There will always be another part of the world where a variant will arise, and eventually make its way here to the US.
OTOH, the USA is unique in the freedom it offers compared to any other country in the world, and a key ingredient in my opinion to its success.
One of the most shocking aspects to me is how the US citizens have changed to so nonchalantly willing to give away their freedoms and those of their neighbours.
I would not have believed if someone told me this 2 years ago.
And in the past years, I had often wondered about the 'good' Germans during the time of the Nazis, and why they did'nt first lift a finger when the atrocities against the Jews started, and later, a good number of them actively participated in elimination of the Jews.
the last year has been quite an eye opener. My hope is that more US citizens, regardless of their political persuasions and belief about the vaccines step back and think about the uniqueness of the freedoms they enjoy, and their willingness to throw it all away.
The mindset of fear that is inculcated that pits one group against another is the similarity that starts it off.
1940s Germany: Germans were convinced that Jews were the outer, not deserving of protection
20th century communism, too many examples - China, Russia, Cambodia, etc : Different classes - writers, teachers, scientists were identified as the outer group, and hate was inculcated
Today's scenario: the 'unvaccinated' are made as the other group.
Choosing not to be vaccinated is not an immutable characteristic. It’s a behavioural choice and a better analogy would be choosing to drink and drive – behaviour that is rightly frowned upon by most of society.
There is no one that argues that 'drinking and driving' is good for anyone at all.
OTOH, regarding vaccines, there are so many different human conditions, side effects and issues seen with vaccines that it is fair to be skeptical.
The other big factor is the time that has elapsed, and different folks have different levels of comfort.
All of this being brushed aside - to identify a group of folks to crush -- is the evil being discussed.
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that they are immutable or not is quibbling, in my opinion.
Using the Khmer Rouge, the system decapitated the intellectuals not because they are learned, but because they had the ability to think and decide for themselves.
Now, in the US, I argue, that people who chose to think differently are being targeted, with the carrot being provided that they can change...
Is this not coercion? There is a line between persuasion and coercion, and very clearly, it has been crossed.
We have already decided as a society that individual choice outranks the cost to the health system. See obesity, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, workaholic culture with very limited vacation days, etc
Do you honestly think they will dismantle it one day? Especially if Apple is making it so easy for them.
For the record, no I don't think I should have to present my ID to get a Metrocard or ride a train. I do think that is oppressive. Because by that point they will have intruded into our lives way too much.
NY state has been encroaching for years. They have been fantasizing about a "no ride" list for Amtrak.
And many officials have invited the TSA and ICE to set up surprise mobile checkpoints for commuters at bus terminals.
All under the justification of protecting us from terrorism.
This is just the thin edge of a wedge to expand their control over us. And yes, most of them do want more power and money, and our civil liberties stand in the way of that.
[1]: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/train-security-is-a-no-ride-lis... [2]: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/tsa-swarms-8000...
You reply : But the threat is so great that such is justified.
I have heard this dialog before.
No. No. No. No. No.
Why is this so hard for people to understand? A virus doesn't just enter your body, and quietly go away. In MANY cases, it can have a lasting effect on your underlying health and wellness. This isn't a point of question, it's a known FACT that is all too often left out of the discussion entirely.
I am vaccinated. I have friends who are vaccinated, and have still gotten COVID. One of them still doesn't have their sense of taste and smell back, after nearly 3 weeks post symptoms. They describe being brain fog, and tiredness that they didn't have before, as well as an "itch" in their lungs when exercising that they didn't have before.
There's absolutely no reason to say things like "hysterical fixation on cases". Bringing cases down means LESS LIVES LOST and less HEALTH lost.
> Why is this so hard for people to understand?
I understand your argument, but I disagree with you, based on a long education in this area, a deep understanding of the data, and personal experience.
> A virus doesn't just enter your body, and quietly go away.
Some do not. This one does.
> In MANY cases, it can have a lasting effect on your underlying health and wellness.
In some, rare cases, we see examples of post-viral syndromes. We have seen these for many different viruses.
> I am vaccinated. I have friends who are vaccinated, and have still gotten COVID. One of them still doesn't have their sense of taste and smell back, after nearly 3 weeks post symptoms.
Again, lingering symptoms following an illness are not unknown. Every time I get a head cold, I typically develop a cough that lasts > 3 weeks. By ~all current evidentiary standards for "long covid", I have had "long cold".
Similarly, my grandmother lost her sense of smell to a head cold when I was a child. She never got it back, entirely. Sad, but not something that we took extraordinary societal interventions to prevent.
> They describe being brain fog, and tiredness that they didn't have before, as well as an "itch" in their lungs when exercising that they didn't have before.
Neither of these are objectively defined. I have an "itch" in my lungs, right now (probably allergies). I have never had Covid. When I don't sleep well (which is often, thanks to the state of our society), I have trouble focusing. Is that "brain fog"?
Point being: some people are going to have after-effects from infection. That's unfortunate, but it's not unknown, and the virus isn't going away. If the choice is to completely up-end our society to prevent people from ever getting sick again, then I'm strongly opposed.
I am sure you believe what you are saying, and I am also not doubting that you have some education on the topic, but I have to disagree.
Take for example, this study [1] demonstrating significant loss of grey matter in the brain for COVID patients, both hospitalized and non-hospitalized.
As our understanding of virology evolves it is becoming more and more clear that the notion of ephemeral infections is just flat out incorrect. You likely maintain SOME impact from that infection, its just a question of how severe, or in some cases WHEN (see: chicken pox -> shingles). Viruses wreak havoc, and that is a point which is well documented, and slowly but surely people are starting to pay attention.
My gripe with your comment is that it completely disregards this point and treats the risk of viruses and either death, or no risk at all. The truth is far more nuanced than that, and there's legitimate reasons to want overall CASE COUNT to come down. It's about saving quality of life, including, actual life. Vaccination is the path to do that.
I also don't agree with your comment that "If the choice is to completely up-end our society to prevent people from ever getting sick again, then I'm strongly opposed."
Asking for proof of vaccination is not "completely up-ending" our society. It's quite reasonable to ask for certain personal hygiene requirements (shirts, shoes, etc.) but we can't ask that someone be reasonably protected from a getting and spreading a very dangerous virus? You're somehow OK with being required to wear clothes, which provide almost no protection from anything, but not OK with being asked to show that you're an unlikely COVID carrier/spreader?
[1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.11.21258690v...
Reasonable people can disagree on questions like this. But you came out of the gate insisting that I "didn't understand", which isn't true.
I understand, I just disagree that this is a disproportionate threat to our society that requires disproportionate response.
> Take for example, this study [1] demonstrating significant loss of grey matter in the brain for COVID patients, both hospitalized and non-hospitalized.
FWIW, that study is terrible. It is a statistical fishing expedition, is improperly controlled (i.e. are the changes due to Covid, or something else? You can't tell!), and the whole field of "looking at MRI for reductions in gray matter" is littered with spurious findings. Here's a comment where I go into this in much greater detail:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27927568
> As our understanding of virology evolves it is becoming more and more clear that the notion of ephemeral infections is just flat out incorrect.
It's not "flat out incorrect"...as I said before, we know that post-viral syndromes are real. This is not new information.
Having a cough or shortness of breath (by FAR the most common "long covid" symptoms) after a infection are no more an indication that the virus is lingering in your body, than leg pain after a cast is removed is an indication that you continue to have a broken leg. It takes time to heal.
I see where you're coming from and I don't entirely disagree with your conclusion. The post you linked, makes a strong case for not jumping to conclusions based on grey matter studies, which I think is sound advice.
That said, I maintain that given the option to get COVID or not get COVID, I would greatly prefer the later. You similarly won't find me gaming long hours, and I make sure to get plenty of sleep. In other words, taking precautions that avoid injury is generally a good idea. And FWIW, I don't find the controls in that study to be terrible? I'm not exactly an authority of statistical analysis though, so I'll trust that this is outside my scope of understanding.
Where it sounds like we disagree most is whether or not the risk of COVID causing injury is worth something as small (or large) as asking for proof of vaccination.
It just so happens that I think asking for proof of vaccination is a relatively minor thing given the possibilities of COVID.
This is why the CDC started recommending masks again.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-administr...
[1]https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm?s_cid=mm...
https://inguyun.medium.com/the-provincetown-outbreak-is-actu...
The new data for the delta variant shows reduced protection for unvaccinated people (e.g. public benefit) from being around vaccinated people, but still shows benefit to vaccinated people.
Edit: note, I’ve seen your other link, and do wonder why that was observed for that community. Here I am referring to current CDC estimates for the country and reports of hospital utilization averages overall.
That's awesome for you, but not what we are discussing here.
What we are discussing here is you mandating that all drivers of cars gets to bed by 10PM and have a good sleep, on the chance that lack of sleep leads to bad driving which leads to higher chances of accidents, including to those who slept well last night, yet were involved in the accident.
>What we are discussing here is you mandating that all drivers of cars gets to bed by 10PM and have a good sleep, on the chance that lack of sleep leads to bad driving which leads to higher chances of accidents, including to those who slept well last night, yet were involved in the accident
Not even close to the reality of the situation, but you wouldn't be the first to take a very hyperbolic approach to it.
We are not disagreeing on the benefits of a practice ( vaccination or taking a nap ).
And let me be clear, taking a shot that is safe and effective is not an unreasonable ask. Restricting access to leisure to people who are willing to take this precaution isn’t unreasonable. And no, it’s in no way comparable to some of the worst crimes committed by humans.
For the record, I'm fully vaccinated, but if/when bars start demanding vaccine passports in the UK, I stop going to bars.
It seems like an inappropriate and needlessly emotive choice.
> they will have to go sit in a park
Seems fine to me. That’s hardly the worst thing that could happen.
If you’re already vaccinated, like nearly everyone aged 30+ in the UK is and refuse to open an app on your phone to show that … I can only hope that you’re in a small minority. I guess most people just want to get on with it, rather than sticking to some principle. Im not even sure what the principle is here. Hardly anyone will be negatively affected by this mandate because nearly everyone is vaccinated.
> i stop going to bars
Cool. Parks are better for your health anyway. Good day.
And refused entry to a bar I wouldn't dream of going to the park, I head home with two bottles of decent white wine.
Good day to you too.
> that principle is a hostility to ID cards and demands from the state to provide them in various circumstances
Can't a bartender legally obligate you to show your id to prove you are old enough to drink? Your argument makes no sense.
Or let me guess, you don’t travel out of England at all so you can avoid the tyranny of passport checkers?
Or do you do the sane thing and show your passport? So then you concede that in certain cases at least the State has a compelling interest in verifying a person’s papers.
Btw, it's beneath you to try an innocent "some eggs". We know exactly what Tesco is going to card someone for, and it's not eggs.
Both sides are doing it - left considers the entire right-wing populace as 'Fascists'. The right considers the entire left-wing populace as 'Communists' and along with it comes calling out atrocities, historical turning points, etc to further their agenda.
There are more post-vax deaths recorded in VAERS for the covid vaccines over the past 6 months than for all other vaccines over the past 20 years. It's definitely not 100% safe. Sure the risk is low, but the risk of dying of covid is also quite low for a significant subset of the population. There's also absolutely zero long-term safety data on the vaccines, because it's impossible to know what the effects 3-5 years down the line of a new treatment will be when that treatment's only existed for under a year.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/ad...
“FDA requires healthcare providers to report any death after COVID-19 vaccination to VAERS, even if it’s unclear whether the vaccine was the cause. Reports of adverse events to VAERS following vaccination, including deaths, do not necessarily mean that a vaccine caused a health problem. A review of available clinical information, including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records, has not established a causal link to COVID-19 vaccines.”
Now, think about how broadly the vaccines have been given to hundreds of millions of people. Beyond the obvious conclusion that there is very little chance of a hidden serious complication which hadn’t yet manifested at that scale, think about how compressed that is in timing: if you take 100M people and look at that population for 6 months you’re going to see many deaths with or without vaccination. Now, remember that the elderly and other high risk populations were sensibly prioritized, so those rates will be even higher. Anyone looking at the data has to carefully adjust for things like that – it’s not just a query for the number of deaths but seeing whether it’s unusual for the cohort: are 70 year olds with pre-existing conditions dying at a different rate than they used to, not compared to a global rate covering kids to retirees?
The vaccines are available free to everyone, take minimal time to get, and extremely safe. This is an inconvenience on the level of having to wear pants on a hot day or wash your hands (which takes far more time in aggregate), and it’s only for voluntary activities which nobody needs to do to function.
Apartheid was being shut out of decent schools or jobs, packed into bad housing conditions, and being beaten if you complained about it, all enforced by a brutal prison system.
"The American College of Rheumatology COVID-19 Vaccine Clinical Guidance recommends that people with autoimmune and inflammatory rheumatic disease (which includes lupus) get the vaccine unless they have an allergy to an ingredient in the vaccine."
and
"In general, you should get the vaccine even if you have already had COVID-19."
Let's be clear: the primary reason the messaging has been "previously infected people should still get the vaccine" is primarily because there are a lot of people out there that think they had COVID when they didn't. I had a friend who thought he had it twice, and then finally did get it on the third time. I had another friend think he got it back in February of last year and then actually got it late last year. They're both relatively intelligent (if not ignorant about certain things), and that's just in my little friend group.
I understand why they went down that road, but there's no reason for me to take it.
That has absolutely nothing to do with what was just being discussed. There is hard data which says COVID has a huge range of long term side effects, that’s simply a fact you can personally feel it’s an acceptable risk but nothing about your personal beliefs change the reality of long term impacts of severe viral infections.
I personally feel that the US has given people long enough to get vaccinated it’s time to open the floodgates of infection and open things up. Yes, the unvaccinated and many vaccinated will simply get very sick and die in large large numbers based on their personal choices, but such is life.
I expect most people will disagree with my personal options and that’s fine, but don’t argue about objective facts.
Unrelated but important: I think a lot of people miss that this pandemic has infected millions of people, so all of the one in a million events happen with enough frequency to where you will find significant proportions of the population displaying ever symptom you could imagine "due to COVID".
We had a woman who started hemorrhaging a week into her infection. Do you think that was caused by COVID? Probably not, but I'd bet you could find a thousand people where that happened just because of the sheer size of infections.
If you can cite this "hard data", it'll be amongst the first I've ever seen.
So far, all I've seen are anecdotes and poorly controlled surveys of self-reported symptoms, the vast majority of which are mild. Reports of "cough" and "fatigue", three weeks after a respiratory illness are not exceptional, they're the expected case.
Just today, this paper was published in a Lancet journal, looking at symptom duration in a large cohort (259k) of children under 17. The most enduring symptoms? Loss of smell, headache, sore throat and fatigue. Virtually everything else fell to background in a week.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4...
I bring it up not because it’s a significant risk, but as a demonstration that immune responses themselves are one of the risk factors associated with viral infections. Critically though there are a lot of rare conditions that individually may not be a factor but collectively are.
Hospital-acquired infections for example aren’t directly caused by covid, but start talking about 100’s of thousands of people being hospitalized and it’s a common risk.
As to that study, people under 17 aren’t even close to representative of the larger population when it comes to viral infections. It’s an important consideration but people 35-44 while generally considered low risk are literally at 100 times the risk of death as 4-14 year olds. Youthful immune systems are simply vastly better.
37 cases of "covid-associated" GBS falls in the category of "lighting strike risks" in life. Yeah, it can happen, but it's pretty damned rare. I'm not changing my life for it.
Also, of course...GBS is associated with at least one of the covid vaccines, itself:
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/guillain-barre-syndrome-a...
Next, what about hospital born infections? Clearly people who aren’t in hospitals are at lower risk and clearly people are hospitalized in large numbers from Covid-19. So is that another slightly larger step you’re willing to take?
If not we can talk about tissue damage. Blood vessels for example: https://epi.ufl.edu/articles/covid-19-blood-vessel-damage.ht...
I've never said anything different. I'm not sure what victory you think you've won.
Some people will have long-term symptoms of Covid. Just like pretty much every other virus.
Until I see some serious, well-controlled, high-quality data that shows me that there's an unprecedented risk for a lot of people, I'm not on board with taking unprecedented actions that affect everyone.
You just said so in this thread:
“ > A virus doesn't just enter your body, and quietly go away.
Some do not. This one does.”
No qualifications just absolute dismissal of all long term symptoms.
> Until I see some serious, well-controlled, high-quality data that shows me there’s an unprecedented risk for a lot of people
Sure, because the only evidence you can infer is that which you already agree with. Raising the bar arbitrarily isn’t science it’s a logical fallacy.
However, the exact data you’re asking for is quite simply hospitalization rates. Severe cases of covid include the normal risks of severe viral infections, but it causes severe infections at significantly higher rates thus it also causes those normal complications at much higher rates. Along with it’s own unusual risks from blood clots causing all the things blood clots cause.
What kind of evidence would convince you?
Bear in mind (as I'm sure you know), it's gonna be very difficult to get accurate before and afters while in the midst of a pandemic, and it's likely that this evidence will only exist if enough people don't get one of the vaccines.
Those who are unvaccinated because they're immuno-compromised, allergic or under the age of twelve aren't unvaccinated due a "personal choice."
What should be done about those folks? Are you arguing that such people have "made their choice?"
People under 12 with healthy immune systems are at extremely low risks from covid.
I'm sure that's a great comfort to the parents of the ~2000 children that have died COVID related deaths[0] in the US during the pandemic.
And to the parents of the children who will die before we get this scourge under control.
Perhaps you should volunteer to speak at the funerals of such children so you can assure everyone there that it's no big deal?
[0] https://www.aappublications.org/news/2020/12/29/covid-2milli...
Kids with compromised immune systems are at risk, and there at increased risk the longer this goes on. Are you willing to talk at the funerals of all those kids?
Also, your link is: At least 172 children had died as of Dec. not 2,000.
I'm not claiming that it's no big deal, nor am I advocating for just letting people die as you are.
Or did I somehow misunderstand your point of view?
Regarding the specific case, to make my position even more nuanced, I don’t have a specific problem with having to prove vaccination or positive test for indoor dining. Here in Berlin that’s the rule they used when reopening last May, and it never went away. This way, nobody has ever really debated it.
So natural immunity should be included then? I hear all these arguments but then people pretend like natural immunity is not a thing. Sure maybe it isn’t as effective as a vaccine (though some argue it is better), but it definitely makes you at least unlikely to spread.
I might believe this isn’t just a huge power grab and people are actually concerned with the health of individuals, if folks would acknowledge “the science” of natural immunity.
Saying it isn’t as good as vaccine means nothing, because we are only trying to eliminate more likely spreaders, not any statistical chance of spreading.
As the events of April-July 2021 proved, the new variant ripped through a population that was supposed to have reached herd immunity. As it stands, 80%+ of people in major Indian cities have had an infection. Does that mean that covid will never bother India again? I’m guessing no.
I am literally working with vaccination registry APIs right now which have an explicit system for registering and tracking natural immunity.
I will never report someone for violating a vaccine mandate, or a mask mandate. Or if they forge their vaccine card.
If they are knowingly sick, going out with a fever, and a cough in public places and essentially trying to get people sick, I will report them. Even if they’ve been vaccinated but “just” had the Flu.
And that person exists by the way. People who essentially knew they had covid, were feeling symptoms, yet went to a party anyways. But I’m sure there is the person who proudly goes out with their vaccination card showing both doses sick with something else like the flu, judging those who have no symptoms of sickness but aren’t vaccinated also being out.
Why? This is basically you doing something random for absolutely no data supported reason.
So if the requirement is to have be received a full vaccine course for COVID-19 there is no risk to that, just potential waste of doses.
Making up a decision about your natural immunity is you doing exactly that. It's not supported by data.
The trouble is, how do you prove it? There are antibody tests that maybe are positive even months later? I'm not sure, honestly. The tricky part is just the recording of the matter, not the science behind it.
How does someone know that even though I’m vaccinated I’m one of the very very small few who will have a breakthrough infection?
We could probably do things to ensure these as well, but at what point do we just say “yep there is a risk”, and accept that risk as part of living life?
I think there is a part where the principalities and powers that rule, actually want us to get so angry and divided.
That is why things are forced, and mandated, rather than appealed to. One side gets mad that they ask, the other side doesn’t give a chance for the good natured to help voluntarily.
There is no conspiracy of people plotting in a room coming up with how they can gain more power to take over the world (unless they’re two mice trying to do same thing night after night), but nonetheless there is a spirit of division and hatred that is very much present in our country that is tearing us apart.
Totally agree.
> There is no conspiracy of people plotting in a room coming up with how they can gain more power to take over the world (unless they’re two mice trying to do same thing night after night), but nonetheless there is a spirit of division and hatred that is very much present in our country that is tearing us apart.
Yup, there sure is and it's really disheartening to watch it unfold day after day. The country seems more divided than I've ever seen it in my 30ish years, and certainly more divided than rose colored glasses of past decades.
It's a shame but, maybe it's also a sign of healthy country? Maybe united countries are also the ones that go to war and invade others?
Where's the data? I didn't see a single source listed, just anecdotes from you and your family.
Even my own taste issues might be something else - the only reason I’m confident they’re there is that it’s intermittent and takes me by surprise. I have two friends that think their sense of taste isn’t quite the same as it was and it’s steadily that way, which to me sounds like it could just be all in their heads (or not).
[1] Imaging data has also physically confirmed lasting damage from COVID which could definitely be affiliated with some of the symptoms we lump under PASC.
In an alternate universe where the media took and ran with the 5G conspiracy theory for over a year, you could survey the population and find the same amount had symptoms from that.
I'm arguing that most of the science here is bad, and even if these things hold up, the risk of ~10% of the population having anosmia for a few months is not worth the permanent restructuring of our society to fixate on the prevention of a single illness.
I don't think the fear is about 10% ending up with anosmia. The fear is that the 10% of detectable problems might be indicative of much more severe and/or much more prevalent problems going undetected. You're right that the problem is lack of very good data, but the folks who live and breathe this domain appear to be very concerned by the data we do have.
For what it's worth, I don't think many (any?) people are arguing for a permanent restructuring of our society. They're merely asking that we don't consider death to be the only endpoint that's relevant to the conversation.
Citation needed for such an extraordinary claim.
If you don’t mind, could you share data on the UK, a place where nearly all adults aged 30+ have received two doses of the vaccine? It simplifies the discussion because there’s no question about self selection bias. If there’s any negative effects, it should surely have manifested in a large subset of this group of tens of millions of people, across ages and ethnicities.
Not just a handful of cases here or there. I’m talking about 0.01% or more of this population suffering some persistent harm. Not something that disappeared after a day or two.
That long Covid is a pernicious result for many people with debilitating effects is well established in the literature, it's not controversial.
That refusing to get the virus under control will lead to further variants potentially worse than Delta that perhaps the vaccines are less able to guard against. Not some crazy conspiracy!
What this is ultimately about is many of our fellow citizens believe "my choice" and "freedom" means the "freedom" to infect other people with a potentially debilitating virus rather than they be mildly inconvenienced.
Measles R0 is also something absurd like 15, with spread characteristics of "a person with measles goes in an elevator - the next day a person gets in the same elevator and catches it".
I imagine it would be pretty easy for someone not used to dealing with gastritis on a regular basis to attribute such a symptom to "COVID".
Cough & Shortness of breath: allergies, asthma, typical recovery process from any cold or flu
Fatigue: depression, anxiety, insomnia, recovery from most illness
Brain fog (whatever that is): depression, anxiety, insomnia, recovery from illness...
It's not that "long covid" isn't real...it's just that the scientific data for it at present are so vague that you can "have" it by being a normal person.
Just a heads-up, that can turn into asthma if you are susceptible. Take care to properly heal every time.
(That'd be 'long cold' I guess. We don't need more of that stuff.)
(It's not hard to guess how I know about the asthma potential. -.-)
They didn't say that "Long COVID" symptoms aren't real. They just stated that this particular virus disappears after some time, that is once your immune system manages to cope with it and the infection clears out.
This statement is emphatically true. Otherwise, antigen and PCR tests would still yield positive results months after someone became infected.
An example of a virus not simply disappearing from your body anymore once you're infected with it would be HIV.
http://farid.jalali.one/MCAS_COVID.pdf?fbclid=IwAR08nCA9isig...
I stand by my comment, it does not “quietly” go away.
By the standards you yourself set two posts above, we cannot know that yet.
I'm all for re-opening businesses and promoting vaccinations. We have to get back to living our lives. I'm just tired of the idea people seem to have that it's entirely about lives.
Yes, probably everyone gets exposed to the virus in the future, but we can decide how quickly. Every month later means we might get vaccines which protect close to perfection, that we find better medication or at least better understand what Covid-19 is all causing and can treat better. Also, with any additional infection the risk of another significant mutation increases. Even with current vaccines, with a high enough vaccination rate any outbreaks should be much smaller and more localized. This does make a difference.
Mandatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/2448/
Sorry if this is a lot of questions, I do think it's valuable to address this with actual models and supporting data.
vaccinated people get covid and spread it like unvaccinated[1]. Then what is the point of vaccination mandate? I really don't understand.
Add to that that since May CDC stopped counting breakthrough cases which don't result in hospitalizations.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/30/cdc-study-shows-74percent-of...
"About three-fourths of people infected in a Massachusetts Covid-19 outbreak were fully vaccinated, according to new data published Friday by the CDC.
The new data, published in the U.S. agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, also found that fully vaccinated people who get infected carry as much of the virus in their nose as unvaccinated people. "
[1] https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/cdc_date_media_coverage_...
I found that while reading daily news from AllSides[2], as recommended in a recent HN thread. I really like it so far. [2] https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news
Whereis if you compare the CNBC link i posted with the official CDC report linked below you'll find no screwed up nor mis-interpretation on the part of CNBC (though CNBC didn't mention the 69% vaccination coverage and obvious correlation with the observed 74% share of infections). And the CDC report is crystal clear:
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm
"During July 2021, 469 cases of COVID-19 associated with multiple summer events and large public gatherings in a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, were identified among Massachusetts residents; vaccination coverage among eligible Massachusetts residents was 69%. Approximately three quarters (346; 74%) of cases occurred in fully vaccinated persons"
It's an incredibly small sample size, directly after an unusual event after very large indoor public gathering of many people.
This is not how science works.
Apparently the answer is that they're a third as likely to have it as the unvaccinated. Which certainly isn't nothing, and it's definitely better than the flu vaccine managed, but it does suggest that there's probably no way we're going to stop the spread of the Delta variant through any level of vaccination no matter what the US media claims. It also means that any hope of avoiding selective pressure for vaccine escape by just vaccinating people quickly enough is likely to prove futile. We also don't really have any special exemptions or privileges for vaccinated people yet outside of laxer requirements for international travel, so that wouldn't explain why the gap is so small.
(Incidentally, the "quick peak and decline in countries with high levels of vaccination" like the UK almost certainly isn't simply a result of vaccines working, despite the CJR article's attempt to spin it that way. All our experts over here seem to be in agreement that not only are the vaccines not effective enough to explain that, it just doesn't make sense to have such a sudden peak and decline as a result of our vaccination program - which has actually been slowing down as it runs out of willing recipients - or from natural immunity in combination with it. They reckon it must be caused in part by people's behaviour, and if we return to normal or autumn hits cases will go up again.)
In the week ending 07/31 MA was getting about 600/day, 200 of them are vaccinated. The number of vaccinated are 4.2M out of 7.1M. Thus according to that data the probability for a vaccinated is just under 40% of unvaccinated.
Giving that Delta is several times more virulent the current situation can be thought that way - the vaccinated facing Delta today is like unvaccinated facing original year ago (year ago totally unvaccinated MA had 400-500/day, and if MA was totally vaccinated today, 7.1M instead of 4.2M, it would as result be 350cases/day instead of the 200). I.e. these numbers also suggest that there is no good way to stop the spread until Delta capable vaccine comes.
That also highlights the propaganda spin of "just 125K breakthroughs out of 160M vaccinated since January", the widely tweeted 0.08% (especially giving that CDC hasn't been counting non-hospitalizations breakthroughs since May, and that number seems definitely incorrect as MA having 2.5% of vaccinated has 7K total breakthroughs - almost 6% of 125K) - the Delta is pretty recent and the total number isn't the point, the point is the current infection rate of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Mg6NEp4iKcSR1O8l47bL...
The source for the data is linked in spreadsheet. You can copy/paste the link in google translate.
Imgur links of relevant translated data: https://imgur.com/a/uV2wP5B
This clearly shows a significant portion of the new cases are among the vaccinated.
Anecdotally, those I know who have "breakthrough" cases are having fairly moderate flu-like symptoms. I am quite confident those who are symptomatic are capable of spreading illness even if the vaccinated as a population are less likely to transmit disease.
>nothing anywhere close to this has been shown in any other country.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07/29/cdc-mask-gu...
"This echoes data seen from studies in other countries, including highly vaccinated Singapore, where 75 percent of new infections reportedly occur in people who are partially and fully vaccinated."
Y'see in SCIENCE we have this generally stated principle that we don't draw empirical conclusions from a dataset of a few hundred observations.
How banal!
"This echoes data seen from studies in other countries, including highly vaccinated Singapore, where 75 percent of new infections reportedly occur in people who are partially and fully vaccinated."
This does absolutely nothing to back up your claim that vaccinated people are just as likely to spread the Delta variant.
But please ask for help next time you move those goalposts, I wouldn't want you hurting yourself.
the statistics would disagree with you on how representative a random draw of several hundred would be in this situation. Anyway, just an example related to the situation - Moderna stage 2 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7871769/):
"Between 29 May and 8 July 2020, 600 participants were randomized, 300 per age cohort. [...]
Conclusions
Vaccination with mRNA-1273 resulted in significant immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 in participants 18 years and older, with an acceptable safety profile, confirming the safety and immunogenicity of 50 and 100 µg mRNA-1273 given as a 2 dose-regimen. "
>This does absolutely nothing to back up your claim that vaccinated people are just as likely to spread the Delta variant.
beside obvious statistical arithmetic clearly showing it (whihc i guess is pointless to discuss giving your statistics statements above), you probably missed the part about nasal viral content in vaccinated people being similar to that of unvaccinated and hint - this infection is airborne. This is why CDC introduced mask mandate for everybody.
And you can read this too https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...
"The higher the amount of coronavirus in the nose and throat, the more likely the patient will infect others. In one Wisconsin county, after Delta became predominant, researchers analyzed viral loads on nose-and-throat swab samples obtained when patients were first diagnosed. They found similar viral loads in vaccinated and unvaccinated patients, with levels often high enough to allow shedding of infectious virus. "
The observations in your original citation were NOT NOT NOT a random sample.
Are you really this deeply ignorant of basic statistical methods or are you just being dishonest?
The point is to greatly reduce your chance going into ICU. Trust me, nobody like the intubation. Physicians don't like it, patients hate it.
This kind of attitude turns people away from wanting to engage with you, even if your idea has merit.
> There's absolutely no reason to say things like "hysterical fixation on cases". Bringing cases down means LESS LIVES LOST and less HEALTH lost.
It's naive to think that some people want more lives lost. That's the goal of everyone. In the same way, you're asking people to understand your perspective, try to keep an open mind, and understand the perspective of others. Even if you're correct, the only way to help is to understand the root of why some people are hesitant.
I'm obviously pro vaccines (in general) and are vaccinated for covid, but I'm also pro informed decision making, which from my perspective is very lacking (in some contexts) and very simplistic (summarized into TikTok-style videos and "cute" guitar songs) in others. There is of course valuable information out there but it's very difficult to find and is mostly lost in the ocean of influencer-driven media, turning science into MTV style top 10 countdowns. I happen to very rarely watch TV or news related to Covid from any source other than Sweden's official organizations, and I'm very happy with their information. I also noticed that it's very different in cadence from what I usually read people trying to say anywhere [1] (contrary to generic Swedish media for example, which follows the American example mostly). I believe this is one of the main reasons we have 40% fully vaccinated and ~60% with at least one shot). And there's no noticeable animosity or friction between vaccinated or unvaccinated people. There are also very few masks going around (mostly older people and 1 out of 100 young people I see).
From what I understand, scientists doing the research are working very hard on this, and they are still not 100% clear on all the details. It's naive to dismiss side-effects no matter how rare they are, and even more dangerous to dismiss fears of people. When you say "everyone must get vaccinated whether they understand or not" you're not aiding those people who are hesitant (regardless of why). Just the other day I watched a supercut of different "officials" some saying people can "top-off" with a second jab from another kind of vaccine while others saying that it's extremely wrong to do so. Similar to how the whole mask thing changed over time (and even now again with the new variants). This is all to say that difference of opinion and understanding is not only expected, but it's inevitable. You can't eliminate it, you can only face it and discuss it openly.
1: https://www.1177.se/Stockholm/sjukdomar--besvar/lungor-och-l...
They'd might want to look into the I-RECOVER Protocol for treating Long COVID:
https://covid19criticalcare.com/covid-19-protocols/i-recover...
https://youtu.be/ZCYM2HW2Ayw?t=321
Also there's emerging data suggesting Long COVID symptoms are being triggered by the reactivation of the Epstein Barr Virus.
Literally not true. Kids under 12 are not able to be vaccinated, which puts a limit on the activities they and their families can do. If they're able to know that everyone inside a restaurant is vaccinated they'll be more likely to visit.
> It might well lead to anger and violence (as similar moves have across Europe).
Not really. There were some minor protests and then an untick in vaccination rate. As someone living in NYC right now I really can't see this being met with violence.
This policy is also hysterical, and not based in science. Kids should not be under any restrictions due to SARS-CoV2.
Please see my comment from yesterday as to why I believe this is true:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28041775
(Aside: I generally feel that the FDA is on the right side of history by being exceptionally careful with approval of the vaccine for children, but arguments like the parent's -- I hear this a lot in different contexts -- do sometimes make me wish that they'd just make an extremely limited approval so that the most fearful 5% of people can force it upon their children and stop holding the rest of the world hostage.)
To be clear, as a parent, it's not because I'm fearful, it's because a positive COVID test from any child in my kid's school means that it shuts down for two weeks, completely messing up our lives, jobs etc. I'm not going to defend that policy for a second as I don't think it's a good idea either, but it's what we're dealing with day in, day out. We're not hysterical fearmongers.
Completely agreed. This is a stupid, hysterical policy, and we should all be against it. I include it with my previous comment that children should face no restrictions from SARS-CoV2. What we've done to kids in the last year is so unethical that it makes me furious.
I don't mean to imply that you specifically, are hysterical, but this stuff is coming from a group of people who are operating based on fear and lack knowledge. And unfortunately, a great many of them are in positions of power.
All the young people have given away a year of their lives to "save grandma"... and now, the government wants them to give up another year, because few grandmas don't want to get vaccinated.
Since the vaccines are available to everyone, and enough time has passed, that everyone has had the chance to get vaccinated, then i have no moral issues if a few people die, because they took the risk, and lost the statistics game.
and before you say "kick the covid patients to the curb," morals aside do you really think that's politically feasible?
This comes full circle on the "show your papers" issue, but at least in this scenario showing papers is directly aligning cause and effect regarding death.
I really think there's a good chance it would be received OK. I think vaccinated people are sick of the shit from the other half or 40% and I think the unvaccaniated think they're immune to everything. I think they're happy taking their chances or w/e
How do you set that restrictions to adults are OK because we want to protect them, but for kids aren't? Those restrictions then kind of become pointless, don't they? Older people also want to see their grandkids desperately, I think that's a simple fact of life.
So unless I am reading it wrong, folks are annoyed because suddenly they have to take care of their kids for 2 weeks. I know I had a rough week+something when I was WFH and caring for our son whose kindergarden got closed due to covid (and he brought it home as we found almost a week later). But fuck, I've managed and it brought me closer to my son, juggling tons of conf calls and so can almost everybody else for few weeks. Its just a work, on all calls in past year there have been kids yelling in the background, sometimes mine too. It is actually properly cool to hear how those voices have their lives running in the background.
Its true that those who physically have to be present at work (like my wife, doctor) had tougher times if kindergardens locked down and no solution in sight. But the amount of couples where both parents were in same situation is properly miniscule, mostly folks that complain don't fall there. Its folks who had their convenient busy lives suddenly messed up a bit and had to fully focus on their closest ones and found out proper parenting 24/7 is hard.
Society doesn't have an easy coping mechanism for this since we don't have robot nannies immune to viruses. That sucks, and will suck. Minor obstacle that builds character and family bonds I'd say.
No, children are almost entirely safe from Covid. Don't exaggerate the risk.
> but then its almost guaranteed parents and everybody else in household will get it.
...and they can get vaccinated, and they will face the approximate risk profile of a cold or flu.
Look, it's like I said: there are people who are going to be at continued risk from this. That's unfortunate, but it's no different than any other virus we've lived with throughout human civilization. At this point, we're proposing extraordinary interventions to head off an ordinary level of risk.
The science behind COVID-19 is evolving, I see new information in the news every day that changes how I see this disease (usually for the worse, though not always). To simply assume children are safe and propose a policy of mass infection is extremely short sighted in my opinion.
I'm still undecided re: mandates as this is correctly viewed as a massive authoritarian extension of government power domestically on top of the 9/11 restrictions that never went away (it is already completely tyrannical abroad). However, for a reasonable society (not ours) I believe COVID-19, especially the Delta strain, presents a level of population risk that the consideration of such measures is warranted.
This society has little respect for the lives of teachers and staff that have to do the job of caring for kids so that parents can have time to work. I hoped that people would come away from the experience with a little bit of growth knowing how difficult it is to do childcare 24/7, but of course the entitlement knows no bounds.
My point is to put pressure on the people in power, not to blindly follow and then just mutter under your breath that you’re mad. They do not give a single crap if people are mad unless their power is threatened. Stand up for yourselves for crying out loud.
This is why I argue with some fellow libertarians on the idea of private company vaccine mandates. There's a place for it, such as this. Restaurants could differentiate this way. Different people have different needs. A government level mandate like this is insane.
If unvax’d people represent such a risk to others in your judgment, you should not be part of putting unvax’d people in your own party into that situation.
(For context, I’m pro-vax, got vax’d literally the first day I was eligible, and have a kid under 12 that I can hardly wait until they’re eligible. I’m against any vax passport scheme that even theoretically allows tracking/correlation of my identity/location if shown to a party intent on tracking me.)
That would be false.
https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/he/hn/immunization.asp
which points to
https://www.shotsforschool.org/child-care/
https://www.shotsforschool.org/7th-grade/
https://www.shotsforschool.org/k-12/
And then there's
https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-8-part-b-chapter-...
Pointing out that children must be vaccinated against viruses that disproportionately harm children in order to participate in public education is true, but irrelevant to the question. Pointing out that we require certain vaccinations of immigrants is true, but irrelevant to the question.
(Not for nothing: we require immigrants to pass a citizenship test and a background check, too. If the standard is "anything that is OK for US immigration is OK for going to Chick-Fil-A", then we're going to have to disagree...)
Indeed, instead there used to be mandatory, involuntary quarantine enforcement, sometimes (typhus, polio) on a per-household basis with the enforcement notice posted prominently on the front door. That restricted not only restaurants and beach visits but all visits of any kind.
It's almost like people are arguing "we did {restrictive policy} once, so any form of restriction is of the same form!"
I mean...hell: we had slavery once. So maybe let's set aside the idea that prior infringements of individual liberty justify future infringements of individual liberty?
https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/us-supreme-court-a...
The background was a polio outbreak in MA around 1905, with something like a 30% mortality among all age groups.
We are back to 1905, but now its not 30% that is at the issue, but some decimal to the right of zero.
How would the logistics of forced vaccination go down, anyway? Do you think people wouldn't forge their vaccine papers, bribe doctors or otherwise get them to be sympathetic, or otherwise circumvent/ignore the system/rules in order to avoid the vaccine?
As stated elsewhere in this thread, it is not going to be possible to stop the virus at this point. We will all eventually be exposed and the best we can do is be as safe as we believe we need to be and can.
as soon as authorities announce a potential paper requirement , the literal next day there are touts selling the paper.
I’m not sure why the misconception that freedom is absolute in the US is so widespread.
Further reading:
https://regs.health.ny.gov/volume-title-10/content/section-2...
We should want to be in the same world for COVID. I'm sorry, but I don't see why I should have to risk getting COVID when there is a perfectly safe, free vaccine, that if delivered to enough of the population, will allow us to achieve herd immunity. The risks of long COVID are real. You're either imposing a very safe vaccine on people, or a somewhat dangerous illness on them, it seems very obvious the best option is to impose the vaccine.
It's not very safe; there have been more adverse events reported in VAERS following the covid vaccines than in the past 20 years for all other vaccines. And unlike all those other vaccines, there's absolutely zero long-term safety data, because it's impossible to know the effects 3-5 years in future of a novel treatment that's only existed for one year.
However...
Death 5,191 1.25%
Life Threatening 7,110 1.72%
Permanent Disability 6,103 1.47%
Congenital Anomaly / Birth Defect 232 0.06%
Hospitalized 23,990 5.79%
Existing Hospitalization Prolonged 228 0.06%
Emergency Room 58,335 14.08%
Office Visit 84,704 20.44%
None of the above 274,035 66.14%
Further, there are limitations to the conclusions that you can draw from VAERS:
"VAERS accepts reports of adverse events and reactions that occur following vaccination. Healthcare providers, vaccine manufacturers, and the public can submit reports to VAERS. While very important in monitoring vaccine safety, VAERS reports alone cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event or illness. The reports may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable. Most reports to VAERS are voluntary, which means they are subject to biases. This creates specific limitations on how the data can be used scientifically. Data from VAERS reports should always be interpreted with these limitations in mind."
If someone gets a vaccination and is then run over by a bus, that can be reported as a "Death". Additionally, given the politicization of COVID vaccines, I think we can expect that there is a strong bias towards reporting events. The COVID vaccines have a number of common side effects (mine were almost as bad as those of my shingles vaccination), which may explain some of the excess.
But fundamentally, the VAERS data simply cannot be used to determine whether or not a vaccine is unsafe.
On the other hand, consider: There have been 349,000,000 doses administered, with about 428,000 events reported, meaning that 0.12% of doses result in an event and 0.04% result in an event involving health care. I ride a motorcycle. I would be overjoyed at those kinds of safety odds.
What alternative do I have for going to the beach - and outdoor space? What alternative does the private gym owner/operator have?
These steps are not the same as your examples.
>>> Your children don't need to go to a public school, or daycare. You can home school if you're so opposed to these things.
"you do not need to use public goods, you can stop using public goods and substitute them with private goods that you provision yourself"
>>> what alternative do I have for going to the beach - and outdoor space?
"how dare you challenge my use of public goods, I have no alternatives and this is an imposition on my rights as a citizen"
For real though, in your self consistent thought framework the obvious obligation you have is to buy your own bit of beach or private park.
Why would we punish the vaccinated, and children, for a minority unvaccinated population? A population that largely (entirely?) puts their own self at risk and no other individual that has taken steps to protect themselves from the virus.
Vaccines (in the US at least) are free to anyone that wants one at this point. It's been that way for months. If someone doesn't have a vaccine, it's because they chose to not get one - and therefore take on the risk of becoming ill or death. That's their problem... not children's problem or vaccinated people's problem.
We're doing all this to protect a population that's actively resisting your protection.
With all that said, let's get back to normal here. People who don't want vaccines aren't going to get them even if you made it the law... be realistic.
Children have a very non-zero infection rate while they do have effectively a zero death rate (no actual information on "complications").
Regardless, the people who do get sick, typically get only midly-so, and rarely (statistically 0) experience serious complications or death.
Therefore, my initial conclusion that the risk for children is near zero stands.
I don't like restrictions in general, but I do prioritize these two things in a certain way.
We're trying to protect people that don't want protection. Time to move on and get back to normal.
The fear, paranoia and mistrust around vaccinations against COVID is not normal. "Just let nature take its course" isn't normal, at least not in the modern history of civil societies.
Short of going door-to-door with guys with guns and body armor, forcefully pinning down people and jabbing them with vaccine - nothing you (or anyone) does will convince people to get a vaccine if they've decided at this point they do not want it for whatever their reasons may be.
So... go about your business as usual. Stop trying to protect people that refuse your protection. It's wasted effort, and hurts everyone else that is already vaccinated.
You can deny people entry to various places contingent on vaccination, which is what a lot of places are doing now. You may not be able to convince people to get vaccinated for their own sake or the sake of the health of their neighbors, but way more people will choose being able to go to work, school or the bar over staying unvaccinated.
I chose "getting a student loan" over "not registering for the draft" and I was both terrified of getting drafted and morally opposed to killing, as much as any 18 year old can be.
No guns, no goonsquads, just pile on the headaches and most people will find themselves to get vaccinated regardless of their own doubts, beliefs or prior declarations.
Not to mention turning every business into some sort of citizen police is a very weird concept in the US.
Schools already check vaccination status for other diseases during enrollment.
Workplaces already check immigration status for all employees.
There will always be non-compliance; there are always a few bars that don't check IDs or accept obvious fakes. But most won't risk losing their liquor licenses.
There are a lot of "what if"s in the world, and in public policy in particular. What if no one pays their taxes? What if a state legislature overrides the popular vote of their electorate in a Presidential election? What if the President orders a nuclear first strike and the military doesn't follow the order?
While all of these questions are interesting, for the most part we can get by without having any answers to them. Why borrow trouble worrying about something that may never happen?
What if workplaces mandate vaccines, what if schools, if bars and ballparks and theaters, and we still don't reach the 90-95% thresholds needed to contain the more virulent viruses?
Well, something else will happen. Maybe we give up. Maybe we try other coercions. Maybe the combination of vaccination rates and post-infection immunity will be high enough that the entire question is moot.
Because doing so is a one way road to more extreme, totalitarian measures next time there's a disagreement about public policy (and next time, perhaps you find yourself on the "wrong side").
Because covid won't be a thing forever, and sacrificing core values of your nation for temporary gain is foolhardy.
Because, again, the people you're trying to protect with these extreme, totalitarian measures don't want your protection and statistically will turn out just fine anyway.
Even this would not work (at least in America), because there's a heavy overlap between the unvaccinated and gun owners, and they vastly outnumber whatever police force would be attempting to enforce the vaccination.
Umm... no. They spread fear, uncertainty and doubt (and COVID) at every opportunity, they consider themselves on a crusade against vaccination and the vaccinated. Society is under no obligation to let dangerous fools remain comfortable in their foolishness.
Except they don't. The people who are vaccinated aren't afraid, uncertain or in any doubt. Nor can they contract COVID from unvaccinated people - otherwise what would be the point of the vaccine anyway?
> they consider themselves on a crusade
Who cares? Why do you care what some other people think? If you're vaccinated, their choices literally have zero impact on you.
> Society is under no obligation to let dangerous fools remain comfortable in their foolishness
Last I checked, we were talking about the US... so ya, they are allowed to be foolish, particularly since the only people they are potentially harming is themselves.
So... what is your plan? Are we storming people's houses with armed men to forcefully vaccinate people that don't want it? Or are we just sitting on some high horse?
I'll tell you who's spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt - it's the very same people making these arguments. Get a vaccine - or else! But you'll still need to wear a mask - or two - and quarantine at home and be careful who you're around because the COVID will get you regardless.
It's complete poppycock. Given those choices, why would someone want to vaccinate if literally nothing about their life improves afterwards?
I think what we have here is an intolerance for other people's choices... and a desire to compel people into submission of what some other people believe is the "right way". Both sides are guilty of willfully ignoring facts when convenient... so who's right? Good thing we're in the US and don't have to care - both can be wrong and go about their business without bothering each other.
It's not now, but it was as i know people who suffered from delayed treatment. As well my aunts a nurse and covid was hell for her, i'd rather she not go through that again because people think they are too good to get the vaccine and turn it into a political issue.
You’ve got this part backwards, if I’m reading this correctly. You must adhere to public health mandates to send a child to public school. If you choose not to abide, then you can opt to send your kid to a private school.
Source: deparment of health
They have about 75% vaccinated I think (a mix of just about all the vaccines available anywhere) and there is no mask mandate nor proof-of-vaccine mandate as of a few weeks ago. (Airport might be an exception, I haven’t been.). Interestingly it is also against the law to require anyone to NOT wear a mask — and I see about one person in 10 with a mask on the tram, usually none in the shops.
Border controls to neighbor countries are very light so there isn’t really anything preventing the unvaccinated or for that matter infected from entering the country.
I have no idea how this will turn out, I personally expect a big new wave among the unvaxxed in Europe after the summer, but if you’re curious what happens with an implicit policy of leaving the unvaccinated to their fate, keep an eye on Hungary, especially when the cold drives everyone indoors around October.
(And there were a LOT of restrictions before the vaccination rate went up, but unlike Germany nobody was out protesting against them.)
Completely false. There's several groups that might want the vaccine that can't get it. Including: children and the immuno compromised.
32 kids were hospitalized in one week in Alabama last month. A state with half the population of NYC.
https://www.al.com/coronavirus/2021/07/infant-among-children...
Are you referring to the mRNA vaccine? If so, source for this? I see lots of articles that question whether the vaccines are as effective for immuno compromised people, but none that say they shouldn't take the mRNA vaccine. In fact, I see many studies testing the efficacy of mRNA vaccines for immuno-compromised people, which would seem to indicate we think it's safe. I only know one immuno-compromised person, and she got the vaccine.
Like I said, there's practically no data on the mRNA side, particularly with how "immunocompromised" is a very broad term meaning many different underlying issues. Most of the data I've seen is focused on the efficacy rates, rather than safety from complications. IMO it's fair that immunocompromised individuals want to wait a bit when it comes to an entirely new form of vaccine.
The non mRNA vaccines obviously have potential issues for the kinds of people that could die from even a normal flu.
Let me explain something to you guys, we worked through each "wave" and didn't really care. We were not "forced" to work. It was never a big deal.
The whole "woe is the working class during Covid" was just an excuse for neurotic professional class workers to WFH.
How is this not understood?
Vaccines should only be used for targeted at-risk population. Everyone else should strive for natural immunity.
> How is this not understood?
The same way vaccines create selection pressure, so does natural immunity. Letting people get infected instead of vaccinating them actually makes the dice roll much more, as in orders of magnitude more.
Just look how most of the variants of concern, and mainly delta, appeared before any significant vaccine rollout, and further, delta shows high rates of reinfection vs. infection of vaccinated people.
Only vaccinating those at-risk will keep this going and going for God knows how long, and regularly overcrowding hospitals with very corageous freedom fighters.
Just get your shot instead of playing armchair epidemiologist.
The vaccine doesn’t keep people from spreading delta because it’s not a sterilizing vaccine[1][2]. It’s strange there was that big concern over asymptotic spread and the response was to administer an intervention that greatly increases asymptotic cases.
> instead of playing armchair epidemiologist.
You might want to take your own advice here.
[1] https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-c...
[2] https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/02/02/1017161/covid-va...
You can calculate different (average case) scenarios yourself with % needed to be vaccinated = (1 - 1/R0) for a sterilizing vaccine and add an adjustment factor for the vaccine efficacy. It's not pretty...
Edit: Here's a nice slide deck elaborating[2].
[1] https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou...
[2] http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~denis/epi/edinburgh11/talks/Pellis...
Nobody was assuring anything. It won't get it below R0 by itself, parent comment already told you. It's the combination of seatbelt, airbag, while not speeding, drinking, smoking or talking on the phone what keeps people relatively safe on the road, not any single of those elements.
> R0 can stay >1 with 100% vaccination if the pathogen is contagious enough and the vaccine is leaky enough.
Yes. That's why the epidemiological consensus is for vaccinated people to keep wearing masks, particularly indoors.
> There is a very real chance that we're going to look back on delta fondly if a Marek's disease type scenario unfolds
Excuse me from what I'm going to say, but the Marek comparison is an antivax favourite from the gross misunderstanding that you seem to share with them.
The Marek scenario is the result of imperfect vaccination, plus the massification of the poultry industry, plus the fact that infected chickens can carry and transmit the disease for life, including those vaccinated, which is absolutely not the case with COVID-19.
The disease existed before, but outbreaks were relatively local and self contained.
Now, from the second half of the 20th century it started being a major concern with the industrialization of farming. With a vaccine that keeps chickens from having complications or dying, but not from shedding virions for life, all while living on top of each other 100% of their lives, sure, you reach enough selection pressure to make the disease evolve for the worse.
COVID-19 vaccines may let you be contagious for a few days, then the infection eventually clears, and the density of our dwellings is orders of magnitude lower.
> Then again that's pretty much optimal for big pharma if they have a vaccine that's effective against a hypothetical omega strain that will reliably kill or maim the unvaccinated.
Yeah, this goes deeper into tinfoil hat territory. I'd just like to say that interestingly most of big pharma failed to produce vaccines and have been there largely to give the manufacturing power to the small research groups and small/new biotech companies that actually created them.
Luckily there are dozens of vaccines from all around the world by now, I think competition will do the rest.
There's still no reason to believe that adding mask wearing to a leaky vaccine will reduce R0 below one. We'll probably find out though since we're running a huge, albeit uncontrolled, phase 3 clinical trial right now.
We do know on the other hand that a sterilizing vaccine can guarantee herd immunity on its own with vaccination levels well below 100%.
> Excuse me from what I'm going to say, but the Marek comparison is an antivax favourite from the gross misunderstanding that you seem to share with them.
If I were an anti-vaxxer why would I be advocating a (sterilizing) vaccine? And that kind of passive aggressive insult is a common habit of the kind of midwit who vastly overestimates his own intelligence, but let's not waste time on ad hominems shall we? I simply gave the Marek scenario as conclusive proof that imperfect vaccines can select for increasingly lethal variants. It serves as a kind of limit case where everything is maximally unfavorable. Now the question of concern is can similar viral selection occur when some of the variables, such as infection duration of vaccinated individuals, are different. We cannot conclusively answer in the negative with the data we have, so a tail risk exists.
> Yeah, this goes deeper into tinfoil hat territory.
No, it goes further into considering tail risk scenarios, which is something that most people are reliably bad at.
> Luckily there are dozens of vaccines from all around the world by now, I think competition will do the rest.
I will be greatly reassured when competition creates a sterilizing vaccine that eradicates SARS-CoV-2.
I've already had covid in 2020 and recently had another antibody test which still showed a strong response...
> Some monoclonal antibodies, including bamlanivimab, lost their ability to bind to the spike protein and no longer neutralized the Delta variant. We also showed that the Delta variant is less sensitive to sera from naturally immunized individuals.
> In individuals who had not previously been infected with SARS-CoV-2, a single dose of either the Pfizer or the AstraZeneca vaccine induced a barely detectable level of neutralizing antibodies against the Delta variant. About 10% of the sera neutralized this variant. However, a two-dose regimen generated high sero-neutralization levels against the Alpha, Beta and Delta variants in individuals sampled at week 8 to week 16 after vaccination. [0]
Leave the armchair, get your booster shot.
"Leaky vaccines" result in catastrophic situations like Marek's disease.
Against the original Alpha perhaps. However Delta effectiveness is nowhere near 90%...this is precisely the reason for the push for boosters.
We don't have precise data about the required level of antibodies to stay healthy yet and in quite a few countries the infection rates are currently high enough to pose a real risk for vaccinated patients in the vulnerable group. The safe play is to give booster shots to keep the immune response at its best.
[1] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2108891
[edit] I'm sure with more data that number might change up or down a little, but it seems in line with other findings.
Those populations are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves, and don't need you to do it for them. You have an opinion, don't dress it up in someone else's situation.
The current leading population for vaccination rate in Alabama is the band of majority black districts (and subsequently case numbers have gone down and down and down) there.
You know what those populations are at risk from? Crippling hospital debt from contracting preventable diseases being spread by people pushing antivax nonsense and who do not take preventative measures. And being shot at their jobs when asking those people to wear masks on private property, for some reason.
His point was not speaking for minorities.
This is a good faith explanation with no data to support it. These are the same populations most likely to ignore all sorts of laws, rules, etc. I grew up in a trailer park, and the culture was one of die hard defiance to all forms of authority, no matter the cost, or how trivial the guidance/rules. I saw this same cultural trait at play in the inner city when I lived in DC as well.
The reality is that there are several dysfunctional cultures in the US, across multiple ethnic groups including my moron family, that are pathologically opposed to obeying any form of authority. They tend to also be highly fatalistic, have high teen pregnancy rates, high crime rates, etc. And although they are almost always poor, many other cultural groups in the US that are equally poor don't have these issues. Again, my family, and my relatives fall into this category. And so do the urban unvaccinated. Trailer parks and ghettos have more in common than you think.
I say this because you're hitting on a point that is going to really undermine NYC government:
A group of politicians who assume that unequal outcomes are driven by systemic racism are going to run headlong into a law that is going to disproportionately prevent Black and Latino New Yorkers from accessing businesses and restaurants. They are desperately going to continue with a narrative that absolves them of personal responsibility, and continue making the vaccine easier to access.
It's not going to work, and they will get rid of this as soon as they can, rather than go against their own systemic racism narrative.
People who are still opposed to getting vaccinated, versus simply apathetic, are probably never going to be convinced. These measures should encourage the apathetic. For the others, it's cutting losses and hoping it encourages quarantine--whether that be staying home or moving. (Being unvaccinated upstate or in Tennessee is less problematic than being unvaccinated in Manhattan.)
If we take the promise of mRNA platforms at face value, we are heading into an increasingly disease-free future with a strong minority self selecting affliction. I imagine we'll see more debates of this form if e.g. there is a population that is inoculated against Covid, most STDs, the flu, et cetera; and one that is not.
There are immuno-compromised people who can't get the vaccine for health reasons. By accepting a lack of herd immunity you are throwing those people under the bus. If you are worried about impacts on minority populations then this is something you surely must be considering.
That's the reality. This is endemic and is grouped with the collection of other infections that are going to be around a lot longer than HN (eg latent Tuberculosis infections in around 20% of the global pop).
If cases keep rising I don't see any reason why hospitalizations and deaths won't follow. Unless the delta variant is less dangerous or treatments have improved tremendously.
So, the options are 1)Stop indoor dining 2)Accept the public health implications or 3) Require vaccinations for high risk activities. I feel like option 3 imposes the least harm.
Yes, they are. In NYC, 73% of adults over 65 are fully vaccinated, and 77% have had at least one dose:
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data-vaccines.p...
You're cherry-picking regions of low vaccination, but ignoring the overall metrics.
The local demographics don't matter unless there's a serious impact on the hospitals. That's why we started down this road, remember? It wasn't to eliminate death.
> I don't dine indoors because the vaccination rate in my neighborhood is 39%.
Are you vaccinated? If you are, you're worrying about something that is irrelevant to you. Avoiding restaurants because other people made a different choice is silly.
> And, while I'm probably not going to the hospital knowing that I might put one of my unvaccinated neighbors in there matters to me.
Ever had a head cold or the flu? You've put an elderly person at risk. Sorry, but it's true.
You can never eliminate this kind of risk. If your standard is "I must never present a risk to anyone else, ever" then you're going to have a really difficult life. You can live that way if you like, but don't force it on me.
They already have. Hospitalization rates have multiplied by a factor of nearly 4x from the 12,000 COVID hospitalizations in early July to the 40,000 COVID hospitalizations today in early August.
For everyone else, there are vaccines, or if they want, they can risk it without. Give priority to vaccinated patients, and you're done.
And you did not address the threat to our hospital system, which has been the number one concern for a year and a half. Surgeries are already being halted in multiple states... again. You might view it differently if it was your hospital that postponed your surgery because unvaccinated people had filled all their beds because of a preventable illness.
This was the underlying logic for the cdc to require masks once again
You mean the same people this mandate will prevent from participating in society?
You can't kill your neighbor's grandmother by bungee jumping.
https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2009/08/14/bonny-dooners-b...
… maybe for currently known variants. New ones will appear, and no one can predict if current vaccines will protect us from them. It makes sense to me that a mixed population of vaccinated and unvaccinated people interacting frequently could lead to vaccine-resistant strains. Keep wearing your masks!
In my day job, I interact with many prisons and jails both across the US and in other countries. Minority inmates reject vaccination at a rate well above White inmates, largely due to trust issues. It's a huge problem, one that's not talked about enough due to the moronic social media meme that everyone who doesn't want to get vaccinated must be a MAGA-hat-owner. This is provably incorrect.
Note that the C.O.s also largely distrust big .gov. I was just out at a facility where half of my escorts spontaneously brought up buying guns before Biden bans them (as he has indicated he wants to do — it's not a crazy notion). I've always been a skeptic, but the degree of distrust in authority has never been greater in my lifetime. It is unfortunate that this trend is costing lives.
Limited evidence suggests that the delta variant may highly contagious among vaccinated populations and that lambda may be resistant to some vaccines.
but above all, some of us have children under 12. we'd like them to be safe. we have relatives who have weakened immune systems, who are in great danger even though they are fully vaccinated. These are the people who have literally no choice between a. hide in fear for years or b. expose themselves to great danger. vaccine mandates allow these people who otherwise have no choice to be more free in the world, by asking those people who totally have a choice to please make that choice by either not entering our public spaces, or getting vaccinated.
This is factually untrue isn’t it? Children are forced to get vaccinated if they want to access the public school system in at least some parts of the US.
Except for that time doctors were given police powers to enforce quarantine during the "Spanish Flu" spikes...
The COVID hospitalization rate in NYC has doubled since the beginning of July, and it has a steep positive rate of change. On its current trajectory, COVID hospitalizations will continue to increase, and sharply.
For now...
Chile saw a big uptick in vaccination when a similar policy was implemented.
Not being vaccinated put the risk on the kids, which is unconscionable.
Get vaccinated. If you do not for other then a real medical reason you are a terrible person that might just cause the death of a young child. Fuck you.
I can't tell you how important it is to keep people who are unvaccinated away from those of us who are vaccinated.
For those that don't know, NYC has very crowded indoors situations because of the cost of real estate. We are all close together.
No sympathy whatsoever for those who refuse to get a vaccine and even offered $100 to get the vaccine.
People never have the right to infect another human being. That is just the way it is.
No "rights" supersede the right to not be infected by non-vaccinated people. None.
Must be one hell of a pandemic if that is a greater incentive than immunity.
This is demonstrably false if you actually look at hospital admissions.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vaccines-highly-effective...
Yes, but that choice does not only impact them. Being disallowed the luxury of going to restaurants and bars could be seen as a form of payment for creating that externality.
I don't believe this will have much of a net effect on vaccination rate, I believe it will disproportionately negatively impact poor and minority populations in NYC who already have a bad/mistrustful relationship with health care and government, and it is obviously a huge new governmental intrusion into our daily lives. It might well lead to anger and violence (as similar moves have across Europe).
These are my opinions, but I think the strongest arguments against it are facts: if you are fully vaccinated, you are at essentially no risk of serious illness from SARS-CoV2. And literally anyone who wants a vaccine can get one. Those who choose not to get vaccinated are making a risk calculation; they are making a choice.
This policy comes from an almost hysterical fixation on "cases", which are not a metric of any meaning. SARS-CoV2 is not going away. We should be reacting rationally to rates of hospitalization and deaths -- and right now, those are barely changed in NYC, thanks to the very high vaccination rate amongst the vulnerable population:
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data-trends.pag...
One can certainly argue that there exist small groups of people for whom the vaccine is not perfect protection. This is true, but it's no different than all other viruses, which have threatened immunocompromised people forever. We have never before justified such intrusive government policies based on the risks faced by these individuals. So while I empathize with them, this still seems like over-reach to me.