I'm vaccinated and boostered by my own choice
where does it end?
Why this mandate and not other mandates?
Who gets to decide that?
Sources:
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/how-much-of-the-populatio...
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html
They don't protect society at all. The herd immunity goal flew out the window with Delta and left the galaxy with Omicron. We will not ever eradicate Covid-19 with vaccination.
>It ends when the the threat subsides.
It should end right now, then. The threat has subsided. We have vaccines and other treatment programs.
So fix the capacity issue and your problem is solved without toxic, corrosive and highly controversial government mandates with dubious efficacy. I mean, thus far they've had 2 years to fix the "overwhelmed with COVID patients" problem so we wouldn't have to do all this. At this point it's all just excuses. What gives?
even if a government build 100 new hospitals in a state do you think they can get enough healthcare workers? at least in Chicago reagion, they are having hard time finding healthcare workers. it's not like hospitals can go to a Med school and ask for 1000 new doctors, respiratory therapists and nurses.
So… …seems like one solution, eh?
Oh please, if you want to say it's low-risk, or lower-risk than catching covid, go ahead. But don't just assert outright falsities.
To quote you: "Should the whole country pay for that", too?
Or maybe those metropolitan hospitals should say "sucks to be you", and let's just see how quickly those rural hospitals collapse under the weight.
My local ER, which is certainly not "in the most metropolitan of areas", which used to _never_ have a bed unavailable, has got to the point where ambulance crews _routinely_ (as in dozens of times, every single day) spend 2 to 6 HOURS with a patient in a hallway, "holding up a wall" (and unable to respond to calls in their community), until the ER can free a bed for them.
Anecdotal, I'm sure you'll scream. But "agenda-based sensationalism" is also entirely your opinion, too.
> The thread will never subside
Threat from diseases? No, probably not. But the threat from this virus will be manageable without us changing much.
I should have said this, but they mail it.
Tell that to the increasing number of footballers facing cardiac arrest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_association_footballer...
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1N2SL1NJ
> FIFA is not aware of a rise in episodes of cardiac arrests… and no cases have been flagged in relation to individuals receiving a COVID vaccine.
Is there any evidence the deaths you're posting about were caused by the mRNA vaccines?
I’d say it’s over when Paxlovid is available widely whenever folks catch it, which should be in a couple months.
Pazlovid reduces risk of death or hospitalization by 90%. Basically turns an unvaccinated into a vaccinated person in terms of outcomes.
I think what you mean to say is "We cannot eradicate COVID-19 with the current vaccines," but to swear off vaccines as if they can't do the work is frankly, dumb.
I know that we eradicated smallpox, but only because there are no animal hosts.
Covid has many animal hosts [0]. You'd have to vaccinate them all to eliminate covid, that includes bats, cats, dogs, primates, deer, etc.
Otherwise covid will keep evolving in animals, and jumping back into the human population, as it appears happened with omicron over the course of about a year in mice [1].
I believe that the parent you replied to is correct, we will not eradicate covid with vaccines.
[0] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/...
[1] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/covid-19-did-omicr...
Come now. I said no such thing. This is straw man.
>"We will not ever eradicate Covid-19 with vaccination" is the most small minded statement possible to make. We have eradicated so many diseases with vaccination
I suppose with a long enough time horizon we may invent some vaccine to eradicate Covid-19, the common cold, and Influenza.
We have eradicated exactly one human disease with vaccination.
The problem is that so many elected officials don't abide by the rules that they push. Joe Biden, Gavin Newsom, Nancy Pelosi, London Breed, etc. When the powerful can ignore their own rules, they're more likely to enact sweeping mandates.
The sweeping mandates are for our public health. These folks aren't asking us to mask up or vaccinate for their own benefit. And they can only sorta ignore their own rules, because aren't they being roasted in the media when they mess up? The fourth estate at work. It will affect their re-election chances.
> The problem is that so many elected officials don't abide by the rules that they push.
Hypocrisy sucks, everyone agrees. Gavin Newsom having maskless restaurant meals when asking the rest of us to stay home is wrong. But it's wrong mainly because _masking is good for public health_ and he didn't listen to the advice of the medical professionals that he was parroting, nor did he conduct himself in the way a public servant held to a higher standard should. It doesn't change that masking and staying at home _does_ help everyone, by keeping hospitals from exceeding capacity and minimizing needless death.
There will always be virtue signalers and hypocrites but let's not allow them to stand in the way of sane public health policy.
No one is asking for a higher standard.
> aren't they being roasted in the media when they mess up? The fourth estate at work
Was there any coverage in NYT/CNN/WaPo of Biden shopping maskless? I only heard about it because I happened to read some news from a right-leaning site.
> It will affect their re-election chances.
I'm pretty sure Nancy Pelosi is safe. This only affects politicians in purple districts.
I have a difficult time believing Biden does any shopping on his own.
I am.
Not a single "expert" or government official who pushed these mandates lost their income or livelihood. Many live in big houses and have the financial means to enjoy themselves regardless of their own restrictions.
In my opinion every "expert" and politician should have lost their paycheck the day they enacted this stuff. All these "work from home" people too--none of what most HN readers do is "essential" so they should have been shut down even if they could work from home. If the playing field was level, perhaps more people in positions of power would have questioned things. It takes an incredible amount of privilege to do virtually any of what we did over the last two years.
It's hard to break rules that don't exist.
> It's hard to break rules that don't exist.
Wait, what's your argument again?
I'm having a harder and harder time believing this (that herd immunity is actually possible) considering that the vaccine does nothing to stop it from spreading.
(Am vaxed and caught it, fwiw)
Completely untrue. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01575-4
And, Omicron is not Delta. Omicron is the current pandemic. Vaccines slows the spread, but keeps its R0 well into the "everyone on earth will probably get it" range.
You just skipped past their entire point, after helping build it (mandates to protect "society" indeed). Society will never be completely safe. Government has a tendency to hang on forever to powers gained during emergencies.
That used to be the estimate, however with current vaccines' limited effect on new variants and the extreme infectivity of omicron it seems likely to me that herd immunity is unachievable. At the very least 85% vaccination isn't enough.
Vaccines and booster vaccines seem to be very effective against reducing the severity of an infection though. It's not ideal but it's the best we can do for now. Well, I say 'can' but perhaps it's more accurate to say 'could'.
> The people you elect to represent you (for those of us with a democracy-like government)
The answers are not as simple as you have suggested. Problem is that there are unelected officials and scientists that are deciding these things, many of which have perverse relationships and incentives that may bias their decisions. I guess these things aren't obvious if you have blind trust in the politicians and media in power.
In Australia we're over 93% double dosed. We're also in our worst outbreak with the most deaths. What is this "heard immunity threshold" meant to do?
The vaccines aren't completely effective against transmission, so those numbers were already underestimated for the original virus. With the low efficacy against the omicron (and higher transmission rates), I don't believe any amount of vaccination alone would be enough to stop it (but AFAIK, nobody actually knows it yet).
Still, any amount of vaccination will reduce the transmission rate. What is not clear if it's enough to get it lower than 1.
The US is where it is because we have individuals willing to fight for individual rights. If casualty of individuals is the cost to keep individuality in this country then I say let it be.
The vaccinated are protected and therefore you are safe (assuming you are vaccinated). So why do you need to proselytize your doctrine on those around you? You're allowed your own opinions, chant your religious beliefs, but don't turn it into law.
You might believe a mandate might be the logical solution, and maybe by some computer models it will save the greatest number of people, but its still a breach of individual rights.
I personally believe what makes the US great isn't the number of people but the quality of people. And I'd rather give up the quantity than the quality. Sure we may end up having a higher proportion of herd people if we dont mandate and many of the individuals end up dying, but we won't have a government that can control those individuals as easily, and that's what matters most.
My point is that you have to be reasonable and draw a line somewhere between respecting people's liberties, and holding them responsible / preventing them from harming other people.
For instance, if someone wakes up with a sore throat and dry cough but does not postpone a visit to their grandparents in an old-folks home, shouldn't that person be held accountable for the danger they are putting other people in?
Not going to disagree here as that's the information I've heard as well. As someone who sees the situation from the outside however, let me tell you that you are the frog in the boiling pot. The goalpost of the claimed efficacy of the vaccine has moved almost to a point where they are barely acceptable. Again, you are the frog in the pot so it's seems okay because it was only yesterday that you were told the vaccine
> holding them responsible / preventing them from harming other people.
But you also have to draw a line between putting people who aren't sick at threat of blood related health issues including myocarditis for young men (who are not at high risk of death), and period irregularities for young women (who again are not at a high risk of death).
> if someone wakes up with a sore throat and dry cough but does not postpone a visit to their grandparents in an old-folks home, shouldn't that person be held accountable for the danger they are putting other people in?
Absolutely! The old-folks better do their due diligence to tell people they think could make them sick to stay away from them. They'd better hold other people around them accountable or else they could die!
They can also take the vaccine if they believe Dr. Fauci.
Or if they believe Joe Rogan they can acquire Ivermectin and take it along with the other drugs quick and early.
Or if they don't believe Joe Rogan but believe the doctors he talks to, they can take what the specific doctors he interviews recommends. For example, sunlight, vitamin d, and exercise, as an example.
Or if they believe Donald Trump they can take monoclonal antibodies.
Or if they believe Gwyneth Paltrow they can buy a mystical egg from goop.com.
Or if they believe Kenneth Copeland ministries they can bow down to let Jesus to exercise judgement on Covid 19.
But that's all going back to individual responsibility. You can't get the state to impose that unto the individual, because no one can guarantee who is at power in the state. To you Joe Biden might be the second coming of Christ, the protector from covid, the abolisher of student loans. To someone else he could be an lying, cheating(on his first wife), geriatric, people pleasing, pedophilic (or at least very creepy towards young girls) career politician. What if he chooses to keep in power the people who lined his pockets and I happen to disagree that their mandated drug which they profit from is the best solution to the problem? What if I don't believe Dr Fauci represents the way, the science, and the light?
Since I can guess your political leanings, and I can guess your biases, and we're coming up with theoretical possibilities, what if Joe Rogan becomes president, then mandates a treatment of "horse dewormer" based on evidence he hears from a doctor who has friends who hold patents on said horse dewormer?
Will you now be hold yourself responsible and prevent yourself from harming others by shoving a vial of horse dewormer into your good self? Then would you impose your friends and everyone they know shove a horse dewormer vial up into their good selves?
To be honest I don't know what you would do, whether you're a "submit to all authority" type, or if you're a "other side is a bad guy" type, or a "we have to fight this together type". But I know what I would say, because I'd say the exact thing I'm saying now: the state should not have that kind of power, and the individual needs to take responsibility.
What I'm getting at is that this isn't a question of health. This is an issue of state power. The health implications have no regards because the mandating of anything at that level is, by the standards upon which this country was founded upon, unconstitutional.
>
> This attitude disgusts me. Be better.
You've said absolutely nothing. The entire response was to condescend.
Many have died when people look downwards on others with disgust towards them without rationale. Just look at what hitler did to the rats he held power over. Its truly astounding narcissism to think oneself so much greater than another individual.
But what's even more selfish is imposing one's will onto another. That is narcissism.
To believe that you know better for another than he knows for himself. That's not just selfishness, thats narcissism.
> narcissism
Is "narcissism" here the choice to be an unvaccinated, unmasked spreader and therefore imposing your sickness on your community, or the imposition of public health requirements on yourself, personally?
From my previous comment:
> To believe that you know better for another than he knows for himself. That's not just selfishness, thats narcissism.
I never said "unvaccinated, unmasked spreader". You're putting words into my mouth to fit your argument. The narcissism comes from "the imposition of public health requirements", to believe one knows "better for another than he knows for himself".
> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
Obviously there is a governmental body that has the authority to do this wherever you are from. And in a democracy that governmental body will be acting based on the will of the people. Even if you disagree that the executive has that authority, the courts have the authority to interpret if they do. And the legislature ultimately has the authority to override it.
In the United States if we all voted for it we could have mandates for every single vaccine ever created. But there is barely enough political will for this one. And that's only because COVID is much more of a threat than anything else at the moment.
The politicians we elect democratically makes the decisions.
Did your local government actually hire large numbers of new permanent employees to administer this? This is (a) rather unlikely and (b) very much something you can check.
You can write entire lists of how fucked up the governments response was. Government money for tests done under supervision of a professional? The same Dr. listed as on site contact in half the country. Repeated calls to get vaccinated? Government repeatedly blamed Doctors and population but never bought enough vaccines.
The government response around here can be summed up as corrupt incompetents fucking up the economy while playing the blame game. I could not think of a group objectively less qualified to respond.
Assuming you live in a country with democratic (small 'd') institutions, you elected those folks. If they're corrupt and/or incompetent, that's on you and your fellow countrymen, no?
To an extent, yes, but I believe real-life has shown that removing incumbents is very difficult. I sense that the makeup of the district and the composition of party strength is the major factor in determining whether or not a politician is reelected or replaced, rather than popularity or approval rating.
Other parts have been modified. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_Freedom_Act
But to extrapolate further: Sugar taxes have been tried in countries - Mexico for one. I think there was massive backlash from CocaCola/Pepsi etc, for infringing on their freedom to make obscene profits. I seem to recall discussions here about some of the lawmakers finding Israeli spykits on their phones (the ones pushing for the sugar tax). edit: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/11/technology/hack-mexico-so...
A couple months later? Everyone's sugar-thermostats are reset, the lower-calorie food tastes nearly as good – if not better – and obesity rates would plummet.
However, since we don't/can't coordinate such a thing on a national level, everyone gets exposed to constantly increasing carb content in their food, and maintaining a lower calorie diet requires significantly more effort. I can speak from personal experience, I simulated this on a personal level when I moved to South Korea for 2 years where sugar is nearly non-existent. As a modestly thin person I lost an additional 15-20 pounds while I was there without having to work hard or suffer with worse-tasting food (well, I did experience sugar withdrawal for the first couple months).
Obesity is not a disease. It is a condition defined as a Body Mass Index (BMI) of >30[0].
Yes, there are a variety of factors that contribute to a BMI >30, but like "tobacco use disorder," it's emphatically not a disease. Some obesity may be related to actual diseases, but obesity in itself isn't a disease.
Even in grade school, I remembered dreading when they would have us run a mile as fast as we could and record the times.
"Why seatbelts? Where does it end?"
"Why can't I shoot someone? Where does it end?"
etc etc
This belief might be to blame for many of society's crises. https://trendguardian.medium.com/free-will-a-rich-fairy-tale...
The fact that this still needs to be explained 2 years into this is ridiculous.
When people anxiously awaited their chance to get the vaccine in January 2021, were they thinking "ooh I can't wait to free up hospital beds"? Or was it "great now I can be immune and be done with COVID"?
Of course personally we all just wanted to not be locked down any more but I don't actually think that many of us were staying in for our own sakes - we knew the long term risk to our own health if we were to catch it was fairly low. Very biased sample, of course.
I have yet to see proof that most of the system is "overwhelmed". Sure there are hotspots here and there but this idea that the system is on the brink of collapse is hyperbole. And even if it is true, these dudes had 2 years of our time to figure out how to deal with it. 2 years of our short lives we've given so they could fix this capacity issue. Where is the results? Why is it the general public's fault at this point?
Is there a time limit on a pandemic? Do you think these are trivial problems we're dealing with here? Like what world do you live in, bud?
I don't have any patience with people like you anymore. How did you get your head so far up your fucking ass? Fucking christ man.
My greatest clue that the last 2 years has been more about hysteria, politics and unchecked, ungrounded fear than an actual severe disease has been reactions like yours. Seriously? I'd ask you what world you live in where you think any of this makes a lick of sense at all? What world do you live in where it is okay to say what you just said? How is it not possible that people can have alternate, equally valid opinions as yours?
2 years is a long time to figure out how to deal with covid patients in a hospital. Long time. We have virtually unlimited resources to do whatever we want to fix it. We could have built a new story on every nurse and doctors house for far less than the costs of these lockdowns and other non-pharmaceutical interventions.
2 years of creating a corrosive, toxic environment where so many people think it is impossible to question any of this. Like, how is it impossible that smart, well meaning people disagree with "the narrative"? Are we all expected to fall in line with a relative handful of anointed "experts"--many who will feel almost no effects from any of their prognostications over the last two years?
Why is it so hard to believe we could have fixed the "overwhelmed hospital" problem in under two years? Like, it takes barely any imagination to come up with ways to deal with it. All kinds of ways to get people to care for sick covid patients. Train people in adjacent fields, shovel money at doctors and nurses thinking about quitting, etc. It really isn't so hard to come up with ideas.
Why is the default answer for all this to blame the public, shame them, shame people who question anything, and force people to sacrifice what little short life they have on this planet? I mean how toxic and corrosive have these health "experts" made us? These "experts" are ripping apart the social fabric that binds us together. It's horrific.
Move on.
We’ve ignored the obesity problem for a long time and are taking 0 steps to correct after we’ve seen our health systems buckle in no small part due to it. If you’re in favor of mandates but not forced weight loss you’re just playing politics.
Yes, one is easier than the other, but the magnitude of good done by reducing obesity dwarfs the good done by vaccines. If the US had ignored Covid and focused solely on obesity we would likely have been better off in terms of all cause mortality.
Example: Culture difference (individualistic vs collectivist). In Japan, masks are used even for common flus, as they are seen as a polite gesture toward others
We also have data and prudence and we are long past the point where framing this in that manner is highly morally questionable to put it mildly.
Your idea of responsibility to society is mandating that young healthy people take an injection(s) ostensibly to protect them from a disease they are at no great risk from, negative side effects of the injection be damned?
Do it for grandma? It actually does nothing for grandma, that’s always been a lie, the original study could make no claims about transmission. And now, just look around.
Even if it did something for grandma and grandpa, mandating young healthy people undertake a medical intervention having value trade-off for their own health which is murky, for the supposed benefit of the superannuated or people who have eaten into a state of morbid obesity and premature aging is a horrendous inversion of social order and what is good.
The young sacrificing for the old? What??
I don't understand this argument. Maybe I'm being ignorant or childish but since when do we live in a world that as a person you have to be responsible for "fellow citizens".
Don't get me wrong I don't mean we shouldn't be nice or care about other people but no one owe me anything and I don't owe anybody anything. Don't we all learn that in life at some point?
I get the COVID is dangerous and vaccines help but don't put me responsible for you.
We make decisions every day of our lives that impact our fellow citizens negatively. Your point is what?
[1]: https://dossier.substack.com/p/bait-and-switch-there-remains...
I have not seen a comprehensive general population safety study. I believe the last large scale safety studies are the ones used for EUA.
Would love to be proven wrong though. I’m assuming that if there was new good safety data it would be blasted from the roof tops, just like the ~95% effective number was after the phase 3 studies.
So you think. Ok, we have gotten to the point where these measures are ineffective, so lets do away with the measures. And that is precisely where you bump up against these "feel good" policies.
We know masks don't really work, but lets keep mandating them because they give us the sense of security that they are doing something. We know vaccines don't prevent you from getting or spreading Covid but we feel like it does something, so mandate it anyways.
I'm afraid that we are moving from "we need mandates to keep people safe" to "we need mandates to keep people feeling safe". In 20 years we're all still going to be wearing masks at the airport because "it makes people feel safer".
No they haven't. There's a pervasive anti-vax myth that Fauci "admitted" the vaccines don't work. Not true and didn't happen.
The data are very clear that vaccines reduce your chances of getting infected (not just seriously ill or dying, but getting infected in the first place). https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/effective...
Masks are also effective at preventing infection. Even "bad" masks are measurably better than nothing: https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118
Vaccines and masks absolutely work to reduce your chance of getting infected with covid. Further, if you do get breakthrough covid, vaccines greatly reduce the chances you will end up hospitalized or dead.
So to be more precise - vaccines work against Omicron, but not as well as the original strains and only if you keep up with boosting every few months. Vaccines are less effective against omicron in general, and the effectiveness wains very quickly.
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e3.htm?s_cid=mm...
Its fine for right now. You will need another booster in a few months to remain protected (original estimate was every 6 months, CDC lowered that to 5 months already). Israel is already rolling out a fourth shot, and the CDC now recommends 4 doses for immune compromised people.
I never understood the preoccupation with the number of shots. Is it the hassle and discomfort of the shot itself?
Is there any other vaccine that needs boosters every 5 months?
Considering that the initial schedule of 2 doses in a month was kinda rushed, and that Israel is not proceeding with a fourth dose because the current wave has been manageable despite the very high number of cases, it seems very unlikely that COVID will need periodic boosters in the general population.
DTAP, for example, is one of the vaccines that kids need. It has a 5 dose schedule. But, an adult that was never vaccinated can get one shot of Tdap instead.
Notably, the DTAP vaccine is 71% effective after 5 years[1]. Compare to the covid vaccine being 38% after 6 months[2].
[1]https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/dtap-tdap-td/hcp/about-vacc...
[2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e3.htm?s_cid=mm...
Every disease is different. Every vaccine is different. What would it prove?
Mask mandates aren't worthless, but I agree they'd be a lot better if they required better masks. I believe that's already the case in other countries and I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually comes to the US.
It might be healthier for you to see things less as "there are two sides" and reconsider how you analyze individual topics. When you say "this is the view of side L and this is the view of side R" you are in danger of missing nuance and views that cut across. If you identify with say, side R, you will bias yourself toward those specific viewpoints.
Don't assume I have a manichean approach to everything. This was just one example where her popularity is very polarized along political lines.
Not everything is partisan. But abortion surely is.
My other point is that Planned Parenthood and abortion are of course polarizing topics but pro-choice folks are not as monolithic in ideology as the core republican base, so it's weird to see statements like this which you made:
> She is especially respected on the political left. That makes her statement especially surprising because the left has been the side pushing the mask mandates.
This rings untrue, and like someone's been watching too much angry news. And characterizing mask mandates as some nonexistent "left-wing agenda" is also really unfair to folks who may not have progressive politics but support masking. My parents for example are Christian capital-R Republicans but think it's bonkers that we can't get folks to do what is best for the common good, in the name of "freedom." At least they understand, very minimally, the difference between fascism and emergency measures.
There are not two sides to this issue until one angry group of people decide "you're either with us or against us" and generate those two sides out of thin air. It's really stupid to do that. Abortion and masking are not related. That are you surprised an individual has a unique opinion different from "their team" is very telling.
If you can't see that abortion is polarized along partisan lines, we live on different planets.
Yeah I'm going off of the ~20 sentences I've spent time reading from this anonymous person on the internet. You're not doing much in these responses to demonstrate comprehension of my points so maybe it's gg.
> If you can't see that abortion is polarized along partisan lines, we live on different planets.
I didn't dispute this very basic fact. But again, this wasn't what my comments were about.
The Washington Post has a good explainer on this. [1]
1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/08/...
The comment I was responding to said "masks don't really work," which isn't true. Even cloth masks provide some benefit. Whether that benefit justifies a mask mandate is something reasonable people can disagree about.
Clearly something isn't adding up. Meanwhile the rosy estimates of safety and effectiveness have been repeatedly and consistently walked back. I think it's time to recognize that our institutions have had their analyses and recommendations tainted by strong and pervasive political and social biases, from the laypeople who have no incentive to report breakthrough cases, all the way up through the chain past academics and policymakers who have their careers riding on the validity of 2 years of covid research and policy that cannot be contradicted without trashing credibility. That's not to mention the career and social stigma associated with speaking out or publishing negatively against the vaccines.
It doesn't help that dozens of hours of testimony on behalf of researches and clinicians before congresspeople is simply being ignored[0]. Add media to the rabidly biased groups and you're getting closer to reconciling what is being published and communicated about the vaccines and virus with what is happening in the real world.
Here's the data from Sen Johnson's state: https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/covid-19/vaccine-status.htm#ca...
And once again, the real world data shows that the virus is spreading across the globe at record pace regardless of vaccination rate.
I know it sounds like dangerous conspiracy talk, but sometimes we need to think outside of our official sources. Ultimately it is up to the people to hold our institutions to account. The real world data does not line up with the official claims.
You think Wisconsin health officials are cooking the books? Along with every single other state? C'mon
None of this requires a conspiracy. None of this requires explicit communication or collusion. That's not how bias works. Bias works as subtle (sometimes not so subtle) pressure. Pressure against asking certain questions, against publishing certain results (this is hardly unique to covid), massaging data and models (often unconsciously) in favor of certain conclusions.
And then there is the very real stigma - also something which does not depend on an overt conspiracy, just an army of true believers who will publicly castigate those who speak out, putting the livelihoods of dissenters at risk.
And yes, what you're implying heavily in your posts would require some sort of conspiracy to be plausible. You're going against dozens of countries' thousands of experts and numerous studies, then choosing to believe quacks on panels on youtube whose wikipedia articles have giant "covid-19 misinformation" sections in them with ample citations.
Look, regardless of whether what I'm saying is true, your primary argument is that it is implausible because of the logistics of organizing such a vast conspiracy. This is false. All it takes is an emergent culture to instill an implicit bias under threat of ostracization/unemployment/unpersoning and then without any overt conspiracy you will see discourse, studies, and policy all align in a single direction regardless of that direction's validity.
This is the mechanism by which authoritarian governments flourish while simultaneously oppressing their peoples. Life in the Soviet Union was miserable, but the average person would not publicly speak against their leaders. Note that I don't mean to imply that anything about the covid response is "socialist" or anything to that effect, only that emergent consensus, especially when bolstered by propaganda, can influence individuals and society to together behave in an irrational manner in an emergent, implicit fashion.
Let's try to materialize an example. Suppose that you indeed have a society which is irrationally biased in favor of the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, and you are trying to study adverse effects. Moving up the chain
1. Patients are less likely to connect adverse effects to their vaccines (e.g. it only recently came out that monthly cycles were disrupted, originally a "conspiracy theory")
2. Doctors are less likely to acknowledge that strange symptoms are related to vaccines (remember, I'm alleging that they're biased)
3. Researchers are less likely to look into adverse events, especially when from the bottom they now have substantially less data to review
4. Policymakers see this lack of evidence of adverse events as proof of safety when it is only bias which has an emergent muting effect on cataloging of adverse events. They continue to distribute "safe and effective" propaganda in good faith (no conspiracy).
5. The cycle continues.
You may not agree that this bias exists, but my point again is that none of this requires a conspiracy, only a pervasive bias.
Now remember, the phrase "safe and effective" was repeated across media from day one, long before there was ample time to gather evidence of harm. The seed of bias was planted early. I hope you'll at least acknowledge that this is far more plausible than some cooky "conspiracy theory".
... to Dr. McCullough, this guy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_A._McCullough#COVID-19
Literally one of the main guys on the panel you cited yourself a post or two ago. Sounds like the definition of a conspiracy theorist / quack to me.
(Edit: wrong person, here's video of what I'm remembering: https://mobile.twitter.com/townhallcom/status/14733056927149... ) (Anyway that was just intended as context for below, what I think may have been the starting point for a larger shift)
Thing is, the virus didn't change size, so right after this it's as if people started to realize the droplets-vs-aerosols mistake from 2020 that a minority have kept on since then, and what they've been saying for over a year is slowly becoming accepted:
Masks and social distancing were mandated under the assumption SARS-CoV-2 spread primarily through heavy droplets that would quickly fall to the ground, which were also large and heavy enough to easily be caught by masks. However, it turns out the primary spread vector is aerosol - too small for cloth masks to catch, light enough to quickly diffuse through a room, and light enough to easily slip around the sides of an unsealed mask.
A well-sealed N95 might work, but considering how bad even pro-mask people are at wearing cloth masks correctly, I don't think very many would manage to wear the N95 right.
And here's a quote not a "paraphrase": "What I will say is the best mask that you can wear is the one that you will wear and the one you can keep on all day long that you can tolerate in public indoor settings and tolerate where you need to wear it," Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC director, told reporters this week. from https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/cdc-warns-loosely-woven-clot...
Masks absolutely work to prevent covid infection. Higher quality masks are much better than cloth ones, but any mask is better than no mask.
That's a reallty dangerous thing to try and paraphrase - what did they actually say? Less effective? Have limited effectiveness? There's no evidence of any effect whatsoever? You have to be precise.
"The rates of all infection outcomes were highest in the cloth mask arm, with the rate of ILI statistically significantly higher in the cloth mask arm (relative risk (RR)=13.00, 95% CI 1.69 to 100.07) compared with the medical mask arm. Cloth masks also had significantly higher rates of ILI compared with the control arm. An analysis by mask use showed ILI (RR=6.64, 95% CI 1.45 to 28.65) and laboratory-confirmed virus (RR=1.72, 95% CI 1.01 to 2.94) were significantly higher in the cloth masks group compared with the medical masks group. Penetration of cloth masks by particles was almost 97% and medical masks 44%
Becasue we don't want sick people spitting all over the place when they talk, even when we aren't inhaling their breath.
"Don't really work" - they do work, just with varying degrees of effectiveness.
> We know vaccines don't prevent you from getting or spreading Covid
Again, it looks like the vaccinations with booster do still provide some, limited protection against infection and may also reduce viral load reducing infection risks https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2788105
It is common and logical to regulate activities that could harm those around you. What cars are allowed on the road and who's allowed to drive them is carefully regulated because cars can kill or injure people. You can drive around your property with an unsafe vehicle but if you want to bring it on a public road, it needs to have working brakes and so on. Vaccine are similar because unvaccinated people are more likely to injure those around them.
Who decides? My city recently created a vaccine mandate to dine indoors at a restaurant. It was decided by the city council and the mayor, same as any other law. I think most citizens support it, but if they didn't they have all the usual ways to make that known or overturn it.
i don't know about the US, but where i live there are actual vaccination mandates for diseases like polio and measles. you cannot go to school if you don't have the mandatory vaccines.
covid vaccines are just another one that you need to take.
Covid vaccine mandate -> good.
You can end the thought there. No need to come up with a slippery slope doomsday scenario.