But it looks like the vaccines don't stop the spread of covid: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC8481107/

The point is to reduce critical cases that cause hospital visits. Our system is overwhelmed as is.

The fact that this still needs to be explained 2 years into this is ridiculous.

Was that really the point?

When people anxiously awaited their chance to get the vaccine in January 2021, were they thinking "ooh I can't wait to free up hospital beds"? Or was it "great now I can be immune and be done with COVID"?

I mean, both? I think the vast majority of people I knew (UK, in my 20s) knew that the main reason we were locked down was to minimize the risk of the NHS being so overrun it couldn't perform basic healthcare.

Of course personally we all just wanted to not be locked down any more but I don't actually think that many of us were staying in for our own sakes - we knew the long term risk to our own health if we were to catch it was fairly low. Very biased sample, of course.

If the system is overwhelmed, then hospitals shouldn't have fired workers who didn't want to get vaccinated.

> Our system is overwhelmed as is.

I have yet to see proof that most of the system is "overwhelmed". Sure there are hotspots here and there but this idea that the system is on the brink of collapse is hyperbole. And even if it is true, these dudes had 2 years of our time to figure out how to deal with it. 2 years of our short lives we've given so they could fix this capacity issue. Where is the results? Why is it the general public's fault at this point?

Do you realize how fucking stupid you sound?

Is there a time limit on a pandemic? Do you think these are trivial problems we're dealing with here? Like what world do you live in, bud?

I don't have any patience with people like you anymore. How did you get your head so far up your fucking ass? Fucking christ man.

> 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.

Quebec: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30090689

They stop the hospitals from filling up though.

Tobacco kills 8 million of its users, annually. Why is their presence in ICU beds not a topic of concern?

you can't smoke inside anymore (honestly, nowadays you can only smoke outside and at your own place, and even then, some rentals prohibit smoking) -- that's was a "mandate" to decrease smoking related diseases.

It's a significant topic of concern, and governments have been restricting the tobacco industry more and more since the 80s. Most developed countries now ban indoor smoking and the advertisement of tobacco; some are getting ready to ban tobacco outright.

I will think because it is not contagious and does not affect the global economy as such

Probably because that number is fairly stable over time. Beds exist for that load. A new load is a problem, because staffed hospital beds take time to create. It takes years to make a new nurse or doctor, for instance.

Why can’t we just group antivaxxers with smokers then?

We’ve ignored the obesity problem for a long time and are taking 0 steps to correct after we’ve seen our health systems buckle in no small part due to it. If you’re in favor of mandates but not forced weight loss you’re just playing politics.

Yes, one is easier than the other, but the magnitude of good done by reducing obesity dwarfs the good done by vaccines. If the US had ignored Covid and focused solely on obesity we would likely have been better off in terms of all cause mortality.

Nobody knows what is causing the obesity epidemic, unfortunately. There are a lot of theories but no smoking gun.

I'm not buying that. Sure there might be some unknown metabolic factors at play, but it seems disingenuous to overlook the ratio of calories consumed to calories expended.

Respectfully, would you mind explaining how getting vaccinated against Covid helps fellow citizens? If it is only to reduce hospital loads then can't the same responsibility be applied to those who choose to engage in unhealthy behaviors?

You are protecting not only yourself, but others as well.

Example: Culture difference (individualistic vs collectivist). In Japan, masks are used even for common flus, as they are seen as a polite gesture toward others

> I rather think of vaccination as a responsibility toward your fellow citizens

We also have data and prudence and we are long past the point where framing this in that manner is highly morally questionable to put it mildly.

Your idea of responsibility to society is mandating that young healthy people take an injection(s) ostensibly to protect them from a disease they are at no great risk from, negative side effects of the injection be damned?

Do it for grandma? It actually does nothing for grandma, that’s always been a lie, the original study could make no claims about transmission. And now, just look around.

Even if it did something for grandma and grandpa, mandating young healthy people undertake a medical intervention having value trade-off for their own health which is murky, for the supposed benefit of the superannuated or people who have eaten into a state of morbid obesity and premature aging is a horrendous inversion of social order and what is good.

The young sacrificing for the old? What??

> I rather think of vaccination as a responsibility toward your fellow citizens, rather than a "choice".

I don't understand this argument. Maybe I'm being ignorant or childish but since when do we live in a world that as a person you have to be responsible for "fellow citizens".

Don't get me wrong I don't mean we shouldn't be nice or care about other people but no one owe me anything and I don't owe anybody anything. Don't we all learn that in life at some point?

I get the COVID is dangerous and vaccines help but don't put me responsible for you.

> I rather think of vaccination as a responsibility toward your fellow citizens, rather than a "choice".

We make decisions every day of our lives that impact our fellow citizens negatively. Your point is what?

Some people really just don’t want an experimental vaccine which sidestepped the usual regulatory approval.

Should get BioNTech/Pfizer then, which got the usual regulatory approval.

Cominarty is not available in the United States. [1]

[1]: https://dossier.substack.com/p/bait-and-switch-there-remains...

That talking point no longer works. The vaccine has been taken by billions of people by now and has a larger sample size proving its safety than any other medicine in the history of humanity.

Remains to be seen based on the outcome of longitudinal studies.

I have not seen a comprehensive general population safety study. I believe the last large scale safety studies are the ones used for EUA.

Would love to be proven wrong though. I’m assuming that if there was new good safety data it would be blasted from the roof tops, just like the ~95% effective number was after the phase 3 studies.