> I'd be interested in hearing more about how corporations influenced anti-lockdown

About a year ago in my city, in a period of relative stability during the pandemic, the previous mayor made the mistake of saying he would lock down again if necessary. Business owners more or less told all their employees they'd lose their jobs if there was another lockdown. The result was someone else was elected.

Ballots are secret, people generally don't vote the way their boss tells them to unless their boss is making some persuasive arguments. In this case, "lockdowns will shut down businesses" is a common sense argument that was proven true numerous times around the world to anybody who cared to pay attention to their own neighborhoods. If people decided to vote out a mayor who was promising more of that, who's fault is it? The mayor, who suggested such a destructive and unpopular plan, or business owners who had the audacity to voice their opinions against it?

When politicians announce unpopular plans, causing people to voice their disagreement and vote the asshole out of office, that's democracy functioning as intended. Only authoritarian asshats looks at a situation like this and conclude that dissent is the problem.

I agree with you. I think lockdowns destroyed the economy, such measures put a lot of people out of business. My story was just an example of how businesses influenced politics. The grandparent poster wanted to hear more about how it happens.

Lockdowns caused a big slump in industries like retail and transport. In the UK, airline bosses in particular were outspoken about their desire to lift lockdown restrictions as soon as possible.

When you have an interest in creating distrust in using science for policy, anything goes.

One of the key anti-lockdown advocacy groups, PANDA, started out fairly sane-sounding and was packed full of hedge fund and other finance people. But once vaccines were widely available they inexplicably turned strongly anti-vaccine too.

I'm repeating an idea I read somewhere else, but we should just stop calling it the "Covid vaccine", since it doesn't seem to make you any less likely to catch the disease or spread it once you have it. The word "vaccine" should be reserved for things that we traditionally understand to be such.

Let's call it a "Covid preventative" or literally anything else, and stop mandating it, so that we avoid the bigger public health issue of a generalized distrust against existing, effective vaccines arising from this.

>...since it doesn't seem to make you any less likely to catch the disease or spread it once you have it.

>Let's call it a "Covid preventative"...

What does preventative mean to you that doesn't imply making you less likely to catch the disease?

You're redefining the word vaccine. A vaccine is a drug that works by stimulating the immune system. It always has been. The fact that you think it means something else is a result of you being an easy mark for people spreading misinformation.

I actually agree with you but the CDC changed their definition of the word "vaccine" several times, most recently in 2021. The latest revision is now more scientifically accurate. But it's understandable how the changes caused confusion among some members of the public.

https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-976069264061

It is not understandable without people acting in bad faith. Nobody with any sense would be closely monitoring that page's definitions because they are meaningless for policy. The only people who would care are conspiracy theorists and those who profit from them.

Besides calling me stupid and gullible, do you have an answer for my original point, which is that the Covid vaccines behave so differently than other vaccines, and that there may be a public health benefit in acknowledging that?

I get vaccinated against measles, or polio, or tetanus, and I don't have to worry about catching or spreading any of those diseases for years. With the Covid vaccine, some sources[0] say fully-vaccinated people are only half as likely as unvaccinated people to catch it (though obviously with less severe effects), and maybe about as likely to transmit it to others[1], and the protective effects wear off in a matter of months. That clearly doesn't line up with the public's traditional understanding of vaccines.

[0]: https://doh.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2022-02/421-010-Cases...

[1]: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...

I didn't call you stupid, and everybody is at least a little gullible for stories that match their existing beliefs.

Do you get vaccinated for flu, the most administered vaccine in the US each year before the COVID vaccines became available? They are less effective than the mRNA COVID vaccines at preventing symptomatic disease and far less effective than the mRNA COVID vaccines at preventing severe disease.

The effectiveness of both is publicly acknowledged by the government. It just has nothing to do with the definition of "vaccine."

Other HN readers should consider this: had the social media companies not tried to limit the spread of misinformation, how many more conspiracy theories would you be parroting?

Since when is anti-mandatory vaccination anti-vaccine ? Especially since it demonstrably has zero impact on infection or likelihood of communication. Which the data showed as obvious since about July of 2021 from Israel.

> Especially since it demonstrably has zero impact on infection or likelihood of communication.

How about hospitalization and death rates, the outcomes we actually care about?

For which time period? If you look recently, it's not looking so good for covid-19 vaccines.

Lab leak is HUGE for corporate interests. It's China. If China has culpability in using dangerous things and let this loose then China is going to be blamed, in large part, by a large number of people around the world. Since China is basically the lynch pin of all commerce in the world [1], there are massive interests to make sure it's "from china" but not maliciously or because of some future war they are planning. If it truly was from a market or just a bat in a cave - no one is really going to blame China beyond just minor shaming on them having wet markets.

1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u000_n3LG9U