18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated • Hacker News Board

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#191

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 6:26 AM UTC

AndrewBissell wrote: post #89

unishark wrote: post #60

> * Herd immunity numbers assume no ongoing vaccination -- they more or less say, "If life went back to normal, would the virus slow down or speed up?" I'd say ongoing vaccination (after herd immunity is reached) is irrelevant to the herd immunity calculation. Is that what you meant? Though we'd obviously still need vaccinations as much of the world will not have herd immunity for a long time, if ever. And certainly…

> Personally I hope we keep a lot of it, at least a long while more. I really hate catching flu's and colds. Are you blissfully unaware of the enormous mental health and developmental problems these measures are causing, or do you just rate those as less important than suffering an occasional mild illness while you eat DoorDash and watch Netflix?

[deleted]

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#192

Post by downandout » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 6:27 AM UTC

AngryData wrote: post #171

downandout wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's to say that we will ever reach that point? COVID-19 will be with us forever [1], which means that governments can forever point to it as a reason to push for increasingly oppressive restrictions. The economic meltdown resulting from these restrictions is pushing even the most capitalist countries much further onto the socialism spectrum than anyone could have imagined just a year ago. Some political parties vie…

How are we being pushed into socialism and what policies being pushed are socialist? I don't see businesses being made public, nor do I see workers gaining any control over business or economic decisions.

I said that we are being pushed onto the spectrum, not that we have become a socialist country. But COVID restrictions have forced millions of people out of work/business and into being entirely reliant on the government for money. When a substantial portion of the population is reliant on the government for money, the government must increase its own revenue, and it will come after those that still have an income for that money. Taxes will skyrocket, but that is unlikely to cover the shortfall, so we will also have to continue printing money at an increasing rate - devaluing our currency and the savings of those that are lucky enough to have any.

Ultimately, having vast swaths of the population reliant on the government for money, food, and healthcare, with oppressive taxes for those who are lucky enough to be employed/in business, and a currency that is rapidly being devalued, is a pretty significant step on the road to socialism.

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#193

Post by hanniabu » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 6:29 AM UTC

acct776 wrote: post #185

not_a_moth wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll unlikely reach said number because over 50% of the population of the us is not interested in a vaccine because they do not view covid-19 as a disease much more risky than the flu. Facing this reality, the policy will probably be once everyone who wants it has had a chance to get it, things will or should move towards normal.

Source?

I hear it everywhere as well, even from people that aren't antimaskers

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#194

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 6:33 AM UTC

not_a_moth wrote: post #183

umvi wrote: post #3

At what number can we stop wearing masks, stop social distancing, start dining in, etc.? That's the number I care about. Because until somebody influential picks that number, we'll just keep masking and social distancing until the end of time.

We'll unlikely reach said number because over 50% of the population of the us is not interested in a vaccine because they do not view covid-19 as a disease much more risky than the flu. Facing this reality, the policy will probably be once everyone who wants it has had a chance to get it, things will or should move towards normal.

The number of people interested is up to 66% now (https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/01/21/poli...), and I think there’s good reason to expect it to keep rising as the rollout continues. It does seem likely there’ll be an awkward in between period where we don’t have quite enough takeup but the vaccinated people demand to go clubbing, but I don’t expect it’ll be too large.

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#195

Post by guscost » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 6:34 AM UTC

amluto wrote: post #155

guscost wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What should I tell my elderly relatives who are so creeped out by this fascist, disgraceful fiasco, that they will refuse a vaccine even though it has a decent chance of doing some good?

Perhaps if you encourage them to think of it as something other than a creepy, fascist, disgraceful fiasco, they might be more inclined to think rationally about it?

Commentary is for color, I think they mostly agree but have not used anything like those words, no.

But it absolutely is a creepy, fascist, disgraceful fiasco, and I’m also not in the habit of lying to people I care about.

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#196

Post by T-hawk » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 6:34 AM UTC

dehrmann wrote: post #114

peytn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t seem like that condition leads to termination. As things return to normal, fewer surveillance tests will be conducted by definition, so the test positivity rate will rise.

Test positivity is a weird metric because of things like this. It's interesting week-over-week, but loses meaning over the long term as testing protocols, other behavior changes, and changes to the disease. This makes it a lousy metric for policy making.

There was a county in Louisiana that went back into a shutdown Thanksgiving week, when nothing at all had changed, except that a local university was on break and had stopped flooding the daily statistics with thousands of negative tests.

Not to mention the perverse incentive: if you feel sick, you want to avoid getting tested and counted as a positive if you don't want your locality or employer to shut down. There is a theory that this accounts for much of Japan's perceived success - antibody studies show just as much prevalence as everywhere else, what happened was that all the mild cases never got tested.

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#197

Post by hanniabu » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 6:35 AM UTC

SamBam wrote: post #76

reaperducer wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to update. There were two studies out of Europe last week stating that children are just as likely to get the virus as adults.

I think the poster above you was talking about the chances of death from the virus, not simply the chance of infection. I think it's pretty well established at this point that the case fatality index for children is vastly lower than for older adults, about 0.1% for people under age 29. [1] 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7518649/

There's more to this virus than fatality. Many people that live will have debilitating aftereffects for the foreseeable future.

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#198

Post by chrisco255 » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 6:36 AM UTC

not_a_moth wrote: post #183

umvi wrote: post #3

At what number can we stop wearing masks, stop social distancing, start dining in, etc.? That's the number I care about. Because until somebody influential picks that number, we'll just keep masking and social distancing until the end of time.

We'll unlikely reach said number because over 50% of the population of the us is not interested in a vaccine because they do not view covid-19 as a disease much more risky than the flu. Facing this reality, the policy will probably be once everyone who wants it has had a chance to get it, things will or should move towards normal.

For large portion of the population, it isn't. 99.9+% for many demographics. I'm not interested in it personally, as one of my dad's coworkers got Bell's palsy from the vaccine. Given my age and risk profile, the vaccine isn't worth it.

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#199

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 6:38 AM UTC

AndrewBissell wrote: post #89

unishark wrote: post #60

> * Herd immunity numbers assume no ongoing vaccination -- they more or less say, "If life went back to normal, would the virus slow down or speed up?" I'd say ongoing vaccination (after herd immunity is reached) is irrelevant to the herd immunity calculation. Is that what you meant? Though we'd obviously still need vaccinations as much of the world will not have herd immunity for a long time, if ever. And certainly…

> Personally I hope we keep a lot of it, at least a long while more. I really hate catching flu's and colds. Are you blissfully unaware of the enormous mental health and developmental problems these measures are causing, or do you just rate those as less important than suffering an occasional mild illness while you eat DoorDash and watch Netflix?

[deleted]

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#200

Post by hanniabu » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 6:39 AM UTC

ergocoder wrote: post #162

mbrameld wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All over the place, changing his position as he learns more, tomayto, tomato right?

Learn about what? Masks are effective against flu? We know that for a century.

This isn't the flu and they didn't know much about it at all initially