Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts • Hacker News Board

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#161

Post by rmk » Sun, Mar 14, 2021, 6:38 AM UTC

tasogare wrote: post #132

luxuryballs wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What we learned should be not to decimate small businesses like tossing leaves to the wind “don’t worry we’ll build back better!” and let people decide their own risk taking. I think that it’s almost more terrifying than the thing itself that more people aren’t mostly incredibly disturbed by the insane violations of privacy and speech. Literally you should not, in a free society, be able take such injurious actions b…

> I think that it’s almost more terrifying than the thing itself that more people aren’t mostly incredibly disturbed by the insane violations of privacy and speech. Exactly this. I find myself very lucky to have avoided authoritarian measures by living in Japan, but I feel very sorry for my home country which multiplied freedom violations after violations. I find it very scary that nobody complained about it, despite…

Of course plenty of people complained about it and refused to give up their freedoms. Many states with Republican governors either refused to impose any mandates, or imposed very few that were never enforced. Democratic states, which generate a huge chunk of the money (and tax revenues), imposed draconian measures that essentially killed off thousands of small businesses and left millions unemployed. It's no coincidence that public schools in many of these states (CA notably; NY has succeeded in running public schools in-person for many students) completely abdicated their responsibility towards their students, shutting down in-person learning for the entire school year. Note that the 'follow the science' crowd is curiously silent on this: the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics emphatically argued against this injustice perpetrated on children to no avail.

The children who suffered from this, and stand to continue suffering because of this even after the pandemic ends for most adults, will bear the cost for generations to come. Not only will they inherit a heavily indebted country, they will also be woefully unequipped for it because of the major hole this abdication of responsibility has blown in a critical period of their lives. Two years is a huge amount of time in a young child's life, and the callous indifference to their future shown by Democratic politicians (who draw the majority of their support from teachers unions, among other public employee unions) is just sickening.

I sincerely hope that parents will wake up to the insidious damage public employee unions are doing, and move en masse to private schools or direct student funding for schools that they can choose, as a result of all this. Teachers unions have shown themselves to be completely unaccountable to the public and deserve their comeuppance.

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#162

Post by winocm » Sun, Mar 14, 2021, 6:39 AM UTC

de6u99er wrote: post #112

A globally coordinated approach, similar to NZ's approach could have ended the oandemic already a year ago. Thanks to COVID-19 fatigue amongst the population, such an effort very close to impossible.

COVID-19 fatigue has nearly killed me.

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#163

Post by tempestn » Sun, Mar 14, 2021, 6:41 AM UTC

newacct583 wrote: post #147

silisili wrote: post #140

Perhaps unpopular opinion, but the US vaccination system is about the worst when it comes to preventing spread. Instead, it seems to be attempting to prevent death. I've always argued that preventing spread would as a byproduct prevent death, but I'm obviously not studied in the field. Put shortly, I would have vaccinated college kids and working age folks first. They are not likely to die from it, but are far more l…

That's an argument that can be made with numbers. The problem is we don't really have any. Your assertion that young adults are most likely to spread certainly seems plausible, but the truth is we just don't know. So we made a relatively conservative policy choice and chose to take the low hanging fruit of reducing severe cases at the potential cost of a longer pandemic. It seems reasonable to me, given the facts on…

It will certainly be interesting to follow the studies that will come out on this over the coming years. There are numerous different approaches being taken to vaccination that can be compared. Most of Canada is giving first doses to essentially the entire adult population (which is expected to take a few months) before beginning second doses. Indonesia is focusing on vaccinating young and active people - those most likely to spread the virus - before those most likely to die from it. It will be interesting to see how results compare.

By the way, I've seen that the mRNA vaccines are even more effective than that after the first dose, if you just consider the period from about 10 days onward, ie after it has had a chance to kick in. Here in BC they're quoting a demonstrated efficacy of "up to 90%" from 10 days through to at least 3 months.

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#164

Post by boldpandabear » Sun, Mar 14, 2021, 6:43 AM UTC

It’s never been proven that a particle causes illness.

It’s never been proven that illness is transmissible via particle.

The vaccine may prevent symptoms from appearing (which is nothing new — steroids also do same thing) but social distancing and masking continue to be an unnecessary drain on quality of life.

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#165

Post by refurb » Sun, Mar 14, 2021, 6:45 AM UTC

de6u99er wrote: post #112

A globally coordinated approach, similar to NZ's approach could have ended the oandemic already a year ago. Thanks to COVID-19 fatigue amongst the population, such an effort very close to impossible.

I’m skeptical. Even countries like Singapore have constantly had 1 or 2 locally transmitted cases per month they can’t trace.

Now multiply that across 170 countries some too poor to do what Singapore did.

If every country had locked down like NZ, we would have just had a series of lockdowns and flare ups and more lockdowns. It certainly would have kept the case numbers much lower but can you imagine the fatigue after going through your 12th lockdown?

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#166

Post by refurb » Sun, Mar 14, 2021, 6:47 AM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #158

viraptor wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Its likely illegal for California to close its borders to Florida. I wonder if that's really the case. A year ago I'd say the same for Australia. Yet most Australian states closed their borders at some point as a response to local cases spiking. (I agree it's less practical in the US, but I do wonder about the legality)

Whatever the answer I feel like it would take the courts a few weeks at least to figure it out. California (or more realistically Hawaii) could have had a full three week border closure before anyone settled the case law.

They certainly could have “closed” the border but how effective would it have been?

How many road cross into CA? How many open fields? You’d need an army of hundreds of thousands to ensure nobody crosses.

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#167

Post by tempestn » Sun, Mar 14, 2021, 6:50 AM UTC

015a wrote: post #68

credit_guy wrote: post #19

What I don't understand is this: with tens of millions of people already vaccinated, why aren't we seeing a huge drive to collect plasma from vaccinated people with high level of antibodies? In the early days of the pandemic (about 1 year ago), I remember China sent a large amount of plasma to Italy. Why can't the US do the same now? The US is sitting on millions of AstraZeneca vaccines (that are not even approvad by…

The United States has administered 2.3 million vaccination doses. Oh, lol no, not cumulatively. I mean Yesterday. We administered 2.3 million doses in about 14 daytime hours on March 12th. Naturally, the number of vaccinated individuals grows every day. That's what vaccinations do. But the number of doses we are administering every day is growing every day. One week ago, on March 8th, we administered about 2.05 milli…

I believe the efficacy of convalescent plasma has been shown to be minimal to non-existent, so I agree it isn't likely worth harvesting. If it were effective though, it would absolutely be worth it, because the United States isn't the whole world. There won't be enough vaccines to fully vaccinate the global population for many months at the least - probably at least a year. If we had an effective treatment that could be donated to countries not fortunate to have an abundance of vaccine doses, it would clearly be the moral thing to do.

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#168

Post by edanm » Sun, Mar 14, 2021, 6:50 AM UTC

tasogare wrote: post #132

luxuryballs wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What we learned should be not to decimate small businesses like tossing leaves to the wind “don’t worry we’ll build back better!” and let people decide their own risk taking. I think that it’s almost more terrifying than the thing itself that more people aren’t mostly incredibly disturbed by the insane violations of privacy and speech. Literally you should not, in a free society, be able take such injurious actions b…

> I think that it’s almost more terrifying than the thing itself that more people aren’t mostly incredibly disturbed by the insane violations of privacy and speech. Exactly this. I find myself very lucky to have avoided authoritarian measures by living in Japan, but I feel very sorry for my home country which multiplied freedom violations after violations. I find it very scary that nobody complained about it, despite…

> I find it very scary that nobody complained about it, despite the fact the lockdowns and curfews were stronger than any measures taken under Nazi German occupation.

This isn't your main point, but I'd just like to point out that that comparison is... wrong, to put it mildly. Under Nazi Germany occupation, large populations were put into an effective prison, severely underfed, forced into labor, and, sometimes, just killed outright.

Even the most "authoritarian" actions taken are nothing like Nazi occupation.

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#169

Post by scott_w » Sun, Mar 14, 2021, 6:51 AM UTC

refurb wrote: post #165

de6u99er wrote: post #112

A globally coordinated approach, similar to NZ's approach could have ended the oandemic already a year ago. Thanks to COVID-19 fatigue amongst the population, such an effort very close to impossible.

I’m skeptical. Even countries like Singapore have constantly had 1 or 2 locally transmitted cases per month they can’t trace. Now multiply that across 170 countries some too poor to do what Singapore did. If every country had locked down like NZ, we would have just had a series of lockdowns and flare ups and more lockdowns. It certainly would have kept the case numbers much lower but can you imagine the fatigue after…

I can imagine the fatigue of what I’m currently going through of constantly locking down for 4 months at a time!

Compared to that, having to lock down every couple of months for a week or two doesn’t seem anywhere near as bad. Oh, and we wouldn’t have 130,000 dead in the UK and 500,000+ dead in the USA!

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#170

Post by refurb » Sun, Mar 14, 2021, 6:51 AM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #110

I hope they are correct. I also hope we will continue to be more careful about germ control from here on out in myriad ways. I hope we do not blithely go back to "business as usual" in a way that fosters future pandemics as if we learned absolutely nothing here.

Why wouldn’t we go back to normal? We’ve done that after stock market crashes, housing crashes and other pandemics. That’s what humans do. It takes about a decade or two before people assume it will never happen again.