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

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

#351

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

lenkite wrote: post #349
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Li-Meng Yan didn't blow the whistle in December 2019. She's a Hong Konger who started making crazy claims months after the outbreak began. She flew to the US, claimed she was persecuted, and now works for Steve Bannon. She's made all sorts of crazy claims, including that SARS-CoV-2 is a bioweapon. The first pneumonia patients in Wuhan got their test results showing a suspected SARS-related coronavirus on 27 December…

As far as I know, it was well-reported in the papers that the WHO team was first blocked from entering. And then once they were allowed in, all the data was sanitised for them. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-who-ch... https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/how-china-blocked...

First of all, I'm talking about the WHO team that went to Wuhan in January 2020, not the team that went there a year later. The WHO was on the ground in Wuhan within weeks of the initial detection of the outbreak.

Second of all, you should take the claims of Western media about China with more than a grain of salt. The WHO team that went a year later wasn't blocked from entering. A few team members began traveling to China before their visas were approved. The data wasn't "sanitized." One team member said he wanted to see additional data. The newspapers trumpeted that, claiming that China had hidden everything. Other members of the WHO team then criticized the newspapers, saying that they had been given extensive access to the data they wanted.

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

#352

Post by helloworld11 »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #183
throwaway20148 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what you mean by germ control? Covid is primarily transmitted by sustained exposure to aerosols. Much of the disinfecting we are now doing now is essentially performative.

Much of the disinfecting we are now doing now is essentially performative. Yes, a lot of the things we are doing are performative. Most people don't really know how to use masks effectively and a lot of how people interact with their masks makes things worse, not better. I work really hard to just avoid being exposed to germs because of my situation. I try to not touch a lot of stuff in public and this is not the nor…

What you most sound (or read) like is an extremely angry, resentful human being who carries a nearly misanthropic disdain for others in contexts well outside the scope of the current pandemic. I genuinely feel sorry about your health situation but feeling outright hatred for the majority of relatively healthy people who do certain otherwise normal human things near you is a problem you have. It's definitely not a problem the rest of them should then "fix" by severely curtailing their ordinary behavior.

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

#353

Post by helloworld11 »

girvo wrote: post #339
helloworld11 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the population of a whole city is normalized on lock down as if they were inmates of some large prison camp, while the government uses all sorts of surveillance mechanisms to track whoever they please freely for some very marginal public health benefit, and this whole situation is considered "great". What kinds of things have been normalized in the supposedly free countries by this pandemic.

That’s beyond ridiculous, and your assumptions about “marginal health benefit” are wrong on their face. You’re american, I assume?

You assume wrong about my nationality. One doesn't have to be Trump-loving caricature of an American to deeply mistrust restrictions of basic individual liberties.. And if not marginal health benefit then most definitely highly ambiguous, debatable health benefits as far as a large weight of evidence is concerned. Some countries with lockdown measures have had lower mortality rates while others with just as strict rates have had high mortality rates, and many countries without much in the way of restrictions have had mortality rates little or not at all different from those of other countries with severe restrictions. There is no existing consensus here and all evidence seems to be all over the place. The themes I mentioned in my previous comment however are normalizations that bode dangerously for the future of supposedly free countries, the future of social globalization (a good thing overall because it strongly counteracts nationalist tendencies) and none of this is to even mention the still unknown long term consequences of the vast economic destruction cause by so much callous but ambiguously backed lockdown policy in so many places.

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

#354

Post by eonwe »

brmgb wrote: post #308
Eliezer wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What could've ended the pandemic around 6 months ago was human challenge trials on vaccines, and paying much more for earlier supplies of vaccines including those donated to other countries. (What counts as an impossible supply challenge is very different at the $500 price point than at the $50 price point.)

> What counts as an impossible supply challenge is very different at the $500 price point than at the $50 price point. Considering the insane profits pharmaceutical companies are currently recording, the issue has more to do with these companies favoring their benefits to the detriment of the general population which should come as no surprise to anyone having experience dealing with a pharma company. The issue is pa…

I think most of the companies are selling the vaccine quite cheaply. Moderna and Pfizer are asking for 15-20 $ / person for vaccine that has value of thousands of euros.

Which, as Eliezer notes, is part of the problem. That together with flexible delivery schedules in agreements mean that companies have little extra resources and incentives to invest in fast vaccine production.

For more discussion, see https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/02/ma...

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

#355

Post by tinus_hn »

stormbrew wrote: post #345
tinus_hn wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With PReP and PEP HIV is preventable, containable, manageable and no longer leads to AIDS and death. It’s just a chronic infection with no health effects. Is it really still considered an ongoing pandemic?

Yes, because it continues to spread widely and access to treatment, let alone PReP, is extremely uneven across the world. Both PReP and antivirals are also not easy . You don't just get a shot and not worry about HIV for a few years, you have to take a pill every day as long as you're sexually active, and then treatment antivirals are expensive and need to be used consistently as well. One person slipping up can mean…

If taking a pill to protect your own life every day is too much hard work we are doomed. But we aren’t, as PReP both protects people from infecting others as well as getting infected themselves.

So no, an infection does not require one person to slip up. For an infection to occur requires both persons to slip up.

Getting PReP requires regular HIV tests so it is in fact obvious that you are infected, if you get infected.

Of course this indeed only solves the issue in the developed world that can pay for (and wants to use) this medication but there really is no way around that. People that don’t want or can’t pay for this medication won’t want and be able to pay for a vaccine either.

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

#356

Post by statstutor »

sharken wrote: post #325
statstutor wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of that is relevant to vaccination. I agree it's a political problem - a political solution is proven by Asian democracies and Australasian democracies. As you say, it was pretty obvious that a 21-day lockdown with appropriate testing and follow-up would have resolved this issue in any country. The people's right to have an opinion does not change the truth, that an indefinitely long half-lockdown is a bad compr…

We all want to resume our normal lives, but introducing lockdowns as mentioned here in a european country would just not be acceptable. If the alternative is the imperfect half-lockdown then so be it. What matters now is a sharp focus on when normal life can resume. In my view that point is when the elderly and people with comorbidities have been vaccinated, which is within reach now.

> would just not be acceptable.

Why not? Just because a bunch of people hold that opinion? Political change happens despite groups of people not wanting it - that's almost the definition of politics.

Scientists working for the UK government at Imperial College rejected lockdown as a plan (even what we have now in the UK) because they found it not politically viable: that's a danger to everyone.

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

#357

Post by statstutor »

GuB-42 wrote: post #344
8ytecoder wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a scientific problem. The scientific solution to contain the pandemic would be a full 21 day absolute shutdown of everything with people surviving on rations. It becomes a political problem if you try to do that in any functioning democracy. Decisions made about people must have a feedback loop to learn from how people react to it. For example, the lockdown became ineffective when it was extended too long. P…

> The scientific solution to contain the pandemic would be a full 21 day absolute shutdown of everything with people surviving on rations. It is not even a guaranteed solution. It will bring back cases to almost zero. In some rare cases, incubation time can be way longer than 21 days, you are also going to have people with weak immune systems that can contain the infection but not eliminate it completely, plus all th…

> plus all the bad things that can happen: mutations, animal transmission, etc...

I believe that no significant mutation has been sourced to any country with less than a million cases.

That's not a coincidence.

Increased cases = increased mutation incubators.

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

#358

Post by simonebrunozzi »

baxtr wrote: post #250
walterbell wrote: post #43

> the immune system has an array of other defenses... including antibodies that attack other parts of the virus, and, importantly, T-cells that attack the infected cells the virus hijacks in order to replicate. “What we’re seeing is that these variants don’t seem to affect T-cell immunity all that much and they [the T-cells] seem to be as effective in recognizing these variants as they do the original virus” People w…

I have done my PhD on T cell activation. The persistent focus of the media and even some of the science community on Antibody induced immunity was completely beyond me. T cells were largely simply ignored even though they play such a crucial role in the body’s immune response. Antibodies seem to be a concept much easier to grasp. Maybe we should call T cells "Police Cells or "Anti-Cells" instead. You know, some marke…

> Maybe we should call T cells "Police Cells or "Anti-Cells" instead. You know, some marketing might help...

Sad, but probably very true...

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

#359

Post by nickthemagicman »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #336
nickthemagicman wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The principles underlying gravity are well understood. Covid and everything about it is not.

The germ theory of disease is also well established. For SARS-CoV-2, while there are still some uncertainties about precisely how important different modes of transmission are, it's clear that it's a respiratory disease. Quarantine works to stop transmission. Lockdowns like the one in Wuhan or those in Australia work, because they stop infected people from coming into close proximity with susceptible people. This muc…

You're really getting your level of abstractions wrong.

We understand cellular theory but we don't understand cancer.

We understand how computers and math work but we haven't figured out P vs NP.

Just because you understand some higher level of abstraction doesn't mean you understand lower levels.

Every 'germ' is radically different. Understanding the germ theory of disease doesn't mean anything other than we understand germs at that level of abstraction.

Another example is by also comparing speed limits to entire society wide shutdowns.

The real pandemic is how poorly educated our society is about science, statistics, level of abstractions, and critical thinking.

And the news media preys on the idiots.

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

#360

Post by nickthemagicman »

luxuryballs wrote: post #330
nickthemagicman wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people can think for themselves though. We're changing society for the people who can't think for themselves.

Yeah and it’s terrible. Lowest common denominator design makes everything worse.

Guns, Covid, spilling hot coffee...The government is there and ready to think for us to keep us safe!
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