Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said • Hacker News Board

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#891

Post by avar » Sat, May 15, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #740

avar wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What changed? It's the same number of dead people, right? Aside from general aviation concerns, that 747-400 will have young families, infants and children on board, whereas exposing everyone on that 747-400 to COVID-19 would mostly result in the deaths of the elderly and the infirm. If we had an outbreak of Spanish flu with the same overall death rate it would not be as bad. It would be much worse. The deaths of t…

> I genuinely don't understand why everyone has insisted on talking about COVID-19 in terms of absolute deaths. For everything else like heart disease etc. we talk about statistically "losing X years of life". We do this because people misunderstand the "losing x years of life" statistics... > The median age of death for COVID-19 has been at or above the statistical life expectancy. ...just like you've done here. htt…

> ...just like you've done here.

For what it's worth I did not mean to imply a relationship between the average median life expectancy for the population as a whole and the life expediency of a person who's reached that age.

As you point out doing so would be a statistical fallacy. E.g. someone who's reached the age of 5 has already made it "past" infant mortality, and therefore has a higher life expectancy than a newborn.

I was using it as a shorthand to reference how lopsided the age distribution of COVID-19 deaths is. We can quibble over whether an 80 year old who's died from it would have lived an extra 0, 1, 5, 10 years.

But even if you were to completely misunderstand how life expectancy works, you'd be a lot more accurate than the GP's reference to a 747 crashing into a mountain, since that example implies deaths from a random sample of the population. Now instead of being off by 5-10 years you're off by many decades.

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#892

Post by HWR_14 » Sat, May 15, 2021, 3:05 PM UTC

josephcsible wrote: post #889

HWR_14 wrote: post #854

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure the cause of their concern with the J&J being produced with a fetal cell line, but the Catholic Church has some fairly vocal guidance on why the J&J vaccine is acceptable that address this. Also, for the mRNA vaccine, you may want to emphasize that this is the result of several decades of research, not a one-year crash program in new technology.

> the Catholic Church has some fairly vocal guidance on why the J&J vaccine is acceptable The Catholic Church's position is that the J&J vaccine is acceptable if it's the only vaccine you can get, but you should not get it if any of the other vaccines are available to you. Your comment makes it sound like they consider it acceptable unconditionally, which isn't the case.

I didn't mean to misrepresent the Catholic Church's position.

I have no idea if that helps the poster's parents decide to get vaccinated, but it's very clear that the Pope wants them to take the J&J shot if they don't have an alternative. And they currently don't have one they will accept.

None of the other vaccines are available to the poster's parents (held up mRNA technology fear, even though they are available via distribution), so the Church's logic should still hold

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#893

Post by josephcsible » Sat, May 15, 2021, 3:08 PM UTC

HWR_14 wrote: post #892

josephcsible wrote: post #889

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Catholic Church has some fairly vocal guidance on why the J&J vaccine is acceptable The Catholic Church's position is that the J&J vaccine is acceptable if it's the only vaccine you can get, but you should not get it if any of the other vaccines are available to you. Your comment makes it sound like they consider it acceptable unconditionally, which isn't the case.

I didn't mean to misrepresent the Catholic Church's position. I have no idea if that helps the poster's parents decide to get vaccinated, but it's very clear that the Pope wants them to take the J&J shot if they don't have an alternative. And they currently don't have one they will accept. None of the other vaccines are available to the poster's parents (held up mRNA technology fear, even though they are available vi…

There's a big difference between "don't have an alternative" and "don't have one they will accept." I don't think the Church means that it's okay to take J&J just because you don't like the others.

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#894

Post by HWR_14 » Sat, May 15, 2021, 3:10 PM UTC

stolenmerch wrote: post #859

HWR_14 wrote: post #853

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, what was the harm of wearing a mask? Like, if the US and CDC said "hey, the flu sucks - face masks are mandatory in any public space during the 3 months of flu season", what's the cost there? Other than the cost of the mask of course.

It's not the mask that does harm. It's the temptation by authorities to make blanket mandates that can easily encroach too far in an effort to cover as many scenarios as possible for legal purposes. It's not a conspiracy theory, it's just in their best interests to make it as easy as possible to interpret and enforce. It's also not at all cut-and-dried what a "public space" is, so that's a bitter argument that will b…

You've said that a fine-tuned mask mandate is too hard to write and enforce. You didn't address the underlying question of what the harm of a mask mandate is. Like, suppose I grant that it's difficult, and 80% of the time isn't needed. My question is then "and who cares?" My insurance isn't needed a far greater percentage of the time, nor is my wearing a seatbelt.

What I'm getting at is if it were just a permanent law like "wear a shirt (if female)" or "wear pants" what's the harm?

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#895

Post by jkaplowitz » Sat, May 15, 2021, 3:15 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #560

jkaplowitz wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's one way: The rules in NY already allow venues like baseball stadiums to ask for proof of full vaccination (i.e. 2 weeks after the second Pfizer/Moderna dose or 2 weeks after J&J) in exchange for giving those customers access to a seating section where the state's physical/social distancing and capacity limit rules are waived. There are other examples where the rules allow vaccination status to be checked in ex…

The problem is that the vaccination record cards are trivial to forge, especially if "electronically stored version" also includes taking a photo with your phone. There are tons of photos of these cards floating around the internet. Someone with even limited photo-editing skills could slap their name on one of those images, copy it onto their phone, and an overworked ticket-checker at the stadium wouldn't tell the di…

You're right of course, the nonzero percentage of fraudsters isn't high enough to cause a statistically impactful problem, I suspect. The deniers who make noises about faking cards and who are actually going to go beyond talk to action can't be that numerous, despite their appeal to sensationalist journalists.

Once the pandemic is well and truly past, as is not that far in the future in places like NY, those few activist deniers' remaining impact will be even easier to handle than it is now.

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#896

Post by mlyle » Sat, May 15, 2021, 3:52 PM UTC

ses1984 wrote: post #887

mlyle wrote: post #783

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the studies was an ecological study comparing mask wearing rates in many locales (some with compulsory requirements, and some without) and their change over time vs. disease growth rates. Another measured case growth in a hospital community where there was a very strictly enforced mandate for patients compared to the rate of case growth before, so compliance is a small factor. It's very likely that masks help.…

Your conclusions here don’t really seem in line with your comment about still not knowing if masks work. Not sure why you feel like this is a worthy hair to split. This kind of attitude is why the western response could have been better. Western medicine is hews rigorously close to the “do no harm” ideal and interpret it that you need to have conclusive evidence before recommending a treatment, even something as harm…

We have confounded evidence of a weak effect. If I had to bet (and we all have had to), I'd say they do have a small benefit on a population scale. But if more evidence showed up saying they didn't, I would be completely unsurprised.

I think it's worthwhile to have doubt and be skeptical.

I'll note that, at the beginning of the pandemic, I was saying that masks may or may not work, but they should still be recommended at a time that the CDC was implying that they might even be harmful.

This is all completely consistent with what I originally said: "To be honest, we still don't really know if masks work. They look like they probably do something, but the evidence is weak and the effect size small."

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#897

Post by sterlind » Sat, May 15, 2021, 4:14 PM UTC

HWR_14 wrote: post #858

sterlind wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the thing that scares me is that Pfizer is "only" ~75% against B.1.351. I'm not worried right now, and I've relaxed a ton since before, but I'm nervous that B.1.351 and other vaccine-resistant strains will rise to prominence once enough people are vaccinated.

Wait, Pfizer is only ~75% effective against B.1.351? Can you provide a source. I was not aware of that and it's worrisome.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2104974

"The effectiveness against any documented infection with the B.1.351 variant was 75.0% (95% CI, 70.5 to 78.9). Vaccine effectiveness against severe, critical, or fatal disease due to infection with any SARS-CoV-2 (with the B.1.1.7 and B.1.351 variants being predominant within Qatar) was very high, at 97.4% (95% CI, 92.2 to 99.5). Sensitivity analyses confirmed these results (Table S3)."

so it's still quite effective at preventing severe illness, which is why I'm not terribly worried, but still spooky that strains are starting to mutate away from our protection.

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#898

Post by ivraatiems » Sat, May 15, 2021, 4:15 PM UTC

garmaine wrote: post #818

ivraatiems wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I ask why? That feels like an enormously bigger lift for not much more gain over "the virus exists but vaccines relegate it to the level of a mere cold amongst vaccinated people," for instance.

COVID's long incubation time while infectious makes it potentially the most lethal disease ever. Most colds and flus evolve to be less lethal because lethal variants die out before spreading too far, making them evolutionarily less advantageous. That is NOT true of COVID, so there is potentially nothing preventing it from morphing into something more like MERS with a 20-30% fatality rate. As bad as COVID was, we dodg…

> COVID's long incubation time while infectious makes it potentially the most lethal disease ever.

"Most lethal disease ever" is a really strong claim, so I would like to see some of the evidence that leads you to believe that. The r0 of measles, which still infects 20 million people a year, is substantially higher than COVID's, and though its death rate in developed countries is lower, the higher r0 means it is potentially more deadly.[1]

Would you share some of the evidence backing the claim that COVID will not/is unlikely to evolve to become less lethal? If COVID did morph into something more lethal, wouldn't that affect its evolutionary fitness in such a way that the more lethal variant would eventually die out, as both SARS and MERS did?

I understand that you feel COVID is a unique threat and needs a unique response. I'm not convinced COVID is so unique that it escapes the same rules of evolutionary biology that impact other viruses, and even if it did, I am not convinced the necessary response is therefore 100% eradication. (And even if I were, I'd be extremely worried about perfect being the enemy of good.)

> But why stay in the line of fire?

We are still, and always will be, in the line of fire. COVID is not the first coronavirus of its kind to come up this way, and it won't be the last.

That doesn't necessarily mean we should or shouldn't eradicate it, but I think there may be a bias here where we assume that because COVID is the disease we're dealing with now, it is also the worst one.

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

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#899

Post by kodah » Sat, May 15, 2021, 4:22 PM UTC

Gene_Parmesan wrote: post #866

kodah wrote: post #810

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Debating how small or big they are is fruitless when their power and impact via their network effect is palpable. "Avoiding Twitter" and it's collection of extremists (and their followers that signal boost) is not possible. These people have their tweets and reactions in the news, they are constantly quoted on blogs and websites. I'd argue the opposite that you are. Twitter extremists influence the rest of the nation…

If you are someone who is active on Twitter, your thoughts about how important Twitter is are biased by your engagement with it. None of the actual people I know and talk to in real life harbor any sort of extremist views one way or another. Literally none of them ever mention Twitter in daily conversation. (And many of them are software devs.) IMO their statements are amplified by things like national media because…

> If you are someone who is active on Twitter, your thoughts about how important Twitter is are biased by your engagement with it.

I don't have Twitter.

> Literally none of them ever mention Twitter in daily conversation. (And many of them are software devs.)

Network effects do not cause or force you to acknowledge a source. They merely require you to trust the mental gymnastics of the person who communicated the idea to you.

> That doesn't mean the people consuming the media also have those extremist belief

Generally the people adopting will adopt bits an pieces, this is what I described as "decay".

The rest I agree with.

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#900

Post by josephcsible » Sat, May 15, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

HWR_14 wrote: post #894

stolenmerch wrote: post #859

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the mask that does harm. It's the temptation by authorities to make blanket mandates that can easily encroach too far in an effort to cover as many scenarios as possible for legal purposes. It's not a conspiracy theory, it's just in their best interests to make it as easy as possible to interpret and enforce. It's also not at all cut-and-dried what a "public space" is, so that's a bitter argument that will b…

You've said that a fine-tuned mask mandate is too hard to write and enforce. You didn't address the underlying question of what the harm of a mask mandate is. Like, suppose I grant that it's difficult, and 80% of the time isn't needed. My question is then "and who cares?" My insurance isn't needed a far greater percentage of the time, nor is my wearing a seatbelt. What I'm getting at is if it were just a permanent la…

Wearing a mask is a lot more onerous than wearing a seat belt, shirt, or pants.