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George Mason professor wins Covid antibody lawsuit as vaccine exemption

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Re: George Mason professor wins Covid antibody lawsuit as vaccine exemption

#131

Post by smorgusofborg »

criticaltinker wrote: post #107
loxias wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "How did we get to a point..." Every day, we all make tradeoffs as part of the price to pay for living in society. This is not a new thing. (and I assert it's counterproductive and anti-social behavior (harmful to society, the opposite of pro-social, not meaning "introverted") to assert that it is.) I can't build a DIY rocket powered car and drive it around town. It might hurt people, regardless of my intentions or…

> being un-vaccinated will eventually hurt people (by increasing transmission, and hastening the onset of a disastrous mutation) Your statement is missing the sorely needed nuance that individuals with immunity acquired through natural infection are at least equally well protected as vaccinated individuals. That is the consensus in the scientific consensus literature right now. This fact is the central argument of th…

People acquire natural immunity by being a danger to themselves and others. This professor is effectively and advertisement campaign for covid Parties to get back to work without needing the acceptable risk by being an insanely negligent factor in public health. I don't see any point in creating a public health process to find people who have safe levels naturally acquired by no negligence of their own to not cause more problems by performing this testing.

Re: George Mason professor wins Covid antibody lawsuit as vaccine exemption

#132

Post by h_anna_h »

risyachka wrote: post #40
seppoonbi3 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imo it's okay because there is no expectation of people doing everything they can for other people. You could argue that people that don't go to medical school risk lives of the others.

No one will force you to vaccinate if you move do mountains and live in isolation there. But if you want to live among others - you either - follow the rules of majority willingly - will be forced to follow them - move away and leave alone But if you want to live with others and do whatever you want and endanger them - no one will tolerate this and then will be right to.

In large parts of the world the rules of said majority are that homosexual people are to be stoned to death. Is this really what you support?

The "majority" rule is a made up one, just like most rules.

Re: George Mason professor wins Covid antibody lawsuit as vaccine exemption

#133

Post by ScottBurson »

criticaltinker wrote: post #125
ScottBurson wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a recommendation to individuals, the suggestion to seek early treatment -- indeed, to apply certain treatments immediately to oneself -- is, I believe, sound, and I second it. But the situation as regards public health policy and messaging is more complicated. Denial is among the most human of emotional patterns; many people do not want to face the possibility that they've contracted a dread disease, and will proc…

Well put, and I agree that people have a tendency to procrastinate which can be detrimental to early treatment strategies. > why has no other country done it? Since early in the pandemic many front-line doctors have been successfully reducing hospitalization and death through early treatment with a multi-drug approach. Those are the doctors and researchers that authored the publications I cited in my previous comment…

Sure, these early treatments have happened on a small scale; I've seen some of the papers. And don't get me wrong here; clearly we have to start with informal experiments and progress to small studies, to find promising treatments, before we expand their use. But there's still a world of difference between one doctor in one hospital cherry-picking the patients who happen to come in early and treating them successfully, versus basing one's entire public health strategy on early treatments. For one thing, if you do somehow convince people to come in early, you're going to have a lot more patients to treat. Not only do you have to make sure you have enough of the drugs and other supplies, but you have to have enough trained staff to administer them.

All that said, I would actually like to see someone try it. There are plenty of countries that have little expectation of receiving much vaccine supply this year anyway; they have little to lose. But it's no slam dunk; they face a daunting public education problem first, and then if they somehow solve that puzzle, they'll have to deal with the logistical difficulties.

Against all that, I think vaccines have more than just a marketing advantage. As long as they're reasonably safe and effective, they're a much more practical solution. Of course, what counts as "reasonably safe and effective" is debatable.

Re: George Mason professor wins Covid antibody lawsuit as vaccine exemption

#134

Post by junon »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #129
junon wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true. People who are not vaccinated become opportunities for mutation, causing variants to emerge and spread, most of which are innocuous (this happens all the time) but some can still re-infect and do harm to vaccinated people.

But the virus spreads among the vaccinated any way. Moreover, the global population of unvaccinated will not be meaningfully affected by any one country's decision to mandate vaccination. And the mutation rate is dependent on the size of the global population of virus carriers, not one country's. So all-in-all, I see very weak justification for such a heavy handed mandate, no matter how useful I think vaccination is.

> But the virus spreads among the vaccinated any way.

At an incredibly reduced rate, and mutations generally do not spread to others.

> Moreover, the global population of unvaccinated will not be meaningfully affected by any one country's decision to mandate vaccination.

I don't see how that's relevant to my original response.

> And the mutation rate is dependent on the size of the global population of virus carriers, not one country's.

I don't follow. Mutations occur irrespective of any human constructs such as nations, countries, borders, etc.

> So all-in-all, I see very weak justification for such a heavy handed mandate, no matter how useful I think vaccination is.

Take the opposite case. Nobody vaccinates, we stop caring. What is the outcome?

Half-assed approaches will only slow, not stop, the pandemic. It's not very hard to think critically about this...

Re: George Mason professor wins Covid antibody lawsuit as vaccine exemption

#135

Post by woofie11 »

criticaltinker wrote: post #102
woofie11 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spirited and informed debate: Virtually everything I see suggests that the effect is bimodal: 1. Everyone gets vaccinated at the same time, and the disease goes away. Not a lot of disease means not a lot of mutations. 2. No one gets vaccinated, and there is no such effect. If immune escape is an issue, it seems like the solution would be 100% MANDATORY vaccinations, and to perform vaccinations all at once, region by…

> Everyone gets vaccinated at the same time [...] region by region, so there are no populations which mix vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals This is logistically impossible and completely unrealistic. If you can find any literature or any experts suggesting that this is feasible, please share. > and the disease goes away Even if we did manage do achieve what you suggested, the current vaccines do not guarantee s…

> This is logistically impossible and completely unrealistic. If you can find any literature or any experts suggesting that this is feasible, please share.

This doesn't need to be 100%. Large swaths of the world rely on help for vaccines. Instead of distributing aid evenly by country, it could go country-by-country. "At the same time" also doesn't mean everyone gets a shot on the same day, just not spread out over years as we're doing now.

> Even if we did manage do achieve what you suggested, the current vaccines do not guarantee sterilizing immunity.

They're about 50% effective for delta 6 months after vaccination, and about 95% effective for the original at vaccination. That's a big difference. We don't need sterilizing immunity; just for R0> The key is that using a diverse set of strategies helps reduce the possibility and risk of vaccine resistance.

I agree 100%. This is the key. What amazing to me is the effectiveness of proper PPE. I don't understand why anyone uses cloth masks anymore. Proper masks are cheap, available, and help far more than vaccines or drug regiments. My opinion is that we should have vaccines, modest social distancing, N95-equivalent masks, universal HEPA filters, move what we can outside, etc. I think if we do all the cheap things consistently, we'll eliminate the need to do big, expensive things.

> I appreciate the spirited discussion but your comment does not seem particularly well informed - it completely disregards the concerns and arguments put forth by experts in the field, which I've outlined in my previous comments.

I'm not sure what you're referring to.

Re: George Mason professor wins Covid antibody lawsuit as vaccine exemption

#136

Post by mleonhard »

ampgt wrote: post #12

How did we get to a point where we think it’s OK to tell someone what they should do with their body? For the record: I am vaccinated and I always encourage others to do so. But what is the difference between someone choosing to not vaccinate “because of their religion” and just choosing not to vaccinate? Why is one of those OK and the other isn’t?

It goes back as far as 1906: Mary Mallon (aka Typhoid Mary) was an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid. The government barred her from working as a cook. She took a fake name and resumed cooking for others. After several people died, the government discovered her crime and imprisoned her.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon

Re: George Mason professor wins Covid antibody lawsuit as vaccine exemption

#137

Post by dang »

fatbird wrote: post #49
inter_netuser wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is some evidence that ivermectin has antiviral activity in-vitro, tested on primate cells. Many drugs have effects that are outside of on-label indications, as those are really just for marketing purposes. Physicians are absolutely free to prescribe things off-label, do so routinely, and in fact in many situations the majority of prescriptions happen to be off-label. The only concern here is 1) that concentrati…

Which is to say that the more immediate concern is that it has never been tested or approved for human consumption and there are no guidelines around dosage or expected efficacy and if you're taking it because you heard about it as you seem to have, you're wildly guessing about a treatment in preference to availing yourself of a proven treatment that's been administered almost a billion times in the last 18 months un…

You broke the site guidelines egregiously with that last paragraph. Seriously not cool.

We ban accounts that do that, so please don't do anything like that on HN again—regardless of how wrong other people are, or you feel they are.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: it unfortunately looks like you've been using HN primarily for flamewar. We ban that sort of account as well, so would you please not do that anymore? We're trying for curious, thoughtful conversation here.

Re: George Mason professor wins Covid antibody lawsuit as vaccine exemption

#138

Post by loxias »

landemva wrote: post #119
loxias wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "How did we get to a point..." Every day, we all make tradeoffs as part of the price to pay for living in society. This is not a new thing. (and I assert it's counterproductive and anti-social behavior (harmful to society, the opposite of pro-social, not meaning "introverted") to assert that it is.) I can't build a DIY rocket powered car and drive it around town. It might hurt people, regardless of my intentions or…

'I can't even drive a store bought car without a drivers license.' If you are a corporation or business, that is generally true. If you are using a conveyance in your personal capacity, then you are not regulated unless you voluntarily sign up to be licensed. Your choice. "For while a citizen has the right to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, that right does not extend to the use…

Thanks for this! (really) And thanks for a great citation.

I don't have a drivers license. I always assumed driving a car without a license, registration, and proof of insurance was illegal and would get me in trouble. I admit, I didn't research this aspect before writing my above comment (tho I did research the vaccine requirements, my source is a government website).

Now I don't quite know what to think! Can I legally drive a car on public roads in California?

Re: George Mason professor wins Covid antibody lawsuit as vaccine exemption

#139

Post by archontes »

ampgt wrote: post #12

How did we get to a point where we think it’s OK to tell someone what they should do with their body? For the record: I am vaccinated and I always encourage others to do so. But what is the difference between someone choosing to not vaccinate “because of their religion” and just choosing not to vaccinate? Why is one of those OK and the other isn’t?

We regulate things that can harm people. If your body can harm people, it's subject to regulation.

We regulate your ability to punch, to bite, and to infect. Simple as that.

And this last was formally established by the SCOTUS 116 years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts

Re: George Mason professor wins Covid antibody lawsuit as vaccine exemption

#140

Post by fatbird »

dang wrote: post #137
fatbird wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is to say that the more immediate concern is that it has never been tested or approved for human consumption and there are no guidelines around dosage or expected efficacy and if you're taking it because you heard about it as you seem to have, you're wildly guessing about a treatment in preference to availing yourself of a proven treatment that's been administered almost a billion times in the last 18 months un…

You broke the site guidelines egregiously with that last paragraph. Seriously not cool. We ban accounts that do that, so please don't do anything like that on HN again—regardless of how wrong other people are, or you feel they are. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: it unfortunately looks like you've been using HN primarily for flamewar. We ban that sort of account as well, so would you please not…

Your house, your rules, my apologies.
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