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How death rates from Covid-19 differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated

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Re: How death rates from Covid-19 differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated

#311

Post by spurgu »

rsynnott wrote: post #307
spurgu wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why haven't governments been working hard at increasing capacity in terms of ventilators and hospital beds and other needed equipment, since March 2020? Back then governments actually did that, and set up emergency beds. I know that there's a shortage of personnel, but it just seems that this would've been something to work towards since the beginning. I don't know what is practically needed from the personnel to nur…

> Why haven't governments been working hard at increasing capacity in terms of ventilators and hospital beds and other needed equipment, since March 2020? Back then governments actually did that, and set up emergency beds. Many of them have. In general, equipment isn't the problem today in rich countries; it's staffing. > I don't know what is practically needed from the personnel to nurse If they're in ICU (which is…

> I'm not quite following the distinction you're making here between young and old

What I was getting at is that the vast majority of people dying in the ICU are 60+. So scaling up ICU's isn't gonna do much for them. Scaling up ICU's to cater for the > multiple specially trained nurses per bed

How much training? Just brainstorming here: Wouldn't a 2-6 month (paid) intensive course be enough? It's not like you'd need to specialize in everything, just common symptoms/issues related to Covid hospitalizations. And after that you'd have a guaranteed well-paid* job for as long as this lasts. Throw in a college education like the military, if we're talking the US, for good measure.

Just seems like there could be more done so much more in this area.

*) this would of course include paying these people properly, which could be done through government subsidies

edit: We thought the vaccine would take care of this whole thing but now after it's apparent it won't, we need to think of better solutions.

Re: How death rates from Covid-19 differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated

#312

Post by bastardoperator »

Minor49er wrote: post #308
bastardoperator wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vaccine I took has already been FDA approved: https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-appr... Even if my sentiment was to change (it's not, vaccines work), it's not going to be from a comment on a social media website.

Are you sure that's the right one? Comirnaty.com currently states: "Comirnaty® has the same formulation as the FDA-authorized Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine" Yet a previous version clarified that these two products are legally distinct, and even contain certain undisclosed differences: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Zl3xD0... "COMIRNATY® (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) is also known as Pfizer-BioNTe…

They're the same thing:

  The vaccine has been known as the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, and will now be marketed as Comirnaty
https://www.fda.gov/emergency-preparedness-and-response/coro...

Re: How death rates from Covid-19 differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated

#313

Post by Godel_unicode »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #284
Godel_unicode wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vaccine mandates make sense for the same reason drunk driving bans make sense: externalities. The role of government is to cover for market failings, and spillover costs are a prime example of an area where markets are essentially guaranteed to fail.

> Vaccine mandates make sense for the same reason drunk driving bans make sense: externalities. These are not the same thing. One is an inaction, the other is an action. It's like saying that forcing someone to have an abortion is the same thing as banning abortions.

First, I very clearly didn't say that they're the same thing so I'm not sure why that would be relevant. Second, that analogy makes no sense other than as a dog-whistle.

Lastly, even all of that aside, there's no rule that says the government can only mandate actions or prohibit actions. There are plenty of examples of both things in the US legal code.

Re: How death rates from Covid-19 differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated

#314

Post by Godel_unicode »

moistly wrote: post #267
Godel_unicode wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are several studies saying that vaccines are beneficial even for people who have natural immunity from an infection. Also, if we have learned anything the last two years it's that at a population level people flatly cannot handle nuance. Anything other than a flat "you must have proof of vaccination" isn't going to work.

One of those studies on the infected-then-vaccinated set (or, at least, an author of the study, being interviewed) claims “superhuman immunity” — effective against a spectrum of SARS viruses. Presumably the reverse (vaccinated-then-infected) is not true. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/09/07/1033677... I will say that I do not particularly trust NPR any more; they have misreported events in direct cont…

This post is very confusing to me. Why would the reverse not be true? Why did you post a source that you don't trust? Why just throw out an accusation like that, but with no specifics for people to follow up on and decide for themselves?

Re: How death rates from Covid-19 differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated

#315

Post by Yoric »

hagbard_c wrote: post #298
Yoric wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me see if I understand correctly your thesis (collated from several of your responses). 1. You believe/observe that the current generation of vaccines are useful. 2. You believe/observe that the current generation of vaccines are insufficient. 3. You believe/observe that many people (on HN?) have too much faith in vaccines as a silver bullet. 4. You believe/observe that the government responses (in western countr…

> Is that correct? No, not really. Instead of walking your points I can summarise my position on this issue as it does not really differ from my position on most other issues. My starting point is objectivity and as such I dislike narrative. When SARS2 became a thing it was woven into a number of narratives, one of which has now become dominant in many western countries. This narrative revolves around a collectivist…

So, if I understand correctly, it seems that your disagreement with current policies is, to a large extent, ideological, rather than practical.

Also, if I read correctly what you write, the main disagreement between you and me is that you seem to conflate:

1. technocracy == authoritarianism;

2. taking public health measures == authoritarianism;

3. informed people will take good decisions.

To which I would counter with different definitions and observations:

1. In my book, technocracy means "letting people who actually understand the issue do something about it", by opposition to "count on people whose main skills are diplomacy and politics do something about a problem they don't understand." We still count on the latter to actually defend our democracy and technocrats (just as police officers, judges or teachers) are part of the means of action of a democracy.

2. In my book, the measures that have been taken were imperfect necessary (or at least seemed necessary at the time) based on existing knowledge about epidemics. They have a cost, largely in terms of personal comfort and mental health, but we're so far from authoritarian regimes that I suspect that people who use the word "authoritarian" to describe them have no clue what it means.

3. Experience with the US seems to suggest that many informed people will... do random things?

Re: How death rates from Covid-19 differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated

#316

Post by latchkey »

guilhas wrote: post #196

The Public Health England weekly report, already adjusted for percentage of vaccinated, for the last few weeks clearly shows more deaths of the vaccinated from covid and other causes The USA having more deaths this year than last, with the Delta that spreads faster but is less deadly Personally not vaccinated, had covid recently, and have no plans of getting vaccinated. Caught from my Pfizer vaccinated wife, and we b…

Who's effects were worse?

Re: How death rates from Covid-19 differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated

#318

Post by majewsky »

angelzen wrote: post #270
eqvinox wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Occupying a hospital bed won't doom the rest of us. https://www.intensivregister.de/#/aktuelle-lage/zeitreihen Germany is getting quite close to exhausting ICU beds and ventilators. Non-"essential" procedures have already been postponed.

"Gesamtzahl gemeldeter Intensivbetten (Betreibbare Betten und Notfallreserve" chart shows the ICU stats over time. Occupied beds are roughly a flatline around 20k, with a small 3k seasonal (covid?) variation. OTOH, the total number of available ICU beds have fallen from ~32k to ~24k, 25%. We are all nervous to see how the medical system will weather the winter covid waves, sadly the covid pandemic is far from over. B…

Two effects going on there in parallel:

1. In the last wave, some hospitals reported more ICU beds than they were actually prepared to staff, because each available bed in the datasheet got them a hefty government subsidy.

2. A non-negligible number of ICU nursing staff were worked into the ground in the Winter 2020/2021 wave and decided to quit (read: move into similar jobs with less horrible working conditions). From what I hear (caution: anecdata), a lot of the remaining staff are now considering to follow them.

Re: How death rates from Covid-19 differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated

#319

Post by silent_cal »

Pyramus wrote: post #278
silent_cal wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why did this trend only emerge in April? The population of young people being vaccinated has increased since then.

It seems to me you are really interested in an answer, so maybe you want to workout an answer yourself: * When did vaccination start for the group 10-59 in the UK? * How does the makeup of the group "unvaccinated" change over time? * What is the average distance between the two lines, are there any trends? Let me know if you have any questions.

I assume you're saying that this is all due to the respective ages of the populations. If that's the case, then why did the vaccinated group (older) have a lower death rate than the unvaccinated before April?

Re: How death rates from Covid-19 differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated

#320

Post by silent_cal »

pfg wrote: post #252
silent_cal wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why did this trend only emerge in April? The population of young people being vaccinated has increased since then.

There are all kinds of possible explanations for this. If you look at this heatmap of vaccine uptake by age and time (you'll need to select second dose)[1], you'll see that the uptake percentage is fairly uniform across all age groups below 60 e.g. in March, but goes up fast for 55-59 in April, meaning the "10-59 + Second dose" group became older on average during that time. My best guess is that the uniform distribu…

If it's all due to age, then why did the vaccinated group (older) have a lower death rate than the unvaccinated group (younger) prior to April?
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