Refugees lack Covid shots because drugmakers fear lawsuits, documents show • Hacker News Board

Re: Refugees lack Covid shots because drugmakers fear lawsuits, documents show

#81

Post by walterbell » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 1:08 PM UTC

fer wrote: post #76

roenxi wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm certainly confused now. What is this mechanism that can successfully destroy ... hundreds? thousands? millions? of virus particles but is unable to stop them reproducing? Are you arguing that they reproduce after they've been destroyed? Or maybe that the COVID virus is a permanent infection? For a body to rid itself of a viral disease it needs to achieve sterelising immunity. That is what it means to recover afte…

There's no sterilising immunity. That's a gross oversimplification of the incredibly complex thing that the immune system is. Immune response isn't linear. Likewise, viral reproduction isn't linear. They're not even constant within the same tissue. So whatever happens will depend on the virus, on the viral load, where it appears, and previous type and kind of immunity, and the speed of that immune response. Fun fact:…

Let's look at the latest UK data, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

> To the end of week 43 in 2021 (to 31 October 2021) 72,264 possible reinfections have been identified, of which 441 have been confirmed by identification of genetically distinct specimens.

That is from a total of 7.9 million positive cases, i.e. reinfection rate is ~0.01% to 1%. That means at least 99% of Covid-recovered people in the UK were not reinfected. Some textbooks from recent decades may call that "sterilizing immunity". Note that some words have been redefined by government agencies since 2020, including the term "vaccine" (definition updated by the CDC as recently as Sept. 2021). At this point, usage of some evolving and contested terms should be accompanied by a version number, date and changeset hash.

Regardless of terminology, the UK numbers show a 1% chance of reinfection upon exposure. If someone takes precautions to reduce their exposure to infected people (e.g. people with symptoms / positive test, or a crowded indoor space with poor ventilation), then the risk of reinfection will be a small number X 1%.

Re: Refugees lack Covid shots because drugmakers fear lawsuits, documents show

#82

Post by pas » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 1:10 PM UTC

mdp2021 wrote: post #40

pas wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously the situation is bad. The antivaxx bomb exploded and a significant chunk of the population has been hit by it. Now governments are trying to counteract that. (Twitter too.) Both usually have crude methods only.

> The antivaxx bomb exploded That is a quite improper expression to describe a situation which also covers the inquiry "What is going on here, I am seeing absurdities, lunacy [esp. with regards to said «counteraction»] and I am witnessing facts that simply do not match narratives".

Can you give a few examples of said absurdities?

People giving too much weight to the actions of Twitter (as a company) seems to be a serious problem. Twitter (as the company and its users as a whole) does not control whether the vaccine is good/bad.

The formula used to be simple. I want to travel to this or that foreign country I need this or that vaccine. Kids at age this and that get this and that vaccine.

Simple Bayesianism puts a limit on the chance that there's a large but extremely competent group conspiring to hide unfathomably huge problems with vaccines. The chance was never 0, which was fueling the slow burn of the antivaxx movement.

But now with this pandemic those voices suddenly reached a much larger audience, and those who have certain biases are much more susceptible to this, and hence the bomb explosion. (In particular people whose mind sufficiently discounts the very real risk of getting sick compared to the astronomically slim risk of getting an 5G chip in their arm.)

Re: Refugees lack Covid shots because drugmakers fear lawsuits, documents show

#83

Post by fsh » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 1:14 PM UTC

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #69

ajvs wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say this like it's all due to misinformation. There are many VAERS and other self-reports in other countries, many studies and countless doctors also coming out against this. Overall I think vaccines have higher pros/cons (I'm vaccinated) but it's by no means cut and dry.

In slovenia (~2mio pop, ~1mio had covid), the current stats for girls under 25 is zero deaths due to covid and 1 death due to a vaccine (jannsen), and she only got vaccinated, because the alternative was a lot worse (paid tests every 48 hours, waiting in line, not being able to use a bus to go to the test site without the test, etc). Yes, old unvaccinated people get fucked by covid, but 95% of the current measues in…

Cherry-picking one out of a huge number of tiny groups (girls under 25 from Slovenia) is the hallmark of bad science. This is completely unsuitable for a good risk/benefit analysis.

Re: Refugees lack Covid shots because drugmakers fear lawsuits, documents show

#84

Post by ajsnigrutin » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 1:16 PM UTC

pas wrote: post #80

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, so many many lies, so many "science changing is a good thing" stuff (eg "masks are useless, wash your hands", and mask wearers being conspiracy theorists, to "mandatory masks" and antimaskers being the conspirac nutjobs), "just 14 more days", etc.... but they still want you to "trust them" now, with "this new thing".

The science was always uncertain, the policy flip-flop was understandable, the absolutely fubar'ed PR is the nightmare fuel. Masks work. That was not the question. How much they help is the question of science. The cost-benefit decision is the question of policy. How to communicate the changing policy should have been the PR question. The US and international agencies that set policies are not as science-driven as th…

Science can say "by our current knowledge, the 'truth' is X" .... and then change their mind and say "Y".. The problem are the government mandates and policies based on ever changing science.

Atleast in slovenia we had 4 vaccines (Astrazeneca, jannsen, moderna and pfeizer), and all four were marked as safe and effective for everyone. Then astrazaneca caused issues in neigbouring countries and then J&J killed a wife of our diplomat first (and a lot of blame was thrown around), and then a 20yo girl died, and we banned J&J, then the scandinavian countries stopped usage of moderna for younger people, and we've gone from four "safe and effective" vaccines to just pfeizer. If you're a vaccine skeptic, or even if not, but just a bit afraid to get vaccinated, and three out of the four vaccines that were "just yesterday" safe and effective, are now "not safe and effective" anymore, you don't think "the fourth one surely is safe and effective!", but stay unvaccinated and wait it out. I got vaccinated with J&J, because it was the most 'simple' choice back then, but soon after i needed a booster from pfeizer, because J&J isn't good enough... so all of the risks, basically none of the benefits.

Add to this stories like this one (about the refugees), where countries are mandating locals to take the vaccine, but not refugees, and people get more and more skeptical.

Re: Refugees lack Covid shots because drugmakers fear lawsuits, documents show

#85

Post by yostrovs » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 1:17 PM UTC

waihtis wrote: post #77

pvaldes wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The advice and main rules were really clear from the start. Do 1) this, 2) this and 3) this. And were repeated millions of times from thousands of people in the whole planet. But some people didn't liked science and choose instead to go to bath masses, religious massive holidays and parties just to make a political point. Some people even put deliberately the live of other in risk, teared off their masks and spit in…

This theory of "pandemic of the unvaccinated" can safely be dumped into the trashcan following that e.g. here in Finland we have a double vaccination rate of over 80% and yet the daily numbers are easily the highest of all time. It also follows that the advice and main rules given to avoid the pandemic aren't actually effective, and somewhat ironically, it would bode well to use scientific principles to re-evaluate t…

It really is amazing that after two years of no clear correlation between mandates and results, many still believe that all those edicts and restrictions were based on science. The fact is that to continue to believe in all the imposed rules is more of an act of faith, similar to the religious kind.

Re: Refugees lack Covid shots because drugmakers fear lawsuits, documents show

#86

Post by walterbell » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 1:21 PM UTC

reindeer76 wrote: post #78

simonh wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, that’s the loss of life _with_ lockdowns, mass vaccinations, etc. we’ve successfully managed to limit the damage to much, much, much lower levels than it would have been otherwise. It’s been a huge success, compared to an unrestricted or minimally constrained propagation of the virus.

Sweden.

I wish we had open-source flowcharts for common debate talking points. Each could be linked to several dozen HN sub-threads where similar points were made by both sides, ending in a handful of common termination nodes. Once a flowchart exists and has been proven reusable, it could be condensed into a comic, meme or other visual mnemonic. If would also be easier to place new studies into the context of previous debates.

With repetitive graphs out of the way, discussion could focus on more nuanced points.

Re: Refugees lack Covid shots because drugmakers fear lawsuits, documents show

#87

Post by native_samples » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 1:25 PM UTC

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #64

native_samples wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that vaccines don't affect transmission at all, but do suppress symptoms, any such lawsuits would run in the other direction - people who can't take the vaccines due to allergies etc suing people who did, on the grounds that they knew or should have known that they'd become invisible spreaders and dangerous to those who couldn't take vaccines. But in reality no sensible court would allow such arguments in eithe…

> Given that vaccines don't affect transmission at all That is false. Stop spreading dangerous nonsense. https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20211124-vaccines-redu... https://www.newscientist.com/article/2294250-how-much-less-l...

You cite, I cite, we all cite ...

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7...

... but who's right?

If vaccines really affected transmission a lot, we'd see it in drastically reduced case numbers. What we actually see is that post-vaccination case numbers reach record highs. That should be a pretty basic reality check on any claims that transmission is heavily affected. Either that, or you have to believe transmissibility has no impact on case numbers.

What you tend to see is that studies that are older or use older data conclude more effectiveness. The New Scientist article you cite presents evidence from a study that used data only pre-Delta. But the point people are making when they say it doesn't affect transmission is about the current state of play. Not the situation back in March two major mutations ago.

Re: Refugees lack Covid shots because drugmakers fear lawsuits, documents show

#88

Post by ajsnigrutin » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 1:26 PM UTC

fsh wrote: post #83

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In slovenia (~2mio pop, ~1mio had covid), the current stats for girls under 25 is zero deaths due to covid and 1 death due to a vaccine (jannsen), and she only got vaccinated, because the alternative was a lot worse (paid tests every 48 hours, waiting in line, not being able to use a bus to go to the test site without the test, etc). Yes, old unvaccinated people get fucked by covid, but 95% of the current measues in…

Cherry-picking one out of a huge number of tiny groups (girls under 25 from Slovenia) is the hallmark of bad science. This is completely unsuitable for a good risk/benefit analysis.

In the whole And the mandates? If you're a 75yo pensioner, basically nothing has changed for you... curfew (back then) didn't affect you, because you're asleep, closed bars after 10pm the same, you don't go to shopping centers and restaurants, and normal grocery stores and pharmacies don't require testing or vaccinations... so you're basically living your life as normal.

And the So we're basically keeping parts of the country/economy partially closed (or even fully), to force young people to get vaccinated (because they're mostly the only ones affected by the mandates), and grandma doesn't care, because it doesn't affect her. The vaccination propaganda has quietly shifted from "protects you from infection and spread" to "protects you from hospitalization", but the mandates still affect mostly the ones where the chances of hospitalization are minimal.

Just requiring vaccinations to withdraw your pension (even if we left everything open and let everyone else be free) would save more lives than all the mandates targeting the young and ignoring the old.

Re: Refugees lack Covid shots because drugmakers fear lawsuits, documents show

#89

Post by walterbell » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 1:29 PM UTC

yostrovs wrote: post #85

waihtis wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This theory of "pandemic of the unvaccinated" can safely be dumped into the trashcan following that e.g. here in Finland we have a double vaccination rate of over 80% and yet the daily numbers are easily the highest of all time. It also follows that the advice and main rules given to avoid the pandemic aren't actually effective, and somewhat ironically, it would bode well to use scientific principles to re-evaluate t…

It really is amazing that after two years of no clear correlation between mandates and results, many still believe that all those edicts and restrictions were based on science. The fact is that to continue to believe in all the imposed rules is more of an act of faith, similar to the religious kind.

Complete with modern indulgences.

Re: Refugees lack Covid shots because drugmakers fear lawsuits, documents show

#90

Post by walterbell » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 1:39 PM UTC

fer wrote: post #62

nl wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> vaccine reporting of harm is about 1% What on earth is that piece of random rumourmongering based on? I felt horrible for ~24 hours after my second Pfizer shot. If that counts as hard then sure, 1% is believable. If it is actually harmful side effects than that is total nonsense. 1% is a huge, huge number of people.

It's based on antivax nonsense. Now he edited and linked to a site (which is banned everywhere in social media precisely for spreading COVID-19 misinformation) that takes raw data from VAERS at face value without any adjustment for prevalence or comorbidities. They could as well link vaccine shots to trampoline accidents if only VAERS collected such data. I'm all for open data, but antivaxxers without the minimal und…

If VAERS numbers were reduced for co-morbidities, then US Covid deaths would be reduced by ~90% when co-morbidities were excluded, https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-94-percent-covi...

There is also the issue of VAERS being under-reported, which can be estimated by using other sources of health surveillance, like the HMO-driven Vaccine Safety Datalink.