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Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine mandates

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Re: Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine mandates

#111

Post by walterbell »

gibspaulding wrote: post #94
tzs wrote: post #30

Something from the NYT mailing list yesterday: > The Covid vaccines are remarkably effective at preventing serious illness. If you’re vaccinated, your chances of getting severely sick are extremely low. Even among people 65 and older, the combination of the vaccines’ effectiveness and the Omicron variant’s relative mildness means that Covid now appears to present less danger than a normal flu. > For the unvaccinated,…

>It has killed more than 865,000 Americans It looks like that's more Americans than have been killed in combat in all of the wars of the 20th century combined [1] Granted it's less than the UK lost in WW1 alone, so it's perhaps more a testament to how few the US managed to loose in the world wars (compared to Europe), but it's still wild to realize. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1009819/total-us-militar...

These numbers can be further separated by "with Covid" and "from Covid" causality, as well as co-morbidities and expected lifetime. E.g. if someone was soon to die from illness A, but died 3 months earlier from complications induced by Covid, and the hospital received a financial payment for classifying this as Covid-related treatment, that should be broken out into a separate reporting category. Such deaths would not much change all-cause mortality for the year.

Re: Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine mandates

#112

Post by aldebran »

robrorcroptrer wrote: post #77
peter422 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It ends with covid vaccines because that is the only pandemic that is currently raging across the globe. The politicians we elect democratically makes the decisions.

Could the global obesity epidemic not also be handled through mandates?

You becoming obese doesn’t affect me the way you catching Covid does. Yes obesity eats up healthcare resources as well but not to the degree and certainly not as quickly as Covid cases do.

Re: Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine mandates

#113

Post by rajup »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #103
Bhilai wrote: post #80

I am done. I did my part, wore masks (sometimes double masks,) three shots of vaccines and took all reasonable precautions that a sane person could do. But there are still unmasked people and unvaccinated people (sure, blame me for putting everyone in this binary category) and I am done caring about this class of people. I could not see my family for two years due to one or the other international travel restrictions…

How do you feel about people who are vaccinated but will still likely have permanent serious consequences or shortened life span due to a "mild" infection? I'm in this category and it doesn't seem particularly rare. Rarely accounted for in these "I am done" type posts though.

Ok but what do you propose though? The vaccinated still spread COVID granted at a lesser rate. A permanent mask mandate? COVID is not going away.

Re: Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine mandates

#114

Post by xadhominemx »

walterbell wrote: post #38

The media's binary separation of populations into vax and unvax is a false dichotomy. More causal factors would be represented by: 1. Covid-recovered 2. Vaccinated 3. Partly-vaccinated ( CDC reporting bundles #3 and #4. UK reports all 4 categories separately. #1 was already a high percentage in 2021 and is now higher due to Omicron. Edit: CDC estimated pre-Omicron #1 as 146 million people (as of Oct 2021), https://ww…

At this point, “3” represents a tiny fraction of the population so isn’t even really worth breaking out

Re: Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine mandates

#115

Post by alamortsubite »

robrorcroptrer wrote: post #77
peter422 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It ends with covid vaccines because that is the only pandemic that is currently raging across the globe. The politicians we elect democratically makes the decisions.

Could the global obesity epidemic not also be handled through mandates?

Fat taxes are a form of this. I think the primary difference is that they have strong economic incentives aligned against them. I don't see this as the case with vaccine and mask mandates.

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

Re: Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine mandates

#116

Post by BitwiseFool »

agency wrote: post #95
BitwiseFool wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure about this. Call me a cynic, or even a Libertarian (gasp!) but it is generally not in the nature of government to wind down an apparatus that they paid so much for once "the threat" has passed. Now that governments have the infrastructure for requiring and/or showing proof of vaccination, it really isn't a stretch to think they will want to keep that system and have it be readily available for the nex…

Who is better situated to respond to a pandemic than the state? What is the alternative?

I wasn't proposing an alternative, just chiming in that I don't believe the GP's assertion that "It ends with covid vaccines". Mainly because the government now has a powerful tool at its disposal for fighting pandemics and it will not want to stop using it once the threat is finally past us because it has so much utility and expandability for future health crises.

Re: Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine mandates

#117

Post by xadhominemx »

andrewclunn wrote: post #91

> “The only way to get compliance from people and get accommodation [is] if we demonstrate the ability to withdraw these [mandates] in the same manner in which we put them in,” Gottlieb added. Nope. That line was crossed a long time ago. I can't imagine people suddenly regaining trust in pharma companies and health care agencies now because they backed off at this point.

Do you really think Republicans are not getting vaccinated because they “don’t trust” pharma companies?

Re: Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine mandates

#118

Post by tjr225 »

gibspaulding wrote: post #94
tzs wrote: post #30

Something from the NYT mailing list yesterday: > The Covid vaccines are remarkably effective at preventing serious illness. If you’re vaccinated, your chances of getting severely sick are extremely low. Even among people 65 and older, the combination of the vaccines’ effectiveness and the Omicron variant’s relative mildness means that Covid now appears to present less danger than a normal flu. > For the unvaccinated,…

>It has killed more than 865,000 Americans It looks like that's more Americans than have been killed in combat in all of the wars of the 20th century combined [1] Granted it's less than the UK lost in WW1 alone, so it's perhaps more a testament to how few the US managed to loose in the world wars (compared to Europe), but it's still wild to realize. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1009819/total-us-militar...

I know this is going to sound conspiratorial but I think you’d have to be pretty naive to accept the reported deaths in the US due to Covid to be that accurate. Hospitals(which in the US are for profit mind you) were quite literally given more money for reporting a death as a Covid death for a period of time. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/24/fac...

Actually you could say it’s difficult to trust the numbers coming from any country for a variety of reasons, whether it be under or overreported.

Re: Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine mandates

#119

Post by tyrrvk »

robrorcroptrer wrote: post #77
peter422 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It ends with covid vaccines because that is the only pandemic that is currently raging across the globe. The politicians we elect democratically makes the decisions.

Could the global obesity epidemic not also be handled through mandates?

You can't catch obesity from someone coughing in the same room as you.

But to extrapolate further: Sugar taxes have been tried in countries - Mexico for one. I think there was massive backlash from CocaCola/Pepsi etc, for infringing on their freedom to make obscene profits. I seem to recall discussions here about some of the lawmakers finding Israeli spykits on their phones (the ones pushing for the sugar tax). edit: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/11/technology/hack-mexico-so...

Re: Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine mandates

#120

Post by Freak_NL »

ryan93 wrote: post #99
xattt wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s your perspective on small kids too young to be vaccinated?

zero risk of death from covid

Not zero, but so incredibly low as not to be matter for concern in terms of risk assessment. One of the few upsides of this pandemic is that young children are the least affected, and with vaccines available for ages 5 and up this risk is well mitigated for older children (teens in particular).
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