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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

#241

Post by webdood90 »

someguy5344523 wrote: post #237
mgh2 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rather think of vaccination as a responsibility toward your fellow citizens, rather than a "choice". This belief might be to blame for many of society's crises. https://trendguardian.medium.com/free-will-a-rich-fairy-tale...

But it looks like the vaccines don't stop the spread of covid: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC8481107/

The point is to reduce critical cases that cause hospital visits. Our system is overwhelmed as is.

The fact that this still needs to be explained 2 years into this is ridiculous.

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

#242

Post by enchiridion »

mgh2 wrote: post #216
quaffapint wrote: post #66

I'm vaccinated and boostered by my own choice. My problem with mandates is where does it end? Why this mandate and not other mandates? Who gets to decide that?

I rather think of vaccination as a responsibility toward your fellow citizens, rather than a "choice". This belief might be to blame for many of society's crises. https://trendguardian.medium.com/free-will-a-rich-fairy-tale...

Some people really just don’t want an experimental vaccine which sidestepped the usual regulatory approval.

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

#243

Post by xienze »

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…

There's also a further separation that is veeery relevant: age groups. There are sometimes graphs that split them out if you go digging far enough, but the graphs that make headlines are usually along the lines of "death rate, fully vaccinated versus unvaccinated" (which as you point out has its own issues). Not splitting it out into age groups gives casual readers the impression that mortality is evenly distributed along all age groups, which it most definitely is not.

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

#244

Post by dang »

encryptluks2 wrote: post #61
dang wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't cross into the flamewar style, no matter how strongly you (and others) feel on a topic. We're trying to avoid that here, and need everyone to pitch in. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Quoted post unavailable.

Plenty of HN users can, and do, disagree with that in ways that don't involve snark or personal attack. This isn't about your underlying views—it's entirely about comment quality. Comments like the GP lead to further inflammation and aggression in threads, which makes for boring, nasty, predictable discussion. We're trying to avoid that here.

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

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

#245

Post by walterbell »

packetlost wrote: post #204
walterbell wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their choice to not be vaccinated or wear masks results in people we love dying. If they are one of the 146 million Americans who recovered from Covid, they are at low risk of reinfection and thus transmission. The same cannot be said for Covid-naive, vaccinated people who can be infected and silently infect others due to symptoms being suppressed by the vaccine.

That's not at all how immunity or the vaccines work.

UK data showed a ~1% chance of reinfection with Delta. Omicron is higher, 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 ... 7.9 million first positives

For Delta transmission from vaccinated individuals, a study of Vietnamese healthcare workers found that 70% of infections were pre-symptomatic, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3897733

> 69 healthcare workers were tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. 62 participated in the clinical study. 49 were (pre)symptomatic ... Breakthrough Delta variant infections are associated with high viral loads, prolonged PCR positivity, and low levels of vaccine-induced neutralizing antibodies, explaining the transmission between the vaccinated people. Physical distancing measures remain critical to reduce SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant transmission.

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

#246

Post by rkk3 »

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...

>> 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]

Like all deaths tragic, but let's not pretend young men, effectively kids, dying in war is the same as elderly & chronically sick populations dying of disease.

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

#247

Post by walterbell »

tomrod wrote: post #229
walterbell wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their choice to not be vaccinated or wear masks results in people we love dying. If they are one of the 146 million Americans who recovered from Covid, they are at low risk of reinfection and thus transmission. The same cannot be said for Covid-naive, vaccinated people who can be infected and silently infect others due to symptoms being suppressed by the vaccine.

This isn't a classification problem of COVID-naive+vaxxed versus COVID-exposed versus COVID-naive+unvaxxed, and hasn't been since Delta. The issue is not vaccine denial by itself, its resistance to any public health measures, including vaccines, masking and other non-pharmaceutical interventions, and so forth. In short, these folks actively pursue a course of not behaving rationally because (usually) of misguided pol…

Is early treatment considered a public health intervention, https://c19early.com/?

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

#248

Post by nobody9999 »

josefx wrote: post #184
agency wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In Germany there were at least half a dozen members of parliament caught with their hands in the cookie jar for the money meant to buy masks alone. It would be interesting to see how many more used it to enrich themselves but the decisions enabling them where so hilariously badly written that nearly all the money spend on the masks was wasted. You can write entire lists of how fucked up the governments response was.…

>The government response around here can be summed up as corrupt incompetents fucking up the economy while playing the blame game. I could not think of a group objectively less qualified to respond.

Assuming you live in a country with democratic (small 'd') institutions, you elected those folks. If they're corrupt and/or incompetent, that's on you and your fellow countrymen, no?

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

#249

Post by mike00632 »

anonfornoreason wrote: post #127
peter422 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Florida have had way more deaths after vaccinations were widely available. Also don’t compare to NY… New York is such a unique state due to how it was hit so hard right away. Compare Florida and California. Florida has 50% more deaths per capita. That’s a lot!

Adjust for median age and your argument is moot

No. The vaccine prevents death. More people are dying in Florida because they are unvaccinated, not because Florida trends older.

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

#250

Post by mike00632 »

kansface wrote: post #130
peter422 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Florida have had way more deaths after vaccinations were widely available. Also don’t compare to NY… New York is such a unique state due to how it was hit so hard right away. Compare Florida and California. Florida has 50% more deaths per capita. That’s a lot!

Florida is 25% old people, CA is not.

All the more reason for Floridians to get vaccinated.
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