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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

#291

Post by GavinMcG »

akomtu wrote: post #285
tynpeddler wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vaxxed and unvaxxed populations both rely on the same medical infrastructure. So when the unvaxxed fill hospitals to recover or die, they are consuming scarce resources that are required by the population at large for other things like birth, cancer, surgery, etc. Sadly, we don't have an ethical way to let all the unvaxxed get covid without impacting the medical system negatively for the rest of us.

The same reasoning can be applied to obesity.

Not really. Various groups may disproportionately take up health resources, but the risk we're talking about is acutely overwhelming health systems.

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

#292

Post by Mountain_Skies »

smnrchrds wrote: post #284
srcreigh wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Encouraging natural immunity is asking for hospitals to get filled up by people giving themselves covid on purpose. This affects non covid patients too. I suspect that's why the media doesn't do it.

That's also why many governments do not accept proof of recovery in lieu of proof of vaccination. Those who do have vaccine-skeptic people catching the virus intentionally and risking death. https://globalnews.ca/news/8524409/hana-horka-czech-singer-c...

Yes, yet another way the government is dishonestly manipulating people into a single course of action even when it is of little benefit to anyone other than those who mistake metrics for what the metrics were designed to manage. There appears to be no bottom to the depths of credibility destruction that the government will plunge in order to put compliance above all else.

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

#293

Post by tehjoker »

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,…

This totally discounts reinfections and long covid. A lot of people are going to die and get disabled.

Antibodies seem to not last very long at levels that prevent infection. This is a very severe crisis that doesn't end because people get tired. It's like being tired of a war and laying down your weapons and then getting surprised when you get overrun.

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

#294

Post by canoebuilder »

Am I the only one who finds it heinous that “Pfizer board member” is supposed to give this position more credence as opposed to what should just be clearly obvious to any level headed civic minded individual in the American/western tradition?

“Okay y’all, weve profited at your expense quite enough, let’s dial it back a little before causing too much societal damage writ large” -“Pfizer board member

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

#295

Post by sudosysgen »

barbazoo wrote: post #271
sudosysgen wrote: post #10

Some people are saying that this is notable because Pfizer has a financial incentive to keep vaccine mandates. That is not true. Pfizer is going to be making a lot more money from their COVID treatments than from the vaccine.

> Pfizer is going to be making a lot more money from their COVID treatments than from the vaccine If you're saying it's false you should please post a source or at least some kind of napkin calculation. It's not intuitive at all. Otherwise it just sounds like you're beating the already dead "pharma companies sole motivation is money" horse.

That is a trivial conclusion. Much has been written about it. Pfizer themselves have written they estimate 67 billion dollars in revenue each year from Paxlovid, which is way more than their vaccine revenues and it's not even close. If you want my back-of-the-napkin calculation, here it is.

The cost of a generic Paxlovid course of treatment is around 40$. The cost of treatment, negotiated down by the government (and thus higher for other parties) is around 600$. So the marginal profit from a course of treatment of Paxlovid is around 540$.

On the other hand, a vaccine dose costs 20$, and it is very difficult to manufacture. A reasonable estimate of profit is 10$ per dose. This is an overestimate, because Pfizer has to share a sizeable portion of the Profit with BioNTech and other companies.

Paxlovid is indicated to be taken as early as possible - and priced so that it makes financial sense for insurance companies to pay for it to avoid the cost of hospitalization. Therefore we can expect a sizeable proportion of people with COVID symptoms to take it.

Paxlovid reduces the symptomatic illness period, so there is also a very strong incentive for individuals to take it as it allows them to be less sick. For the less fortunate, it also means less sick days to take, which may be crucial to make ends meet.

If we're expecting everyone to take a vaccine dose every six months (which we all know will never happen), that's 20$/person.year from the vaccine.

If we expect everyone to have COVID symptoms every year (which is almost certainly an underestimate), at 540$/person.year, we only need to have a 3.7% take rate for Paxlovid in order for it to generate more profit than everyone taking two doses every year (which, again, will never even come close to happening).

So as long as 3.7% of the population takes one Paxlovid course of treatment every year, Pfizer will make more profit from Paxlovid than the vaccine.

So it is trivially true that widespread COVID infection (and low vaccination numbers) is going to be Pfizer's financial incentive.

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

#296

Post by wk_end »

akomtu wrote: post #285
tynpeddler wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vaxxed and unvaxxed populations both rely on the same medical infrastructure. So when the unvaxxed fill hospitals to recover or die, they are consuming scarce resources that are required by the population at large for other things like birth, cancer, surgery, etc. Sadly, we don't have an ethical way to let all the unvaxxed get covid without impacting the medical system negatively for the rest of us.

The same reasoning can be applied to obesity.

...only if (and if only!) obesity were a problem that could be solved by a couple of quick, free shots at the local pharmacy.

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

#297

Post by Mountain_Skies »

xadhominemx wrote: post #114
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

How do you know that?

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

#298

Post by soperj »

peter422 wrote: post #75
yucky wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately we can trust that they aren't using any of those billions they have made to manipulate public opinion on the issue, because that would be immoral and therefore off limits.

It’s literally a miracle drug for a virus that is killing thousands of people a day, that likely will work for all variants. Can you stop complaining for one second about the price and acknowledge that it is amazing that they invented it?

Oddest part about it is that they invented it in 2018.

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

#299

Post by dahfizz »

eli wrote: post #261
dahfizz wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your links do not mention the omicron variant. The CDC estimates that an unboostered vaccine (2 doses) is only 38% effective against omicron. Boosting brings the effectiveness up to 82%.[1] So to be more precise - vaccines work against Omicron, but not as well as the original strains and only if you keep up with boosting every few months. Vaccines are less effective against omicron in general, and the effectiveness w…

I think we're saying the same thing: vaccines protect you from getting covid, but you should get a booster and even then you obviously can't expect 100% protection. (Just the one booster is fine.)

> Just the one booster is fine.

Its fine for right now. You will need another booster in a few months to remain protected (original estimate was every 6 months, CDC lowered that to 5 months already). Israel is already rolling out a fourth shot, and the CDC now recommends 4 doses for immune compromised people.

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

#300

Post by irthomasthomas »

sofixa wrote: post #181
_fat_santa wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's aggravating is all the "feel good" policies that fly in the face of the current state of the pandemic. We have gotten to the point where numerous officials have said something along the lines of "vaccines won't protect you against getting Omicron, masks don't really do anything either". So you think. Ok, we have gotten to the point where these measures are ineffective, so lets do away with the measures. And th…

Any more details on the "masks don't work thing"? It's news to me, and i don't see how that could have changed - masks, even cloth ones, but even more so for surgical and N95 types, drastically limit how much virus you spread when you're contagious; and especially N95 also offer some protection against catching it. Especially for crowded places, masks seem like a no brainer.

From the only randomised controlled study of masks... https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577.long

  "The rates of all infection outcomes were highest in the cloth mask arm, with the rate of ILI statistically significantly higher in the cloth mask arm (relative risk (RR)=13.00, 95% CI 1.69 to 100.07) compared with the medical mask arm. Cloth masks also had significantly higher rates of ILI compared with the control arm. An analysis by mask use showed ILI (RR=6.64, 95% CI 1.45 to 28.65) and laboratory-confirmed virus (RR=1.72, 95% CI 1.01 to 2.94) were significantly higher in the cloth masks group compared with the medical masks group. Penetration of cloth masks by particles was almost 97% and medical masks 44%
What type of masks do you see ~98‰ of people using? Here it is the cloth/fashion mask. The ones which, at the a beginning, had warnings about not being effective protection against covid.
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