Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine mandates • Hacker News Board

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

#351

Post by rsynnott » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 6:47 PM UTC

somedude895 wrote: post #88

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…

Also, a lot of government employees' jobs now depend on keeping these systems in place in one form or another...

I mean, it probably depends on where you are, but at least here (Ireland) this isn't true. The contact tracing and vaccination apparatus was run largely with people borrowed from other civil service departments, or hired as contractors. When the mass vaccination capability was stood down last year, they went back to their normal work and it took a while to start it back up again for boosters.

Did your local government actually hire large numbers of new permanent employees to administer this? This is (a) rather unlikely and (b) very much something you can check.

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

#352

Post by GiorgioG » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 6:47 PM UTC

crackercrews wrote: post #270

donohoe wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm vaccinated and boostered by my own choice Great! The problem is that vaccines don't protect society unless a critical-mass of people are vaccinated. The estimate for COVID-19 is that roughly 70% to 85% of the population will need to be vaccinated to reach the herd immunity threshold. USA is at about 63% fully vaccinated (76% had at least one dose). where does it end? It ends when the the threat subsides. Why this…

> The people you elect to represent you (for those of us with a democracy-like government) The problem is that so many elected officials don't abide by the rules that they push. Joe Biden, Gavin Newsom, Nancy Pelosi, London Breed, etc. When the powerful can ignore their own rules, they're more likely to enact sweeping mandates.

Yes because only democratic politicians ignore the rules.

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

#353

Post by rglullis » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 6:47 PM UTC

mattigames wrote: post #335

rglullis wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cigarette use kills 480000 people every year in the US alone. 300 billion dollars estimated to be spent per year with treatment of smoking-related illness. I don't want even to look at the numbers of the more critical epidemic on the US: obesity and metabolic diseases. By arguing that "the unvaxxed" are a burden and that they deserve discrimination, you are opening the gates for those arguing that smokers should be f…

Smokers, obese people and metabolic diseases are not filling up hospitales at the unsustainable rate unvaxxed people are; and none of those can be quickly fixed with a pinch in the arm, not even nicotine addiction.

Yeah, at this time of the year they are being filled by all types of seasonal respiratory diseases, like it happened for most years in recent times, even before Covid. The flu shot is widely available and recommended for most over-55 (I think?), but you don't hear anyone claiming that it should become mandatory.

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

#354

Post by throwaway6734 » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 6:47 PM UTC

theandrewbailey wrote: post #313

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,…

> I'd say the answer to that should be determined by the hospital capacity. If a region has sufficient hospital capacity that it would not be overwhelmed by the increase in COVID cases among the unvaccinated go ahead and lift most restrictions. Having anyone's freedoms dependent on available hospital capacity is a terrible way to run a society. Note that these freedoms were debated and won in an era where medicine wa…

Are you opposed to laws mandating seatbelts or criminalizing heroine?

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

#355

Post by ravi-delia » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 6:48 PM UTC

temp0826 wrote: post #339

donohoe wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm vaccinated and boostered by my own choice Great! The problem is that vaccines don't protect society unless a critical-mass of people are vaccinated. The estimate for COVID-19 is that roughly 70% to 85% of the population will need to be vaccinated to reach the herd immunity threshold. USA is at about 63% fully vaccinated (76% had at least one dose). where does it end? It ends when the the threat subsides. Why this…

>> The problem is that vaccines don't protect society unless a critical-mass of people are vaccinated. I'm having a harder and harder time believing this (that herd immunity is actually possible) considering that the vaccine does nothing to stop it from spreading. (Am vaxed and caught it, fwiw)

Define nothing, there's definitely some effect from vaccination. It's just much less than the protection from sickness, which is in turn less than the protection from death.

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

#356

Post by throw__away7391 » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 6:48 PM UTC

xboxnolifes wrote: post #209

(USA point of view) I feel like given that vaccines do an acceptable job at reducing risk of hospitalization and death, there is only really a few things worth discussing, in relevant order: - Are hospitals actually being overloaded by covid cases to the point of being an issue (according to many, yes. but according to [1] Johns Hopkins, no, or only in some cases?). - Are the unvaccinated actually the majority of the…

Remember when the US invaded Iraq to "find weapons of mass destruction"? Then a year or two later that shifted to "fighting the terrorist there so we don't have to fight them here", then "winning hearts and minds" or something.

Once you get a mandate for a large-scale, politically charged activity it will never stop; the goal posts will be moved again and again, as many times as it takes and as often as necessary to put the "other side" on the defensive.

We're many weeks past "three weeks to flatten the curve", every week we hear more excuses. My friends pick them up and start parroting them in near perfect unison. I don't actually have any Republican friends, but if I did I'm sure I'd hear something similar from them too. This is no longer about fighting a disease, if it ever was (I also remember the response to AIDS being somewhat less dramatic than to COVID), this is about securing access to resources and power for one group over another. If it means thousands of your followers are discouraged from taking potentially life saving vaccinations (that you yourself have taken) and die as a result, so be it. If it means subjecting billions of people to years of unnecessary and demonstrably ineffective pandemic theater, crushing the financial future of the next generations, and destroying vast swaths of small businesses people have spent their lives building while realizing unprecedented returns on your own portfolio, so be it. The people running this do not care about any of this in the slightest, it's just an excuse to enrich themselves, and for a certain segment of the upper middle class to feel morally superior to others while they take Zoom calls from home and order dinners from Seamless. I guess this is getting boring for them now, so we're starting to be allowed to hear a trickle of stories like this.

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

#357

Post by rsynnott » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 6:49 PM UTC

Jimmc414 wrote: post #259

soperj wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They stop the hospitals from filling up though.

Tobacco kills 8 million of its users, annually. Why is their presence in ICU beds not a topic of concern?

It's a significant topic of concern, and governments have been restricting the tobacco industry more and more since the 80s. Most developed countries now ban indoor smoking and the advertisement of tobacco; some are getting ready to ban tobacco outright.

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

#358

Post by rglullis » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 6:51 PM UTC

jatone wrote: post #340

rglullis wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cigarette use kills 480000 people every year in the US alone. 300 billion dollars estimated to be spent per year with treatment of smoking-related illness. I don't want even to look at the numbers of the more critical epidemic on the US: obesity and metabolic diseases. By arguing that "the unvaxxed" are a burden and that they deserve discrimination, you are opening the gates for those arguing that smokers should be f…

We already have discrimination in medical care its called 'triage', unfortunately it doesn't involved removing care once granted. We also charge smokers more for health care due to the burden they put on the system, yet another form of discrimination. You're also making the naive mistake of relating a stable system (smokers with health issues) with an unstable system (covid patients). These two types of systems have…

Then go charge more for those who are at risk and reject the recommendation for vaccine. I'd argue that would be a lot more effective (and fair) to get people to vaccinate then any of the current sociopolitical pressure and ostracization.

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

#359

Post by mbesto » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 6:51 PM UTC

rglullis wrote: post #319

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.

Cigarette use kills 480000 people every year in the US alone. 300 billion dollars estimated to be spent per year with treatment of smoking-related illness. I don't want even to look at the numbers of the more critical epidemic on the US: obesity and metabolic diseases. By arguing that "the unvaxxed" are a burden and that they deserve discrimination, you are opening the gates for those arguing that smokers should be f…

> you are opening the gates for those arguing that smokers should be forced to stop smoking, or that obese people need to be forced to stricter diets.

Honestly, then good, we should open that can of worms.

> 300 billion dollars estimated to be spent per year with treatment of smoking-related illness.

AFAIK this treatment doesn't include "clogging an ICU because these people are on ventilators". I could be wrong though.

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

#360

Post by rsynnott » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 6:51 PM UTC

xboxnolifes wrote: post #209

(USA point of view) I feel like given that vaccines do an acceptable job at reducing risk of hospitalization and death, there is only really a few things worth discussing, in relevant order: - Are hospitals actually being overloaded by covid cases to the point of being an issue (according to many, yes. but according to [1] Johns Hopkins, no, or only in some cases?). - Are the unvaccinated actually the majority of the…

> Are unvaccinated hospitalizations significantly worse compared to other personal decisions (diet, exercise, risky hobbies).

I mean, clearly, yes. Those, in themselves, never (or at least virtually never) cause sudden exhaustion of hospital capacity. Now, many covid cases, particularly unvaccinated cases, have some sort of lifestyle problem as a comorbidity, but that's not really the point.