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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

#381

Post by x3n0ph3n3 »

GiorgioG wrote: post #352
crackercrews wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It's particularly egregious because they ignore the rules that they themselves created.

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

#382

Post by chadash »

sudosysgen wrote: post #295
barbazoo wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Pfizer themselves have written they estimate 67 billion dollars in revenue each year from Paxlovid

Source? I'm seeing estimates closer to 20-35B when I google "Paxlovid revenue"

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

#383

Post by mattigames »

rglullis wrote: post #353
mattigames wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So let me get this straight, what you are asking is why not add one more huge problem to an already near-collapse system because there are already huge similar issues that caused it to be in that state?

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

#384

Post by xadhominemx »

Izkata wrote: post #254
xadhominemx wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excess mortality is higher than reported COVID deaths. Australia contained the virus in 2020 and saw negative excess mortality. Official COVID deaths understate the true toll.

Leading cause of death in the US, 2015-2020: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2778234 (see table a few paragraphs down) Heart disease, unintentional injuries, Alzheimer disease, and diabetes all jumped more than the expected trend. 2021 numbers I don't think will be finalized for another month or so.

Yes so it seems if anything COVID deaths are being misclassified as Alzheimer’s, diabetes, etc

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

#385

Post by laurent92 »

e40 wrote: post #366
theandrewbailey wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I hate this casting of the issue as "freedom". It's absurd. My "freedom" to live because I have a medical issue but cannot get treatment will be severely impacted if hospitals are overrun with patients and worn out workers. See, we can both play the "freedom" game.

We don’t owe you the right to live with a deadly disease. You cannot mandate others to perform actions just so you can live, if you wouldn’t live naturally.

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

#386

Post by mattigames »

akomtu wrote: post #378
mattigames wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Actually, they do. It's not the young unvaxxed athletes who end up in ICUs, it's those people with obesity and other comorbidities who fill up hospitals.

You are being pedantic, in this context I obviously meant vaxxed smokers, vaxxed obese people, et al.

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

#387

Post by vanusa »

enchiridion wrote: post #375
vanusa wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having anyone's freedoms dependent on available hospital capacity is a terrible way to run a society. So is letting people die from otherwise treatable injuries and infections so someone else can enjoy their "freedom" to ... you know what I'm driving at.

Yes, exactly. The world is dangerous and full of risks. Freedom is literally worth sacrificing lives for. This is a fundamental founding idea of the US.

Other people's lives, you mean.

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

#388

Post by scarmig »

res0nat0r wrote: post #347

Good article here about "endemic" and the still large problems that portend: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00155-x > The word ‘endemic’ has become one of the most misused of the pandemic. And many of the errant assumptions made encourage a misplaced complacency. It doesn’t mean that COVID-19 will come to a natural end. > In other words, a disease can be endemic and both widespread and deadly. Malaria kil…

Something can be endemic and deadly and still something we accept the consequences of without government imposed restrictions.

For example: HIV is something that is now endemic and (still) deadly. And yet we don't go around forcibly shutting down gay bathhouses, bars, and Grindr and implementing condom and prep mandates, even though they would be effective at reducing its spread. And for good reason: it'd be a massive (and homophobic) violation of civil liberties.

But because mask and vaccine resistance is red tribe coded, a lot of people who would usually be level-headed about epidemiology and cost-benefit analyses end up in a stance driven more by moralizing than sound science.

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

#389

Post by president »

donohoe wrote: post #239
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'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…

> It ends when the the threat subsides.

> The people you elect to represent you (for those of us with a democracy-like government)

The answers are not as simple as you have suggested. Problem is that there are unelected officials and scientists that are deciding these things, many of which have perverse relationships and incentives that may bias their decisions. I guess these things aren't obvious if you have blind trust in the politicians and media in power.

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

#390

Post by truted2 »

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, the vast majority unvaccinated.”

Could someone please put a number on “vast majority”? I keep hearing this adage but a majority is 51% and there’s a big range between 51 and 100% that a word like “vast” doesn’t precisely capture..

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