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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

#431

Post by loceng »

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,…

"... has killed more than 865,000 Americans, ..."

Can we start holding people and publications to differentiating for past variant vs. Omicron, etc? It deserves and necessitates such nuance.

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

#432

Post by scarmig »

depereo wrote: post #413
scarmig wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 massiv…

But we do strongly encourage condom usage and tests. There are education resources and awareness campaigns. Knowingly infecting someone or non disclosure of positive infection status during possible transmission activities is a jailable offense. It's not like HIV is something we simply ignore. There are still strong public health measures and laws protecting the public health.

Most of the anti-mandate people (I'm not one, to be clear) would be quite happy with a world where the interventions around COVID were awareness campaigns. And just as some people insist on not wearing condoms despite the risks, the same will be true of mask wearing and vaccines.

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

#433

Post by contravariant »

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…

> 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.

That used to be the estimate, however with current vaccines' limited effect on new variants and the extreme infectivity of omicron it seems likely to me that herd immunity is unachievable. At the very least 85% vaccination isn't enough.

Vaccines and booster vaccines seem to be very effective against reducing the severity of an infection though. It's not ideal but it's the best we can do for now. Well, I say 'can' but perhaps it's more accurate to say 'could'.

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

#434

Post by rory »

mbesto wrote: post #359
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…

> 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 thoug…

I'd be interested to see a poll of pro-vaccine-mandate individuals asking these questions:

1. Should smoking be banned? (by smoker status)

2. Should obese people be forced by the government to restrict calories? (by obesity status)

I honestly have no idea how it would go. Most people are more coy about those opinions.

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

#435

Post by rglullis »

mattigames wrote: post #383
rglullis wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

What I am saying is that we have for two years already heard that the restrictions and mandates were to avoid overloading a then-unprepared-and-taken-by-surprise health system, but the US still can't even have large-scale availability of rapid tests.

I am also saying that if problem of the health system is lack of personnel, then firing healthcare workers who refuse the vaccine (even after being infected) is counter-productive and can only be seen as a bone-headed political move.

But most of all what I am saying is that we should not accept the policy theater. Making this about vaxxed vs unvaxxed is just yet-another way for governments (worldwide) to hide their ineptitude.

It's been two years already. Countries in Europe with comparable levels of vaccination to the US are already treating Covid as "just a endemic, seasonal respiratory disease". Yet the US still wants to pretend that things just don't get solved because of rednecks and "problematic people" that need to submit to the will of the elite.

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

#436

Post by CWuestefeld »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #423
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. You forget the second order effect here: the more unvaccinated people hospitals have to treat, the more likely their nurses and doctors are to quit, even if "the hospital is n…

The exact operation of this effect isn't clear, I think.

If we could wave a magic wand and make it all immediately end, that would be preferable. But that's not going to happen.

That leaves us with two choices. We can let it drag on and on, or we can tear off the bandaid quicker. It's not clear to me which of those two is worse for the healthcare professionals you're talking about.

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

#437

Post by RedBeetDeadpool »

sunsunsunsun wrote: post #419
mplewis wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Individuality at the expense of human life. Seems very selfish, especially when preventative measures are so simple.

The individuals chose it for themselves. Yes very selfish indeed. Selfishness when it concern's ones own self is very much a good thing. Its being able to stand ones's ground.

But what's even more selfish is imposing one's will onto another. That is narcissism.

To believe that you know better for another than he knows for himself. That's not just selfishness, thats narcissism.

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

#438

Post by depereo »

zrail wrote: post #361
walterbell wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are operations research PhD's who use decades of aggregate demand data in dynamic pricing algorithms for the purpose of revenue and queue management in perishable services, e.g. software for pricing of airline seats, rental cars and hotel rooms. In countries with universal healthcare, price cannot be used for queue management, but the US isn't one of those countries. Did any hospital use queue management softwa…

> Did any hospital use queue management software to adjust pricing as a mechanism for demand throttling, due to limited capacity in 2020-2021 No one shops for healthcare in the US based on price, for three reasons. First, prices are unknowable in advance. Second, if you have insurance the insurance will fulfill their end of the bargain if you need to be admitted (i.e. they will pay as agreed upon in the insurance con…

Isn't there a new law, partially rolled out, that requires US hospitals to disclose the cost for a procedure or treatment in advance?

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

#439

Post by acdha »

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.

One thing I've heard multiple doctors comment on is that they are seeing more patients who were successfully managing a condition have significant declines after a bout of COVID, even a mild one. That's definitely a bit of a philosophical question trying to assign fractional responsibility but you can also side-step this to some extent by looking at it as years of life lost — e.g. if someone with a manageable heart disease where patients tend to die 10 years older dies after having COVID, that's something like a decade where they could have been around their friends and family.

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

#440

Post by marcosdumay »

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…

> 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.

The vaccines aren't completely effective against transmission, so those numbers were already underestimated for the original virus. With the low efficacy against the omicron (and higher transmission rates), I don't believe any amount of vaccination alone would be enough to stop it (but AFAIK, nobody actually knows it yet).

Still, any amount of vaccination will reduce the transmission rate. What is not clear if it's enough to get it lower than 1.

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