Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine mandates

ntdca.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

571–580 of 1001 posts

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

#571

Post by nu11ptr »

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,…

Apologies in advance for getting on my soapbox, but this has been on my mind for a while.

The way in which the media has gotten everyone to say "the unvaccinated" is a 'disease' against basic science (not even getting into the divisive nature of this). I would go as far as saying if you read any paper, study, or other that refers to the "unvaccinated" as a single cohort, you are reading vaccine propaganda, not science, or certainly not good science.

This must stop. Prior infection immunity is basic science that we've known for eons, and ignoring it is so blatantly glaring an omission, it should make the most staunch pro-vaccine person pause and say: "why are they so adamant to vaccinate those with prior infection?". One would expect prior infection to be robust, and multiple studies, including even the CDC's most recent shows it to be easily as good if not better and longer lasting than the vaccine. This should not come as a surprise to anyone.

If you think any of the above is "anti-vax" then I would suggest the media has won and science is dead. I'm not suggesting the vaccine doesn't work. I'm not suggesting it doesn't provide protection against severe disease and death. I'm not suggesting anyone go out and intentionally try to get COVID, but a HUGE # of people have already had it and ignoring them is downright unscientific. If you are a rational person who wants to see good science and are unemotional and detached from outcomes, then you will want to see proper study cohorts, and combining prior infection in with the "unvaccinated" cohort, is just bad science. This bad science fuels the anti-vaxx movement even more, and honestly, it is hard blame them.

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

#572

Post by missedthecue »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #143
missedthecue wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not promote both though?

At this point, the majority of people who would take a yearly booster are going to get it regardless of a mandate.

But if it's a mandate, that's tens (hundreds?) of millions of more vaccines sold every year.

My point is that if we are going to act like everything they say is solely profit motivated, they should still support mandates.

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

#573

Post by sanderjd »

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…

What freedoms are you talking about here?

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

#574

Post by mulletbum »

parkingrift wrote: post #269
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…

>Great! The problem is that vaccines don't protect society unless a critical-mass of people are vaccinated. They don't protect society at all. The herd immunity goal flew out the window with Delta and left the galaxy with Omicron. We will not ever eradicate Covid-19 with vaccination. >It ends when the the threat subsides. It should end right now, then. The threat has subsided. We have vaccines and other treatment pro…

"We will not ever eradicate Covid-19 with vaccination" is the most small minded statement possible to make. We have eradicated so many diseases with vaccination.

I think what you mean to say is "We cannot eradicate COVID-19 with the current vaccines," but to swear off vaccines as if they can't do the work is frankly, dumb.

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

#575

Post by mywittyname »

mint2 wrote: post #370
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,…

>” At this point if an adult in the US is unvaccinated it is (1) almost certainly by choice (there are some people who cannot get it for medical reasons but they make up only a very tiny fraction of the unvaccinated), and (2) it is very unlikely that any evidence or logical arguments will chance their minds.” This typical line of thought ignores a huge issue. Vaccine mandates don’t help per se, but it’s an issue that…

> Articles like this really need to describe some sort of policy or plan for the 7 million or so immunocompromised people in America.

Wear good masks, social distance, etc. Basically do everything that's recommended to prevent the spread of covid, besides getting a vaccine. As a bonus, doing these things will help keep them safe from a large number of other airborne illnesses that put them at risk.

Plus, there has been an increased awareness about preventing the spread of airborne diseases in general. Lots of stores and businesses have installed filtration systems that help keep everyone safer. Contactless delivery / checkout is much more mainstream, and it's now socially acceptable & legal to wear a mask, which is something certain people are going to continue to do. So while it has certainly been a nightmare for immunocompromised people, some positive changes have also resulted.

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

#576

Post by nlarion »

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…

I recommend you do some basic research on the history of quarantine and the united states as well as colonial america. You'll quickly see your assertion stands on shaky ground. https://www.ushistory.org/laz/history/index.htm

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

#577

Post by mfer »

sib301 wrote: post #363
skillpass wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree - I am worried about taking hospital capacity claims at face value though. From what I've seen, it was common for hospitals to report being overwhelmed even during flu seasons pre-covid. I wouldn't classify that level of 'overwhelmed' worthy of mandates upon society. I don't doubt that during these periods of time hospital resources are strained in some way, but there's a difference between this routine level…

Dude go to a hospital in a populated area during this surge. My wife sat in the waiting room for 3 hours with SEVERE abdominal pain, DURING A PREGNANCY and was unable to be seen. We went home. If she’d had an ectopic pregnancy, she would probably not be here anymore.

I know a lot of nurses and have been following what's happening in hospitals. It's complicated. Here are a couple things I've learned...

1. Many hospitals are under staffed. Schools that produce nurses have stayed steady state while demand has increased. This was before the pandemic. During the pandemic many nurses left due to mandates, being treated poorly (by hospital mgmt and people in the hospital), being overworked during shortages, and more. This has all made staffing a huge problem.

When hospitals don't have the staff they close beds down and can't operate at full capacity.

Hospitals that used to only hire RNs with bachelor degrees and wouldn't consider an associates (it's the same amount of schooling in the nursing portion) are now trying to hire LPNs.

2. Some emergency rooms are seeing a crazy number of people. More than usual. This is for a variety of reasons. COVID is one but also people putting off having things treated so they are now emergencies is another. Couple this with the staffing shortage and it's even worse.

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

#578

Post by kube-system »

irthomasthomas wrote: post #541
avs733 wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had an extremely traumatic accident a week ago and came into a major city hospital as a level one trauma patient. I came in with absolutely no wait..ambulance directly to a trauma bay, no waiting, no clothing, no nothing. After about six hours they figure out I was not going to die and was relatively okay. Okay here means two broken legs not “walking around”. Half of the patients at this hospital had covid and I ha…

Is the explanation simply that so many nurses are being forced to isolate with Omicron? Since even vaccinated staff can still spread it, so they still take the tests often, and isolate for 2 weeks if positive.

This has been relaxed greatly in 2022 at many hospitals. Most are isolating only for 5 days now under the new CDC guidelines, and some only if the person is symptomatic.

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

#579

Post by rglullis »

nicoburns wrote: post #540
rory wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is definitely the most pressing issue, but shouldn't we also, as a society, build the ability to e.g. double ICU capacity when needed? We're not talking about 100x here. As much as I support vaccination, it feels like gaps in vaccination are also used as an excuse to blow off repairing an extremely fragile public health system. We've had two years at this point.

Two years doesn't seem like very long to double ICU capacity. How are you going to staff them? Nursing degrees take 3 years. Medical degrees much longer. And capacity to train doctors and nurses is also stretched by the pandemic and non-trivial to expand. I do agree that this is something governments ought to be looking into over the long term though.

If the short-term problem is specific to Covid, you just need to bring/train people for that.

Training people to assist Covid cases, run PCR tests, should be a matter of weeks, not years. Germany did it, I have 4 (four!) test centers on within a block of distance, all of them are filled with students and otherwise-unemployed people who got some minimal training.

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

#580

Post by ChrisClark »

nu11ptr wrote: post #571
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,…

Apologies in advance for getting on my soapbox, but this has been on my mind for a while. The way in which the media has gotten everyone to say "the unvaccinated" is a 'disease' against basic science (not even getting into the divisive nature of this). I would go as far as saying if you read any paper, study, or other that refers to the "unvaccinated" as a single cohort, you are reading vaccine propaganda, not scienc…

Because the vaccine protects so much better than just a previous infection. We've been over this, over, and over. But you just won't accept the numbers now will you?
Post reply on HN