Earlier quoted context omitted.
But it looks like the vaccines don't stop the spread of covid: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC8481107/
The point is to reduce critical cases that cause hospital visits. Our system is overwhelmed as is. The fact that this still needs to be explained 2 years into this is ridiculous.
Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine mandates
601–610 of 1001 posts
Re: Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine mandates
#602Earlier 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.
Hospital capacity is a technical problem and can be solved by building more hospitals, hiring more workers or changing the roles to allow nurses to handle more issues. The hospitals are meant to serve people, not the other way around. Covid didn't arrive overnight. If there are capacity issues they should be addressed independent of everything else.
Re: Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine mandates
#603Earlier quoted context omitted.
Especially since hospital capacity is induced scarcity due to government regulation and the AMA.
We'd be having the same shortages right now even in a completely unregulated free market hospital system. A free market isn't going to build and maintain a bunch of extra capacity that goes unused except during once in a hundred year outliers like major pandemics. All that an unregulated free market would change is how we decide who gets treated when there isn't enough capacity to treat everyone.
[deleted]
Re: Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine mandates
#604Earlier quoted context omitted.
This response is actually an example of what I'm talking about. The comment that I replied to was explaining how the segment of the population that is a candidate for giving themselves covid while being high risk is (and has been) shrinking out of existence. Meanwhile, there is a much larger (and growing) cohort that continues to be harrased if they (fairly) decide they don't need these vaccines, and the harrasment i…
How about we do this. For people that can and “should be” vaccinated but don’t by choice due to their own risk assessment, if they catch Covid and need hospital treatment they don’t get it. That way they have their freedom and hospital capacity isn’t put at risk. If the people refusing to get vaccinated are willing to shoulder the risk themselves I have no problems with it.
> If the people refusing to get vaccinated are willing to shoulder the risk themselves I have no problems with it.
This is the point: the people who are refusing to be vaccinated that have recovered from a prior infection are not at a higher risk of severe outcomes than the folks who got vaccinated and didn't have a previous infection [0].
So maybe if your definition of "should be vaccinated" is narrow enough, then maybe you can justify some kind of priority order for treatment. That's not a topic I'm going anywhere near though.
[0] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e1.htm?s_cid=mm...
Re: Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine mandates
#605Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Instead the government should be focused on expanding highly covid specific care capacity. That is by far a better way to spend the covid relief money than distributing it to sustain a nebulous lockdown. This is not something the government can do. It's not something anyone can do. What you're asking for (though you may not know it) is for their to suddenly be more nurses and medical practitioners. That's not a thi…
> You need a decade to actually functionally increase the supply of nurses and specialists. Similar things were said for the vaccine. There is so much gatekeeping in the medical community that is not totally necessary. A doctor or nurse that immigrates to the US from a different country which has better health care than we do cannot practice were without jumping through tons of hoops. That is a pretty straightforward…
Are you suggesting that people rely on unprecedented medical advancements as a policy solution?
Re: Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine mandates
#606Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Your example is a transaction between people (the doctor and you). You don't have a right to that transaction. The other party can withdraw for whatever reason (including not having time). The freedom to roam is freedom. I understand the point you're trying to make, but the parent comment is correct in the usage of the world freedom, whether you like it or not.
>You don't have a right to that transaction. The other party can withdraw for whatever reason
This is not always the case, even with hospitals in the US. Few markets are 100% laissez-faire in the US, and definitely not regulated industries like healthcare.
For example, if you are a hospital in the US that participates in Medicare, you must provide basic treatment to stabilize a patient with an emergency medical condition, or transfer the patient to another facility that can.
https://www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Legislation/EMT...
Re: Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine mandates
#607Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eradication is not the goal. Making sure hospitals aren't overwhelmed with COVID patients is the goal. Catching COVID is potentially dangerous and often times results in long recovery window. Vaccination is harmless and works. The thread will never subside; this is a new virus we will have to live with for the rest of our lives - especially considering we can't seem to get everyone to do the right thing, even with go…
The thing is, hospitals aren't overwhelmed. Sure, maybe a handful in the most metropolitan of areas, but should the whole country pay for that? I don't think so. Of course, the news makes it seem like hospitals around the country are overwhelmed, but that's just agenda-based sensationalism, and should be taken with a grain of salt.
As a critical care paramedic in a semi-rural area, most non-metropolitan hospitals are ill equipped to care for acute respiratory patients, and ship them to metropolitan hospitals.
To quote you: "Should the whole country pay for that", too?
Or maybe those metropolitan hospitals should say "sucks to be you", and let's just see how quickly those rural hospitals collapse under the weight.
My local ER, which is certainly not "in the most metropolitan of areas", which used to _never_ have a bed unavailable, has got to the point where ambulance crews _routinely_ (as in dozens of times, every single day) spend 2 to 6 HOURS with a patient in a hallway, "holding up a wall" (and unable to respond to calls in their community), until the ER can free a bed for them.
Anecdotal, I'm sure you'll scream. But "agenda-based sensationalism" is also entirely your opinion, too.
Re: Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine mandates
#608Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Instead the government should be focused on expanding highly covid specific care capacity. That is by far a better way to spend the covid relief money than distributing it to sustain a nebulous lockdown. This is not something the government can do. It's not something anyone can do. What you're asking for (though you may not know it) is for their to suddenly be more nurses and medical practitioners. That's not a thi…
> You need a decade to actually functionally increase the supply of nurses and specialists. Similar things were said for the vaccine. There is so much gatekeeping in the medical community that is not totally necessary. A doctor or nurse that immigrates to the US from a different country which has better health care than we do cannot practice were without jumping through tons of hoops. That is a pretty straightforward…
Isn’t the shortage of healthcare workers world wide? How does reducing the friction of moving into the US do anything but shift the problem around?
Re: Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine mandates
#609Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
I hope this is sarcasm
If you were infected with the original strain, you'd have had less immunity to Delta than if you were vaccinated. The exact same thing for Delta vs Omicron.
The mRNA vaccines give a broader immunization that covers more. That's not even up for debate, you're only pretending it is.
I hope your comment is sarcasm.
Re: Pfizer board member suggests end to mask, vaccine mandates
#610Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
simple numbers show that unvaccinated get covid at higher rates and the number of hospitalizations is higher which puts strain on the hospitals. If something happens to me I dont want an unvaccinated taking a spot I need.
Your comment could not illustrate my point better if you had tried