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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

#701

Post by bsder »

nsxwolf wrote: post #671
i386 wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m Australian. Vaccination and restrictions were why we never saw refrigerated containers of dead people on street corners, like NYC did in the first wave. Many people would have died or needed to be hospitalized.

You are proportionately about as bad as the United States is in deaths right now.

Cite your data.

Start here: https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/

Showing new deaths per day with 1 week averaging normalized by population, the US is about 2-3x Australia right now.

As for new confirmed cases per day normalized by population, everybody is about the same because Omicron is so infectious. I suspect the US number is a bit undercounted because the number of cases spiked so fast that confirmed cases simply couldn't keep up.

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

#702

Post by SamPatt »

namdnay wrote: post #676
nu11ptr wrote: post #571

Earlier 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…

Isn’t it just simpler to vaccinate everyone and be done with it? Instead of tracking who already had an infection etc. Just like we do for all the other vaccines we get. I don’t understand why it’s so controversial. The upside is huge and there is literally no downside.

"literally no downside"

Adverse reactions to vaccinations exist. Some are severe / fatal.

Ignoring this feeds into vaccine skepticism.

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

#703

Post by mlac »

dekhn wrote: post #679
nu11ptr wrote: post #571

Earlier 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…

I'd like to make sure I understand your underlying position before proceeding. I think what you're trying to say is that you believe there is an adequate enough case for people who had prior infection to avoid what they believe is an unnecessary medical procedure which may have some risk. And, scientifically, you believe it's absolutely certain that in this specific situation, prior infection immunity provides very g…

If you skipped this wall of text, stop and read it. Well said.

Adding on, immunity declines over time, so to maintain it would either mean reinfection or booster…

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

#704

Post by ipaddr »

namdnay wrote: post #676
nu11ptr wrote: post #571

Earlier 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…

Isn’t it just simpler to vaccinate everyone and be done with it? Instead of tracking who already had an infection etc. Just like we do for all the other vaccines we get. I don’t understand why it’s so controversial. The upside is huge and there is literally no downside.

There is no downside to force vaccinating a population with something new that doesn't expect the first long term study to be in until 2024? How could that be controversial?

A woman has a right to say my body my choice. You think removing that choice is without controversy?

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

#705

Post by JPKab »

bonzini wrote: post #691
timr wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, we have a 30/70 split in number of covid hospitalizations, with 30 being vaccinated people, in countries where the split in the normal population is 90/10. This means that despite some unvaccinated people having had prior infection the vaccine reduces hospitalizations by 20x. Given this data the most effective strategy is to just vaccinate everyone without what is effectively a pointless distinction No. Th…

I did not say that prior infection does not reduce severe outcome. It does but _it does not change the fact_ that the severe outcomes are much more rare among vaccinated people. This means that there are still too few people with prior infection, for this to be an important factor in policy making. It will be once the proportion of unvaccinated people in hospitals starts to resemble the proportion in the general popu…

The severe outcomes are even more rare amongst prior-infected, unvaccinated people.

I suggest you look up seroprevalence surveys. The bulk of COVID infections (barring mandatory and regular testing being extant in a given locality) go undetected, due to the mild symptoms in the vast majority of the population. The seroprevalence surveys have shown this since May 2020.

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

#706

Post by dekhn »

Lammy wrote: post #397
sib301 wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To be fair I had exactly that same experience at the UCSF Emergency Room in 2017. Four hours in the waiting room, and then the only bed they could give me was against one wall of a busy hallway.

this describes many ER visits I've had, ones with my kids and ones I had myself. ERs are the worst possible places to go for medical care, except for near-immediate death. Over time, especially in the US, more and more people use the ER as first-line care (especially on the weekend).

Last week, my son had COVID (tested positive) but mild symptoms. At some point he says "I have a blue tongue, I don't remember having that before". Doctor and wife want to rush him to the ER and I say no. My daughter and I debugged it a day later (he had just taken a blue gummy pill, and somehow didn't think to mention that). What would have happened if we went to the ER? Shrugs from the doctor after sitting around the ER at midnight-5AM ("yeah I guess it's not cyanosis and it's gone now"), my wife and I have increased exposure to COVID in the ER, and a $3K bill for looking at a tongue.

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

#708

Post by nradov »

barbazoo wrote: post #263
walterbell wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These numbers can be further separated by "with Covid" and "from Covid" causality, as well as co-morbidities and expected lifetime. E.g. if someone was soon to die from illness A, but died 3 months earlier from complications induced by Covid, and the hospital received a financial payment for classifying this as Covid-related treatment, that should be broken out into a separate reporting category. Such deaths would no…

> the hospital received a financial payment for classifying this as Covid-related treatment Can you explain this more? Surely a hospital doesn't just get money for simply classifying it. How does a hospital benefit from classifying someone's treatment as Covid related other than being paid for the necessary treatment?

Hospitals do receive extra payments for treating COVID-19 patients.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/24/fac...

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

#709

Post by seanmcdirmid »

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…

> but a HUGE # of people have already had it and ignoring them is downright unscientific.

Unless they went to the hospital or had a positive test, then they just think they had it right?

We get data like this:

All we know are things like:

   Unvaccinated 12-34 year-olds in Washington are
   • 2 times more likely to get COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 12-34 year-olds.
   • 5 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 12-34 yearolds.
   Unvaccinated 35-64 year-olds are
   • 3 times more likely to get COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 35-64 year-olds.
   • 7 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 35-64 yearolds.
   Unvaccinated 65+ year-olds are
   • 4 times more likely to get COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 65+ year-olds.
   • 7 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 65+ year-olds.
   • 11 times more likely to die of COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 65+ year-olds.
(from https://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Documents/1600/coronavirus/..., so local to where I live).

But it unfortunately doesn't break down things like "had a confirmed prior infection" or "thought they might have had a prior infection". It would be interesting to see how the data works, but right now unvaccinated people are on average in a very bad spot. For all we know, the unvaccinated are just more likely to have comorbidities (e.g. obesity) that lead to their higher fatality rates. But for now, getting vaccinated is so easy, I wouldn't take the risk.

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

#710

Post by bonzini »

dahfizz wrote: post #654
bonzini wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why are they so adamant to vaccinate those with prior infection Because the data shows they don't matter. This is the same thing as deaths due to covid vs. deaths while positive to covid. Sure some people might have been miscounted as covid deaths but actually died due to cancer/car accident/whatever. Despite this the excess deaths over the past two years is much higher than the number of covid deaths; thus showing…

> Because the data shows they don't matter. Source? Because the CDC says otherwise. > In the first full week of October, vaccinated New Yorkers with a prior Covid-19 case were 19.8 times less likely to catch the virus than their unvaccinated and uninfected peers, whereas people who were unvaccinated but previously infected were 14.7 times less likely, and vaccinated but uninfected New Yorkers were just 4.5 times less…

You are confusing the effect on individual people with the effect on the whole community. I do not debate the effect of natural immunity on individuals who have had COVID in the past, but it is not widespread enough to cause a dent in the infection or to alleviate the stress on the healthcare system.

The effect exists but the data shows it does not matter.

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