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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

#731

Post by clouddrover »

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.

False. The US has had 2,687 deaths per million population since coronavirus began. Australia has had 128.

In the last 7 days the US has had 46 deaths per million population. Australia has had 17.

See for yourself: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

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

#732

Post by autokad »

bink wrote: post #651
eloff wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also noticed this. I have covid right now. I'm double vaccinated. I was planning to get my booster shot, but now that I've had covid what's the point. It's not likely to increase my immunity and it comes with risks. At some point the government will probably change the definition of fully vaccinated to three shots and then I'll be in that unvaccinated group I usually make fun of. Somebody I know lost their job b…

> It's not likely to increase my immunity and it comes with risks. Can you explain what risks you're referring to here?

my first 2 shots were fine, but my booster f'ed me up. I was in lots of body pain for 36 hours. 5 weeks later I caught omicron. I imagine by some point this year Ill be considered not fully vaccinated, but right now my desire to get another booster is very small.

right now we know that even the booster provides little ability to stop you from getting omicron. likely by the next mandated booster the variant of the time will also easily surpass the booster.

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

#733

Post by nradov »

kmonad wrote: post #544
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 think the hospital capacity is a key argument indeed. But there is another aspect to consider. Each viral replication is a potential event where a new variant can arise, thus the fewer viral replications the better since each new variant has unknown risks. An unvaccinated person will on average be host to many more viral replications after exposure to the virus than a vaccinated person after exposure. Thus, if a la…

I encourage everyone eligible to protect themselves by getting vaccinated but this is unlikely to prevent new variants from evolving. The current thinking is that new variants are most likely to evolve in immunocompromised patients who experience prolonged infections. Vaccines are less effective for them.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/covid-variants-ma...

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

#734

Post by spookthesunset »

azakai wrote: post #556
spookthesunset wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, then instead of punishing the general public, how about they go build more capacity? They've had 2 years at this point and they are still freaking out about "overflowing hospitals". It's not fair, ethical or moral to push mandates on citizens at this point.

It takes a long time to train doctors and nurses and other relevant staff. Worse, the hard working conditions those people have been enduring since 2020 has led to a lot of burnout and attrition.

That sounds like excuses. This thing is an emergency, right? Well, fix it!

Punishing the public with these awful mandates because “it’s too hard” is a huge failure of our government.

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

#735

Post by frickinLasers »

nradov wrote: post #655
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…

2018: "Hospitals Overwhelmed by Flu Patients Are Treating Them in Tents" https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patie... This pandemic has been extremely hard on many healthcare providers. But hospitals in many areas were routinely overwhelmed during winter respiratory virus season in previous years. They dealt with it as best they could, and we didn't impose mandates or restrictions on the rest of so…

Covid has been something like ten times as deadly as the flu. I imagine those hospital beds put way more strain on the system as a whole than a bad flu season (see: ventilator sharing). I think any human with a shred of empathy for their tribe would agree, that this level of misery warranted collective action on the level of our response to measles, mumps, rubella, tuberculosis, diphtheria, pertussis...

And though I really hope it's the case, I've heard no news yet that Omicron will be the last significant variant.

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

#736

Post by supperburg »

bencoder wrote: post #24

It's amazing to me that every post that has anybody arguing against the restrictions or similar gets flagged, no matter the source or rationale. It's really the most divisive issue I've ever seen in my life.

No post body was provided.

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

#737

Post by MatteoFrigo »

bonzini wrote: post #710
dahfizz wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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

You may have been right at a time where almost nobody had a previous infection. However, estimates by reputable sources https://covidestim.org/us show that a large percentage of people have been infected by covid at least once. The data are by state, I see ~75% for MA, 80% for CA and NY, and you can pick your favorite state.

At this point it is more correct to say that the vaccine does not matter, and immunity by prior infection is the dominant effect. Either that, or the Yale school of public health, the Harvard school of public health, and the Stanford Medicine institutes who run the covidestim.org site are full of shit.

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

#738

Post by throwaway51235 »

ouchjars wrote: post #133
robrorcroptrer wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could the global obesity epidemic not also be handled through mandates?

If you could avoid getting obese with two shots in the arm and wearing a piece of cloth every time you leave the house for a couple years.

No post body was provided.

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

#739

Post by rory »

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.

A standard nursing degree in Europe takes three years. That's not a scientific law, it's not like it takes 365 * 3 * 2/3 = 17520 hours to learn how to be useful in an ICU. An LPN can be done in a year. We trained mechanical engineers in as little time during WWII.

If we're to treat this like an emergency, why aren't we treating it like an emergency?

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

#740

Post by ipaddr »

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.

3 hours? In the best of times it's an 8 hour wait before covid.
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