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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

#741

Post by kevingadd »

coryfklein wrote: post #570
jrockway wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanted to comment a little on the "choice" thing. I'm not sure that every person who is unvaccinated chose that. I had to try very hard to get my three doses. For the first series, I had to go to a faraway FEMA-run site. For the booster, I scheduled three appointments with CVS; the first two times, they canceled my appointment on the walk over (I made the first like 3 weeks in advance, and they canceled with 10 min…

How long ago was that? I have to think the situation today is quite different from when the major vaccines were approved months ago, but I could be wrong.

fwiw, I put myself on the King County (seattle, wa area) booster waiting list months ago and only got an email the other day that my turn was up. They wanted me to drive ~30 minutes out of town for a booster, and I don't have a car.

The situation is not great. I have no idea how a poor person would navigate this system.

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

#742

Post by ballenf »

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.

But we don't do it with every other vaccine. There are vaccines targeted at specific groups and vaccines that are optional regardless of group.

And there are zero mandatory vaccines that require 6-month boosters for life.

And zero mandatory vaccines that have efficacy rates under 90+% (probably more like 99%).

I think it's ok to acknowledge we're in totally novel territory with covid.

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

#743

Post by AshleyGrant »

ipaddr wrote: post #695
bink wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Inflammation, memory loss, swollen lymph, chest pains, feeling sicks for months, no energy, trouble breathing. You thought the vaccines were risk free?

The ability for humans to focus on a vanishingly small risk of side-effects to justify taking a much larger risk by refusing to vaccinate is mind-boggling to me.

It's the same argument that people use to justify not wearing a seat belt. "There's types of wrecks where being unbelted is actually safer!" Well, sure, but those are an extremely tiny portion of wrecks, and you're vastly safer in the vast, vast majority of wrecks wearing a seat belt.

Get the damned vaccine. If you experience side effects, then that sucks, you lost the lottery. The CDC reports:

* Anaphylaxis happens to 5 people per million vaccinated. (0.0005% rate)

* Thrombosis with TTS after J&J vaccine. 57 confirmed in more than 18 million doses (0.0003% rate)

* GBS after J&J vaccine. 302 cases in more than 18 million doses (0.0017% rate)

* Myocarditis. 1233 reports in total.

* Death. 11,657 deaths among vaccinated. Note that this is death for any reason. A vaccinated person mauled to death by a bear is counted here. (0.0022% rate)

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/ad...

* edit for formatting

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

#744

Post by rory »

Melatonic wrote: post #669
rory wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Some countries are starting to ban smoking - look at New Zealand. Personally I am not against it specifically - if you are going to do some kind of extra harmful drug it might as well at least be one that is not so damn boring like Nicotine. Obese people is a more complicated issue and I would argue that (at a societal level) it is an indicator of a larger social problem that is then causing the issue downstream just…

> I think we would be better off targeting that issue upstream.

I'm not sure I understand. You mean like banning certain foods?

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

#745

Post by ballenf »

onefuncman wrote: post #660
walterbell wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until the CDC changed the definition of vaccine in Sept 2021, most vaccines were understood to provide sterilizing immunity against infection, not only "protection" against illness/death. Intramuscular/serum vaccines cannot stop respiratory infections, by definition. They are non-sterilizing. Only a nasal/mucosal vaccine or nasal infection can provide sterilizing immunity against a respiratory virus.

This didn't happen all of a sudden in Sept 2021. The flu vaccine has always been about harm reduction and began seeing widespread civilian use in 2007-2008.

Maybe it's just where I live, but I've never heard the "flu shot" called a vaccine.

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

#746

Post by throwaway51235 »

enchiridion wrote: post #350
malermeister wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That talking point no longer works. The vaccine has been taken by billions of people by now and has a larger sample size proving its safety than any other medicine in the history of humanity.

Remains to be seen based on the outcome of longitudinal studies. I have not seen a comprehensive general population safety study. I believe the last large scale safety studies are the ones used for EUA. Would love to be proven wrong though. I’m assuming that if there was new good safety data it would be blasted from the roof tops, just like the ~95% effective number was after the phase 3 studies.

No post body was provided.

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

#747

Post by ArchOversight »

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…

> 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.

I got COVID back in March of 2020. I got two vaccines and a booster, and then in late December I caught COVID again (probably Omicron based upon symptoms and the prevalence).

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

#748

Post by gmnash »

walterbell wrote: post #591
ChrisClark wrote: post #580

Earlier 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?

Until the CDC changed the definition of vaccine in Sept 2021, most vaccines were understood to provide sterilizing immunity against infection, not only "protection" against illness/death. Intramuscular/serum vaccines cannot stop respiratory infections, by definition. They are non-sterilizing. Only a nasal/mucosal vaccine or nasal infection can provide sterilizing immunity against a respiratory virus.

“Most” vaccines. The reason why they didn’t have to invent “non-sterilizing” as a term just for COVID vaccines, is because some existing vaccines had this same property. The acellular pertussis vaccine (the aP in TDaP) is non-sterilizing for example, yet I bet you never took any issue with it.

Does measles count as a respiratory infection? It causes coughing, is airborne, and infection happens via nasal passages. The intramuscular measles vaccine seems to work pretty well.

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

#749

Post by nradov »

mlac wrote: post #703
dekhn wrote: post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Cellular immunity is quite durable over a lifetime. It's really only antibodies that substantially decline over time.

https://peterattiamd.com/covid-part2/

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

#750

Post by unethical_ban »

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…

>If you think any of the above is "anti-vax" then I would suggest the media has won and science is dead.

[edited to remove antagonistic comment] - I think your comment about science being dead is less-than-useful hyperbole.

Why focus on the "get vaccinated" message? Because the vaccine is free. It's widely available. There is absolutely low, low risk to taking it - less risk by far than getting COVID or long COVID. Because prior to Omicron, the goal wasn't "let everyone get sick and be done with it", it was "prevent anyone from getting sick". I just thought of one as I type this: To say "we accept natural immunity as a viable strategy" could have encouraged thousands upon thousands of ignorant or otherwise actively anti-authority citizens to get sick on purpose to stick it to the man, then end up in the hospital.

I don't want lies to win, and I don't want to ignore the science. Natural immunity should be acknowledged for its benefits. I think a government could do that, and still say "tough shit, get vaxxed" just to make sure people don't commit bio-warfare on communities by trying to get ill.

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