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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

#761

Post by umvi »

eloff wrote: post #631
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'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…

Around half of my immediate family members had pretty bad reactions to the booster (fever/chills, aches for several days). And all of them got omicron anyway and had the same symptoms as family members who hadn't gotten the booster. I'm debating getting the booster but part of me thinks "why punish myself with high probability of fever/chills if in all likelihood I'm just going to get omicron anyway and suffer the same symptoms as everyone else"

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

#762

Post by webdood90 »

spookthesunset wrote: post #553
webdood90 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Our system is overwhelmed as is. I have yet to see proof that most of the system is "overwhelmed". Sure there are hotspots here and there but this idea that the system is on the brink of collapse is hyperbole. And even if it is true, these dudes had 2 years of our time to figure out how to deal with it. 2 years of our short lives we've given so they could fix this capacity issue. Where is the results? Why is it the…

Do you realize how fucking stupid you sound?

Is there a time limit on a pandemic? Do you think these are trivial problems we're dealing with here? Like what world do you live in, bud?

I don't have any patience with people like you anymore. How did you get your head so far up your fucking ass? Fucking christ man.

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

#763

Post by scarmig »

jjoonathan wrote: post #477
scarmig wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is perilously close to "people who get COVID are innocent victims so forcible interventions are justified, while people who got HIV chose to do it so those same nterventions are less justified." I agree that, for the average person, COVID is easier to contract than HIV. But by the same token, COVID is much less severe than HIV, even with modern treatment plans. It's not at core about some abstract principle abou…

> This is perilously close to "people who get COVID are innocent victims so forcible interventions are justified, while people who got HIV chose to do it so those same nterventions are less justified." Nope. The existence of simple, effective countermeasures and ease of accessing them set the level of moral culpability for refusing and then infecting someone else as a result. I'd agree that the cost-benefit is nearin…

Now disease is a matter of "moral culpability"?

It's far easier to accidentally infect someone with COVID than it is to infect someone with HIV, and the harm of the former is less than the harm of the latter. The latter per incident is significantly more costly to society as well.

Should the government require Grindr and gay bars to require customers to show an up-to-date negative status and proof of being on PreP in order to be allowed to participate? With poz people banned from participating at the venue/platform?

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

#764

Post by nradov »

frickinLasers wrote: post #735
nradov wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Did you actually listen to that panel discussion I linked where several leading physicians explain what's been happening and the mistakes that have been made?

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

#765

Post by ipaddr »

yibg wrote: post #394
theandrewbailey wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Freedoms aren’t considered in isolation. Maintaining freedom for some means removing freedom for others some times. In this case the “freedom” to get timely treatment for those that need it.

Are you not getting timely treatment? Is this your reality?

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

#766

Post by AshleyGrant »

orang2tang wrote: post #656
ChrisClark wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You rewriting history? The vaccine was never said to be 100% effective. Stop trying to twist reality to face your own political views.

This is simply a lie and you know it. "If you're vaccinated, you won't get COVID" - Joe Biden

Joe Biden, well known epidemiologist.

From the beginning, there has not been a COVID-19 vaccine that purported to be 100% effective. There are vanishingly few vaccines that provide 100% immunity, if for no other reason than the immune system is not perfect.

In human history, we have only completely removed 1 virus from humanity: smallpox. That is literally the only 100% effective vaccine ever produced. And even then, it is only 100% effective after the fact.

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

#767

Post by timr »

jeeeb wrote: post #730
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…

Here is the actual study: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e1.htm?s_cid=mm... Importantly it doesn’t account for the effect of boosters and looks at pre-omicron data. That noted the best protection seems to be had by a combination of vaccination and prior infection, which is perhaps unsurprising. Also other CDC studies suggest that natural immunity declines quicker than vaccine induced immunity ( https://…

> Importantly it doesn’t account for the effect of boosters and looks at pre-omicron data.

Don't just read the summary. Look at figure 1:

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e1.htm#F1_down

There are unvaccinated, uninfected people...and then there is everyone else. Once you have been infected or vaccinated, the difference between is so small as to be academic. And as the authors note, the importance of natural infection increased over time, as the virus escaped the vaccines:

"Importantly, infection-derived protection was higher after the Delta variant became predominant, a time when vaccine-induced immunity for many persons declined because of immune evasion and immunologic waning."

To your other claim:

> other CDC studies suggest that natural immunity declines quicker than vaccine induced immunity

No. That's not what that study said. First, it followed symptomatic infection, not severe illness. As we're seeing now, Omicron pretty handily bypasses vaccine-induced immunity to cause minor illness.

Also, methodologically, the study you're citing was bad. It only gave credit for natural immunity to those people with confirmed infections, which was/is an underestimate, and made vaccines look more effective than they are. A substantial fraction of the "only vaccinated" group almost certainly had undiagnosed covid infection.

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

#768

Post by maskil »

jwagenet wrote: post #524
maskil wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Done with Covid? Are you aware that vaccines are failing spectacularly with regards to Omicron infection? Hospitalizations are another story, but this notion of the vaccines ending Covid is just not holding up with new variants.

What? I thought it has been pretty clear that even with Omicron, the vaccine dramatically reduces risk. In WA, the unvaccinated are 2-4x more likely to get covid and 5-11x more likely to be hospitalized. https://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Documents/1600/coronavirus/...

Data from Australia, Israel, Denmark, all highly vaccinated countries, show a very different picture, and yes, even on a per Capita basis

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

#769

Post by walterbell »

barbazoo wrote: post #668
walterbell wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are probably better sources, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/cdc-director-acknowl... (Aug 2020) > U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield agreed that some hospitals have a monetary incentive to overcount coronavirus deaths as they do deaths for other diseases. “I think you’re correct in that we’ve seen this in other disease processes, too. Really, in the HIV epidemic, so…

There is very little substance on that page plus it's 18 months old and the other fact you posted isn't an incentive for hospitals. I really wonder if that's actually a thing.

U.S. Congressional testimony by a CDC Director is not substantive?

The 2nd point offers a financial incentive for families to agree with hospital (mis)classification, i.e. it aligns the financial incentives of family and hospital towards Covid attribution.

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

#770

Post by MatteoFrigo »

timr wrote: post #713
bonzini wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You said: > Given this data the most effective strategy is to just vaccinate everyone without what is effectively a pointless distinction The data clearly shows that protection from natural infection is at least as substantial as from vaccination, and that ~half (if not more) of the US population has had it. This fairly obviously impacts the most effective strategy. Mandating vaccines (and now boosters) in young, hea…

Your ~half estimate is more like 70-80% these days. See https://covidestim.org/us

(This makes your case stronger, of course.)

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