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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

#861

Post by ipaddr »

evandale wrote: post #835
ipaddr wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

>A woman has a right to say my body my choice. You think removing that choice is without controversy? Choosing to terminate a pregnancy is not comparable to choosing to spread a highly contagious disease.

Allowing a government to control those rights means they can and someone will take advantage of this in the future.

Let's say America's birthrate is too low because of the vaccine, the government could use that reasoning to suspend the right to choose.

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

#862

Post by dekhn »

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…

when you say "wall of text" do you mean I could have rewritten my points to be more effective (all my writing is propaganda and my goal is to convince more people, the proxy for which is upvotes)"? The reason it's structured the way it is is that I only spent a little time editing it after I banged out the essential points. "I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter."

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

#863

Post by propogandist »

srcreigh wrote: post #257
ifyoubuildit wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is so amazing to me how many people don't seem to recognize this. My (somewhat baseless) speculation on this is that a lot of the people in forums like HN are early adopter types who mostly work from home, and so were able to avoid exposure and got the vaccine relatively early. From this standpoint, I could see it being harder to empathize with folks who were exposed in everyday life (it's just a simple jab, I did…

Encouraging natural immunity is asking for hospitals to get filled up by people giving themselves covid on purpose. This affects non covid patients too. I suspect that's why the media doesn't do it.

>Encouraging natural immunity is asking for hospitals to get filled up by people giving themselves covid on purpose.

there's no interest in talking about actual treatments or a $1 early treatment remedy [1], like every other disease. There's nothing that's patentable and profitable, so the focus is on vaccinations, which increasingly show more infections

The US DoD maintains detailed military personnel data to protect national security. Their health care surveillance data shows everything from neurological issues impacting US airforce pilots to 300% increase in miscarriages and cancer. The data is being scrubbed and military whistleblowers are trying to fight to bring it to public attention.

It's like Snowden, but from the healthcare department of the US military. [2]

1 - https://c19early.com -- w/ peer reviewed data sources

2-https://twitter.com/TheChiefNerd/status/1485695818996854788

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

#864

Post by spookthesunset »

throw__away7391 wrote: post #356
xboxnolifes wrote: post #209

(USA point of view) I feel like given that vaccines do an acceptable job at reducing risk of hospitalization and death, there is only really a few things worth discussing, in relevant order: - Are hospitals actually being overloaded by covid cases to the point of being an issue (according to many, yes. but according to [1] Johns Hopkins, no, or only in some cases?). - Are the unvaccinated actually the majority of the…

Remember when the US invaded Iraq to "find weapons of mass destruction"? Then a year or two later that shifted to "fighting the terrorist there so we don't have to fight them here", then "winning hearts and minds" or something. Once you get a mandate for a large-scale, politically charged activity it will never stop; the goal posts will be moved again and again, as many times as it takes and as often as necessary to…

These restrictions are so classist and so harmful to the underprivileged and working class it amazes me that the party that is championing them is the one who claims to represent said classes. Almost all of what I thought was true about my political allegiance fell completely apart over the last two years.

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

#865

Post by renewiltord »

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…

In a prior probability sense, that makes sense, right? The adaptive immune system has to be working or the vaccines wouldn't work, and adapting against the actual threat has to be effective or you'd never have fought it off in the first place.

Of course, the general problem here is one of measurability and working in an adverse environment. So in a medical sense, prior infection determines response. But in a public health sense, if you believe that prior infection claims are easier to fake than vaccine records, and if you believe the spread risk is worse, then it makes sense to proxy spread risk with vaccine records. Personally, I get what you mean, and perhaps I'm not fighting too hard for the truth here because I don't really care that much.

But I just wanted to say I'm with you on the facts since every other response is operating (in my opinion) in the fallacious "there's a paper that says" mode. It's just not Bayesian.

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

#866

Post by [deleted] »

MatteoFrigo wrote: post #820
henrikschroder wrote: post #802

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is a prime example of bad data being worse than no data. In the UK, for months now, the rate of infection has been higher among the vaccinated cohort than among the unvaccinated cohort, for most age groups. [1] The antivaxxers are of course pointing to this data and claiming it's evidence that the vaccines make you more likely to get infected, and therefore the tinfoil hats were right all along. But what's…

Either way, there is no point in vaccinating the unvaccinated cohort that you mentioned. If you are right, most of them have natural immunity and the data proves that this is already better than the vaccine, so what's the point? They are already doing ok, and vaccination would then move them to the vaccinated column and count their immunity as a success for the vaccine, which is unscientific and dishonest.

[deleted]

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

#867

Post by twblalock »

mint2 wrote: post #370
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,…

>” At this point if an adult in the US is unvaccinated it is (1) almost certainly by choice (there are some people who cannot get it for medical reasons but they make up only a very tiny fraction of the unvaccinated), and (2) it is very unlikely that any evidence or logical arguments will chance their minds.” This typical line of thought ignores a huge issue. Vaccine mandates don’t help per se, but it’s an issue that…

There always have been, and always will be, vulnerable immunocompromised people. We didn't reorganize society around that fact before the pandemic, and we shouldn't do so now.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but we can't keep using things that will never change as reasons to persist with a state of emergency -- otherwise that state of emergency will never end.

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

#868

Post by spookthesunset »

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.

> It's really the most divisive issue I've ever seen in my life.

I've been yelled at and called very awful things by people I know in real life. Biggest clue that this is 90% hysteria and 10% real.... What ever happened to keep calm and carry on.

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

#869

Post by eli »

rfrey wrote: post #854
eli wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think your math is correct there and that data is pre-Omicron. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/232698/omicron-largely-evade... estimates that prior infection offered 85% protection against Delta but only 19% against Omicron.

The vaccines also offer very little protection against infection by Omicron, and less with the B.2 variant. Definitely not saying vaccines aren't important - they keep you out of hospital! But they don't prevent infection post Delta.

I don’t know why you think this. Covid cases — people merely testing positive — are overwhelmingly among the unvaccinated in every state. Vaccine cuts your risk by 3x to 5x depending where you look.

Look at this chart: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#rates-by-vaccine-s...

If you read to the bottom of the previous study I posted they addressed vaccine effectiveness too based on UK data. They work! Just make sure to get your booster.

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

#870

Post by jatone »

Karunamon wrote: post #523
sofixa wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use excess deaths then, those numbers are even higher. And even if official Covid numbers are inflated, even tenfold, it's still a disease that resulted in a lot of death.

A non trivial portion of excess deaths can be laid at the feet of the response to the virus, not necessarily the virus itself. This would include the things like firing healthcare workers, leading to other problems being undiagnosed, and worsening instead of being treated. I would also include lockdowns and mask mandates as being responsible for increased amounts of depression, which has a known poor impact on surviv…

we maybe fired less than a tenth of a percent of health care workers. and most were not even nurses they were janitors and the like. a few thousands in a field of hundreds of thousands.

if your going to make shit up at least make up believable bullshit.

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