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Military branches restore flu shot requirement after virus swept through base

arstechnica.com

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Re: Military branches restore flu shot requirement after virus swept through base

#81

Post by erelong »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #70
erelong wrote: post #69

[flagged]

> Anticipating all the downvotes Please don't do this: "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading" [1]. > flu vaccines are extremely ineffective They're not. They're not particularly effective for preventing flu in an individual. But at the group level, they have a clear and useful effect. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Willing to discuss it but I am definitely one who thinks it's a "scam", "mainstream" example articles on ineffectiveness:

"Flu vaccines didn't work that well in the US, officials find (2026)"

https://abc7chicago.com/post/flu-vaccines-didnt-work-us-offi...

https://apnews.com/article/flu-season-cdc-subclade-k-vaccina...

"Flu Vaccine Was Not Very Effective This Season, the C.D.C. Says (2022)"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/research-news/15706/

"Flu shot fail: Why doesn't the vaccine always work? (2014)"

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/flu-shot-fail-why...

Re: Military branches restore flu shot requirement after virus swept through base

#82

Post by ifyoubuildit »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #70
erelong wrote: post #69

[flagged]

> Anticipating all the downvotes Please don't do this: "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading" [1]. > flu vaccines are extremely ineffective They're not. They're not particularly effective for preventing flu in an individual. But at the group level, they have a clear and useful effect. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> They're not. They're not particularly effective for preventing flu in an individual. But at the group level, they have a clear and useful effect.

This is my understanding. It basically would have marginally reduced the cost of the flu coming through, right? But thats not the impression that I would get from any of the discussion here. Am I wrong?

Re: Military branches restore flu shot requirement after virus swept through base

#83

Post by hammock »

astura wrote: post #64
beart wrote: post #22

I have a close friend who is an officer nearing twenty years. He has not had a tendency to criticize his job. However, he has been adamant that vaccines are incredibly important for the military and the policy changes have really angered him, specifically because of the damage it does to readiness.

>he has been adamant that vaccines are incredibly important for the military and the policy changes have really angered him, specifically because of the damage it does to readiness. Your friend knows his history; disease has been the leading cause of death in warfare, historically, killing more soldiers than actual combat.

Did we ever get a vaccine for trench foot?

Re: Military branches restore flu shot requirement after virus swept through base

#84

Post by hammock »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #74
Ferret7446 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a double layer of irony here, where the people criticizing people of the ignorance of "unintended" consequences of vaccine fear will play defense for the unintended consequence of causing that fear by the extremely aggressive pushing of vaccine policies during covid

If it was Ebola instead of COVID-19, 1000% guaranteed that all those antivaxxers would have been banging down the doors to get a vaccine, and would have been raging if the government hadn't rushed it out. All their antivax outrage was because they didn't think they personally were going to die from COVID, and didn't want to help save anyone else's life. 2 million dead Americans later and people still complain that th…

> If it was Ebola instead of COVID-19, 1000% guaranteed that all those antivaxxers would have been banging down the doors to get a vaccine

Sadly, no. There is a theory that Ebola cases are really just arsenic poisoning from the mines in the area. That’s the kind of narrative that would take hold realistically.

I would also point out that prior to Bidens election it was mostly Democrats who were saying they weren’t going to take the vaccine when it came out, that it would be rushed and have something wrong with it.

Re: Military branches restore flu shot requirement after virus swept through base

#85

Post by ElProlactin »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #39
ElProlactin wrote: post #35

[flagged]

I assume you don’t know what The Onion is. I suppose I can hardly blame you as the Onion struggles to write satire as absurd as reality these days.

Poe's law strikes again, even when you satire The Onion by name.

Re: Military branches restore flu shot requirement after virus swept through base

#86

Post by hammock »

jmye wrote: post #75
Ferret7446 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a double layer of irony here, where the people criticizing people of the ignorance of "unintended" consequences of vaccine fear will play defense for the unintended consequence of causing that fear by the extremely aggressive pushing of vaccine policies during covid

Anyone who “fears” vaccines because the government said they were a good idea (with provable statistics instead of whatever nonsense you read on Facebook) is a fucking doorknob. Full stop. Some of you need to realize that writing some React pages doesn’t actually make you a polymath.

[dead]

Re: Military branches restore flu shot requirement after virus swept through base

#87

Post by jghn »

andsoitis wrote: post #17

It turns out eventually you have to deal with reality.

However, they already got their headline. While I saw the original policy covered heavily in conservative news sources, I've not seen this retraction covered at all. Thus the base believes that the military is no longer "woke", and 100% of the desired value has been achieved.

Re: Military branches restore flu shot requirement after virus swept through base

#88

Post by jghn »

anon-3988 wrote: post #47
andsoitis wrote: post #17

It turns out eventually you have to deal with reality.

Hot take but we should let reality deal the blow. There's so many things that people think is redundant and unnecessary but actually have an army of people and machination that are working tirelessly to curb it. Only to called bloat and the deep state. Vaccines should not be given automatically, because that causes people to not think about why they need it. They think that it is something is imposed on them. But if…

The problem with this thinking on something like vaccines is that vaccines literally rely on a certain percentage of the population having received the vaccine. It's not actually possible to allow a personal choice policy if you want a vaccine to be effective.

Re: Military branches restore flu shot requirement after virus swept through base

#89

Post by rurp »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #73

More and more I believe the idea that Rome fell due to lead and pollution, because only stupidity could end an empire that had no rivals.

I don't buy it. Empires thrive when they are broadly expanding wealth, whether that's by plundering neighbors or making their economy more effective.

There's always a tension between growing the pie or taking more of the pie for yourself. If growth appears to be slowing and there's a lot of pie to fight over, more and more people will focus on the latter. Sometimes that's healthy, but without external pressure it usually takes the form of corruption, pettiness, and other destructive behaviors.

Re: Military branches restore flu shot requirement after virus swept through base

#90

Post by jghn »

hammock wrote: post #84
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was Ebola instead of COVID-19, 1000% guaranteed that all those antivaxxers would have been banging down the doors to get a vaccine, and would have been raging if the government hadn't rushed it out. All their antivax outrage was because they didn't think they personally were going to die from COVID, and didn't want to help save anyone else's life. 2 million dead Americans later and people still complain that th…

> If it was Ebola instead of COVID-19, 1000% guaranteed that all those antivaxxers would have been banging down the doors to get a vaccine Sadly, no. There is a theory that Ebola cases are really just arsenic poisoning from the mines in the area. That’s the kind of narrative that would take hold realistically. I would also point out that prior to Bidens election it was mostly Democrats who were saying they weren’t go…

> it was mostly Democrats who were saying they weren’t going to take the vaccine

Sadly, no. I live in one of the bluest corners of the US. A constant discussion was when the jab would come available so that we could get it. I knew no one who didn't want it.

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