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The Plague of the Poor

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Re: The Plague of the Poor

#131

Post by curryst »

Barrin92 wrote: post #79

the strange anti-vax angle of the article aside that others have pointed to, having spent my time almost equally between western Europe and East-Asia (mostly for family related reasons) I just can't wrap my head around how people think the poor suffer from an excess of 'bio-authoritarianism'. The poor don't care about authoritarianism. They care about having jobs, people coming into their stores, and their children g…

Regulations like this can often be sidestepped; for the right amount of money. I'm sure there are private airlines that don't care about your vaccine status. Abortion is much the same. People with money can fly to a state that allows abortions; the poor cannot. So on and so forth.

> Countries like China, both Taiwan and the mainland, Singapore, Vietnam even New Zealand and a few others avoided much harm to the poor by means of crushing the disease.

The rural poor were likely fine. I do think there's an uneven impact of self-isolation for the urban poor, though. Wealthy people have more space, meaning more options for things you can do inside and less clashes over personal space. They're also more likely to live in an area where they can get to a green space without violating a curfew.

How much would someone have to pay you to self-isolate for a year in an apartment in the bottom 10% of rents in your city?

Re: The Plague of the Poor

#132

Post by detaro »

rkk3 wrote: post #120
bayesian_horse wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's simply not possible to track "natural immunity" in a suitable way to protect the public. Also, while "natural immunity" may be better in some cases, it is much more unpredictable. We can't even tell for how long that natural immunity is good enough at all.

> It's simply not possible to track "natural immunity" in a suitable way to protect the public. Why? Germany and many other countries don't differentiate between forms of immunity. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-require-proof-c...

I think large parts of the faction shouting about how unfair it is to expect people with previous infection to be vaccinated would also shout about the German policy of requiring a booster shot 6 months after the infection, at least that's my impression from how they argue here on HN.

Re: The Plague of the Poor

#133

Post by TheCoelacanth »

protomyth wrote: post #18
Aeolun wrote: post #11

I’m willing to read these articles, and even sort of willing to consider other viewpoints, but this is mostly garbage. What stands out is the authors’ favor of natural immunity being better than vaccination. It may well be, but it has this small caveat that you need to have had the virus to become naturally immune. E.g. you need to take that 1-2% of not surviving entirely, and if too many people take that chance at t…

No one is advocating for people to get infected, but many front line workers have already had COVID while they were doing their hero work. Since studies are now showing they have better immunity than those who have received a vaccination, it is foolish to have them vaccinate. If you've had Measles, you aren't required to get a vaccination, so there is a well established precedent. The politicalization of the vaccine…

The vaccine increases immunity even for people who have already been infected. It makes total sense to have them get vaccinated.

The goal isn't to have everyone reach a specific level of immunity. It's to get the highest possible level of immunity that is possible without taking on additional risks.

Re: The Plague of the Poor

#134

Post by labawi »

cupofcoffee wrote: post #60
sethammons wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know which vaccine each took. My dad's coworker had a stoke and died 2 days after getting the vaccine, two of my wife's brothers were the ones with heart issues. My daughter's bf's friends mom also had a stroke 2 days later. A friend now has tinnitus. Not sure what else to tell you. The math suggests this is unlikely. But here it is. Edit: also, nice edit changing it from "next I'll tell you that car accident…

Odds of death from AstraZenaca are 1 in 1 million. Let's take odds of the event of having serious complications to be 1/100,000 just to be more skeptical. The odds that 5 people in a row have such serious side effect is 1/10^25. That is equivalent to tossing 83 coins in a row and getting all heads. Which is more likelier. 1/10^25 or that you have false information regarding this. : )

To put the calculation in perspective.

What you have calculated:

(using 4 deaths at 1e-6 odds, because it's simpler and still gives 10x better odds at 1e-24)

Taking 4 death row inmates, jabbing them with AstraZeneca and expecting all 4 of them to die.

What you have not calculated:

Jabbing 1e9 people, 10k of them developing serious issues (expected prior) and there being a multi-hop connection between 5 of them. Two of them actually being brothers (familial clustering), and some with issues likely more prevalent so not even from the 10k group (1/1e5 cutoff).

Re: The Plague of the Poor

#135

Post by raphlinus »

rkk3 wrote: post #120
bayesian_horse wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's simply not possible to track "natural immunity" in a suitable way to protect the public. Also, while "natural immunity" may be better in some cases, it is much more unpredictable. We can't even tell for how long that natural immunity is good enough at all.

> It's simply not possible to track "natural immunity" in a suitable way to protect the public. Why? Germany and many other countries don't differentiate between forms of immunity. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-require-proof-c...

Here is a point I'll concede to the skeptics. By my interpretation, our health system is dysfunctional to the point that it can't reliably and practically collect immunity information in a way that's useful to the immunization effort. I have no interest in defending that.

However, given the dysfunction in our system, and given that hybrid immunity seems much better than either vaccine-induced or disease induced[1], the decision to require vaccines for everybody does make sense.

[1]: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj2258

Re: The Plague of the Poor

#136

Post by labawi »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #114
faster wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the difference in cost to the organization giving the shots or the antibody tests? My expectation is that they're about the same. If that's true, it's easier and more certain to just require vaccination. Also, this article provides some arguments based more on biology. https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/10/prior-infection-vs-v...

You can test for "antibodies". But the question of "is this patient immune from Covid-19" is a lot harder to answer and especially to standardize. There is such a thing as testing for neutralizing antibodies by testing the antibodies against the virus directly. But in general, all of the relevant tests seem to be more expensive and harder to standardize. Every human body creates its own set of antibodies against the…

> potential for uncertainty is too great

Too great for what? Even with 2 jabs, the immunity is <90% against Delta and research shows post-covid immunity is more effective.

Re: The Plague of the Poor

#137

Post by rkk3 »

raphlinus wrote: post #135
rkk3 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's simply not possible to track "natural immunity" in a suitable way to protect the public. Why? Germany and many other countries don't differentiate between forms of immunity. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-require-proof-c...

Here is a point I'll concede to the skeptics. By my interpretation, our health system is dysfunctional to the point that it can't reliably and practically collect immunity information in a way that's useful to the immunization effort. I have no interest in defending that. However, given the dysfunction in our system, and given that hybrid immunity seems much better than either vaccine-induced or disease induced[1], t…

> By my interpretation, our health system is dysfunctional to the point that it can't reliably and practically collect immunity information in a way that's useful to the immunization effort.

Wouldn't this apply to getting a vaccine, what makes tracking a diagnostic test so much more difficult? People could just have a photo of their positive test, just like they have a photo of their vaccine card...

Re: The Plague of the Poor

#138

Post by [deleted] »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #116
ajkdhcb2 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define antivax? Pretty sure you would be defined as an antivaxxer by most people as a result of your opinion that some people don't need to get vaccines

It's not about whether the individual "needs" the vaccines, but rather about rules a society can live by. And those who argue the most don't really argue about "they don't need the vaccine", but rather assume the vaccine is much bigger risk or damage than is at all reasonable. And that, yes, puts you very close to the "anti-vaxx" bubble.

[deleted]

Re: The Plague of the Poor

#139

Post by bayesian_horse »

labawi wrote: post #136
bayesian_horse wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can test for "antibodies". But the question of "is this patient immune from Covid-19" is a lot harder to answer and especially to standardize. There is such a thing as testing for neutralizing antibodies by testing the antibodies against the virus directly. But in general, all of the relevant tests seem to be more expensive and harder to standardize. Every human body creates its own set of antibodies against the…

> potential for uncertainty is too great Too great for what? Even with 2 jabs, the immunity is <90% against Delta and research shows post-covid immunity is more effective.

You are overestimating the "research shows" part, and no research shows that "natural immunity" is achieving a higher than 90% immunity against any infection.

Nor is it clear who actually has a "more effective" or even "sufficiently effective" immunity, given that the infection could be up to a year or more ago, and almost nobody knows exactly what strain they got. And no, you can't tell any of that easily, reliably or cheaply by antibody testing.

Proof of vaccination is the cheapest and most reliable proof of a reasonable chance of immunity.

Re: The Plague of the Poor

#140

Post by labawi »

ajkdhcb2 wrote: post #99
p49k wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Antibody tests exist. I’m not in any way antivax, but it makes no sense why people who already had COVID should be required to receive a vaccine instead of just proving they have antibodies. This kind of illogical policy gives fuel to antivaxers.

How do you define antivax? Pretty sure you would be defined as an antivaxxer by most people as a result of your opinion that some people don't need to get vaccines

So, if you have post-infection immunity against virus that you can prove (test blood reactivity against virus protein), and it's likely better than typical 2 doses (research shows), you should still be legally required to take 2 jabs even though there are often side effects, even serious ones?

Not OP, but if arguing against it is anti-vaxx, then I guess you should call me anti-vaxx and I'll call you unreasonable.

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