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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

#151

Post by 01100011 »

Bhilai wrote: post #80

I am done. I did my part, wore masks (sometimes double masks,) three shots of vaccines and took all reasonable precautions that a sane person could do. But there are still unmasked people and unvaccinated people (sure, blame me for putting everyone in this binary category) and I am done caring about this class of people. I could not see my family for two years due to one or the other international travel restrictions…

Agreed, and we just lost my wife's grandma to Covid. She could have been fine but that part of the family swallowed the anti-vax lie. My wife's aunt almost died from Covid. They should have known better too, having lost a brother in Vietnam to Covid, but the Trumpian lies had a stronger hold on them.

We do still need to think about the people who can't get vaxxed for medical reasons. My sister has MS and has been on immunosuppressants which prevented her from getting it. Thankfully she took a break and got vaxxed because now she has covid.

If we get to, say, April without a serious spike in the death rate, I think the protocols will be rolled back. That assumes we don't see a new variant but it looks like the variants are getting less serious, not more.

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

#152

Post by lern_too_spel »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #79
peter422 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It ends with covid vaccines because that is the only pandemic that is currently raging across the globe. The politicians we elect democratically makes the decisions.

I'm not so sure about this. Call me a cynic, or even a Libertarian (gasp!) but it is generally not in the nature of government to wind down an apparatus that they paid so much for once "the threat" has passed. Now that governments have the infrastructure for requiring and/or showing proof of vaccination, it really isn't a stretch to think they will want to keep that system and have it be readily available for the nex…

There is lots of precedent for winding down wartime laws. Libertarians think governments want to be authoritarian for the sake of being authoritarian, but that is not how democracy works.

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

#153

Post by bityard »

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #136
MagnumOpus wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Are you equally critical of the obese? Or those who ride motorcycles on the highway? As someone who is vaxxed, I struggle to see how the harm done by the unvaccinated is categorically worse than the risks taken by others at society's expense. I imagine you have none of the disdain for motorcycle riders that you do for the unvaccinated. Edit: For those replying to my comment, please note the comment I replied to liste…

A motorcyclist can (realistically) only risk themselves with their choice to ride on the highway.

The vaccines are not 100% effective and not everyone can safely take the vaccine. The unvaccinated put others at risk, not just themselves. I think it's perfectly fair to scorn those who _can_ be vaccinated but choose not to out of ignorance or religious/political ideology.

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

#154

Post by dekhn »

yucky wrote: post #52
dekhn wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I await the results, ten years int he future, where we integrate a wide range of data in less ambiguous ways to determine what the actual effects of vaccination, post-infection resistance, masking, etc were, and understand the underlying causes. I do agree that interventions (except for full shutdown like china) don't seem to have a huge variation in results.

Well we already know there has been a huge increase in the deaths of black children [1] [1] https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/nation/2022/01/25/chi...

I am only interested in serious results from quantitative medical biology researchers related specifically to viral infection, not secondary causes.

Also quotes from the newspaper article already point out some of the effects predate covid and thus couldn't have been caused by it.

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

#155

Post by xboxnolifes »

pohl wrote: post #139
rajup wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok but what do you propose though? The vaccinated still spread COVID granted at a lesser rate. A permanent mask mandate? COVID is not going away.

The idea of cooking food stayed. Sanitation stayed. The practice of washing hands stayed. Refrigeration of food stayed. Why the heck shouldn't the use masks stay?

Last I checked, people generally enjoy cooked food more, there isn't a washing hands mandate (outside of certain workplace), no fridge mandate (and it comes with strict benefits of longer lasting food).

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

#156

Post by xadhominemx »

walterbell wrote: post #145
xadhominemx wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, that’s different from the definition you just provided but in any event it’s still a very small proportion of the population

> it’s still a very small proportion of the population At present yes, but this was 100% of the now-vax population at a prior point in time (everyone passes through #3 to enter #2), so it should be separated in the historical record.

Everyone “passes through” the 10 second duration during which the vaccine is actually being collected, but we don’t collect statistics on those people

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

#157

Post by jules »

wilde wrote: post #148
ErikVandeWater wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you equally critical of the obese? Or those who ride motorcycles on the highway? As someone who is vaxxed, I struggle to see how the harm done by the unvaccinated is categorically worse than the risks taken by others at society's expense. I imagine you have none of the disdain for motorcycle riders that you do for the unvaccinated. Edit: For those replying to my comment, please note the comment I replied to liste…

The obese can’t kill me from across the room. A better analogy would be smokers, who I am also frustrated with but at least nicotine is addictive.

A vaccinated person can still spread the disease. Perhaps at a lower rate, but a lot of lifestyle choices affect that rate. The singular focus on that one choice is irrational and the obsession with what other people inject into their bodies is unethical, since the free choice of a person to inject or not inject a substance into their body is more fundamental than many of the other choices that affect the rate of spread.

I have personally been vaccinated but I feel a pang of guilt whenever I use the government mandated vaccine passport to make use of restaurants and so on. So I stop using those facilities that require a vaccine passport, with the exception of the gym.

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

#158

Post by johnnyb9 »

tomrod wrote: post #125
Izkata wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and I am done caring about this class of people. And their response will be "Finally! This is all we've wanted this entire time!" I don't think most here understand just how much "this class of people" value freedom over safety.

> I don't think most here understand just how much "this class of people" value freedom over safety. No, the problem is that we do, and also see the selfishness of the position with regards to highly communicable diseases. "My body, my choice" is a fantastic principle when the outcome of the choice has negligible impact on people breathing the same air. Many of these same folks would raise a stir if their neighbor st…

> Their choice to not be vaccinated or wear masks results in people we love dying.

It's hard to see how vaccines stop the spread when places like NYC or Israel (some of the most vaccinated places in the world) had record setting numbers in the recent wave.

If vaccines work, shouldn't the "people you love" be vaccinated and thus not impacted by unvaccinated people?

I understand masks can be effective in some cases, but is it really reasonable to demand people wear surgical or N95 masks all the time to prevent "people you love" from getting an illness with a 99.99% survival rate?

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

#159

Post by Freak_NL »

rajup wrote: post #113
giraffe_lady wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you feel about people who are vaccinated but will still likely have permanent serious consequences or shortened life span due to a "mild" infection? I'm in this category and it doesn't seem particularly rare. Rarely accounted for in these "I am done" type posts though.

Ok but what do you propose though? The vaccinated still spread COVID granted at a lesser rate. A permanent mask mandate? COVID is not going away.

If we're doing masks permanently I am going to invest in some bespoke Darth Vader style of head dress or a space suit, because I am completely done with masks.

I've made and used home sewn masks using one of the recommended sewing patterns for the past two years, and I've managed to get a good fit that only fogged up my glasses partly, but since last week these masks have been banned here in the Netherlands. Not because they are proven to be worse than the type II surgical masks that are recommended now, but because the government wants to standardize. So now I wear disposable masks that mean my glasses fog up every damn time I enter a building. Great.

Then there is that constant feeling of not getting enough oxygen, all while being confronted with the 5% who simply refuse to wear a mask in the shops, and shop staff refusing to remark on it for fear of getting into an altercation. I'm thoroughly through with masks. I'll wear them where and when mandatory, but certainly not indefinitely.

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

#160

Post by klyrs »

peteradio wrote: post #56
YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unconstitutional seems to be a rather stretchable concept lately. Here are all the vaccine mandates in the US today: https://www.immunize.org/laws/

Those are states laws. Generally when someone says Unconstitutional without a state qualification they mean Federal Government.

That's a rather pointless quibble. State laws that violate the constitution are challenged as unconstitutional, and overturned on that basis. There were antivaxers when the Smallpox virus was rampant. Smallpox is gone, because of vaccine mandates. Public schools require a whole panel of vaccines, both of their employees and students. Until now, that hasn't been seen to violate the constitution. But now, there's a supermajority in the Supreme Court, so really, who knows what the constitution says?
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