Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Denmark to permanently cease using AstraZeneca vaccine

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 344 posts

Re: Denmark to permanently cease using AstraZeneca vaccine

#181

Post by sofixa »

Tenoke wrote: post #147
jonathanstrange wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must have listened to the wrong "experts" then. There was a bit of an initial, politically influenced confusion in the US at the beginning up until about June. However, where I live all experts recommended wearing masks from the start. They did say that people should not rush to buy FFP2 masks and chirurgical masks at a time when there was a shortage of those for health professionals, which was definitely the rig…

>There was a bit of an initial, politically influenced confusion in the US at the beginning up until about June You are downplaying it - they were actively taking a stance against them in the US and June was already quite late into the pandemic. The WHO themselves were advising people NOT to wear a mask and that it might be even more dangerous to wear one than not to wear it months into the pandemic.. They also only…

> The WHO themselves were advising people NOT to wear a mask and that it might be even more dangerous to wear one than not to wear it months into the pandemic.. They also only revised this in June

To protect yourself. The revised and current advice is to wear masks to protect the others and avoid propagating the virus. Why does everyone complaining about the masks thing miss that?

And as others have already said, the lack of PPE across the world would have made recommending masks for everyone highly irresponsible.

Re: Denmark to permanently cease using AstraZeneca vaccine

#182

Post by Tenoke »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #171
Tenoke wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There was a bit of an initial, politically influenced confusion in the US at the beginning up until about June You are downplaying it - they were actively taking a stance against them in the US and June was already quite late into the pandemic. The WHO themselves were advising people NOT to wear a mask and that it might be even more dangerous to wear one than not to wear it months into the pandemic.. They also only…

First, we'll have to ignore the US because the government interference and rampant irrationality there caused hundreds of thousands of lives lost. Regarding the EU: I feel a certain irony, because I was among those who complained that experts give the wrong advice for noble reasons (partly due to good information from HN, btw), called it a "King's Lie" and was heavily downvoted for it on various social media. So I'll…

As far as I can tell people are just looking for excuses. It might very well be the case that whoever wrote that WHO statement actually believed it.

Either way - my point was that people here can and do often outperform 'decisions made by experts', no matter the reason why that's the case.

> The WHO's statement lacked transparency but if they had stated that everybody should wear masks in March 2020, the effects would have been disastrous for health authorities all over the world

Even if that's what was happening, the way they did it - saying they are ineffective rather than, say vaguely saying they dont advise them - has fueled an anti-mask movement still alive today. It's very hard to believe that it was a good decision overall on top of being straight-up wrong.

Re: Denmark to permanently cease using AstraZeneca vaccine

#183

Post by eloff »

zpeti wrote: post #77
eloff wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's exactly it. There is a tradeoff to be made here with likely deaths on both sides, and the government is choosing much higher numbers of deaths because it looks better for them politically. That's immoral and cowardly. I don't see any way to justify the decision they've made logically.

This pandemic is basically this entire story. COVID deaths are much more visible than the missed cancers, the depression and drug abuse caused by lockdowns, so basically it’s an easy choice for governments, lockdowns are better politically.

The story with lockdown is a lot muddier. There's a good argument to be made on both sides, and weighing which decision is best with partial data is difficult.

I completely understand the initial lockdowns when we had no data. I would have done that too, although I would have acted sooner because I saw this threat clearly in January - why our governments were less competent across the board than some rando programmer is something I haven't forgiven.

What I don't understand is now that we have data, we're still doing lockdowns with no attempt to publicly weigh the pluses and minuses and justify three decision logically. I mean maybe it's the right thing to do, but I want to see them put some real thought into the decision, and not do it because it's what they're before, or what's politically viable.

There should be a clear logical argument being made, weighing the harms on both sides and choosing the lesser evil.

Re: Denmark to permanently cease using AstraZeneca vaccine

#184

Post by sofixa »

okintheory wrote: post #16

The graphic in this Guardian article [1] suggests that for age 40+ the number of covid-related ICU admissions prevented vs. no. blood clots has a factor 10 gap. Of course, clots might be more severe than ICU admission. But still, it looks to me like stopping for over 40 is a huge mistake. Very disappointing. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/apr/07/under-30s-in...

In Scandinavia it seems that the amount of cases with blood clots are higher than in the rest of the world.

Re: Denmark to permanently cease using AstraZeneca vaccine

#185

Post by eloff »

usrusr wrote: post #148
zpeti wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This pandemic is basically this entire story. COVID deaths are much more visible than the missed cancers, the depression and drug abuse caused by lockdowns, so basically it’s an easy choice for governments, lockdowns are better politically.

But people will also miss cancer screenings, get depressed and so on when they stay at home because of an unmitigated pandemic running wild. It wouldn't be 2019 again without government intervention. (PS: also, why would they miss a cancer screening when it's literally the only pastime that isn't shut down?)

> PS: also, why would they miss a cancer screening when it's literally the only pastime that isn't shut down.

Fear to go anywhere near a medical environment. Long delays and cancelled procedures and appointments because medical professionals had other priorities.

Re: Denmark to permanently cease using AstraZeneca vaccine

#186

Post by de_keyboard »

eloff wrote: post #174
de_keyboard wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there were broadly 3 strategies: 1. Do very little intervention, but perhaps isolate the vulnerable. This was the "Sweden strategy". 2. Do big interventions if cases rise, but only so far as is required to prevent hospitals being over-whelmed. This was the strategy in most of Europe, and in particular the UK. 3. Do big interventions with the intention of reaching "covid zero", including restrictions on intern…

To be in (3) though you have to isolate your country right at the beginning before the action can be politically justified. I'm quite surprised that China was able to pull it off, because they're a major trade economy and must have millions of people coming and going. Of course it helps to have a government that can take any action without regard for rights or political consequences. This is impossible I think for a…

The lock-downs imposed in (2) countries were very effective and given a bit more time (and political will) they could have transitioned to strategy (3).

Australia and China managed to do this.

Re: Denmark to permanently cease using AstraZeneca vaccine

#188

Post by de_keyboard »

febeling wrote: post #166
de_keyboard wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there were broadly 3 strategies: 1. Do very little intervention, but perhaps isolate the vulnerable. This was the "Sweden strategy". 2. Do big interventions if cases rise, but only so far as is required to prevent hospitals being over-whelmed. This was the strategy in most of Europe, and in particular the UK. 3. Do big interventions with the intention of reaching "covid zero", including restrictions on intern…

So why not choose (1)? This seems to have been the strategy in the past with similar risks. And it avoids the costs of freedom and live at the same time. What am I missing?

(2) leads to fewer deaths overall than (1). (1) gives better quality of life to the healthy than (2). (3) leads to fewer deaths than (1) or (2), but it requires political will. If you can pull it off, (3) is what you want. That's a big "if" though.

As a healthy person, I personally would have been better off under (1). However, I think the economic and emotional damage of that number of deaths would have been too much for society as a whole.

Re: Denmark to permanently cease using AstraZeneca vaccine

#189

Post by timr »

sofixa wrote: post #173
febeling wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why not choose (1)? This seems to have been the strategy in the past with similar risks. And it avoids the costs of freedom and live at the same time. What am I missing?

That it doesn't work. Sweden had to go back on it, and in many countries trying to do (1) ended up with hospitals full - like France. Everything was done to avoid a third lockdown this spring, but hospitals are at 150% capacity and here we are again. Are you aware of some magic trick that negates that?

Sweden did not "go back on it". They remain with significantly lighter restrictions than ~all of continental Europe:

https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/the-public-health-agency...

As far as I can tell, their most stringent restrictions are limits on group gatherings to 8, and closing bars at 8pm:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-30/swedish-h...

Contrast to France, Italy, the UK, Belgium, etc., where people have been forcibly restricted to their homes for a significant portion of the last year.

Re: Denmark to permanently cease using AstraZeneca vaccine

#190

Post by eloff »

mxcrossb wrote: post #123
eloff wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's exactly it. There is a tradeoff to be made here with likely deaths on both sides, and the government is choosing much higher numbers of deaths because it looks better for them politically. That's immoral and cowardly. I don't see any way to justify the decision they've made logically.

The point of the trolley problem is that it’s hard to make the right decision. Yet apparently anyone who doesn’t make a decision based on the move naive application of utilitarianism is a coward.

At a government level you have to be able to weigh bodies. Because there are often deaths or serious harm on both sides of a decision. Just because it's a hard decision doesn't mean there isn't a right choice that minimizes harm. This is also true of the trolley problem.

In this case one side is clearly tipping the scales by multiple orders of magnitude more. To choose that side for political reasons is cowardice and unethical.

Post reply on HN