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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

#221

Post by eli »

Izkata wrote: post #212
sofixa wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any more details on the "masks don't work thing"? It's news to me, and i don't see how that could have changed - masks, even cloth ones, but even more so for surgical and N95 types, drastically limit how much virus you spread when you're contagious; and especially N95 also offer some protection against catching it. Especially for crowded places, masks seem like a no brainer.

Around a month ago Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, said in an interview (paraphrased) "cloth masks are ineffective against the transmissibility of omicron". (Edit: wrong person, here's video of what I'm remembering: https://mobile.twitter.com/townhallcom/status/14733056927149... ) (Anyway that was just intended as context for below, what I think may have been the starting point for a larger shift) Thing is, t…

No she didn't. She said cloth masks were the least effective type of mask. Here's the CDC guidance: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-si...

And here's a quote not a "paraphrase": "What I will say is the best mask that you can wear is the one that you will wear and the one you can keep on all day long that you can tolerate in public indoor settings and tolerate where you need to wear it," Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC director, told reporters this week. from https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/cdc-warns-loosely-woven-clot...

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

#222

Post by devmor »

Izkata wrote: post #212
sofixa wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any more details on the "masks don't work thing"? It's news to me, and i don't see how that could have changed - masks, even cloth ones, but even more so for surgical and N95 types, drastically limit how much virus you spread when you're contagious; and especially N95 also offer some protection against catching it. Especially for crowded places, masks seem like a no brainer.

Around a month ago Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, said in an interview (paraphrased) "cloth masks are ineffective against the transmissibility of omicron". (Edit: wrong person, here's video of what I'm remembering: https://mobile.twitter.com/townhallcom/status/14733056927149... ) (Anyway that was just intended as context for below, what I think may have been the starting point for a larger shift) Thing is, t…

The CDC has repeatedly changed their standpoint on multiple measures in response to political influence. I put more trust in the WHO, who still recommend using masks. https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...

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

#223

Post by cbeley »

boring_twenties wrote: post #175
_fat_santa wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's aggravating is all the "feel good" policies that fly in the face of the current state of the pandemic. We have gotten to the point where numerous officials have said something along the lines of "vaccines won't protect you against getting Omicron, masks don't really do anything either". So you think. Ok, we have gotten to the point where these measures are ineffective, so lets do away with the measures. And th…

The good news is if you pay the $100 for TSA Pre-Check, you won't have to take your mask off to clear the checkpoint.

They've been making me take my mask off for precheck still at SFO and LAX.

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

#225

Post by dehrmann »

quaffapint wrote: post #66

I'm vaccinated and boostered by my own choice. My problem with mandates is where does it end? Why this mandate and not other mandates? Who gets to decide that?

The vaccine mandates are also getting a bit awkward because the justification was always that they protect others, but with omicron, that's a lot less true.

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

#226

Post by shin_lao »

Izkata wrote: post #212
sofixa wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any more details on the "masks don't work thing"? It's news to me, and i don't see how that could have changed - masks, even cloth ones, but even more so for surgical and N95 types, drastically limit how much virus you spread when you're contagious; and especially N95 also offer some protection against catching it. Especially for crowded places, masks seem like a no brainer.

Around a month ago Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, said in an interview (paraphrased) "cloth masks are ineffective against the transmissibility of omicron". (Edit: wrong person, here's video of what I'm remembering: https://mobile.twitter.com/townhallcom/status/14733056927149... ) (Anyway that was just intended as context for below, what I think may have been the starting point for a larger shift) Thing is, t…

Also N95 have a limited effectiveness over time (e.g. you need to change it regularly).

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

#227

Post by argvargc »

xadhominemx wrote: post #194
walterbell wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These numbers can be further separated by "with Covid" and "from Covid" causality, as well as co-morbidities and expected lifetime. E.g. if someone was soon to die from illness A, but died 3 months earlier from complications induced by Covid, and the hospital received a financial payment for classifying this as Covid-related treatment, that should be broken out into a separate reporting category. Such deaths would no…

Excess mortality is higher than reported COVID deaths. Australia contained the virus in 2020 and saw negative excess mortality. Official COVID deaths understate the true toll.

...of lockdowns?

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

#228

Post by xienze »

xadhominemx wrote: post #114
walterbell wrote: post #38

The media's binary separation of populations into vax and unvax is a false dichotomy. More causal factors would be represented by: 1. Covid-recovered 2. Vaccinated 3. Partly-vaccinated ( CDC reporting bundles #3 and #4. UK reports all 4 categories separately. #1 was already a high percentage in 2021 and is now higher due to Omicron. Edit: CDC estimated pre-Omicron #1 as 146 million people (as of Oct 2021), https://ww…

At this point, “3” represents a tiny fraction of the population so isn’t even really worth breaking out

It's actually larger than you'd think, because OP didn't also include "only one of the first two shots" in the "partially vaccinated" category.

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

#229

Post by tomrod »

walterbell wrote: post #180
tomrod wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. If they are one of the 146 million Americans who recovered from Covid, they are at low risk of reinfection and thus transmission. The same cannot be said for Covid-naive, vaccinated people who can be infected and silently infect others due to symptoms being suppressed by the vaccine.

This isn't a classification problem of COVID-naive+vaxxed versus COVID-exposed versus COVID-naive+unvaxxed, and hasn't been since Delta.

The issue is not vaccine denial by itself, its resistance to any public health measures, including vaccines, masking and other non-pharmaceutical interventions, and so forth. In short, these folks actively pursue a course of not behaving rationally because (usually) of misguided politics.

It's ill-informed. If you have a prior COVID infection, you should still maintain active vaccination status, including boosters. If you get COVID, you should get tested and try to not get others sicks.

Instead, the pantheon of behaviors we observe from anti-vaxxers is spiteful and irrational. Which supports my initial point that this is a self behavior.

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

#230

Post by devmor »

throwawayboise wrote: post #97
simiones wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Irrelevant. If the new variants keep killing people in huge numbers, we'll keep seeing restrictions (assuming our governments are doing their jobs). If this happens for the next 100 years, we'll have to keep living with restrictions for the next 100 years; horrible as it is, it's better than the alternatives.

> It's better than the alternatives. That's an opinion. You will find people who would rather face the chance of becoming sick than live under quasi-lockdown for their entire lives. We are all dead in the end.

If those people's choices only affected themselves, that'd be fine. But they don't. Typhoid Mary was locked away for a reason.
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