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The Plague of the Poor

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31–40 of 181 posts

Re: The Plague of the Poor

#31

> Firing thousands of workers for not being vaccinated (including those, to repeat, who have natural immunity through infection) is also unprecedented Is this true in the US? It seems unreasonable. What I've seen in the EU is that antibodies and frequent PCR testing are deemed just as acceptable as vaccination, and I think it makes sense.

The article is probably cherry-picking something a-la [0] out of context. In short, in that specific case the largest healthcare provider in New York fired a small fraction of their total workforce because those people's choice to not vaccinate is putting other people's lives at risk. This is neither unprecedented nor unreasonable. This doesn't instil any kind of confidence in the rest of the writing.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...

Re: The Plague of the Poor

#32

> Firing thousands of workers for not being vaccinated (including those, to repeat, who have natural immunity through infection) is also unprecedented Is this true in the US? It seems unreasonable. What I've seen in the EU is that antibodies and frequent PCR testing are deemed just as acceptable as vaccination, and I think it makes sense.

Yes. It is true. There is no exception for natural immunity. Some places are theoretically willing to accept weekly PCR testing. But good luck actually keeping your job if you go that route. The whole thing is so politicized that you become one of the deplorables by choosing that route.

Re: The Plague of the Poor

#33
post #5

"The emerging bio-authoritarianism that began as “two weeks to flatten the curve” will metastasize into something even more repellent and dangerous unless it is forthrightly opposed now, through boycotts, protests, lawsuits, labor action, and civil disobedience." What I find truly repellent are highly educated and erudite people who spend huge effort on developing tortured arguments supporting their own agendas - suc…

>> this is science where the aggregate of evidence and analysis is used to support provisional hypothesis. Except those few occasions where a single experiment/paper/observation can throw out an entire field. It is rare, but science remains open to the possibility that even the most treasured law can be invalidated by a single, repeatable, experiment.

The key being "repeatable".

Re: The Plague of the Poor

#34

Last night I had a few interesting conversations with a range of people at a birthday party. The group I was speaking with were mostly in the sciences and technology with a couple of high school teachers and a college professor in the mix. The perspectives were interesting. I won't get into all the details here. I'll just say that the well-reasoned opinions spanned a range. The teachers had legitimate concerns about…

And sometimes education comes from the rest of society saying “you are welcome to your beliefs, but not welcome to pollute my air at our workplace until you aren’t a danger to me.”

We set the precedent for forced vaccination nearly a century ago. There is no slippery slope here, or at least if there is we already slid down the hill and are resting comfortably on flat ground.

Re: The Plague of the Poor

#35
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…

That “1-2%” is FAR too high of an estimate. Although regional numbers vary of course, in my state the death rate by county has averaged between 0.0004 and 0.0032 percent. Or, in decimal notation, 0.000004-0.000032 These numbers were calculated based on the Covid data repository maintained by the New York Times ( https://github.com/nytimes/covid-19-data ) and US Census data ( http://www.census.gov/ ).

Death rate of people who got covid, not of everyone. Show your working ..

Re: The Plague of the Poor

#36

> So whose interests are served by mandating a leaky vaccine that prevents neither infection nor transmission of a disease that is chiefly dangerous to people over 75 or with serious preexisting medical conditions? Should I keep reading? I think not

Should I explore perspectives outside of accepted party narratives? I think not

Rather like minmaxing, once you encounter something severely discredited there's no point going on and you can prune that whole dialogue tree.

If people want to convince me, they need to lead with their strongest evidence.

Re: The Plague of the Poor

#37
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…

That “1-2%” is FAR too high of an estimate. Although regional numbers vary of course, in my state the death rate by county has averaged between 0.0004 and 0.0032 percent. Or, in decimal notation, 0.000004-0.000032 These numbers were calculated based on the Covid data repository maintained by the New York Times ( https://github.com/nytimes/covid-19-data ) and US Census data ( http://www.census.gov/ ).

This whole area might fall into the Sam Clemens quote: "There are lies, damned lies and statistics"

Since 30 to 40 percent of humans experience no illness with this thing the denominator can be quite different depending on what you use for it. Notwithstanding that...

John's Hopkins Website https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/bda759474...

USA

Total Cases Total Deaths

44,318,179 712,975 1.6%

This is with oxygen support and whatever treatments have been used.

In Mexico where health care seems harder to access

Total Cases Total Deaths

3,720,545 281,958 ~7.6%

So IF you get sick and you don't have modern medicine it's a serious disease.

IF you are one of the lucky 30..40% it's a piece of cake. Flip a coin.

Re: The Plague of the Poor

#38

Last night I had a few interesting conversations with a range of people at a birthday party. The group I was speaking with were mostly in the sciences and technology with a couple of high school teachers and a college professor in the mix. The perspectives were interesting. I won't get into all the details here. I'll just say that the well-reasoned opinions spanned a range. The teachers had legitimate concerns about…

Perhaps the first thing to do is stop listening to the marketing (yes, the message tested marketing pitch being sold to you) that people who have every prior vaccination, yet want to understand the risk/reward profile of this particular one, are somehow “anti-vaxxers”.

For me, the past two years will go down in history as a spectacular example of marketing messaging.

Re: The Plague of the Poor

#39
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…

Isn’t it just easier (and with virtually no risk) to require people to vaccinate rather than debate over who did/did not actually have COVID?

Re: The Plague of the Poor

#40
The Politicisation of the Plague in the USA is the real story here, and I think many in the US are unaware that it’s not like that in other places.

For example in the UK vaccination rates amongst Conservative and Labour voters are the same.

So why is there such disparity in the US between Biden voters and Trump voters when it comes to Covid-denialism, pseudo-cures, and antivaxxing?

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