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Biden to mandate coronavirus vaccine for federal workers

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Re: Biden to mandate coronavirus vaccine for federal workers

#311

Post by makomk »

oliyoung wrote: post #304
totony wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note all the "reasonable" and "great danger" in the decision. It's unclear (and to be determined) if covid fits that description

> It's unclear (and to be determined) if covid fits that description 700,000 people have died in the United States 18 months, 4.5 million world wide. Like, what else needs to happen for this pandemic to meet that description?

Jacobson v. Massachusetts was a case about smallpox vaccination. For context, smallpox kills about 30% of those who are infected and the vaccine is so effective that the disease has been completely eradicated. Covid-19 is a lot less deadly than that and all indications are that the vaccine for it isn't remotely as effective at preventing infection and spread.

Re: Biden to mandate coronavirus vaccine for federal workers

#312

Post by croon »

roenxi wrote: post #302
croon wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because if the virus was stopped dead by vaccination then it wouldn't matter what other people did, and if it isn't then ... vaccines aren't going to stop you catching it eventually. I'm not sure if you chose this binary line of thinking or if it was by accident, but you present the outcomes based on a 0 or 100% efficacy when it's not the case. It matters/ed what other people do, and if more people got vaccinated (…

> but more protection is always better than less It isn't, immune systems are quite complicated: "White House immunologist Dr Anthony Fauci offered the warning while giving an update on efforts to develop vaccines at an online US Senate hearing on Tuesday. He said: ‘I must warn that there’s also the possibility of negative consequences, where certain vaccines can actually enhance the negative effect of the infection.…

You're quoting something from May last year, before there was vaccine, where he was expressing a general disclaimer about the (very) small potentional for enhanced pathogenesis when creating vaccines.

This is not the case with the covid-19 vaccines. So yes, regarding covid, more protection is always better than less. The rest of my points were also specifically about covid, as is apparent if you were to quote its entirety.

> We should be letting people make their own choices.

Should people make "their own" decisions on how much diesel exhaust their cars produce, or whether they can carry around airborne nerve gas?

Re: Biden to mandate coronavirus vaccine for federal workers

#313

Post by hulitu »

michaelt wrote: post #40

As a part-time libertarian, one of the frustrating parts of the pandemic has been discovering how many people need the nanny state to step to stop them punching themselves in the face. Near the start of the pandemic, I thought the most intrusive state powers would barely be needed. Why would you ever need to make a vaccine mandatory? What rational person would refuse a lifesaving medicine offered to them for free? We…

> What rational person would refuse a lifesaving medicine offered to them for free?

Every rational person. If i gave you a free medicine (drugs for example) will you take it ?

The problem was that the political class undermined all trust in vaccination: promising more liberties to vaccinated people, contradicting the responsible state agencies ( this was the worse they could do), pouring money in Pharma companies and then buying their products ( looks like corruption), lying that the vaccines have been tested but in reality they had express approval, dismissing other vaccines ( Sputnik) for political reasons and forcing the people in a so called lockdown which (except in some countries) had no effect on the pandemic because the measures were pure propaganda (for example the child must stay in quarantine but the rest of the family, not)

Re: Biden to mandate coronavirus vaccine for federal workers

#314

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

dragontamer wrote: post #67
hunterb123 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Flu isn't one strain. It's many highly mutative strains, kinda different from the handful of stable strains of covid. That is all FUD. Natural immunity does fine, just like the vaccine you may be reinfected but the effects will be severely diminished. Look, this shouldn't be a surprise. Evolution is a bit better at this stuff than man, it's been doing it longer. I'm all for people taking boosters if they want to…

> That is all FUD. Natural immunity does fine, just like the vaccine you may be reinfected but the effects will be severely diminished. Why did Manaus, Brazil run out of hospital space in a 2nd surge? Despite initial infection rates of ~75%ish ? Why was this effect then replicated in a 2nd Brazilian city of Araraquara city by a different research team? (Aka: a "2nd wave" of COVID19, despite a highly infected populati…

That Manuas study was not representative of the population, so it's unlikely that 75% got infected in the first wave.

Re: Biden to mandate coronavirus vaccine for federal workers

#315

Post by Ekaros »

hulitu wrote: post #313
michaelt wrote: post #40

As a part-time libertarian, one of the frustrating parts of the pandemic has been discovering how many people need the nanny state to step to stop them punching themselves in the face. Near the start of the pandemic, I thought the most intrusive state powers would barely be needed. Why would you ever need to make a vaccine mandatory? What rational person would refuse a lifesaving medicine offered to them for free? We…

> What rational person would refuse a lifesaving medicine offered to them for free? Every rational person. If i gave you a free medicine (drugs for example) will you take it ? The problem was that the political class undermined all trust in vaccination: promising more liberties to vaccinated people, contradicting the responsible state agencies ( this was the worse they could do), pouring money in Pharma companies and…

Not to forget not standing to higher moral standard by going beyond and above in showing example.

Re: Biden to mandate coronavirus vaccine for federal workers

#316

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

dragontamer wrote: post #77
rajin444 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's looking at relative risk not overall. It's not saying you lose immunity after 180 days.

Natural immunity wanes enough to cause a "2nd surge" in cities that were 75%ish infected, such as Araraquara city, Brazil, and Manaus, Brazil. I can agree with you that the 180-days thing is just an estimate from one study. Further studies are needed to narrow down the exact time when natural immunity wanes. But its a good "first guess" at the phenomenon, and should be within a magnitude of the truth. From what we've…

The Manaus study used a convenience sample, meaning that you cannot infer population rates from it.

Who would have thought that reading the abstract of a paper could be a super power?

Re: Biden to mandate coronavirus vaccine for federal workers

#317

Post by roenxi »

croon wrote: post #312
roenxi wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but more protection is always better than less It isn't, immune systems are quite complicated: "White House immunologist Dr Anthony Fauci offered the warning while giving an update on efforts to develop vaccines at an online US Senate hearing on Tuesday. He said: ‘I must warn that there’s also the possibility of negative consequences, where certain vaccines can actually enhance the negative effect of the infection.…

You're quoting something from May last year, before there was vaccine, where he was expressing a general disclaimer about the (very) small potentional for enhanced pathogenesis when creating vaccines. This is not the case with the covid-19 vaccines. So yes, regarding covid, more protection is always better than less. The rest of my points were also specifically about covid, as is apparent if you were to quote its ent…

It could still happen. There are going to be more waves of coronavirus that are better adjusted to work around the current crop of vaccines. Nobody has a crystal ball for this stuff. That is why the scientific bodies keep talking about "evidence" and "no evidence" instead of making blanket claims.

Plus if I recall correctly there is some evidence that people who get COVID after being vaccinated (ie, breakthrough cases) get worse cases. We haven't had time for the Phase IV trials yet, so it is entirely possible that there are some interactions that haven't come to light yet.

> Should people make "their own" decisions on how much diesel exhaust their cars produce, or whether they can carry around airborne nerve gas?

Yes to the diesel. And no to the nerve gas.

But I'll point out that coronavirus is quite different to nerve gas - you're going to be exposed to it anyway regardless of vaccination rate. And statistically speaking, the person who exposes you is likely to be vaccinated.

Re: Biden to mandate coronavirus vaccine for federal workers

#318

Post by acdha »

roenxi wrote: post #293
betterunix2 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...that is why I could never be a libertarian. People have repeatedly proved themselves unwilling or unable to live up to the libertarian ideal of behaving "rationally."

Behaving rationally isn't a particularly libertarian ideal. All political ideologies aspire to behave rationally. Nobody stands up and starts with "Lets approach this irrationally and ..."

Where your comment went wrong was in conflating rational decisions made at the time the rules are made or enforced with routine rational choices made constantly by the population. It’s much easier to have a rule which says “always wash your hands when preparing food” than to have every single restaurant worker have to reason about the level of risk posed by what they’ve done since the last time they washed their hands. In particular, think about how many bad calls are made by people who believe they’re acting rationally but are acting on incomplete or bad information.

Libertarianism involves a state as weak as possible so it critically depends on people to individually make good choices for a society to be an appealing place to live. You can sue your neighbor if he burns old tires upwind but you’re really hoping he’s smart enough not to because that’s tedious, slow, and risks retaliation. If you don’t have the equivalent of Social Security forcing people to save for retirement, you have to make your peace with having destitute old people on the streets, etc.

Re: Biden to mandate coronavirus vaccine for federal workers

#319

Post by version_five »

kxyvr wrote: post #233
version_five wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a libertarian and I think choices should be up to the individual, because it's never ok to have a political group decide for you what is good or bad. It's antithetical to western liberalism. My rant aside, I think there are better and worse ways to infringe on people's liberty when needed. And given the way the winds are blowing, it would be much better to enforce vaccination at the federal level, i.e. compel peo…

I think part of the difficulty with the libertarian point of view regarding the COVID vaccine is that not all parties are given a free choice either. For example, if someone refuses a vaccine, should an emergency room be free to refuse care? Currently, they can not due to EMTALA. That's not to say that it's unreasonable to question and philosophize the implications of a mandate. At the same time, barring a more effec…

> For example, if someone refuses a vaccine, should an emergency room be free to refuse care?

This argument doesn't hold up. First, tying availability of medical care to the "right" behavior unconscionable at so many levels. In a developed country, do we really want to create a tier of disabled or unhealthy people that we've denied care to because we don't like their behavior (maybe dont answer that)

More practically, should you get interviewed at the ER intake and moved down in priority based on factors in your control that make you a higher risk? Smokers, sedentary people, the obese, lifestyle induced diabetics, people who don't go to the doctor regularly, you could probably compile a big list. What is so special about vaccines?

Re: Biden to mandate coronavirus vaccine for federal workers

#320

Post by ModernMech »

Ekaros wrote: post #276
wsc981 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, if someone refuses a vaccine, should an emergency room be free to refuse care? Currently, they can not due to EMTALA. Should not refuse care. A lot of people have unhealthy lifestyles (eating lots of processed foods, sugary soda drinks, don’t exercise, smoke, …). We also don’t refuse healthcare to these people even if they make poor life choices. Since many people on this site live and work in the USA,…

Also that leads to questions like should we refuse care for healthy but dangerous activities like swimming and drowning. Or breaking a leg or arm during sports? Or concussions? These clearly could have been avoided by choosing safer options or ways. Thus should be refused care?

When the ICU is past capacity, these questions must be asked regardless. Who gets treated first and why? Unvaccinated covid patients are the ones pushing ICUs past capacity, not drivers or swimmers or soccer players or obese people. This is not a hypothetical thought experiment. Doctors are having to make these decisions right now.
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