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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

#501
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why you care if others get the vaccine if it does not stop the spread and new mutations as we saw with the recent variants I’m fully boosted etc. I don’t think it’s fair to compare it to Polio

We’re seeing mutations because of incubators who weren’t vaccinated. But anymore, I’m beyond caring. Anti-vax stance is a self correcting problem. I mourn for the young being indoctrinated, and for the immunocompromised, but those who could help them have made their choices.

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

#502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we do strongly encourage condom usage and tests. There are education resources and awareness campaigns. Knowingly infecting someone or non disclosure of positive infection status during possible transmission activities is a jailable offense. It's not like HIV is something we simply ignore. There are still strong public health measures and laws protecting the public health.

Most of the anti-mandate people (I'm not one, to be clear) would be quite happy with a world where the interventions around COVID were awareness campaigns. And just as some people insist on not wearing condoms despite the risks, the same will be true of mask wearing and vaccines.

Would they be happy with "Knowingly infecting someone or non disclosure of positive infection status during possible transmission activities is a jailable offense" for COVID?

Ultimately these interventions, mandates and other public health measures, which wind up as a mix of education, awareness and mandates or laws become a balancing act between personal inconvenience and public good; so the work done for HIV is different from the intervention for covid-19 for that and other reasons.

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

#503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Great! The problem is that vaccines don't protect society unless a critical-mass of people are vaccinated. They don't protect society at all. The herd immunity goal flew out the window with Delta and left the galaxy with Omicron. We will not ever eradicate Covid-19 with vaccination. >It ends when the the threat subsides. It should end right now, then. The threat has subsided. We have vaccines and other treatment pro…

Hospitals are full here. It’s impacting everyone who gets sick or needs emergency care. Not over yet. I’d say it’s over when Paxlovid is available widely whenever folks catch it, which should be in a couple months. Pazlovid reduces risk of death or hospitalization by 90%. Basically turns an unvaccinated into a vaccinated person in terms of outcomes.

Question: does it have such a dramatic effect in vaccinated persons too? I just read a few headlines about the tests for this treatment, but haven't really had the time to read in detail.

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

#504
post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vaxxed and unvaxxed populations both rely on the same medical infrastructure. So when the unvaxxed fill hospitals to recover or die, they are consuming scarce resources that are required by the population at large for other things like birth, cancer, surgery, etc. Sadly, we don't have an ethical way to let all the unvaxxed get covid without impacting the medical system negatively for the rest of us.

The same reasoning can be applied to obesity.

Next time I have to postpone an elective surgery for 3 months because obesity cases have filled the ICU, then you can apply the same reasoning.

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

#505

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?

I'm vaccinated and boostered by my own choice Great! The problem is that vaccines don't protect society unless a critical-mass of people are vaccinated. The estimate for COVID-19 is that roughly 70% to 85% of the population will need to be vaccinated to reach the herd immunity threshold. USA is at about 63% fully vaccinated (76% had at least one dose). where does it end? It ends when the the threat subsides. Why this…

> It ends when the the threat subsides.

You just skipped past their entire point, after helping build it (mandates to protect "society" indeed). Society will never be completely safe. Government has a tendency to hang on forever to powers gained during emergencies.

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

#506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Great! The problem is that vaccines don't protect society unless a critical-mass of people are vaccinated. They don't protect society at all. The herd immunity goal flew out the window with Delta and left the galaxy with Omicron. We will not ever eradicate Covid-19 with vaccination. >It ends when the the threat subsides. It should end right now, then. The threat has subsided. We have vaccines and other treatment pro…

Eradication is not the goal. Making sure hospitals aren't overwhelmed with COVID patients is the goal. Catching COVID is potentially dangerous and often times results in long recovery window. Vaccination is harmless and works. The thread will never subside; this is a new virus we will have to live with for the rest of our lives - especially considering we can't seem to get everyone to do the right thing, even with go…

The thing is, hospitals aren't overwhelmed. Sure, maybe a handful in the most metropolitan of areas, but should the whole country pay for that? I don't think so. Of course, the news makes it seem like hospitals around the country are overwhelmed, but that's just agenda-based sensationalism, and should be taken with a grain of salt.

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

#507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have to worry about getting HIV every time I go out in public just because some jerk decided he has a god-given right to breathe viral particles into my lungs even though a simple and safe vaccine is readily available.

This is perilously close to "people who get COVID are innocent victims so forcible interventions are justified, while people who got HIV chose to do it so those same nterventions are less justified." I agree that, for the average person, COVID is easier to contract than HIV. But by the same token, COVID is much less severe than HIV, even with modern treatment plans. It's not at core about some abstract principle abou…

> Keeping the country shut down perpetually is an extreme cost that we are continually incurring.

Which country is this that is perpetually shut down? Even the most mask and vaccine forward (ergo "shut down perpetually") parts of the US are pretty operational. Offices are open as are restaurants and schools Disneyland is packed.

We've learned how to keep society running during the pandemic: vaccines, masks, testing, and occasionally heightened indoor occupancy restrictions during large waves to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed.

That's nothing at all like a "perpetual shutdown".

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

#508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something can be endemic and deadly and still something we accept the consequences of without government imposed restrictions. For example: HIV is something that is now endemic and (still) deadly. And yet we don't go around forcibly shutting down gay bathhouses, bars, and Grindr and implementing condom and prep mandates, even though they would be effective at reducing its spread. And for good reason: it'd be a massiv…

It's not the fact that it's red tribe coded, it's the fact that the arguments against these things started from very stupid places. Mask and vaccine resistance is stupid tribe coded, even if now there might be some valid reasons for talking about it. Stupid tribe and red tribe do happen to overlap, but it's the stupid part that upsets people so universally, not the red part. Also, HIV is not even remotely as contagio…

I really don’t see how you could reasonably talk with someone that isn’t vaccinated and convince them to get vaccinated by calling them stupid. It’s demeaning and completely dismissive of their apprehensions, fears, or any other reason they haven’t been vaccinated.

I would likely find myself much more reluctant to get vaccinated if the person attempting to convince me is calling me an idiot and just shouting that i’m wrong instead of providing me data on the subject, and being honest enough to openly discuss the subject.

A small amount of humility and respect go a very long way.

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

#509

Good article here about "endemic" and the still large problems that portend: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00155-x > The word ‘endemic’ has become one of the most misused of the pandemic. And many of the errant assumptions made encourage a misplaced complacency. It doesn’t mean that COVID-19 will come to a natural end. > In other words, a disease can be endemic and both widespread and deadly. Malaria kil…

Something can be endemic and deadly and still something we accept the consequences of without government imposed restrictions. For example: HIV is something that is now endemic and (still) deadly. And yet we don't go around forcibly shutting down gay bathhouses, bars, and Grindr and implementing condom and prep mandates, even though they would be effective at reducing its spread. And for good reason: it'd be a massiv…

This seems entirely non-sequitur. We don't have condom mandates because there is no practical way to enforce them. We don't have mandates that you need to wear a mask in your bedroom, either. If we allowed sex in stores and restaurants and didn't have condom mandates for people having sex in stores and restaurants, you'd have a point, but we don't allow sex in public. Porn performers don't have condom mandates, but they do have a mandate requiring them to show proof of a recent negative test before they're allowed to perform. I suspect many people you think are level-headed would be entirely supportive of legally mandated condom usage for non-cohabitating partners if there was any remotely realistic way to do it.

And, of course, we do have an absolute shit ton of mandated vaccines, so mandating one for Covid is not at all novel. It's even already a condition of federal employment in a lot of cases. If you're serving in the state department or military or something where you need to go overseas to places where anthrax or malaria are risks, you need to get vaccinated, and that's been normal and in-bounds for half a century.

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

#510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but I am. I don't mind laws mandating that cars HAVE seatbelts. But I think it's your choice if you want to wear them. With Heroin, I'm not sure criminalization really had much affect at all on the percentage of heroin addicts. And I'd bet that it had less effect than the rate of prescriptions for synthetic opiates did.

what about laws mandating cloth triangles on your face^H^H^H^H chest at the beach? what about laws banning second-hand smoke indoors?

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