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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

#541

Post by irthomasthomas »

avs733 wrote: post #480
sib301 wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude go to a hospital in a populated area during this surge. My wife sat in the waiting room for 3 hours with SEVERE abdominal pain, DURING A PREGNANCY and was unable to be seen. We went home. If she’d had an ectopic pregnancy, she would probably not be here anymore.

I had an extremely traumatic accident a week ago and came into a major city hospital as a level one trauma patient. I came in with absolutely no wait..ambulance directly to a trauma bay, no waiting, no clothing, no nothing. After about six hours they figure out I was not going to die and was relatively okay. Okay here means two broken legs not “walking around”. Half of the patients at this hospital had covid and I ha…

Is the explanation simply that so many nurses are being forced to isolate with Omicron? Since even vaccinated staff can still spread it, so they still take the tests often, and isolate for 2 weeks if positive.

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

#542

Post by Hamuko »

kbelder wrote: post #369
Hamuko wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the number of videos I've seen with people yelling at masked people, I'd say that they don't care about freedom at all (since apparently people shouldn't be free to wear masks whenever they want).

You don't think that happens the other way around as well? There's obnoxious morons on both sides of this debate.

I don't think the other side is masquerading their point as some sort of exercise in freedom.

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

#543

Post by CWuestefeld »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #313
tzs wrote: post #30

Something from the NYT mailing list yesterday: > The Covid vaccines are remarkably effective at preventing serious illness. If you’re vaccinated, your chances of getting severely sick are extremely low. Even among people 65 and older, the combination of the vaccines’ effectiveness and the Omicron variant’s relative mildness means that Covid now appears to present less danger than a normal flu. > For the unvaccinated,…

> I'd say the answer to that should be determined by the hospital capacity. If a region has sufficient hospital capacity that it would not be overwhelmed by the increase in COVID cases among the unvaccinated go ahead and lift most restrictions. Having anyone's freedoms dependent on available hospital capacity is a terrible way to run a society. Note that these freedoms were debated and won in an era where medicine wa…

Having anyone's freedoms dependent on available hospital capacity is a terrible way to run a society.

You should note that government regulations are designed to keep hospitals running nearer capacity. See "certificates of need", which are (in most places) required to get authorization to build a new hospital. You've got to prove to the gov't that a new hospital really is necessary. And thanks to regulatory capture, the tendency is for existing providers to try to sink such applications.

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

#544

Post by kmonad »

tzs wrote: post #30

Something from the NYT mailing list yesterday: > The Covid vaccines are remarkably effective at preventing serious illness. If you’re vaccinated, your chances of getting severely sick are extremely low. Even among people 65 and older, the combination of the vaccines’ effectiveness and the Omicron variant’s relative mildness means that Covid now appears to present less danger than a normal flu. > For the unvaccinated,…

I think the hospital capacity is a key argument indeed. But there is another aspect to consider. Each viral replication is a potential event where a new variant can arise, thus the fewer viral replications the better since each new variant has unknown risks. An unvaccinated person will on average be host to many more viral replications after exposure to the virus than a vaccinated person after exposure. Thus, if a large part of the population remains unvaccinated, the virus has more room room to evolve than necessary given we have easy access to effective and safe vaccines. Therefore, this should also factor into a debate around vaccination policies and personal choice vs societal risk.

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

#545

Post by reducesuffering »

deegles wrote: post #455
tzs wrote: post #30

Something from the NYT mailing list yesterday: > The Covid vaccines are remarkably effective at preventing serious illness. If you’re vaccinated, your chances of getting severely sick are extremely low. Even among people 65 and older, the combination of the vaccines’ effectiveness and the Omicron variant’s relative mildness means that Covid now appears to present less danger than a normal flu. > For the unvaccinated,…

> With COVID becoming endemic everyone is going to get antibodies Vaccines provide better protection than infection, just to be clear. It's not true that you're safe because of a previous infection. See: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-pr...

I see your Aug. '21 CDC paper, and raise you 1 more recent Jan. '22 CDC paper: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e1.htm

"By the week beginning October 3, compared with COVID-19 cases rates among unvaccinated persons without a previous COVID-19 diagnosis, case rates among vaccinated persons without a previous COVID-19 diagnosis were 6.2-fold (California) and 4.5-fold (New York) lower; rates were substantially lower among both groups with previous COVID-19 diagnoses, including 29.0-fold (California) and 14.7-fold lower (New York) among unvaccinated persons with a previous diagnosis, and 32.5-fold (California) and 19.8-fold lower (New York) among vaccinated persons with a previous diagnosis of COVID-19. During the same period, compared with hospitalization rates among unvaccinated persons without a previous COVID-19 diagnosis, hospitalization rates in California followed a similar pattern. These results demonstrate that vaccination protects against COVID-19 and related hospitalization, and that surviving a previous infection protects against a reinfection and related hospitalization. Importantly, infection-derived protection was higher after the Delta variant became predominant, a time when vaccine-induced immunity for many persons declined because of immune evasion and immunologic waning (2,5,6)."

TL;DR only vaccine did not provide better protection than only previous infection

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

#546

Post by lliamander »

deegles wrote: post #455
tzs wrote: post #30

Something from the NYT mailing list yesterday: > The Covid vaccines are remarkably effective at preventing serious illness. If you’re vaccinated, your chances of getting severely sick are extremely low. Even among people 65 and older, the combination of the vaccines’ effectiveness and the Omicron variant’s relative mildness means that Covid now appears to present less danger than a normal flu. > For the unvaccinated,…

> With COVID becoming endemic everyone is going to get antibodies Vaccines provide better protection than infection, just to be clear. It's not true that you're safe because of a previous infection. See: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-pr...

Not necessarily: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...

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

#547

Post by spookthesunset »

Nbox9 wrote: post #348
theandrewbailey wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd say the answer to that should be determined by the hospital capacity. If a region has sufficient hospital capacity that it would not be overwhelmed by the increase in COVID cases among the unvaccinated go ahead and lift most restrictions. Having anyone's freedoms dependent on available hospital capacity is a terrible way to run a society. Note that these freedoms were debated and won in an era where medicine wa…

I’d like to know that if I have a heart attack or get hit by a bus then I’ll have access to top quality healthcare —- not burnt out understaffed hospitals. Sharing limited resources is a major role of the government, and managing hospital capacity seems to fall under “promote general welfare” to me. My $0.02

Okay, then instead of punishing the general public, how about they go build more capacity? They've had 2 years at this point and they are still freaking out about "overflowing hospitals". It's not fair, ethical or moral to push mandates on citizens at this point.

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

#548

Post by guilhas »

rory wrote: post #336
mbg721 wrote: post #174

Why is the opinion of a Pfizer board member relevant to legal policy? In other news, McDonald's board members are quite fond of wafer-thin beef patties.

He's a former FDA commissioner, so his opinion is arguably relevant. I'm not sure why they called him "Pfizer board member." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Gottlieb

"One hand washes the other"

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

#549

Post by [deleted] »

MarkLowenstein wrote: post #267
webdood90 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is to reduce critical cases that cause hospital visits. Our system is overwhelmed as is. The fact that this still needs to be explained 2 years into this is ridiculous.

Was that really the point? When people anxiously awaited their chance to get the vaccine in January 2021, were they thinking "ooh I can't wait to free up hospital beds"? Or was it "great now I can be immune and be done with COVID"?

[deleted]

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

#550

Post by spookthesunset »

yibg wrote: post #394
theandrewbailey wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd say the answer to that should be determined by the hospital capacity. If a region has sufficient hospital capacity that it would not be overwhelmed by the increase in COVID cases among the unvaccinated go ahead and lift most restrictions. Having anyone's freedoms dependent on available hospital capacity is a terrible way to run a society. Note that these freedoms were debated and won in an era where medicine wa…

Freedoms aren’t considered in isolation. Maintaining freedom for some means removing freedom for others some times. In this case the “freedom” to get timely treatment for those that need it.

> In this case the “freedom” to get timely treatment for those that need it

So why not build more capacity instead of forcing the public to adhere to a bunch of toxic and socially corrosive mandates?

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