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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

#611

Post by ChrisClark »

walterbell wrote: post #591
ChrisClark wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the vaccine protects so much better than just a previous infection. We've been over this, over, and over. But you just won't accept the numbers now will you?

Until the CDC changed the definition of vaccine in Sept 2021, most vaccines were understood to provide sterilizing immunity against infection, not only "protection" against illness/death. Intramuscular/serum vaccines cannot stop respiratory infections, by definition. They are non-sterilizing. Only a nasal/mucosal vaccine or nasal infection can provide sterilizing immunity against a respiratory virus.

You rewriting history? The vaccine was never said to be 100% effective. Stop trying to twist reality to face your own political views.

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

#612

Post by ezoe »

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,…

By the same logic, just leave the thief and murderer as is because it is very unlikely any education will change their mind.

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

#613

Post by hutzlibu »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #486
skillpass wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree - I am worried about taking hospital capacity claims at face value though. From what I've seen, it was common for hospitals to report being overwhelmed even during flu seasons pre-covid. I wouldn't classify that level of 'overwhelmed' worthy of mandates upon society. I don't doubt that during these periods of time hospital resources are strained in some way, but there's a difference between this routine level…

The thing they don't always mention is that hospital capacity is always close to being overwhelmed, by design, because otherwise you're sitting around with a large amount of extraordinarily expensive idle hospital capacity. A small change is enough to go from "almost full" to "over capacity." The seemingly obvious thing to do would be to build some temporary capacity specifically for COVID patients. We've had quite a…

This is a hard problem, because you do not only need beds, but also humans tending to the patients.

And while you can just build another hospital if you have the cash - you cannot just build another doctor, if you need one.

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

#614

Post by bonzini »

nu11ptr wrote: post #571
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,…

Apologies in advance for getting on my soapbox, but this has been on my mind for a while. The way in which the media has gotten everyone to say "the unvaccinated" is a 'disease' against basic science (not even getting into the divisive nature of this). I would go as far as saying if you read any paper, study, or other that refers to the "unvaccinated" as a single cohort, you are reading vaccine propaganda, not scienc…

> why are they so adamant to vaccinate those with prior infection

Because the data shows they don't matter.

This is the same thing as deaths due to covid vs. deaths while positive to covid. Sure some people might have been miscounted as covid deaths but actually died due to cancer/car accident/whatever. Despite this the excess deaths over the past two years is much higher than the number of covid deaths; thus showing that miscounts must be a small minority which, in any case, is absolutely dwarfed by excess deaths not counted as covid deaths. It might even grow a little as testing improves but it still remains mostly irrelevant.

Likewise it may be that some people do not need a vaccination. However, we have a 30/70 split in number of covid hospitalizations, with 30 being vaccinated people, in countries where the split in the normal population is 90/10. This means that despite some unvaccinated people having had prior infection the vaccine reduces hospitalizations by 20x. Given this data the most effective strategy is to just vaccinate everyone without what is effectively a pointless distinction.

As the number of unvaccinated but protected people will grow (through a combination of more infections, more vaccinations and more deaths), the proportion above will revert to 90/10 and unvaccinated people will not be an issue anymore. For now however analyzing the proportion of naturally immune people among the unvaccinated is, again, mostly irrelevant.

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

#615

Post by nradov »

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,…

Antibodies are only one aspect of immunity and they tend to decline over time. Over the long run cellular immunity is more important.

https://peterattiamd.com/covid-part2/

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

#616

Post by mikem170 »

mulletbum wrote: post #574
parkingrift wrote: post #269

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…

"We will not ever eradicate Covid-19 with vaccination" is the most small minded statement possible to make. We have eradicated so many diseases with vaccination. I think what you mean to say is "We cannot eradicate COVID-19 with the current vaccines," but to swear off vaccines as if they can't do the work is frankly, dumb.

> We have eradicated so many diseases with vaccination.

I know that we eradicated smallpox, but only because there are no animal hosts.

Covid has many animal hosts [0]. You'd have to vaccinate them all to eliminate covid, that includes bats, cats, dogs, primates, deer, etc.

Otherwise covid will keep evolving in animals, and jumping back into the human population, as it appears happened with omicron over the course of about a year in mice [1].

I believe that the parent you replied to is correct, we will not eradicate covid with vaccines.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/...

[1] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/covid-19-did-omicr...

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

#617

Post by crummy »

nu11ptr wrote: post #571
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,…

Apologies in advance for getting on my soapbox, but this has been on my mind for a while. The way in which the media has gotten everyone to say "the unvaccinated" is a 'disease' against basic science (not even getting into the divisive nature of this). I would go as far as saying if you read any paper, study, or other that refers to the "unvaccinated" as a single cohort, you are reading vaccine propaganda, not scienc…

Zeynep Turfekci talks about this in this thread, and about why she thinks prior infection offers less protection than the vaccines, to the point that she supports vaccinations for those who have already caught COVID.

https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1484930583214100481?t=UDTW...

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

#618

Post by teh_infallible »

headmelted wrote: post #583
nu11ptr wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apologies in advance for getting on my soapbox, but this has been on my mind for a while. The way in which the media has gotten everyone to say "the unvaccinated" is a 'disease' against basic science (not even getting into the divisive nature of this). I would go as far as saying if you read any paper, study, or other that refers to the "unvaccinated" as a single cohort, you are reading vaccine propaganda, not scienc…

Not disagreeing with this (although my understanding is that there have been studies that show vaccination has been more effective), but how would you seperate the unvaccinated / previously-infected-and-recovered cohorts? Even by reconciling PCR testing data (which I imagine is incredibly patchy at best), you still would only know historically how many people tested positive (ignoring what is in all likelihood a majo…

Currently, people who only got one shot or got their second one less than two weeks ago are being counted as “unvaccinated” which seems disingenuous at best.

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

#619

Post by benjaminwootton »

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…

The other thing that needs bringing into the discussion is vulnerability.

The average of death with Covid in the US is 80.

If every healthy 30 year old and under in the US declined the vaccine, this would barely move the needle. They personally are not vulnerable and are not likely to end up in hospital.

Reading this discussion, you would think that vaccinated = safe, unvaccinated = certain doom. Age is a much stronger predicter than vaccine status.

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

#620

Post by odiroot »

andrewclunn wrote: post #91

> “The only way to get compliance from people and get accommodation [is] if we demonstrate the ability to withdraw these [mandates] in the same manner in which we put them in,” Gottlieb added. Nope. That line was crossed a long time ago. I can't imagine people suddenly regaining trust in pharma companies and health care agencies now because they backed off at this point.

I do trust pharma companies now, more than ever. They offered us a way out of this mess, after all.

On the other hand, I do trust the politicians much less.

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