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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

#871

Post by jader201 »

edmundsauto wrote: post #714
mlac wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been side effects from the vaccine, including documented cases of really bad reactions [1],[2]. I’m double vaxxed, boosted, and got covid. But to say the shot is without risks is disingenuous. That said, the risk of dying unvaccinated from COVID is much greater than the risks of vaccine. And it’s unclear if side effects from the shot are correlated to worse outcomes from COVID (e.g. It’s unknown if these p…

The relevant risk for your situation is vaccine risk, versus risk of reinfection (not just hospitalization, but also long term effects). The math may still work out for your preferred choice, but i wanted to point out that it’s fallacious to dismiss the (rare) risks from reinfection, especially when focusing on the (rare) risks from the vaccine. You may have said this and I just missed it, but both those risks are sm…

You really went out of your way, there, to cover any potential misinterpretation. Thanks for being a considerate part of the community!

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

#872

Post by mikem170 »

kmonad wrote: post #815
mikem170 wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Word was that Omicron diverged from an earlier version of covid in mice, over the course of about a year, then jumped into humans [0]. I think this detracts quite a bit from the point you were trying to make above, since we are not vaccinating…

Interesting. Indeed animal hosts could be problem. I would counter two points: 1) Assuming animals were a major source of variants, it quantitatively but not qualitatively changes the problem. Until we know the quantities, I do not see how you can assert relevance. 2) The references you provide say Omicron came most likely from a human with prolonged infection. The paper proposing a intermediate variant in mice is in…

I would agree that it is not irrelevant. My language there may have been too strong.

I was probably thinking that the other factors (personal protection, hospital capacity, and the political question of mandates) seem so much more significant to me. There's lots of lesser factors (side effects, the immuno-compromised, social cohesion, etc).

I guess I kind of looked at variants as a wash, given they are so much out of our control and there are many unknowns. It's in the realm of possibility that the current vaccines could leave us more susceptible to future variants (a la original antigenetic sin). Hard to make a decision on less significant unknowns.

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

#873

Post by twblalock »

eli wrote: post #283
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,…

Given the topic of the post, it's funny you didn't mention one measure that does convince holdouts to get vaccinated: mandates. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/01/22/do-vacci... ( https://archive.fo/g2vHF )

Mandates work up to a point. Eventually you will be left with a portion of the population that cannot be convinced and will not obey mandates.

Once you've reached that point, what purpose does the mandate serve? Nobody else is going to get the vaccines, so there is no public health justification for keeping the mandate around. However, what remains is the continual need to provide your vaccine status to your employer and in various other aspects of your daily life, which is a burden for vaccinated people too.

The United States has probably already reached that point, or will soon.

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

#874

Post by maxerickson »

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…

It's a lot harder to accurately determine if someone has convalescent immunity than it is to just give them a couple shots.

And then immunity is not a binary or linear response. Vaccination can still boost immunity in the case that someone has recovered from infection.

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

#875

Post by chiefalchemist »

bonzini wrote: post #614
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…

> 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…

> However, we have a 30/70 split in number of covid hospitalizations, with 30 being vaccinated people, in countries where the split in

Is that vaccinated? Fully-vaccinated? Or "up to date" (i.e., whatever round of boosters are being pushed)?

The point is, the narrative has pushed the importance of "the science". Yet so much is actually not consistent with science / scientific method at all. Ffs, they can't even get the definitions and language right.

These aren't occasional lapses. They're non-stop. I hear what you're saying. However, it still doesn't address the negligence. After two yrs it's not incompotence, is it? Still?

". Given this data the most effective strategy is to just vaccinate everyone without what is effectively a pointless distinction."

So...we don't need science. Just everyone bend over and do what the authorities say, when they say, and how they say it? That's it? Kids? New borns? And everyone else on the low side of risk? Just because?

You can't have your science and dismiss it too.

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

#876

Post by skarz »

Pfizer would be smart to not push for mandates -- as would anyone else wanting to see more vaccinations, period. More people would probably get their vaccine by choice if it were not forced on them. WE have known this for a long time. Glad they are catching wind of how this all works, psychologically.

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

#877

Post by ryan_lane »

ipaddr wrote: post #740
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.

3 hours? In the best of times it's an 8 hour wait before covid.

Where has this happened to you? I've been to the ER 6 times in the US and never waited more than 2 hours (pre-covid) in New Orleans, San Francisco, and New York.

The time I had to wait 2 hours in SF, with a kidney stone was not pleasant, but it was at 3 AM at a hospital that does charity for the homeless, so that was a bit exceptional.

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

#878

Post by stormbrew »

ipaddr wrote: post #719
buryat wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

simple numbers show that unvaccinated get covid at higher rates and the number of hospitalizations is higher which puts strain on the hospitals. If something happens to me I dont want an unvaccinated taking a spot I need.

Are you worried you won't have care at a hospital because of someone is unvaccinated? Has that ever happened? Are hospitals full where you live? Where did you get a fear like that?

Sorry what? Yes, this has happened many times in many regions during this pandemic. If anything, as governments lean more and more into "let's just call it endemic and give into anti-vaxxers," it's happening more.

And to make it concrete: where I live we're into emergency (as in, stretching the system past its limits) ICU capacity and elective procedures (which, please note, does not mean optional) have been cancelled or delayed en masse for a couple months now as we've been going through our 4th and 5th waves.

People are absolutely regularly having diminished quality of health care due to unvaccinated people catching, as well as spreading, covid.

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

#879

Post by standardUser »

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…

Unvaccinated people have caused other people to suffer worse health outcomes because unvaccinated people are disproportionately filling hospital and ICU beds (and wearing out doctors and nurses).

Developing antibodies the old fashioned way is great! Doing it with vaccines saves other people's lives. That is the problem with people who refuse the vaccine and why they deserve to be vilified.

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

#880

Post by john_moscow »

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,…

Except, the hospital capacity per 1000 population has been steadily declining in the West for ages [0] and is at half the capacity in China for comparison. So rather than blaming the unvaccinated, we should maybe review the policies that lead to it.

[0] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.MED.BEDS.ZS?location...

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