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Germany locks down unvaccinated people, as leaders plan to make shots compulsory

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Re: Germany locks down unvaccinated people, as leaders plan to make shots compulsory

#931
post #47

What we're seeing here is one of the wealthiest countries in the world with a population of > 80M people crumbling over a few thousand ICU patients because of long-standing issues that were never addressed. The staffing problems in hospitals (and nursing homes) have existed much longer than Covid. I heard a lot about them myself when I did my FSJ (volunteer work) back in 2004, and it's only gotten worse since then. O…

So true and not mentioned enough by the media. The fact that we lost more than 4000 ICU beds over last year (during the Corona pandemic!!) because of personnel shortage is mind-boggling. Instead of rewarding those who worked these horrible jobs and maybe attract new workers with better conditions (e.g. more holidays), better pay or tax reduction, our politicians did campaigning and ignored the upcoming winter. Now th…

> I have long lost all hope in politicians. 99% of them are ridiculous creatures without a spine and only interested in their own progress.

I posit that any sane and intelligent person would choose NOT to go into politics. Because of the system we as society have created around the job.

Re: Germany locks down unvaccinated people, as leaders plan to make shots compulsory

#932
post #723

If we were a serious society, then the conversation would be about: immune vs non-immune high risk vs low risk infectious vs non-infectious But no, it's jabbed vs unjabbed. It doesn't make sense. Everyone in Germany who wants the vaccine has had it, and if you've had Covid, you're about as protected as the vaccinated. Furthermore, leaky vaccines don't prevent transmission, can't eliminate the virus (animal reservoirs…

> Furthermore, the vaccines don't prevent transmission, They do prevent transmission, since they make people less likely to be infected, and if you're not infected with the virus you won't transmit it. The vaccines are somewhat less effective at preventing people from being infected at all than they are at preventing hospitalization and death, but still significantly effective. [1] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interac…

They reduce transmission but don't prevent it completely.

Re: Germany locks down unvaccinated people, as leaders plan to make shots compulsory

#933

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this claim is that vaccine fanatics spread vast amounts of misinformation themselves, and often rely on it for their core arguments. Just in this thread alone, we can find people saying: 1. Vaccines would let us wipe out COVID (wrong). 2. Even harsher lockdowns would let us wipe out COVID (wrong). 3. Vaccines stop people transmitting it (wrong). 4. Vaccinated people don't end up in ICU with COVID (wr…

You're taking extreme talking points on this and making it seem like it's the norm. Vaccines don't stop being from transmitting, but it reduces the length of infection by about 2 days, it drastically reduces the likelihood of infection, which drastically reduces the transmission rate, and recent studies have shown that it does also reduce the likelihood of transmission directly. Vaccinated people with breakthrough ca…

It would be nice if they're extreme talking points, but these are routinely presented by the media and public health agencies. For example up until very recently claim (4) was being made in Germany, and claim (3) is basically the claim underlying any implementation of vaccine passports - of course, we may suspect they are in reality merely means of extra-judicial punishment, but governments officially deny it.

Regardless, whilst these claims are "extreme" in the sense of being phrased in absolutes, they aren't "extreme" in the sense of being rarely believed, are they? Not only do they crop up all over this thread but in the very article the thread is about, Angelas Merkel, not exactly famous for being the Queen of Extreme, says "The fourth wave must be broken and this has not yet been achieved" which is simply another way of saying (3) and strongly alluding to (1) and (2).

Also:

"it drastically reduces the likelihood of infection, which drastically reduces the transmission rate, and recent studies have shown that it does also reduce the likelihood of transmission directly"

Let's break this down:

1. Infection rates. Health agencies claim it reduces the likelihood of infection, and at first it genuinely seems to, but the only one that is willing to show the actual raw data before they wildly alter it using statistical techniques, is the UK HSA. Their data shows that by now the rate amongst vaccinated people is actually a lot higher than among the unvaccinated for some large age groups! This sounds like it should be impossible, but it turns out to have been observed in pre-COVID times with other vaccines.

They have been reduced to claiming that comparing case rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated people isn't a valid way to determine if the vaccine works, due to vague behavioural differences that they speculate must exist but have no proof for.

2. Rate of transmission. Not for the first time, we find that epidemiological studies aren't worth much. Can you cite yours, so we can see when it was written? Because once again UK data contradicts it (or it does now at least):

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7...

"In the UK it was described that secondary attack rates among household contacts exposed to fully vaccinated index cases was similar to household contacts exposed to unvaccinated index cases (25% for vaccinated vs 23% for unvaccinated)."

No real difference in transmission at all. Actually slightly higher for vaccinated people but let's assume that's not really significant.

Re: Germany locks down unvaccinated people, as leaders plan to make shots compulsory

#934

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue here is really cost to public. Non vaccinated has high chance to get severe complication when infected. They will utilize hospitals and healthcare whether public or private. For private, we can choose to ignore as the price will adjust by themselves to determine who lives and who dies. Nobody will bat an eye if a high-end boutique clinic let a poor Covid patient dies because bed and ventilator is too expens…

Sure, as long as people who eat excessively, smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, etc. also sign away their healthcare. Why should we enable their bad decisions?

There is a reson why in germany and other european contires have sugar limit's in sodas an other foods. To try to mitigate the bad decisions.

Re: Germany locks down unvaccinated people, as leaders plan to make shots compulsory

#935

71% percent of Germans support mandatory vaccinations for COVID, this is from a poll published today. Our governments failed pretty hard in this wave, which is why we now need to take more drastic measures again when the entirely predictable course events would take this winter became apparent even to our politicians. But at a point were planned operations for other diseases like cancer get cancelled all over the pla…

> 71% percent of Germans support mandatory vaccinations for COVID, this is from a poll published today. how does that match up with only 68.7% being fully vaccinated? me f.x. I am fully vaccinated and do not at all support mandatory vaccinations. I doubt I'm the only one. ( https://impfdashboard.de/ )

> I am fully vaccinated and do not at all support mandatory vaccinations.

Why?

Re: Germany locks down unvaccinated people, as leaders plan to make shots compulsory

#936
post #7

As a double vaccinated German, I am very disappointed and angry about this move. Our politicians have failed to prepare the country for the Winter (who could have known...). We lack a basic strategy how to cope with Covid. And now they try to fix this by dividing the country in two. This will have no effect whatsoever on the infections, it will just continue to drive a divide that is already existing and will make an…

Our politicians have failed to prepare the country for the Winter (who could have known...). We lack a basic strategy how to cope with Covid. Your politicians HAVE prepared the country. There is a VERY BASIC strategy: get your bloody shot!

That's not a strategy, that's wishful thinking. We have a vaccination rate of not even 70%. AND: forgot to booster the old and still don’t manage to booster them effectively. That's a huge failure. Every manager would get fired for this.

And then add to this that we have reduced capacities in hospitals compared to last year...

Re: Germany locks down unvaccinated people, as leaders plan to make shots compulsory

#937
post #908

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With exponential spread, the actual number of ICU beds really doesn't matter, because whatever you've got will be overwhelmed across a similar timeframe anyway. The only way to actually fix the problem is to get the R-value below 1, which requires mass vaccinations.

It doesn't requires mass vaccination. It requires people to be a little smart. What if we all respected the first confinement? 6 weeks everybody at home, period. The disease would be gone. But no, oh no. People just can't be reasonable. So instead of 6 weeks, we've been dealing with this shit for almost two years. And now you blame those who are unvaccinated, while vaccinated people go partying and spread the disease…

Why doesn't the same argument apply to other corono-viruses like influenza and the common cold? And why ignore the role of asymptomatic people (who can transmit) and those with symptoms so mild they can't be distinguished from the normal ups and downs of bodily functions. How then can one be 'smart'? These diseases wouldn't be and won't be gone. We are going to have to live with them as we've lived and thrived with untold thousands of viruses throughout our evolutionary journey.

Re: Germany locks down unvaccinated people, as leaders plan to make shots compulsory

#938
post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that everybody should get vaccinated. Let's make this virus extinct. But what you describe is majoritarianism. It is a form of democracy but a very weak form. For a lot of people, who are from minority groups, it is indistinguishable from totalitarianism. Why do 30% of people refuse to get vaccinated? (here in Aotearoa it is 5%). Something is happening, people are getting left behind, in vast numbers. Forcing…

In a democracy nobody has absolute freedom and minorities do not enjoy protections of the rights to threaten others. If 30% of the people do not get vaccinated without valid reason, they violate the right of others to live and stay healthy. It is scientifically established fact that vaccination reduces health risks for the public, so vaccination mandate will be based on the same constitutional grounds as speed limits…

That is a rational argument. But it is not the only one. There are trade-offs and rational people can disagree.

There is a point at which people cannot be made to do things. That point is not fixed and depends on a lot of things (obviously).

The question is is this going to push many people past that point?

Re: Germany locks down unvaccinated people, as leaders plan to make shots compulsory

#939
post #590
post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that everybody should get vaccinated. Let's make this virus extinct. But what you describe is majoritarianism. It is a form of democracy but a very weak form. For a lot of people, who are from minority groups, it is indistinguishable from totalitarianism. Why do 30% of people refuse to get vaccinated? (here in Aotearoa it is 5%). Something is happening, people are getting left behind, in vast numbers. Forcing…

> Why do 30% of people refuse to get vaccinated? (here in Aotearoa it is 5%). Something is happening, people are getting left behind, in vast numbers. Forcing them to comply is probably a cure worse than the disease - even a disease like COVID Yeah, please please come here and find a way to "unloose" these people, I'm out of clue. We have a lot of failures here in Germany that surface, everything is too slow, from ba…

Chur!

Re: Germany locks down unvaccinated people, as leaders plan to make shots compulsory

#940
post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that everybody should get vaccinated. Let's make this virus extinct. But what you describe is majoritarianism. It is a form of democracy but a very weak form. For a lot of people, who are from minority groups, it is indistinguishable from totalitarianism. Why do 30% of people refuse to get vaccinated? (here in Aotearoa it is 5%). Something is happening, people are getting left behind, in vast numbers. Forcing…

It's a tyranny of the majority: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority I simply don't understand why one person needs to undergo a medical procedure to enable someone else to experience the safe conditions they want. These vaccines don't even grant immunity in the traditional sense (see CDC's revision of definitions here) - all the vaccines do is move things from one nonzero probability of risk to anot…

Everything in life has a non-zero probability of killing you.

We weigh up the probabilities.

Which is why it is a good idea to get vaccinated.

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