I'm vaxxed. I'm boosted. I'd very much like to be done. But my children cannot be vaccinated.
As a parent of a young kid it kind of feels like everyone has just moved on. I know folks in here will tell me that statistically speaking my children are unlikely to be hospitalized and so on, and I agree. But I know enough kids who got COVID and suffered the symptoms (e.g. a months-long scratchy cough) that I'm not going to stop worrying about it. We're still very unclear on the long-term effects of COVID, after all.
Couple that to daycare/preschool shutdowns: if there's a case in the class we've got to keep our kids at home for a week. We both work. We can deal with it, lord knows we've had to do it enough times already, but it's absolutely draining. And the stress of waiting/expecting the phone call from the school is always there, particularly in this Omicron phase where it feels like everyone and their dog is contracting it. And this comes from two parents that work from home. We're the luckiest of the lot!
Pfizer has already announced their trial with under 5s was not successful and they'll have to restart. Moderna was supposed to close out a trial in late November but instead expanded it to hundreds of new participants. Why? Unclear. Last I saw no-one seems to be covering it in detail. Out of sight, out of mind.
You've got your anecdotes, and I've got mine. My 3 young kids all caught omicron last week. Each were lethargic for a day, had a minor sore throat, and were back to normal in a day or two. The flu last month was way scarier with high fevers.
There's a lot of reason to be optimistic about omicron.
I kind of regret even mentioning the effects of COVID in my original comment as I figured there would be a reply like yours and you're not wrong! But it wasn't the main point I was trying to make.
My main point is that everyone just seems to have moved on from under 5s. We've adopted a stance of "vaxxed and done" for adults and older children and paid no attention to the vax trials for under 5s taking forever. It's barely even mentioned. So we have parents across the country relying on the generosity of their employer in handling shutdowns, illnesses and so on. I'm lucky, my employer has been flexible and understanding. But I know that's not the case for a lot of people.
The biggest reason the under 5s vaccine is taking so long is that they don't suffer severe enough symptoms that they can easily test the efficacy of the virus. The same issue was there with the 5-11s but pharma, CDC, & FDA just glossed over that to approve the vaccines.
>The biggest reason the under 5s vaccine is taking so long is that they don't suffer severe enough symptoms that they can easily test the efficacy of the virus.
How does anyone convince themselves that this is actually a problem?
Especially when the vaccine no longer prevents catching the virus or transmitting it.
What remaining benefit are people so eager to confer upon their toddlers?
And of course you don't want to infect your child with a disease that has long term consequences which we are still learning about. Diabetes hit the news recently in the US, but it is actually been known for a while in other countries.
Not for kids under 5. That's why it's not approved.
>And of course you don't want to infect your child with a disease
Breakthrough cases are so common now that the media refuses to use the term anymore. That (lack-of) "preventing-infection" efficacy is baked into the <5 study that showed no benefit.
>that has long term consequences which we are still learning about.
Why is this a valid concern, but potential long-term effects of the vaccines aren't? Especially the known risk of inflammation in still-growing bodies and especially in developing hearts.
>>Vaccines still lower disease severity.
>Not for kids under 5. That's why it's not approved.
Wrong. Per the Pfizer press release [0], the immunogenicity analysis of the trial failed in children ages 2 to 4, but succeeded in children ages six months to two years. Given the small dose (3ug) in that study cohort, there was probably not enough rna in the vaccine for the 2-4 age group to show any effect.
>Why is this a valid concern, but potential long-term effects of the vaccines aren't? Especially the known risk of inflammation in still-growing bodies and especially in developing hearts.
The risk of developing myocarditis from the vaccine is about 100-150 in 5 million [1]. The risk of developing myocarditis from COVID-19 is about 150 in 100,000 [2]. I know I'm picking the vaccine for my child.
And what’s the likelihood of a young child developing myocarditis from COVID? You can’t apply whole population statistics to children blindly. If COVID has shown us anything it’s that diseases can discriminate.
I’m all for getting kids vaccinated when it’s deemed safe and effective (my daughter got vaccinated the first week it was available). But the risk to kids is quite low.
The first diagram in the first study you referenced [1] puts the observed rate of myocarditis among patients -without- COVID at 450 per 5 million (9 per 100k). That is much higher than the rate of myocarditis among the entire vaccinated Israeli [2] cohort (125 per 5 million) you mentioned.
The issue is that you're not comparing apples to apples. The Israeli data is looking at the entire population that received the vaccine. The COVID study is only looking at hospitalized patients with/without COVID which is a subset of the entire population restricted entirely to those experiencing the most severe symptoms.
This is not an easy problem to solve. A more apples to apples comparison [3] puts the COVID:vaccine myocarditis ratio at about 6:1, but it also suffers from a bias. In order to measure those rates they relied on the population that tested positive for COVID. This excludes the population of individuals which were infected with COVID but did not received a diagnosis who presumably also had a near 0 rate of myocarditis. This bias [presumably] becomes more pronounced at lower age groups where COVID displays milder symptoms making it less likely to end up diagnosed.
Finally, there is also the consideration that while the vaccines have not yet changed - COVID has. And its likely that the omicron strain will have a different distribution of side effects. It's a difficult problem to solve, and conflicts of interest abound make it all even more challenging.
To be legally 2g compliant I need to boost every 4 months. Apparently the risk for inflammation might even get higher with each boost. If I'd catch COVID every 2 years or so how much does my risk rise for every infection?
We do have knowledge about long-term effects from other coronaviruses (SARS-CoV-1 and MERS).
Despite its name, SARS-CoV-2 is not strictly a "respiratory virus". While it is spread airborne, it attacks multiple tissues besides the respiratory system, and causes multi-system dysfunction (including but not limited to MIS-C, type 1 diabetes, celiac disease, acute kidney injury, erectile dysfunction, ...). Many of the damages are immune-mediated, which is in line with what we know about T1D and celiac as autoimmune disorders.
Case in point: fully vaccinated boys without medical comorbidities in the US between ages 12 and 17 from January to June 2021 got myocarditis at 370–610% (ages 12–15) / 210–350% (12–17) higher rates than their risk of COVID-19 hospitalization.
It doesn't do as good a job as it used to, but we never had a vaccine that was 100% effective at doing either of those things. It's always been a numbers game where vaccines simply increased the odds in your favor. Before delta the vaccines gave a huge boost to your odds of not catching covid at all, but now with omicron vaccines only provide a small boost. Even now it's still better to use vaccines to increase your changes against catching the virus even though the vaccines are most effective at preventing death and hospitalization.
I was responding to a comment which said "the fact, that the 'Vaccine' no longer prevents catching the virus or transmitting it."
My problem with that statement is that it wasn't a fact. The vaccines do prevent catching the virus, just no where near as well as they used to and even at their best they never eliminated the risk of catching and transmitting the virus.
It sucks that the new variants are able to overcome so much of the protection we had from vaccines, but we always knew there was a risk that would happen if we allowed the virus to spread uncontrolled. We didn't do enough to keep the number of infections down and evolution did its thing resulting in poorer vaccine performance.
I really hope that adjustments are able to made to existing vaccines to compensate or new vaccines are developed which do a better job, but it's going to be an arms race until people stop passing this virus around by the millions every day giving it more opportunity to mutate and spread again.
Right now, the vaccines are still the best defense we have. 30% is a hard number to hear when we had 90% but 30% of 7.9 billion people is 2,370,000,000 so it can still prevent a whole lot of infections in the world and if we work harder to bring the number of infections down hopefully we can prevent things getting much worse. My biggest fear was that some variant would evade the protections we have entirely and negate the lessons we've learned in treating the sick and we'd be right back to where we were early 2020. That's still a possibility we have to be ready to face.
If you're concerned about the long term effects of the vaccine, you should be double concerned about the long term effects of the much more complex and much less understood virus.
Not necessarily, there have been reports of people being infected via central air units in large building (apartments, condos, etc.).
Albeit, I do not believe it is that common, it's still possible. However, if you isolated in a remote location in the woods miles away from humanity, then perhaps you'd be safe, I suppose.
It’s pretty uncommon for multi tenant dwellings to share a common air ducting system, at least in newer buildings. I live in an apartment and my “across the hall” neighbors did get COVID, no issues for me.
I accept that it's entirely possible that 30 years down the line we'll discover some horrific thing we've all done to ourselves by taking the vaccines. What I can say however is that we don't have any evidence that suggests that we will see major problems in the future caused by the vaccines.
What we do have evidence for are future problems caused by these coronavirus infections along with a long list of immediate problems like deaths, severe (sometimes life altering) symptoms which can at times persist for weeks, months, and years, healthcare systems being overwhelmed preventing or delaying access to care and making accessing health services more risky, etc.
If you have to choose between getting a vaccine which appears to be perfectly safe but maybe could cause harm at some point in the future, and not getting it which we know does cause harm now and is very likely to cause harm in the future the choice is pretty clear. We can only deal with the evidence we have today and our best understanding of our current situation.
Especially when the vaccines benefit us not only by keeping us healthier and helping to eliminate the strain on our healthcare systems, but they are also our best bet to help reduce the need for social restrictions and disruptions in education and the economy.
There's still always that chance that the vaccines will have some negative impact on us later, but anyone in the future looking back and seeing our current situation won't have to wonder "What were they thinking taking their chances with this new vaccine!" It should be very clear to them that because we had no indication that there would be problems with the vaccine and because the vaccines were our best option to keep ourselves and each other healthy in the face of current problems and known future problems caused by the virus it was perfectly reasonable to take the chance on the vaccines and that doing so saved many lives and prevented many problems.
And I hope that should we have to deal with any future consequences from these vaccines that we can once again turn to medical science to find the best available option to treat those problems using the best understanding of them we have at the time. A huge percentage of the global population will be impacted after all so once again we'll be in a position where the entire world has an incentive to work together to find a solution which will hopefully go even smoother next time following the lessons learned here and now.
With more research and time things could change, but until there are indications that the vaccines could cause more harm than the known harms of the virus the vaccines will remain the smartest option we have today, no matter how tragic things turn out decades later.
> I accept that it's entirely possible that 30 years down the line we'll discover some horrific thing we've all done to ourselves by taking the vaccines. What I can say however is that we don't have any evidence that suggests that we will see major problems in the future caused by the vaccines.
This is enough for me to avoid them. I didn’t read the rest because it’s a short essay.
I suspect that these numbers are probably correct for Delta. For Omicron, the active cases are nearly uniformly distributed with respect to vaccination rates. It still helps to reduce hospitalization rates however which is good.
I wonder if the early data has been proven wrong or if something is wonky about Alberta. At even 30% effectiveness you’d expect to see a big gap between unvaccinated and vaccinated new cases.
Weirdly near the bottom of your link they show nearly 90% effectiveness against all the variants of concern, but omicron isn’t listed. It seems like the vaccines would have to be negatively effective against omicron for all the other data to work out, though.
That certainly used to be the case. In mid December for example (i.e. around the time the PBS article was written) active cases were roughly evenly split between unvaccinated and vaccinated. This is in a highly vaccinated population (85% of 12+, 73% total - out of 4.5M) so prevalence in the unvaccinated group was 3-4X higher than vaccinated at that time.
It seems unlikely that the Alberta population is experiencing a significantly different pandemic than neighbouring regions (demographics and responses are largely the same). I also wouldn't conclude from this data that vaccines are negatively effective as hospitalization rates are lower in the vaccinated group.
> It seems like the vaccines would have to be negatively effective against omicron for all the other data to work out, though.
If you search hard enough (and quickly enough, they’ll likely be removed soon as they’re anti-narrative) you’ll find articles of people discussing exactly this. That the vaccine actually increases your chance of infection.
You can find anything online if you search hard enough. That doesn’t mean it’s true. It probably means you’re actively seeking out bias-confirming articles.
> (and quickly enough, they’ll likely be removed soon as they’re anti-narrative)
And now it’s full on conspiracy theory. This stuff is nuts. People like Alex Jones loudly put forward blatant lies that are “anti-narrative” and no one shuts them down. Why does every group imagine they are persecuted?
> you’ll find articles of people discussing exactly this. That the vaccine actually increases your chance of infection.
I would be interested in any relevant reputable articles showing this, but I’m pretty certain there are none.
It's not conspiracy theorist BS to suggest Google shapes search results for various reasons, to include politics. They been forced to admit as much. And before you use the confirmation bias argument, I'm pro-vax and all in favor of as many boosters as they offer.
It’s conspiracy theory to suggest without evidence that “anti-narrative” information is being “removed”. Yes, big tech is certainly shaping results, but they’re doing that in both directions. They aren’t simply suppressing data they (or the hypothetical overlords) disagree with. They are feeding the info that people want. (Which is still bad)
The existence of that article in the New York Times would certainly seem to indicate a lack of suppression.
I do appreciate the link, though. That’s interesting and I hadn’t heard that was a concern. I wonder if there is science evidence that or if it’s hypothetical. The article doesn’t indicate one way or the other unless I missed it.
I will note it took me some time to find the article (I knew it existed because I'd read it when it came out). Google very nearly refused to do anything but send me links about how important it is to get boosters.
I don't know a ton about the science behind it other than some teams in Israel seem to have pretty strong feelings about it (more pointed than what's in the NYT article), but in my quick search I didn't see them in the search results.
With regards to search shaping, it's pretty easy to see: just Google image search "black inventors" then "white inventors". Also try "black family" then "white family". I'm not claiming any kind of oppression here, just noting that one of the sets of results looks like a Benetton-style diversity ad, while the other just has black people. I find it difficult to believe this was an organic result that wasn't explicitly influenced behind the scenes.
> With regards to search shaping, it's pretty easy to see: just Google image search "black inventors" then "white inventors". Also try "black family" then "white family". I'm not claiming any kind of oppression here, just noting that one of the sets of results looks like a Benetton-style diversity ad, while the other just has black people. I find it difficult to believe this was an organic result that wasn't explicitly influenced behind the scenes.
You could be right. I certainly see that “white family” involves a fair number of pictures of non-white folks. Individually the results all make sense (one from an article called “my white family”, stock photo “interracial black white family”, another about from an article about adopting a white child), but it’s odd that “black family” doesn’t have the same.
At the same time, it’s entirely plausible that this is just surfacing biases in the input. Maybe articles about families that aren’t just white have higher page rank? Maybe it’s something else. It’s interesting, but I’m doubtful it’s intentional (but it could be). If Google wanted to push a bias, it would make a lot more sense to push it on the unqualified “family” or “inventors”.
“White inventors” showing some black inventors makes a lot of sense given popular articles like “The iconic American inventor is still a white male” that specifically discuss non-white inventors.
> Especially when the vaccine no longer prevents catching the virus or transmitting it.
The vaccines never stopped catching or transmission... they lessen the chances of you developing severe symptoms, your immune system still has to work.
Vaccines were more effective at preventing infection, but their effectiveness in that area has declined with newer variants. Lessening the length and severity of symptoms also plays some role in reducing transmission since coughing, sneezing, and runny noses are a great way to spew virus into the world around you.
Although I hope we will see vaccines that do a better job at preventing infection and transmission the benefits we're getting from them right now are enough that everyone who can should be vaccinated and boosted as needed to maintain those benefits.
Well Virtue with a capital 'V' is one big one! And of course they're an excellent source of revenue for Pfizer et al. You wouldn't want to risk it would you?
-- writing this while my toddler is banished from daycare for 10 days because a single kid there tested positive.
Having your children’s lungs scarred to 20% function and not getting to realize it’s even happened until they start a sport or something doesn’t sound fun to me, perhaps that’s why.
Citation please. What children had this happened to? You can’t throw out fear mongering claims about terrible outcomes with no data.
Also, are you aware that children sometimes die from RSV and even the common cold? The problem COVID vaccines for kids are facing is that the problems from COVID in that age are so infrequent that they are essentially in the noise.
I think the very young child (<18 months) is at higher risk, though.
The success we’re talking about was an analytical measurement of the antigen response in the body. It wasn’t lack of symptoms which ruled that phase a failure.
That is incorrect, the decision making numbers used to test vaccine effectiveness having nothing to do with lab antigen numbers, they are based on how much symptomatic illness is avoided. All of the results such as as 95%-96% efficacy for Phizer and Moderna and 66% for J&J are based on the % reduction of symptomatic illness only. Not the reduction in actual illness or based on lab tests of antigen response.
I believe you are incorrect. What you say was true for the initial adult trials but many recommendations for boosters and lower age groups have been based on antibody response, not clinical outcomes.
Correct or incorrect is sort of irrelevant, because it's a problem itself if they aren't including severity of symptoms in the study.
If they are ignoring symptoms to approve a vaccine who's primary remaining benefit is ... reducing severity of symptoms ... then how exactly has the trial proved anything?
Since antibodies are no longer a reliable indicator of immunity or of preventing transmission, then reduced severity is the primary remaining benefit.
Ideally they'd be looking at a cumulative risk/prevention assessment, but I don't see how they do that while excluding observed symptoms.
If they are using antibody levels as a proxy for this when they could just ... directly observe symptoms... then there would be a bigger problem with the study than just a failure to show sufficient efficacy.
It's just a fine line between arguing what would justify FDA "approval" vs what merits have changed that actually increase the risk-versus-reward assessment.
Put another way, when the biggest excuse for not getting vaccinated was "it's experimental and not approved", it became a straw-man-esque "gotcha-trap" of a battle to achieve "approval", even though that approval process looked nothing like any before it (no matter how many times "full fda approval" is repeated).
When the metric becomes the goal, it's no longer a metric, and all that.
We get bogged down arguing whether criteria of a definition or standard are being met, while the regulators end up just redefining things.
And we're supposed to pretend the teacher applying a curved grading scale actually represents a difference in the students performance.
I've read that the pfizer study compared rates of positive test cases between the two groups.
BUT, the tests were administered based on self-reported symptoms which were then evaluated by a staff member to decide whether a test was warranted. This absolutely blew my mind.
This kind of avoidable subjective decision making should not be happening in a clinical trial. All participants should have been tested at regular intervals.
Equally... that when they repeat it and get different numbers, the failed trial will be ignored in favor of the passing trial, without first invalidating the previous results[0], and without using any increased burden of proof.
Passed+Failed = "Passed!"
[0] There will be a reason given to ignore that first trial, it just likely won't be a good one.
> The biggest reason the under 5s vaccine is taking so long is that they don't suffer severe enough symptoms that they can easily test the efficacy of the virus.
Do you have a source on that?
My understanding is the reason it's taking so long is 1) an abundance of caution because the risk/reward calculation is different and 2) young children's immune systems don't work the same as adults').
Covid deaths amongst children was lower in 2020 than from the flu the year before with a severe Covid strain, 400 deaths vs 600 deaths from flu year before, and faced with a tame Omicron variant the FDA decided to skip the science advisory panel for childhood vaccines [1] because they last time denied the request. The way this is handled is unscientific, and has no balance of risk vs reward.
Moreover, the government should be representative and derive it's power from the consent of the governed. Not enforce compliance to administrative state edicts. The slide from a representative republic to a technocracy is worrying.
Why are you comparing across years? How many children died of the flu in 2020 during lockdowns and social distancing?
Moreover, the governed don't want the actions of others to kill them. That's why they created a government that prevents others from polluting, driving dangerously, and spreading disease.
> How many children died of the flu in 2020 during lockdowns and social distancing?
400
> Why are you comparing across years?
Many seem to have the misconception that covid is risky for children, while they are at low risk, so I highlight that the child covid death numbers from covid was low and comparable to a normal flu season like the one in 2019.
That would make Covid hundreds of times deadlier for children than the flu. If it were a regular flu season without the mitigations that dropped flu deaths to 1, Covid would have killed even more children.
Your source says 400 have died of Covid, not of flu. One kid died of flu. Covid is a far deadlier infectious disease for children than the flu and would have been deadlier still without the mitigations that reduced flu deaths to 1.
Your article says the exact opposite of what you claim. It says the PCR test accurately identified Covid vs. flu.
You are also misinterpreting what the term comorbidities means when you say that 75% of Covid deaths weren't due to Covid. Having those comorbidities means that you're more likely to die from Covid. By your logic, 75% of flu deaths aren't from flu every year, not just 2020-2021, leaving Covid still hundreds of times more lethal for children than the flu, which leaves them lucky to have had mitigations that contained flu and Covid deaths to such a degree.
If covid was 100 times worse then the flu for kids we would see 40,000 to 80,000 pediatric deaths for 2020. We see about 266 which is comparable for the 180-400 for the years I cited.
The new test knows the difference between flu and covid, which is why the CDC recalled the old and instituted a new that did better. However, you can’t go back in time and fix the old tests. Re-read the article to comprehend it better.
You are getting hung up in the artifact for 2020, where unlike previous years there were 1 pediatric death case categorized as flu instead of 180-400 like in the years I mentioned due to the old pcr covid test not knowing the difference. It’s not hard to do a Google search on this to see that your pediatric flu death data for 2020 is not representative when compared to a normal year.
What part of the article should I reread? This part?
> Did previous PCR tests confuse COVID-19 cases for influenza cases?
> Not at all.
Or is it this part?
> Dr. Broadhurst says, "The PCR test is validated against many different coronaviruses and common respiratory viruses, including influenza so that it would not give false-positive results."
Maybe you're referring to this part?
> How do we know COVID-19 cases aren't actually influenza?
> Every PCR test must be validated, meaning checked for its sensitivity and specificity. The Nebraska Medicine PCR test has been extensively vetted with multiple ways of validation.
> Dr. Broadhurst explains, "At the beginning of the pandemic, we went through a very rigorous process. That includes demonstrating the specificity of the test to exclude anything that may cause a false positive."
Or perhaps you mean this part?
> Researchers also looked through large databases of viral genetic sequences – the building blocks of a virus. That way, they ensured the PCR test only picked up a piece unique to SARS-CoV-2 and not another coronavirus or influenza.
I don't know how many ways your article needs to tell you you're wrong before you'll believe it, except that it's larger than four.
Once you understand that, your entire argument that Covid is less dangerous for kids than the flu falls apart. The reason there was only one flu death is due to masking, social distancing, and lockdowns. In that same setting, Covid caused hundreds of deaths.
Yes, I am incorrect with that article so when determining covid pediatric severity vs normal flu year let's just go ahead and assume all 400 pediatric covid deaths over 1.5 years are correctly classified.
You are incorrect on pediatric flu deaths in a normal year being around 1. See this link to the CDC [1] about the 2019-2020 season:
"total number of flu deaths in kids reported to CDC for that season to 199."
which is not around 1. 199 deaths for 1 year is not hundreds of times smaller than 400 covid deaths over 1.5 years (averaged 266 over 1 year). When will you admit you are wrong on covid being “hundreds of times more lethal for children than the flu”?
I never claimed that pediatric flu deaths in a normal year is around one. I have repeatedly stated that pediatric flu deaths after mitigations to reduce spread of infectious respiratory diseases were in place was 1, while pediatric Covid deaths under the same conditions were hundreds of times higher. This is why my very first comment called out your misleading comparison of flu deaths before mitigations vs. Covid deaths after mitigations. Would you like me to quote all the examples? We could expect the number of pediatric Covid deaths to be higher still without those mitigations.
> This is why my very first comment called out your misleading comparison of flu deaths before mitigations vs. Covid deaths after mitigations.
We are talking about how severe covid is for children. A comparison to a normal flu year is very relevant, because people in a normal year is not worried about the flu for children. When are you going to admit pediatric flu deaths in a normal year is around 190 and not 1?
Yes, you can lock a kid inside to avoid the flu and car accidents. But that is not a way to live and not worth the reward in mitigating a low risk.
> We could expect the number of pediatric Covid deaths to be higher still without those mitigations.
A lot of kids already had covid due to how infectious it is. How much more severe than 400 deaths amongst 73 million US kids over 1.5 years do you claim it would be and on what grounds? 20 or 20k more deaths?
Your proposed policy of vaccinating kids severely increase young kids risk for severe conditions such as heart issues including stroke and long term risks are unknown. How do you know the reward outweigh the risk of vaccinating kids that are at low risk for covid?
> people in a normal year is not worried about the flu for children.
People in a normal year vaccinate children against the flu.
> When are you going to admit pediatric flu deaths in a normal year is around 190 and not 1?
When are you going to understand that I never disputed that, and none of my arguments are affected by that? My point was that Covid is so bad for children that even with severe mitigations in place (so severe that only one child died of flu), it outkilled the flu in a normal year without those mitigations.
> Yes, you can lock a kid inside to avoid the flu and car accidents.
That's a silly idea. We could vaccinate kids instead, and that's what is going on.
> Your proposed policy of vaccinating kids severely increase young kids risk for severe conditions such as heart issues including stroke and long term risks are unknown.
Viruses, including the one that causes Covid, are an even greater risk of heart disease, including a more severe form called MIS-C that has resulted in amputations.
They are well-known because any long term effects will be observed at most days after the vaccination or infection. There is no mechanism by which a change can take place in the body that does nothing until years later. What has been observed is that the effects observed within a week show that long term effects will be far worse for the disease than the vaccine.
> How do you know the reward outweigh the risk of vaccinating kids that are at low risk for covid?
Just as you were wrong about the PCR test article, you were wrong about the FDA advisory panel, which concluded unanimously that vaccinating kids is better than letting them contract Covid.
The FDA panel approved the childhood vaxx after skipping the FDA Science Advisory panel.
Again, you are not spotting that the FDA circumvent the standard convening of the expert advisory board when the FDA advisory board approved it, see my original link [3] and the non-paywalled [4]. This is after the science advisory panel denied approval in September.
This is corrupt and unscientific.
> Just as you were wrong about the PCR test article,
You are incorrect judging by the source. Quote from the original CDC policy source I remembered [1] instead of the secondary link I clearly didn't read well enough:
"After December 31, 2021, CDC will withdraw the request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of the CDC 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel ... CDC encourages laboratories to consider adoption of a multiplexed method that can facilitate detection and differentiation of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza viruses."
Basically after December 31, 2021, the CDC will withdraw the emergency use authorization of the PCR test for COVID-19 testing. If I read this correctly the CDC said the old tests are no longer authorized because the do not differentiate well between the flu and COVID virus.
It doesn't matter much to my argument since 400 pediatric deaths over 1.5 years is already very low, and as I said I am fine with just counting the all as covid deaths.
Now you're confusing yourself even further. There is only one advisory panel that meets before approving a medication. You're confusing approval of the booster for teenagers, which skipped that panel, with approval of the vaccine for kids, which did not.
> If I read this correctly the CDC said
You did not read this correctly, and the original link you posted explained why.
> It doesn't matter much to my argument since 400 pediatric deaths over 1.5 years is already very low,
This would be low if it happened without mitigations (or the first half year of that being before the disease had spread to most of America). It happened when mitigations severe enough to reduce flu deaths a hundredfold were in place. Do you not understand that?
> You're confusing approval of the booster for teenagers, which skipped that panel, with approval of the vaccine for kids, which did not.
Pediatrics covers teens.
You clearly value a political process higher than the scientific method when you don’t distrust a vaccine approval entity that cut scientific advisory committees, cut required steps from the process, ignore extremely elevated myocarditis cases amongst boys etc
In what seem politically instead of scientifically motivated you invent hypothesis such as “ Viruses, including the one that causes Covid, are an even greater risk of heart disease, including a more severe form called MIS-C that has resulted in amputations.” which the best science indicate is wrong for covid.
You are both severely overestimating how much myocarditis covid gives and underestimating how irregular the vaxx myocarditis numbers are. These seem designed to fit your motivated reasoning that the mitigations worked as desired.
> This would be low if it happened without mitigations (or the first half year of that being before the disease had spread to most of America). It happened when mitigations severe enough to reduce flu deaths a hundredfold were in place. Do you not understand that?
According to this nature article by end of 2020 1/3 of all Americans had covid, so you are severely overestimating the effectiveness of the mitigations.
You said "Covid still hundreds of times more lethal for children than the flu", so that means you claim we should expect 20k+ deaths without mitigations.
Again, we had 400 pediatric deaths amongst the unvaccinated 73 million US kids over 1.5 years.
Where do you get your excess mitigated pediatric deaths from in a population when 1/3 already had the virus by end of 2020, way before mid 2021 that the 400 deaths cover?
If by "Covid still hundreds of times more lethal for children than the flu" the parent means "flu as the one officially detected in 2020 instead of the around 200 that is normal" it's disingenuous as you need to compare to normal flu death numbers of time (we seem to be going back to normal official flu numbers). Unmitigated covid had pediatric deaths at the level of the normal flu, and the heuristic here is that people are not worried about the flu for healthy kids.
If by "Covid still hundreds of times more lethal for children than the flu" the parent means relative to the normal flu, around 200, (s)he is claiming at least 20k+ deaths are mitigated despite us only seeing 400 pediatric covid deaths over 1.5 years after already by the end of 2020 1/3 of the american population had covid. The parent may be threading this needle by severely underestimating how many had covid.
This kind of thinking is used to argue for it being a-ok that the FDA blatantly break vaccine approval process standards because of a pediatric severity that is manufactured. And this is for vaccines we know will be mandated or taken without informed consent, vaccines that have known to ruin lives or kill otherwise healthy children while it doesn't even work well for omicron.
Maybe the parent is caught up in the mass transformation? A lot of otherwise smart people has been scared into this state.
You said, "the FDA science advisory panel rejected vaccine for kids." It did not. It unanimously approved the vaccine for kids. You said the PCR test confuses the flu with Covid. It never did. You said the flu caused 400 child deaths in 2020. It did not. I'm tired of correcting you, especially because you never admit your mistakes. Instead of considering the evidence, you have chosen a belief, and then you misread articles to fit your beliefs. I will no longer try to correct you because you are not interested in facts. Good luck.
> They are well-known because any long term effects will be observed at most days after the vaccination or infection. There is no mechanism by which a change can take place in the body that does nothing until years later.
Quote from the scientist in [1] showing you are wrong on long term effects:
"One of the worst medical disasters was diethylstilbestrol (DES) which was commonly prescribed as an anti-miscarriage medication in the 1940s. It was recalled 30 years later after it was connected to a rare tumor that appeared in the next generation of daughters of women who had taken it. "
Reproductive damage would also only show up once the kids grow up and try to have kids. Cancers other than the one in the quote also take a while to develop.
The scientists that wrote [1] are concerned about long term adverse effects as well as the short term we know: Larry Kwak, MD, PhD was named to the TIME100 for his work in cancer vaccines and is a former advisor to FDA; Steven Rosen, MD is Dir of a US NCI-designated Comp Cancer Center - he dev monoclonal Ab & drugs for cancer; Idit Shachar, PhD served as a dept chair
> What has been observed is that the effects observed within a week show that long term effects will be far worse for the disease than the vaccine.
The pre-print article below [2] is backed up by solid data that observes for young men, the risk of myocarditis is greater with the mRNA vaccines than from natural infection.
> When are you going to understand that I never disputed that, and none of my arguments are affected by that? My point was that Covid is so bad for children that even with severe mitigations in place (so severe that only one child died of flu), it outkilled the flu in a normal year without those mitigations.
You said "Covid still hundreds of times more lethal for children than the flu", so that means you claim we should expect 20k+ deaths without mitigations.
Again, we had 400 pediatric deaths amongst the unvaccinated 73 million US kids over 1.5 years. According to this [3] nature article by end of 2020 1/3 of all Americans had covid.
Where do you get your excess mitigated pediatric deaths from?
> That's a silly idea. We could vaccinate kids instead, and that's what is going on.
For Polio this makes sense as the reward is higher than risk, but low pediatric covid risk coupled with so much risk and uncertainty around the mRNA gene therapy vaccines makes the reward not worth it.
Plus, it seems like the vaccines are ineffective against new variants such as omicron and wears off pretty fast. Boosters have not worked for variants so far, which is especially clear in highly boosted Israel and Singapore.
Some hope further boosters will solve the vaccine effectivenes, but "European Union regulators warned that frequent Covid-19 booster shots could adversely affect the immune response and may not be feasible" [4]. So again, risk vs reward is off and part of the damage would only show up long-term (and being immuno compromised is no fun).
I'm in the same place with my kids and I feel similarly. I feel you on the replies here too. I get it, there are greater risks, but that doesn't mean this isn't stressful along with everything else going on. Anyway, I hope this is the tail end of these worries and hope your family has a healthy 2022.
I don't think "Vaxxed and done" people are saying your kids getting sick shouldn't feel stressful but rather covid poses a risk to children that is similar to or less than numerous other diseases and ailments we already faced. Just as schools weren't closed (or whatever precaution you'd like to put in here) for the flu or pneumonia there is no reason to close them for covid.
Some of the "Vaxxed and Done" voices that I hear on the WWW sounds like childfree adults telling parents that they should not worry. That is the perfect recipe for confrontation, even if unintentional! As a young adult, I would have happily tried to explain a rational, statistical/data-driven argument to parents. As a parent, I understand and accept a certain amount of irrational protectiveness/risk-aversion. It becomes very easy for us to talk past each other.
Schools regularly either dismiss classes, or all classes altogether, when there are strep, measles or chicken pox outbreaks. The latter is just an itchy rash.
It boils down to risk v benefits. The under 5s have been relatively very low risk. If a jab can't out do that then there's no room to move forward with that idea. Omincron appears to be even less powerful, less of a threat. Those odds make the current jabs even less likely to be approved.
Covid was never thought to be risky for children, especially under 5s, even when we didn't have a vaccine. Omicron is much less risky than other kinds of covid.
I saw one paper claiming the reason is that MMR vaccine gives children some protection against "severe" covid due to overlapping T-cells, but didn't check if it reproduced so wouldn't believe too much in that. (And I saw it on twitter from Dr Feigl-Ding who's an alarmist type.)
> Covid was never thought to be risky for children, especially under 5s, even when we didn't have a vaccine.
This is likely correct, but
> Omicron is much less risky than other kinds of covid.
There's some indication (though no solid proof) that the jump in child hospitalizations is due to omicron being _more_ severe in children. The proposed mechanism is that its focus on the upper respiratory system instead of the lungs makes it less severe for us and worse for young children (in line with other childhood diseases that are generally taken somewhat seriously).
Going further, we've moved on from the un-vaccinated in general. My problem is that even though I live in a bubble with 100% vaccination rate among my relatives and friends (most of our kids are older), I can't quite make peace with just letting the un-vax'd kill one another off. And there seems to be no middle ground.
It comes from a disbelief in natural immunity that is more prevalent in the US. I believe it’s due to our policy of not accommodating prior cases of COVID on vaccination records, unlike countries with more sophisticated record-keeping. It may also be due to what I perceive to be a culture preference for premium manufactured solutions in this wealthier, highly industrialized country (c.f. our relationship with health food vs. healthy eating.)
If you believe prior cases of COVID don’t affect your survival rate in subsequent cases, and that there will be an infinite number of similarly deadly successive variants, then you conclude that most unvaccinated people will eventually get the variant that kills them.
> then you conclude that most unvaccinated people will eventually get the variant that kills them.
I think this makes three large assumptions:
1. That natural infection doesn't result in durable immunity. This appears to be, unquestionably, not true [1].
2. Those that are unvaccinated will not get a natural infection. This is exceedingly unlikely, assuming they're living normal lives.
3. Vaccines will be constantly updated. This appears to be true, with a large time delay (see omicron vaccine being worked on now).
I appreciate the comment, forgive my late response.
I agree that "kill one another off" was a bit hyperbolic, but it was past the edit window before I noticed that it was being genuinely misunderstood. All I meant was what would seem to be happening: People exposing one another to a communicable disease with a death rate of X. I was arguably using the wrong terminology for the magnitude of X.
Whether a death rate of X is acceptable or not may depend on social acceptance of the cause, the visibility of the cause (plane crashes always make the news, suicides don't) social class, etc. This is evident in the use of analogies within this sub thread, as a way of trying to make sense of the issue.
The unvaxxed won't be killing off each other at a rate much (if any) higher then the vaxed and this is clear as day right now. Numbers.
What is it about this disease that is causing otherwise intelligent people to step into this reality of alternate (and untrue) facts? Even US supreme court justices.
I don't mean this as an attack, it's just I don't get it.
"Killing each other off" indicates mass die off. Are we seeing mass die off?
Given that fully vaxxed places are blowing up in case numbers, the vax obviously isn't stopping transmission much if at all right now.
Many more people are vaxxed then not right now. So if you are unvaxed and infected on a trip to the store who most likely gave it to you? A vaxxed person or an unvaxxed person?
"Unvaxxed killing each other off" is a hysterical take and inaccurate.
"Given that fully vaxxed places are blowing up in case numbers, the vax obviously isn't stopping transmission much if at all right now."
This is one of those "obvious" things that mathematically isn't obvious at all.
Any slope of a line could be steeper or shallower, so looking at that alone obviously can't tell you if the slope is 1% shallower than it could be, 5%, 10%, 50%... it's not like we hit "100% of the population has had covid now" overnight.
If you had a flock of a million birds and sixty of them died and you wrote a thesis with the term "mass die off" you would be laughed out of the room.
According to NatGeo "mass die off" is 90% of the population. I'd be alarmed at 6% die off in humans and not even be posting on the topic, but we are at less then 1%. For the unvaxxed.
In some countries, there was no major difference in annual All-Cause deaths between 2020 and prior years, which suggested that some deaths (with? of?) Covid were accelerated by a few months, but would have happened even without Covid due to existing ailments/co-morbidities.
Some countries reported more all-cause deaths for 2020.
Some states/countries sent Covid-infected patients into nursing homes, which did not help.
The vaccinated and unvaccinated are not evenly distributed across the country. The distribution seems to bimodal, where there are areas with high concentrations of vaccinated people, and areas with high concentrations of unvaccinated people. I'm in a state with high vaccination rates, but in a county and municipality where vaccination rates are low and where COVID denialism has been law of the land for over a year now.
You're aware that "unvaccinated" includes the vaccinated < 14 days after 2nd shot?
UK numbers show that only 1% of Covid-recovered people are reinfected, which is why the EU pass equated recovery with vaccination (which does not prevent infection or transmission).
It would be more accurate if US hospital data was separated into:
All I see there is poorly-presented correlations that ignore a constantly changing environment. Looks like someone picking and choosing numbers to support the position they want to take, while ignoring all the other data and evidence that disagrees.
Where I live, in California, there has been a months-long-and-holding-steady trend that vaccinated people have much lower cases per capita and much, MUCH lower deaths per capita. Total cases went up when we relaxed restrictions which coincided with when vaccines were widespread. That's not the same as vaccinations causing those higher total case numbers! Now total case numbers are going up again due to seasonal factors + omicron having a lot of mutations; it's too early to say just yet exactly how the vax/unvax per-capita numbers will look for this wave when it's over. As of Dec 26, it was tracking pretty similarly, though[0]... it seems to blow up that dude's case: many fewer vaccination doses are being given now than during the last big waves!
EDIT: here are the money bits that I would need to see really compelling evidence to believe are coincidental/misinterpreted/etc:
* From December 20, 2021 to December 26, 2021, unvaccinated people were 3.9 times more likely to get COVID-19 than fully vaccinated people.
* From December 13, 2021 to December 19, 2021, unvaccinated people were 10.1 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than fully vaccinated people.
* From December 6, 2021 to December 12, 2021, unvaccinated people were 16.6 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than fully vaccinated people.
Transmission, severity, and death, all. And that's after the omicron variant reached the state, especially for transmission, though admittedly before it has peaked (it possibly hasn't even peaked yet, still).
Are you at peace with motorcycle riders? They also die at disproportionate rates. Try to think about unvaccinated as motorcycle riders: living and risking death the way they enjoy it.
Motorcycles would probably not have been accepted were they invented yesterday. They've been grandfathered into society, like tobacco. I say this as a licensed motorcycle rider.
I'm a bicyclist, same deal, except no license. There are a lot of people out there who believe that riding a bike on public roads is unacceptably risky.
Yeah. I used to ride bikes (bicycles) in some super dense urban areas of US for years. Got hurt more on bicycles than on my motorcycles (my 70+ mph interstate crash on motorcycle not nearly as bad as getting whacked on bicycle by a valet going 10mph in downtown Chicago!)
Bicyclist probably get way more injuries per mile than motorcyclists. It's risky!
Cycling isn't risky, sharing poorly designed roads with cars is risky.
Dedicated, fully separated paths with no conflict points have very low fatality rates. Also, even in risky areas there is a net positive effect on mortality.
Yea I was going to say this. I moved to downtown Manhattan and finally mustered up the courage to start road biking after ten years of avoiding it in SF and.... It's amazing and feels almost 100% safe on the routes I take. The only real risks I've seen come from asshole deliverypeople barreling down the bike path the wrong direction, and even those risks have felt pretty capped. They've never been going fast enough that I would've been anything but banged up a bit.
Indeed, and it's very hard to assess individual safety from broad based statistics. How do cycling injuries per mile translate into my personal risk? I've had one cycling injury in 50 years, when I hit a patch of ice on a bike path and cracked a rib. Ouch.
Cyclists have to figure out safety by guesswork. One thing that's reasonably certain is that cars cause the majority of cycling injuries (not counting mountain biking, which I'm not equipped for). I have a rule of thumb, which is that if a car can crash into another car, or into stationary objects such as buildings, then it can crash into a cyclist. So I look at where car crashes occur: Mostly on higher speed, congested roads, and especially at intersections. My first safety rule is route choice, and I avoid routes with a lot of car traffic. I rarely encounter cars on my commute to work.
The US tends to have a laissez faire approach to product safety. Rare problems are ignored unless they become newsworthy. More frequent problems are addressed through lawsuits. Regulation is applied (either new regulations or enforcement of existing ones) after the fact if problems reach a certain level of visibility or persistence.
From what I can tell, Europe has more regulations and fewer lawsuits.
Do you mean trained, licensed, experienced, and law abiding motorcycle riders, acting on reliable information? It's certainly a good question.
We do place limits on risking death in our society. I don't know if it can be based on objective criteria. We don't let people drive cars without seat belts, or attend school without certain vaccinations. Widespread exposure to a disease of the nature of COVID, under a flood of misinformation, had exactly zero advocates two years ago.
I don't have an answer, and was deliberately being a bit vague about whether I'm at peace with it or not. I'm willing to leave it at being on the fence.
Motorcycle riders take out other people on the road, too. Even if you aren't killed by someone on a motorcycle, your family getting PTSD because their mangled corpse flew through your windshield isn't exactly a great outcome, either.
This is of course, true, but what is your point, exactly? Are you arguing that government should ban riding motorcycles just like they are trying to ban refusing to take COVID vaccine?
Most of the unvaxxed are in places without access to vaccines and those populations will continue to be a source of new variants. Delta and Omicron both came from places/times that had very limited access to vaccines.
If someone in the US continues to reject vaccination, I don't know what to do about it at this point. But there's big populations that haven't been vaccinated because they haven't had a chance. It's crucial to give them that chance.
1. Because there is a harmful disease and we have an available protection. It seems obvious that there is moral prerogative to make that protection to those who want and need it.
2. Because the quicker and more widely covid spreads the more chance it has to evolve new variants, and those variants will spread worldwide. So everyone has an interest in slowing it down everywhere in order to protect themselves against potential future variants.
Aside from basic humanitarianism, I'd really like to drop the word "mutations" from the "should my kid see his grandparents" discussion. I only get to do that if we apply public health solutions to public health problems, though.
Public health care problems (which fundamentally is what COVID19 is, rather than a personal health care problem) require that various human collectives spend money so that people's children can see their grandparents.
If asked to pay for children who I don’t know to get meatspace time with their extended gene clan, who I also don’t know, I will decline and recommend they use Zoom.
> Are you this unempathic and selfish in real life?
I do as little as possible for people who do not do for me.
I also like the fact that nobody seems to be concerned with the possible effects this virus could have long-term on the developmental growth of a child under 5… I think I would be much more concerned about that than the symptoms of the initial infection itself.
& for those who want to go “buhh we don’t know how duh vaccine will effect their developmental growth either” - I don’t have much to say to you other than I wish you had an education…
You don't think the accumulation of lipid nanoparticles from what might be annual vaccinations could impact developmental growth in children? We have decades of research on Coronaviridae even if COVID-19 is a bit different, but we have basically nothing on LNP.
We all know that most people get COVID and then get over it, but using a few neutral anecdotes to deny the other issues is like trying to invalidate global warming because the weather isn’t hot where you live. It’s not about comparing all of our anecdotes.
If you're willing to dismiss an anecdote then you should also dismiss the first anecdote in this thread. If you're willing to listen to an anecdote, then you should also listen to the second anecdote in this thread.
This is about more than denying issues. It's about trying to get the whole picture. Ignoring any anecdotes you don't agree with doesn't help you get the whole picture.
> If you're willing to dismiss an anecdote then you should also dismiss the first anecdote in this thread. If you're willing to listen to an anecdote, then you should also listen to the second anecdote in this thread.
I think you misunderstood. The point was that it’s not about picking anecdotes that support your conclusion.
You have to look at broader data collection and studies, not just whatever small bits of anecdata are conveniently nearby.
The first thing I could find from Google was an apparently reliable looking fact checking site[0] that pretty explicitly disagrees with this, at least as it pertains to lockdowns in general:
>A study looking at interventions in 11 European countries found that lockdowns and social distancing in the first wave helped lower the reproductive number (R) to below 1 by early May 2020[2]. R measures how many people one infected person will pass the virus on to. When R is above 1, the number of infections can rise exponentially. When R is below 1, the number of infections drops.
>In this study, the scientists developed a model to predict how many people would have died in these 11 countries, if no lockdown measures had been introduced. Comparing the actual number of deaths counted with the number of deaths predicted by their model, in the absence of any interventions, they found that around 3.1 million deaths were averted across these 11 countries from the beginning of the epidemic up until 4 May 2020. Scientific evidence shows that COVID-19 restrictions reduced virus transmission and, by extension, saved lives
Health feedback is garbage. It is the "fact-checking" site that facebook uses, and has a regular pattern of presenting the political opinions of its writers as facts. For example, they flagged a WSJ op-ed by Marty Makary where he expressed a prediction, as misinformation:
Regardless of what you think of Makary's original opinion, there's no universe in which a prediction of the future from a medical expert should be labeled misinformation. If that's the bar, then ~all of the statistical models used to make scary predictions about Covid are also "misinformation", as are 95% of the things Anthony Fauci says on cable news.
"Politicians are holding children hostage in the basement of a pizza place" => clearly incorrect factual statement.
"I think that Covid infections will be far below their current numbers by summer" => opinion about the future.
(Regarding the particular claim advanced by health feedback here: it's a "fact check" based on a single paper, written by Neil Ferugson's group, that attempts to validate the predictions made by...Neil Ferguson's group. There have now been many others that say the opposite [1]. At the very least, you'd hope that a reputable "fact-checking" site would discuss these to present a balanced picture of the debate. Health feedback doesn't bother.)
AIER denies climate change, thinks herd immunity is a good response to COVID, and has been dismissed by public health experts. In the context of a conversation about citing credible sources to become more informed about covid, citing them is about as self-discrediting as it gets.
So I'm really not even sure where to start. Perhaps I should start with the fact that, under the best possible interpretation, you're treating the conceptual nuance of prediction vs. statement of fact as if it completely discredits the ability if Health Feedback to accurately parse COVID research. That is totally out of proportion to what would actually be proved by that argument.
It's also, I believe a distinction that is basically without merit as a commentary on what does or doesn't count as misinformation. Predictions most definitely do contain misinformation, serve to spread misinformation, can be based on bad reasoning that it is appropriate to criticize well ahead of the events they are predicting. In this case, the WSJ prediction turned out to be false and it was perfectly appropriate to call it out for the misinformation it was, and seeking cover by litigating whether the misinformation was retrospective or forward looking without defending the accuracy or underlying reasoning is asinine.
>Regarding the particular claim advanced by health feedback here: it's a "fact check" based on a single paper, written by Neil Ferugson's group, that attempts to validate the predictions made by...Neil Ferguson's group.
And this is so unhinged I almost don't even know what to say. There's nothing untoward about doing research that weighs on other research you have done; it's in collaboration with other partners and peer reviewed. If something was actually wrong with the study you could come out and say so instead of making captain of the JV debate team insinuations about hypothetical possibility of impropriety.
> AIER denies climate change, thinks herd immunity is a good response to COVID, and has been dismissed by public health experts.
None of this is true. Frankly, I'm not even sure what the middle part means...herd immunity is not a "strategy"; it's just a fact. It's like claiming that "gravity" is a "strategy" for landing an airplane.
> So I'm really not even sure where to start
It's always good to start with something that isn't a fabrication and an ad hominem.
Their "Herd Immunity Strategy": Keep the elder parts of the population locked up and let children and younger parts get it without vaccination:
https://gbdeclaration.org/
"In October 2020, AIER sponsored the “Great Barrington Declaration,” a controversial statement advocating for a herd immunity strategy in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The World Health Organization and other health experts have suggested a herd immunity strategy would be “unethical,” dangerous, and deadly."
> In October 2020, AIER sponsored the “Great Barrington Declaration,” a controversial statement advocating for a herd immunity strategy in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The World Health Organization and other health experts have suggested a herd immunity strategy would be “unethical,” dangerous, and deadly.
Again, herd immunity is not a "strategy". It is a fact. Global vaccination is also a "herd immunity strategy", in that it tries to achieve herd immunity in the population.
But now that I've cleared that up, you should also know that's not what the GBD says. Maybe you should actually read it, instead of repeating what other people say about it?
This willingness to rely on hearsay explains a lot why you're eager to dismiss a page full of links to studies (which is honestly the only reason I used the AIER page), instead of, you know, considering that there might be a debate here.
Obviously, it's much easier to pretend that you're right when you impugn any source that disagrees with your opinion, for disagreeing with your opinion.
I read it.
They redefined herd immunity:
"We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity – i.e. the point at which the rate of new infections is stable – and that this can be assisted by (but is not dependent upon) a vaccine."
Did you check who co-signed it?
Mr Banana Rama, Dr Johnny Bananas, Dr Johnny Fartpants, Dr Person Fakename, Harold Shipman, Professor Notaf Uckingclue, and Prof Cominic Dummings.
Also the study your sit
you are in good company ...
How about that your evidence article uses some blog posts (not peer reviewed papers) as evidence ... Surjit Bhalla, Indian economist, author and columnist, ...
I agree that a lockdowns did make sense to "flatten the curve" and it certainly did help reduce reproduction.
But the model probably relies heavily on extrapolation. It is like an election forecast. That can have merit, but doesn't really lead to a definitive result.
The problem posed by a pandemic is that harms affecting a small percentage of overall cases are nevertheless staggering in absolute terms.
Moreover, those who get better nevertheless contribute to the stresses that are stretching health care system and economy to its limits. These stresses cause second order harms to those having to go without care as resources are mobilized to support those who "will be fine."
Positive and negative anecdotes don’t directly cancel.
Suppose 990/1,000 people that took a pill where fine and the rest died. Clearly it’s a serious risk even if you’re almost guaranteed to be fine. Looking at anecdotal evidence would show “most people where fine”/“10 cases of people dying!” But let’s change the numbers 999,999,990/1,000,000,000 took a pill and 10 died, now is it a serious risk or roughly as dangerous as driving to work? You still have “10 cases of people dying!” but it’s nowhere near the same thing.
Also, and I think this is part of what you were saying, if 1% risk of death is unacceptably high, it takes more than 99 "positive" anecdotes to "cancel" one "negative" anecdote (of dying from the pill).
Yes, record them and compare it with the numbers of people that where fine.
The vaccine that was pulled very much came down to anecdotes vs numbers of injections in a cost benefit analysis. Presumably it would have still been administered to the elderly if their where no alternative vaccines. But as their where alternatives it wasn’t worth putting people at even such low risks.
> Reports may include incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental and unverified information.
> The number of reports alone cannot be interpreted or used to reach conclusions about the existence, severity, frequency, or rates of problems associated with vaccines.
VAERS is AEFI reporting, right? You have to account for the base rate and stat sig when you analyse that data, be warned.
E.g. if 100 people walked out the door and had a heart attack the next day, you need to understand the base rate of heart attacks to know whether 100 is high, low, or normal. Then you need to put that number in the context of statistical significance, e.g. p < 0.05 means an up to 1 in 20 probability that your data is there by random chance, and if you look through all the AEFI data you'll analyse much more than 20 types of adverse event, so you'll most likely find an adverse event or two that looks statistically significant but fails to replicate in any studies.
> A report to VAERS generally does not prove that the identified vaccine(s) caused the adverse event described. It only confirms that the reported event occurred sometime after vaccine was given. No proof that the event was caused by the vaccine is required in order for VAERS to accept the report. VAERS accepts all reports without judging whether the event was caused by the vaccine.
(crunching some data... Death... Death of pet is listed as one of them? well... ok)
And just looking at that data its... self reported. For example, running it for the current vaccines there's one death reported for a person under 6 months old which is rather surprising since it's not authorized for that age range.
Anyways, the thing is that doing the "simple" query on this shows that 2,694 age 80+ died after receiving the vaccine. That needs to be calibrated against the question of "how many people aged 80+ would die in that time range without either covid or the vaccine being present?"
And that is exactly the problem that you're describing.
The key thing is its there and if people want to approach the data using the proper statistical rigor... the data is there.
> Bob Wachter of UCSF had a very good thread on Twitter about vaccine rollouts the other day, and one of the good points he made was this one. We're talking about treating very, very large populations, which means that you're going to see the usual run of mortality and morbidity that you see across large samples. Specifically, if you take 10 million people and just wave your hand back and forth over their upper arms, in the next two months you would expect to see about 4,000 heart attacks. About 4,000 strokes. Over 9,000 new diagnoses of cancer. And about 14,000 of that ten million will die, out of usual all-causes mortality. No one would notice. That's how many people die and get sick anyway.
> But if you took those ten million people and gave them a new vaccine instead, there's a real danger that those heart attacks, cancer diagnoses, and deaths will be attributed to the vaccine. I mean, if you reach a large enough population, you are literally going to have cases where someone gets the vaccine and drops dead the next day (just as they would have if they didn't get the vaccine). It could prove difficult to convince that person's friends and relatives of that lack of connection, though. Post hoc ergo propter hoc is one of the most powerful fallacies of human logic, and we're not going to get rid of it any time soon. Especially when it comes to vaccines. The best we can do, I think, is to try to get the word out in advance. Let people know that such things are going to happen, because people get sick and die constantly in this world. The key will be whether they are getting sick or dying at a noticeably higher rate once they have been vaccinated.
I recently watched some state level testimony from nurses and they said something along the lines of, “our staff, nurses and doctors, are unaware of or trained to use VAERS”
Do you think it is worth getting the vaccine if you’ve already had covid and it wasn’t a big deal?
As in if you have firsthand experience that covid didn’t affect you much, wouldn’t that maybe be a valid reason to just say I’m not going to get vaccinated even though the risks of adverse short term effects are small (still don’t know about long term but probably small is my guess)
Personally, I think the risks from the Pfizer vaccine is low enough that it’s worth it simply to reduce the severity in case of reinfection. A free and very safe shot that did nothing more than reduce the time I felt like garbage by 1 day on average is easy an choice for me.
That said, quite a few people that had COVID before end up suffering far more the second time. As long as we are talking about individual cases, the first person do die of omicron was in their 50’s and had COVID before but never got vaccinated. But again even if we are talking about a 25 year old athlete you only get ~70 * 365 days, why spend more of them sick than you need to?
We are talking about anecdotes aren’t we? If I personally was hardly affected by covid, nor was my family, then those who died from covid aren’t anecdotes I care about.
The individual risk is low, but given the greater infectiousness of Omicron, the societal risk is much higher, since medical resources don't scale the same way.
Ane yet that is what forums like these are mostly about.
Sharing stories and receive validation.
No reason to undermine a response that clearly was comparing one anecdote with another.
Considering how children have been amazingly spared the effects of sars-cov-2 it is hard to see that they seem to have held the lions share of the mandates to slow the inevitable spread. And still do as the vaccined did not provide the high immuinty they initially promised.
The vaccines do an amazing job reducing hospitalizations among the vulnerable, it is not clear they have much benefit for the toddlers, and may even be harmful. Lets move on.
Yes, literally. We do the same when we discuss traffic laws. We're all part of the same society, you have the right to take whatever action is in your child's best interest, but that DOES NOT necessarily imply that everyone else must get in alignment with what you think is best. The city doesn't need to install roundabouts at every intersection on your school route because you knows it to be safer than the traffic lights. That's ridiculous. Maybe they should, but its a discussion that will require you to think about resources and about risk.
Externalities are real, and as such the discussion is about acceptable risk. So yes, in the most ridiculous and obvious sense it includes your kids, but you're assuming a lot too, and I question whether you're willing to reason critically - rather than emotionally - about school policy.
That's true, but rarely are kids thrown in the woodchipper for the survival of old people. And I worry that's what has happened to my toddler (infant when covid started) as a result of mask mandates and lessened social exposure during the most neuroplastic years of her life where speech and socialization starts forming. I do legitimately think some old/vulnerable lives were saved at the expense of suppressing childhoods, but it's certainly an anachronistic prioritization of life.
There has been little thought given to non-covid health and developmental issues caused by mitigations. My friends had to go to private school to get a school to accept a doctors note that their kid shouldn't wear masks because he's having a hard time with speech development. The kid already had covid--a low grade fever for two days.
The speech development and language problems are going to be a huge issue, in hindsight, if not already.
Not just kids learning verbal skills and to speak with masks on, but non-verbal-receptive kids, who rely more on facial expressions and visual cues.
For them, it's a double-whammy, because you're delaying their speaking and language/ listening skills further, but also depriving them of the alternative forms of communication that they rely on to cope with the primary deficits.
And that's before getting into whatever effects decreased socialization overall will have.
That's what they are saying, and that's what's been said during this entire pandemic. I remember in 2020 when a Texas Lt. Gov official mentioned letting old folks die for the sake of the US economy[1]. The whole "let them die and shrug shoulders" theme throughout this pandemic leads into some concerning overtones, but not surprising =(
It's consistent with our approach to children dying of malnutrition and simple (to us) ailments around the world. It is true that "That's different!", but when one aggressively plays the ~selfishness card one should also accept when it is played back imho.
Per the cdc [1], the US has 250 deaths from covid ages 0-4 and an additional 573 ages 5-18.
Compare [2] to an estimated 216 deaths ages 0-4 and an additional 156 ages 5-17 from the flu in 2018-2019.
Those aren't perfectly comparable -- we took serious additional measures against covid that we don't take against the flu. On the other hand, how much actual masking of the 4 and under set is going on in preschool or kindergarten?
I know all my children under the age of 4 (3 of them) are able to receive a flu vaccine though. I would assume quite a few parents are doing the same. So not quite apples to apples. That being said the risk to children that age for COVID is quite low, and I would not be shutting down schools or even forcing masks. Those are important to development of children especially since it disproportionally affects low income children. So I agree that the risk of COVID to children is small, and extreme measures should not be taken. My only issue was comparing two things that probably cannot fairly be compared.
Isn’t the flu vaccine a bit of a crap shoot though? There’s I believe 7 variants of the flu, and the one vaccine we get every year is a bit of a educated guess [1] such that the flu vaccine may not actually do anything helpful at all. I don’t think this is a strong argument.
Flu vaccines are hit and miss each year, and (cdc) only reduce risk by 40-60%. So it's a pretty comparable risk, and we're being given natural experiments like Texas and Florida to really test that hypothesis.
I dunno what the right measures are to take for kids that young, but the difference we're seeing between the flu measures we (mostly don't) take and some anti covid measures for young children is hard to explain.
And any time someone says, um, the data appears to show that covid is not actually that dangerous to young children, you get people (who I'm 99% sure don't lock their kids in the house for flu season) having a fit that you're risking their lives.
Many many many people are getting omicron and having relatively mild infections. It is not the same variant. That doesn't mean it's 100% safe, obviously, but it certainly appears to be safeer.
>The phrase is actually “The plural of anecdote is not evidence”.
I always thought the phrase was "The plural of anecdote is not data" but it looks like that is a misquote:
Nelson W. Polsby PS, Vol. 17, No. 4. (Autumn, 1984), pp. 778-781. Pg. 779: Raymond Wolfinger’s brilliant aphorism “the plural of anecdote is data” never inspired a better or more skilled researcher.
I e-mailed Wolfinger last year and got the following response from him:
“I said ‘The plural of anecdote is data’ some time in the 1969-70 academic year while teaching a graduate seminar at Stanford. The occasion was a student’s dismissal of a simple factual statement–by another student or me–as a mere anecdote. The quotation was my rejoinder. Since then I have missed few opportunities to quote myself. The only appearance in print that I can remember is Nelson Polsby’s accurate quotation and attribution in an article in PS: Political Science and Politics in 1993; I believe it was in the first issue of the year.”
which actually it makes a lot more sense to me this quote than the misquote because
>You can’t collect a couple of anecdote and pretend it’s data.
sure but you can collect 10000 anecdotes, put them in a spreadsheet with some information about the people who said it, and suddenly you got data.
I mean that is basically what I thought to myself every time somebody said the plural of anecdote is not data but bit my tongue because not wanting to get into a war over it, and now I find out the original was actually exactly what I thought it should be.
Thanks munificent! Your name certainly applies for me.
Then allow me to coin an entirely new and original aphorism, let's call it Kibwen's Law:
"The plural of anecdote is not data."
The methodology of collecting anecdotes matters immensely. Merely collecting anecdotes based on whoever manages to comment in a random thread opens your collection process up to massive selection bias. In fact we even have a name for this process: a filter bubble. Every filter bubble in existence is the result of people assuming that not only is the population of their bubble representative of the average person (it's not), but also that people on either side of an issue will be equally likely to offer their anecdote (they're not).
Without rigorous collection methodology, anecdotes do not sum to data.
(Note that this comment says nothing about the broader topic of omicron severity; I don't have data, listen to people who do.)
Pedantically, even an anecdote is data...of some sort.
> you can collect 10000 anecdotes, put them in a spreadsheet with some information about the people who said it, and suddenly you got data.
You can, but that's not a controlled study. The anecdotes can't be verified. So that data is not worth citing. I wish it were, which would make science a lot easier.
This depends on the context and the question. Some empiric observations are conclusive and more than enough, other not. Nice slogans fit great into simple problems but not so accurately into more complex ones. Science is more than just a bunch of math.
Random anecdotes aren't data - at least not useful data. An offhand comment from the 1960's aside, collecting data to ensure it's usable is the subject of a lot of research.
It's the opposite, actually. People worried about Covid with kids are the ones saying that there is no global warming because it isn't hot by them. Statistics are backing up how little effect Covid has on kids (fortunately) - it is anecdotes that are scaring people.
Quotes about staggering, flaming rocket ships aside, if you don't bother to normalize your data to a meaningful baseline rate, you're either not capable of objectively analyzing the situation, or you're trying to mislead.
(It's also worth pointing out that in NY, something like 40-50% of "Covid hospitalizations" are unrelated to Covid, per the state's own statistics [1])
Because an absolutely incredible increase in total cases, so of course hospitalizations are going up. However, it isn't going up unusually given the number of cases. Also, those numbers include kids in the hospital for other things, that test positive for covid. Finally, kids get put into the hospital quicker if they show issues with covid because that's what we do with kids if they are significantly affected by any pathogen.
It's clearly a very systemic disease affecting almost all organs and long term effects are impossible to tell right now (as opposed to the vaccine btw which cannot by definition create random effects some years later).
This is one of those studies where you have to dig a bit deeper than what's shown on the surface. Consider:
• The only <18's they can track is those who get tested
• You're more likely to get tested if in the hospital or showing severe symptoms
• <18's rarely have serious symptoms unless they have comorbidities (e.g. obesity)
• Therefore, most <18's with COVID that they can track were already unhealthy prior to the disease and already more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes or another chronic health condition.
That study doesn't show Covid increases risk of diabetes, it shows that children hospitalized with Covid are more likely to develop diabetes. Two very different things.
Edit: Fixed formatting and spelling from posting on mobile
> Consider that SARS-CoV-2 has been shown to increase risk for newly diagnosed diabetes in children
This hasn't been shown at all, that study can only show that diabetes and Covid are correlated. There's no reason to think the causation doesn't run in the opposite direction.
You saying "it hasn't been shown" doesn't mean it hasn't been shown.
> What are the implications for public health practice?
> The increased diabetes risk among persons aged <18 years following COVID-19 highlights the importance of COVID-19 prevention strategies in this age group, including vaccination for all eligible persons and chronic disease prevention and treatment.
Please note the word “following,” which does not mean “caused by.” The study was not designed to show causation, and it does not do so, the CDC’s irresponsible communication strategy notwithstanding.
Be careful when citing this study as it has several severe limitations, the most significant of which is they did not control for race/ethnicity or obesity.
> "Third, the present analyses lacked information on covariates that could have affected the association between COVID-19 and incident diabetes, including prediabetes, race/ethnicity, and obesity status."
It is also important to note that correlation is not causation and this study only observes a correlation in the data set which may very well disappear after controlling for the aforementioned factors.
Ending up in the ICU with covid and from covid are very different things. You literally cannot get admitted to a hospital without getting a covid test and becoming a covid hospitalization or death. The testing itself causes issues as my son was admitted for appendicitis and they refused to remove the appendix until he had results from a covid test which at the time took about 2 days. Well they let his appendix burst and he ended up having to stay in the hospital for 2 weeks instead of what should have been a couple hour stay.
That must have been unbelievably frustrating and helpless experience. Are all patients tested for Covid? I wonder if unvaccinated are more likely to be tested or required to be tested when admitted to a hospital than vaccinated patients. If so, the stats for hospitalizations with covid are biased and less useful. The question is to what degree.
The odds of getting put into the ICU might be low, but the total number of cases is extremely high. The alpha variant peaked at 300,000 cases/day with a highest 7-day average of 260,000 cases in the USA. Omicron has hit over 1 million cases in a day with a 7-day average of 900,000.
Roll a 100-sided die enough times, and eventually you will get a LOT of ones.
Stop spreading misinformation. Zero states are reporting 100% utilization of ICU or inpatient beds. Not even close. Most are reporting under 80% utilization currently.
I don't think ICU's are 100% full. There's also a double whammy where hospitals are reducing beds because of staffing shortages directly caused by Omicron infections.
Why would you think your three kids are somehow definitive or representative?
These kinds of comments baffle me. It's almost as if people can't imagine that other people might have very different experiences, and that those experiences are equally valid.
Pandemics are statistical events. Individual stories are irrelevant because the true picture is always a collective summary of cause and effect.
No one can generalise from personal experience - except possibly those working on the front lines, who have to deal personally with the consequences of poor decisions.
The reality is that when you have a rapidly mutating pathogen, the pandemic is done when it stops mutating and becomes mild enough for health services to return to something resembling normality.
This may or may not happen after Omicron. It might, but it just as easily might not.
Personal opinion is absolutely not a factor in this.
Given the lack of rigor of many studies bantered about, the commercial incentives of the pharmaceutical industry, filtering and censorship of information from inconvenient sources, questionable methods of tallying Covid deaths, and politicization of Covid policy, why are you so surprised that people would over-value their anecdotal experiences? Perhaps they are being perfectly rational?
Sadly I believe it might now be the end or that is what some of the most trustworthy voices carefully let on. I don't think we can stay in crisis mode for too long... we will be suffocated by our fears and neurosis at some point.
I would be much more concerned about omicron. The flu is very unlikely to have any long term effects as long one keep an eye on the fever. We don't know about the long term effects of omicron.
What we do know about covid is for example fatigue and long term lung damage, both which can have very debilitating effects on health, wealth and social well being. Lung damage in particular can be hard to detect without doing an actually study after the infection.
Off the top of my head, influenza can cause permanent damage to the lungs, kidneys, heart, and brain (sorry, I'm lazy and not providing citations).
I'm not saying this to downplay the effects of Covid/Omicron, but rather to make the point that long-term damage from "mild" infections is not new. What matters is how many people are affected. Omicron will undoubtedly ruin the lives of some people who recover from the initial infection.
You are not wrong that influence can cause those, as any disease that causes a fever can cause multi organ failure and death. The likelihood of the common cold killing a person is however fairly low if the person is young and in otherwise good health.
The criteria I would use is if the medical community is recommending testing for damage after illness. I an pretty use the recommendation is not to test the lungs, kidneys, heart, and brain after an influenza infection for people with no other symptoms. I could be wrong, so feel free to correct me here.
I do know however that dive doctors recommend divers to test for lung damage after a confirmed covid infection, even with no symptoms after infection. There is no such recommendation for influenza, so I would hazard a guess that the risk for otherwise healthy divers after an influenza infection is less than of covid. I have yet see a recommendation for omicron, but for now I would be cautious until the data is in.
Yes, high fever is dangerous and why monitoring is important and hospitalization is required if the fever goes up. A thermostat is a (I am pretty sure) a recommended tool for parents to own and use during an infection. If the fever do go up there is common available medicine.
For covid it is good to keeping an eye on oxygen levels. There are not many good tools to do this, through the skin do turn blue when things start to go very bad. Oxygen capacity can go down a fair amount before there is obvious signs, especially if the patient is laying down. The recommended medicine is pure oxygen which will require a hospital visit.
Personally I am more worried about covid. It is easier to monitor the fever of the flu, the signs for trouble is more clear, and the medical guidelines for when to go to the hospital is well established. Worrying oxygen levels are silent, harder to measure, and the medicine isn't something that people usually have at home. The guidelines are not fully established and there is ongoing research studies on the effects.
I've had a couple different SPO2 meters for a few years, they seem to work pretty reliably.
Not yet as accessible as a thermometer if you're talking about population measures, but since it sounds like this is something that concerns you personally it might be worth getting one.
Unsure why I haven't hear anyone recommend those before, but that sounds like a good idea to get if one get infected. They are a bit expensive however so I am unsure if I personally want to pay that without a positive covid test.
a lot of people have undiagnosed sleep apnea or sub-clinical sleep breathing problems that can be improved by changing their position-- a logging spo2 meter that you can wear while sleeping can be a justifiable investment on that basis.
What about "long COVID"? There are some studies suggesting sudden spikes in kids becoming diabetic after having COVID. These long term health impacts will take years to be known and fully understood. Getting COVID is to be avoided at all costs, IMO.
What does that mean and how is it not self-defeating? As in presumably one avoids covid due to its adverse impact on quality of life. But if you're willing to fully sacrifice your quality of life, then my assumption must be flawed.
my read of the diabetes tie is that it is unlikely that covid causes diabetes but rather that the causality could be both ways, with obesity or other medical confounders making Covid experiences more severe.
this doesn't diminish the importance of the tie, but rather should just reveal that what we've always known about covid remains true - its a serious disease and having other underlying medical issues makes it significantly worse.
i would bet against any conclusion however that having covid makes kids more likely to develop diabetes.
A scientific research station in Antartica was recently hit with a COVID outbreak[1]. 11 workers caught the virus. If the most remote human settlement on Earth can't protect itself from COVID, what makes you think anyone else can?
This virus will probably be around and mutating forever, like the flu. It's impractical to try to avoid catching the flu virus for the rest of your life, just as with COVID. Sure it's possible, but that's no way to live.
I'm willing to wear a mask indoors, whenever I am around people outside my household, forever. I'm also willing to get booster vaccines every 6 months forever. I'm pretty ok with giving up indoor dining in restaurants as well.
THIS is the defeatist attitude, not the other way around. I am not willing to get lackluster boosters every 6 months - leaky vaccines that likely caused omicron and that have the highest rate of VAERS reports ever. Are people really this misinformed?
As someone who is hard of hearing I can't wait for people to stop wearing masks.
On the other hand, I wish we knew more how this is transmitted. People eating indoors isn't the main vector of transmission.
And masks don't help much either.
And eventually getting a booster every 6 months won't do much either
I agree with all these points. Wearing masks is now normalized so the likelihood of getting flu is also greatly reduced. Also, the disgusting handshaking habit is gone as well. Many wins.
No one will be able to avoid exposure. Measures like social distancing and masks aren't sustainable, and they're not completely effective either. Fortunately the vaccines and other treatments are very effective at preventing deaths.
I had the delta variant a few months back and it was so mild, I first thought it was just allergies. 2nd day, got a little bit of a tingly nose, stuffy, couldn't quite smell, but could still taste fine. 3rd day, same symptoms, 4th day, I was almost better completely. Fast forward about 1.5 months after I had that Delta coronavirus variant, and I got bronchitis from my young daughter. My ears became stuffed up for weeks, I had a bad cough for nearly 20 days before it was out of my system. The Delta variant was nothing to me. Here's more of that "anecdata."
Yes, sorry. The virus that caused my daughter, wife, and I to develop bronchitis in the same way after our daughter was diagnosed at her pediatrician to have gotten some virus that caused the bronchitis.
I've generally people to have been badly calibrated about the level of risk their children faced throughout Covid. But there's some indication that Omicron's reduced severity runs the other direction for children: the focus on the upper respiratory system vs the lungs apparently makes it less dangerous for us and more dangerous for them.
I haven't looked into it in enough detail to be making any categorical recommendation to parents, but it's worth pointing out that this is one case where omicron is not cause for optimism.
Don't know about the OP, but in my state currently, close to 100% of the cases are omicron based on the samples they've sequenced. If I get covid next week, odds are it'll be the omicron variant.
You can make a fairly accurate guess based on estimated infection date. CDC data shows that the Omicron variant has caused the majority of cases for the past 2 weeks.
Ok great and all but the bigger problem is now the kids are home for a week - mild symptoms or not. You can’t send your COVID positive kids to daycare no matter how great they feel. The real tragedy here is the toll this takes on parents who otherwise could work full time.
Even if they never contract COVID, you still have to worry and plan around the unknowable - can I take that meeting two weeks from now? I may have to be home quarantining with my kids. And since by definition you don’t know when or if that will happen, you have no way to quell that anxiety. It just exists as constant background noise you never had before. It’s debilitating.
I sincerely hope they dodge long COVID and related consequences like increased risk of childhood diabetes.
I also hope the collective we makes progress on understanding the nature of long COVID and can find a strategy for mitigating its consequences. Anecdotal accounts of the bewildering and depressing range of affects it is having on some people (last estimate I saw, 30% of cases, but that's pre-omicron AFAIK) make me very much wish to avoid omicron, and keep my kids free of it if possible (very unlikely given our collective decision in the US that it is now "endemic.")
One issue with long covid investigation is that it's often poorly defined. A person with anxiety three months after a covid case might be said to have long covid. It's worth figuring out what portion of the population has anxiety, covid infection or not.
> There's a lot of reason to be optimistic about omicron.
You're making it sound like contracting covid is a one-and-done thing.
Yet, it isn't. Far from it. People already caught it multiple times, from multiple strains, some with deadly consequences.
Furthermore, thus non-chalant approach to covid actually contributes to it's spread and consequently increases chances that an unmanageable strain pops up. I mean, since the initial epidemic at Wuhan, we already saw the inception of at least two new strains which were deadlier and more contagious.
I had the exact same thing happen with my three kids (ages 11, 8, and 2). My wife and I had it a little worse, flu like symptoms for 3 days followed by cough and stuffiness. I would say that we are fortunate to have gotten omicron which has mild symptoms, and this also seems like a situation where you can run, but you can’t hide from this particular variant.
> There's a lot of reason to be optimistic about omicron.
There's reason to be optimistic about Omicron, but one of the things that irks me is people getting ahead of themselves with that optimism (e.g. get taking preliminary reports that it could be milder as "it is milder so we don't have do anything anymore.").
This is the same experience I’ve had people describe to me for the other variants. COVID is mostly dangerous to those with other issues. If you’re healthy and have a strong immune system then you likely won’t have severe symptoms
The parent comment kind of came off as "why are you worrying and not more optimistic, my kids are fine" which seems like a dismissive way to respond to someone's worries about their own kids.
When someone shares their feelings it doesn't mean they want you to feel like they do.
The original comment was expressing frustration with a situation that feels like everyone's moving on without them. As a person in the same situation I didn't get the sense it was trying to scare me at all, and find myself similarly frustrated.
I guess I’ve just seen too many people to then use those feelings to encourage people getting fired from the jobs because they are only putting themselves at risk and not getting vaccinated.
I’d encourage you to move on though. I can’t see the good in worrying about it. To each their own I guess.
Singapore as well as Gibraltar are nearly 100% vaccinated, but are still seeing huge covid outbreaks.
The best option is early treatment by stocking up on one out of several early treatments that exist and locating a hospital that will give monoclonal antibodies in case your kid gets Delta. Learn more about early treatment options and the science around them here [1]
If you have omicron it is mild, so I indicated early treatment options for other variants as they are still around and have effective early treatments. I would personally still get early treatment regardless of variant.
You'll drive yourself crazy focusing on every minor risk for children. COVID risk for unvaxed kids is the same as fully vaxed 40 years and much lower than fully vaxed seniors.
If you want to do some productive worrying, figure out how to reduce your child's risk of dying in a car crash. That's much more of a risk.
>Moderna was supposed to close out a trial in late November but instead expanded it to hundreds of new participants. Why? Unclear.
If I had to guess it is probably because you need a large group to prove its effective since so few children get seriously ill. Child mortality is under 0.0002%. You need a huge control group to get any sense of whether the vaccine works at preventing deaths.
> Children are Infrequently Identified as the Index Case of Household SARS-CoV-2 Clusters
> In analysis of the cluster index cases ... only 3.8% were identified as having a pediatric index case.
> These pediatric cases only caused 4.0% of all secondary cases, compared with the 97.8% of secondary cases that occurred when an adult was identified as the index case in the cluster.
> Clusters where the asymptomatic/symptomatic status of the contact cases was not described were excluded from the analysis. Even with this broader definition, 18.5% children were identified as the index case in the household clusters.
The GP explicitly says he is concerned for his child, and that's the only thing under discussion in this thread. In that context, it's worth pointing out that RSV is more dangerous to help people think about how they process this current risk.
It has been frustrating to see how these two non-mutually exclusive points have been used to debate each other. We talk around each other and can't have a logical conversation.
Omicron is so contagious that its going to burn through regardless of moderate mitigation techniques. NYC went from 1 case to 40,000 in a month. Even if you lock down for 3 months to get back to 0. We'd be back to 40,000 the second we reopened.
Delay isn't worth anything unless hospitals are so bad people will die from preventable deaths.
Some people have adventures and others have “in-ventures”. You are ok with holing up in your abode for years of your life to avoid a mild risk (assuming you are under 70 years old and reasonably healthy). Others are not willing to live this way and would like the freedom to make that choice. Some people, by the way, have less choice, like the people that deliver your food and merchandise to the cave you call home or the people that treat your non-covid (of course) injuries and ailments.
Just because you didn't get it yet doesn't mean you can avoid it forever. Expecting permanent unceasing vigilance by everyone is absurd and unrealistic. The virus will never go away. Do you really think young people should cancel all parties forever?
I don't have numbers handy, but I would suspect that at least 10x more Americans caught Covid at work as out partying. If only because people spend more time at work.
>Work and school are those special places where "COVID doesn't spread", according to the powers that be.
Who are those "powers that be"? According to OSHA[0] and CMS[2], workplaces (general workplaces and healthcare settings that accept Medicare and Medicaid funding, respectively) have grave risks of COVID transmission.
In fact, they feel so strongly about it that they've taken it to the US Supreme Court[1].
The other members of the household are already vaccinated for COVID-19 if they want to be. The vaccines are still highly effective at preventing deaths.
RSV isn't really safe for adults either. But we accept the risk.
So effective, you go from 98.999% recoverable to 99.998% recoverable. Amazing. So glad we shut down everything and destroyed countless lives for less than 1% of gain.
And as TFA says, the rest of society is “vaxxed and done”. So why are we harming children by closing schools to “protect” people who are going out to bars and restaurants?
But what it got to do with vaccination? Children are going to still spread it whether they are vaccinated or not. There are some claims about vaccination reducing the load and therefore reducing infection of other people but I find it a very hard to control type of research and seeing so many vaccinated getting corona I don't think it is so significant in protecting other people and preventing spread. Maybe just a little bit, but how do you measure how much is the right amount in order to make kids getting the vaccination more beneficial overall than not?
And we aren’t shutting society down because of the risk of C19 to small children either. The risk to children is part of that, but the risk to the adults who care for them is another reason. Additionally, staffing levels are impacted because the adults who have it.
Also, generically, when we have a super spreadable disease, we want to minimize transmission. This is done as a precaution against mutation (the more infections mean more mutations!) and because we don’t have a good idea what the long term effects are.
If you only look at the daycare closures in isolation, you’re not doing the calculus for the system. If there is one thing we’re learning during Covid, it’s how interconnected we all are.
Finally, is the acceptance of RSV a result of a good public health decision? Or have we, as a society, just massively underindexed on ignoring public health?
"Also, generically, when we have a super spreadable disease, we want to minimize transmission."
There is a contradiction in there. Minimizing transmission of super spreadable disease is extremely hard, precisely because it is super spreadable; in this case, just by breathing in the same space. It could be done with very harsh measures - see the Zero Covid strategy in China - but after two years of pandemics, people are tired.
"as a precaution against mutation (the more infections mean more mutations!)"
True, but there are 8 billion people out there and a majority of them aren't living in countries that successfully minimized transmissions of covid. Further mutations will likely come anyway, as the global viral load is probably in trillions of viral particles daily. At that point, it is a question of tradeoff.
At this point, Omicron is looking like its going to vaccinate a large portion of the population, especially the more folks resistant to vaccination. My hope is that Omicron is the real first step to herd immunity.
No, it'll live and mutate in deer, rodents cats etc. Won't see herd immunity ever. Even this 'natural' vaccine won't distribute fast enough to outrun the pace of its mutations.
The more varieties of coronavirii that we encounter, the more our immune system will build a broad-spectrum response to that "class" of virus. To be clear, I am not saying that the coronavirus is going to disappear. I'm saying that it will become closer to a common cold over time.
> staffing levels are impacted because the adults who have it.
Specifically, staffing levels are impacted by the policy of people who have tested positive but are not sick.
>>> "The crisis from the Omicron peak is not generated by serious COVID illness in regions with highly vaxxed populations," Noble wrote in an email to SFGATE. "The crisis we are suffering in the Bay Area is largely driven by disruptive COVID policies that encourage asymptomatic testing and subsequent quarantines.
If you wanted to effectively reduce spread and mutations you'd have to vaccinate every mouse, dog, and white-tailed deer - Omicron is so infectious that there is no mitigation only applied to humans that could be effective.
The point of the remaining ones is to not send people to hospital and spread it out some until we get antivirals.
RSV is the worst virus I've had in a decade, probably since I had shingles in my twenties. My daughter brought it home from daycare and both my partner and I had a low-grade fever for 2 weeks, and a bad dry cough for another 2 weeks after that that would wake us up multiple times a night. Daughter bounced back in about half the time. By contrast, Covid hit us all recently and we were all 100% within the week. Your mileage may vary.
My little girl was eligible for the RSV vaccine, as she was immunocompromised. It sucks watching/hearing our friend's kids being hospitalised by it, knowing there's a vaccine for it, but it's so expensive ($3000-$6000 /yr /child), unless covered by insurance (if eligible), that it's out of reach for most families.
Sorry, it was naive of me to call it a vaccine, it’s just what it was referred to, or RSV shot. There are vaccines for RSV in the works though, hopefully give people better access to preventive medicine
How is it so hard for you people to understand that we shut down society because the health system is stressed at unforeseen levels? I mean just ask your fellow emergency workers how their life is right now.
The major hospitals in my (Top 10 American) metro area are currently doing patient "diversion." In practice, this means that they are not accepting most trauma patients, elective surgeries like cancer removals are being delayed, and patient care for non-Covid conditions is being impacted. This is primarily due to the hospitals being at/over capacity. These hospitals are not admitting hypochondriacs, the folks taking up the beds are sick and need to be hospitalized.
Uh, it factually is a coronavirus, of which several are already endemic "colds," and within another year or two (or so) we are looking at this also becoming "just another cold." This is the meaning of currently talking about the virus becoming endemic. It's here to stay like our other colds that should be added, were also deadly when they first started.
Uhh it factually causes hospital and ICU intervention in 15% of the cases. Maybe with Omicron we get a bit luckier but that’s just chance and not predictable evolution.
It’s not just a cold. You’re quite obviously not a virologist or epidemiologist so stop acting smarter than you are about this topic and listen to experts who actually know their field.
For some reason anything about Covid attracts all the HN cranks. Or just reminds me that HN is full of cranks. The kind of crowd that would get upset at calling Jan 6 an insurrection.
The cranks are the people in this very thread who are saying they are okay with permanent masks and boosters. The fact is, the vaccines are here, and they work. People need to stop being antivax and asking everyone around them to lock down just because they can't understand that it's time to move on and stop doubting just how effective the vaccines really are because of a 0.0001% chance they might maybe not work for them very well.
What we are seeing right now is the same "pro vaxxers, pro science" types revealing their true face by not being willing to accept that the vaccine works and that the science is clear; omicron is mild, hospitalizations are fine, and that the virus is essentially harmless for kids. They are the equivalent of tinfoil wearers that "wear them just in case" aka cranks.
You broke the site guidelines egregiously with this post, and have been repeatedly posting other flamewar comments too. We've had to ask you many times not to do that. I had to ask you about this fairly recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29190706.
If you keep it up, we're going to have to ban you. I don't want to do that so, regardless of how right you are or how strongly you feel, would you please stop?
"Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community" (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), regardless of how much smarter or better you consider yourself. It's an extremely low-quality kind of comment, and evokes worse from others.
Not only that, but such generalizations are inevitably bogus, because people make them based on the data points they remember, and remember the ones they hate the most.
Edit: please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments generally. You've been doing that repeatedly lately, and it's not cool. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29758975 was particularly egregious—you can't do that on this site, regardless of how right you are or feel you are.
Please don't cross into personal attack or break the site guidelines, no matter how bad another comment is or you feel it is. It only makes everything worse.
It's not "asymptomatic hypochondriacs". "Hospitalized with no symptoms" mean they're in the hospital for other reasons and just happened to test positive.
Although, even vaccinated people hospitalized "for covid" at the moment are mostly there for things like dehydration, similar to the flu.
Just ask my close emergency worker friends and family? They're mostly unwilling to get vaccinated, understand this more than yourself, and they think it's endemic and pointless to get the vaccine. They usually bring up the fact they all have MRSA in their noses and on all their surfaces all day long and they'll get over it. They've all had COVID. Immunocompromised people will continue to die from pnuemonia, flus, etc regardless of impositions from society.
> Just ask my close emergency worker friends and family? They're mostly unwilling to get vaccinated ...
What? My uncle (father's real brother) is a doctor and he is fully vaccinated and boosted. Two other cousins are doctors are vaccinated and boosted. My wife's side of family has several in nursing and administration staff at hospitals, all of them are boosted. Most of the hospitals these folks mentioned above are associated with have fully vaccinated staff.
There is a large variance in vaccination rates among different types of healthcare workers. Rates are high among physicians but lower among nurses and aides.
I am with you on all of this, with one small, slightly hopeful note. My under-5 is enrolled in the Pfizer study, and they are not starting over from scratch. The existing cohort is going to receive a third dose at >2 months past their last dose (starting at the end of this month, probably), and then immunogenicity will be reassessed. I am incredibly frustrated that pfizer and the fda have been so slow to roll the vaccine out to under-5s, but at least they don’t need to re-do recruitment and phase 1, etc.
We give other vaccines to children that young [0]. As far as I know, there are really only two differences vs adult vaccines.
Regulatory - The FDA et al. have a higher standard for what they'll approve in young children, given their developmental stages and substantial post-vaccine expected lifespan.
Biological - Early childhood immune systems work differently than adults', in that they have substantially boosted innate/naive defenses, but much poorer adaptive defenses. Consequently, whether and at what dosage a vaccine will be effective changes.
(Welcome corrections if the above summary is inaccurate)
> Shouldn’t we try very hard to avoid the possibility of screwing up a growing child’s body?
That's why we have the vaccine trials.
They're the very last step in testing a vaccine. And there really is no other option: if the end result is going to a vaccine given to small children at some point you're going to have to give it to some small children and see what happens. The only way around it is to not vaccinate children at all... which doesn't seem great from an ethical standpoint given the number of lives that have been saved by vaccines.
It’s certainly worth evaluating, but if you read the study it says that the risk is 10-20x lower in getting the vaccine vs in getting COVID itself. Assuming you live in a world where COVID is rampant (we do), it sounds like the vaccines are a good call.
From the study "Subgroup analyses by age showed the increased risk of myocarditis associated with the two mRNA vaccines was present only in those younger than 40."
It seems reckless to me to enroll a kid in a vaccine trial where the FDA decided to skip the science advisory panel for childhood vaccines [1] because they last time denied the request. The way this is handled is unscientific, and I share the parents concern that this has no balance of risk vs reward.
The FDA skipping essential vaccine approval procedures in childhood vaccines, given fewer kids died of covid in 2020 than from the flu the year before, is one of the best signs that we are in a mass formation [2].
I understand that because there is only a liability shield for vaccines given to children pharma wants it for business reasons, but the FDA science advisory panel said risk vs reward does not scientifically justify childhood covid vaxx.
I'm referring to the billions of people who now live without fear of polio, and have for several generations.
How many children are you referring to?
The 100,000 doses of Cutter-manufactured Salk vaccine in 1955 with insufficiently inactivated, producing ~300 cases of paralytic polio, and causing the NIH & PHS to create and apply minimum manufacturing standards?
I think we're balancing the risks of screwing up kids with vaccines that have shown themself to be broadly safe in other humans with the risks of screwing them up by closing schools on and off, having them develop phobias of germs or humans, have learning delays, etc. It's not like the choice is "live and teach a certain way and vaccinate or not".
Check out the research on vaccine lipid nano particles accumulating in ovaries and impacting menstruation, menopause, etc. These aren’t remote or isolated reports.
Then, consider that women are born with all the eggs they will ever have.
Now tell me it is a good idea to roll the dice and give that vax to a 5 year old girl and risk harming her reproductive future to avoid what will essentially be a cold to her if she contracts.
It’s interesting to read your viewpoint because I can see your logic but happen to weigh the risks differently. I am personally more concerned about the long-term risk of disease than the risk of vaccination. As a parent with children I wish could be vaccinated earlier, I have actually wondered if (a) I should have volunteered them for the trials and (b) if as a society we would be willing to start trials for children sooner in the future.
Pharma is a business. Children are just another demographic for them to expand into. In the aggregate, they have shown that they care very little about the long term negative effects of any drug.
Maybe that is OK when we’re testing MS drugs or on people with shortened life spans, but children need to be protected. They are stuck with any damage that is done for the long, long term.
No, the kids in this study were not specifically recruited from high-risk groups.
There are trials for all sorts of drugs for all ages. Generally they’ll “walk down” the age spectrum, ie start with adults, then teens, then younger kids. Pfizer is running a vaccine study for <6-month olds, too. Covid is less of a risk for little kids, but it’s not zero risk, and I’d rather my kids not be immunologically naïve when they encounter it.
Very young kids won't be totally naive since some of their immune system comes from their mothers. (although the mom might need active antibodies for that)
Normally a vaccine trial lasts for 5+ years, and many vaccines do not survive the trial due to adverse effects.
You can not know longer-term effects before the 5 year trial has concluded, so approving after a short trial and then inevitably mandating is one of the most reckless large-scale experiments ever done.
The vaccine trials normally last that long because it's usually much harder to get so many deaths in the control group. It's not done with the intent to show safety.
Vaccine trials have historically been 5+ years because of the way the phases are scheduled and timed, not because long term effects present or are tracked for 5+ years.
They are breaking vaccine approval protocol that often discover sever side-effects that lead to the vaccines not being approved.
In addition to cutting down approval steps due to a shortened time frame as well as using a vaccine protocol to EUA a gene therapy based vaxx tech, they are also skipping the childhood science advisory panel after they said no the first time [1].
Given that safety has been proven in 6mo to <5yo, and the dose for the 3yo and 4yo is in question (hence testing 3rd dose), I see no reason why doses one and two cannot proceed in these groups. Surely some exposure to the virus is better than none. At least give parents the option. My 3.7yo is the same weight as a median 5yo. My wife and I have had two doses of Pfizer and one Moderna booster. We would get my daughter vaccinated with one of those tomorrow if we were able to.
I very much agree with this. The FDA seems to have decided that there is zero urgency with regards to under-5s and that they will continue to be belatedly reactive like they have for every other question during the pandemic.
Have you talked to a pediatrician about off-label vaccination? My understanding is that there are various barriers prohibiting this; this op-ed says there is a CDC vaccine provider agreement which forbids the practice - https://www.thehastingscenter.org/with-pediatric-hospitaliza.... But I have no idea how often it's actually happening.
The major downsides are that you'd be missing out on information about side effects from vaccination, and on possible clinical-trial data that might show a different, better, dosage in your kid's age range.
That being said, after hearing about 10- and 11-year-olds pretending to be 12 so that they could get vaccinated I did have a moment where I wondered if she could pass for 5.
Good point re. immune response not simply being a function of mass. However, the doses in the <5yo trial were lower. So let's roll with them for now and boost later. Sadly @el_benhameen may be correct in the FDA's complacency.
>. My under-5 is enrolled in the Pfizer study, and they are not starting over from scratch.
can someone please explain to me the thought process of enrolling your child in an experimental medical trial for a medicine they probably don't even need?
I reviewed the available data on both the vaccine and the disease and decided that given my children’s medical history and my family’s medical circumstances, the risk/benefit calculus was firmly on the side of vaccination.
They are in the phase 3 cohort. Phase 1 assesses safety. And while children are not just small adults, the successful and safe rollout in the adult population added to the data.
Where did you obtain a peer reviewed study of the phase 1 safety assessment? I legitimately would like to read it, as someone else with an under 5 child.
>I am incredibly frustrated that pfizer and the fda have been so slow to roll the vaccine out to under-5s
Why? Is there any data to suggest that children are at risk of severe illness or complications? Isn't it a fact that children do not appreciably spread covid?
My whole family had covid last February including my three young children including one under 1. The children had the mildest symptoms. If you are worried about your children getting covid then I hope you never let near a car as they are much more likely to die in a car crash than covid.
If you want to continue locking your self up fine, I don't care. Just don't try to force others to do the same.
How does not wanting a child to get an infectious disease get extrapolated to never going near a car? They are not comparable at all.
Also OP is not asking you to stay home. They are merely concerned about minimizing harm to their child (as parents do) and hoping the <5 y.o. vax approval comes sooner than later.
You spread it too. Assuming we're both vaccinated, we both spread it at an equal rate.
I accept the risk of sharing air with you. If you don't, in my opinion, it's your responsibility to avoid contacts with me.
That's not relevant. The original point was: "If you want to continue locking your self up fine, I don't care. Just don't try to force others to do the same."
That's a terrible response because regardless of your vaccination status, you still have an impact. Just saying "I make my choices, you make yours" is a complete misunderstanding of the entire viral nature of this.
Welcome to living in a society, Some how we flipped the script on what freedom means.
If you do not accept the risk of coming in contact with things like the Common Cold, Flu, and now COVID, then you need to structure your life to be hermit, not have society bow to your fears
There are plenty of immunocompromised people of working age for whom vaccines simply do not work, and who cannot work from home due to the nature of their work. These people can't isolate, even if they're worried.
Ignoring the abhorrent – yet apparently acceptable to you – idea that these people should be left to die (due to what I can only guess is some sort of naive ideation of a "survival of the fittest" concept), these people dying and being hospitalized will certainly have a negative effect on the health system and economy. While their lives may not be of interest to you, surely you can appreciate the risk of a fragile economy.
>There are plenty of immunocompromised people of working age for whom vaccines simply do not work, and who cannot work from home due to the nature of their work. These people can't isolate, even if they're worried.
Why were we willing to let these people die in 2019 and earlier? I don't remember being told to go out of my way to protect immunocompromised people from the flu, colds, and other viruses. Were we just a more savage society back then?
We both know the answer is no. It's unfortunate that immunocompromised people are vulnerable but it's not something we can fully control in society. It's up to them and their close relatives to be as careful as they can as society cannot function in isolation forever.
> Why were we willing to let these people die in 2019 and earlier?
This is implying that the situation pre-2020 was the same as it was during the pandemic. Is the argument really "it's just the flu"?
> It's unfortunate that immunocompromised people are vulnerable but it's not something we can fully control in society.
Indeed, it's not something we can fully control, hence we do our best.
Ultimately, my comment was in response to the idea that people who are worried should simply isolate. I gave an example of why that's fallacious. You can argue all you want about how victims are inevitable, how covid is now endemic, etc., but then say it as it is: "I don't care for the lives of the vulnerable". That would be a more factual and sincere statement.
You stop people from getting elective surgeries and seriously disrupt society by being out and about eating indoors or not taking proper precautions. This isn't hard to understand. Hospitals are buckling under the weight of cases. Even if you personally recover from it, some do not or the impact of your decisions is far beyond what you personally feel.
It's an absurd point and highlights the ignorance around the entire problem. Your personal choices have consequences far outside of whether you personally suffer or end up hospitalized.
The panic over the Covid pandemic has been a great leap forward in this transformation of Western societies away from a representative republic or democracy.
In the technocracy we are transforming into those that happen to occupy the territory are under the care, custody, and control of the administrative state and then there are those who are noncompliant. So from that viewpoint it is perfectly logical to deny the things the administrative state provide to the noncompliant, because in the technocratic administrative state the people are granted privileges instead of the state deriving its representative power from the people. Read more here [1].
Are you saying that until young kids can get vaccinated, it is not safe enough to remove shutdown protocols for preschools?
Parent of 2 very young kids here btw - it's been brutal, I feel your pain. Frankly, our kids get enough other diseases from nursery that a months-long scratchy cough doesn't sound too terrifying.
The challenge is the lack of data on long-term effects of COVID. Preliminary studies have linked it to cognitive declines [1], diabetes [2], and chronic fatigue [3]. And while death from COVID in a preschooler is about a 1-in-100,000 occurrence, long COVID and other chronic outcomes seem to be much more common. I've heard figures of about 5% or 1 in 20.
Few parents would willingly sign their preschooler (or themselves) up for intellectual disabilities, type-1 diabetes, or chronic fatigue syndrome.
Where have you heard those figures from? (I assume you are telling me that 5% of pre-schoolers, in your experience, have had chronic outcomes from Covid).
Yes, I have seen many preliminary studies linking Covid to many different long-term health problems [1]. Personally, and especially as Covid has been around for over 2 years at this point, I strongly prefer to avoid the obvious long-term damage caused to my kids by the disruption of their academic and social development.
I listed sources in my original comment. From the first link, they observed 4.8% of lab-confirmed cases exhibited continuing symptoms, and the average effect on cognitive performance was 0.47 standard deviations (equivalent to about 8 IQ points, or roughly the effect of a stroke). The CDC study has some methodological problems (detailed in nradov & DannyCasolaro's sibling posts), but previous meta-analyses have documented similar effects; they covered only severely-ill patients, but came up with a pooled proportion of 14%. Chronic fatigue is reported as a symptom 6 months following in 46% of cases [2], but again, that study is for adults.
Given the incredible age-based disparity in severity of Covid, I wonder if any of those results (such as they are) are even applicable to our discussion.
The diabetes study you cited appears to be junk science. I'm not claiming that COVID-19 absolutely doesn't cause diabetes, just that we won't know one way or another until larger studies are performed with proper methods.
Also, color me incredulous that we're getting reliable long term data... 2 years after a disease appeared in humans.
We'll get long term data, after a long term has passed.
And yes, there are always going to be >0 people with permanent organ damage. Because disease progression in a human host is a complex system. But what actually matters is the incidence rate at scale.
Or, to put it another way, everyone has a >0 chance of winning the lottery, but does that mean they should invest in lottery tickets?
The CDC study does have methodological problems, but there's also been prior research that suggests similar effects (in more severely ill patients), as well as observing destruction of insulin-creating pancreas cells by COVID19. Here's a meta-analysis of 8 studies on the topic, with similar conclusions, done across China, Italy, and the U.S.:
Just curious, have you seen any studies or evidence on whether omicron has caused the micro-clotting that seems to be the cause of some of these long-term effects? Everyone seems to be saying the effects of omicron are not as bad, but that talk seems to be limited to short-term effects, not the longer-term ones you brought up.
It still targets the ACE2 receptors found throughout different human tissue, and reportedly can bind even more effectively to it. The difference in severity is reportedly because it replicates 70x faster in the bronchus but 10x slower in the lung tissue, leading to more bronchitis and upper respiratory involvement and less pneumonia.
I wouldn't be surprised if there's lower incidence of chronic complications than Delta and earlier variants, though. Long COVID seems to be associated with (but not unique to) more severe cases. If there's pneumonia or ARDS, there's a much easier pathway into the bloodstream than if it infects mucus membrane tissue in the upper airways. It likely can still cause long COVID, but at a lower rate corresponding to its generally lower severity.
Obviously, full studies of long-term effects are lacking, since Omicron has only been out for a month and a half.
Diabetes has been documented as a symptom of cytomegalovirus (mono), mumps, rubella, rotavirus, and enteroviruses (polio and hand-foot-mouth). Fatigue is a symptom of lyme disease and mono.
I don't want my kids to get any of those either, and they were vaccinated for mumps, rubella, rotavirus, and polio by age 1. If I have the choice of being cautious for 3 months until a vaccine is available for COVID, I'll take it.
Most cases of mono are caused by EBV, but CMV primarily presents as mono, and sometimes pneumonia.
EBV/mono is another common childhood illness with lots of nasty potential chronic complications, including lymphoma, other cancers, CFS, and autoimmune diseases like lupus, MS, and rheumatoid arthritis.
Worst illness I’ve ever had. Probably. Knocked me out cold for six weeks, lingering symptoms for months and months. All to play a stupid spin the bottle kissing game.
> Are you saying that until young kids can get vaccinated, it is not safe enough to remove shutdown protocols for preschools?
I have no idea. I'm not an expert. And no experts seem to be talking. Our preschool recently switched from a 14 day shutdown to 7 day plus negative PCR test to re-enter. At least there's that?
> Frankly, our kids get enough other diseases from nursery that a months-long scratchy cough doesn't sound too terrifying.
We'll have to agree to disagree there. My kids have never had anything that's lasted for months, the kid I know with the cough was waking up in the middle of the night coughing most nights. No thank you.
We had RSV do the rounds (twice) where I live, and all of us in our house were quite ill, fatigued, and snotty/coughy for about a month. Our friend's 6 month-old caught it and ended up in hospital.
Our youngest also had Croup last year, which is pretty scary if you don't know it. It shows up as a horrible, barking cough, and can make it look like your baby is suddenly struggling to breathe. We panicked and called an ambulance. The little one was just fine, but had the horrible cough (which is much worse at night) for a while.
Once our pre-school care re-opened (it was shut for many months after March 2020) and the regular diseases started circulation again, it felt like we were ill for several months, albeit with different diseases. We'd send our kids in on Monday, and wait to see what we'd have for the weekend...
I'm not saying this to complain - as I see it, this is the reality of life with the little snot-nosed monsters.
I am in the same boat as you. It is crazy to me that we accepted the risks of every other RSV, influenza, corona, rhino, rota, noro, and whatever other bug going around daycare every week prior to Mar 2020, and still do, but if a COVID 19 is detected, then the whole thing shuts down.
Every single one of those kids at drop-off and pickup has a runny nose. I am pretty sure we have an informal agreement amongst all the parents that no one gets their kid tested for COVID. It is one thing to do all this song and dance without an available vaccine, but it has been widely available for over a year.
Yep. Sometimes when I air opinions like these, I get the response "but attitudes like that will keep the pandemic and shutdowns going for longer!". It's surprisingly hard to explain that I also don't want my nursery to shutdown if someone merely tests positive for Covid. Personally, I've decided to re-brand "asymptomatic" as "not ill".
100% of people can get these vaccines, and 100% of people will still get and spread Coronaviruses. Full stop. It's getting really old hearing that vaccines will stop anything when the majority of people spreading this shit RIGHT NOW, are vaccinated people. The people I've been seeing the sickest for a year now when they do get sick, are vaccinated. The 3-4 people I know recently who were very sick with COVID for 10 or more days with breathing troubles, were VACCINATED. The shit is nonsense anymore.
Where I live (Wales), total ICU usage right now is 77%. The absolute numbers are very small. If you want to make an argument that people should not add an un-necessary burden on the health services, then why restrict the discussion to Covid?
I never claimed that vaccinated people are getting sicker than a comparison to non-vaccinated people. I plainly said that the "sickest people I know lately" are all vaccinated. You took it and spun it into apparently what you wanted to take from it. You have taken what I said and what I meant out of context.
This sounds like a bad policy on the nursery's part. We have a soft lockdown when somebody has a case: basically, the group who had a positive test is secluded from the other groups and get daily tests.
We know about "soft lockdowns" too (in fact, it's now just standard practice around here). It's why our kids get less age-appropriate care - for example, they can't mix with the groups who share the same sleeping pattern as they do, and are forced to stick to whatever their "bubble" is doing. To me, this is incredibly developmentally inappropriate.
What's new is deliberately destroying a generation's future potential, for a disease that barely affects them. What's also new is that the repercussions of our collective response to this disease will be felt long after Covid fades to another endemic sniffle.
There's research coming out that shows the vaccines are causing heart inflammation (1) in younger people, so I'd show some caution in getting kids vaccinated.
I'm not sure how it compares to the effects of covid itself, just something to think about / read up on to make an informed decision.
flagged. the virus itself is much more dangerous in this regard, it's right in the study:
> We estimated extra myocarditis events to be between 1 and 10 per million persons in the month following vaccination, which was substantially lower than the 40 extra events per million persons observed following SARS-CoV-2 infection.
> Whilst myocarditis can be life-threatening, most vaccine-associated myocarditis events have been mild and self-limiting. The risk observed here is small and confined to the 7-day period following vaccination, whereas the lifetime risk of morbidity and mortality following SARS-CoV-2 infection is substantial.
"Subgroup analyses by age showed that the increased risk of events associated with the two mRNA vaccines was present only in those aged under 40 years."
A young child faces far more risk of dying in a car crash on the way to pre-school or Chuck-E-Cheese than they do of covid, but I'll wager you didn't give up driving your kid around. Your child could get struck by lightning, or get bitten by a rabid racoon, but (hopefully) you don't dwell on the risks and live your life paralyzed in fear by them (yes, these risks are the same order of magnitude of a child dying from COVID). The same goes for having your infant or young child injected with experimental vaccines, whose long-term effects are just as unknown and unknowable as COVID.
Like you’re free to worry about it, you’re free to be as safety minded as you want, you’re free to treat covid like the Black Death for all I care.
Am I free to just not worry about it anymore than I would the flu? (Which is very little, unless I’m going on a trip in like a week then I’m like I ain’t going out for anything)
I will pretend like covid is just a common cold until the fearful ask me to do some silly exercise like put my mask on at target so that their minds can be put at ease.
To be fair, the long term of effects of the vaccines are still very unclear. For adults and children. There are concerning reports regarding serious complications that tend to not get talked about very much in the media
I chose to vaccinate myself. I don’t have kids, but I’m not sure it would be a given that I would vaccinate them yet. I think I would want to have a better understanding of the risks. Sorry you’re in that position, I’m sure it’s stressful.
After listening to Dr. Robert Malone, I’m beginning to wonder if there aren’t a non-trivial number of physicians against vaccinating kids, who are getting censored. He is adamantly against it. Problem is we can’t even have conversations about it in social media without folks getting censored.
According to [1] Mr Malone said "mRNA vaccine technology I created" which is not true as far as I can find tell. He did work on mRNA technology decades ago but didn't invent mRNA vaccines. He also states that "The first is that a viral gene will be injected into your children's cells. This gene forces your child’s body to make toxic spike proteins.". What does that even mean, a "viral gene"? Toxic spike proteins? Sounds like fear mongering to me given how it's worded.
Furthermore he states that "These proteins *often* cause permanent damage in children’s critical organs, including -Their brain and nervous system -Their heart and blood vessels, including blood clots -Their reproductive system, and -This vaccine can trigger fundamental changes to their immune system" There is absolutely no data supporting any of this as far as I can find.
The wiki link you posted is the only version mentioning his name prominently. Neither before (https://web.archive.org/web/20210530162316/https://en.wikipe...) nor after. So I wouldn't call it "scrubbing". It'd be like me putting my name in there and calling it scrubbing when the next person removes it.
I trust consensus I guess but I'm not an expert in any of this at all so my ability to verify anything is quite limited. I might have made a mistake here but I'm still not convinced he's trustworthy.
I didn't call it scrubbing. I made a vague comment about memory holing him but that was a reference to the Twitter ban, Wikipedia removal, etc. in general.
A scientist isn't trustworthy or not, their work speaks for itself. He invented the original mRNA platform. He was a key scientist in the first mRNA vaccine experiments.
He's making statements about the severity and frequency of side effects in children that I just can't find any proof for. That disqualifies him in my opinion until I can find data supporting his claims.
Until then, for me, he's in the same corner as others hanging out with right-wing extremists [1] spreading misinformation.
Not sure what you mean by propaganda hit piece but you seem to be having some kind of beef with The Atlantic. I can easily verify what's written in there. He was on Tucker Carlson (1) and Steve Bannon (2), it's not easy to find him talking to non right wing extremists. That's all I said and all I referenced the article for.
If you're referring to the statements about child vaccine side effects, I mentioned those in my earlier comment.
The terminology 'viral gene' is not a made up fear mongering term... It's a plainly descriptive term. It is an encoding for a protein of a virus, in this case the modified c19 spike protein.
Also with regards to fundamental changes to the immune system - this is also true.
Original antigenic sin, also known as antigenic imprinting or the Hoskins effect,[1] refers to the propensity of the body's immune system to preferentially utilize immunological memory based on a previous infection when a second slightly different version of that foreign pathogen (e.g. a virus or bacterium) is encountered. This leaves the immune system "trapped" by the first response it has made to each antigen, and unable to mount potentially more effective responses during subsequent infections
"""
> Also with regards to fundamental changes to the immune system - this is also true.
As far as I understand (from the wikipedia article) the Hoskins effect (also) applies if you simply got infected once. It's not something specific to the vaccine.
Claiming the "vaccine causes a fundamental change" is a bit misleading. The vaccine OR infective exposure have the described effect, which is normal! And altering the immune system to prepare it for future infections is the point of any vaccine, isn't it?
Now, one might say that it's not good to vaccinate everyone so that there remains a population that can get freshly infected with new variants and build up immunity fresh. But they'd then be altering their immune system by the response to that as well, if they don't die from the infection.
Respectfully, Dr. Malone's entire platform is contrarianism. He is opportunistically acting on his own behalf in my belief.
Recently, he published an article highlighting a noted increase in insurance claims (death and disability) in Indiana. He then intentionally implied a link and placed blame on the vaccine.
However, he took no care whatsoever to do any thoughtful analysis of the data before presenting the conclusions he did. He did not even attempt to perform a comparative analysis between Indiana and other states based on vaccination rates. This is low-hanging-fruit simplicity that could have either disproven his claim or supported it - if he cared to. He did not.
This is not the type of information I expect to see come from someone supposedly claiming to be on the right side of science here.
And yet it remains heavily influential, reaching millions of people via Twitter, Joe Rogan, and other mediums, reducing critical analysis to trivial opinion masking as expertise.
> “And what we saw just in third quarter, we’re seeing it continue into fourth quarter, is that death rates are up 40% over what they were pre-pandemic,” he said.
> and that’s it’s not elderly people who are dying, but “primarily working-age people 18 to 64”
> Most of the claims for deaths being filed are not classified as COVID-19 deaths, Davison said.
> “Just to give you an idea of how bad that is, a three-sigma or a one-in-200-year catastrophe would be 10% increase over pre-pandemic,” he said. “So 40% is just unheard of.”
TLDR: he got spurned early on in his career, is bitter about it, and seems to be willing to say just about anything as long as someone will give him some modicum of fame.
I also don't want anyone in my family to get COVID, vaccinated or not. But my wishes are irrelevant when our suburb's school district got 600+ cases 4 days. We will all get exposed in a few weeks unless we live like hermits. And if we do, we will get exposed within a few weeks of coming out of bubblewrap. New vaccines are not going to be approved in time to protect anyone.
So instead of agonizing about the inevitable, we just live our lives and focus on all the other ways we can improve our health and safety. We had months long scratchy cough from swine flu before, didn't stop traveling because of that, will not stop now.
I understand this sentiment but what is it that you actually want? Reality gets canceled forever because your kids might get a scratchy throat for a few months?
So we punish all of society to lower the probability of kids getting a disease which may make them uncomfortable for a while but may do basically nothing to them? Sorry but I'm willing to call that an acceptable risk.
Just fyi a cough persisting for a few weeks after an initial infection is nothing new at all (COVID or otherwise). I have suffered a few weeks of persistent cough after a viral/bacterial respiratory infection pre-pandemic and unfortunately am suffering right now with an annoying cough. But it will go away in a couple of weeks.
My kid's in day care. He's gotten a dozen diseases since starting. For all we know one was covid. With all this prevention none of these other diseases were stopped so why would anyone think covid could be stopped? It clearly can't.
The interventions deployed against COVID had indeed stopped a notable disease - influenza. It is noteworthy that these interventions were designed to fight the flu, apparently because that was the public health playbook at hand. But I agree it is remarkable how interventions which could crush the flu don't seem to bother any number of common cold viruses much at all.
But isn't that normal at times for a cold season with kids?
There are lots of really nasty diseases children can get, where safe vaccinations exist. But most data so far told me with covid I have to worry much more about the social developement of my kids. That was really restricted and that is not good.
Not this cough. One of my children has this and he sounds more like his 86 year old uncle than a normal child, and it's been going on for ever, without much in terms of improvement. I really pity him. But I'm coughing just as bad...
I can't speak for my son but for me the trigger seems to be some damage at the back of my throat from the crazy bouts of coughing when I had COVID and now any kind of irritation there will set me off. Very frustrating, especially when you are chairing long meetings.
We've all recovered from COVID (2nd bout for me :(, apparently both a prior round and vaccine were not enough to stave it off completely but it was only a small fraction as bad as the first one).
If they are not immune compromised you have nothing to worry about. IMO - you should be more worried about the physiological impacts of your changes in behavior around then in regard to your fear… it will have probably longer lasting effects on them.
As someone with a kid in daycare, stay close to the science. Young children are at low risk, the primary danger of them getting it is spreading it through the community. My daycare takes reasonable precautions and does contact tracing when a case appears, and follows CDC and professional medical guidelines, and until Omicron they kept Covid out completely. There’s been more cases at the center in the last two weeks than the entire year before that. All I can do is stay current on my vaccines and wear a mask where appropriate.
Anyway, keep doing your best. There are those of us who still have empathy for you, even if many want to bully you as some sort of coward for being cautious around a novel virus that’s killed 1 million Americans and disabled countless others.
> We're still very unclear on the long-term effects of COVID, after all.
And even less so the vaccines.
When your kids catch COVID they will have mild symptoms for a day or two and bounce back much faster than you or I. And yes it's a "when", not an "if". Vaccinating them against this virus is lunacy. There have been no long term studies on these shots.
I wasn't aware that the under 5 trial had failed, we are currently deciding if we will give it to our 6 year old. From a biologial/science perspective can someone here explain why might the vaccine work in a 5 year old and not in a 3/4 year old?
The daycare / preschool shutdowns, though, are simply because others haven't yet adopted the "vaxxed and done" attitude.
So I understand that you still need to be cautious, but you can also advocate for daycares and preschools being less hardcore about it.
I'm definitely moving toward being vaxxed and done, but the mom of my (vaxxed) 7 year old (i.e. my ex) is still in the cautious camp. I'm ok with waiting till the end of the surge or the end of the winter to dispense with the masks, but at that point.... yeah this thing needs to end. If you are dumb enough not to get yourself vaccinated and boosted, well, I'm sorry but that's on you.
>Moderna was supposed to close out a trial in late November but instead expanded it to hundreds of new participants. Why? Unclear.
Well if you look at all the European countries that are no longer giving Moderna to males under 30, I think you'll have your answer. Don't wait for CNN to tell you why either. Also, scroll through here https://airtable.com/shrbaT4x8LG8EbvVG/tbl7xKsSUIOPAa7Mx
I'm vaxxed and done (until booster time)... 4 yr old is ASD spectrum, can't really keep him out of school he needs to learn socialization skills, etc... 3yr old is way advanced verbally and starts preschool as soon as we can get him in.
I've kinda given up on worry, because there's really no way it hasn't already come around us. Maybe during allergy season in the fall when we all were sick'ish. Or maybe some fluke it hasn't - but my county has 42% vax rate, so doubt it (Utah).
I just can't mentally focus on it anymore (anxiety kills too), and statistically we're better off than before the boosters.... so in my brain it's over...for us.
We probably should go back to masking up, and have thought about it. Really can't get myself motivated to even decide if it's worth it... I have ADHD and my exec/function motivation is suffering bad lately from the stress.
I think people are literally idiots who aren't vaxxed, and I wouldn't be so cavalier if we weren't...my biggest fears were not so much my kids getting sick but my kids growing up orphaned by Covid. They already lost a grandma (Cancer+lack of decent availability to treatment during covid). If my wife and I passed in our sleep, I can't imagine what would happen to the boys all by themselves until someone checks in on them...
I'm glad that fear is mostly off the table (I mean -- death is always lurking....but not like before).
I sympathize. Our kid is in the next window (5-12) and it has been a grand relief to get him vaccinated but when everyone was excited that they were vaccinated we felt very left behind. We continue to be responsible with our behavior but we also have been relaxing and carefully opening up. You are not forgotten and lots of us still care. Hang on and best of luck!
> Couple that to daycare/preschool shutdowns: if there's a case in the class we've got to keep our kids at home for a week. We both work. We can deal with it, lord knows we've had to do it enough times already, but it's absolutely draining.
At least now people start to realize that they work too much and that schools are not institutions of education any more but rather prisons for children so that their parents can be exploited by the capitalist elite class, having to work only to barely make rent.
Parents should be able to parent their children and the time effort required for that doesn't fly with both parents having to work 40 hours a week. When you have to get up at 0600 to get ready for the day, leave at 0800 for the job, come home at 1800, spend an hour making and eating dinner, you only have four to five hours with your children - and stuff like hobbies (both for parents and children), sex, dealing with adult stuff (insurances, paperwork) hasn't even been included yet.
Right on, and I can’t believe how seldom it’s heard. The current work-life-society bargain is terrible and we should expect terrible results until it’s re-negotiated.
Those in power (and many of the population on HN, I dare bet) have nannies, au-pairs and other forms of easing the load of child raising, so they don't feel the pressures.
Those who bear the full load have no representation in politics, either by socioeconomic class (most representatives are highly privileged) or by ethnic history (non-citizens cannot vote, even if they have permanent residence and pay taxes).
“ We're still very unclear on the long-term effects of COVID, after all.”
Nor do we know the long term effects of the vaccines. What we do know is that children have “statistical immunity” to dying from covid right now. Long term consequences could come from either covid or a vaccine, worry about what you can control. And covid is out of control so stop worrying about it.
Hypothetically in 5 many vaccinated develop Alzheimer... "Oh... It was an emergency there was no time to worry about long term effects of a new vaccine technology"
Until several years pass we don't know. Both vaccine long term effects or Covid
That's a short term effect (i.e. we already know about it), and one that actual covid is much more likely to give you.
Also, the problem with VAERS reports is the people may just have already had it - that's why side effects for medications sometimes list the original condition as a side effect.
In men <40 years old, 2 doses of either of the mRNA vaccines are more likely than SARS-CoV-2 to give you myocarditis. Pfizer is only a little higher, but Moderna is several times higher.
And also, something like 75% of myocarditis resolves completely on its own (and like you mentioned, most myocarditis is caused by viral infection...). Properly risk-weighting all of this is hard, thankfully public health experts have done so and still recommend nearly universal vaccination!
Are you also going to prohibit your kids from riding in a car because the chances of a traffic accident are non zero?
Asking because kids 1-4 are being hospitalized for COVID at the rate of 1.6/100,000, deaths are at 2/1,000,000 and traffic accident mortality is 11/100,000.
> if there's a case in the class we've got to keep our kids at home for a week
The answer to that might be to just all agree not to do this any more. Vaccine or not, the policy of shutting down a whole class if anyone has a case of CoVID is just silly for preschool aged kids.
A more cynical view:
There is already a known safe and effective way to develop antibodies in children to stop transmitting CoVID, and that's ... letting them get CoVID!
So actually if a child in the class gets CoVID, maybe they should be required to sing to the whole class in a small room for a week.
Let's be clear. More people die of air pollution and climate change than of COVID, but the latter turns out to be a disease that requires immediate care which is why it gets more attention.
Before the attitude changes and governments broaden their view, I can understand why people feel "done" with it.
Moderna's mRNA vaccine is based on one they tested for SARS-Cov-1 in 2003, and they have done long-term follow-up on those participants. They all turned into alligators after 15 years.
That's like saying: the crotch rocket is based on internal combustion engines, that have been proven safe in multiple automobiles. So crotch rockets are safe because they use internal combustion engines.
MRNA is the platform. You can do good and bad things with the same platform.
More like saying, the Ninja 200xcr is a minor update of the Ninja 199xcr, which has been around since 2003 and shown to be safe when properly operated. So, Ninja 200xrc is almost certainly safe too.
And we don't know the long term psychological effects of wearing masks and social distancing. Those may be substantial as well, especially if it goes on for more than 2 years.
Long term COVID is known to exist, long term effects of vaccination are not and there is no reason to think they are likely.
(me: vaxxed, boosted, happy to boost some more. My 7 year old: vaxxed. My attitude: exactly as described as a "VAD" in the article)
Asian people wear masks all the time, have for years, are fine, and in this particular case think you have a death wish for not wanting to do it all the time.
Death wish? When I am triple vaccinated? That's ridiculously out of whack with reality.
I'm at about the 99 percentile being safe and cautious. Talk to the anti-vaxxers about death wishes, that isn't me.
What you seem to be advocating is that we all wear masks continuously, forever. Because this isn't going away, it can barely be slowed down with masks, and it has become non-deadly for the vaccinated.
And I don't buy it for a second that everyone has to be masked or that you can't even eat in a restaurant in Asia. That is how it is here. Masks made sense for a long time, but at this point they are no more useful than they'll be a few years from now.
There seems to be very strong data to suggest Covid is a non-issue for children under 5.
I think if you are vaxed and boosted, and your older children are vaxed, and you don't live with an unvaxed vulnerable person, you can now safely continue your life activities ... mask if it doesn't inconvenience you.
I feel like COVID has become like a marshmallow test for adults, where those who can manage their emotions and make rational decisions can set themselves up for greater long-term rewards.
It looked for a while there like this could be a thing that gets “done”—that we would get a good vaccine into enough people, then incidence would decline so far it just goes away.
That didn’t happen. We’re stuck with it for a foreseeable future. Well, one can cry for the world that was, or one can get up and live in the world that is.
We’re not going to be done with vaccines and mandates. And that does not have to be a big deal. I have had to prove vaccination status of my kid for schools and camps for years. It’s annoying but not any harder than keeping my car registration up to date or any other minor bureaucratic headache.
I know someone who almost quit a great job because they were mad about a vaccine mandate from their employer. They were going to give up a good salary, great benefits, and a stable career because they were “so over COVID.” That is what failing the marshmallow test looks like.
> I know someone who almost quit a great job because they were mad about a vaccine mandate from their employer. [...] That is what failing the marshmallow test looks like.
Or perhaps it's a matter of personal principle. Personal conscience and conviction used to be held sacred in the US ... to the point that conscientious objectors wouldn't be forced to fight in wars (they could be assigned to work as medics in Army MASH units, for example, as my grandfather was in the Korean war). In modern US politics, it has become politically incorrect to have a personal principle or conviction that contradicts the approved viewpoint, or otherwise goes against the grain.
Because consideration for personal liberty has gone by the wayside, people are reacting by flatly refusing to be vaccinated. Many are convinced that the vaccine is actually harmful... and I'm convinced that viewpoint only gained traction because of the strong-arming going on in government.
It would have been much better to communicate clearly what we know, keep updating that communication regularly as new data comes in, fund efforts to develop and distribute vaccines, and let people choose without mandating anything. I'd bet the world would look very different today, and far more people would be vaccinated, if the US government had taken this route.
> Personal conscience and conviction used to be held sacred in the US […] it has become politically incorrect to have a personal principle or conviction that contradicts the approved viewpoint, or otherwise goes against the grain.
I think you might have a grandiose mental image of America’s past. The 1798 Sedition Act ‘made it a crime to publish "false, scandalous, and malicious writing" against the government or its officials’[0]. A congressman went to jail for speaking critically against President John Adams. President Nixon tried to suppress the 1960s cultural revolutions. The US has always had a bit more of an authoritative twist than the American History books write.
I am fascinated by this sort of thing. So many people perceive there to be some great American democratic republic tradition being aborated in recent years... but we didn't even get majoritarian democracy until the mid-20th century, and there was certainly not the sort of strong deference to the bill of rights historically that people seem to imagine.
I feel like this mythical conception of the history of America has been increasing with time.
The 1798 Sedition Act - during the second Presidency in the history of the country - expired in 1801. Which does a better job of debasing the point you're trying to make than supporting it. It was less than a blip.
> I think you might have a grandiose mental image of America’s past.
And your attempt to use the historically trivial 1798 Sedition Act in the manner that you did indicates you may have the opposite and mistaken mental image. If anything the US learned from the Sedition Act and became better for that very short-lived mistake.
> It forbade the use of "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, its flag, or its armed forces or that caused others to view the American government or its institutions with contempt. Those convicted under the act generally received sentences of imprisonment for five to 20 years.[2] The act also allowed the Postmaster General to refuse to deliver mail that met those same standards for punishable speech or opinion. It applied only to times "when the United States is in war." The U.S. was in a declared state of war at the time of passage, the First World War.[3] The law was repealed on December 13, 1920.[4]
You've dismissed only one point that parent commenter made. And if the country held personal conviction to such a high esteem, 1798 Sedition Act as well as the other things parent commenter mentioned should have never happened. But we know they did.
I think you've got the causation wrong. People didn't start rejecting the vaccine because of the mandates. Mandates came about because large percentages of the population weren't getting vaccinated. And why weren't they getting vaccinated? Because COVID denial poisoned the well of information. Even today, there are virtually no facts about COVID that you could get 95% of Americans to agree upon. My guess is that close to 5% would disagree with the statement "the SARS-CoV-2 virus is real".
> My guess is that close to 5% would disagree with the statement "the SARS-CoV-2 virus is real".
I wouldn't be surprised if the number is even higher than that.
Anecdotally, my mom didn't believe it was a real virus even after I got it, tested positive, and got pretty sick in 2020. When she and my unvaccinated dad got it in summer 2021 and Dad was hospitalized with severe illness from it, she changed her mind on it being real, but is still convinced there are conspiratorial forces behind it, the vaccine, public health measures, etc.
Trying to pretend that the top levels of government are free from corruption and that Pfizer is the one good company that isn't evil and that there isn't a major incentive for Pfizer to ensure approval and mandates, and those imposing mandates don't have incentives to do so, whether implicit or explicit, is simply naive.
So all that talk about the military industrial complex wasting money to waste money to ensure dominance isn't likely, or even possible? Because thats exactly what people believe is happening with pharma. And that's what people believed was happening to pharma until Covid.
Another Trumpanzee shitting in the well of knowledge.
The question isn't whether Pfizer is an Evil Corporation (of course they are). The question is whether the vaccine that they manufacture and market is effective. And in the full light of day, they proved, first in randomized trials, and then in the real world, that their vaccine is safe and effective.
Full disclosure, I was a test subject in the original Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine trial, and continue to be a test subject in the booster trial.
>Because COVID denial poisoned the well of information.
You sure it was "COVID denial" that poisoned the well of information and not:
1) Health officials lying about masks at the start of the pandemic
2) Government officials encouraging people to crowd into primary booths during the height of the pandemic to vote in the Democratic primary.
3) Health and government officials declaring that it was safe to attend riots and mass street protests, but not to go out for any other reasons.
4) That it was a racist conspiracy theory that COVID was created in a lab and not started by people eating bats in China.
5) That the vaccines were safe and effective, and that you couldn't get or spread COVID if you were vaccinated.
6) That vaccines would never be mandated.
7) That its absolutely essential that every receive(at least) a 3rd dose of the vaccine as a "booster" when even the most favorable studies show that "boosters" reduce the odds of serious illness and death only by fractions of a thousandth of a percentage point.
At this point the well contains no water at all - just poisons - and it isn't the skeptics who are responsible. At this point anyone who isn't skeptical about what they are being told by our Dear Leaders has their head buried deep in the sand.
> My guess is that close to 5% would disagree with the statement "the SARS-CoV-2 virus is real".
My guess is that you also don’t understand the reasons why others are denying the vaccine. Do you think some people are incapable of doing the only thing that will help us, isolating? Vaccines are child’s play to staying in your damn house.
From my perspective it’s the vaccinated that keep this pandemic going. Exactly in the spirit of this statement. “Vaccinated and done”. People think once they get vaccinated they can continue life like normal. Meanwhile the unvaxxed i know are isolating and most still haven’t caught COVID. The few that have realized, after having few or minimal symptoms, that this entire mandate thing is about control.
TLDR, no they’re exactly on point. Democrats are wannabe dictators and the goal of the mandates are an attempt to test power.
Your descriptions aren't typical of the unvaxxed people I know. The unvaxxed people I know have, from the very beginning, been defiant against isolation, school closures, masking, and the vaccines. And most have spouted some version of "COVID is a hoax" from the very beginning, and continue to do so, even when what they say is incoherent. In 2020 "stay home" was supposedly a power grab. Now you claim you always embraced that message. #TeamHoax mutates as fast as the virus, it seems.
"...consideration for personal liberty has gone by the wayside..."
Can you truly say these things with a straight face, in light of the countless laws banning voluntary consumption of drugs and the millions of harsh prison sentences that have been handed out for breaking those laws? People literally lose their freedom - they are put in poorly-maintained cages - for exercising their personal liberty in that fashion. That has been standard procedure in this country for generations with little dissent. Yet the voices that seem the loudest against vaccine mandates (voices that barely exists for the dozen or so other vaccine mandates over the generations) don't seem to be speaking up to these far more grievous and damaging violations of personal liberty.
Both liberals and conservatives are massive hypocrites. Neither ideology has a consistent set of beliefs when it comes to personal liberty. Both will use arguments from personal liberty when it's for something they support and will conveniently forgot about those arguments for issues they don't support.
Liberals support "my body, my choice" when it comes to abortions, but they don't want you to have a choice over whether or not to get the vaccine. Conservatives support "my body, my choice" when it comes to vaccines, but don't want to you have a choice over whether or not to get an abortion.
There, it's settled. You're all hypocrites.
And for the record, I'm triple vaxxed, anti-mandate, pro-choice, and think all drugs should be legalized.
> Liberals support "my body, my choice" when it comes to abortions, but they don't want you to have a choice over whether or not to get the vaccine. Conservatives support "my body, my choice" when it comes to vaccines, but don't want to you have a choice over whether or not to get an abortion.
But when it comes to abortion, it's not "my body, my choice", according to pro-life advocates. It's two bodies, one of which is not yours.
There's more nuance in these discussions than can be reduced to a slogan or talking point. "Freedom" ought to map to what gives people the most personal liberty possible while restraining evil and its proliferation. But pursuing that requires defining "evil" which maps directly onto worldviews -- and we land squarely back at square one.
We all may be hypocrites in some way, but the real problem is that we don't agree on what is good and evil -- or rather, that a sizable portion of the population (or all of it) is wrong on that most important question.
Modern US politics is what it is because of strongly differing worldviews.
This is true with almost any ideology to some extent though when you use reductive arguments like that. My body my choice to put C4 explosives all over it and detonate it in a crowded area. Yet - who supports that? Probably no one.
Also - the Covid vaccine is really more like religion in that - most parents are fine with vaccinating their children. But like religion - now they’re choosing which vaccines (gods) they don’t believe in and it mostly comes down to tradition. There’s almost no logical thought in it.
Im also anti-mandate but certain job should require you to wash your hands with soap and be vaccinated to keep your job (teacher, nurse, doctor ..) but nobody is forcing you to choose those jobs.
No, the freedumb that the commenter you're replying to only exists in their head. Freedom is whatever they want it to be and nothing at the same time. Compare the US's COVID response to China and then try to talk about freedoms.
Or maybe the commenter is also against the war on drugs? And yeah I'm sure China had more "freedumb" than the US. Actually I'm not surprised that someone who uses China as a positive example would be the type to say "freedumb" unironically as if it's actually a negative thing to want more... freedom.
I wasn't using China as a positive example, I was using it as a contract in the negative. As in they don't have freedom during COVID, as they're literally locked into their homes. The United States has had and continues to have "freedom" even in face of the mandates.
> Personal conscience and conviction used to be held sacred in the US ... to the point that conscientious objectors wouldn't be forced to fight in wars (they could be assigned to work as medics in Army MASH units, for example, as my grandfather was in the Korean war).
On the contrary, I think we're at the other extreme. There would be an uproar if people were even forced to work as medics today -- or to do nearly anything at all beyond their own self-interest.
I was forced to be vaccinated as a child to go to school, and there were no exceptions for personal convictions. There was also no uproar. Everyone did it because it was normal and there wasn't any legitimization of "alternative" information.
> there wasn't any legitimization of "alternative" information
It seems to me this is really the cause far beyond any other factor. The fragmentation and "democratization" of media over the past 15-20 years led to a devaluation of expertise and qualification. It's not so much anti-elitism anymore (although they seem to overlap) but simply that nobody cares what your credentials are, they are no longer necessary to reach a mass audience.
My understanding is that this was only during the generation that started with the polio vaccine mandates. Because those children got it and were normalized to it, then it became normal subsequently. Prior to that there was indeed massive resistance and skepticism towards the polio vaccine and vaccinations broadly.
> Or perhaps it's a matter of personal principle. Personal conscience and conviction used to be held sacred in the US ... to the point that conscientious objectors wouldn't be forced to fight in wars
It's a great argument, so long as "rejecting a vaccine during a pandemic" meets the same moral tests as "opposing war". In fact it does not, and so this "personal principle" is quite silly and actively harmful.
The government has not done anything in mandating vaccination that it has not done, over and over again, with total societal unanimity. Until some people decided there was political hay to be made with a bad, dumb argument about "personal principle" and now tens of thousands of people are dead for no good reason.
It's super dumb, and the "personal principle" argument fails every test you could throw at it.
Me opposing war doesn't kill my neighbor. Me opposing the war didn't kill 800,000 people. It didn't cause lifelong suffering for millions more.
It's not hard to understand the difference.
Why do the people that accept driving on the government mandated side of the road for public safety, who accept food being cooked to government standards for public safety, who have gotten the other multiple government mandated vaccines for public safety, who don't get into fights in stores for being required to wear shoes for public safety, who don't march against government mandated building codes for public safety, and so on for literally hundreds of items, suddenly obtain "personal liberty" for this particular vaccine, which has killed more Americans than any event in history?
Because they've been fed a constant stream of chaos from the grifters milking them, grifters that mostly got the vaccine themselves.
It's amazing what culture and virtue signaling can do.
Well, perhaps they think that none of what we are doing kept those 800,000 out of the grave. Perhaps they, rightly in their mind, think there are far worse threats out there than Covid and being asked to make such a significant sacrifice doesn’t make sense.
The fact that so many people disagree with your position seems to suggest that you might not be as correct in your thinking as you believe.
>The fact that so many people disagree with your position seems to suggest that you might not be as correct in your thinking as you believe.
The fact that so many of those dying right now are precisely such people, and by using up so much hospital resources, they are causing others who where responsible to suffer.
Correctness in thinking is not popularity. It's demonstrable statistical evidence.
>perhaps they think that none of what we are doing kept those 800,000 out of the grave
This is complete nonsense. There is no question whatsoever that vaccinated people are not dying at the rate unvaccinated are. I work with a decent number of medical personnel, and more importantly, can read the science.
>Perhaps they, rightly in their mind, think there are far worse threats out there than Covid and being asked to make such a significant sacrifice doesn’t make sense.
Are you claiming that the outcomes from taking the vaccine are worse than the outcomes from not taking it? Care to provide a single peer reviewed, published article that supports this?
In what sense is getting a vaccination that has been administered to literally billions of people, billions of times, with no serious adverse effects a significant sacrifice?
That statement does not make sense under any possible rational interpretation.
Because it's an infringement of bodily autonomy. This is very serious to many people (myself included). I'd be more receptive to sacrifice on behalf of others if it looked like it was more effective and less performative.
"No serious adverse effects" < Nonsense. People have been injured and died from these vaccines. Perhaps you meant to say "side effects so far appear very rare"? (which I'd agree with).
If there are no serious side effects we can remove the liability protections drug companies currently enjoy right?
I do agree the vaccines work to an extent for some months. They have reduced deaths. I'm glad they exist and would encourage any vulnerable person to take them. But my risk profile is very low. My Covid experience was a short cold a week ago. And the statistics aren't showing they do a whole lot to prevent transmission.
So I won't be playing any level of Russian roulette with unneeded pharma products, even if it's a 1 in a million chance of serious issues or death.
We'll have to agree to disagree on what is irrational, disgusting and anti social I suppose. Just know I feel exactly the same about your position (but wouldn't express the disgust if you hadn't brought it up first).
If bodily autonomy isn't that import rape only lasts 10 minutes so what's the harm? Nope, it's of primary importance.
Lose some weight and keep your D levels high, get vaccinated if you chose, and stop demanding that everyone engage in risky or unnecessary performative behavior to create an illusion of safety.
>People have been injured and died from these vaccines.
Really, how many? How many have died that didn't take it that could have?
Those honestly medically unable to take it (which is a crazy small number) compared to those that don't out of willful ignorance is a drop in the ocean.
>So I won't be playing any level of Russian roulette with unneeded pharma products, even if it's a 1 in a million chance of serious issues or death.
hahhahaha.... Right now you'll not take something you claim affects under 1 in 1 million while helping spread something that has killed 1 in 400 in the US. That's a difference by a factor of 2500. 2500 - think about that. And has likely given millions lifelong permanent damage.
You really prefer a 2500 times increased death rate, and view that as defensible for society? Really?
Now, let's look for demonstrable numbers. About 500 million doses have been given in the US last year, 206 million people fully vaccinated, many partially vaccinated. Where are the hundreds dead by your claims? There are currently (as far as I can tell on Google scholar, CDC, etc.) exactly ZERO people whose death is attributed to the vaccine.
So go ahead and show me your data.
So it's not 1 in a million - it's likely more like 1 in 100 million or even fewer that die from the vaccine. 1 in 400 die from COVID.
This clearly shows the lack of compassion, understanding, numeracy, that such arguments display.
Near as I can tell from VAERS (in the US) around 20,000 deaths have occurred following vaccination. Over-reported? Under-reported? I don't know. But deaths have occurred, so have serious heart problems (again, very rare with millions of doses administered).
In many (most?) adult cases the risk from the virus is many times greater then the _known_ risk from vaccines. No argument.
But the risk from the vaccines is not 0 and we should be clear about that. Additionally (and this is one of my main issues), the risk of allowing big pharma subscription model to be instituted by force is also not 0.
>Near as I can tell from VAERS (in the US) around 20,000 deaths have occurred following vaccination. Over-reported? Under-reported? I don't know. But deaths have occurred, so have serious heart problems (again, very rare with millions of doses administered).
That number seems to be nonsense [0]. Since the VAERS data is on the CDC site, care to show me the real number? It looks like this claim is QAnon nonsense.
Do you understand what VAERS is? It is an adverse effect, death, from ANY reason, following someone taking a vaccine. The reason is to LOOK for things caused by vaccines by follow-up investigations. A VAERS deaths is not a death caused by a vaccine; it is a possibility.
So far, ZERO of them, count it, ZERO have been shown to be from the COVID vaccine. Here's another take [3] on the actual VAERS data: "no evidence has established that a COVID-19 vaccine authorized in the U.S. caused any deaths".
If someone is old, takes the vaccine, and dies from old age. That is a VAERS death. Given that about 400,000 people die a year from old age, many of them are going to be VAERS entries. It's the followup studies that determine if there is any issue caused by COVID vaccines, and so far, there simply is not.
Here [1] are the VAERS reports for the past 21 years. Go ahead and read about before you make such goofy assumptions. I'm pretty sure the COVID vaccine wasn't killing people in 2002. Here's [2] an overview of the VAERS program. First page, in bold, so people don't do what you are doing: "a report to VAERS does not mean that a vaccine caused an adverse event".
Read that again: "a report to VAERS does not mean that a vaccine caused an adverse event".
Now, please show me the report, study, publication (not some rando website or youtube video), that has shown these deaths to be caused be the COVID vaccine, because there just isn't the evidence.
>In many (most?) adult cases the risk from the virus is many times greater then the _known_ risk from vaccines. No argument.
So why subject yourself, your loved ones, those around you, and your community to the "many times" greater risk? I honestly don't understand how someone could believe they're putting so many at risk for such severe consequences and simply continue to do it. The death and destruction is obvious. Go to your local funeral parlor and ask them about it, if it's real, and watch some families come through, and see how many are glad they exercised bodily autonomy. That should be a sobering experiment.
And the risk of transmitting it to others, the risk from straining the medical system so others that need help for other things, vastly increases as the unvaccinated spread the disease more and more, is completely immoral. Just because the unvaccinated don't see the deaths and destruction don't mean they're not contributing through ignorance and self-absorption.
I'm pretty sure we're done here. You've obviously believed a lot of bad sources of information, and have posted a decent amount of super easily disproven stuff. I've found it's not generally worth the time to unwind someone from this, since it takes so long for someone to get into this state. You are the rare one that also seems to believe that vaccination has vastly better outcomes than not being vaccinated, yet still refuse it, which is odd.
I would recommend you find higher quality information sources to base your beliefs on - start with things rated as unbiased as possible, like Reuters, and completely avoid crap like youtube, facebook, tiktok, or any of the zillion fringe sites designed to suck people into a cycle of chaos and fear.
How public forums work is each person can chose to participate or not.
What that means is you can determine when you are "done here". You don't determine when "I am done here" (unless you somehow control access). It's a lazy attempt to shut things down and have the last word so as to appear correct.
You point to a fact checker, a "trusted news source" for one month, that says the number of deaths claimed for the month is not exact and say "see, not proved". I'm sorry that is very weak.
There has been a massive uptick in VAERS reporting since the introduction of this series of vaccines. Massive. Now, understood these vaccines are being administered widely all at once so they may or may not be more dangerous then say, the flu vaccine. And in raw numbers, so far, the risk of taking them appears very low.
But they have a risk profile. The manufactures admit it. The CDC admits it. Myocarditis has been observed. Is it unreasonable to suppose that the corresponding (very large) uptick in deaths reported in VAERS might be responsible? One would have to be willfully blind not to acknowledge that.
You never address unknown future risks. It's obvious it was unknown (or unstated) that the vaccines would only be effective for such a short time without continuous boosters and exactly how effective the vaccines would be. What else don't they know or are not saying?
You never show, nor has anyone else, that "others around me" is a valid consideration in the context of transmission. So I take them "for the common good". How long does that last? Not a year apparently.
"Straining medical system". Not on my part. That's a very weak argument. It's largely untrue in the extreme and perhaps points to larger problems with the medical system if the 500 or so people currently hospitalized (with not from Covid) in my state with a population of millions is breaking things. What other things might be "straining the medical system"? Can we start mandating on that too?
You haven't "disprove" anything as you claim, just more "you are dumb, Q nonsense" and lazy attempts to circumvent. Yes people have died from the disease no need for the emotive funeral home spiel.
You can leave off statements like "ignorance and self-absorption". You don't see me saying "scared, cowardly, unperceptive, and prone to authoritarianism".
This is apparently a highly emotional issue that makes people on all sides not be as objective as they may be in other contexts. I've made my points and don't have much else to say in this thread. I don't fault you for your point of view and assume you have good reasons for it but do not agree it's objective.
I just posted the data, which you ignore. Post this "massive" increase, because, as I show next, ....
>There has been a massive uptick in VAERS reporting since the introduction of this series of vaccines.
This amuses me - you put such effort into reading the worst materials and believing them, while ignoring any good, reliable sites, or putting any thought why there might possibly be an uptick in deaths not attributable to vaccines that also shows up in VAERS....
Maybe there has been an uptick in deaths unrelated to the vaccine, say, perhaps, from the worst pandemic in 100 years? Gee, guess what. Increased deaths for ANY reason will increase deaths in VAERS.
COVID was 10% of deaths in 2020. That is a large increase, so large, that life expectancy dropped. It's a category that did not exist in 2019. The US death rate soared 17% in 2020, with no vaccines, leading to, you guessed it, a ~20% increase in VAERS deaths, because the underlying population is also dying.
Before the vaccine. Yet you are happy to put the blame on a vaccine that had not been invented?
Same in 2021.
If you actually find the VAERS deaths, and look at the graphs (which are public) you will see no such massive uptick - there is one, which begins, you guessed it, when COVID started, not when the vaccine did.
So, again, cite a source. Because this is not true, except for tiny values of "massive"... And again you will not cite a source....
This is why it's not worth my trying to give you data - you ignore, attribute the least thought out and nonsensical claims attributable to data that is easily explained not needing such fear and doubt.
Again, any death in VAERS cannot be attributed to a vaccine until a study determines the cause. Stop making this simple reasoning mistake. It's clearly stated on the VAERS site that this is faulty reasoning, I pointed it out, and you do it again.
Seriously - why do people believe fringe sites, youtube idiots, facebook, ticktok, over the people that have put entire careers into hard science to solve precisely this type of problem?
>Myocarditis has been observed
This is the perfect example of spreading fear and doubt. Quick question: which has shown more likely to increase the chance of myocarditis: getting the vaccine or getting COVID? Hint, one has been shown in peer reviewed, vetted, published papers to have a vastly greater (over 10x) chance of leading to myocarditis. Yet you continue to recite the fear and doubt nonsense on the opposite side of what the actual evidence is. The evidence so far is not getting a vaccine leads to a higher chance of getting myocarditis by a large margin since it comes along with COVID.
Seriously - put the time into learning this stuff before you continue to spread more ignorant fear, which is exactly what such statements are. They are the opposite of reality, completely well documented, yet you must have consumed enough nonsense fear sites to repeat it without simply looking at the evidence.
I'll help you - go to google scholar, google covid myocarditis and read rates, then add the word vaccine, search again, and read the rates. Done. Now you know, and should never repeat such nonsense again. But you won't put in the work and will repeat it I am quite sure.
>attempt to shut things down and have the last word so as to appear correct.
No, it's realizing that, as I wrote, people that have worked themselves into such deluded worldviews do not change easily, so becomes worth less and les of my time the clearer it becomes such people straight up ignore well presented data. I've requested multiple times you source ANY of your claims with reputable sources, and so far, zero. I only continue since others that are not like that do learn from such discussions get better knowledge. And it's interesting to see how people rationalize behavior.
Once I realize that someone does not want to look at evidence, look at data, cite and inspect reputable sources, it is clear they are not someone who uses reason to make choices or adapt. At that point it's sometimes useful to poke them enough to anger them into looking stuff up. Or give up on them. That's the game, purely rational based on actions.
You seem to be missing the part where my taking the vaccine helps others.
Has this been quantified or is it just hand-waving? Because it's very obvious transmission is widely occurring regardless.
I've already explained how the vaccine does not help me. Was not needed.
We know short term risks exist from vaccination, we know people have died, we know that it is rare to have very serious side effects (like death). What about long term risks? More hand waving claims of "unlikely"?
The end of your post is a long way of saying "well you are dumb". Ok, whatever. If you don't want to accept rationality or have different views of human agency, it's not my business.
I've clarified my position on these vaccines. I'm glad they exist, I recommend vulnerable people take them. I don't need them and won't be taking them. Unless it can be clearly shown it would be of great benefit to others (we've already established minimal risk for myself). And that somehow taking the vaccines with immunity from previous infection already existing is needed to do that.
I think you're inventing a past that didn't exist. Were this pandemic to strike in the 70s or 80s (or earlier), we would undoubtedly have given people little choice to be vaccinated, but we also probably wouldn't have forced people nearly as much. Today we are stuck with these people running around talking about their freedom, when one of the main reasons for government is public health.
I think if this pandemic struck in the 70s or 80s, it would have been shook off as a moderately more dangerous version of the flu, and there would have been no lockdowns or anything like that. Life would go on as normal until natural herd immunity is achieved.
We had smallpox for centuries, same with measles, mumps, rubella, polio, etc etc. AIDS came about in the 80s. How's that natural herd immunity for AIDS going?
You would have ended up with full hospitals everywhere and people dying in the streets, and the Delta variant way before a vaccine was ready if we didn't do lockdowns.
I'm a strong supporter of strong measures to combat covid, but your question about AIDS is obviously disingenuous. AIDS kills almost every one who gets it (e: in the 70s - of course as a reply mentions, it is not nearly as deadly today and very few caught HIV cases progress to AIDS in the first place now), but it didn't spread very far compared to covid, so of course no herd immunity would develop.
Non-medical interventions were also employed during the 1918/19 flu pandemic, also in the US. In fact, when things like school closures were initially discussed people were literally looking up old data from the 1918/19 flu pandemic to see what, if anything, we could learn from the non-medical interventions back then.
I doubt that we would have been able to create a vaccine (as quickly) in the 70s or 80s. Our knowledge about corona viruses wasn’t there yet and we also didn’t have plausible easy technological paths towards a vaccine.
So that would have sucked a lot. Really, a lot. Given that I think we would have necessarily accepted more deaths – but it would still all have been quite annoying since you really don’t want to run your hospitals at 110% all the time even if you are willing to accept all the deaths.
It’s just that now vaccines do provide a good solution with dramatically reduced deaths, hospitalizations, even (though much more limited) spread. Which makes it all the more frustrating that people aren’t taking advantage of that.
So I’m not so sure why you think that if we miraculously had an effective and safe vaccine for a novel pandemic corona virus in the 70s or 80s we there wouldn’t be mandates. Seems quite in line with US and overall Western tradition.
Yes, life in the developed world was still not as valuable back then.
However, covid in the 70s would have been substantially worse than the flu - a large reason covid nowadays is not deadly is due to increases in quality of care.
I'm very skeptical of this thesis. Biden's mandate (I'm assuming this is what you're referring to) was not announced until September of last year, and there was already very significant vaccine refusal by that point. Up until that point, they had been doing exactly what you want, and vaccination had essentially stalled.
Historically conscientious objector status was not just given out to anyone who asked for it. In general you needed to be an active member of a religious community with clear theological beliefs about war specified well in advance of the war. Even the Quakers didn't get a free pass - they still had to serve the country in some non-violent capacity as medics or the like.
When your "matter of principle" is avoiding a vaccine you're rationalizing an irrational choice through the mask of a "principle". There's no principle involved (personal liberty? do you also refuse to pay taxes, drive without a license, etc. freedom is a complicated thing)
One principle would be the belief that the US federal government has not been granted the power to mandate a vaccination. Many people opposed to vaccination in the US believe that states, municipalities, and private organizations can enforce such a mandate but that the federal government cannot. As for not taking the vaccine there is the principle of prudent decision making and informed consent: that each individual has the right to decide what is best for their health even if they are wrong. For example, you might choose to be a lifelong tobacco smoker. The current scientific narrative says that smoking tobacco is bad for your health - but at the end of the day it is a decision of personal conscience whether or not you choose to smoke.
> Harlan ruled that the vaccination law did not violate the 14th Amendment because the police power of the state may be allowed to constrain individual liberties through reasonable regulations when required to protect public safety. He reasoned that individual liberty does not allow people to take actions regardless of the harm that they could cause to others. Harlan felt that the plaintiff had failed to show that the vaccination law was arbitrary or oppressive, or not reasonably required for the safety of the public. He noted the increasing presence of smallpox, which prevented the plaintiff from convincingly asserting that the rule had no real or substantial relation to protecting public health and safety. Although the plaintiff presented evidence that some doctors believed that the smallpox vaccine was not effective and could cause further diseases, Harlan pointed out that the opposite view represents the common medical belief and is followed by more reputable doctors.
That decision revolved around a one-time $150 fine (in today's money) and was used to justify forced sterilizations. And it was overturned later. And it was for the authority of a state, not the Federal Government.
Not the same thing at all. And you also don't want to go down that road.
No it did not. First, that is a precedent, not a law. Second, that case would be interpreted as affirming the power of a state or municipality to implement and enforce a vaccination mandate, which is exactly what I said in my original comment. The federal government of the US has not been given that power through Jacobson v. Massachusetts and if it was so clear cut a precedent the supreme court wouldn't even bother hearing the case that is currently underway.
EDIT: Getting downvoted so here's the primary holding. Read it for yourself.
> A state may enact a compulsory vaccination law, since the legislature has the discretion to decide whether vaccination is the best way to prevent smallpox and protect public health. The legislature may exempt children from the law without violating the equal protection rights of adults if the law applies equally among adults.
Sometimes we buy that argument, and sometimes we don't.
Take drunk driving, for example. We don't give people the freedom to do that. On the other hand, we do allow people to smoke and to eat unhealthily, both of which impose costs on the rest of us. So there seems to be a balance - we allow some behavior that impacts our personal freedoms, but not egregious impacts.
So: If someone doesn't get vaccinated, how bad is the impact to you? Given that vaccinated (and boosted) people can still get infected and spread the infection, how bad is the impact to your personal freedom to live a healthy and free life if someone doesn't get vaccinated?
What makes you say that? What is your reasoning? Just because you say so does not make it so, nor does it make it logical, reasonable, or enforceable. We have a legal framework for making these kinds of decisions in the United States. While I understand your position and can see some of its merit it's not about how you feel things should be but about providing a system of rights and powers that prevent the government from spiraling out of control.
It does if his living a healthy life depends on hospitals not being 100% full of unvaccinated people being treated for a completely preventable illness.
Personal conscience and conviction -- as overwhelmingly stupid as the vast majority of people are with or without it -- is at least extremely important for the minority of people who end up being front-runners for society.
But so too is society a super-organism, in which we are but cells. And cells which actively spread disease for their own sake are kind of independent to a flaw: cancerous one could say.
Maybe there's a better world in which context is a factor in whether or not a persons convictions are the most valuable thing in the room. Personally, I'd say if you're killing others for your beliefs, then your beliefs should be allowed the same treatment. Whereas if your beliefs are merely unpopular.. well, I wouldn't fix a car with a popularity contest, let alone a toaster or an entire fucking government.
Are you implying that some people are "cancer" and deserve to be eradicated? Why not just come out and say what you really mean without the plausible deniability and euphemisms?
ofc at least some people are enough like cancer they should be at least be changed... there's a lot of people. But no, I don't think this alone would be a sole distinguishing feature in that regard. It would be more "cancer-like," but there should definitely be more nuance before it's decided that a person "is cancer" and eradication should only be a last resort after everything else had been tried.
Perhaps an allergic response then? The point being, units of the super-organism are causing the death of things they shouldn't be. Perhaps out of selfishness (like cancer), or perhaps out of a misplaced response (like allergies). But the super-organism has every reason to evolve them out.
But people didn't want to get vaxxed long before any mandates ever took effect. They don't want to get vaxxed because they are simply misinformed. They are misinformed by politicians (yes, mainly Republicans), they are misinformed by social media, podcasters (Joe Rogan, Brett Weinstein), and various other celebrity clout chasers. This happened long before there was ever a mandate. People believing the vaccines cause you to exert a magnetic pull is not the fault of government mandates which recently took effect, it occurred way before with campaigns and conspiracies comprised of pure misinformation and pseudo-science.
> Many are convinced that the vaccine is actually harmful... and I'm convinced that viewpoint only gained traction because of the strong-arming going on in government.
Some reading I've done recently has changed my mind on this. Check out the recently released unclassified (but suppressed) DARPA documents on the SARS-Cov2 virus.
It appears there actually has been a significant information war going on from the top... but I suspect it remains to be seen why exactly the campaign took place.
Scattershot vaccine mandates have increased the number of vaccinated. Those left will naturally have resisted some amount of authority, but that observation basically amounts to survivor bias - and it doesn't explain why those individuals failed to get the vaccine before there ever was a mandate.
we’re dealing in counterfactuals here, so we’ll never truly know. one possibility is that vaccine mandates brought a large portion of those on-the-fence in to get a vaccine sooner than later, at the cost of pushing others on-the-fence way far away from ever getting the vaccine. i.e. a short-term boost in vax numbers at the cost of long-term rates. maybe worth it, maybe not (there’s so many second order effects).
in any case, i have friends here in progressive seattle who were part of the “vaccinate and done” group back in Apr/May but once the governor used vaccine uptake as an excuse to enforce new mandates now say “i’ll get the booster once i know doing so means i get to go back to normal”. so mandates definitely do push a certain type of otherwise compliant person away from getting the vaccine. i only have anecdata, but i think it’s worth keeping an eye on that viewpoint. could this “vaccine and done” group grow into a “reject mandates (including boosters) and done” if the mandates prevent them from actually being “done”?
I think the marshmallow test is pretty flawed itself. But maybe the marshmallow test is actually a good analogy. I suspect many of the test "failures" were caused because the test subject (kid) didn't trust the authority figure (test administrator). When you can see a marshmallow with your own eyes, it's more believable. I think it's quite reasonable to factor in some probability that an untrusted stranger would "alter the deal". If you take the marshmallow now, no one can bait-and-switch you.
And it's starting to look like a pretty good description. There are plenty of people who were on-board with the "temporary" restrictions initially who are now doubting that these promised marshmallows are ever going to be delivered. I'm vaxxed. And I'm done. Good luck on getting your marshmallows.
The fact that college campuses (which have ~100% vaccination rates as well as young student bodies that are far less likely to face severe symptoms from COVID) are reinstituting lockdowns makes it abundantly clear that the marshmallows are never, ever coming.
I would be in favor of a two week shut down to act like a short circuit breaker for Omicron. But I have no trust in local authorities, who let "two weeks" turn into months of restrictions even when hospitalization rates were low in 2020.
This is the test. People can talk themselves out of any positive thing based on the reasoning of "I don't trust authority". but those who are considered very successful in any profession have to learn to 1) delay gratification 2) place trust in the right people
Blind mistrust in authority is as detrimental to long term outcomes as not being able to delay gratification
I just picked what seemed like a well-known analogy for the long-term value of managing short-term emotional response. You could use other analogies if you want, like putting beer money into an IRA, or eating more veggies, etc.
> It looked for a while there like this could be a thing that gets “done”—that we would get a good vaccine into enough people, then incidence would decline so far it just goes away... That didn’t happen. We’re stuck with it for a foreseeable future. Well, one can cry for the world that was, or one can get up and live in the world that is.
Whats the magic number? There are places like New York that have 95% over 18 with at least 1 vaccine and 83.3% with completed vaccination status. But the problems still persist and the entire focus is on those last few percent of people moving the needle, when in the past we've been told "herd immunity" would be conservatively reached at ~70%.
Then you can't blame continued high cases on the unvaccinated and you can't expect the covid risk to go away.
The at-risk should get used to wearing an N95 mask, but I'm done complying with mitigation measures (I'll get future boosters if they actually do anything for me).
To be fair, many people had pointed out that unless we vaccinate the entire world, new variants would emerge, which may be better at evading the vaccine. That is exactly what happened with Omicron.
With a 6 month immunity window and animals reservoirs, you could simultaneously give every singe human the vaccine and it would still come back. You are misinformed that we ever had any chance of closing Pandora’s box.
Fortunately, since a high mortality rate makes for poor Darwinian fitness, viruses tend to evolve over time into variants with lower mortality albeit higher infectivity.
In a few decades, coronavirus may actually end up being just as lethal as the flu! One can hope, at least.
Theory you citing is not that credible. Smallpox virus was with humanity for at least 3500 years. In XX century it's lethal rate was about 30% for adults, more for children.
I encourage everyone eligible to protect themselves by getting vaccinated but the Delta and Omicron variants are so contagious that there will be no significant herd immunity effect.
oh, I see, 95% is the top line summary, but it's larger than all the drilldown categories except 54-74 (99+%). Something is wrong with the data; there aren't that many more people in the 55-74 bucket than others.
It's interesting that you phrase it that way, because I was thinking exactly the same thing, but from the opposite direction.
I caught covid early, and while (for me) it was a nasty bug, I recovered with nothing more than a lingering cough for several weeks.
Against enormous pressure I decided not to get vaccinated. Everything I read supported that natural immunity is at least as protective as the vaccine, and most studies I've seen say it is much better. This makes sense to me, a natural immune response in a healthy person should be stronger than a vaccine, given that all a vaccine is supposed to do is "train" your immune system via an immune response to a "simulation" of the actual virus (apologies for the gross oversimplification).
I thought the marshmallow test was in the other direction - the millions of people who acquired natural immunity through infection, but "grabbed the marshmallow" in the form of the vaccine. What will the long term effects be? We don't know.
FWIW, my immunity does seem to have been pretty effective, since I just tested positive for Covid. My only symptoms were a light headache and backache. My wife, however was sick for around three days with fever and sore throat laying right next to me in bed, coughing. I took care of her, kissed her on the forehead, etc... I didn't get as much as a sniffle.
> What will the long term effects be? We don't know.
Thank you for bringing this up. It isn’t “anti-science” to ask these type of questions and expect answers.
Indeed, it has always been the job of the FDA to hold drug companies responsible for proving that their drugs do not harm. Guilty until proven innocent. Given the rushed approval, incredible profit motive, reluctance of the FDA to respond to FOIA requests and the strong pushback against those who ask questions I think some skepticism is warranted.
So far, the cost-benefit for those not in high risk groups (especially children) seems waaaaay off. Why vaccinate children that are at almost no risk of serious illness when we clearly do not have all the info on long term vax risks?
>So far, there hasn't been any evidence (I've heard of) of long-term adverse effects of the vaccination
So far, there hasn't been nearly the same amount of public scrutiny as with your average vaccine, either. Sure, people have taken in record numbers, but we have far less information about long-term effects than usual. And certainly, there have been extraordinary incentives to push vaccination, along with extraordinary mismanagement of the pandemic in general.
The difference between the vaccinated and unvaccinated isn't that one is more ethical or risk-averse than the other. It's a difference in estimation of where the most risk resides: in the disease, or in our management thereof.
The eyes of the world have been glued to this. People actually know the different "brands" of vaccines. Tabloids have discussions on them and their side effects … the scrutiny and expectations from the public seem extremely high, so I’m not sure why you think anyone involved in this could afford to no be very tough and detail oriented in the scrutiny of this vaccine.
This seems like a deeply weird worldview that doesn’t in any way match up to reality. Your statement seems highly implausible and just makes no sense. Do you have any concrete evidence to back it up?
Right, my argument would be that the “currently available evidence” should be viewed with skepticism given the incredible profit motive involved and current political climate.
This tells you nothing about the predictability of the practice of the science. It also cannot be used to gild by association anything that wishes to be marketed as a "vaccine".
"So far, there hasn't been any evidence (I've heard of) of long-term adverse effects of the vaccination"
A couple of people have died, I'd call that a long-term adverse effect. Presumably way less people than would otherwise have died from Covid, so not to say you shouldn't get vaccinated. But to claim there are no known long-term adverse effects is wrong.
When people are talking about unknown long-term effects in this context, they typically mean effects that appear much later. As in, stuff that wouldn't be caught in studies and our current vaccination efforts.
Long-lasting but quickly appearing adverse effects, like death, are pretty well understood and are calculated in.
The definition of the word vaccine is a substance that stimulates immunity by imitating the infectious agent. There have been many different kinds of vaccines over the years.
“Vaccine” is a word like “chair.”
It tells you what it does, not what it is made out of.
Did you just unilaterally decide what the word “vaccine” means? :)
That isn’t how it works. A word means what people understand it to mean.
But…semantics. Whatever.
The main issue that the parent comment touches on is that this is a new process for developing a vaccine and it isn’t honest to compare this to vaccines we’ve been giving people for decades.
There is a heck of a lot we don’t know. People are intuitive and they sense this. They aren’t anti science, but they do know when they are being sold something in a less than honest way.
> a substance used to stimulate the production of antibodies and provide immunity against one or several diseases, prepared from the causative agent of a disease, its products, or a synthetic substitute, treated to act as an antigen without inducing the disease
But to be fair, at this point, I don't know why we discuss mRNA vaccines, there's been traditional vaccines available for people to take as well such as J&J and Novavax. So even if you don't want to take risk with mRNA since its a newer mechanism to use for vaccines, one can take J&J or Novavax instead.
J&J is an adenovirus-vector vaccine. They're almost as new as mRNA - before the covid ones, it had only been approved once, in an Ebola vaccine, in 2019.
There's arguably some profit motive for Pfizer and Moderna. But there isn't any for the FDA or all its other international peers. Not to mention that if the vaccine turns out to be dangerous in any way, the reputational damage will be incalculable and completely wipe away the billions made from what will probably be at most 10 doses of the vaccine, if we're unlucky.
There is essentially a revolving door between industry and regulators in the US. We shouldn’t trust, we need to independently verify. We need openness and the FOIA.
Also, please see vioxx to learn more about how pharma will push drugs with known, serious side effects and try to bury the evidence.
Most of these people have their professional lives tied up in a specific drug. You better bet many of them will do damn near anything to push it thru regardless of the human cost.
Remember that when there is wrongdoing the individual whistleblower is the exception. The only person out of many that was willing to come forward to do the right thing.
They can come back from it - other companies have. Do we even remember the scandals Nesle and Monsanto (etc) have weathered? And don't forget that Pfizer and Moderna have been given immunity against any side effects from their COVID treatments.
If there's any long term effects, the drug companies are well insulated from any blowback.
If you don’t mind, why not get vaccinated? Like, what is the downside?
I know this is a dangerous topic, especially on the internet with strangers, so feel free to just not respond - that would be understandable. But I am curious to hear your thought process.
What are the long term effects of multiple rounds of boosters? You have no idea.
The mechanism by which mRNA vaccines work is different than standard vaccines. What are the unintended consequences? You have no idea. What is the risk if of COVID, especially the weakened Omicron strain?
The CDC Director states that 75% of COVID deaths occurred in people with 4 comorbidities [0]. For someone under 50 that is fit and isn't overweight, COVID is statistically nothing to worry about. And this person already got sick so has natural immunity.
What is the sense in assuming the prudent course of action is injecting a new pharmacological substance in your body instead of just allowing your own immune system to protect you naturally? Most drugs go through multiple rounds, over many years, of FDA testing and often side effects are discovered. What is gained by taking it? Almost nothing. What is risked? You don't know. I think the smart money will be on the side of the cohort that avoided this mind-virus of being gaslit into taking some pharma drug instead of just facing the minimal threat head on.
It's interesting that you're concerned about the long term _effects_ of boosters, but COVID is nothing to worry about since you're only concerned with _deaths_. Seems disengenous.
The vaccines don't prevent people from getting covid, so why accumulate risks?
In any case, common sense says the natural coronavirus would be handled by your body in predictable ways versus the new mRNA engineered substance. Are you telling me since you got the vaccines, you actually think you're going to avoid getting COVID? If this is not what you think, then what the hell are you talking about?
The body handles the mRNA vaccine more predictably than the naturally occurring viable coronavirus. This is not a matter of common sense; it’s possible to test in vitro and in field trials (and there have been a lot of both).
The reason is in part because there is less variability from dose to dose of an mRNA vaccine than there is among extant variants of viable SARS-COV-2 coronavirus. That makes it easier to predict what will happen.
And it is in part because mRNA vaccines are built up from the existing biochemistry of the body. That is, mRNA vaccines are not a new thing we created, they are a distillation of a natural system that we discovered and studied.
> What is the sense in assuming the prudent course of action is injecting a new pharmacological substance in your body instead of just allowing your own immune system to protect you naturally?
Your immune system provides very little natural protection until after you have been infected at least once, which subjects you to all the risks of actually having COVID. The point of vaccination is to get your immune system to that point without having to go through actually having COVID first.
> Most drugs go through multiple rounds, over many years, of FDA testing and often side effects are discovered.
Vaccines aren't most drugs. For the mRNA vaccines all ingredients are known to be long term safe except the actual mRNA itself, but the mRNA makes no permanent change nor does it last very long, so any bad effects from the mRNA itself must show up short term. (This has also been the case for all previous vaccines--if something bad was going to happen it didn't take long to show up).
The spike protein that the mRNA instructs some of your cells to make also does not persist. Your immune system does react to it which will cause long term changes--but those changes are the whole point of vaccination, and they are the same changes that would be made if you were not vaccinated and caught COVID.
In an alternate reality where SARS-CoV-2 was not going to become endemic and it might be possible to purposefully avoid getting COVID long enough for us to eliminate the virus you could maybe make a case for that instead of getting vaccinated.
We are not in that branch of reality. Unless you happen to have a short remaining lifespan, you will get COVID at some point. The health downsides of doing so unvaccinated are now a superset of the health downsides of getting vaccinated first.
> What is gained by taking it? Almost nothing.
An order of magnitude reduction in the risk of hospitalization, and an even larger reduction in the risk of death, from COVID.
A) Hasn't been around long, we know it can have some horrible long-term effects.
B) Hasn't been around long, have found almost zero long-term effects, yet.
A has at least 100x chance of dying than B, and at least 1000x chance of hospitalization.
And you think it is sensical to choose A? I don't get it.
I'm not obese, I lift weights, I'm under 50 and I get lots of vitamin D? You know, common sense and that which correlates with the data of covid risk. If you are unhealthy or fat I can see hoping the vaccine will save you from your lifestyle choices. If not, then what are you afraid of?
The vaccines will not prevent you from getting covid. So what's with all the convoluted thinking where you pretend you won't get it?
The risks of death from covid are a rounding error if you're young and healthy. People mistakenly act as if this disease is affecting everyone in severe ways equally. It is drastically skewed to older and unhealthy.
You have no idea what the long term effects of the vaccine are stop pretending like you do, it's ridiculous.
This is not our first rodeo with vaccines. So we do in fact have excellent reasons to believe they don't cause delayed long term effects. That is, if there were long term effects, they would manifest themselves in short order. There's no biological mechanism for a vaccine to lurk in hiding for years and then suddenly cause a brain tumor or chronic inflammation or what have you.
"When new vaccines are released, the unknown side effects, if any, show up within two months of vaccination. This history goes back to at least the 1960s with the oral polio vaccine and examples continue through today." [0]
"First, when these [delayed side effect] events occurred, the onset was within eight weeks of receipt of the vaccine. Second, in all of these cases, except narcolepsy following H1N1 vaccine, the side effect of the vaccine was something that could be caused by the infection, meaning that getting infected with the virus also carried a risk of experiencing these outcomes. " [1]
"Forget adverse effects over five or ten years: the way your immune system works does not allow for such long-term safety concerns." [2]
> You have no idea what the long term effects of the vaccine are stop pretending like you do, it's ridiculous.
I didn't, in fact the opposite. You have no idea what the long term effects of covid are stop pretending like you do, it's ridiculous.
You're playing russian roulette and have the choice between two guns. One has 1000 chambers, the other has 1000000 chambers, and you are choosing the first one and acting like you are relying on statistics.
I'm in a pretty similar boat, young guy, had COVID didn't even notice. But got a positive test because the rest of the family was sick.
There doesn't seem to be a solid reason to take the vaccine, for me specifically. Could easily make me sick for a day(s), with a very small chance of even worse side effects.
Some of it I'm sure is a personality trait, I just generally need a good reason to do things.
If vaccines passports or other such measures get introduced (UK) I'll get it reluctantly, because that's a bastardized reason & a benefit.
It is a dangerous topic (which is weird, right?) And I post on HN under my real name. But it's a genuine question, and I'm going to try to give you a complete response, because I think open discussion on this is important, even though I know that it's an unpopular opinion.
It comes down to three things:
1) the studies I've reviewed, which overwhelmingly support the strength of natural immunity
2) the adverse reactions that I've seen personally (I personally know more people that have had more severe reactions from the vaccine than I know who have had severe outcome from covid - purely anecdotal, but hard for me to ignore), and from VAERS (truly frightening), and
3) the very strange authoritarian approach the government and media have taken with this. I don't know of any vaccine or drug trial that would have survived the number of adverse effect that have been reported without being pulled. We keep seeing strange things like the CEO of Reuters being on the board of Pfizer as [1] mentions. But it's immediately flagged on HN. You can't even discuss it. Medical opinions from highly qualified doctors and health experts being silenced, accounts being canceled and removed from FB, Google, etc... frankly, it has me creeped out. I've never seen anything like it.
The "othering" of people who make informed choice about vaccination and decide against it is extraordinary. It's a global phenomenon. You can see it in some of the responses to my comment here on HN, even. Take a look at the downvotes for my comment - just for saying that my natural immunity seems to be robust. There don't seem to be many people willing to engage in an open and honest dialog about this, other opinions are silenced by any means available.
Maybe it's because I'm older and cranky, maybe it's because of a deep distrust of centralized authority, but the more someone pushes me to do something, anything really, the more I tend to resist.
When I couple that with the risk/reward evaluation and the advice of my doctor, all things things come together to make me decide not to do it.
Anyone can report anything to VAERS. It's exactly as scary as the boogeyman.
A severe outcome from COVID is hospitalization. You seriously know multiple people who were hospitalized as a result of a vaccine? (X) Doubt.
The "othering" is because people who opted out of getting a vaccine have endangered the rest of us. It appears you've continued to participate in society, as evidenced by your reinfection. People generally shouldn't be surprised that they face social sanction when they act in an antisocial way! If you drive recklessly, you go to jail. If you don't get certain vaccines, you don't get to enroll in school. You can't smoke indoors, or even close to doors, in most parts of many countries.
The fact that your "informed choice" is driven more by gut feelings, selection bias, and an innate opposition to any and all authority further underscores the point.
> The "othering" is because people who opted out of getting a vaccine have endangered the rest of us
Unvaccinated people are a danger to vaccinated people???
Isn't the main purpose of the vaccine protection against a severe case of COVID? I don't understand why someone who is vaccinated would feel endangered by anyone, regardless of their vaccination status.
Many people that share your opinion feel so strongly that they "know the truth" and "are right" that they feel justified in "othering" - even though most have no qualifications for the subject.
I'm not sure what causes this, or what the solution is. It's certainly not how science works, or how a liberal society should operate. If those are values that are still important to us, I feel like there needs to be some sort of solution to this.
Maybe the problem lies in the medium. I wonder if you would be so hostile if we were discussing this over beers somewhere? Perhaps. I hope not.
I think you’re talking past the other poster. Not getting a vaccine is seen as an anti social action by the vaccine taking group. And not just in a “I blare music out loud on the subway” level but a “I leave piles of brush near my neighbors house during wildfire season” level
Society is generally hostile to behavior it views as being in the latter level of seriousness and talking about it over beers doesn’t generally make people more open to the idea that you are risking their lives
Risking whose life? How? You have been vaccinated, you are not at risk. That's the end of the line. ALL old people are vaccinated, >~99%. The people that die have been alarmingly unhealthy or very old. Almost exclusively. -The idea that there is danger lurking has been planted in your head. If you are obese, you have had two years to get your affairs in order.
I agree, on review I was. I was trying to be careful in my phrasing to avoid any form of personal attack or hostility, since the other poster clearly has strong feelings about the subject.
> Society is generally hostile to behavior it views as being in the latter level of seriousness and talking about it over beers doesn’t generally make people more open to the idea that you are risking their lives
That's what's so strange about this, isn't it? I haven't seen any evidence anywhere that deciding against getting the vaccine puts anyone else's health at risk. I've certainly heard some politicians say this, but I haven't seen it backed by any reputable studies. The phrase "pandemic of the unvaccinated" has been bandied about quite a bit, without any supporting evidence that I'm aware of.
From what I've seen, omicron is spread by fully vaccinated folks without much inhibition. Apparently, being vaccinated reduces the severity of an already (relatively) mild variant. So why all the hyperbole? Why the draconian mandates? Why ignore the demographics of vulnerable populations and insist on mandates for everyone? Even children?
Risking lives? Unless you have severe comorbidities or are very elderly, there's asymptotically approaching zero risk of a severe outcome from any Covid infection, especially not with omicron.
You've struck to the heart of the matter. Somehow, many people have been convinced, against all reason and science, that deciding against getting vaccinated is somehow antisocial. Why? What are the motivations involved? Who is doing this? There's a reasonable argument that skipping that vaccine isn't smart, but antisocial? That's a very different and aggressive narrative.
It all comes across as very scary to those of us who don't necessarily agree with the prevailing interventions of the past couple years. They don't appear, on the surface, to be evidence based.
Lockdowns certainly were not, and now that we have retrospective data, we know that they were ineffective and in most cases quite harmful.
Universal masking wasn't effective, but some states and companies are still requiring it. Why?
Shutting down schools was a societal nightmare, with no demonstrated benefit. Yet we see some places doing it again. Why?
At each step of the way with these interventions, those who argued against them were also considered to be "antisocial" and were silenced, ridiculed, and othered.
Now we have mandated vaccination, ignoring immunity status and demographics. Even for children, who have a much higher risk from the flu than they do Covid. Doesn't it seem strange? School districts don't mandate the flu vaccine, but several have proposed mandatory Covid vaccines? Doesn't it make you wonder why?
What could possibly justify Austria's extreme measures, police brutality and draconian mandates? In Australia, a grandmother was just put in jail for not wearing a mask. I've seen videos of similar things happening in the U.S. How can we even pretend to be a civil society and tolerate this?
Why have we allowed ourselves to believe that "othering" anyone is ok? These are the first steps down an extraordinarily dangerous path, history shows us.
It's been so sad and disheartening to me to watch our society progress from "free hugs" towards a dystopian nightmare. Were we always so fragile? Were our liberal beliefs always just a beautiful lie waiting to be exposed at the first test?
My response is that, like everything, there's a ton of nuance.
It requires a very careful reading of that article, paying attention to not just what they say, but what they explicitly fail to say.
First, I couldn't find any reference in that article to people being denied care, did I miss it?
But regardless, it's a really great example of what causes a lot of my deep suspicion. For example, the article details the low hospitalization rate amongst all vaccinated people, with lots of zeros after the decimal point, presenting it as evidence for the effectiveness of the vaccine - however, it doesn't mention anywhere the rate of hospitalization for the unvaccinated. Most likely because the numbers would look very similar to the reader.
Another example, the article says that most of the vaccinated covid patients are elderly, or those with severe comorbidities. It doesn't mention, however, that that is also true for the unvaccinated.
Another omission - the article doesn't discuss the difference between patients with covid, and patients admitted because of covid. That's an important variable, but until recently it's been a bit suppressed.
Another thing the article fails to mention is confounding factors like age when considering vaccination rate and infection rate. It's a confounding factor because (according to what I've read) the most completely vaccinated are young, healthy people. Many cranky older people like myself are not. That's a pretty important confounding factor when you're looking at hospitalizations and comparing populations.
The article is pretty heavy on hyperbole, but doesn't mention that hospitals (especially the ICU's) are designed to operate at or near capacity. Hospitals are sized based on the community they serve and must remain mostly utilized in order to remain profitable.
One fun thing to do that demonstrates this is to go back and search for articles for years prior to Covid, where there would be hysterical articles about the flu "overwhelming hospitals" and "ICUs at 99%" etc... it's an old trick that the media plays, historically it was to garner ratings/clicks. Is that still the reason? Could be.
That article is deeply misleading, at best, in my opinion. It goes to great lengths to paint a very distressing picture, without providing objective analysis. It's a great example of what I've been talking about.
I could mislead in the opposite direction. I could say something along the lines of "Great news everyone! Covid is over. In Tarrant County, for the first week of January, there were only a total of 11 deaths out of 22,000 cases, and all of those had underlying conditions. In january, your total risk of dying from covid was .000005, and if you are healthy it's zero! So hug everyone, don't worry!". According to the Tarrant County, TX Covid 19 dashboard and tracker, everything I just wrote it 100% true, but it's highly misleading.
It's completely understandable how someone could be mislead by an article like the one you referenced. I typically try to avoid the media reporting like that because the quality is so poor, to quote Thomas Jefferson "Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle."
I typically go to reputable medical journals and critically evaluate the studies (to the best of my ability). It gives me a very different picture than articles like that paint.
The case rate is not as much higher for young people, only 2x, but the hospitalization rate is 10x higher. This is the youngest age group as well, and the data is worse as the age increases.
Putting the two together, the picture is clear: there are people in the ER (or ICU) that don't really need to be there, and because of how easy it was to avoid they are directly responsible for the suffering they cause in those who have to wait. I'm not sure how a layer of nuance beyond these facts can change that.
There is not a layer of nuance anymore. These guys have been consistently wrong on a daily/weekly basis for years at this point.
The situation is that anti vaxxers are assumed not to be automatically wrong, but to be noise. There is zero useful information to be had from engaging with them.
If they go against the scientific consensus it means nothing, if they don’t have an opinion on the scientific consensus, it means nothing, and if they agree with the scientific consensus it means nothing.
There’s this implicit assumption that everyone in a conversation deserves to have their opinion heard or examined, but these guys have burned every shred of credibility they have
That's a pretty scary article, but doesn't seem to entirely square with the actual admissions data [1].
The largest hospital in the area, Barnes Jewish Hospital with over 1,100 beds had only roughly 10% of them filled with covid patients as of the last week in December. Most of the hospitals were no where close to capacity.
Mercy hospital, the second largest after Barnes had an average of 102 of 959 beds filled with Covid patients, again somewhere around 10%.
Also, these are patients with Covid, not necessarily patients admitted because of covid.
If we take the article's statistic of 2/3 of the admissions being unvaccinated, then for Mercy, for example, 67 of their patients are unvaccinated Covid patients, possibly incidental to their admission reason.
We're seeing 50-70% of "Covid admissions" in some places are actually "incidental", they were admitted for other reasons [2]. So the real number of unvaccinated sick covid patients at Mercy is probably somewhere between 30-50.
St Louis has a population of almost 310,000.
Doesn't really seem worth breaking out the pitchforks over, does it?
> You've struck to the heart of the matter. Somehow, many people have been convinced, against all reason and science, that deciding against getting vaccinated is somehow antisocial.
Full disclosure: I am one of these people.
As it is, I view not getting the vaccine as anti social because the rate the unvaccinated are getting hospitalized at is tipping over our healthcare system. I might not feel this way if the unvaccinated were consistent and laid in the bed they made but it seems like a rare occurrence. What I am seeing is the unvaccinated being up all these claims about adverse affects and the rushed nature of the vaccine development combined with “possible” long term side effects. The same people then end up rushing to the hospital and taking all sorts of medical treatments that were also rushed or filling themselves with the random chemical of the week to stop covid(ivermectin and the hydrochloro something one).
It’s a negative externality that’s gotten too big to bear and I view the behavior as the same level of anti socialness as major polluters
> As it is, I view not getting the vaccine as anti social because the rate the unvaccinated are getting hospitalized at is tipping over our healthcare system.
Do you have data to prove that the healthcare system is "tipping over"? Not articles from media outlets, but hard data.
ICU and inpatient bed utilization has been remarkably consistent throughout the entire pandemic (roughly 70-80%).
I’ve looked at hard data for discussions around these issues for nearly 2 years. Every time the anti vaxx crowd has been wildly incorrect, but claim that where they moved the goalposts to is a reasonable position that I will need to do hours and hours of research to even question.
I ran out of energy to deal with the firehouse of bullshit they spew constantly and at this point the anti vaxxers need to convince _me_ if they want anything they’ve said to be even considered.
If that upsets them because I’m not considering their “freedom” to limit my freedom and safety then were at an impasse, and it looks like my side has most of the power so good luck
> and it looks like my side has most of the power so good luck
Liberty is the result of those who hold power willfully divesting themselves of it, and using what remains to protect the inalienable rights of the individual.
This idea that power itself is a justification for action - it is anathema to any form of liberty. It carries the stink of tyranny and oppression - those that believe it share in dark and disturbing company.
Edit: removed some questions that while not intended to be negative, could have been interpreted as directed personally to the parent poster.
Do you think your a good person? I literally cannot empathize with someone who believes they should not get a vaccine because of freedom issues and thinks they are a good person. I do not submit to your position that I need to defend my way of life. I, and many other americans, are done with acting like the sane option in life needs to be defended against an insane group.
And yes, I understand how both sides think this way about each other. This is probably why we are going towards violence/revolution because thats the normal course of action whenever 2 groups in a country can no longer find a common ground. I am still not willing to cede the idea that your point of view is the standard and mine needs to be defended
> Do you believe in a liberal, civil society?
Do you believe in a liberal, civil society where people are allowed to fire rounds in the air or near your head because it didn't immediately directly kill you? Is it ok for you to take some action that is spreading a disease that's in the top 3 causes of death in our society because you don't feel like it?
>I wonder because I see a lot of people who do, but then say things like this, and I wonder how they justify it internally.
I justify it because the current path you and your ilk is suggesting leads us to a complete breakdown of society and economic regression. Your side is incapable of operating in a system where your actions can generate negative externalities that can break down society, and unfortunately reality is a system where that is true.
>The idea that power itself is the final justification for any action, is anathema to any sort of concept of liberty. It carries the stink of tyranny and oppression - those that believe it are in some dark and disturbing company.
Power isn't the justification. Power is your problem to deal with because we have no sympathy for your side when you are advocating what sounds like social suicide.
If you want a tl;dr, the vaccinated group is warming up to the idea that the unvaccinated group is no longer part of the same society. This is a line in the sand and where you stand is the group you are part of. The "othering" you mentioned in other comments is the act of people implicitly realizing that this reordering of tribes is occuring
Context: I have a PhD in physics, and I've got a great grasp of ventilation and filtration. I don't know much about the immune system... My biology training never progressed much past Mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell. I don't have qualifications in the subject, but my qualifications help me assess other experts.
Experts often get things wrong, but they tend to become less wrong over time. See the shifting consensus about aerosol spread.
Experts think vaccines are a good idea. The data continues to reinforce that position.
If you were a family member, an old friend, or otherwise closely connected to me, I'd talk to you on the phone. I love my family, and I would not sit down and consume anything with you. You literally could not pay me enough. Not because I abhor a liberal discussion--quite the opposite. You've shown yourself to be irrational and unwilling to adapt your position, and as a result you've managed to catch Covid a second time. Your wife got it too? I'm not going to waste my time and breath on you.
Consider this: what would it take for you to reconsider your position? Because billions of doses of several different vaccines have been delivered to an exceptionally weary world, and a tiny fraction of those recipients have seen negative side effects.
Those rates ignore exposure, testing, and severity differences. Ontario mandated vaccination for high risk work and leisure settings. Mandatory tests are more common in high risk work settings. Elective vaccination and elective testing correlate probably.
A vaccinate is natural immunity. it uses dna from the virus to teach your immune system how to fight this particular type of virus. if you believe that your natural immunity is strong, giving it an extra training course can't hurt in any way.
even if I think I've mastered the material, I still study before the final exam. because...why wouldn't you?
Thanks a lot for the explanation. I don’t have to agree with it to at least see where you are coming from.
Its too bad that my comment kicked off just the sort of nonproductive back-and-forth I was hoping to avoid with my phrasing (in the other threads, not in your comment). Sheesh.
> Its too bad that my comment kicked off just the sort of nonproductive back-and-forth I was hoping to avoid
I appreciate the genuine question, and I don't mind explaining my reasoning. It's a complex subject, highly nuanced and riddled with early and inaccurate data and conflicting studies.
There's also a huge political component to it, which inevitably drags personal identity and emotion into the conversation. Back-and-forth and hostility are going to require a lot of disciple to avoid, which we thankfully mostly see on HN.
It's been strange to watch my karma fluctuate wildly from my comments in this thread. I would love it if there was some sort of indicator on HN about magnitude on votes. Right now, my comments are roughly net-neutral, but my karma has swung about 10 points either way in this discussion.
He has natural immunity. There are literally only downside risks from taking the shot. Who gets vaccinated for a disease they already had? No one gets measles and THEN gets vaccinated.
> Who gets vaccinated for a disease they already had?
Chickenpox (a form of herpes) lies dormant in the system for decades causes Shingles. Vaccinations are recommended at 50+ for people who have had the former to prevent the latter.
He just said he tested positive (again). That means he can still spread the virus to other people; it's entirely possible that his getting the shot would have spared his wife her current symptoms. Elevated risk of infection, even if asymptomatic, is also elevated risk of having to unexpectedly quarantine in the future.
A vaccine would have lowered the odds of that, and it will still lower the odds of it happening again in the future. On the other hand, the risks and downsides of getting vaccinated are negligible.
This is like asking why it's worth driving sober when you already have seatbelts (masks) and airbags (natural immunity).
This is a very weak, modern, hyper-fearful mentality that is not consistent with reality. You're wishing you lived in a utopia, but you don't. You live in the real world. The vaccine cannot prevent infection from the current strains. Everyone is at risk of getting COVID and most likely will get it. You can't hide from this disease, but it's ok because the virus has weakened as it's become more infectious, as coronaviruses tend to do.
>the risks and downsides of getting vaccinated are negligible
You can't know what the long-term effects of this new type of vaccine are. Especially given people have to take it over and over again for to have any effectiveness, so negative effects could possibly accumulate. But it won't prevent catching COVID anyways. Like 5 of my friends and family recently got COVID over Christmas that were all vaccinated. The stats on case numbers bear this out: vaccinated are catching the Omicron strain. The vaccines can't stop this. Natural immunity works many times better than these vaccines and providing protection against infection anyways. This is how it will go, no matter how many boosters you take.
What are you talking about? No one suggested that the vaccine would prevent infection 100% reliably, and I'm not sure why you think we have a better understanding of the long-term effects of covid than mRNA vaccines (which aren't the only type of vaccine available in the first place).
It's pointless. If you're young covid is not a big deal. If you're giving the vaccine and boosters to children, you should be arrested for child abuse and need to get your brain examined. Look at the data...CDC director admits 75% of covid deaths are people with 4 comorbidities[0]. Something like 80% of deaths are over 65 years old.[1]
This is a disease that mostly harms the old and the obese. Just workout, lift weights, get vitamin D and lose body fat. This is what should have been promoted for most people, not worrying about getting 4 rounds of an experimental vaccine that doesn't protect you from actually getting the disease.
>No one suggested that the vaccine would prevent infection 100% reliably
Sure they did, but whatever. It's over man. People need to wake up from this brain rot and move on with their lives. They've destroyed young kids childhood development[2] and they can't let it go. You got young healthy people that have no business worrying about this virus still panicking and avoiding real social lives.
>better understanding of the long-term effects of covid
Because it's a coronavirus that you can't generally avoid getting as it becomes endemic (and weaker). The threat is normal like most other coronaviruses. What is new and novel is the experimental treatment that has to be retaken over and over to actually do anything but will fail anyways. And there already are side effects. Long term, you can't know what this will do but common sense says avoid this, and accept the minimal "risk" you can't avoid but which runs its course quickly and easily (covid).
The data doesn't support your conclusion. Death isn't the only kind of harm. Even if what you're saying were accurate, some of us healthy people do actually interact with older or immunocompromised people, and have enough courtesy to avoid putting their health at undue risk.
If you have a gripe with the recency of mRNA technology, you could just as easily advocate for more traditional alternatives. If you're scared of needles and don't like being pressured to get an injection, you could just say that. As-is you're discrediting yourself entirely.
Sure they did [suggest that the vaccine would prevent infection 100% reliably]
The comment you're replying to (mine) certainly did not. I'm not sure who you're referring to.
They've destroyed young kids childhood development[2] and they can't let it go. You got young healthy people that have no business worrying about this virus still panicking and avoiding real social lives.
Sure. None of that is my preference and it isn't relevant to my comment.
For what it's worth, recovering from the disease and getting a "booster" vaccine a few months later yields the best protection. I hope you do this.
People who are relying solely on disease recovery are far more likely to be reinfected, and face worse outcomes, as compared to people who get their full three-dose vaccine (two primary + booster).
Incidentally, your thought process is suffering from the naturalistic fallacy.
Where did you get this data? All CDC itself says on the website says “Cases of reinfection with COVID-19 have been reported, but remain rare. [1]” and it seems there is an active effort to suppress the effectiveness of natural immunity effectiveness (at least against the same strain). Intuitively given vaccine’s ineffectiveness at protecting against Omicron spread, I tend to think the push for boosters are quite dubious and natural immunity is at least as good as vax if not better, and sufficiently low risk for Omicron after 2x vax. Besides, anecdotal experience of below 40 adult friends catching Omicron with 2x or 3x vax has been much easier than the two days of bitter experience after their last dose of Moderna. The only acceptable rationale is to flatten the curve so the Omicron surge wouldn’t DoS hospitals in the short term which can happen even if the relative risk of hospitalization is low due to the high transmission rates, but that can be better achieved via more temporary isolation/N95/etc than boosters.
> I thought the marshmallow test was in the other direction - the millions of people who acquired natural immunity through infection, but "grabbed the marshmallow" in the form of the vaccine. What will the long term effects be? We don't know.
Assuming that natural immunity is still up to date and kicking, then there shouldn't be any issues with this. After all, the body should recognise and then proceed to battle the vaccine.
You may experience symptoms, but at least the way I understood it these are short term, not in the long run.
On the other hand, if the natural immunity has weakened then this is good training.
So really, as far as I can see there is no reason to ever not take a vaccine unless you had an infection just a short while ago
Dead wrong that a single bought of COVID is better than 3 vaccine shots. You need repeated exposure. Plus, I’m guessing you’re young-the point was to stop the > million deaths COVID is going to cause in the US alone soon. Nice work.
Tiny sample size compared to the one from Israel that found the opposite.
And the CDC essentially admits the vaccines no longer do much to prevent spread (due to waning protection and new variants). Maybe previous natural immunity has seen the same reduction, but you can't assume that.
Look, if science made an error, then that is a huge opportunity for an army of other scientists to point it out. That's how science works. Don't make the mistake to think that an armchair scientist can outsmart them all with just some basic reasoning perhaps based on personal anecdotes.
The article's description of the "vaxxed and done" mindset is not very different from what you have described -- we accept that the disease will be endemic, and we treat Covid like we treat the flu, including keeping up with annual shots.
The marshmallow test has more to do with kids coming from a poor family, where it's the rational action to take what you can now as the opportunity disappears quickly, rather than with their willpower.
The marshmallow test has been largely debunked by recent follow up studies. It largely acts as a test of socioeconomic conditions at home if anything. The analogy to COVID probably holds but not in the way you’re suggesting.
> I know someone who almost quit a great job because they were mad about a vaccine mandate from their employer.
That situation is impossible to assess without knowing the job description. I would also be hesitant to work at a place if the employer demands vaccinations because they are refusing remote work even when the job description does not require it. We have a pandemic and employers need to minimize unnecessary risks like open floor plans and crowded meetings rooms for employees that doesn't need physical proximity in order to do their job. On the other hand if the job description is being in a hospital or elder care facility, it would be irresponsible to let nonvaccinated employees treat clients. Everything between is a sliding scale that in a pandemic should lean towards safe rather than unsafe.
They should have the same liability as to anyone which interacts with the company or organizations, including patients outcomes in hospitals. If a patients get infected by a sick doctor or nurse, the fault is at the employer who allowed that situation from happening.
Every person who get injured at work is to some degree harmed by the company that allowed that injury to occur. This is why companies has insurance to deal with that. If vaccinations is required for the job then getting vaccinations is by definition work, should happen during paid hours, and any adverse effects dealt with as with any other work related adverse effects.
But unlike work related injuries, we simply do not know when adverse effect will manifest. If, for example, an employee leaves a company shortly after submitting to vaccination mandated by her employer for continued employment, at most the insurance coverage will extend for a month after termination.
I agree, the reward is neither clear nor consistent to individuals.
It's also worth nothing the sacrifice to be made isn't consistent and is highly subjective to an individual. A single person who moved to a new town and spends months isolated, or a business owner, etc. is making very different sacrifices from a person who's in a stable marriage with a family working a software engineering job.
> It looked for a while there like this could be a thing that gets “done”—that we would get a good vaccine into enough people, then incidence would decline so far it just goes away.
Coronaviruses in general are endemic to humans, and SARS-CoV-2 in particular appears to infect animals. Even if at some point no humans carried the disease, it'd still come back from some cross-species transmission. The only "done" state I ever expected is/was the same situation we have with influenza -- annual vaccine and seasonal waves of illness.
Your marshmallow test framing fails for me. Just as it is often important to signal community and solidarity, it is also often important to signal individuality and resistance to authority.
I'm not going to get vaccinated, and it is out of pride and the principle of it. I'm fortunate that I probably won't lose my job and if I did I would be fine financially. And I am in the age and health range where the absolute benefit of getting vaccinated is vanishingly small. So I don't pretend I'm some martyr or sacrificing for my principles. But it is my own small personal protest.
I have many reasons. Unrepentant corrupt, incompetent, and lying governments and pharmaceutical corporations are among them. But the biggest ones are my anger for coercion and threats of financial ruin people have suffered; the collectivization of health and personal responsibility; and finally I just don't like the way I'm spoken to about it and so I take great pleasure in the wailing and gnashing of teeth by the ruling class enraged by the commoners who refuse to bow down and submit to them.
> one can cry for the world that was, or one can get up and live in the world that is.
This is certainly beside the (your) point, but it's worth mentioning that mourning and grief (ie, to "cry for the world that was") is a crucial and possibly unskippable component to "live in the world that is."
They're certainly not mutually exclusive activities, and I'd love to see more STEM demographics recognize the former's necessity.
> We’re not going to be done with vaccines and mandates. And that does not have to be a big deal.
Sure it does. My body, my choice. I have no problem quarantining myself and have left my house less than 40 times in 2 years. I’m quite capable of managing my health and preventing others from getting what I don’t have so why take the risk with the vaccine? Do you believe that there are no long term effects?
So I'll ask the same question that I've yet to receive a concrete response to: How long is long enough before you'll trust the vaccine? A solid number, in years please. Every anti-vaxxer I've asked that to has hand-waved the question away, because they know if they say something like "I need a minimum of 20 years before I'll trust a vaccine" they'll sound paranoid, which they are. Also their timespan is almost certainly long enough that any pandemic would be long over by the time they'd trust it, essentially precluding vaccines as tool during a pandemic if everyone were to adopt their perspective.
By virtue of its distribution these vaccines have already been tested far more extensively than any other vaccine in history at the time of their release. If you don't trust this vaccine then you should never trust any future vaccine.
All your "what if"s remind me of the "what if it causes fertility issues?" that swept the internet last year despite zero valid supporting data. Well my wife and I trusted the actual data instead of internet speculation, as well as the data showing what COVID can potentially do to fetuses, and we got pregnant well after both being fully vaccinated. Thus far the baby appears healthy (genetic testing clean, strong heart beat, correct size). So it turns out the experts were right on that one, and it's more directly relevant than your Vioxx example.
>So I'll ask the same question that I've yet to receive a concrete response to: How long is long enough before you'll trust the vaccine?
At this point it's not a matter of time in many cases, because it's already been shown in the data for certain demographics that the personal risk is not worth the personal benefit.
Long enough for there to be a sufficient amount of statistically significant data that demonstrably proves that mRNA techniques are safe with no deleterious long term side effects especially compared to the afflictions they are supposed to mitigate, and in spite of their disastrous results in animal trials over the past few decades. You don't need a specific time because we have specific ways of determining statistically significant effects over time and populations. The amount of data that currently exists is 0.
Non eradicating vaccines during a pandemic of disease with transmissibility as high as COVID are actually a terrible idea for the same reason not finishing your antibiotics is: It applies selective pressure that promotes immune escape and treatment resistance.
>By virtue of its distribution these vaccines have already been tested far more extensively than any other vaccine in history at the time of their release. If you don't trust this vaccine then you should never trust any future vaccine.
This is a new level of newspeak. Releasing without testing is testing. Slavery is freedom. War is peace.
It’s completely normal for all medications and especially vaccines to be monitored very closely after they are first approved (also called "phase 4").
This is a completely normal part of the approval process, simply because (phase 3) studies with a couple thousand participants will miss very rare side effects (if they exist) because, you know, statistics.
Of course you can trust a vaccine much, much, much more if it has been administered to a couple billion people as opposed to a couple thousand people, with no serious side effects being observed (or the side effects that are observed accounted for and reacted to).
You implication that this is somehow newspeak is deeply weird and irrational.
I'm not sure how you want me to respond to what you stated since it has nothing to do with what I stated.
Long term data doesn't exist. There's no evidence the vaccines are safe long term. They also experienced greatly accelerated trial periods with data and time that would have been woefully insufficient for any other medical intervention. The data, results, and methodology for the trials is currently embroiled in scientific and ethical controversy.
To state they are "the most well tested vaccines ever" is blatant gaslighting. Widely distributed is not tested.
The request for the other poster to "actually respond to what you have written" is somewhat ironic given that you didn't do the same for them. They specifically said they wanted data on the "long term side effects" which you then completely ignored in your reply, and instead talked about how it had been "administered to a couple of billion people".
This is something that I see authoritarian pro-mandate people do all the time and it genuinely confuses me. Why do you do this? Do you think that testing with a billion people for a year will give you the same data as testing a hundred million people for ten years? Or is it just a genuine mistake?
I'm vaccinated, but I would go with some thing along the lines of 10-20 years. That is when we will actually have long term data. Until then, it is all predictions and assumptions, however well informed.
I work in medical R&D and there is a long history of drugs and products with delayed failure and unintended consequences. I think the chances are low, but anyone who claims they are zero is lying.
> if they say something like "I need a minimum of 20 years before I'll trust a vaccine" they'll sound paranoid, which they are
Chronic lead poisoning, mesothelioma (cancer usually caused by abestos), lung cancer (cigarettes), various types of cancer caused by Agent Orange, and cancers caused by DDT take years-to-decades to manifest. Asking for 20 years is completely reasonable and supported by a dozen other substances that do have long-term side effects on that timescale.
> Also their timespan is almost certainly long enough that any pandemic would be long over by the time they'd trust it, essentially precluding vaccines as tool during a pandemic if everyone were to adopt their perspective.
Almost everyone that I've heard (except for a lone hardcore anti-vaxxer) who has expressed unease at the safety of the mRNA technology in general, not the specific application of it to SARS-CoV-2 - which is understandable, as there's no long-term trial data available about it. Several said that they were waiting to take the Novavax vaccine, which uses an older technology (subunit) that has been in use for decades.
So, assuming that the majority of people uneasy about taking the vaccine adopt that stance above, then no, there's no "precluding vaccines as tool during a pandemic" because the criteria is whether a particular vaccine technology has been tested for decades or not, not the particular payload.
> By virtue of its distribution these vaccines have already been tested far more extensively than any other vaccine in history at the time of their release. If you don't trust this vaccine then you should never trust any future vaccine.
Testing a vaccine with one million people for one year does not translate into ten years of study for one hundred thousand people. You cannot predict long-term effects with short-term data, and long-term effects are what these people are worried about. Nobody except hardline anti-vaxxers (who make up a tiny tiny minority of the population that I'm not discussing here) wants every single payload+technology combination to be tested for decades before use.
> Well my wife and I trusted the actual data instead of internet speculation, as well as the data showing what COVID can potentially do to fetuses, and we got pregnant well after both being fully vaccinated.
I'm reminded of a line from a sibling comment: "you get 0 applause from me if you randomly guess a “what if” correctly" - and without actual data as to whether mRNA vaccines have any long-term side effects (which is the issue under discussion), you're just guessing.
Finally, I'll preempt one of your talking points "We don't know what the long-term side effects of covid are either, yet, so why not pick the less risky of the two?" Because that is a personal choice - so it's up to the individual, not the government to impose.
It's generally a good strategy that, given ambiguous information, you still make the best use of what you have and pick the least risky option (i.e. vaccines) - however, in the specific case of vaccines in the US, the fact that the US government has shielded vaccine manufactures from legal liability means that there's significant downside in case there are long-term side effects.
If you want more people to take the vaccine, you should be campaigning hard to get that law repealed. I don't see anyone railing against anti-vaxxers doing that, so the more likely explanation is that these people are merely using the vaccine as an attempt to increase government control.
The study was conducted in 2018, is the first and only one prior, was uncontrolled, only had 101 participants, a follow up of 64 days, and several negative outcomes.
I do stand corrected. One made it to human trials. Doesn't mitigate dozens of disastrous animal trials.
I've seen enough already to know the risk reward isn't worth it for myself or my children. Myself and my immediate relatives suffered too many negative side effects. FIL still in ICU for stroke two weeks after vax, wife severe migraine for ninety days and me with blood clots.
Well maybe you guys are one of the rare sufferers of actual side effects/allergies and shouldn't get the vaccine, assuming any of the above is related to the vaccine and there weren't other medical issues going on. Or if there were maybe said medical issues interact negatively with the vaccine and should be accounted for.
That said all vaccines have side effects for some populations. There a reason why when you get your flu shot they ask you if you've had any previous bad reactions to flu shots. That doesn't make the flu shot or any vaccine a bad bet, sometimes you bet with 99% odds and end up the 1%.
how? think about how many people have been vaccinated. if it caused strokes or severe respiratory illness there would be ample evidence of that by now. it wouldn't just be this or that relative. think about even 1/10th of 1% of 200 million people having a stroke within the same time period. you think nobody would notice that?
We have limited information in almost every decision we make, yet we still have to decide (inaction is itself a decision). The key is what you fill in those bits of missing information with, not the results of the decision as no one is clairvoyant.
This sounds like a gambler. “You’re putting $100 on black?” “Yeah, I could lose $100, but what if I’m right?”
For both the gambler and the anti-vaxx you get 0 applause from me if you randomly guess a “what if” correctly. You only get credit if you had a hypothesis you could intelligently explain and then tested it robustly. Kind of like the scientific process.
It’s fine to play “what if” games for fun, but not smart if you’re trying to play the odds, then you need more substance in your decision making.
Like “what if eating vegetables ends up causing heart disease?” We’ve been wrong about nutrition before so “who knows?”
We're not talking about things occurring "randomly". We're taking about reasonable probability assessments based on available information. Those refusing the vaccination are operating with the same level of information about long term effects as those that get it: none. People that get the vaccine have no empirical evidence that it will be beneficial or not harmful in the long run. No long term data exists for the techniques or methodology.
Your nutrition example is a great parallel because if we would have looked at the funding and long term data regarding the food pyramid, simple carbs, etc vs fats instead of just "trusting the experts" we wouldn't have an epidemic of obese, diabetic gen x and millennials. There's tons of sound empirical evidence about the long term health benefits of vegetables. It's complete false equivalence
> Those refusing the vaccination are operating with the same level of information about long term effects as those that get it: none
When I create a website, hire someone, fire someone, etc., I have no knowledge of the decision’s long term effects. My one simple act could make the world a paradise or destroy it, but I have no evidence or reason to believe in either of those scenarios so I ignore it and focus on outcomes that seem reasonable given the information I have at the moment.
It’s fine to question the long term effects of a decision, but if you’re doing so with no information or insight, you are just randomly guessing.
So better than “what if X happens?” Is “what if Y causes X to happen because of Z?” Then we have the basis of a hypothesis that we can discuss.
In the veggie example: “What if eating veggies causes heart disease because of Z?” “Z” is where the beef is :)
>if you’re doing so with no information or insight, you are just randomly guessing.
No you aren't. You are doing the empirically sound thing and accepting the null hypothesis, the baseline of being unvaccinated, in the absence of sufficient evidence that the long term effects of the vaccines are more beneficial than detrimental.
Do you maintain the baseline of your current state of knowledge and not accept new information? New information could possibly have long-term negative effects. There is no sufficient evidence as to the long-term effect this conversation will have on you. Yet, you readily engage, why?
Do you use any technology created in the last 20 years? 20 years isn’t long enough to properly study long term effects.
Or take any medicine developed in the last 40 years?
We jump into the unknown every day. You’re free to make whatever decisions you please, but when you make the decision to maintain your current baseline and reject a new option, ideally you’re doing that out of some informed position or rational fear and not simply because that option is new.
That’s why the interesting conversation to me isn’t “I’m waiting to take the vaccine until we understand the long term effects.”, it’s “I’m waiting to take the vaccine until we understand the long term effects because _______”. That’s where the meat is because it helps convey why this decision isn’t like discussing a new topic or using a cellphone or taking Lipitor.
You clearly do not understand the scientific method or empiricism.
How about this? "I'm waiting to take the vaccine until we understand the long term effects because no data exists regarding them and it would be empirically and scientifically unsound to confirm a hypothesis (that the vaccine's long term benefits outweigh the costs) without sufficient evidence to overrule the null hypothesis and default state of being unvaccinated."
But you ignore the fact that you likely don’t feel the need wait for long-term studies with information, technology, other medicine, etc.
That’s my point. There’s nothing wrong with your theory on paper. But in practice I’m willing to bet those that believe it selectively apply it. And that’s where my curiosity lies. In the absence of negative evidence how do you determine when to “wait for long-term data” and when do you “just go for it”?
Like using a cellphone. I’m sure many of those that want to “wait and see” on the vaccine readily use cellphones and didn’t feel the need to “wait and see”. What’s the difference? I’m genuinely curious. Is it the expected utility?
The probability of negative outcomes versus the a priori knowledge of outcomes, the context of the novel thing being introduced (direct health interventions versus convenience of cell phones is a great chasm), the similar evidence surrounding the novel thing.
As an example to the last point: many people did wait a long time to adopt cell phones and smart phones on the basis of worries about cancer, but there was already overwhelming evidence that non ionizing radiation doesn't cause cancer, so their concerns were misguided. Their concerns about novel devices were not applicable because the techniques and methods were not novel.
On the other end of the spectrum, X-Rays used to be a form of acne treatment, and there was no evidence on the safety of using them as such, just on the efficacy of the technique. As a result, many people ended up with all different kinds of cancer in their face, because there was no long term data on ionizing radiation's effects on DNA. The technology and the technique were completely novel and unstudied.
I never worried about getting cancer from a cell phone, because there was ample evidence proving the safety. I never would have gotten x-rays as acne treatment.
> many people did wait a long time to adopt cell phones and smart phones on the basis of worries about cancer, but there was already overwhelming evidence that non ionizing radiation doesn't cause cancer, so their concerns were misguided
Right, but they’re taking an action in response to a specific concern: cancer. When approached in that way, it can be measured, tested, debated, etc. Even if they’re wrong, they’re putting forth a useful dialog that can be approached scientifically and then put to rest.
This is opposed to a non-specific concern: something being new.
If you don’t do something because of the unknown, that’s fine, but you don’t get any kudos for being right down the line if it turns out to be dangerous. You basically bet on something going wrong and sometimes you’ll be right, sometimes you won’t, but your decision making process was not informed by information or probabilities in any way. And as with many conspiracy theories you can never really be wrong, because who knows, maybe data will come out in 2 years, or 10 or 20. Something can always go wrong later if you don’t define what you’re worried about and then retroactively claim that thing that went wrong as the thing you were worried about.
>but your decision making process was not informed by information or probabilities in any way.
That's exactly what it is and will be informed by, and that information right now is zero. There's no evidence to support the hypothesis' conclusion, therefore I reject the hypothesis at present. That's not always going to be the case.
It's in no way comparable to conspiracy theories because it's a falsifiable premise. Statistical significance can and will exist about the long term safety eventually. The question at hand is very easily quantifiable and qualifiable: are mRNA vaccines safe in the long term and relative to the risks of the afflictions they target? The current answer is: there is no evidence supporting that they are, therefore the reasonable, rational, and scientific thing to do is maintain the baseline until sufficient evidence exists.
Yeah maybe something can go wrong in 20 years in one person. That's not the argument I'm making. I'm arguing that we don't know what could go wrong or what the probability something can go wrong is in the long term because the data literally just doesn't exist you're trying to argue that we should just assume that the probability of something going wrong is already established as infinitesimally small. That's irrational and antiscientific. It's not established at all that's my entire point. The data will exist eventually, we are not stuck in this permanent state of ignorance.
> I'm arguing that we don't know what could go wrong or what the probability something can go wrong is in the long term because the data literally just doesn't exist
Yeah, but we also don’t know the long-term risks of HDTVs, VR headsets, CBD oil or Impossible burgers. Not knowing the long-term risks of a product is exceedingly common.
> you're trying to argue that we should just assume that the probability of something going wrong is already established as infinitesimally small.
Not at all. I’m saying that you have to encounter this problem nearly every day. And that if you were consistently concerned about abstract, undefined, unknown potential risks that you had no knowledge or understanding of then you would not participate in any new medicine, technology or activities and I just don’t know of anyone that follows that philosophy consistently. So that’s why I’m not buying that 0 long-term data is the only reason or even the main reason someone wouldn’t take the vaccine.
A chocolate bar from a brand new chocolate company at the grocery store is familiar and easy to understand. No one studied the long-term effects of this substance you’re about to put into your body (because it was just released this month), but we assume that the ingredients are correct, we assume that we understand the effects the ingredients will have on us, we assume that someone inspected the facility for cleanliness and we assume that it was delivered to the store and stocked without being tampered with. The long-term data for this particular bar of chocolate for this new brand doesn’t exist, but you don’t care and don’t think twice about consuming it. So, that’s why I don’t think it’s about the data at all, I think it has more to do with our assumed individual knowledge of the product, the production process and the quality control (or when lacking that, our willingness to trust the relevant parties).
Even if you get long-term data, it’s a no-win scenario if you’re were never looking for anything specific in the first place. You had no hypothesis, no argument and designed no experiment.
Let’s say 2030 roles around and they announce: “No long-term negative effects!” Well, why would I believe that? My area of concern was infinitely broad. You can’t test to infinity, so you’ll never satisfy my doubts. There might still be negative effects coming in 10 years, or maybe you messed up in the data collection, or are just plain lying to me, how would I know? Why would I trust you? Only if I approach the problem with a specific, testable concern can I ever get reassurance that my concerns have been addressed.
It makes a lot more sense to me to say: I’m concerned about mRNA vaccines because Dr. X expressed concerns about Y. And then wait for that specific concern to be addressed.
> The data will exist eventually, we are not stuck in this permanent state of ignorance.
Only because people got the vaccine and didn’t wait for long-term data. That’s why this philosophy can never be adopted by a significant portion of the population, because it’s self-defeating. The moment you convince everyone that it’s smarter to wait for long-term data, you lose the ability to obtain that very data you want.
Mate I'm not sure how to make this any clearer to you. Literally none of the examples you gave are in any way comparable to injecting a completely novel medical intervention both in mechanism and function for which zero long term data exists. You're doing the equivalent asking me to believe there's a population of unicorns underground plotting to wipe out humanity, so we should plan to combat them by building up specific unicorn destroying weapons, with no evidence they exist in the first place. "It's safe trust me" Sorry but no.
All your examples have comparable or well studied technologies and preexisting science behind them. None of them have zero comparable long term data. HDTVs and VR are built on well understood technology, CBD oil, Impossible Burgers, Chocolate bars are built on well understood food chemistries. None of them come even close to the risks imparted by direct health intervention that has failed animal trials repeatedly.
>You had no hypothesis, no argument and designed no experiment.
I've literally explicitly stated it several times. If you choose to ignore it, that's a personal problem.
>The moment you convince everyone that it’s smarter to wait for long-term data, you lose the ability to obtain that very data you want
lol no you don't, you just do actual science and studies/trials while not fear mongering the population into authoritarian complacency over unstudied medical interventions that have not mitigated excess deaths at all.
> Literally none of the examples you gave are in any way comparable to injecting a completely novel medical intervention both in mechanism and function
Exactly, and that's why I listed them. The 0 long-term data part and interaction with novel technology is so commonplace in everyday life, it isn't the core issue and IMO, it's a byproduct of some other concern. The core issue for many people is 0 long-term data + [something]. The [something] is interesting. Here you identify "novel medical intervention both in mechanism and function" as the [something]. That [something] can be researched online, debated, etc. My guess is that if you had 0 concern over how mRNA vaccines work (like you had 0 concern over cellphone radiation), you wouldn't still be waiting on long-term data. Using your earlier example, it's like saying "I have 0 concern that cellphones produce harmful radiation, but I still want to wait for long-term data before using this new technology because long-term data is the most important thing in my decision making process." No one does that. They focus on the radiation, because that's what matters, and once they're comfortable with that concrete, specific concern they make an informed decision.
The 0 long-term data is a concern we overcome everyday without much hesitation. The fact that CBD oils have well understood food chemistries ignores the fact that their largely unregulated production process, quantity of application and internal/external application processes in combination with an infinite number of genetic or medical pre-conditions or other substances like over-the-counter drugs, alcohol, etc. could have an unstudied long-term effect. We have 0 long-term data on this and no one cares, because in the "0 long-term data + [something]" equation, if there's no [something], no one cares about the 0 long-term data part of the equation.
> the risks imparted by direct health intervention that has failed animal trials repeatedly
OK, now we're getting more detail. Now you can research and debate this more specific concern.
> you just do actual science and studies/trials
You could simulate it in the lab or animals all you want, but you need to study a large sample size of people over long periods of time to see any long-term effects in humans. That means in order for this "wait and see" philosophy to work for you, you need a large number of people to disagree with it.
> not fear mongering the population into authoritarian complacency over unstudied medical interventions that have not mitigated excess deaths at all
And more specific concerns. This is the heart of it IMO. Now you can have a conversation.
When you refuse to have a conversation or make a decision until you have robust long-term data, you're creating an impossible hurdle that you yourself can't possibly adhere to consistently with every new technology, medicine or medical procedure.
> What if it turns out the vaccines do have negative long term effects
This is like the inverse of Pascal's Wager [1]!
"What if taking some action results in negative long term effects that we don't yet know about? Better not do anything new just to be safe."
That reasoning could be applied to anything novel, and yet folks seem most ready to apply it to COVID-19 vaccination. The flu vaccine changes every year, but I've never heard folks expressing concern of the long-term effects of this year's new formulation. Let me rattle off a few more off the top of my head:
* Was there a large cohort of the population that refused microwave ovens in the 1970's?
* What if a doctor prescribes you a new medication that was developed in the last 5-10 years?
* VR headsets?
* Social media!
* Sitting at a desk in front of a computer working 8 hours a day
* Getting a smartphone
Is there some reason why we would expect a priori for the COVID-19 vaccine to have a particularly high risk of adverse affects that only show up long-term?
>Is there some reason why we would expect a priori for the COVID-19 vaccine to have a particularly high risk of adverse affects that only show up long-term?
The correct question is, is there sufficient evidence that we shouldn't? You don't ever assume the confirmation of a hypothesis (in this case long term safety) when introducing something novel. That's the exact opposite of science.
My answer is: I believe in science, empirical evidence, and hypothesis testing. I'm not going to assume the hypothesis that they're safe long term is correct without empirical evidence. You don't disrupt baseline systems with something novel on the basis of faith when no empirical evidence exists. That's completely antithetical to science.
It's funny because most of your examples are great illustrations that assuming novel things are safe has disastrous consequences.
I wholly agree with you that the approach you outlined is the correct way to arrive with a map that reflects the territory!
But what I’m pointing out above is the contradiction of how most of the folks worried about long term effects (and I have no idea whether this includes you specifically) seem to selectively apply this behavior strategy to only the COVID vaccine! And I personally think that one would miss out on a lot that is good and enjoyable in life by applying that strategy consistently across all decisions, but to each his own.
But for average folks that apply this caution to the Covid vaccine, I am highly skeptical that they are also applying it to all many other things in their life that could have equally high or even greater risk. (Which is why I intentionally included examples of behaviors that we know to have long term negative consequences.)
Completely novel direct health interventions are in no way comparable to technological advances built on well understood foundations and methodologies for which a wealth of data exists.
The Covid vaccine is hardly a “completely novel” health intervention, but rather it rests on a huge body of knowledge of the immune system and decades of vaccine science, does it not?
Sure the process used for this particular vaccine was novel, but do you think it’s mechanism of action is so fundamentally different from other vaccines such that it is likely to have fundamentally different long-term outcomes?
It really is. Its mechanism of action is completely new and involves cell alterations and inducing protein synthesis that has never been done before and for which no long term data exists.
>Sure the process used for this particular vaccine was novel, but do you think it’s mechanism of action is so fundamentally different from other vaccines such that it is likely to have fundamentally different long-term outcomes?
I don't know, maybe it could, maybe it couldn't. The data proving otherwise doesn't exist. That's why I'm going to wait for the actual science to be done.
A few cursory searches tell me pretty quickly that mRNA vaccines have been in use and studied for decades, including for diseases such as the flu, rabies, Zika, and CMV. So it would be hard to call it "completely new". And those decades of study have not shown long term effects either.
Which specific scientific evidence would you accept to change your opinion on this matter?
They have been neither used nor studied in humans prior to COVID-19, save for once, for rabies, with 101 participants, and that study was concluded in 2018.
> The flu vaccine changes every year, but I've never heard folks expressing concern of the long-term effects of this year's new formulation.
It's not a new formulation every year. They pick a few from a preexisting set of vaccines to try and get a best match to the strains they expect to be most prevalent in the coming flu season.
He edited his comment some time after I composed my reply. He directly claimed that mRNA vaccines alter your DNA and "modified your cells".
For the second part, being generous, you could say that the point of a vaccine is to modify your immune cells but it's more likely it was unfounded paranoia.
I have seen this claim elsewhere, and the people who bring it up know about reverse-transcriptase [0], an enzyme that can convert RNA to DNA. I've never seen anyone attempt to address that part of their claim, instead people just say "RNA is not DNA, duh." and leave it at that.
One of the co-author's of that pre-print paper does not agree with your interpretation of his work.
> “There is absolutely no reason to believe that any of the vaccine mRNA is doing the same thing. The viral spike protein mRNA is a tiny piece. Vaccines are not inducing LINE element RTs,” said Young. “Vaccines are protecting against the possibility of long-term seriously debilitating diseases or death.”
So yes, you are spreading anti-vax conspiracy theories. And this is why misinformation is treated as dangerous. It takes too much time and effort to repair the damage caused by this insane drivel.
(Also, other readers should note that OP edited his comment after my reply to remove the DNA modification boogeyman, although he seems to have doubled-down on it...)
I'm probably aligned with you politically, but you're acting extremely abrasively and arrogantly and HN isn't the place for that. You can calmly state your position and link sources without the rudeness. Please read the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
People who refer to anyone that doesn't believe their same exact dogma as conspiracy theorists are not worthy of good faith or respect.
There's nothing conspiratorial about wanting to do science to explore unknowns consequences of known potential outcome. I'm done entertaining respect for folks that claim otherwise. It's bad faith and just generally being an asshole. They can take it if they're gonna dish it out
Reading some of your other posts here, you have a lot of good points, and good data that I wasn't aware of before - so I want you to keep commenting, just not as offensively.
From a positive/factual perspective, speaking like you have will get you downvoted, flagged, and maybe even banned (it's unusual but it does happen) from HN. You're taking an unpopular position in a rude way and people don't like that. Adjusting the way you speak will get people to at least read and consider your points (if I see rude language in a comment that I'm inclined to disagree with already, my brain shuts off quick).
From a normative perspective, I believe that even people who refer to others as conspiracy theorists are worthy of respect - I'm a Christian and so I believe that all humans are made in God's image, including the ones that I vehemently disagree with, or the ones that try to silence my voice.
Again, I agree with a lot of the points you're making, and I want more people to see them, so please please please consider changing the approach you take on HN.
I've gone through cycles with this. Mostly I am done arguing. I hate arguing about this. It's just more of the culture war shit that so many different media sources love pushing to keep people amped up.
I double vaxxed and boosted. Stopped wearing a mask for the most part, but with Omicron I started wearing a mask again because I just don't want this stupid virus. I'm healthy and would probably not have a symptomatic infection. But I still don't want this stupid virus, and I don't want to spread it.
I think for 2022 I am going to try to argue less, and focus more on my areas of personal expertise. I've done a lot of arguing and feel like I'm generally worse off for it.
I don't want to discourage you but it appears to me like with this variant (and probably even more with further variants), it will be impossible to avoid infection whatever you do (and I mean, mitigation strategies will have probably no effect). Look at the numbers we're suddenly getting without anything changing in the landscape (actually, despite a very high number of vaccinations). It looks like the virus has become so contagious that it has rendered our mitigation measures moot.
This reminds me of people who say that "duck and cover" is useless in the face of a nuclear strike.
Obviously mitigations won't help if you're blasted in the face by an airburst (nuclear or biological), but it seems like it could still help if you're on the fringe of exposure.
I don't know how useless that would have been but in the case of Omnicron it does seem basically useless. I don't know, I don't have studies on hand or anything like that, but when you look at the numbers you have to wonder...
[edit]: maybe some of the more "extreme" (n95 masks, etc) have some decent level of protection, but I'm not sure anybody knows, at least with this variant. Even for previous variants all I've seen so far are models, which as we all know have a lot of assumptions.
I don't see why that would be true if you just wear an N95 (or equivalent) mask indoors, or whenever you're in close proximity to others. Eventually, the spike will subside.
Vaxxed, wearing n95s inside and avoiding crowds outside, wfh, and not having any close personal contacts over the past few weeks, I just tested positive. Omicron is incredibly infectious and all my mitigation strategies from the past 2 years stopped working.
It's really hard to see the big picture when you're literally sitting there with a verifiable data point to the contrary (your own experience), but do you think your experience is a guaranteed outcome for everyone, or is it possible your specific situation (testing positive for COVID despite taking precautions) is either an outlier, or at least not the most common outcome?
I'm sorry you're sick, that really sucks. I hope it's asymptomatic and you can get back to living your life soon.
I think this is going to be a common outcome. I read a contact tracing case of Omicron from a Hong Kong quarantine hotel. They have a strict 21 day 0-contact quarantine for entering the country and only 4 cases a day in a city of 7 million. One positive traveler infected another traveler. The positive traveler opened the hotel door at the ordained time to retrieve food and the virus migrated to the hallway, then the other person opened their door hours later and was infected. Our previous sanitary regime is no match for something that spreads as easily as measles and that is evident in the skyrocketing case counts. How many people do you know who are positive at this moment?
"Airborne transmission across the corridor is the most probable mode of transmission."
For reference, this case is described here:
Gu H, Krishnan P, Ng DYM, Chang LDJ, Liu GYZ, Cheng SSM, et al.
Probable transmission of SARS-CoV-2 omicron variant in quarantine hotel, Hong Kong, China, November 2021. Emerg Infect Dis. https://doi.org/10.3201/eid2802.212422
It’s not that they stopped working - it’s that they reduce risk to a low amount, but over time, you have more and more opportunities for something to break through that low amount.
Booster was scheduled for last week, 8 months post Moderna. Based on stronger Moderna immunity vs Pfizer and since I am careful, healthy and young, I decided to stretch a few more months out. Once I saw study that Moderna offered at least 10 weeks of moderate protection against Omicron, I scheduled booster. Could not get it due to symptoms.
Even if it's true that infection is inevitable (it's not true), delaying infection is a good idea, to reduce the immediate strain on the hospital system.
I wonder how much of this is the mask-wearing in the airplane and how much is simply now nobody travels with a sniffle anymore (maybe a slight exaggeration, but pre-covid you few would stay home with respiratory symptoms if they could physically manage it).
I don't notice myself getting sick any less now that masks are required on planes. Recently took 3 back-to-back flights and got sick afterwards for a few days. Maybe COVID, maybe not (hard to tell because other than loss of taste/smell there are no real distinguishing features of COVID symptoms from the flu or common cold).
The airport is more risky than the airplane. In an airplane you are sat next to a fixed number of people and you have top down insertion of clean air, exactly like in an operating theatre.
Meanwhile in the airport you are in a large building with many other people, you might come into contact with 100s of new people from a wide variety of places.
Thank you. Cannot agree more. Let's live out lives. Do what we love, grow in it and stop dividing.
Our office director is scared and has closed down again (were doing 3 days a week in person) due to Omicron. I don't personally think it was necessary and I liked working there in the quite (away from kids).
But, whatever. I am done with the fighting and with the political division over it.
> Which families own the press? Or is it verboten?
It is not verboten, it is dumb. Putting a large trend on religious/ethnic group of millions of people is just nonsensical. Do you really think millions of "jews", from gas station attendants to doctors to CEOs are somehow collaborating on pushing media a certain way?
If bunch of dudes are colluding on shaping the public discourse from wealth inequality to something else, is it more likely it is because of their ethnicity or because they are on the "winning" side of the wealth inequality divide?
Musing: Though considering the complaints about "they are now writing about systemic racism instead", it seems like very left-wing message (wealth inequality) packaged for hardcore right-wing people, so I guess complaining about "the jews" makes sense.
Vaccinations were sold as the solution to the pandemic.
Yet worldwide infections are going up at the same speed if not faster than before vaccinations. But no policy maker acknowledges this. They refer to the lowered death rate, or blame a new variant.
But it means that policy that gave people more freedom because of their vaccination status are not having any significant effect on decreasing the spread of the disease, they might even make it worse by allowing infectious people to mingle.
Therefore it's very unreasonable and authoritarian to not allow travel, shopping and even fire people over their vaccination status, when an individual decision clearly has a minimal effect on the collective.
Yet politicians are not budging but doubling down on vaccination policy, if there was any trust left in the integrity and capability of our leaders...
There's some real irony that the people most likely to spread COVID -- those who are vaccinated and thus don't show symptoms -- are the ones "allowed" to engage in the most risky behaviour like large gatherings at restaurants, bars, theatres, sports arenas. Meanwhile those second-class citizens who are non-vaccinated won't take those risks and will also definitely know if they are sick, hilariously probably behaving the most safely/cautiously, as everyone should. Just as expected, infection rates just skyrocket due to new variants and people thinking "I'm protected" as they act as if there's no pandemic at all. Great.
I think you have that backwards. Asymptomatic infection with likely transmission (plus presyptomatic transmission) was a big characteristic of COVID since day one (and one of the reasons it’s so hard to contain compared to say, Ebola). Research seems to show that vaccinated people have shorter windows of spreading virus, and (at least before omicron variant) were much less likely to have virus in their nose without symptoms.
From a policy perspective, it’s not clear that unvaccinated individuals will stay home with symptoms since some percentage of them seem to think is not real, not a real threat, etc.
I don't think I have it backwards at all. Non-vaccinated people are not going out and partying (partly because they legally can't, and partly because they probably don't feel like dying). There's very little avenue for them to even catch the virus, let alone spread it, especially because catching it means _probably_ being symptomatic and thus knowing not to be around people.
I mean, "breakthrough infections among vaccinated individuals remain uncommon" is simply false?? My friend's entire family of 15 people all got Omicron despite being double-vaccinated and boosted. After they already all had Delta last year as well! That's not "uncommon", that was literally a 100% infection rate, twice, for the family members who gathered.
> Non-vaccinated people are not going out and partying (partly because they legally can't, and partly because they probably don't feel like dying).
Here is a equally unsubstantiated claim: voluntarily unvaccinated people are going about partying and otherwise carrying on because they largely don't believe that COVID is real or has ever been a problem worse than a cold or flu, or don't care either way.
We don't know how differently vaccinated and unvaccinated people are behaving right now. Nobody is collecting that data. The only thing we know is that most of the severe hospitalized cases now are among the unvaccinated, and that the hospitalization/infection rate is significantly lower with Omicron than Delta.
Everyone is just trying to figure out how to keep the health system from being overwhelmed since The infection rate for this variant is so much higher. With the exception of the voluntarily unvaccinated, there is little blame to be laid on anyone in this situation. We are all just trying to do a controlled landing into the endemic stage of this virus.
> Non-vaccinated people are not going out and partying (partly because they legally can't, and partly because they probably don't feel like dying).
Do you live in the US? It’s not illegal in most southern states to go to bars and clubs with COVID, people do it often enough. Places aren’t checking your temperature or vaccination status.
Also, you must have missed the non-vaccinated college parties and then them returning home for break.
> I mean, "breakthrough infections among vaccinated individuals remain uncommon" is simply false??
The CDC defines a vaccine breakthrough infection as one in which a nasal swab can detect the SARS-CoV-2 RNA or protein more than 14 days after a person has completed the full recommended doses of an FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccine. [1]
Everybody, vaccinated or not, was in lockdown in many parts of the world last year. Which meant asymptomatic infections were far less likely to result in transmission.
Now, we have vaccinated people allowed to mingle and do "high risk" activities without being tested, despite the vaccine increasing the likelihood of asymptomatic infection. Unvaccinated people, who are more likely to be symptomatic, and therefore more likely to know if they have covid, cannot do those high risk activities.
So the irony is that the people more likely to be unknown carrier, have more freedoms and can therefore spread the virus more easily.
> Asymptomatic infection with likely transmission (plus presyptomatic transmission) was a big characteristic of COVID since day one
It was a guess from day one (because "novel virus"), that got treated as fact. (From memory) asymptomatic spread before the vaccines was found to be virtually nonexistent near the end of 2020. I don't recall findings about presymptomatic.
This is all crystal clear by now. We know how Covid-19 spreads.
The height of infectiousness is just before or around the start of symptoms. You are infectious maybe a day or so before symptoms start. You aren’t infectious for that many days. This means pre-symptomatic spread is a major factor.
Truly asymptomatic cases also exist but they aren’t that common (and many of those, if examined very closely, turn out to be cases with symptoms, just extremely mild ones). So presymptomatic spread most certainly is a major factor. It’s how this virus can spread so effectively without non-medical interventions and vaccines (which, yeah, also reduce transmission).
That’s basic virus 101 and while we didn’t know a lot about this in mid 2020 we do know a lot about this know. This isn’t even speculative or on shaky ground, this is quite solid science.
Studies show unvaxxed people:
* are five times more likely to catch covid
* significantly more likely to underestimate the risks of Covid
* are less likely to wear masks and follow other non-vaccine related best practices
You’ve basically chained a series of specious conclusions together and it definitely seems like those conclusions serve to support a particular political narrative.
All those public health decisions are taken behind closed doors, we are never told the full story. I suspect the point of the vaccine passports is really to protect the unvaccinated.
Totally, but that trust has been long gone in the US.
1/2 the population stopped paying attention to Dr. Fauci after he lied about masks (understandably). Then we were told that that funerals were bad, but outdoor protests were ok. Then it was racist to even consider the virus came from a lab leak. Then Fauci claimed that technically, he didn't fund gain of function research (in the most scripted,PR speak possible). Then we were told that vaccines would allow us to go back to normal. The level of trust lost by major institutions in the US, both medical and media-based is astounding. Biden said he would end the virus, then he said that there is no federal policy to stop the virus. Trump was racist/xenophobic for closing boarders to China, but Biden closed boarders with South Africa and wasn't racist/xenophobic.
This isn't about politics, im double vaxxed and survived omicron. This is about a huge failure across the board, and I'm not sure how you turn it around. We need to change some of the political systems in the US. There needs to be term limits (in congress, supreme court, executive branch). The executive branch needs age limits, with a hard cut-off at like 65. The fact that the choice in 2020 was between septuagenarians is pathetic.
If you spent 1% of your time paying attention to anything called media, the gaslighting is obvious.
Trump is racist. He called COVID the kung flu. Closing a "boarder" is a bit different than blaming a demographic.
Biden is not an overt racist, so it's not likely that a border closing will get characterized as racist. It's up for debate whether it was good or bad, however.
What did Fauci lie about regarding masks? There were higher infection rates in other countries but Trump focused on China. That does sound racist given other comments he made.
Biden Blocking SA flights was dumb given SA alerted the world but wasn’t necessarily the source of Omicron.
A lot of people at all levels are having a huge boost in the power (or influence) they can exert. It's hard to convince them to give it away, especially when they have still a sizable crowd cheering them on.
Vaccines were never expected to stop the pandemic. They were expected to stop people from dying from the pandemic. They are doing that. So far, vaccines have saved 1.1M Americans from dying from covid and saved 10.3M Americans from needing hospital treatment for covid [0].
Preventable Covid-19 cases can lead to higher health and life insurance rates. Firing employees who refuse the vaccine is smart business.
Vaccine mandates save the government a lot of money in several ways:
- US government pays $770B a year for medical care for older people and poor children [1]. Covid cases increase those costs. Fortunately, vaccines prevent most cases and reduce severity of all cases.
- US government has 23M veterans and pays $40B a year for their medical care [2]. Covid cases increase those costs. Fortunately, vaccines prevent most of the cases.
- When a person goes to the hospital and cannot pay, the hospital takes a loss and reduces the tax they pay. Hospitals write off about $40B in uncompensated care every year [3]. Uncompensated covid care makes those numbers bigger and taxes lower. Fortunately, vaccines prevent most serious covid cases.
- Workers can't work when they have covid or their dependents have covid. Covid sickness reduces economic output. Because taxes only apply to profits and most businesses have low margins, small reductions in revenue cause large reductions in taxes. Fortunately, vaccines reduce severity of all cases, so people recover more quickly and workers can get back to work faster.
This was a possibility at some point, but it required a very high number of people to get vaccinated quickly, before more variants. That did not happen, so the newer variants the vaccines had lower efficiency, which required even more people to be vaccinated, which is now seen as impossible, and so instead of hoping to get rid of Covid, now we hope to make it endemic, which is also achieved through more immunity, that which can come from either surviving Covid, or a vaccine. In the endemic state, most everyone has had immunity through a vaccine or recovering from Covid at least once. Covid is still around, since it evolves quickly to bypass immunity and spreads too fast to be eradicated, but as something that people get say yearly, or at a rate more similar to a cold or the flu, you get in this sort of balance where you're always immune enough to survive the next one and evolve your immunity along the way.
The issue is getting to this state with the least casualty, and vaccines are best for that.
I checked for other pandemics to see how they ended, and they all seem to end the same way, by reaching large herd immunity either through vaccination, or just everyone catching it and having the weak die off, and the survivors pass on immunity to the next generation.
Politicians, media, social media... It was just about everyone except scientists who were saying that from like April through November 2021.
Around November/December people suddenly started treating it as if no one ever said that, as if they suddenly realized they were lied to and didn't want to look like they were fooled.
I should not have written "Vaccines were never expected to stop the pandemic." Vaccines were expected to stop the pandemic.
PRC, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other countries had SARS-CoV-1 in 2003 [0]. It kills 9% of people who catch it, even young people. Their governments performed effective contact tracing and forced quarantining. Everyone in those countries was careful not to catch or spread the disease. It nearly became a pandemic, but the people stopped it.
I hoped that Americans would do the same with SARS-CoV-2 (covid).
Instead, we went half the pandemic without a pandemic expert (epidemiologist) on the National Covid Task Force [1]. Our national leader downplayed the pandemic, refused to be careful not to catch or spread the disease, caught the disease, exposed his political opponents to it during debate, recovered, and consistently undermined and contradicted our national pandemic experts (CDC) [2].
Our government contact tracing programs have been underfunded and ineffective. Only schools performed effective contact tracing. Quarantine is not enforced or even checked. There are no fines or prison time for sick people who go to work or to gatherings and spread the disease.
Many Americans refused to take simple precautions to avoid catching or transmitting the disease. Some places even banned such precautions [3]!
About 20% of adult Americans refused the vaccine [4].
Americans refused to cooperate and achieve herd immunity. Do not blame epidemiologists for telling us what was possible. We should blame callous & incompetent politicians for undermining our medical professionals, blame callous & greedy media companies for targeting medical advice with their anti-establishment dogma, and blame callous & gullible Americans for refusing vaccines and carelessly spreading the disease.
Cities with cooperative people did achieve herd immunity. For example, San Francisco did in 2021-06 [5].
Then Delta and Omicron variants arrived. They break through existing immunity. USA now has 700,000 new cases of Omicron per day [6]. So we should reach herd immunity for Omicron in March. Then the pandemic will be over for us, unless another breakthrough variant arises.
Well it’s true without vaccinations we won’t have a chance to beat it. Doesn’t mean we will. It’s just one big part of a public health epidemic, and without we fail.
You're right that they're achieving the goals of the governments, but they're not living up to the public's understanding of "vaccine" -- it's vaporware, or over-promise under-deliver from what we all expected when we were enticed by "vaccine" to take the jab.
in a lot of ways this is a PR issue and undermining of good faith more than a facts/data issue. There may not be any specific conspiracy but for whatever reason they're acting in an untrustworthy manner.
I'm fully vax'd and boosted. I'll probably continue to get boosted in the future. All that said? I feel like the government did a really bad job communicating who needs the booster and when.
First, they gave vague recommendations to immunocompromised folks. They said everyone else probably didn't need it. Then they said well, ok for older folks. Then this new omni variant comes out and they're badgering everyone to get boosted NOW or your no longer considered fully vaccinated.
There would have been so much less confusion if they were consistent with their communication from the start, and did a phased rollout of the booster just like they did with the original vaccine.
Edit: My point is that they knew there was reduced efficacy of the vaccine back in September. They knew the general public would eventually need a vaccine. They should have had a plan to gradually get the population boosted. If they had, most who wanted a booster would have had one before omni existed.
> There would have been so much less confusion if they were consistent with their communication from the start
I think it's worth considering a different framing:
> "There would have been so much less confusion if COVID variants and transmission/hospitalization/death rates remained consistent from the start"
It's easy to call out the communication, and don't get me wrong, it surely could have been better. But I often see this sentiment without acknowledging that the communication problems are a symptom, and driven by a very unpredictable situation, and very appropriate changes in policy based on that evolving situation.
Exactly. It’s quite an unfair criticism, and it keeps being applied retroactively to thinks like masking, lockdowns, etc. It’s like people expect a government to have completely knowledge from day 1 of a new virus and all of its mutations across all of time.
Throw in politicization of it, tons of non-mutual “facts” going around, a heap of anecdotes, and you’ve got a communications nightmare.
The problem is that if you communicate to the public at the level of normal scientific certainty -- with all the methodological and statistical caveats -- it's very hard to generate the moral authority needed to push sweeping mandates on a population.
Political and scientific leaders knew this, and they made a decision to exaggerate the level of confidence they had or should have had in several of these matters. No one seriously expected leadership to have complete knowledge from day 1, but that's not the criticism. Nor is the criticism that facts change on the ground in fast-moving situations. Of course they do.
The criticism is that they knowingly overstated their factual case at the time so that they could implement their chosen strategies, even to the point of suppressing legitimate scientific dissent, and are now unconvincingly trying to use "facts on the ground change", "science learns over time", and "of course we couldn't have been expected to know everything" as excuses for those decisions.
If you're making very confident policy-guiding assertions to the public on behalf of Science (TM), and when you're right, it's evidence of how great Science is, and when you're wrong, it's because Science is a process of continual revision and uncertain information, that creates a bit of moral hazard. It works internally in science, where there are no consequences for being wrong other than wasted time, but not in the real world where there are real consequences for being wrong.
I agree overall, but I do think the CDC should’ve known better with masking, at least not to discourage it like they did originally in spite of lots of experience in Asia.
Discouraging is one thing, but they discouraged with a false made up reason (masks don't work). Supposedly their real motivations were: if we say to use masks, then people will just distance less and spread more; and healthcare workers need the masks that do work right now. It would have been better if they simply admitted the true reasons at the time.
Remember that in the beginning there was an enormous shortfall of the masks that were known to be effective in preventing respiratory disease. The CDC (and others) were very worried about medical personnel not being able to get them, very justifiably in hindsight. Just imagine how much worse the (already bad) panic buying of masks would have made it if the CDC had told everyone to mask up.
We absolutely did not know that cloth masks would help. We (incorrectly) thought that anything less than a N95 mask would not help at all, and so that is what was communicated. Since then we have done a lot of science and have learned that while N95 masks are a lot better than, say, double-layered cloth masks, the latter are still much better than nothing in slowing down infection rates.
We also were very focused on the effects for the wearer of masks. We were not focused on the effects of a possible spreader wearing the masks. Part of this was that all of the previous pandemics had diseases that people were symptomatic when they spread the disease. With Covid-19 we have a disease the mostly spreads when people are a-symptomatic. So the potential spreaders are the ones who most need to be wearing masks, and since we can't tell them apart, we need everyone in masks.
All of these things are things we learned along the way. Harping on the CDC (or others) for not knowing them is just wrong. For some of the references here please see:
No, it's absolutely right to harp on the CDC for this. If you intentionally tell a lie to people in order to manipulate them into doing something for what you think is the greater good, you set your own reputation on fire. The truth about what you did will come out, and for everything you say from that point on to pretty much a generation of people, everyone will constantly second-guess whether you are once again telling a lie to serve what you might think is some greater good. Getting a semblance of that reputation back is a slow and painful process.
Haven't the horrors of history given enough examples? The ends do not justify the means. Lies like this have most definitely already backfired hard. Anyone who thinks they are some special elite who is entitled to lie to the public for the greater good is wrong, evil, and unfit to hold any sort of power.
> It’s like people expect a government to have completely knowledge from day 1 of a new virus and all of its mutations across all of time
No, that's not what is being said. In the case of boosters, the communication (c|sh)ould have been "we're gonna give booster. For now we think only immunocompromised people will need them, but we can't really rule out other options. Further research will tell us whether other categories, or perhaps the whole population, could need it, although this does not seem the case at the moment."
Of course there's multiple problems with this: you don't sound on top of things, media will extract the most definitive quote from it anyway, hard to imagine the worst case scenario, etc. But it does seem that most government are messing up the communication badly (either sounding very paternalistic, blaming the citizens, never showing uncertainty despite the situation, changing measures before the previous ones can show an effect, etc.), at least for what I would consider a good, mature way to communicate with citizens. I'm no expert, tho.
I like to say "I believe in science".
However, what I've seen in the last 2 years is only science by name and by fiat.
We've been fed wrong information after wrong information "for our own good", which has caused the population to lose confidence as the article perfectly explains.
This is terrible, as trust and confidence take a long time to build. Now we have a wonderful new technology (mRNA vaccine) that could be helpful against many ailments, but that the population has learned to fear.
The root cause seem to be the government desires to cover their own mistakes (ex: the masks being inefficient: because they didn't have enough at first, how hands washing was so important... for airborne virus (!!!): because air filtration was too expansive, how the old vaccine is so important against omicron: because they haven't adapted the vaccine so hey let's give a 3rd, a 4th shot and so on, sending people known to have covid in retirement homes full of vulnerable people: because they hadn't built adequate facilities...)
I believe in science, but I can hardly blame people who now subscribe to weird ideas: in their defense, they have noticed some of the lies so in a Bayesian setting they have adjusted their priors: by default they now distrust every official message, and unfortunately for them they may not have the proper scientific knowledge to better adapt their probability distributions.
I seriously hope there will be official inquiries about a level of mismanagement that borders criminal negligence, and that will have cost human lives.
The root cause seem to be the government desires to cover their own mistakes (ex: the masks being inefficient: because they didn't have enough at first
This isn't what the government said. The government said that masks were inefficient at preventing the wearing from contracting Covid, which is true to this day. They didn't want people to hoard masks at everyone else's expense, especially healthcare workers.
Two things to note: I'm not in the US, so my comments are based on the communication standards of IT and NL, which I follow more closely.
While in NL the scientific advice and communication has been simply ridiculous (mandatory masks introduced at the end of last year, with still the idea that "science doesn't know if they work, but we are gonna make them mandatory" from the government, and "we're against that, they don't work" from the head of the CDC-equivalent), in Italy it does contain the cautious wording that I advocate for.
However, this is the official communication that is written in "legalese" and not passed through the people by means of interviews and press releases. The media of course bears a lot of responsibility for the dilution of the message, chasing scoops and making headlines that leave no space for doubt; but the communication of the government to the public ends up using similar headlines, which I see as the problem in this case.
Given that you know all the downsides of "wishy washy" communication, as well as the downsides of "overly certain sounding" communication...
isn't the rational thing to do to start ignoring some of the "meta-policy" framing and just treat it as "this is the best idea people have at the time, but I expect it's subject to change."
Truthfully, we should be more open to all sorts of policy changing over time. Every other entity in the world is expected to evolve.
I'm just disappointed by the (as I said in another reply, Italian or Dutch) governments treating people like kids, washing away the complexity and nuances in communication with the public, expecting them not to understand that they don't have all the answers and that decisions might change in light of new (possibly even contrasting) information.
Is that wishy washy, or treating the population as adults? For me it's the latter.
It does, however, assume a certain degree of scientific literacy that is lacking in many people (including politicians?), so maybe that's an answer for why it's not like that.
In the beginning I feel like communication was very much about how they’re learning more and don’t much yet. That was pounced on for its non-information, and the uncertainty was ignored in the great mask debates in early 2020.
I don’t think you can be wishy washy, and the lack of respect for science and science education in the US certainly doesn’t help.
> For now we think only immunocompromised people will need them, but we can't really rule out other options
Oh no no no.
This is probably the absolute worst possible wording. Any time a government agency has had to chance their stance on something, they get accused of lying.
They have to be careful with how to present preliminary information. If they state anything "may" be true, then news outlets will treat it as true, and then hells breaks loose when they discover it was wrong.
Of course, if they wait until they're absolutely certain of something, then until then, they get accused of incompetence and of doing nothing, while some news outlets just make up bullshit.
>In the case of boosters, the communication (c|sh)ould have been "we're gonna give booster. For now we think only immunocompromised people will need them, but we can't really rule out other options. Further research will tell us whether other categories, or perhaps the whole population, could need it, although this does not seem the case at the moment.
Could have? Yes. Should have? $20 says 90% of the population simply ignore communication worded this way, and that "GET BOOSTER NOW, YES YOU" is more effective.
It's also true that most governments have not been very clear about what they actually wanted to achieve or perhaps more accurately have changed the goals over time. There's a big difference between eliminating COVID vs coping, for example.
Not necessarily; the first few carriers don't seem to have successfully seeded outbreaks, in general it takes a few attempts to get a disease like Covid established, and almost all countries seem to have stopped it spreading directly from China including closely-linked ones like Taiwan but also places like the UK and US. As far as I can tell something just went really badly wrong in Italy that no-one is interesting in examining too closely, and when this spread Covid to other countries it was spun as proof the other countries had screwed up and failed.
Temporary local eradication was an option for a while, before delta: see Australia and New Zealand.
However these countries were always going to have to open up and accept the virus eventually as it became endemic in the rest of the world. They were just delaying the inevitable. As it happened, the evolution of the virus made the decision for them. However if Delta had not happened they would still have had to make the decision to open up at some point, probably after a significant proportion of the population was vaccinated.
It's easy to blame changing science. Science always changes.
But let me ask you this. Are we going to need a fourth shot / second booster in 2022? I'd say it's almost certain. Find me a public health authority who is saying this in the United States. I can't.
There's some legitimately changing facts. But there's also nonsense, like health officials saying masks don't help with a respiratory disease, that has nothing to do with changing facts.
The impossibility of this is embedded in your opening paragraph.
> during unpredictable situations
Unpredictable: adjective - "not able to be predicted"
> it makes it MORE important to be consistent in communication
Consistent: adjective - "unchanging in nature, standard, or effect over time"
If you wish to deliver a message that is accurate during a time that cannot be predicted and actively changes, you cannot do so and remain consistent without starting to misrepresent the truth.
If you wish to deliver a message that is consistent during a time that cannot be predicted and actively changes, you cannot do so and deliver current/accurate information.
In essence, your options are:
1. Be accurate/informative, but the message will change as the situation changes.
2. Be consistent, but the message either a) cannot contain any meaningful guidance or b) will be wrong
it all depends on what particular detail wasn't able to be predicted. in this case the need for boosters.
we knew by late june boosters would be needed. so all messaging after june should have been consistent. it wasnt.
what wasn't predictable was when precisely we needed to issue boosters and to whom. because we simply didn't have the data on that until around september. However since september it was very predictable that we needed them for the holiday season. I got mine in early november because it was fucking obvious. omicron wasn't 100% assured but it was in the news and most sound bites were 'more contagious'.
its entirely possible to be consistent in the face on unpredictable events.
1. outright say 'we don't currently have the information needed yet check back later' or 'worst case scenario would be X, we're going to start with those assumptions'
2. repeat step 1 until you have the data or know you never will
3. once data is acquired adjust statements.
this is being consistent and clear. another example of this is masking and viral spread.
1. assume worst case for viral spread (airborne)
2. message masks are necessary until more is known about how the virus spreads.
3. if results come back disproving airborne spread, say so.
instead we got:
1. masks not necessary. virus doesn't seem to be airborne.
2. OOPS VIRUS IS AIRBORNE.
the first case is consistent, assume worst case and then ease restrictions.
the 2nd case is completely inconsistent.
This is effectively a disconnect between science and public policy. Science teaches us to keep our minds open to new data, so we can make new conclusions as we go. People just seem to get pissed when public policy changes in light of new data, lending to the narrative that scientists don't know what they're talking about.
People are getting pissed that public policy and messaging is changing WITHOUT new data.
In the past week:
- The CDC director acknowledged and downplayed the severity of omicron by stating the vast majority of hospitalized patients have multiple comorbidities. This has been true since the start of the pandemic, but is only being addressed now.
- CDC and several states are making the distinction between "hospitalized from" and "hospitalized with" COVID. This has also been a point of contention for the past 2 years. For some reason we're changing that now. Your guess is as good as mine, but I'd bet it has to do with the omicron spike making govt. middle manager KPI graphs look bad.
If I've learned anything through this pandemic, it's that people are always much more enraged than I could have imagined. It seems like everyone's looking for something new to focus all their rage onto.
Public policy and science are not the same thing. Public policy has a goal, science doesn't. If your goal were simply "stop human transmission of the virus", well science could help you come to a policy of exterminating all human life - it's scientifically provable that it's the best way to meet that goal.
"Trust the science" is a nonsense term. We're being asked to "Trust the policymakers". Why should we? Ok, so they're informed by science. But if the scientific consensus is obviously in rapid flux and can't be used to predict anything, then why should we trust the policies or their makers?
I don't object to policy changes in light of new data, but do object to policy made based on preliminary data, knowing full well that we don't understand everything yet, and then changing every few months or even more often, and just shouting "SCIENCE!" if anyone questions any of it.
In an emergent situation, you'll never understand all the data in time. Imagine a loved one that's hurt who calls you for help after a crash. You could spend time trying to figure out their symptoms and their feelings, probing them for more information to make an accurate decision so that you don't have to actually waste the time to go over to them physically. Or you could just go over immediately and potentially waste time when it turns out your loved one would have been just fine without you. Most people choose the latter.
There's a reason emergency services dispatchers have such a stressful job, they're making these decisions all the time based on very limited amounts of data. Unfortunately we're all living in a situation right now where we're making emergency decisions as new information emerges.
> Not me, but you seem to be hooked on fear. May you find some peace in life.
This is an unnecessary insult. You could have left it with "I'm comfortable not treating this as an emergency situation." I'm not sure what you gained from this post. Hopefully you got the performative internet points you were looking for.
What's the alternative to setting policy on preliminary data? Are you proposing something like "government should never react to anything until 12 months have passed since it started happening." So something like COVID just cannot be responded to initially?
It has been nearly two years and government MSHA hasn't mandated anything to specifically change for workers. The inspectors did reduce the small group chats, which I suspect is going to be counter-productive for injury counts in the medium term.
Someone senior in MSHA has big stones for not getting on the safety theater bandwagon like OSHA did.
It's not policy change that is the problem, the problem is that nobody can figure out what the current policy is because the CDC is bad at making announcements.
Furthermore, there is now widespread suspicion that the CDC's current recommendations are not based on science anymore: for example, the 5-day vs 10-day isolation period.
What's especially bad is the advice not to use tests after 5 days, followed a few days later by advice that tests are optional after 5 days -- everyone knows that advice would be different if there were not test shortages. That's not science, that's pragmatism, and that's fine and they ought to just say so, but the CDC continues to make the transparently false claim that their advice is based purely on science.
That really hurts the CDC's credibility -- now, when they make an announcement, we all have to ask ourselves whether it's truly based on science. Smart people of all political stripes now realize this. Even the liberal cable TV talking heads are attacking the CDC over this.
I think that sums it up pretty well: people would be more tolerant of the CDC changing their minds on things if it was clear how they arrived at their decisions in the first place and they say what data they base their decisions on and what the trade-offs are.
People will put up with just about anything if they think there's a good reason for it, but if instructions seem arbitrary then people tend to stop giving officials the benefit of the doubt.
Transparency can go along way towards maintaining public trust. I'd rather the CDC err on the side of over-sharing than the reverse.
I'll wait until the booster actually becomes specific to the current strain. Ideally I'd also like the vaccine to not make me sick for 2 days, since most other common vaccines don't (e.g. influenza). But maybe that's just not possible.
Not having increased risk of heart inflammation and rare dangerous thromboses would be nice too, but then again it seems like Covid causes those anyway. So maybe we just need to update our base rates for those conditions and move on from the way things used to be.
Plus, if I can still spread Covid and make grandma critically ill even after I have the booster, whereas I'm at super low risk for serious illness, is the booster even doing anything to reduce hospital utilization?
I had what I think was omicron, and it seems like I don't really need a booster on top of it... or do I?
The point is that I have no idea what the right thing to do is.
I feel like there's no public health response in the USA anymore. The President is just telling people to f*cking "Google it", everyone seems to be either a paranoid wacko anti-vax Covid denier Bill-Gates-is-coming-for-your-body-fluids-and-children cultist or a "trust the science" cultist, and the big pharma companies (Pfizer, Moderna) seem to be just raking it in hand over fist with all these vaccine doses.
Seems like everyone has to brush up on their statistics and start reading the research, because the news and government agencies just aren't worth a damn anymore when it comes to communicating. It seems that the Trump legacy of "abject societal dysfunction" is here to stay.
> I'll wait until the booster actually becomes specific to the current strain.
By the time the Omicron-specific vaccines are approved by the various government health bureaucracies, Omicron will have run its course. Unless you want to live like a hermit for the next few months, it's probably best to get a booster and live your life. All of my friends & acquaintances who've contracted omicron have had a booster shot and all of them said that the worst part was isolating. Their symptoms were extremely mild- just a sore throat or cough for a few days.
It would be nice if one could choose a lower dose of vaccine. The second shot (and booster) of Pfizer were absolutely brutal for me. A baby aspirin version of the vaccine would provide most of the protection without the days of debilitating pain and fever. When I got my booster I asked the guy giving the shot if he could inject a partial dose because my previous reaction was so bad. He just laughed, emptied the syringe into my arm, and told me to drink lots of water. :(
That's fine but the booster has shown that it likely incurs much longer term stability to immune resistance to all current strains that we know about, including omicron. If you look up the history of vaccinations you will see similar results and why some are carefully spaced apart at certain intervals as they train the human immune system
Consistent messaging from the start in a situation where information and knowledge is very limited in the start = not learning.
The problem here is that we have a lot of internalization of changing your mind is bad in the political arena. "Flip flopping," etc. Inquiry is discouraged.
The article is actually much more interesting because it's about how views are changing differently for different groups even inside the same partisan grouping. It shows that conversation and messaging is an ongoing thing.
Changing your mind because of new evidence is good. Changing your mind because the evidence is pretty much the same, but the previous conclusion has become inconvenient for you, is not good.
The government said, at first, that nobody needed to go out and buy masks, because they won't do any good. And then the government said you had to wear a mask or you couldn't enter into buildings.
Now, the reasoning for the former was that they were concerned about PPE supplies, but that doesn't change the fact they reversed themselves very shortly, and expected people to forget the earlier messaging.
The government didn't need to be an oracle with a perfect track record, but I don't think it's outrageous to suggest that they should have been honest. If you can't see how the pandemic was used for political purposes, I don't know what to say.
Everyone thought that covid spread via touch back then. remember all the hand sanitizer and UV lights? then we learned that it was mostly airborne
This goes back to the comment you replied to. The government can't give perfect hindsight advice at the beginning of any situation. it seems like your complaint here is "science isn't perfect"
This was the medical community's censuses at the time. Turns out now we know that this hinged on a few misunderstandings and generalizations, and have turned that corner. But at the time it was the best information we had:
I think you are reading way more into my response than I wrote. I literally rephrased a position specifically about the government's communication of booster shots in the form of a question highlighting the illogical portion of the position.
* I have not made and continue to not make any statements regarding mask communication, nor about reports on reasoning for that.
* I am not engaging in nor countering absurd conspiracy theories
* I am not broadcasting my feelings and thoughts on political purposes and what I do or do not see to you, so I don't know why you think you are capable of surmising what I can and cannot see.
* I do find hilarious how very angry you are that I pointed a logical inconsistency.
Your response inferred something from the OP that was clearly never implied. Nobody expects perfect knowledge of the future, and suggesting the OP was asking for that is (charitably) a snarky way of pointing out a logical inconsistency.
But pointing out the the messaging from the government has been, at best, muddled--and at worst, misleading, if not downright dishonest--you interpret as "anger"? I find that pretty disingenuous. You are again inferring that which is not implied.
It is the they don't do any good communication that is irresponsible. There was already evidence otherwise that they ignored, and the rest of the statement was based on zero evidence.
Nope. The government knew the vaccines were getting less effective back in september. They knew everyone would eventually need a booster. If they had put in a plan to get that done, I wouldn't have had a problem.
As things stood? The CDC basically said 'you should get a booster only if you're high risk'. They went back and forth over whether to recommend it to the general public for the longest time. This lead to a lot of confusion, and a lot of folks essentially shrugged and went on with their life. If they had been consistent with messaging a much higher percentage of the population would currently be boosted.
I'd appreciate if the government could just predict the future as well as hacker news. It doesn't need to be perfect. Look, they're gonna tell us to get booster again in 2022. I know it. You probably know it. Everybody knows it. Why haven't the CDC said it?
the bigger problem is that their initial selling point for the vaccine was "get your 2 shots and everything goes back to normal". Many people grudgingly got it despite some hesitancy and now have even less trust of the government now that the goal posts are shifting yet again
With the Alpha variation of the virus that would have been good enough. The study numbers showed someone vaccinated and exposed to Alpha had such a low risk of spread that even while fighting off the virus they were still safe 'enough' to be around.
If we had gotten 80% (some magic number between 70% and 95% I pulled out of nothing) of the US adult population vaccinated, and quarantine locked down the borders we could have snuffed covid out and been in a bubble paradise like New Zealand managed to do with just hard and long enough quarantines.
We didn't get there, and Delta and Omicron did get to us; two variations that are each insanely more viriliant and spread despite the vaccinations which are now only good enough to prevent serious infection and death most of the time.
In my adult lifetime I have legally crossed a northern border by car; they checked ID on the way back. Canada mostly only cared that I had sufficient ID to go back home. In both cases there was a controlled crossing that law abiding citizens used. During much of the pandemic that crossing was closed (mutually).
Yes, physical borders are long stretches that are difficult to secure, and I have seen the TV footage. Doesn't mean that a policy can't be _sufficiently_ effective to make a difference.
Also, reflexively speaking of borders; effective policies probably involve a mix of carrot and stick. The carrot being a legal path to do what people are going to do anyway, but in ways that are documented and regulated. Exact details of either side of that are far, far off topic in this thread.
It COULD have been "get your 2 shots and everything goes back to normal", but vaccine adoption stalled at about 60%. That's not nearly high enough.
The virus stuck around and we got Delta, and now Omicron.
And we're STILL at less than 70% vaccinated. I don't know what's required for herd immunity, but it doesn't take a Ph.D in virology to know that 70% isn't it.
It doesn't take a Ph. D in virology to know that 100% isn't it either, now that omicron is in the picture.
So I'm not sure what the intended end game of the people trying to limit the spread is. "Flatten the peak so hospitals are less likely to be overwhelmed" may or may not be realistic, but at least it's a coherent goal. "Keep vaccinating and closing things until COVID goes to zero on its own" just seems like denying the reality that COVID is endemic at this point, so any non-acute mitigation measures we want to take now had better be mitigation measures we're willing to keep taking forever.
To a certain extent, I blame the use of the term "reaching herd immunity" instead of "reaching an endemic state" for giving people unrealistic expectations.
> Keep vaccinating and closing things until COVID goes to zero on its own" just seems like denying the reality that COVID is endemic at this point
At this point, yes.
But last year? In Spring and early summer? Look at COVID cases compared to vaccination rates. Case counts were dropping fast, but then vaccination stalled. A couple months later, Delta began ripping through and we got our second wave.
I sincerely believe that we could have been through with this if we had reached 95% vaccination by July.
I'm undecided if we should still continue masking and any restrictions at this point. I want to say "Fuck it. Everyone who wants a vax can get one, if you don't, I will have zero pity if you get infected.", but the fact is, ICU's are still being overrun.
> I sincerely believe that we could have been through with this if we had reached 95% vaccination by July.
All omicron cases in the US can be traced back to infections from outside of the country. Getting 95% of eligible people vaccinated and getting cases within the country to zero prior to omicron being introduced would have been nice, but that alone would not have stopped the current omicron wave. We'd be in a somewhat better place now, but since a significant factor in hospitals being under load now is vaccinated medical personnel being out with covid, we'd still have a hospital load problem.
I can see maybe some justification in instituting restrictions to try to flatten the peak of the omicron wave, until such a time as case numbers start to decrease again. But such restrictions, if put in place, should be done with the understanding that all we're doing is shifting infections in time, not changing the total number of infections.
> I want to say "Fuck it. Everyone who wants a vax can get one, if you don't, I will have zero pity if you get infected.", but the fact is, ICU's are still being overrun.
This is basically where I'm at, except at this point it doesn't seem like there's any coherent idea of when the inevitable infections that occur won't overrun ICUs, and I don't particularly think it's worse to have ICUs overrun for a few weeks right now than it is to have ICUs overrun for a few weeks a month from now.
> I sincerely believe that we could have been through with this if we had reached 95% vaccination by July.
It would not have made a difference.
Singapore, Israel and a large chunk of Western Europe had very high vaccination rates before they got pummled by a Delta wave.
And for anyone wondering if boosters are enough to quell Omicron: Israel is the perfect case study as they're currently being pummled by Omicron after having finished their booster campaign (they're onto their 4th dose now).
Are lockdowns the answer to Omicron? Well the Netherlands went into a preemptive lockdown several weeks BEFORE Omicron took off and I think their case trajectory paints a very clear picture now that Omicron has taken off (they are still in lockdown).
To me, it looks like the vaccine's efficiency in terms of reducing transmission wanes after 3-5 months and it's quite clear when you look at the different waves countries are experiencing around the world.
'I sincerely believe that we could have been through with this if we had reached 95% vaccination by July.'
Do you understand it crosses between humans and animals such as deer and even house cats? You can sincerely believe in the Easter Bunny along with sincerely believing all animals can be vaccinated on approximately the same week, but sincerely believing in something does not make it possible.
In the U.S. it's mostly kids that aren't vaccinated at this point. Among people over 18 years of age, 73.3% have at least 2 doses and 86.4% have at least 1 according to the CDC. Two shots and a booster is obviously better, but the number of adults that haven't been vaccinated at all and haven't gotten Covid at least once is dwindling.
Covid seemed to be on track to have be almost entirely wiped out in the U.S. until Delta and Omicron came along, and now it's not clear that even 100% vaccination rates would be enough.
If enough people had got their shots worldwide that would have worked. However enough is at least 80% of the world population, and maybe as much as 95%. There wasn't enough supply in the world. If the 95% number is correct kids young enough still are not approved to reach that, mutations keep making the number higher, though we might need to get a new vaccine that covers new variants.
>If enough people had got their shots worldwide that would have worked.
One of the theories on the origin of omicron seems to be that it evolved in animals for a while before jumping back to humans (the weirdness being that it's not evolved from Delta, and it has a number of mutations all at once). [1]
And even if it's not the origin of this variant, it could easily be the origin of a future variant (that's why they're considering it).
And it's quite unlikely we could vaccinate every animal on the planet, so this idea that if we had just gotten all our shots this variant would have never happened is pretty ridiculous.
I don't think that's a realistic expectation. If millions of people have a highly infectious disease, then it's very likely to spread to any wildlife (that aren't naturally immune) in the same general area as those infected humans. By the time the vaccines were available, Covid was basically everywhere.
> There would have been so much less confusion if they were consistent with their communication from the start.
While that's true, I don't think it's reasonable unless, like a sibling suggested, the disease would be consistent from the start.
What would be nice is if they contemplated and acknowledged that the recommendations would be changing. Rather than saying 'others don't need a booster', they should be saying 'at this time, based on current understanding, etc, others don't need a booster'. In some situations, they can probably suggest what conditions might cause a change in recommendations.
> What would be nice is if they contemplated and acknowledged that the recommendations would be changing.
But they do. E.g. go through https://web.archive.org/web/20210715000000*/https://www.cdc...., it's always wrapped in "We are monitoring the situation. High-risk populations first. Recommendations will be adjusted as needed." disclaimers. But we have a strong tendency to only remember the short head-line version, even if we looked at the full statement at the time. And if you go by headlines or equivalent short news, it's likely you haven't seen the disclaimer, but good luck getting the details into headlines. It's a pattern that repeats over and over in discussions of this.
> Then this new omni variant comes out and they're badgering everyone to get boosted NOW or your no longer considered fully vaccinated.
Currently the CDC still considers someone fully vaccinated after the two dose series. As far as I can tell there aren't any booster requirements at the national level.
> There would have been so much less confusion if they were consistent with their communication from the start, and did a phased rollout of the booster just like they did with the original vaccine.
The problem is: science is continuous discovery of and adaptation to new facts. In a society where significant amounts of the population have such a low respect for science that they seriously believe that Earth was created by God 6000 years ago, it is obvious that these people literally cannot grasp or cope with the fact that new discoveries come in timespans of single-digit weeks... Omicron was discovered at the end of November, barely a month later cases worldwide reached Delta records and now they went through the roofs.
I agree that there have been communication fuck-ups by politicians and the media, but basic science education in schools (and scientist staff in mass media) would have lessened the impact dramatically.
> There would have been so much less confusion if they were consistent with their communication from the start, and did a phased rollout of the booster just like they did with the original vaccine.
Biden called for a booster dose for everyone in September. The CDC and the FDA didn't agree.
I think the CDC did as good as you could when you design by committee. I didn't have any trouble following their recommendations or logic. It was an ongoing problem with incomplete knowledge on their part. It's certainly better than what Fox News was spewing. Science is ugly, but it is self-correcting, Fox and antivax people are not. At least that's how I see it.
Because when the recommendations change, it's usually a "we were wrong all along" change, not a "the recommendations were right before, but now circumstances have changed" change.
Between the 2nd dose putting me in the ER with myocarditis which no one warned me about the risk of, and a $3500 medical bill due, being told I could be maskless and free if I got the "vaccine"[1], getting covid anyways and it being nbd, and then learning that the CDC redefined the meaning of "vaccine" for this treatment[2] (imo "immunotherapy" would be a more understandable word) -- yeah I'm done.
I'm not risking another ER visit, not paying $3500 more for "societal good", and I've lost trust/faith in the establishment to not play bait and switch.
[1] - California had a brief period where if you got vaccinated you could be maskless in gyms and restaurants, this was rescinded in August 2021
[2] - https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article25411126... The redefinition undermines what most would colloquially understand as a vaccine -- much like a "cure" something that to a major extent stops one from getting the disease, which the vaccine does not. Yes it's 80% effective at eliminating _hospitalization_ but vaccinated people still get Covid, still go through fever & long covid symptoms (loss of taste/smell anyone?), and still must quarantine else infect others.
Same here. Still have heart inflammation 4 months after my second dose of Pfizer.
I remember when the statistics were “1/1000000”, and now its 1/10000 for boys 12-17 [1].
In my opinion its insanity to give this to children, especially now that omicron is here.
I mean, I'm not an expert by any means, but the link you shared also says "Myocarditis is seen much more commonly in people who become infected with COVID-19 than in people who are vaccinated. A preliminary study from the United States(link is external) found the rate of myocarditis in young men after COVID-19 is approximately 45 cases per 100,000 infections"... So, a higher incidence among people with infections than vaccinations, so if you're suggesting to just let everyone get infected... Anyway, I think it's really difficult to weigh the risk when we're dealing with such small numbers (0.045% vs 0.01%), and we don't know all the data.
> Myocarditis is seen much more commonly in people who become infected with COVID-19 than in people who are vaccinated. A preliminary study from the United States.
Recent data from Ontario has effectively ended this debate. Myocarditis is definitely more common from dose 2 moderna than from covid in young boys, and the same is probably true for Pfizer mostly because we don't actually know how many people have caught covid.
There's also a side effect that isn't reported at all in the TGA's weekly reports and risk stats: costochondritis and/or myalgia.
I had 3 weeks of intense chest pains after 1st Pfizer and another week of mild chest pains after the 2nd dose. All tests normal. Four separate doctors said it was a common side effect and they had no idea what it was.
Now 3 months after my 2nd dose I still get chest discomfort after lifting weights, and have had to quit caffeine entirely as it results in days of chest pains after physical activity. Didn't have those issues prior.
Vaccine-induced costochondritis seems to fit best.
"The redefinition undermines what most would colloquially understand as a vaccine"
It's very common for people outside of a profession to misunderstand terms from within that profession. That generally doesn't mean we get to redefine it on the fly. The Covid vaccines are vaccines because it is the correct and appropriate terminology to use within the fields that develop and administer vaccines. In terms of not being a "cure" and needing boosters, that is true to varying degrees for most vaccines. Flu vaccines - which for years have uncontroversially been called vaccines - are often less effective than the Covid vaccines.
And yet there was very few attempts to remedy this mischaracterization from the onset. Government willfuly led people to believe that the covid vaccine would be like any other - it would inoculate the population, and all this would blow over.
I recall when the first results came out and though they were good, they were never 100%. And I certainly understand that no one was able to predict the way in which variants would develop, and to what degree they would reduce the effectiveness of the vaccines. In the end, vaccines have been more about reducing hospitalizations and deaths (which they do really well) than reaching herd immunity, but how was anyone supposed to know that a year ago?
And yet the majority of reporting focuses on case numbers, as if this is the number we need to monitor to track our progress through the pandemic. And when that number increases rathee than decreases, despite high rates of vaccination, people are confused. And the government does nothing to correct thus.
Nothing wrong with needing boosters (eg you get one multiple years apart for MMR, you get one, what every decade with Tetanus?) , but every 6 months for only reduced risk of hospitalization is quite the stretch...
And my understanding is flu vaccines give great protection of getting anything from very specific strains, and lesser effects to varyingly differences in those strains[1]. This "vaccine" doesn't give great protection to any strain, unless "protection" just means you still get covid, but not hospitalized.
It's pretty disheartening to hear you essentially say that the professionals get to redefine words to benefit themselves to the detriment of the public...
"It's pretty disheartening to hear you essentially say that the professionals get to redefine words to benefit themselves to the detriment of the public..."
Never said any such thing, so feel free to be reheartened.
This is not how public health messaging works, or how media narratives in general function today.
The CDC, being a public health agency, had a definition of vaccine that was intended for the public's consumption. Scientists generally do not have to check the CDC website for terms of art regarding their profession.
There is/(was?) a general understanding that a 'vaccine' was an injection or spray or ingestable that primed the immune system to fight a potential 'real' infection of a disease. This priming meant that while you may come into contact with the disease, you would be exceedingly unlikely to develop symptoms.
Changing the public definition of the vaccine after the initial covid vaccines had already been released to allow 'vaccine' to mean any therapeutic that gave any degree of protection from a disease is an obvious bait and switch. Evidence of this definition being changed as a damage control measure due to floundering public trust is evident from emails made available through FOIA requests.
We are not going to pretend that updating that definition was a sincere miscommunication of the science when the text is so obviously not scientific. The political motivations and objectives are clear.
If this had been a single event we may still express doubt, but these language games that prey upon the public's preconceived definitions of common vocabulary have been rampant for years at this point. 'With-cause' being another recent instance.
When reporting covid hospitalizations the phrase "X people hospitalized with covid" was used. Last week we had Fauchi on air explain that although those people are in the hospital _with_ a positive covid test many of them are asymptomatic and are in fact at the hospital _because_ of something other than covid; they just happened to test positive as well. Yet for months these numbers stood without question or explanation allowing a narrative of 'high covid hospitalizations' to be pushed.
Effectively we are treating the public as if they are idiots for hearing the obvious common parlance meaning of such statements-- "hospitalized with covid" when instead they should read as lawyers questioning every word. This is governmental malpractice.
A small note on season flu vaccines. The public generally understands that scientists are playing a guessing game with the flu and some years they guess better than others. But on years where they do guess well, the flu vaccine operates as the public generally understands it in what I've written above. Not only has there been no messaging that these covid 'vaccines' are playing a similar guessing game there has in fact been the exact opposite messaging. We developed an 'alpha variant vaccine' now we are developing a omicron variant vaccine. These are being discussed like treatments that 'should work' similar to a flu vaccine on a good year.
> myocarditis which no one warned me about the risk of
I agree, it's now known as a "rare" side effect, but I wasn't aware either until after I got the vaccine.
How did you know something was wrong? I think a lot of people (including myself) feel heart pain after the vaccine but aren't sure if it's worth going to a doctor about it.
I had heart/chest pain that slowly got more and more intense over the span of about 3-4 days after most of the 2nd dose side effects wore off. In hindsight I should have gone to the hospital much sooner for Heart attack symptoms, but I had an inkling it wasn't a heart attack because it entirely would go away if I laid on my side just so after about 60 seconds... and magically come back if I sat or stood up, and go away when I laid down again like a switch --> not heart attack symptoms.. anyways I digress.
after EKG, xrays, bloodwork, a big scare and such the doctors put me on ibuprofen and it subsided after another ~3 days
from those i've spoken with who had the same issue I think they should add this warning for Men (especially really fit men) under 40 -- "Do not engage in strenuous exercise for 1 month after getting your 2nd dose (maybe boosters too)" . All the cases i've heard they have been exercise onset. Mine was shortly after a I returned to the gym too, albeit for weight lifting.
I started developing chest pain two days after my Pfizer shot and actually still experience some chest pain at times now, many months later. For me the pain started after exercising as well.
The cardiologist I went to see about the issue said he's seeing people like me daily.
Got the shot (J&J) on May 1st. A bit later in May, I noticed that while playing ultimate frisbee, I was getting winded more easily compared to two weeks earlier, and it was taking me longer to recover.
Further investigation found a coronary artery blocked 90%, and another blocked 80%. I now have two stents in my heart.
So, the last sentence in the first paragraph is "how you know" (or at least one way you know).
Note well: I am not claiming that the vaccine caused my blocked arteries. Did it contribute all of the problem? The last 5%? None, and it's just a coincidence in timing? I don't know. And that really bugs me, because it affects whether I should get a booster or not.
The CDC's explanation "interpreted to mean that vaccines were 100% effective, which has never been the case for any vaccine, so the current definition is more transparent, and also describes the ways in which vaccines can be administered" is totally on point and correct. People didn't really think about vaccines before and it wasn't a political thing where people are looking for gotchas like "They changed the definition of vaccine!" Before this age, you could just simply say "Yeah, vaccines give you immunity" and didn't need to be hyperacurrate but now everything is scrutinized, even when they provide a better definition apparently.
Where you see "a political thing" I see "a trust thing". I have been burned too many times to sanely remain trusting . It's not politics I dont care if red/blue/pink/pirate team is pushing it, I have lost blind faith and now scrutinize as I'm able. And there used to be a time when I just trusted whatever came under the banner of "Science" thinking that smarter people than me were benevolently doing the best for all.
But since I've experienced unexpected costs I've done more research and been shocked at what I found, for example Pfizer the maker of my vaccine has been fined ~$5Bn over 75 separate situations over the past 20 years [1]. Or Merck paying out 4.7Bn in damages , $1Bn in fines -- but gathered $12Bn in sales[2] ... No one went to jail. There is too much corporatism[3] for me to trust.
[1]: https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/prog.php?parent=p...
Almost all of those violations are violations of marketing practices. Not that Pfizer is a panacea of Good or anything but the list of violations generally have nothing to do with the science of their products or science in general.
And of course, 75 situations over 20 years is meaningless. One situation was a $7,500 workplace safety issue. These aren’t “Pfizer killed people with their products!” violations. Should someone go to jail? Seems odd to throw that out without talking about what the violations were.
> the CDC redefined the meaning of "vaccine" for this treatment[2] (imo "immunotherapy" would be a more understandable word) -- yeah I'm done.
What is it with antivaxxers and their complaints about the definition of vaccination? They complained that the definition was changed to include a new way of conferring immunity. They complained that the definition was posted to be more accurate.
Vaccines have never been 100% effective for any disease I’m aware of. It’s entirely reasonable that the CDC would change the definition to be clearer.
Edit: “Immunotherapy” is also definitely not a more understandable word. Half of immunotherapy is dedicated to making the immune system do less.
What is it with people categorising others as “anti” this or “pro” that? He had a bad experience with this particular vaccine and for this very justifiable reason is skeptical about them.
What this reflects is the tribalist nature people like yourself have subscribed to.
And to be honest its a valid assessment because who would've thought we would need a 4th booster as Israel has done?
He has every reason to be upset about having a very rare complication.
At the point that you start casting the CDC as nefarious actors for clarifying the definition of “vaccination”, though, you’re just spreading FUD. If there was some substance to the criticism, it would be a different thing. But there is no substance to the criticism. No vaccine has ever given 100% immunity to everyone who got it. Nothing changed. It’s also inaccurate to claim that the vaccine does nothing to prevent infection. Breakthrough infections are certainly happening but unvaccinated are getting infected at a higher rate. (Plus the risk of severe infection.)
This narrative that they’re sneaking around changing definitions to trick people is absurd. They made the change publicly. The data used to make decisions around COVID is public. These aren’t back room secret deals. It’s public health policy being endlessly debated in public.
> And to be honest its a valid assessment because who would've thought we would need a 4th booster as Israel has done?
A ton of people expected this. People were talking about likely needing yearly boosters before the vaccines were even available. Maybe every 6 months is sooner than expected but boosters were totally predicted.
> No vaccine has ever given 100% immunity to everyone who got it.
100% wasn't stated by me as a target, the really interesting part is the shift of the target from "you dont get it" to "you wont be hospitalized" ... elsewhere in this I posted about some of my readings about MMR vaccines, they confer something like a 9x decrease in infections (at all, again not just hospitalizations) .
2 doses/boosters is fine, even multiple years apart... Breakouts happen (with MMR) etc. But IMO the term "vaccine" meaning like the MMR vaccine, is not the same when applied to covid -- hence why I said "immumotherapy" seems more apt.
> This narrative that they’re sneaking around changing definitions to trick people is absurd. They made the change publicly. The data used to make decisions around COVID is public. These aren’t back room secret deals. It’s public health policy being endlessly debated in public.
I agree this is a good and valid point, part of the issue is messaging. Why is this redefinition not making news, and widespread announcement? I was getting texts to stay home, there were mailings and mandates about masks... Social media ads saying what the CDC is doing and why would be quite helpful to combat FUD...
anyways I digress...
I replied elsewhere about the meaning of “vaccine” (we’ve called the flu vaccine a vaccine for many years, with only ~50% typical effectiveness).
As for the messaging:
1) I would bet all of my money that at least 95% of the people complaining about the CDC updating their definition had never once read the previous definition until they read some article trying to cast the CDCs actions in a nefarious light. It’s not clear to me why this redefinition is worthy of a news story at all.
2) I am very doubtful that the CDC engaging as you’ve described would help anything. Their detractors would absolutely call it propaganda.
just wanted to upvote you for adding the edit about immunotherapy could also mean decreasing the immune system. I'm not certain of the best word, still don't feel "vaccine" is it.
I actually skimmed over that at first and then came back (hence the edit). My son is on immunotherapy to reduce allergic reactions. I’m quite happy to have his immune system stop working so hard to fight eggs and nuts. :)
You're not entirely wrong that terms need to be updated from time to time and to match new technological details. I agree with redefining the difference between weakened portions of a virus vs (as i understood it) spike proteins produced within us ... What I personally dont agree with is redefining the success % (about 80%?) and a target of a vaccine to mean "You wont get hospitalized" (as opposed to you will have no observable symptoms). The real issue at hand is that the public has an understanding of what a "vaccine" means to them, and that public definition and the establishment provided new definition are grossly different. I'm not a fan of being told what a word means by overlords who control the definitions of language.
I'm not an antivaxxer per se, people should do what they want, but I'm pretty unimpressed with what we got in the box that said "Vaccine".
> What I personally dont agree with is redefining the success % (about 80%?) and a target of a vaccine to mean "You wont get hospitalized" (as opposed to you will have no observable symptoms).
Where are these part of the definition? This isn’t something they put in their definition so far as I can see.
Anyone who thought that the previous definition meant “100% effective, no symptoms” was woefully misinformed. Indeed, if people thought that before, then it’s really, really good that the CDC updated their definition.
> The real issue at hand is that the public has an understanding of what a "vaccine" means to them, and that public definition and the establishment provided new definition are grossly different. I'm not a fan of being told what a word means by overlords who control the definitions of language.
Then, again, the public was woefully (willfully?) misinformed. Vaccines have never given perfect immunity to all recipients. I don’t know anyone in my personal life who has ever indicated that they thought vaccines were 100% protective, though.
I also don’t know who should be defining the word vaccine if not medical professionals. It also looks like Webster agrees with the CDC, though for all I know they’ve changed their definition recently.
I question the intellectual honesty of the people spreading these complaints, because many of these same people talk about “natural immunity”. Someone who thinks “immunity” means “0% chance of infection” shouldn’t be talking about “natural immunity”, either. (I’m not saying you, here, to be clear.)
My (and by proxy am guessing at the public's) understanding would be something like ~90% effectiveness at all but the most benign symptoms, and importantly minimal concerns of transmission.
For example MMR Vaccines meet this standard [1]
> A person with two doses of MMR vaccine has about an 88% reduction in risk for
mumps;
In replying to you I also read this[2] which is quite interesting,
> MMR vaccine prevents most, but not all, cases of mumps and complications caused by the disease. People who have received two doses of the MMR vaccine are about nine times less likely to get mumps than unvaccinated people who have the same exposure to mumps virus.
So I guess there is a middle ground between people expect the Covid vaccine to mean "you no longer can get it", and the reality of past vaccines "9x less likely to get it [at all vs hospitalization]" -- I just don't see the current covid vaccine providing the "get it at all" portion vs "hospitalization" target/success metric.
> My (and by proxy am guessing at the public's) understanding would be something like ~90% effectiveness at all but the most benign symptoms, and importantly minimal concerns of transmission.
For example MMR Vaccines meet this standard [1]
If you walk out on the street and ask people how effective the Flu vaccine is, I bet very few will tell you it’s around 90%. (It’s closer to 50%generally.) Most people are well aware that not all vaccines are hitting 90% protection bar. And again, to the extent that you’re right and I’m wrong, this is an argument in favor of the CDC making the definition clearer.
I would expect that vaccines are most effective on viruses that mutate less. Influenza and coronaviruses both mutate quite a bit. It’s actually kind of impressive that the original COVID vaccine is still providing so much protection for later variants.
> So I guess there is a middle ground between people expect the Covid vaccine to mean "you no longer can get it", and the reality of past vaccines "9x less likely to get it [at all vs hospitalization]" -- I just don't see the current covid vaccine providing the "get it at all" portion vs "hospitalization" target/success metric.
I think part of this is because it is a moving target. Omicron is quite new (less than 2 months old) and it takes a while to gather meaningful data.
Both Pfizer and Moderna demonstrated over 90% effectiveness on the original virus, in terms of reducing risk of infection at all. This dipped with subsequent variants like Delta and now Omicron. PBS says protection has dipped to 30-40% against infection and 70% against hospitalization, with a booster pushing it back up to 70-75 against infection, which is nothing to sneeze at considering that were several mutations away from the original at this point.
> then learning that the CDC redefined the meaning of "vaccine" for this treatment[2] (imo "immunotherapy" would be a more understandable word)
This has literally always been the definition of "vaccine". Flu vaccines work like this. Polio vaccines work like this. Smallpox vaccines work like this. I don't think you can blame the CDC if you didn't know how vaccines work.
The point of vaccines has always been to drastically reduce the chances that you get sick at all, and if you do, the chances that you will get hospitalized or die. Given that the chance of getting myocarditis from these vaccines is far less than the chances of you getting hospitalized/dying due to COVID, it's the smarter option.
85% of COVID-19 hospitalizations were among those not fully vaccinated.[0]
90% of people who are dying from covid are unvaccinated.[1]
10 in 100,000 people in your likely age range experience myocarditis.[2]
However, yeah, if you have had a bad reaction before, you are likely to have another bad reaction. I'm sorry you went through that.
> Yes it's 80% effective at eliminating _hospitalization_ but vaccinated people still get Covid, still go through fever & long covid symptoms (loss of taste/smell anyone?), and still must quarantine else infect others.
I would argue 80% effective at eliminating hospitalization is not a trivial number. That is extremely effective. I will take those odds vs the chance of having an extremely rare myocarditis episode.
```
Among more than 2.5 million vaccinated HCO members who were 16 years of age or older, 54 cases met the criteria for myocarditis. The estimated incidence per 100,000 persons who had received at least one dose of vaccine was 2.13 cases (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.56 to 2.70). The highest incidence of myocarditis (10.69 cases per 100,000 persons; 95% CI, 6.93 to 14.46) was reported in male patients between the ages of 16 and 29 years.
```
Does anyone have any experience of dealing with this in the UK? I’ve waited 7 months to get a date for an echocardiogram appointment for further investigation, previously the doctors just put it down as anxiety. When I thought I was having a heart attack I was told the ambulance would be 3 hours.
I'm double vaxxed and boosted and just spent 4 days in the hospital with Covid.
I actually entered the hospital without Covid and got it while I was in there. They had the entire place divided into separate wings and I had to be transferred between them. 103 degree fever, pulse 130, was pretty awful but came out of it fine.
I, too, am done with all of it. Let the chips fall where they may now.
wow, you just had a really awful covid experience despite having all preventive measures in place, and now that you're "done" it's time to take off the masks for everyone?
thanks for "letting the chips fall where they may" on everyone else who still would much prefer not to get sick and risk long covid but I will keep the mask on for now, thanks
I mean, my stance on seatbelts is never going to change even if car accidents never stop happening. I have no idea how I'll feel about masks and everything else in 3 years, but for the moment it's not crazy to say "I think we should keep taking precautions as long as the problem still exists".
The ideas that masks are new and the need for them doesn't have a clear end-date are the major reasons why the opposition is so insistent. After drugs and terror, the West and especially the US have run out of appetite for endless, unwinnable wars.
(Edit: seat-belts address a threat that ought to be persistent, because it's inherent to driving, so they're easier to accept. Covid is, at least allegedly, temporary.)
I get it, I'm just trying to explain that my reaction to "this is lasting longer than we thought it would" is "I guess the precautions will have to last longer as well", and I believe that is a reasonable reaction. I don't find it difficult to accept that nobody knows when it will end. That's just how it is, we're in a pandemic, it sucks. I don't have any more appetite for it than anyone else, I hate it.
Covid also happened at the same time as a bunch of other political/media holy-wars, which is why it's so bizarrely an us vs. them issue in the US. If seat-belts had been advocated by people half the country considered untrustworthy for unrelated reasons, they wouldn't be so universal today.
I wasn't alive in the 80s, but honestly it seems pretty similar. A lot of people hated the laws, there were public fights and court challenges for a while, and then eventually society got over it.
I guess you might be right, although I consider it a little unpalatable that the side I would have agreed with lost so thoroughly. The pre-Fox-News media were the media who declared the Vietnam War lost and salivated at being the fourth branch of government during Watergate.
Apart from the fact they make it harder to breathe, speak, hear people, are uncomfortably warm in the summer, become completely wet from water condensation in the winter, are hard to put on/off if you're walking with stuff in you hands/have a hat, make it impossible to read lips so fuck deaf people and make it harder to communicate non-verbally.
I can understand people who say it's worth it, but not those who say it's inconsequential. Especially compared to seat belts.
I have to cover my face every time I talk to someone. That's in no way inconsequential. It's depressing and antisocial.
I have to wear a mask while at the gym. That's in no way easy, particularly for cardio.
I'm lucky that I can work from home, otherwise I'd be wearing a mask for nearly my entire day at work.
And of course masking is just a part of the overall Covid restrictions that we still have to deal with.
To be clear, I'm in the bay area and fully follow local mask guidance. I can do that while also trying to figure out how long we can do this for, and acknowledging that I can't do this forever.
> I have to cover my face every time I talk to someone. That's in no way inconsequential. It's depressing and antisocial.
Is it? Why?
> I have to wear a mask while at the gym. That's in no way easy, particularly for cardio.
Of course it isn't at first. If society was such that we already used masks all the time I suspect people would just get used to it.
> I'm lucky that I can work from home, otherwise I'd be wearing a mask for nearly my entire day at work.
And...? We also wear clothes all day long at work. I suppose some people would call it bothersome or depressing or antisocial, but mostly we're all so used to it we don't even think about it.
I'm not opining on whether or not society can keep intermittently locking down forever, but we can certainly keep masking forever.
> Huh? You don't just get used to a soggy, restricting mask. I tried running with a mask for like 3 months and it sucked the entire time.
Sure you do, the same way you get used to soggy clothes. You're telling me you ran with a mask for 3 months with no major issues other than "it's soggy and it sucked". Of course, but soggy clothes suck.
> I don't think my belly button would contribute as much to building connections with people as my facial expressions do.
Plenty of ways to build connections with people without them seeing the entirety of your face. Heck, I've plenty of internet friends who have never seen any part of it!
> I can't. Period. And I don't think I'm a minority here.
What I'm saying is: yes, people could, as in, they won't die or be permanently injured by it. At most there would be a few minor inconveniences, particularly during the time it takes for people to adapt. People say they can't, in general, to mean that they won't and as a way to feel less guilty about it.
That is absolutely not true. Aside from the consequences of people not seeing each other’s faces, there are dumb things like having to wear a mask in a gym. Wearing a cloth mask while working out is not easy or inconsequential.
So you’re saying forever then, because Covid is not going away. Do you honestly think people should be forced to wear masks for the rest of their lives?
name any evidence whatsoever of this. this is a toxic viewpoint that conservatives seem to hold which is that liberals/antifa/others somehow "like" covid, or that governments somehow "want" to shut schools down. I see this viewpoint quite a bit and it is completely insane and not based in any reality at all.
for example, I have relatives who watch FOX news all day. they are convinced covid vaccines were created to kill people, for the purposes of "thinning the herd". the reason for this "thinning the herd", which they seem to believe is happening? despite most everyone they know including their whole extended family shaking their heads at their crazy facebook posts being vaccinated without any issue? is so that this would somehow pave the way for "communism". that's their whole worldview. so those are folks who think we're somehow all on board with covid being great, or something.
There's a lot of people that like masks, staying home, a lot of people that like that others are being forced to do things ("political enemies"), etc. I think it's more than most suppose, and they are vocal, too.
ive liked to stay home for decades and because of that i tend not to travel much. covid has nothing to do with that? why would i wish a certain lifestyle on other people? also "political enemies" who disagree with covid restrictions arent forced to do anything, they are walking around unvaccinated, unmasked, filling up the hospitals and crushing the healthcare system with abandon. Nobody is coming after them.
The jump from "some people aren't as bothered by masks and are more ok with staying home" to "these same people wouldn't mind if a disease that already killed millions just lingers forever" is... baffling.
It’s absolutely based on reality. I invite you to live in any major west coast city. Dudes have lost the plot.
Besides, there is nothing wrong with being “anti mask”. Covid is endemic. I’m boostered. Why should I continue to be forced to wear a mask? Is Covid still the only problem I can ever focus on?
There is a significant portion of the population that enjoys telling others what to do. Nobody can argue this. Therefore, given the fact that COVID restrictions is the hottest-button issue of the past several years, and dealing with it involves telling people what to do, through force of law no less (usually), it only follows...
After COVID, what are the media and these people going to do? The gravy train is going to run out, everything else will be boring for them in comparison.
it's not possible for things to "stay the same" because long covid will have been studied for years and there will be tons of data on it regarding what effect vaccines have upon it, what different variants do as far as long covid, etc. hopefully it will be well established that long covid is preventable by vaccines and/or new treatments have been developed and/or more evidence that "long covid" is not actually permanent will have been reached.
right now almost nothing is known about long covid except for the very terrifying pathways by which the virus causes it takes effect, directly attacking organs, cardiovascular, lungs, immune system, and brain with long term, extensive damage in some cases. no thanks
so the plan is "wait and see" until more is known. if indeed it's established that long covid is much too dangerous to be risked (in the same way that lyme disease is currently considered to be too dangerous to be risked) then hopefully they will work towards producing newer vaccines that keep the initial antibody wall up against variants, and oral antiviral drugs that stop the virus much more quickly will also be commonplace. as well as that the global population will slowly (very...slowly) be getting more and more immunity from vaccines and re-infection, hopefully reducing the rate at which new variants emerge.
so in 3-5 years there will be lots of things improving the situation. we are not there yet.
> so in 3-5 years there will be lots of things improving the situation. we are not there yet.
Uh yeah sorry, I'm already losing it less than 2 years into this thing. There's zero chance I'm making it another 3-5 years. It's just not possible mentally for me. I don't know exactly what my time frame is, but 3-5 years is certainly beyond my limit.
People's stances should change as reality and conditions on the ground change, not based on some arbitrary number of months/years pulled out of the sky. What makes 3 years special, or 5 years? We may be at the very beginning of a COVID decade or even century. Do you know for sure how long this will last? Does anyone? Part of why we can't get past this thing is politicians declaring "We must be back to normal in [TIMEFRAME X]" where TIMEFRAME X was arbitrarily chosen and has nothing to do with reality.
I picked arbitrary time frames in my question because at some point people are going to give up, regardless of the conditions on the ground. A massive amount of people have already given up.
I wanted to know if they were prepared to go on for 1, 3, 5, 10, 20 more years of mask wearing in public, travel restrictions, remote learning, testing, etc. if things stay the same.
I see. Yea, I mean the only answer that really makes sense is "when it's over"--by some arguable definition of over. If they say "Well, I'll deal with it for 3 years but on year 4, that's it--I'm just going to give up, and pretend it's over." then I would: a) question where they got that number 4--what it's based on, and b) ask, if you're willing to ignore reality and just pretend it's over, why not just start pretending now?
> Yea, I mean the only answer that really makes sense is "when it's over"
I wouldn't say that. On the extreme end, if I found out that this thing was not going to be "over" during my lifetime, I'd say it doesn't make sense to continue doing this for my entire life. What kind of life is that?
And to be fair, I'm from the perspective of the Bay Area which has some of the strictest restrictions in the US. If you live in a more red area then you're more likely to already pretend it's over.
> ask, if you're willing to ignore reality and just pretend it's over, why not just start pretending now?
That's what I've been asking myself. I don't know the answer.
You’re the only one talking about forcing anyone to do anything with masks. If you want to wear it fine, but not forcing people to is not the same as forcing people not to.
That's an uncharitable reading of it. A charitable reading of it might be "We've done everything we can do, there's nothing left to do now but roll the dice"
But there's a lot we can do concerning vaccinations, mandates and social distancing. I'm not sure why it's on the reader to fish for a charitable reading of a comment devoid of any nuance.
Because those social distancing and other mandates don’t acknowledge that Covid is here forever. We cannot continue to live under these kinds of mitigations for a virus that will be here forever.
How does anything he does from here on out have any consequence on other people's decisions?
Did you just entirely dismiss what he said about catching it?
It is not his responsibility to protect you or anyone else. YOU can stay home and isolate if you can't handle being out. Stop putting your burden on everyone else. You (and your ilk) have no right to demand protection from others while putting yourself in harms way.
"I can't handle my own health anxiety so I'm going to make sure everyone makes ME feel better regardless of how it affects their lives"
Im typing this from an airport so im not sure what you mean about not being able to handle going out, or who my ilk is (people haven’t had Covid yet?). The selfish part of his statement is this - because he is no longer personally at risk, he no longer supports any measures to protect those who still are. How hard is that to understand?
It is super selfish to except society to continue to cater to the fears of fully vaccinated individuals. If people are scared, they can double mask up, wear protection and go outside or not. It’s not cool to expect society to continue playing this game. Vaccinations were the end of the road.
>he no longer supports any measures to protect those who still are.
Who are we protecting? What measures? Why is he responsible for the health and actions of others? Who exactly is he helping by getting more boosters?
Why is it hard for you to understand that a free society doesn't put the onus on others to keep you or anyone else healthy. You are free to boost the shit out of your system, quadruple mask, and lock down all you want for the end of time. No one will force you to go out. Leave the rest to freedom of individual choice.
> Why is it hard for you to understand that a free society doesn't put the onus on others to keep you or anyone else healthy
Eh? We restrict activities that have negative externalities on the people around you all the time. To name a few: anything that creates pollution, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, even having ridiculously bright headlights in your car.
A disease that you may or may not be infected with, may or may not be spreading, and may or may not exhibit symptoms is FAR outside any of those things you mentioned. You're grasping at straws to push your strange authoritarianism.
Most of those things are restricted when they actually harm people NOT before. You are not restricted from consuming alcohol unless you go out and drink or do something else under the influence. You are not restricted from smoking unless you do it in a place where the smoke cannot be avoided. In this scenario you'd be demanding someone stop smoking while walking towards the smoke.
Lastly, I'm sort of done convincing people like you. I no longer care what you think. I and many others are going to move on with our lives. What are you going to do to stop us?
That’s the most American-possible sentiment, so what’s wrong with it?
In this country we typically don’t care how our actions and policies affect broader society, from NIMBYism to faux-meritocracies to non-universal healthcare.
I really can’t fault anyone for not caring how their actions affect others, it’s been engrained in our culture/laws/policies as long as I’ve been alive.
Let the strongest survive. We do it in every other facet of our lives (well it’s more let the strongest take all and let the weakest suffer for decades).
I’m vaccinated, boosted, and wear masks when needed. I do that for me, not for society. Personally, I’d love 20-40M Americans to kick the bucket with this pandemic, free up housing, decrease the labor supply, lower carbon emissions. Sounds wonderful.
He/she didn't deny that the vaccine kept him out of ICU.
But once vaxxed+boosted, what more realistically can we do? I mean sure, let's maybe avoid coughing into each other's open mouths. But apart from that, Omicron seems to be so contagious, we're all bound to get it eventually unless we literally lock ourselves at home for the next 3 years.
The big question right now is if we should push button#3. Many of us hoped it wouldn't be necessary, but things really are that bad now that we're contemplating pushing the button.
Lockdowns are themselves staged. We can lockdown schools (already happening in many colleges effectively. I have cousins who are off of college because they've extended their winter break, to minimize COVID19 spread).
---------
There's also lesser actions: I work in technology. All in-person meetings have been canceled. Schools are "sometimes online" in my area, depending on local conditions. Testing has gone up significantly, we try to catch the disease and encourage people to stay home asap to minimize spread. Etc. etc.
There's plenty of actions we can do, even if we decide against lockdowns.
I put myself firmly in the camp of “vaxxed, boosted, and done”, and I’d say that’s the attitude of more people than we all might think.
I think you have the theoretical game plan right, but I’d say that #3 is no longer within the realm of possibility in the US. There’s just no public support for it amongst anyone but the tiny percentage of the most cautious among us.
On #2, I’d even say that yes, masks still make sense in crowded indoor non-optional settings - meaning places we all have to go like public transit, grocery stores, and hospitals. But I’m already past the point of ever wearing a mask outdoors, and I’d also argue that it shouldn’t be a requirement for vaccinated individuals in optional spaces like gyms, bars, restaurants.
Plus of course in bars and restaurants they are pointless theater- wearing a mask to walk to your table, then taking it off to eat, drink and talk loudly for several hours, does precisely nothing.
Agreed on the masks in bars/restaurants just being theater, but the alternative was never going to be masks not being required, it would be that indoor dining wouldn't be permitted.
Agreed. At least where I live (a major American city) there’s already no expectation or enforcement once you enter a bar, despite us having an indoor mask mandate that people are relatively good about following everywhere else. I’d be willing to guess that the city knows and has chosen not to enforce it in certain settings.
Except at a restaurant, the unmasked time is closer to 95%-99%, depending on how long it takes to get a table, and then how long you're there.
My wife an I recently went out for breakfast. There was no wait for a table, so the masked time was basically less than a minute, but let's call it a full minute. Then, we were there for about 40 minutes unmasked.
That's a 97.5% time unmasked, talking or eating. You cannot possibly convince me that the 1 minute I had my mask on made ANY difference.
That said, the alternative to the "mask until you're seated" policy was never going to be "no masks", it would end up being "no indoor dining".
Or were you socializing for 30 minutes after actually eating for 10? And during the socializing period, you didn't feel like wearing a mask?
---------
Surely, when you were seated, you didn't have food yet. You had some time to place an order. It takes a few minutes to even fetch drinks from the back sometimes, depending on what the drinks are.
Literally no one is doing this. I'm not arguing that what you're describing isn' safer -- but seriously, no one is doing this. They could, they definitely could.
But everyone who is going to a restaurant in a "mask to the table" kind of area is wearing it for about 30 seconds til they sit at their table. Maybe on the way to the bathroom.
I know a few states had tried to pass mandates about wearing your mask when you were being waited on or when you were socializing/not actively eating. I don't think those stuck though because they are impossibly hard to enforce.
I don't always practice what I preach, but I've done so on multiple occasions. (IE: I've kept my mask on for the "social" phases of the Restaurant, and only took it off for the eating phase).
Given that we're currently facing an unprecedented hospital shortage _RIGHT NOW_, its certainly a behavior worth revisiting and advocating.
We can't stop all restaurant visits or family gatherings. But we can lessen the spread of COVID19 while we do gather.
So what? Why is Covid the single only thing that matters. Covid is endemic. Mandating masks says “Covid is literally the most important thing for you”.
No. I’m boosted. I’ve got plenty of other problems that are far higher in priority than Covid or the spread of Covid. Nobody should be required by law to wear a mask indoors at this point.
Keeping a mask off your face while indoors is that important to you?
Why? No one has ever been able to tell me why a mask on a face was so terrible, to the point where I'm pretty sure that its just partisan bickering / political theater.
Were smiles banned or something? I've smiled to my niece and she smiled back to me last time I checked.
But in public, its important to reduce the hospitalization rate and COVID19 rate of spread. As corrosive as you "think" masks are, I guarantee that the long-term effects of COVID19 are more corrosive.
Just 10% of this school has gotten infected with COVID19, and you can see how much of a nightmare its become. Not enough substitute teachers to watch kids. Kids mingling in the auditorium because there's not enough teachers to watch them. Spreading COVID19 further and further, causing more kids to be absent, causing more teachers to be absent, preventing school from effectively functioning as a learning environment.
Seems like a self created problem. Imagine if we simply stopped all this testing. I bet a lot of money you wouldn’t even know omicron was a thing. This would be “that thing that is going around”
I was standing in a 4-hour line to get a nurse to give me a regular TDAP vaccine (wooping cough). I decided to come back later when the line was shorter, and stood in line __before__ the clinic opened. I was then met with a 2-hour wait instead.
You can't ignore this crap. Its evidently and immediately an issue right now.
Until when? Until covid goes away (which Biden implied earlier this year, that the reason we still have covid is because of the unvaccinated)? Vaccines seem to do nothing to infections, it only reduces the risk of hospitalisation and death. In the UK the % of positive cases that are vaccinated is pretty much the same than the % of people vaccinated in the population. Covid isn't going away.
So are you suggesting vaccines, masks and lockdowns forever? I don't think many will agree to that. I certain don't.
If this is our new reality then this is our new reality.
Given that our hospital systems are being pushed to basically their breaking point, we need to do what we can to help our the nurses / doctors handle this situation.
A cloth mask is something like 30% effective. That's better than nothing, and certainly can slow down the spread if used universally. Booster-vaccines are something like 70% vs Omicron.
I don't know the situation in the US, but here in the UK, the only reason there is a strain on hospitals is not because of high hospital admissions, they aren't particularly high. It is because of mandatory self-quarantine requirement for hospital staff who test positive, which result in staff shortage. We wouldn't do that with a cold, and this variant, at least to the vaccinated, is little more than a cold.
If you are sick, stay home. Don't infect your colleagues, don't infect your patients. Its not that hard.
---
The fact that you're arguing for the opposite is incredibly callous and reckless of you. Its like the pandemic has removed you of common sense.
That's literally why we have paid sick leave. Having 5% of your workforce stuck at home is better than those people coming in and infecting _EVERONE ELSE AT THE OFFICE_.
It seems like you misunderstand what people are calling for. It doesn't make sense for a triple-vaxxed, asymptomatic, positive test to be quarantined for ten days. We have rapid tests that are very good at determining whether people are actually infectious. We can use those to return asymptomatic people to work faster with minimal risk of spread.
In the USA, we've already changed our guidance to 5-day quarantines. So as usual, my words are USA-focused and based off of our current US-politics.
There seem to be people arguing for the COVID19 sick doctors/nurses to come in and work as usual, even with symptoms.
If that's not the case in UK (and if you're still on the old 10-day quarantine), then I guess your local politics are just different than what I'm dealing with here. We can blame this misunderstanding on our different local situations for sure.
The strain on your hospitals and morgues could be much higher, if only those COVID-positive healthcare workers were at work, infecting their colleagues and patients.
But this line of discussion is so bad, that I can only imagine it originated from Russian propaganda. How the hell does bringing in _PROVEN_ COVID19 positive people into a face-to-face setting with sick/immunocompromised patients a possible benefit in this situation?
The situation is sickening to think about. Its not something a rational person could ever possibly come up on their own.
Clearly if all doctors stay home sick, then it will lead to many more deaths than if they all came in with COVID.
On the other hand, if only 0.1% stay home sick with COVID, then the effect of their absence will probably be to reduce deaths if their job can be covered by others adequately.
So what we have is a question of degree: there exists a threshold at which doctors (or nurses, etc) should come in even if they have COVID. And somewhat counterintuitively the more doctors who are sick, the greater the likelihood that if they came in with COVID there would be fewer deaths overall.
Exactly where this threshold lies is an open question, and will depend on the facts.
>Given that our hospital systems are being pushed to basically their breaking point, we need to do what we can to help our the nurses / doctors handle this situation.
Our hospitals have been pushed to the breaking point for a long time. Maybe we should focus on extending our ICU capability to meet the demand better, given that this may be the new normal for who knows how many years yet. I think we need to come to terms with this and expand accordingly on a more permanent basis.
"It's possible the deer in northeast Ohio contracted it from contaminated water, since the novel coronavirus is shed in human waste. But alternative sources — such as trash, backyard feeders, bait stations and wildlife hospitals — have to be considered, Bowman said."
What does this have to do with masks again? Perhaps you can organize a scientific experiment equipping half the deer with masks, and report back to us with the results.
It certainly seems likely that deer engage in behaviours outside that humans do not, that leads to much closer contact. I can think of at least one such behaviour. I don't think that wild animals are a good model for human epidemiology.
"A Japanese investigation of 110 cases found the probability of transmission to be 18.7 times higher indoors compared to an “open-air environment.” And a more recent study, which looked at transmission between 18 infected construction workers and 496 of their close contacts, showed that the infected individuals were nearly 25 times more likely to spread the virus to coworkers in enclosed spaces compared with outdoor settings. They transmitted the virus to 26 percent of their indoor coworkers while infecting only 1.4 percent of their outdoor workmates — this despite being significantly more likely to share meals and talk loudly while working outside."
Does it EVER spread outdoors? Sure. Is it very likely to? Not even close. We've known this for a long time, and yet we still have municipalities welding basketball hoops shut and filling skate parks with sand.
There's a restaurant close to me that's got "outdoor" seating. Its a tent with the sides down and heaters. It happens to match the legal requirements for "outdoor seating" in my county, but we all know that COVID19 is spreading everywhere inside that small tent.
--------
Its not like people are social-distancing at national parks. People are abusing these declarations in ridiculous ways.
> There's a restaurant close to me that's got "outdoor" seating. Its a tent with the sides down and heaters. It happens to match the legal requirements for "outdoor seating" in my county, but we all know that COVID19 is spreading everywhere inside that small tent.
> People are abusing these declarations in ridiculous ways.
And yet, the declarations are also ridiculous, which is the point that OP was making (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29880264). In the past (and maybe now, not sure) people have been required to social distance at national parks - or even forbidden from going to them at all.
On the other side of "ridiculous": 6 feet of "social distancing" wasn't enough to begin with. Building and elevator capacities were a sham. And, my employer (and likely many others) skirted all of these ridiculous rules in ridiculous ways - which is the point, that regardless of how people behave (which isn't relevant for this discussion, so I'm not sure why you're bringing it up), some of the rules are still bad and useless.
The vast majority of covid-related rules are unnecessary, hygiene theater, woefully inadequate, or some combination of all of those - and, yet, governments and people of a particular inclination insist on following this charade anyway and using various logical fallacies (e.g. strawmanning, as you did above) and emotional attacks on those that have the audacity to question them.
> On the other side of "ridiculous": 6 feet of "social distancing" wasn't enough to begin with
Its not enough for you as an individual.
But such a rule lowers the "blast radius" of who gets infected when a case comes up. People's breath travels like 20 feet. If everyone is 6-feet apart, you only get ~3 people in front of you sick.
If people are ~2 feet apart instead, you infect 300% more people.
---------
There's a thing about big groups. What's good for the group isn't necessarily what's best for the individual.
Read the quote I pulled: outside = "open-air environment".
> People are abusing these declarations in ridiculous ways.
And this is being obtuse about "these declarations" to avoid acknowledging the fact that the person at the top of this thread is correct: COVID, statistically, almost never transmits outdoors. It's been studied, multiple times, all coming to the same conclusion.
This is a pretty blatant strawman - OP's exact words were "COVID-19 doesn't effectively transmit outside" (emphasis added), not that it doesn't transmit at all.
COVID19 is _effectively_ spreading to the entire Ohio deer population.
> The investigators said the prevalence of infection varied from 13.5% to 70% across the nine sites, with the highest prevalence observed in four sites that were surrounded by more densely populated neighborhoods.
Furthermore, it seems like we humans are spreading it to deer, with the deer in higher-density human neighborhoods reaching ~70% infection.
-------
I don't think we humans are sitting around talking to deer indoors. Any reasonable application of Occam's Razor is that humans are spreading COVID19 to deer through some kind of outdoor setting.
> The number of deer who've caught COVID19 in Ohio seems to suggest otherwise.
It doesn't suggest anything.
You're conflating two uses of the English word "effectively". One means "efficiently", which is the only one in use in the thread above, and the only one under debate. The other means "functionally" or "the effects are the same as", which is what you used in this single comment - but not even correctly. 1/3 of the deer population is not "effectively" the entire Ohio deer population in the sense that you meant it.
Furthermore, COVID19 does not spread effectively (in the sense of "efficiently") outside, as a comment that you've already read has pointed out[1]. 18 to 25 times less likely to spread to co-workers in an "open-air environment" (which kind of implicitly is still not like being in a park) fulfills the definition of "ineffective".
> Any reasonable application of Occam's Razor is that humans are spreading COVID19 to deer through some kind of outdoor setting.
Nobody claimed that there were no cases of outdoor human-to-deer infection - you were suggesting that the virus spread effectively outdoors in [2], which Occam's Razor does not support in the slightest.
You also moved the goalposts from "The fact that there's a bunch of infected deer means that covid effectively transmits outside" to "There's some outdoor transmission", and those two positions are completely different.
So, yes, Occam's Razor does support your (silently) revised claim in this comment, but definitely not the comment you originally invoked the Razor in.
> You also moved the goalposts from "The fact that there's a bunch of infected deer means that covid effectively transmits outside" to "There's some outdoor transmission", and those two positions are completely different.
The deer samples were anywhere from 14% to 70% COVID19 infected.
You're grossly underestimating the amount of COVID19 we have spread to the deer population (and likely, that deer have spread to each other). All of which happened outdoors.
> The deer samples were anywhere from 14% to 70% COVID19 infected.
...with an overall rate of 36%, which is given in that very article that you linked. It doesn't matter if 70% of the deer at one site were infected, if the average is significantly lower than that.
...which isn't even relevant, because again, you're moving the goalposts, as stated above.
> You're grossly underestimating the amount of COVID19 we have spread to the deer population
I'm not underestimating anything, as one of the researchers said: "there is no documentation of deer transmitting the virus to humans or vice versa"[1] (another article which you have linked but apparently failed to read).
...and, as a previous study found[2], the virus does not spread effectively outdoors.
You're literally fabricating claims from thin air. There's absolutely no evidence whatsoever for effective human-deer or deer-deer COVID transmission.
I mean, I can't really imagine a world where the deer have mostly be infected by humans. It would seem more likely to me at least that there were a few human-deer transmissions, but way way more deer-deer transmissions.
The GP isn't really arguing in good faith - they didn't even fully read (or purposefully omitted sections from) one of the articles that they linked, in which one of the authors of the study says that there is no documentation of deer transmitting the virus to humans or vice versa[1].
OP's exact words were "COVID-19 doesn't effectively transmit outside". Read the "effectively" - he's clearly not saying that it doesn't transmit at all (obviously it does if you go outdoors and then cough right into someone else's face from two inches away), just that it doesn't do so effectively.
Deer don't do social distancing. They sleep together, and move around in herds for most of their day. COVID can both spread terribly outdoors (which it does) and lots of deer can get it exclusively outdoors.
Let's be clear on this: The majority of humanity is not okay with the idea of wearing masks full-time in all public places, and shutting down densely populated activities forever.
Masks make sense locally, temporarily, and as circumstances warrant. Such as a hospital or pharmacy during a flu outbreak, or when someone thinks they may be sick (cough or sneeze fits).
There doesn't seem to be much we can do to stop this in the near term. The idea of stamping out COVID quickly like we thought we could do in the spring of 2020 is gone.
It is time now to understand we live with it, to be cautious when we feel ill and isolate ourselves, and to get the preventative measures that help best (vaccines).
Where the hell are you that this is your reality? Here in Texas it is absolutely not the case that "but things really are that bad now that we're contemplating pushing the button".
Texas has much lower per capita cases and deaths than a state like New York. But I also suspect that Texas values freedom relative to safety much higher than states like New York.
Texas leadership is focused on performing for their constituents. That relegates the contemplation to progressive city/county leadership who are willing to push back on statewide policy when the numbers get bad.
A lot of this gets left to the choice of business owners and school administrators who have to balance their choices with fiscal concerns and public perception. There is no political leadership position for them to fall back on. Basically everyone's hands are tied, and some group is going to be upset whether buttons get pressed or not.
There are several ways this could end, but the scenarios that could realistically keep most people from encountering the virus have proven implausible. So while you can use maska and lockdowns indefinitely, it's not much of a plan.
Arguably boosting the entire population and waiting for the last wave to pass is a more realistic plan, even though nobody so far seems willing to admit they're planning to do this, they just are doing it.
Except there are so many options in between Nos. 2 and 3. Reduced capacity. Outdoor dining. Testing requirements. As well as the wide, wide gulf between total lockdowns and selective ones.
I think my overall point is that we're well into discussing options between 2 and 3 now. This Omicron surge is truly ferocious, and far worse than people predicted (or really, hoped for).
There's also the evidence that Omicron subsides rather quickly (at least, in South Africa it did). So any such emergency measures would truly be temporary, more so than the original strain or Delta-surges of the past. Under these statistics / calculations, it makes more sense to perform bigger actions.
I'm still pissed that in California we handled the possible in-between steps so clumsily.
My 2020 Roger Waters concert was canceled. Sure, that made sense -- 15,000 people all packed inside the venue. But at the same time, my hairdresser was shut down, not even a single customer at a time allowed. Made no sense to me.
> The countries that have locked down the hardest (eg Australia, Canada) have seen no improvement relative to those with no lockdowns (e.g. Florida, Texas).
This is a laughable assertion.
Florida has 650 deaths per 100k people. Australia has 9.4 deaths per 100k people.
What is the demographic difference between Florida and all of Australia? When I visit Florida it seems like half the population is at least 80 years old, but maybe that's just my impression.
> The big question right now is if we should push button#3 [lockdowns].
I think a more salient question is if we can push button #3. Nobody wants more lockdowns. The vaccinated are tired of the unvaccinated fucking everything up for us, and the unvaccinated have never been open to the idea.
This is another thing pointed out by the article: there just isn't the will to do it, even if it was necessary.
This isn't being made as a medical decision, it's being made as a political decision.
You either do an orderly shutdown, or you get de-facto shutdown.
In the case of this high-school, they only needed ~10% of students / teachers to get COVID19 before chaos reigned supreme. Students are now skipping classes out of fear of their own safety, teachers are collecting students into auditoriums (because too many teachers are sick, not enough substitute teachers to watch the students 30-at-a-time anymore, gotta collect all the students together to more efficiently watch over them).
At this point, the high-school in this Reddit discussion should have just an orderly shutdown, rather than pretending everything is fine.
If people aren't getting COVID and are staying at home because of a shutdown, then this exact same situation happens again just later in time... (After the school shutdown)
An orderly shutdown is better, because all the students remain at the same point of their lessons. If you're a calculus teacher currently teaching basic integrals this week... you won't be able to teach "integration by parts" (or other advanced integrals) 1 month from now, because 10% of your students were missing.
----------
In contrast, a formal shutdown means that _EVERYBODY_ gets held off at this lesson. You cut your losses, formally shutdown school, and start everybody up when times are safer.
You can plan around a formal shutdown. You can't plan around a de-facto shutdown. All the students are going to have bits and pieces of knowledge and are unable to catchup, because they all randomly lost bits of information due to randomly missing class.
In many countries in Asia it was already considered polite to wear a mask if you got sick. Got a cold and coughing everywhere? Wear a mask so your not spewing droplets all over your coworkers and people at the store.
I am hoping that trend continues in the western world but who really knows
TBH, I consider wearing a mask to be so low-effort, I take it for granted. I know for many other people in this country that's not the case at all, and wearing a mask to the grocery store for them is somehow akin to wearing a 20-pound iron ball chained to their ankle. But to me (and my family), a mask isn't a big deal.
By "what more realistically can we do" I'm really talking about shutdowns, lockdowns, and capacity reductions. I'm ok with continuing WFH for people who can... so I suppose my stance is inconsistent: I want to get back to "normal" but I'm ok with WFH and masks.
Overall, I'm frankly at a point where, double-vaxx'd and boosted, I really want to go back to not having to second-guess my decision to go out for a bowl of ramen.
Stay away from people who don't take the pandemic seriously, and take every precaution you know you would take if this virus was any more serious. We all knew what to expect. Sure it sucks, but would you rather catch the virus?
at this point I want better public health evidence from CDC etc that "the vaccine may have kept you out of the ICU". I need better quantification of the various risks before continuing to live an extremely inconvenient lifestyle to ostensibly save other's lives.
There's a clear difference in hospitalization and death between the vaccinated and unvaccinated populations. You don't have to take the CDC's word for it - other countries can see the same thing in their numbers.
Calling getting the vaccine "an extremely inconvenient lifestyle" is silly.
yes, exactly. I am getitng tired of people citing CDC facts that don't answer (quantitatively) which of any of actions are actually useful.
Note that many people who end up the hospital either didn't know they were infected, or got infected there. And probably many of the people with COVID who go to the hospital don't actually need hospital levels of treatment. We have a tendency to overtreat with technology.
At this point I don't really think that pointing at CDC public health releases is going to convince a scientist like me. Also, the data you pointed at doesn't directly answer what I said (nearly all data is ambiguous, there are a ton of confounders, etc).
Getting a vaccine isnt inconvenient, except that it was: I spent an entire week unable to use my left arm and feeling very sick (and my doctor didn't care). But also there's a ton of other issues, like my kids not being able to go to school, stores closed, having to greatly limit travel, etc.
I don't disagree with the directionality you describe but look at the case rates and hospitizalization numbers- even the most highly vaccinated areas of the country are still heavily impacted. Omicron changed everything and our reporting hasn't caught up.
The best way to think about CDC press releases is that they not intended to be read by scientists. They are intended to guide good behavior and may not be 100% accurate in terms of medical/scientific knowledge.
Thus far, every indication we have is that there's a successful decoupling of cases and hospitalization/death. Omicron's been in South Africa long enough for the lagging indicators of hospitalization/death. They remain low.
I don't think that disproves anything. First, I question their stats. IE I think they are straight-up fudging their numbers. Second, there are more people being hospitalized in my area (which has high rates of vax) than there are unvaxxed people. I would have agreed with you until omicron, but it's clear this is hitting vaxxed people are similar rates to unvaxxed, and that the hospitalization rates are similar.
I wasn't talking in proportions, I meant absolutely. I mean, it's extremely improbable that the huge jump in hospitalizations could be explained by massively more vaxxed people, because there aren't actually enough physical people in the state to explain it otherwise.
Just be aware: you're arguing with a scientist who worked for decades on medical biology who has, until recently, generally been quiet when seeing huge amounts of misleading medical knowledge trotted about to justify one procedure or another. I am always open to data and my "feelings" don't matter- except that most of the time, when I dig into the underlying claims, I find that they are misrepresented (usually unintentionally). So I use my own priors, and frankly, all I can say is that finding stats on a government page or a news article and using those to justify policy isn't convincing to scientists (and, it appears, the vast majority of the american public).
Ultimately, our public health people lost the PR war, and they did so through muddled messaging. Literally everything about vaccines has turned out to be less effective that public health leadership predicted, or claims. I'm not really surprised; I've commented many times on HN about how deeply challenging it is to do public health with a noncompliant population.
> Just be aware: you're arguing with a scientist who worked for decades on medical biology...
On the internet, no one knows you're a dog.
(I'm also glad the CDC employs more than just biologists, as statistics seems to be a fault here more than biology.)
> I wasn't talking in proportions, I meant absolutely.
Cool, so entirely pointless.
This popped into my inbox today: average daily cases, per-capita, for Seattle and NYC. Another clear distinction between the two populations. https://imgur.com/a/mjVxIhB
You can dismiss it as faked or rigged or manipulated again, but there's plenty of information out there to validate this sort of thing, and you don't have to take the US's word for it; other countries publish the same sort of information.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.11.22269045v...
Table S3 has what you want, it's much closer to useful than any CDC press release with the major caveats that it was done in a Kaiser population (which could be non-representative) and is very new and totally unvetted.
Ultimately I think you're not completely incorrect and I agree with teh directionality of what you're saying, but taken generally, the reality is that omicron does a much better job of infecting people (who were previously infected and have natural immunity, or who were vaccinated) and so much of this entire vaccine exercise has shown that we either need to move quickly/plan for regular 4-month updates (can you imagine trying to get everybody in the world to vaccinate every 4 months?) or maybe acknowledge that vaccination isn't the solution it was pitched as.
Here is where the details of COVID matter. Is it just a respiratory disease where once you are past the acute phase you are fine, or is it a multisystem disease where the long term consequences (kidney, heart, brain, blood clotting issues) we be on the rise for years and decades to come? The long term consequences (WHICH NO ONE KNOWS FOR SURE) are frightening.
It's not a new phenomena [1]. I do not think "hospitals are incapable of keeping people safe from Covid" is the best expression. I think "encountering any humans bears increased risk in Covid times", regardless if those humans work in a hospital (although, arguably lower risk) versus a shoe store.
It calls into question the effectiveness of all the Covid countermeasures. A triple vaxxed person, following all masking and distancing requirements, in a highly controlled environment still gets Covid. It makes you feel a bit like... What's the point? Do we realistically have any tools that slow the spread of Omicron?
The standard response is "Just imagine how bad it would be without all the restrictions!". Which is exactly the problem, perhaps. You're using imagination and not a quantitative approach. You can say that about literally anything. "Just imagine how much worse we would have lost that game if I wasn't wearing my lucky socks!"
A) Covid is probably airborne and refusal to admit as such and this upgrade hvac is potentially an ignored reality
B) why aren’t we testing and segregated people in hospitals? If society is expected to segregate unvaccinated people why can’t hospitals test and segregate healthy patients from anyone with Covid?
C) what expression is appropriate for a hospital that was incapable of preventing a patient free of Covid from contracting Covid in the hospital? Unwilling perhaps? Uninterested?
You can't reasonably maintain social-distance at the hospital. Pretty much by definition, you're in contact with several nurses and doctors per day, plus orderlies and various other staff. And that's the baseline. Add guests, other patients, and over-crowding (in some locations).
Of course hospitals are incapable of keeping you safe from an airbourne respiratory virus. Nothing can, short of a respirator.
The follow-up question is - if we can't stop infection in hospital buildings, where the most vulnerable are literally cooped up together for days and weeks at a time, what's the point of the rest of the restrictions? If you follow the logic used to set guidance and law where I live (ie, closures of various categories of business at various times, and ongoing), then logically we should also have shut down the hospitals...
In mid 2020 in the UK, The National Health Service (NHS) began introducing "green" and "ultra-green" pathways, and designating zones or entire hospitals as 'green' (CoVid-19 free) sites. 'Green' and 'ultra-green' refer to CoViD-19 prevention measures in the 14 days preceding non-emergency admissions and the status of zones (or entire sites) at the hospital during and after treatment.
This was to ensure non-emergency admissions could continue without risking infection.
I am not sure if your assertion is true. I am completely unvaccinated and at times also ran a heart rate above 120 (involuntarily) and a fever above 102.
However the difference for me was that I was at home and all I needed to do was take my inhaler if I felt short of breath and take advil quite religiously for the fever.
So I don't feel there is any difference between their symptoms and mine, and I am an asthmatic and also a bit overweight.
Different people have different reactions to Covid. That's true of both unvaccinated and vaccinated. But the data has been pretty clear that vaccinated has resulted in a lot less hospitalizations and death for those that take it.
I'm glad you made it through okay, but statistically your risk was higher by being unvaccinated when you caught it.
Also if I was short of breath, a heart rate above 120 randomly, and had a fever of 102 (at the same tmie) during this pandemic, as an overweight asthmatic myself, I wouldn't have risked staying home and would have headed straight to the emergency room. Especially if I checked my Oximeter and it was in the lower 90s.
You can never know if the vaccine made it less bad. If you don't like anecdotes about how tame covid was w/o vaccines, don't say things like "it would have been worse w/o the vaccine".
But statistically it is. Unvaccinated people die more. Vaccinated people die less. You can't _know_ in a meaningful sense in your specific instance, but your risk is what it is no matter what. I'm not sure what's hard about this.
I'm not going to prove to you that vaccines work, sorry. Do your own homework, but remember that you're (probably) not an immunologist. Do what thou wilt.
Had you gone to the emergency room in lower areas of New York, you would have been accepted through triage (but not "admitted overnight"), given an EKG, given an albuterol nebulizer treatment, told to continue these treatments every 2 hours at home until feeling better. If the nebulizer fails to help your breathing at that interval, you would be told to return. And if you developed pneumonia, you'd be given an antibiotic.
How do I know? This is exactly what happened to my wife.
That sucks for sure, and I'm sorry that happened to your wife, although at least you got a little information from that and hopefully if your wife was in worse shape they would have identified that at that time and admitted her.
I would have also used the nebulizer before going in, most likely (I have one at home), so I would know ahead of time how well it was working out. Also I did say I'd check the oximeter I have first, and if my blood oxygen level was low then according to that I probably need to be in the hospital and they'd hopefully take that measurement and react appropriately (Hopefully. I know hospitals have been overwhelmed at times, especially New York's)
I am a bit lucky in that the hospital closest to me, so far, hasn't run out of hospital beds this entire pandemic (currently has 80 regular beds and a dozen ICU beds available), and my state has, with a little luck and some decent policy decisions, has mostly kept things under control.
Risk after-the-fact doesn't work like that. Probabilities cease to be probabilities after the event happened. Plus, don't forget about all of the dead people who are unable to write posts like this. I'm glad you're okay, but as the sibling comment said, your risk was higher, especially being overweight and asthmatic. If you win a slot machine one time, it doesn't mean everyone else will also win the slot machine. Getting lucky doesn't mean there was never any risk, it just means you got lucky this time.
Just a note for anyone reading this but if you want to take a pain reliever for covid infection, apparently aspirin is an ideal one because the feature of preventing blood clots is very useful in preventing the fairly rare but serious covid complications caused by microclots.
But maybe not if you're young. Aspirin is associated with Reye Syndrome in children with viral infections. Not sure I've seen whether this has been shown to be the case or not with COVID, but basically nobody gives their kids aspirin anymore so I'm not sure if it's been an issue.
When I caught Alpha variant in February, I took advil/ibuprofen as well on the advice of my doctor. Didn't really have a headache more than a day though. I didn't know about aspirin's side-effect blood-thinning benefit pertaining to micro-clots.
But as stated elsewhere in the thread, I should have qualified my statement with "don't give aspirin to kids" due to Reyes syndrome. Totally spaced that detail.
One of the many reasons we had hospitals before covid? I'm not the person you asked but I don't see why it matters what their specific health concern was. There are many reasons to go to a hospital both emergency and not.
I'm just trying to understand, they went to the hospital for a totally unrelated reason to Covid or even suspicion of Covid, and then contracted Covid at the hospital.
Yeah catching a different infection while you're at the hospital for something unrelated was pretty common even before covid. It even has a fancy medical name and everything.
I don't hear much about it these days but a few years ago MRSA was talked about commonly in this context. I think that was the big fear there as well. You go for a minor surgery or whatever and come out with a bone infection you'll never completely shake.
I don't want to talk about vaccines anymore. Whatever study people have to cherry pick or whatever beliefs you may hold, whatever your stance is, most people have made the decision on whether or not to be vaccinated.
What I wish we focused on instead, is the medical system as a whole. We've been hearing stories everyday about how hospitals are on the brink of collapse. Why, in 2 years of this pandemic, have we not devoted the resources to expanding bed capacity and staffing hospitals? Why is testing still so unsustainable? From day 1 of the pandemic, from social distancing, to masking, to now getting vaccinated, the messaging has been do all of these things to avoid overwhelming the hospitals so it seems weird to me that 2 years later the messaging is exactly the same.
My wife is trying to become a nurse. Thanks to COVID screwing up her school schedule she's at least a year behind.
She's currently working as a residential assistant at rather nice elderly care facility where they are short staffed. She makes about what she would make at a fast food restaurant despite working in a semi-skilled position(requires CNA credentials) and working with COVID positive residents. They are just now discussing possible pay raises.
The pandemic experience is likely to push people out of health care and result in even less people choosing it as a career unless compensation and the workload changes. This comes just as the baby boomers are reaching an age when they'll start to need serious care.
idk it seems like the healthcare industry as a whole made bank off this whole thing, if they want to help prove it wasn't largely a massive cash grab for the people at the top, then surely they'll reinvest their profits back into salaries to solve understaffing issues?
Elderly care isn’t really the same as the health care industry. I don’t know the nuances well so I might be wrong about this.
Meanwhile, even for increasing salaries for nurses in the health care industry, in the USA the improved image has to have a positive profit-based motivation.
Many possibilities: firstly by reducing costs from excessive profits, insurance company staffing, "management", etc. Secondly by increasing revenue, e.g. from reducing corporate tax loopholes & increasing corporate tax rates.
I like the ship you’re sailing :), I’m onboard. Sadly, I don’t think this sailboat has enough of us on it to change the momentum of capitalistic incentives or US policy.
I hope one day it does, but until then “who’s gonna pay for the salary increase?”
If the virus is endemic, what even is the point of all this testing? What does is accomplish besides telling you “yup, this test says you have a virus”? I never got tested for respiratory viruses before when I got sick. Why this one?
We cannot move on until we eliminate all this mass testing. Yes test for confirmation before administering something specific to Covid but testing somebody whose only medical issue is something that can be bought over the counter… what is the point?
All this testing is just causing chaos in peoples lives.
Testing is so you know if you have COVID and you don't go and spread it. And the reason you don't go and spread it is because hospitals have limited capacity - and healthcare workers haver limited energy - so we want to avoid people dying due to lack of proper medical care.
This has been the entire point of mitigation efforts from day one.
So why aren’t we testing for the cold and the flu? Those are just as endemic as Covid and they mutate every year too. Why test specifically for Covid?
What useful information does knowing you have Covid instead of the myriad of other respiratory viruses actually provide? The treatment for all of them is gonna be basically the same for like 99% of all cases.
If we know we have Covid we can avoid spreading it, and we avoid spreading it because it threatens our healthcare capacity. That is why we test. The common cold and flu do not spread nearly as easily and don't result in such frequent hospitalization. Yes, taking extra mitigation efforts to prevent the spread of the flu, such as widespread testing, may spare us a few hospital beds. But the return on investment is very low. With Covid, it is very high, since each case of Covid stands to spread more readily than a case of the flu, and each case is more likely to result in hospitalization. It's the hospitalizations that matter ultimately, the same now as when the pandemic began, and all mitigation efforts serve that end.
I think it is great that omicron can propagate like this. The severity seems to be quite low. That means that everybody will be immune and we can move on.
We should remove as well those mask and vaccine coercion, but I don't think that will happen.
I personally look at the raw data of death. I believe that most data you would get around COVID have bias, and only overall data speak the truth.
Look at what happened in Europe: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps
(This does not include hospitalizations)
First of, you realize that the pandemic is not at all what we have been told. We can observe an increase in death in the winters, but somewhere like peaks with 10% more deaths than the years beforehand.
You realize that for the 0-44 age group, there has been NO PANDEMIC.
So from the beginning, we should just let this age group live normally. (no mask, no restrictions, no mandatory vaccine, no pass, no isolation)
Then comes the other age groups > 44, that did have excess death especially during winters. We should focus on the care to them and allow them to have a better access to their doctor, even when positive. Equip all of them with early treatment pack (antiviral and antibiotics for the first phase, anticoagulant and anti-inflammatory for the second). Provide them access to vaccines, only if they want to take them as it is an experimental treatment.
The main reason why the hospitals got over populated is because we told people to isolate and not see their doctors. They wait to be really sick and have no choice than going to the hospital.
Then come the health structure. We should just double the wages of all the nurses, auxiliary, GP, emergency doctors.
Allow quick formations for unemployed and military to become auxiliary.
And if you think we cannot pay for that, think about the cost of a single day of nation wide lockdown.
We aren't short on 'resources', we are short on doctors and nurses.
It doesn't matter how much money you throw at things, the number of doctors isn't going to change drastically. You can pay them 10x and the number won't change. We only have so many medical schools, and so many people willing to throw themselves on the sword to get through them.
Nurses are a little more flexible in that more money might mean more nurses, but only up to a point.
In either case, throwing a ton more people into a long term career to deal with a short term problem (I don't see hospitals needing the same capacity in 3 years that they do for the next wave) will cause other problems down the road.
> It doesn't matter how much money you throw at things, the number of doctors isn't going to change drastically.
I don't think that's true. If being a doctor had the same work:pay ratio as being a SW dev I think you'd have more smart people choosing that career. Health regulations and extra procedures certainly helped to discourage employment as well, but I think pay would help.
> I don't see hospitals needing the same capacity in 3 years
The baby boomers are just starting to enter their mid 70s. Sure, it may not reach COVID-surge levels, but they are going to need a lot of health care.
> If being a doctor had the same work:pay ratio as being a SW dev I think you'd have more smart people choosing that career. Health regulations and extra procedures certainly helped to discourage employment as well, but I think pay would help.
I just have the compulsive need as the son of a nurse, who is now dating a nurse: nurses could use the monetary incentive, too.
And I have to feel the vast amount of regulatory paperwork doctors (and other medical providers) have to go through is a constant nagging discouragement. I mean, I think that evolved for good reasons, to help create accountability to to ease care when the patient enters a different part of the system, but holy crap, it’s a lot of forms to fill out as a medical care worker.
> If being a doctor had the same work:pay ratio as being a SW dev
1) No matter how much the pay goes up for doctors, medical schools are still only going to have so much capacity, capacity which is artificially constrained. We are already at a place where many more people that are highly competent and intelligent want to be doctors than are actually able to become doctors simply because of medical school bandwidth.
2) Work:Pay ratio is already higher depending on the kind of medicine you do, but even lower pay programs still have no problem filling up.
The issue in the US clearly is not incentive, it's the obstacles, both administrative and personal. I could go on a rant about not every doctor needing to be the best and brightest, but that'd be off topic.
> The baby boomers are just starting to enter their mid 70s. Sure, it may not reach COVID-surge levels, but they are going to need a lot of health care.
Seeing as how that's near the end of life expectancy, demand for care should actually start to fall in the near future. Maybe it increases slightly short term, but we'll be on the other side of that in less than 10 years.
> We aren't short on 'resources', we are short on doctors and nurses.
When I say "resources", people are included in that. Human resources one might call it.
> Nurses are a little more flexible in that more money might mean more nurses, but only up to a point.
In either case, throwing a ton more people into a long term career to deal with a short term problem (I don't see hospitals needing the same capacity in 3 years that they do for the next wave) will cause other problems down the road.
I understand what you mean but I think you greatly underestimate how many nurses work contract and are not employed by hospitals. Almost all nurses I know, and I know quite a few, are all working as contractors for agencies. The hospital assignments are just almost never worth it.
> Why, in 2 years of this pandemic, have we not devoted the resources to expanding bed capacity and staffing hospitals?
When have we ( assuming you are US, forgive me ) ever devoted resources to anything other than the military industrial complex and tax-cuts for the rich?
We don't HAVE resources. We have already scraped out every piece of public spending and public works program out of our budgets.
You expect us to be able to just scale back up after systematically disassembling our university[0] and medical systems over the past 30 years?
OK, we increase capacity. We save a few people, so what? We are running a BUSINESS HERE. We can't have any extra capacity, that would cut into profits! Plus we are still low after paying $600 per insulin shot last month.
Besides, haven't you heard? Everyone made a killing off the pandemic! It was great for business! BCBS posted 2 billion in profit last year! Don't worry your little head: Our healthcare and technology CEOs didn't have to sell their private jets or wait on buying that new yacht they have been eyeing.
This is what neoliberalism looks like. Every drop of blood drained out of public spending, so we can reroute it to whoever gives our senators the largest bribe.
0: Which creates professionals upon which US healthcare depends
Thank you. I've also been trying to get this across to other people as well. And here's the worst part. If and when another high-spread virus emerges in the future, there will not be a vaccine available at the beginning, which is also when hospital overwhelming is most critical. So we will be in the exact same situation. I can't believe no one is talking about improving the hospital infrastructure to handle the inevitable next virus. Are there things happening in this regard and I am just out of the loop?
Having enough excess capacity in healthcare systems to cope with potential future pandemics is too expensive. You'd need a lot more medical staff, plus more equipment and hospital bed capacity.
There would be a perception for a lot of the time that the cost of all of these things is wasteful - whether you're talking about public or private healthcare.
Not being able to say when the next pandemic might occur is going to make it a hard sell - how do you tell taxpayers or shareholders that you need to keep extra staff on retainer for something that may not happen for 100 years?
If you put these extra staff to use on other types of (non-essential) healthcare, then you're going to have to cancel all of that when the next pandemic happens. That will then lead to backlogs as operations are cancelled, screening isn't carried out etc. - and you're back to healthcare having to shut down.
Also, what do you plan for? Not every pandemic is the same.
I know everyone is tired of this shit but I just want to remind everyone of one thing:
This is the FIRST time humanity has come together and actually come up with a way to beat a virus WHILE a global pandemic is still ongoing. At no other time in history have we even had the option of a solid way to protect ourselves like we do now. I think instead of focusing on how awful the past few years have been this is an important thing to remember - it is truly a turning point in human history and I think we are going to look back at the centuries beforehand and appreciate how far we have come.
There is also the possibility that we will look back on history and realize how hysteria and media fearmongering drove human society to take wholly unnecessary measures and paved a path towards more authoritarianism, more surveillance, a financial crisis due to the government printing trillions of dollars which a lot of it is going into the stock market and driving up companies to insane valuations, creating a generation of software addicts due to the pandemic forcing teenagers to stay home and cope using their computers as opposed to going out and interacting with their peers in person, and a myriad of other problems that we do not yet see in the short-term.
One major thing that's missing - NPR radio is about 95% race discussions. Every single time I turn it on, it is about race. When did race become such a dominant part of the society? I saw this flare up right after COVID.
Not sure if these race discussions are doing anything but dividing people more. It is having a negative effect.
What way to beat the virus? Clearly not vaccines as they aren't that great... Clearly not lockdowns as as soon as we give that up the virus hits... We aren't beating it in anyway... Maybe it is time to accept the reality.
The vaccines reduce the risk of hospitalization and/or death from the virus by 20x or more.
That’s pretty great even if not perfect. Much better than we ever had when facing the initial waves of any previous pandemic virus.
Unfortunate that delta and then omicron seem to have bypassed the immunity from getting sick but most of his have had a “mild” sickness many times in our lives and the vaccine will prevent it from getting worse.
I've been telling people to "get it, and get over it" since March 2020. The best thing anyone can do is live a healthy lifestyle, and the majority will be fine.
This was terrible advice. Rate of spread and our inability to treat it early on would have been catastrophic if we took that approach. Like it or not, lockdowns and mitigations were effective at keeping infection rates manageable and our healthcare system functioning.
It's a somewhat more reasonable stance since omicron seeing as our ability to prevent spread is greatly reduced and infection severity is also down, but I haven't been convinced completely yet. The current healthcare "collapse" is a real enough consequence to make me think twice.
You don't care if hospitals hit capacity and healthcare workers become exhausted and people then die from lack of care? Preventing that scenario, which has occurred to varying degrees in many places, is and has always been the primary reason not to spread the virus.
Not to challenge the overall idea too hard, but have you thought about what that really means, to say that? If you extend the IFR of, let's say, 1% to the entire population of (let's pick, for example, the US), would it be acceptable to just let 4,000,000 people die and take no mitigating procedures against that happening?
4 million, my mistake, squeezed an extra zero in there.
Probably depends on a number of factors. If you're 4 years old and the next year is 20% of your life and you may never have this level of social and intellectual plasticity again, you may be way better off being free to intermingle with people and learn to live life at the expense of more dead old people.
If you're old and vulnerable, but not near death, a year of reduced social exposure might be better for you.
Sadly the pandemic measures have forced us to sacrifice one for the other. I fear my toddler's development will always be just a little decayed due to masks during her early linguistic development and being shut in the house during shutdowns. But I also acknowledge some old folks may have been saved at her expense.
people don’t seem to realize just how good we handled the pandemic.
Of course, we handled the pandemic awful compared to what we could have done. But in hindsight there’s always a better way.
In early 2020 we significantly altered society, cancelling major events, moving things virtual, and creating new apps and services to handle the pandemic. Then over the course of late 2020/2021 we created more apps and services and developed new technologies to treat Covid-19.
In just 1 year, we created and started widely distributing a vaccine which, while it doesn’t completely prevent the virus, makes it very mild for the vast majority of people. So far, at the second-year mark, over 2 billion people have been vaccinated. Along with monoclonal antibodies and other technology, we’ve significantly lowered the death rate, hospitalization rate, and likely the risk of long covid.
Imagine what an outbreak like this would do in an earlier time. You don’t really have to imagine because it’s happened before - the Spanish Flu outbreak and the Bubonic plague. Look at the population (not raw count because our population is much larger) of casualties those diseases caused. We failed to prevent covid-19 infecting everyone, but with vaccines and modern medical care we have made the infections significantly less harmful.
Society r who had even a whiff of objection to the narrative. The number of ordinarily sane people who’ve yelled at me because I questioned something...
No way dude. History is not going to look fondly at the last two years at all. We should be ashamed at our arrogance and hubris—the idea that we could somehow contain or control an airborne respiratory virus. The sheer damage we caused to our children.
Disagree. People holding to the lab leak theory were seen as racist/Xenophobic until the new leadership (president of U.S. arrived) and all the sudden its not a racist theory.
Lest we forget, China's reaction to Australia’s call for an international probe into the origins of the corona-virus pandemic was by no means working together for the global good.
I wish I could agree with the thought but that's not what I remember happening.
As for history:
Communication in the 21st century has made it so that there is constant talk between countries but this cannot be confused with collaboration.
The Spanish flu of 1918 was clearly different then this due to it being in the late stages of WWI.
For decades people would ask, "why is there no vaccine for the cold or flu like smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, and chicken pox?" and the answer was that they were fast evolving corona viruses and you cannot vaccinate for those.
Then suddenly we have one this time. But it's efficacy drops - according to Pfizer's own trial - to ~47% after six months. And people "double vaxxed and boosted" still get it. And still die from it.
So...we still don't have vaccines for those it seems to me. It doesn't matter how many people call them that, they don't provide immunity like vaccines do.
Big pharma did get super rich off of them. And you can't sue them if they kill your spouse. So there's that at least I guess.
> For decades people would ask, "why is there no vaccine for the cold or flu like smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, and chicken pox?" and the answer was that they were fast evolving corona viruses and you cannot vaccinate for those.
I would suggest doing some research on Google. We’ve had vaccines for influenza (flu) for over 70 years.
And yes, sometimes their efficacy was under 50% but they’ve always been called vaccines and have saved thousands of lives.
> And people "double vaxxed and boosted" still get it. And still die from it.
The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is 91% effective in preventing the COVID-19 virus with symptoms in people age 16 and older. The Moderna COVID-19 vaccine is 94% effective in preventing COVID-19 with symptoms. Janssen/Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine. In clinical trials, this vaccine was 66% effective in preventing the COVID-19 virus with symptoms — as of 14 days after vaccination. The vaccine also was 85% effective at preventing severe disease with COVID-19 — at least 28 days after vaccination.
I'm not going to bother debunking the rest of that bullshit. Your statement is straight out of the anti-vaccine propaganda playbook. Shame on you for spreading FUD.
Those numbers are laughable. Look around there are 100s of thousands of vaccinated people testing positive in the US daily! Those numbers may have been true against the original version of covid-19, but they are way off now.
I agree being able to deploy a vaccine in record time is very impressive.
I think an interesting thought experiment would be: take the modern COVID strain and go back to the 1900~'s UK/America? (That's where most the site is from as far as I know)
Just the massive lack of co-morbidities (Diabetes, heart disease, obesity, cancer) and demographic differences (Average age was far lower, population density) could make it an almost a non issue.
Vaxxed and I caught Cov19 a couple weeks ago (likely omicron). Same with the wife. I've had allergies that were worse. It was a 3 day event with a very mild fever and a bit of a cough the last day. It was extremely mild, and if I hadn't decided to take a couple days off to catch up on my reading after getting tested, I would have probably just eaten a couple advil and continued on as though nothing happened. So now I'm considering skipping any future boosters unless they specifically target a new more dangerous strain.
That said, I'm also still wearing a mask, although i'm having a hard time with the whole concept now too since i should be able to keep my immunity going simply by keeping myself exposed. I was a pretty strong advocate of mask wearing even when the CDC initially told people they could take it off, instead deciding to wait until more people were vaccinated (which never happened in TX). But now, I suspect I might be doing myself a disservice by not exposing myself to all the variants and things floating around.
The main reason to wear a mask is to prevent yourself from infecting others if/when you get infected again. One usually becomes infectious before the symptoms become obvious, i.e. before becoming aware of the new infection. Wearing a mask is mainly for the benefit of others, not for your own. And it’s a game of numbers. The larger the proportion of the population who wears a mask, the more the spread of the virus is contained. It is a bit like democracy: One's own vote doesn’t make a significant difference, but the collective votes do.
This is true... if all indoor dining, bars and clubs are closed. If we're allowing people to eat indoors, by definition unmasked, then what's the point of wearing a N95 in a grocery store?
The US is doing a million new cases a day. Wearing a mask in some situations but not others is not going to make much of a difference. But it is a very visible thing to have partisan political fights about, which seems to be most of the appeal to many people.
I thought it was well-known that the peak of the infectiousness tends to occur before the symptoms develop (if they develop at all), which is an important reason why the virus is so difficult to contain. For example from the WHO site: "Laboratory data suggests that infected people appear to be most infectious just before they develop symptoms (namely 2 days before they develop symptoms) and early in their illness."
https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/cor...
Where I live (TX) I would say less than 30% of the population is wearing masks, and the governor has gone so far as to mandate that mask mandates are illegal (using emergency powers, which creates a bit of circular reasoning and are quite likely not a legitimate order, but... that's beside the point for my personal decisions).
I was one of the very small percentage actually wearing US made N95 masks, and assuring they were sealing. Probably 1/2 of the mask wearers are using surgical masks and various other pointless masks which leave massive gaps all around the mask, and are likely no more functional than simply coughing/sneezing into ones elbow. The other half recently seems to be using KN95's, which I used myself for a while before N95's became common. But, the vast majority of the amazon/etc KN95's are significantly thinner, and are very hard to seal. Maybe the actual KN95's for the Asian markets are better (definitely some of the early ones I sourced were closer to the N95s) but I'm pretty sure the majority of the ones I see people wearing are nowhere near N95 effectiveness even if people are taping the nose areas to assure they stay sealed, and I can't remember the last time I saw that.
So, for the most part "cover your cough" is probably all that is being achieved outside of less than 5% of the population that is assuring quality masks and sealing them properly.
I refuse the play the social signaling game, so it leaves the question. Am I going to legitimately continue to spend $ buying good masks, to potentially protect a small subset of the population when ~95% of people are doing basically nothing, or am I legitimately trying to protect myself.
In the end, I will probably continue to wear a mask if I'm around my neighbor in his 90's, but like the decision to eat in a full restaurant (which was said to be 100% vaccinated) in an area full of foreign tourists. I think my risk profile is going to be less about stopping spread now, and just living my life. The US government has a party that blocks all attempts at instituting scientific reasoning (and the other is barely better) so I will look towards personally preparing for the next pandemic or the next bad strain, but I'm not going to count on the government managing to do anything but make decisions that are late and ineffective. The ~30-40% of the population that refuses to get vaccinated, and a government that can't manage to control the spread of disease across the border have sealed our fate. I came to the conclusion 6 months ago that it was only a matter of time before I got it because the vaccines were going to be bypassed sooner or later. Sure enough, it took ~2 months from the detection of the new strain until I got it.
'Am I going to legitimately continue to spend $ buying good masks, to potentially protect a small subset of the population ...'
Please stop that. Don't martyr yourself doing safetyism for me. Getting yourself healthy may be best for everyone.
Once we saw the Canadian border close to travel while the Mexican border stayed open, it became blindingly care this has been theater. Many people like theater.
> But now, I suspect I might be doing myself a disservice by not exposing myself to all the variants and things floating around.
Honest question: do you know of any source that indicates natural exposure to C19 and variants provides stronger (or equally strong) protection than vaccinations/boosters? Thanks!
I think a lot of this depends on the typical severity of Omicron (and future variants).
I'm vaccinated and boosted. I wear a mask in public. I don't go out much. I do travel fairly regularly (fly maybe 1-2x per month). I finally got Covid last week, likely on a flight. I had ~3 days of mild cold-like symptoms (sore throat, runny nose, congestion, very low grade fever that approached 101F). It was far less severe than any flu I've ever had. I extended my trip by a week to meet how I read the CDC guidelines (which are clear as mud for mildy symptomatic cases).
If the severity for everyone was that mild, then I'd say we're done. However, I worry about the unvaccinated and the unboosted. I wish there was better data on the severity of Omicron for different categories of people.
This is anecdotal, but I'm the only one in my family who is vaccinated (which took me catching swine flu years ago to convince me), but my elderly mom and younger brother and sister had omicron and all had the same symptoms while be unvaccinated.
I was in the house but didn't catch omicron due to the vaccine (I guess?).
Yup, I took a test every other day until 5 days after. This was in GA where there is plenty of vaccine and tests to go around due to non-compliance (I guess?)
If Omicron is as mild as it initially appeared, we're back to normal by summer 2022. My wild assed guess is that if death rates don't spike by February it will be increasingly difficult for the government and health officials to justify a continuation of current recommendations.
I am triple vaxxed and will happily wear a mask for the rest of my life, but we are in the midst of a slow moving train of economic turmoil brought about by COVID and the resulting decisions(which I'm not arguing with. some were stupid but hindsight is 20/20). We will soon need to get the world back to as normal of a state as we can because we will need the economic benefits. We will need to get our kids back in school and socializing. I know many people are scarred and will not want to emerge from their caves but without compelling justification(such as a new variant which is actually dangerous) we will return to normal soon.
I personally worry about the availability of medical services due to attrition among medical staff and ICU load due to the unvaccinated. I also have taken precautions, but I can’t guarantee that I won’t get into a car crash or suffer a random medical incident requiring urgent care.
Yes, attrition of hospital staff is terrible. I was hospitalized last fall for a non-covid issue, and a volunteer came into the room who was a retired nurse. She told me that the current patient loads for nurses are about 2x what they were pre-covid. I checked on the nurses salaries (via job ads), and they honestly did not seem terrible competitive.
Exactly - Delta had a reputation for being both prolific and extremely virulent. Long COVID, loss of smell & taste, heart and lung problems, etc. A terrible illness.
Omicron seems to carry far fewer of those risks from what data we have, especially if you are vaccinated.
My hope is that we're approaching a similar point the Spanish Flu did after this amount of time: Spanish Flu eventually lost its lethality and became symptomatically indistinguishable from your run of the mill flu, and hopefully COVID will eventually do the same and be symptomatically indistinguishable from your run of the mill cold. Obviously we ain't there quite yet, but with Omicron being both wider-spreading and more mild, hopefully we'll get there soon.
Interesting. Here in the UK, Delta wasn't too much of a concern. I suspect because the public messaging was much more focused on getting everyone vaccinated.
Great article! Just a week or two ago on this forum there were people willing to treat me like a far right conservative or a general anti-vaxxer from the facebook troll factory, just because I didn't like a private institution’s booster mandate.
Welcome to the internet. Some of it stems from exhaustion. People sense any sort of deviation from the official dogma and they assume you're another idiot who they'll end up arguing with. It's sad. There is a lot of nuance to many of our cherished positions and discussion strengthens the truth but many people just get offended by genuine curiosity.
I remember in the early days of the Internet, people were saying how the Internet would encourage critical discussions and open fruitful debates.
Now I think the Internet actually enforces groupthink and eradicates opposing narratives. Platforms like Twitter allows people to dox those with unorthodox ideas and behaviors and cancel them, which is basically a modern day version of "burnt at the stake". It seems that the Internet also ended up give an even more effective podium for authoritarian regimes to push their narrative, best example of this being the Chinese government.
At the root of all this is human nature. Perhaps technology won't help humanity transcend, but it will only reinforce what's already there.
I have to give Hacker News a thumbs up here. I think Hacker News is much better than a place like Reddit for open-minded discussions. Reddit has become a place where subreddit are often times moderated by a group of mods who act like a single-party state.
It's now very easy to find someone across the planet that agrees you on 99.9% of things and talk to them instead of have that conversation with your neighbor who only agrees with you on 80% of things and might actually challenge your thinking face to face.
I'm not sure vaccine or booster mandates make sense anymore because they're not effective enough against stopping the spread of omicron. Charging more for insurance for the unvaccinated still makes sense, though.
There isn’t continuity between user names, for most users, so nobody can tell if the person they are responding to has demonstrated different behaviors or ideologies before
but it is still interesting how some people would parrot Q1 2020 rationale in Q1 2022 as if everything is the same for everyone else
We still don't know if the omicron variant leads to "long COVID".[1] We'll know some time in February. That has a big effect on what to do next.
Omicron-specific vaccines are in test. Moderna's should be out in Fall 2022. Pfizer claims March 2022.[2]
The next generation in vaccine technology is the US Army / Walter Reed Medical Center broad-spectrum vaccine. This should protect against all COVID and SARS variants.[3] That's in Phase I safety testing, with about 75 volunteers. If that works, the problem is solved.
> The next generation in vaccine technology is the US Army / Walter Reed Medical Center broad-spectrum vaccine. This should protect against all COVID and SARS variants.[3] That's in Phase I safety testing, with about 75 volunteers. If that works, the problem is solved.
Sure, until the next variant.
The problem of the spread was mostly solved by vaccines before Omicron, at least for people who got the vaccines. Then Omicron came along and it can break through the vaccines much easier than Delta or other variants.
If we develop a vaccine for Omicron, some other variant is likely to come along and break through that vaccine too. Omicron was far more mutated than Delta. Are we just supposed to hope that doesn't happen again? Is is possible for a vaccine to protect against all possible future variants?
We can't keep a state of emergency in place and wait for one new vaccine, after another, endlessly. When does it end?
Let's say we do have a magic bullet vaccine that protects against all present variants, and all possible future variants: wouldn't a significant number of people refuse to take it, as they have refused to take the vaccines we have now?
There will always be natural disasters, whether it's earthquakes or viruses. If it's a new virus, yes people are going to die, yes hospitals are going to be overwhelmed (in fact I would be surprised if hospitals aren't overwhelmed when a new virus hits, which just means that hospital was over-funded and has too many idle staff).
The virus was a creation of nature (conspiracy theories notwithstanding), but the lockdown and all these governmental restrictions are man-made.
Even if the virus went away, the lockdown can continue if people want it to go on. It can go on for the rest of human civilization if we want it to. Or it can end right at this moment, if the people go out and tell their government that it's time to stop.
Hopefully people are waking up to this, because it's been true since the beginning. If enough people say "kick rocks" when new restrictions appear from on high, there's nothing a government can really do.
Maybe this will open some eyes, and next time a government comes around saying "stop earning a living, stop being social, listen to us and everything will be fine" we can collectively shrug our shoulders and get busy living. There WILL be instances where the kind of response we had over the past 2 years is justified, but COVID wasn't one of them.
It’s basically this. “Science” cannot tell you when Covid is “over” and the people who told us to be afraid will never say it’s truly safe. Moving on from Covid is a simple is not being afraid of it anymore. That’s it. All that is required. It’s all in peoples head.
Prior to 2020 I didn't know and din't care who was the Premier of my state in Australia. I was very proud to have spent a decade and half in Australia and quite glad to see my kids becoming true Aussies. Fair dinkum! Team Australia, team Victoria! No one in my family watched any news, occasionaly we'd look through a free local newspaper pulled from postbox, despite huge "please no junk mail" sign on it.
March 2020 started the first "lockdown". I though it did make sense, praised the JobKeeper program our federal govt introduced and was a bit disappointed in my employer trying to make a claim, as I thought we didn't really need it, as we didn't bear much losses. But it's a par for the course, I guess, whenever a financial support for business is made available it makes sense to claim a need. Worst case it will be refused.
By May 2020 Victoria was the last state to be getting opening up again. By then I already knew the Premier's name, but my only problem with him was that he appeared a bit too cautious (which is forgivable), and his rhetoric was the one of a kindergarten teacher - very patronizing, but not a big deal. The bigger distrust started when I've heard him saying literally "I am scared of this thing and you should be scared too". This was like a red rag for a bull for me. Since then every word out of collective govt mouth, every article, every slogan and every "order" was about drumming up fear, by all means. And those who did not want to fear were sent all sorts of "messages" and promised all sorts of punishments and executions. We've seen people handcuffed for posts on fb, pregnant lady interrogated for daring to sit on a park bench ("not one of the allowed reasons to leave home"), people arrested for sitting on a beach (more than 5km from their house), police in full riot gear, "kettling" of random people, drone surveillance, pepper spray and rubber bullets deployed liberally. It was more wild than response to political unrest in the proven dictatorship of Belarus! The fearmongering continues today with the same fervor, double vaccinated are new unvaccinated.
So yes, it was and still is all about being afraid. Sorry, this is something I cannot take from anyone. My willingness to collaborate on any issue is completely lost on govts of all colors. From now on I think it is absolutely ok to seek any possible loophole in any govt initiative, avoid paying dues as much as legally possible and generally comply with regulations in the most destructive and sabotaging ways - but all legal, of course. By the way, such was the recommendation of US or British counter-intelligence to German people sympathetic to Allied cause and wanting to contribute to counter-nazi effort without being implicated. I wonder whether the thought of such possibility crossed the enlightened minds of our new feudal lords?
“This is not the end, this is not even the beginning of the end, this is just perhaps the end of the beginning.” - Churchill.
That was November 1942, with victory almost three years away. By that point, the Allies had stopped Axis advances, but were not yet taking back ground.
We will know more in a month. Doesn't mean the news will be good.
JAMA article from last summer.[1] "Long COVID" is still hard to understand, but there are objective measurements, and they are not encouraging.
"Increased oxygen requirement was reported in nearly two-thirds of COVID-19 survivors (3 studies; median [IQR], 65.0% [39.3%-76.1%]). ... Overall, chest imaging abnormalities were present in a median (IQR) of 62.2% (45.8%-76.5%) of survivors (4 studies)."
That's from August 2021, so that's the original variant. Omicron, it's too soon to tell.
Last I read, Moderna was also claiming as early as March 2022 (but possibly Q2) for their Omicron-specific booster[1]. Has there been other announcements pushing that back to the fall?
Harboring concern over long term risks of covid because o f lack of data, but unconcerned about long term risks from vaccines for covid because of lack of data? You MAY be brainwashed.
Historically, most vaccine problems show up early. First, there's the risk of an immediate allergic reaction, which, if it's going to happen, happens within minutes to hours.
Then there's the risk of an inactivated or weakened virus vaccine causing the disease it's supposed to prevent. That happened in a big way in 1955, with a defective batch of polio vaccine. The mRNA vaccines can't do that - they don't have an entire virus.
There's the Guillain-Barré syndrome with some vaccines, including the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine. If it shows, it does so in the first two months.
This would be an excellent point IF these were like other vaccines (and in fact wouldn't even fall under that label without the change to the definition made last year). As it stands this is more a rhetorical argument you've made, which does nothing to address the actual unknowns and long term concerns, but merely appears as though it does if you pretend these treatments can be represented by broad aggregated tendencies regarding "vaccines."
1. My personal risk, as someone who is vaccinated, 38, and in decent shape (https://imgur.com/a/gdbBKGK), is quite low. (OK, I could lose some holiday weight, fine.)
2. My immediate friend circle is vaccinated…and the vast majority already danced with Omicron already, and came out just fine.
3. I live by myself.
So…I am over it. This variant seems to be unbelievably, uncontrollably contagious, and the spread cannot be mitigated without extreme measures. And the people who are at by far, BY FAR the most at-risk are the elderly unvaccinated, who have had ample opportunity to get vaccinated. They will probably be exposed to this virus no matter what I personally do, and probably no matter what anyone does, so why should I substantially alter my life for them, when it will almost certainly change nothing?
—
And to rant just a bit more: “oh it’s just a mask”. Well, I’m sorry, I have this weird thing where I like to see people’s faces, and see their expressions so that I can get a better idea of their emotional responses. I know. So inhuman of me. (I do wonder if the people who think masks are no big deals have anything resembling social circles…)
You would think in 38 years a person could learn some body language. Between that and seeing someone's eyes, I have little to no problem reading people's reactions with a mask on.
If you are having trouble it may be a personal problem.
I think the message of "vaxxed and done" is the right way for us to be moving, but I think it's incomplete.
To get vaxxed insulates you from the risk of severe disease. It reduces the risk to the point that going out and living life is an acceptable risk, just like any other. However, it doesn't protect you from infecting others. To that end, I think that indoor mask mandates continue to be justifiable and should continue until we either evolve a COVID-19 variant weak enough that moderate disease isn't disruptive, or it fades away.
In order for us to continue to have freedom, it requires collective sacrifice. We have seen a large swath of the US population unwilling to make relatively simple sacrifices to ensure that we have freedom of mobility. This is disappointing to see.
Personally I'm completely sick of mask mandates. First off the effectiveness of masks is even questionable except for k95 masks, which are hideously uncomfortable and look ridiculous.
In any case, I firmly believe that people should have the freedom to decide for themselves whether they want to wear them. I was in Copenhagen a few months ago where no one was wearing masks anywhere including indoors, and it was so refreshing seeing life as usual again, smiles on peoples' faces, etc.
I've been wearing KN95 at every outing for the past year+ and .. uhh.. it's not a problem at all. Why wouldn't I wear a mask like that to protect myself and others? The useless cloth and surgical masks are no more comfortable. Personally I bought a massive box of KN95 and give packages of them to family and friends so they can similarly stay safe.
Call me crazy, but I thoroughly enjoy the unrestricted flow of oxygen into my mouth during inhalation and the unrestricted flow of carbon dioxide out of my mouth during exhalation.
I would agree with this but add continuous testing to the mix, and actually quarantining if you have a positive test but no symptoms. It seems like the most reasonable comprimise between the individual desire to return to normal.
Unfortunately this is a large individual responsibility, both in behavior and in the costs of getting enough tests. PCR tests are mostly impractical for continuous testing while going out and about becuase of the large time lag between testing and results, made worse by spiking demand and limited lab capacity, and buying rapid tests can add up as a real cost to the average family.
I agree with the continuous testing requirement, too. I’m lucky enough to live in Colorado with an at-home test kit program. I’ve been able to regularly test about once a week, or more frequently if I have clinical symptoms.
We need a program like that on a national scale. I know countries like the UK are doing really well with at-home testing programs, but here in the US, we’re still experiencing both PCR and rapid test shortages. We shouldn’t be seeing this so far into a pandemic.
Fully agree on the individual responsibility to quarantine regardless of clinical symptoms, too. There’s been a huge failing, this entire pandemic, at the individual level. It’s why the lockdowns were marginally effective — folks didn’t stay at home like they were asked to. It’s another symptom of a lack of collective sacrifice for the greater good.
That's not true of the immunocompromised, the rare few who actually couldn't get the fully vaccine because of a reaction to the first dose, the elderly and others with co-morbidities they might not even know about. Those people, along with the unvaccinated, are still going to overwhelm the hospitals if everyone doesn't attempt to limit the spread with measures like masking and testing.
Why should everyone in society be forced to bend over backwards to accommodate elderly people or those with comorbidities who decide to go out in public?
COVID-19 has an infection fatality rate of something like 0.20%. Let's move on from these draconian restrictions and get back to reality. The flu has been overwhelming hospitals since before COVID [1], governments and hospital systems have had 2+ years to deal with the supply-side of the healthcare equation here, at this point if they still haven't figured it out it's on them.
I'm not saying we should lock everything down and stop going outside. I am saying COVID is still infectious and lethal enough to warrant small countermeasures like encouraging masking indoors and regular testing / quarantine if you have it to limit the spread. These are small, proportional measures to the danger I think.
Flu is also dangerous to these people but we never wore masks. This is an edge case and it is the responsibility of these people to protect themselves.
This is significantly more dangerous to significantly more people than the flu so the extra masking / testing is warranted for the time being. That being said, this is probably where we will end up, with a milder and endemic COVID that we treat like the flu.
Anybody except the elderly - a responsibly vaccinated septuagenarian or octogenarian has a very different, much worse risk profile compared to a responsibly vaccinated young adult. This group is about 3 out of every 100 people.
And anybody except the immunocompromised - you probably know at least a couple older family members, but may not immediately think of anyone immunocompromised, but again they're around 3% of the population. It includes those suffering from or using immunosuppressive drugs to manage type 1 diabetes, HIV, arthritis, cancer, organ transplants, lupus, IBD, and many other conditions.
Even before the vaccine, I - a 30 year old in good health - had what I personally consider to be an acceptable risk profile to contracting the vaccine. For me, it's never seemed an issue of personal safety, I've always been deferring plans, wearing a mask, isolating, been vaccinated, and been boosted to protect others. There are a few faces of elderly and immunocompromised people in my life that I can recall to help my emotional processing.
But it's becoming harder to run the emotionally-loaded math and feel morally culpable for the harm caused by my potentially transmitting it to the three of my coworkers who are vocally, rabidly antivax (all 60+, two with comorbidities) and then worry about their transmitting it to their unknown peers I'm sure they associate with who may be vaccinated but might be harmed.
If they are eligible for vaccination and choose to refuse it, that's one thing. But there are people who cannot be vaccinated, and I still worry about how my actions might affect them.
I disagree with this language of "collective" sacrifice. A group can't sacrifice or suffer. Only individuals can sacrifice and suffer. Lockdowns are a sacrifice paid strictly by individuals.
I'm vaxxed and mostly done. Already contracted Covid, have 2 vaccines, I'm down to get a booster every year or two, at my own leisure. Having vaccines mandated every 6 months is not something I'm OK with and to be honest, it feels a lot like the government trying to deflect from the fact healthcare isn't OK (at least in my home country, Canada).
There's always been risks to life and this feels more like governments are trying to convince people the risk should be zero so they can be the heroes while at the same time expanding their powers...
Tangentially, I recently moved to Canada and was surprised by the lack of quality healthcare..
Literally could not believe some walk ins have paper files and use fax, plus finding a GP apparently is a months long quest.
Visiting a specialist took ages, and I wouldn’t say it was the best / most modern infrastructure there either.
(And I went in downtown Toronto, must be so much worse for more remote places I guess).
In the end we kind of shunned the public system and decided to go private healthcare instead. But (luckily) have not really had to take advantage of it)
Yeah, I've grown up hearing constantly how good our (Canada) health care is. The reality is less than stellar. There are so, so many stories from literally everyone in my family of just straight up negligence and permanent adverse effects of malpractice.
My friend's mom lost her legs because the hospital didn't keep her in the right position after a surgery and circulation was cut off while she was recovering from the surgery. Huge lawsuit, but that doesn't take back the irreversible damage and lifelong disability.
Recently a doctor lied to our face and said there's no alternative to surgery, then lied to our face again when he said "that medication doesn't work for that", until we cited multiple studies and how the medication is used worldwide for the purpose we are asking for. It's just disgusting and unacceptable.
Also recently another family member nearly died in hospital as they let his weight get down to ~80lbs. They incorrectly thought he had cancer (he didn't), and they were just going to let him die because his time was limited, suggesting to the family not to bother with a feeding tube. The family insisting on trying the feeding tube saved his life, _against_ the suggestions of the doctor(s). He would be dead right now, and a family would have lost their dad, if they hadn't insisted on doing it. I'm pushing the family to sue the hospital and report this malpractice because his health is so badly harmed by having gone to such a low weight and nearly dying from it.
Honestly I can just go on all day. When I got in a car accident my broken wrist/finger were secured in place with a fucking tongue depressor and some gauze. This was the official solution because they didn't have time to put my wrist in a cast, so I went numerous days with this ridiculous solution, reducing the quality of my bone/joint healing. My pinky finger is still, forever, crooked. Really nice for someone whose career requires typing (programmer).
Similarly, another family member of mine has a permanently-deformed arm because they didn't cast the arm correctly and the bone healed crooked.
I'm Canadian, east coast. Our Health Care system is garbage and a lot of people end up going to private hospitals because the public sector can't handle the load, even pre-covid.
People have repeatedly died waiting in hospital halls waiting for care that never came.
Our healthcare system has almost nothing to be taken example of
A friend got a head injury (kid kicked her on the ear pretty hard) and had to wait about 5 hours in the ER before they could see her, they sent her home saying it would be nothing bad. Two days later she went back and they concluded she had a concussion..
A man recently died of a heart attack in my local ER’s waiting room 10 minutes after showing up complaining about heart pain. The only reason he died is they didn’t have enough staff on hand. This was a couple of months ago, in the US. A few nurses walked out crying and never came back when it happened. My sister used to work at the hospital as a nurse and she quit because of similar things that were a regular occurrence. It’s all about saving money. “Just In Time” healthcare.
Is there really a "Canadian health care system"? I feel like it heavily differs between provinces/territories. It also depends on whether where on the spectrum from urban to rural you live, don't you think?
I can see any specialist (almost any GP) and they'll get limited time access to my entire patient history. I don't have to worry of getting a second opinion from someone who "doesn't have my history".
Plus, I get insight into this data myself through an app (or web platform), where I can view the scans and take them to someone outside of the network if I want to.
Pharmacies will also start sharing data, so a GP can enter the data in a system which any Pharmacy can then enter (with your electronic ID), so no need for paper subscriptions either.
Well... not really paper files. As of a few years ago, it was mandated that provides maintain digital records. They could still send paper, but most seem to use disc and myChart stuff. And yes, fax is still prevalent as well (mostly legal compliance reasons in my opinion).
Honestly? I don't want the medical system to be "modernized". The advantage of paper files is it's much harder for a security breach at a single facility to lead to everyone's records being leaked to every bad actor out there.
"Modern" industries like social media tend to leak personal information like a sieve.
I guess I’ll provide a counterpoint that I have been incredibly impressed with the quality of Canadian healthcare after my sister had kidney failure, was on dialysis for a year, then received a timely transplant from me and neither of us paid a dime. This was in Manitoba. She still has to pay for her medication, though - hopefully pharmacare passes in the near future.
Meanwhile down here in the US I was charged $150 after going to an urgent care clinic for strep throat. They couldn’t tell me how much it would cost ahead of time.
Also, due to a temporary billing error in the Manitoba hospital (everything was supposed to be charged to my sister's insurance, but some things weren't by mistake) the hospital's billing department half-assedly pursued me for payment for a renal ultrasound. The bill was fifteen (Canadian) dollars.
> Meanwhile down here in the US I was charged $150 after going to an urgent care clinic for strep throat.
To be honest, I don't think it is unreasonable to pay $150 for a nurse's/doctor's time to examine you. I've gone to urgent care and the ER a few times, and they're always filled with people who are there for non-issues. If it was totally free, you'd have them filled with people with things that should really just be handled by a regular doctor's appointment.
Hell, my local hospital had to make a public statement for people to stop going to the ER just to get COVID tests.
Sucks that it's so difficult for you to find a family doctor but it does depend on where you live, for sure. Personally, I don't care if they have paper files, as long as, in the case of BC, the data ends up in Health Gateway [1] somehow and is accessible by whatever doctor I'm seeing. Generally I must say though that I'm quite happy with the quality of health care here where I live which is small city-ish.
Seeing specialists can take a long time that's right. I had a torn achilles tendon and it took almost 3 months to see a specialist with couple of days notice and no communication in between. That sucked. For my elderly parents in law it seems to be going much faster to see specialists so it might depend on severity.
> plus finding a GP apparently is a months long quest.
> Visiting a specialist took ages, and I wouldn't say it was the best / most modern infrastructure there either.
> In the end we kind of shunned the public system and decided to go private healthcare instead. But (luckily) have not really had to take advantage of it)
I hope you can at least deduct it from your taxes else it means you end up paying what, 60% taxes on top of having to purchase private insurance with your post-tax dollars?
That's ridiculous. Here I pay a much lower tax rate and it took me a few clicks to just get a GP.
The only reason US doctors all have computers/etc is because of the feds gave health care providers a big tax credit towards electronic record keeping during the Obama years. And then medicare basically made it really hard to continue to get paper reimbursements/etc.
I'm pretty sure the vast number of smaller clinics/etc would all still be on paper if not for those incentives because it was a pretty noticeable change over just a couple years.
>Tangentially, I recently moved to Canada and was surprised by the lack of quality healthcare..
This is very complex and absolutely hilarious when American democrats think of Canada as a better solution.
>Literally could not believe some walk ins have paper files and use fax, plus finding a GP apparently is a months long quest.
We have very good laws in place protecting health information. $10,000 tort damages for leaking health infos and then much larger fines for more problematic issues.
Some hospitals try to do the right thing and will have high security maturity. The other hospitals basically do the opposite. They forcefully will not secure their systems and save the money and put it in a fund to pay out the inevitable breach.
>Visiting a specialist took ages, and I wouldn’t say it was the best / most modern infrastructure there either.
Canada's healthcare system is tiered. You have the public single payer which is trash at best. Virtually all employers pay for health benefits which bring you to the 2nd tier. This gets you into a ward and such. There's a 3rd tier where you get good service, private rooms, skip lines. If you work in public sector or a big union you most likely are on this 3rd tier. The final tier is for the people whose names are on the wards. The "Such and such family ward" because they donated significant money to the hospital. These people get immediate access to everything you might expect. Nicest rooms. everything.
>(And I went in downtown Toronto, must be so much worse for more remote places I guess).
85% of Canadians live in urban areas near to the US border. If you choose to live somewhere else, you know you're living far from civilization and already accept the lack of service.
>In the end we kind of shunned the public system and decided to go private healthcare instead. But (luckily) have not really had to take advantage of it)
dont get me wrong. I dont mind our tiered system. ohip covers the basics which everyone should get coverage for. Break your arm? taxpayers/rich pay to fix it. 2nd tier is plenty for most people. 3rd tier is nice but most people dont realize it exists. Ive had a lady talking to me about how she has to wait many months to get in to a specialist, the same specialist that I waited a whole 3 days for. Also yes, the billionaire folks are going to get the best treatment, it's no surprise.
Early on in the pandemic, I used to be in the camp that wanted mask mandates and vaccination passports. I see how dangerous and ineffective this is now. Governments are not good stewards.
The virus will keep evolving to evade our vaccines. This is never going to end. We will never eradicate Covid, and we'll never reach vaccine-mediated herd immunity.
The administration forcing a purge of unvaccinated US soldiers, government workers, and employees of companies that do business with the government is obscene. Not only is this government overreach, it's a political witch hunt. It's disemboweling of dissent from the ranks, which is chiefly undemocratic and un-American.
I'm so angry at how this has been handled by both the Trump and the Biden administrations. Give people tools and understandable science (which Trump botched), but stop trying to become Big Brother (which is what Biden is doing). And above all, stop turning this into a political matter that toys with people's safety and employment.
> The administration forcing a purge of unvaccinated US soldiers, government workers, and employees of companies that do business with the government is obscene.
The one that seems odd in this list is soldiers. It's my understanding that soldiers already were mandated vaccines when put into areas where the particular diseases were common. I'm not sure why mandating covid vaccines for them during a global pandemic is different.
Maybe there's context I'm missing, but when I first read about the backlash I was confused.
Not even solely "when put into areas where the particular diseases were common", the soldiers are mandated quite a few vaccines even before they leave basic training to everyone, no questions asked - https://usarmybasic.com/about-the-army/army-shots
The military has required vaccinations for decades, it is an operational hazard for them. In 1950 you would get booted for refusing your vaccines too. This would have happened Biden or not.
Blaming the government for overreach when it seemed likely that the vaccine prevented further spread makes no sense, and certainly masks and distancing made total sense before the vaccine was fully rolled out. It seems awfully early to conclude that vaccines have zero impact on transmissibility. How many millions of cases are completely unreported because the immune system (with help from the vaccine) fought off Covid before symptoms onset?
Yeah people like you who spread this myth is how we nearly had an insurrection here a year ago. Stop it. At the moment there is only one party working actively to dismantle democracy itself. Don't vote for it.
lol, we did not have an insurrection a year go. Stop spreading that myth. The FBI has found no evidence of an insurrection, no one has been charged much less convicted of insurrection. It was a "mostly peaceful" protest... and no one there was attempting to over throw the US government.
Labeling it an insurrection is political non-sense that further serves to divide the nation, and is the real act of "dismantling democracy"
>>At the moment there is only one party working actively to dismantle democracy itself
Ahh Yes, Voter ID... I need to show my ID and Proof of vaccination to eat but showing ID to vote is threat to democracy. Spare me
At some point we should (not) start charting and obsessively reporting all the other endemic viruses. I’m curious how anxiety inducing they are compared to Covid
I'm also curious. For the last several years some kind of enterovirus has been paralyzing hundreds of children in the US. Articles get written once in awhile, but no one ever talks about it. Yet COVID shuts down schools.
These pandemic-halting benefits seem to be illusory with delta and omicron. The drug companies seem to have no particular motivation to release updated vaccines.
If I'm going to be forced to keep current on a shot if I want to be employed or enter buildings, it should come with some form of justification that is periodically evaluated. If it doesn't work, the inconvenience should not exist. If the virus mutates and risk falls below some standard, the inconvenience should not exist.
I have been taking off my shoes for 20 years at the airport. I understand that you can never eliminate the possibility of someone putting a bomb in their shoe, so we just have to do this forever. But viruses change, and I'd at least like someone to acknowledge there should be a goal that I won't be forced to do this also in 20 years.
Yet people who pay TSA a couple hundred bucks for PreCheck, and the elderly, don't take off their shoes. Like a potential shoe bomber can't figure it out. More theater and safetyism.
Oh I'm beyond done with the pandemic itself. Honestly, have been since I got Covid (first wave). I went along with some things because I'm not a sociopath.
The mostly part is that I'm open to get a vaccine now and then. The evidence shows they do seem to prevent serious complications when you do catch Covid. I'm not down with all the bullshit restrictions and government overreach that obviously isn't effective at anything except destroying the economy.
I'd be glad to take boosters on any schedule, if only for said boosters we were using the mRNA advantage of short lead time and quick iteration to target the ACTUAL strain, not the one from 2 years ago...
Pandemics are likely to happen more regularly now that global travel is widespread, so I imagine a future where all the major viruses get tossed into a 6-12 month mRNA "antivirus update".
Getting a booster every 6 months vs every 24 months is a 4x difference in the number of boosters you have to take. That's 4x the potential complications (mistakes can happen in science, e.g. thalidomide) and 4x the cost.
And no boosters are not free. I can't wrap my head around how many people believe that boosters are free. No they are not free. If you are not paying for it directly, the government is paying for it with taxpayer money. And tax money doesn't fall from the sky. It comes out of your wallet.
Or the government can print the money and risk higher inflation, which is just an indirect tax on your money.
If you had an adverse reaction to any of the vaccines, every booster is a scary prospect, more so if they are more frequent. People would rather take an occasional risk over a frequent risk.
Are you me? Same here. Fully vax and picked up omicron. 2 days bed. Every single flu I've ever had was worse than this covid.
>Already contracted Covid, have 2 vaccines, I'm down to get a booster every year or two, at my own leisure.
I will go get the flu shot. I don't know, nor care, what strains they are going for in the flu shot. I do know they tend to target different strains every year. They can mix match as much as they like. If coronavirus is the one they want to target this time, fine whatever.
>I'm OK with and to be honest, it feels a lot like the government trying to deflect from the fact healthcare isn't OK (at least in my home country, Canada).
2 weeks to flatten the curve was only to prevent healthcare system from collapsing. But for whatever reason they switched to 'lets eradicate all illness by staying home and wearing masks.
>There's always been risks to life and this feels more like governments are trying to convince people the risk should be zero so they can be the heroes while at the same time expanding their powers...
Makes me wonder. why in history did we never try to end the flu season? there's clear starts and ends to the flu season. Mandate wearing mask in public stores seems like it eliminated flu and cold.
Though you touch on an interesting thought. Has covid really been all about government expanding their power? I dont think covid was created for this purpose, but I certainly suspect they all jumped on board to using it as an excuse to expand their power.
Are you asking because you work in a gain of function lab :D? It's going to be hard for a virus to come from nature that can spread like the Flu and be as deadly as Ebola. The biggest societal threat besides a meteor or nuclear war is gain of function.
> The biggest societal threat besides a meteor or nuclear war is gain of function.
Nah, internal conflict is a bigger threat than even a meteor or nuclear war. A civil war happened once in the US, it could happen again. If not a civil war, a complete governmental collapse. All you have to do is keep polarizing and polarizing the sides to further and further extremes and eventually reap the consequences when the government collapses.
I guess maybe I mean human race threatening? Civil war isn't going to wipe humans out completely I suppose.
To answer the parents question though what does it take, well of course if people are seeing their neighbors bleed out of their eyes everyone is going to sign up for vaccines even if the vaccine could possibly kill you.
Agreed... I may not agree with what everyone says but I like how [generally] civil the communication is, in stark contrast with, well, nearly anywhere else :)
I'm not vaxxed - but want to be. I tested positive for COVID now a second time last week and taking a few days off to be safe. This time it felt a lot easier to go through so I assume it's Omicron. First time around in July 2020, I was in bed for a day and couldn't smell anything for about a month.
My partner on the other hand has no desire for us to get vaxxed because they know people personally who have died after getting the shots. We also know many who died from getting COVID. We're not anti-vax people generally, our kids are all got regular shots but with this, we decided to skip it for the time being. Knowing this, we intentionally wear masks when needed and try to operate safely and give distance.
I think the US government failed in communicating properly and now with the approach of "shunning the unvaxxed", it's only causing further divide and a lot of my conservative friends will now never get it as a way to spite the government orders.
I am one of those, triple vaxxed and done. CDC has now said that the majority of those that died had 4+ co-morbidities. They have also indicated that getting vaccinated does not reduce your ability to spread the virus. So if that is the case, there is no longer a real need to vilify the unvaxxed. CDC statement appears to indicate that the primary reason for people dying is poor physical health prior to infection. With that said I do think vaccines likely reduce the severity of the infection but I don't buy all these people saying they would have died if not for the vaccine, how do they know? This has motivated me to start working out again and to try and lose weight. Going to make sure my kids are physically active now as well. Omicron is essentially impossible to avoid at this point short of locking yourself in a room and having everything delivered to your front door. The risks are known and its time to trust people to weigh those risks and make their own decisions.
I think the issue now is a political one. The democratic party has hung their hat on how bad covid is and how important it is to get vaccinated and to state at this point, NVM lets just get back to normal would be a loss of face. Instead of just saying that the virus has evolved and is less lethal now they have continued to double down on the vaccine mandate which I don't agree with. I am a democrat so I am not coming at this as a republican. I am not downplaying the severity of the virus but at this point it is here to stay. Even if we locked down for 3 months, once we were released someone from another country would come in and re-infect everyone again. Also during lock down do we once again tell the poorest among us that while they are 'essential' that they are also worth less and must continue to work and face the risk alone so as to ensure the rest of us can isolate in safety at home.
Edit: I said "does not reduce your ability to spread the virus" I meant to say "does not remove". My fault.
> CDC has now said that the majority of those that died had 4+ co-morbidities.
This is in reference to a specific study that followed 1.2M fully vaccinated individuals and found that 28 of the 36 deaths had at least 4 high-risk factors (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7101a4.htm). They are not referring to the unvaccinated who still have a much higher risk of hospitalization and death.
Your quote is from the end of a sentence that began with someone explaining that they were triple-vaxed. Seems like the perfect study to help them make decisions.
The unvaccinated are unvaccinated. They know what they're getting into (even if they deny it), and they don't believe studies anyway. Once they catch it a couple of times, they'll be as good as vaxed anyway.
edit: if there's anything that should be done about the unvaccinated, it's to make sure that vaccines and tests are convenient and free. There are still plenty of people who aren't vaccinated because it's too much of a hassle.
> Your quote is from the end of a sentence that began with someone explaining that they were triple-vaxed. Seems like the perfect study to help them make decisions.
The quote was the whole sentence. And the following sentences implied they meant everyone. The clarification was important.
Back in 2020 when everyone was unvaccinated the CDC issued this statement: “For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death.”
> They have also indicated that getting vaccinated does not reduce your ability to spread the virus
That is not correct. Vaccination does reduce, but does not eliminate, transmission of the virus
“ We found that both the BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccines were associated with reduced onward transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from index patients who became infected despite vaccination.”
look at data for iceland, 92% of the adult population and spread is mainly among the double vaccinated.
Triple is lower but that is expected to wear off ( if Isreal is to be beleiveied ).
https://www.covid.is/data.
No, vaccination dos not reduce spread of omicron. Not even a little.
It does do a fantastic job of reducing hospitalisations among delta infected.
I fear you're committing the baseline fallacy. If 92% of the population is vaccinated then the virus can easily spread mainly among the vaccinated while still spreading among that population at a far lower rate than among the unvaccinated.
Think of it this way: assume that an unvaccinated person, on average, spreads COVID to 10 people and a fully vaccinated person spreads it to only 1. Then put 92 fully vaccinated people and 8 unvaccinated people (I.e., vaccination in proportion to the Icelandic population.) into a room full of people. The 8 unvaccinated people will infect 80 additional people, while the fully vaccinated will infect 92. Thus, "most" of the transmission was from vaccinated people, even though the vaccine reduced transmission by 10x.
And this is probably obvious, but its worth emphasizing that vaccinating those last 8 (percent of the) people would still have a hugely beneficial effect. If they were all vaccinated, then, in the toy example, they would infect a total of only 8 people instead of 80, leading to only 100 total cases, rather than 172.
Of course, even setting this aside, the bigger issue is that your casual parsing of one country's aggregate statistics is just no substitute for the actual scientific research that GP cited.
90% of the eligible population there is vaccinated. If there are no unvaccinated people left, the spread would be 100% from vaccinated people. Lies, damn lies, statistics.
And you don't find that ridiculous? If a virus is spreading quickly among vaccinated people you might begin questioning said vaccine and you definitely wouldn't mandate it.
Of course not. It's not about the absolute transmission rate of vaccinated people. It's about the reduction in the transmission rate compared to the unvaccinated. Regardless of the absolute effectiveness of the vaccine in preventing transmission, it seems to me it should remain fundamental to protecting public health if unvaccinated people spread the virus several times faster.
Of course, if the effect were only marginal, that would be one thing. But that is not what the data seems to show at this point.
If one was of the belief that a vaccine needs to be either 100% or it's worthless, yes, that's the sort of assumption you might come to. Things are slightly more nuanced.
i've seen some claims that the latest UK data shows negative effectiveness for the vaccine for COVID infection. This is possibly due to Omnicron or due to population differences between the vaccinated/unvaccinated. Also, it is very important to note that even though the data seems to show negative effectiveness for infection the vaccines still show positive effectiveness for hospitalisation and mortality.
I tried to find the original article about negative effectiveness in the UK but all I could find was this:
This covers Iceland, Denmark and the UK but doesn't really go into much detail about alternative explanations which I remember being covered in the original article I read.
> No, vaccination dos not reduce spread of omicron. Not even a little.
You can't really make that conclusion based on a simple case count chart, because you don't know what those numbers would look like if the vaccination rate was lower.
The Iceland data is interesting and "14-day incidence per 100.000 by age and vaccination status" is different from the California data, where case rate per 100K is still, as of 12/26 numbers, much higher among unvaccinated (no breakdown for 2vax vs 2vax+booster). https://covid19.ca.gov/state-dashboard/#postvax-status
Iceland also has a higher vaccination rate, I would be very interested in demographic breakdowns of the unvaccinated there vs in California. Is the Iceland group much more atypical in terms of how often they leave their house, say? Is the California group possibly just much more boosted (the Iceland numbers show that the boosted group has still less Covid than the unvaccinated group stil) - but actually, that doesn't seem like it, because that ratio is still far higher than the CA one. Though... even your own link for data on boosted adults in Iceland contradicts your "not even a little" statement.
Actually I bet it's just a small number problem. Iceland has a population of 366K. 8% of that population is just under 30K. California has a population of over 39 million. Much more significant sample for unvaccinated people in CA.
> look at data for iceland, 92% of the adult population and spread is mainly among the double vaccinated.
If getting vaccinated reduced your odds of spreading the virus by 90%, and 92% of the population were double-vaccinated, then the majority of the spread would be...
Among, and by the double-vaccinated. (8.28% vs 8%)
Most people that die in car crashes are wearing seatbelts, but you'd be a fool to not wear one. Just like you'd be foolish to not get vaccinated.
> If getting vaccinated reduced your odds of spreading the virus by 90%, and 92% of the population were double-vaccinated, then the majority of the spread would be...
> Among, and by the double-vaccinated. (8.28% vs 8%)
I don't know how you're getting those numbers.
If baseline spread is 100% unvaccinated spreading to 100% unvaccinated, then 92% vaccinated spreading 10% to 92% vaccinated amounts to 8.464% of baseline, 92% vaccinated spreading 10% to 8% unvaccinated is 0.736% of baseline, 8% unvaccinated spreading to 92% vaccinated is 7.36% of baseline and 8% unvaccinated spreading to 8% unvaccinated is 0.64% of baseline. The total sums to 17.2% of baseline, of which vaccinated to vaccinated spread amounts to 49.2%.
(It's not terribly important since the numbers are made-up anyway, but I'd like to know whether I made a mistake somewhere.)
> Most people that die in car crashes are wearing seatbelts
Funny enough, I just recently checked the stats for that. According to the first report I found with a simple googling, 47% of people who died in car crashes were not wearing seat belts.
yeah, because the number of people getting into car accidents and surviving is much, much greater with those that wear seatbelts where if you don't wear one it's a high probability it's not survivable.
There are a few "buts" here. The biggest one - based on transmission rates in countries with higher vaccination rates vs the ones in lower transmission rates - is that the vaccinated (at least at first, when everybody believed the vaccine is 90+% efficient against transmission) might have engaged in more risky behavior as they felt "protected".
Some of your points have validity, but three are borderline dangerous misinformation:
- The majority of those who died WITH THE VACCINE had 4+ co-morbidities. The virus is still very dangerous to the unvaccinated
- The vaccine does indeed reduce your propensity to spread the virus, although it doesn't eliminate the risk.
- The reason for lockdowns is not to make the virus "go away". It is to control the impact on the healthcare system. We have now surpassed the previous hospitalization record and this thing is still going exponential. You may be fully vaccinated and at low risk for a COVID related death, but if you'd like to be able to get acute treatment for appendicitis or a heart attack, we need to take steps toward a lockdown immediately.
That is insanely low. That is just the risk of hospitalization, the % of those that are hospitalized that actually die from (not with) covid is even lower, which is a key distinction that your Reuters article doesn't make. Most hospitals are required to test patients for covid (if they are admitted), even if they are being admitted for something else (like a broken leg) if they come back positive then they show up in the stats even if they exhibit no covid symptoms and require no to little treatment from the hospital for covid.
The healthcare system is not remotely being overrunning by covid, it only appears that way because of these scary, missleading, numbers.
All I can say is that Omicron is not significantly less dangerous. This is actually shaping up to be worse than the Delta surge. If you believe Delta was serious, then this is too.
These graphs are misleading because they do not accurately reflect the change in cases. Cases in the Omicron wave are probably closer to 10x the winter of 2021 than the 1.5x in those graphs, but testing sites have been overwhelmed and rapid tests are more widely available, leading most people to either test at home or simply give up.
For reference to a Covid prevalence measurement that isn't sensitive to testing artifacts, check out the Boston wastewater analysis: https://www.mwra.com/biobot/biobotdata.htm
"The virus is still very dangerous to the unvaccinated" Absolutely, I very much agree with this but at this point in time everyone has access to the data and there is not much ore that can be done to make people choose to get vaccinated. Forcing people to choose to be vaccinated or lose their jobs when the primary person the vaccinated are endangering is themselves is not a good policy. People should be allowed to make their own choices at this point. No matter what we do the virus is here to stay.
"The vaccine does indeed reduce your propensity to spread the virus, although it doesn't eliminate the risk." agreed, but at this point Omicron is so incredibly transmissible that I think everyone is going to get it and it is impossible to eliminate all the potential infection vectors. I have to come down on the side of bodily autonomy at this point. If the virus was as deadly as ebola I would likely change my mind but at this point with the severity of omicron, I have landed here.
"The reason for lockdowns is not to make the virus "go away". It is to control the impact on the healthcare system." This is a very good point but there is no way to practically implement this in the current political environment. If we implemented a lockdown, we would still be telling the poorest among us, those we call essential that they still have to go to work to support the rest of us. In addition, there is just no way that states like Texas or Florida are going to agree to a lockdown. Are we willing to risk armed conflict over this? Personally I am not.
> The virus is still very dangerous to the unvaccinated
Do we know this about omicron? How dangerous is "very dangerous"? As it is with pre-omicron, CFR for COVID-19 was, pessimistically, 0.5-1%, less if you're not in an at-risk group. AFAICT we have no reliable numbers on "long covid".
For the record, I am not anti-vaxx, I am vaccinated, I'm just anti-using-science-as-an-ideology.
It's probably somewhere between 75% as serious and as serious as Delta, but we can't be sure yet.
The handwaving about 0.5% - 1% is ultimately not something I can address because it is opinion. A million Americans are dead from this and more deaths are coming. Reminds me of the Stalin quote.
Just coming from a scientist that is SUPER used to reading graphs -- It's really hard to tell from those graphs because the scariness of those graphs could wind up being (horizontal) scaling artifacts, because we know in the countries that led the omicron wave it seems to burn out faster... If the number of deaths tails out just as quickly, the CFR will wind up being way lower, since total deaths are an integral under the curve, and cases are point-in-time values.
If we want to get rid of vaccine mandates I think the give and take has to go both ways. For instance: https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/sta... : "Unvaccinated individuals at the highest risk of severe disease (anyone aged ≥75 years or anyone aged ≥65 years with additional risk factors)." in Tier 1 for priority usage of new, hard-to-get treatment.
Those who don't want to get vaccinated should take personal responsibility for that, not expect society to take as much care of them when they're choosing not to help take care of society (even in terms of "reducing burden on healthcare system by getting a likely-less-severe case", even if transmissibility isn't affected as much).
This sounds like a wonderful idea. Drop the vaccine mandates, and drop the mandates to treat the unvaccinated. If people don't want treatments that work, they should be free to explore the full space of treatments that don't.
If you have ethical qualms about this, I'd like to point out that ethics go both ways. It's unconscionable to take a hospital bed away from someone who needs it, because you refuse to take your medicine, with predictable consequences.
You can't expect those who are unvaccinated taking up beds (potentially or not) to think about ethics. For a good part of our country it's a race to the bottom of "I got mine, f u" and those folks seem largely represented in the group that's currently stressing our hospitals.
I do agree however. And, I think it's an ethically defensible position to not treat people who refuse to get vaccinated... even though it will never happen.
If you open that door, should treatment also be denied to smokers, motorcycle riders, obese people, uninsured people, etc., etc.? It's about as slippery as a slope can get.
Will be put at the end of recipient lists, or outright denied for organ transplants if you're an active smoker of the last 6 months.
> uninsured people
Will only be stabilized in the ER and sent home - actual treatment is only to stabilize the patient to get them back out the door as-per law.
---
On motorcycles and obesity those are a bit harder to get into - but I will say that yes... for 2/4 of those we do actively deny medical treatment for better or worse. That makes me feel like we're already on the "slippery slope" - especially in regards to those without insurance... We literally have no problem denying life saving treatment to the uninsured here.
And hell - even as an ex-smoker I agree with the places that don't allow active smokers on their transplant lists. Ethically that makes perfect sense to me.
Not getting a transplant isn't comparable to being denied a hospital bed.
"Will only be stabilized in the ER"
In other words: they will be treated.
No one is saying we need to give the best treatments, or any kind of treatment that is scarce and competitive (like transplants) to unvaccinated people, but you're talking about refusing people any treatment and sending them out to die at home or on the streets. That's extremely cruel and certainly is not done anywhere in the US currently.
Sorry - you brought these things up in regards to a slippery slope being denied treatment. I responded to you in good faith to say that half of those do have some sort of denial of treatment, specifically citing what is denied. I do not agree that stabilization of a patient is treating any underlying disease or cause.
Splitting hairs? Which one of us is referring to various forms of medical treatment as "denying treatment"?
You're advocating for sending unvaccinated people away with zero treatment. None of your examples are remotely comparable. If you were really discussing in good faith, you would admit it.
> If you were really discussing in good faith, you would admit it.
Right and that's why I'm out. I have made my arguments, and I don't appreciate you implying that I am discussing these things in bad-faith. If we disagree that is fine.
You’re trying to claim stabilizing someone in the ER isn’t medical treatment. You are transparently arguing in bad faith and you know it. But sure, take your ball and go home since you can’t defend your arguments.
I'm talking about you saying they claimed something they didn't. And accusing them of bad faith.
They were wrong hospitals shouldn't treat unvaccinated patients. They were right withholding treatment someone needs to live months and withholding treatment someone needs to live days aren't 100% different.
First, thank you. I feel like this is an opportunity to clarify in a thread of rationality vs. getting accused of bad faith...
I never made the claim that they shouldn't treat unvaccinated patients:
> And, I think it's an ethically defensible position to not treat people who refuse to get vaccinated... even though it will never happen.
And specifically to the parent comment I was agreeing to the following (quoting parent):
> It's unconscionable to take a hospital bed away from someone who needs it, because you refuse to take your medicine, with predictable consequences.
Although maybe it's not my best self showing here - but I do feel angry toward people taking those hospital beds away. And I was very specifically agreeing that "It's unconscionable to take a hospital bed away from someone who needs it [...]" I have friends/family who are suffering real consequences of hospitals being overrun with largely unvaccinated people...
---
Overall, I don't think "ethically defensible position" is equivalent to "they should not treat unvaccinated people" - yeah I guess this can be seen as "walking it back" but overall I did not mean to outright state we shouldn't treat the unvaccinated.
Sure - it comes from a place of frustration. But I don't think I'm alone in thinking about these things.
> Overall, I don't think "ethically defensible position" is equivalent to "they should not treat unvaccinated people" - yeah I guess this can be seen as "walking it back" but overall I did not mean to outright state we shouldn't treat the unvaccinated.
Thanks for clarifying. They also said "Drop the vaccine mandates, and drop the mandates to treat the unvaccinated." And you said "I do agree however." But I can believe you just meant the last sentence. Feeling frustrated is natural when your friends and family are harmed. I hope they can get what they need.
Absolutely - and thanks for providing the communicative space to clarify myself. I didn't feel it was going to be productive trying to clarify to /u/danenania when bad-faith was being harshly implied. I agree I was not clear in my comment as to what I was agreeing with - but I felt like I was being pushed to a position that I had not intended to take.
100% we need to treat people regardless of anyone's attitude (mine included), and 100% we need to continue to mandate vaccines.
Thank you again for giving me the space to clarify =)
They’re 100% different in the sense that withholding treatment completely is not done in the US currently for any reason. We've drawn a line there as a society.
I think all of us understand the present US law. Most Americans say everyone should have access to national insurance actually. And legality and popularity don't settle ethical questions.
> Will all of these people get their health tax and insurance money back when they are denied?
No, just like how if I need surgery, and the hospital is full of anti-vaxxers with COVID, and I can't get treatment, I currently don't get my money back.
> Those who don't want to get vaccinated should take personal responsibility for that, not expect society to take as much care of them
How would that work practically though? They still end up in the hospital, they're not going to test if they're vaxxed and put them at the end of the line if not.
No, I would argue for exactly that. If ten patients arrive at the ER and it's full, the unvaccinated-without-a-medical-condition-preventing-vaccination COVID patient gets a bed last, after the vaccinated COVID patients and any non-COVID patients. For people in CA, at least, there are digital records of this, not much testing needed.
This would be called "heartless" on the individual scale, but towards a group that I believe is being heartless on a societal scale.
Honestly, it's a capsule of where we are as a country: Here we have a government entity whose suggestions are rejected by these people still suggesting to prioritize them in order to get them the best treatment possible. I don't see anything like the same consideration for others being made by most of the unvaccinated. One side is trying to do what's best for everyone, the other side doesn't really give a shit about thinking things through.
If they don't conveniently arrive at the same time, needing the same amount of care, would you advocate pulling the unvaccinated off ventilators and out of beds to be replaced by the vaccinated?
If two do arrive at the same time, an unvaccinated person with far worse sickness faintly mumbling about ivermectin who waited until the last minute to come in, and a vaccinated person who is suffering but nowhere near the danger zone - do you put the unvaccinated person on the sidewalk outside?
Long answer: you'd probably come up with a protocol around "ok, we have this ventilator available, give it to the unvaxed patient, but if we have other patients who end up needing one and they haven't improved in X hours/days, we will reallocate" and similar for all the various ways people can present, but "conveniently"... if the health system is that overloaded, you're gonna have ERs with a lot of patients all arriving at the same time.
Hell, even pre-COVID, I got stuck waiting in an ER in December for days because the hospital was full once.
(To your edit: has either smoking or obesity caused hospitals to fill to capacity and have to turn away patients? You'll notice here I'm talking about scarce medical resource allocation prioritization where they're actively competing with those more considerate of the rest of us, not something like insurance payments or coverage.)
> Those who don't want to get vaccinated should take personal responsibility for that, not expect society to take as much care of them when they're choosing not to help take care of society
Unfortunately as much as I agree with this it will never be the case. Hospitals are hurting for blood too - sucks. These spikes are largely unvaccinated folks from everything I'm reading. They're stressing the system but I guarantee you they don't care outside of their own selfishness.
> there is no longer a real need to vilify the unvaxxed
I very, very much disagree with this.
Unvaccinated people have a much higher rate of severe illness that requires hospitalization. Filling up hospitals unnecessarily kills people, and delays preventative care.
People who are voluntarily unvaxxed without a medical necessity are, to be clear, 1) categorically stupid 2) responsible for the injury and death of others.
I could use the same rationale to say people who are fat are willingly putting others in danger.
As up to 75% of C19 hospitaltizations are obese persons I could just a s easily hunt down overweights and accuse them of murder as their unhealthy habits are now clogging the medical system forcing us to shut down society to protect them.
I could call them names ,like typhoid Maries. Fat fucks.
Ban them from participating in society unless they show a proper BMI index card.
Force them into diet camps.
But I would never do that.
I happily spend my tax money for peole who smoke, overeat, drink and drive, get bothched breas augmentations, beat the crap of eachother, OD on heroin and all the amazing horrible things that make us humans.
Whatever choice you make in your life, you can NEVER EVER be threatened to have medical care taken away from you.
Unconditinal medical care is one of the corner stones of our society.
Red Cross workers in conflict areas will treat rape victims in one tent, and their rapist in the next.
Fun job, no.
But if you cannot handle it than you should not have gone into medicine.
This tendency to normalice demands of who gets medical care and who doesnt stops now.
There are not many things I will violently defend, but if society will ever hint that it is going to elect who gets medical support and who doesnt based on their personal life choices I will protest. Violenty if I have to.
This is a basic human right I am willing to die for.
> This tendency to normalice demands of who gets medical care and who doesnt stops now. There are not many things I will violently defend, but if society will ever hint that it is going to elect who gets medical support and who doesnt based on their personal life choices I will protest. Violenty if I have to.
This is a basic human right I am willing to die for.
Perfectly expresses how I feel as well. Thank you.
Where am I saying to stop providing medical care? No one should go untreated, not even the dumbest, shit-spewing-est anti-vaxxer. Human life is precious.
But the idea that vaccination status is remotely comparable to weight, smoking, drug addiction – that's laughable.
It's a single goddamn shot (sorry – two shots for mRNA). You can get them fucking everywhere, for free, with a walk-in appointment.
We know they're safe. We know they keep people out of the hospital. We know that putting people in hospitals right now is a huge drain on a strained resource.
Again: people who are sick deserve care. Always. Regardless of their moronic views.
But the idea that an unvaccinated person is somehow free of the responsibility of their actions, when they could so easily fix them? I find that hard to swallow.
Honestly, comparing people who are fat to unvaccinated people who could change their vaccination status with a few free jabs but day after day refuse to do so is more likely to tell me you despise fat people more than anything else.
I absolutely agree that no one should ever be threatened to have medical care taken away from them! That is precisely why I'm ok with villifying (note that I'm not saying "calling them names" or "refuse treatment") the unvaccinated, as that is precisely what they are doing! And no, this is absolutely not comparable to anything else: there has been no sudden explosion in the last two years of obesity or drunk driving or smoking to the point that there are no hospital beds for anyone else. Only covid has done that.
I would say that the obese in particular deserve to vilified far more than antivaxxes, because they are doing damage year after year. An estimate 20% of US healthcare costs (~200B/yr) are related adult obesity. Think of how many lives could be saved with that money. These people are essentially murderers based on the externalities they impose on the rest of us.
Hospital Costs and deaths associated with covid are easily surpassed by the obese if you add up just a few years.
> Unvaccinated people have a much higher rate of severe illness that requires hospitalization. Filling up hospitals unnecessarily kills people, and delays preventative care.
Not if they already had covid or are young and healthly. I would agree with your statement with the qualifier "unvaccinated people that are over 60 or have comorbidity".
You are, unfortunately, incorrect, at least about the "young and healthy" part.
Unvaccinated people of all ages are significantly more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than vaccinated people of the same age group [1].
12-34 year olds are 10 times more likely to be hospitalized.
Even if the absolute numbers are very low for young and healthy people – even if that's 0.01% instead of 0.001% of cases – that is an absolutely unacceptable amount of people to be putting into hospital beds when they could just get a motherfucking shot instead.
The risk of covid to healthy 12-34 is minuscule, less than the flu apparently. You can divide this risk by 10 but that will do nothing materially to the risk to this population nor to ICU usage.
Tell me it's not material when you're waiting in a rural ER for six hours because one of their two ventilators is taken by an unvaccinated 19-year-old who went to three New Year's Eve parties.
There would be a conversation to have here if getting the vaccine wasn't the easiest goddamn thing in the world.
We are talking about winning the lottery kind of tiny risks. Your 19yo could also be vaccinated. That’s also a plausible scenario. But both those scenarios are extremely unlikely.
I'd love to see a study like that breaking down the risks between seronaive and recovered people. They all seem to just talk about the unvaccinated as one monolithic group, but the difference between those with a prior infection and without is known to be huge.
I've yet to see any convincing evidence that a prior infection isn't good enough, but I see plenty of people convinced that the recovered are selfish/evil/stupid if they aren't rushing out for a vaccine.
Obese people have a much higher rate of severe illness that requires hospitalization. Filling up hospitals unnecessarily kills people, and delays preventative care.
People who are voluntarily obese without a medical necessity are, to be clear, 1) categorically stupid 2) responsible for the injury and death of others.
How about riding a motorcycle? It's not addictive or difficult to avoid. All you have to do is... not do it. So do motorcycle riders share similar responsibility because they're choosing to do something that also puts them at significantly higher risk of ending up in the hospital?
I'm also in favor of vaccination btw, but against the shaming.
Vaccination makes you much less likely to get sick in the first place and probably reduces how long you are infectious if you do get sick. Neither of those things fit with 'does not reduce'.
> Vaccination makes you much less likely to get sick in the first place
Do you have a reference for this claim? Nearly everyone I know that has caught it and has gotten sick in the past 2 weeks has been vaccinated, sometimes boostered as well. I don't think this claim is true with Omicron.
Vaccination makes you less likely to end up on a ventilator.
I have seen much discussion of vaccines being less effective at preventing infection with omicron but no indication of them being 0% effective. Of course, it will probably be at least a few more weeks before we have good overall data on this (e.g. December/January case rates among vaccinated vs unvaccinated).
And in a big storm, even everyone being 25% less likely to get infected impacts rate of transmission, which is the big one for resource constraints and such.
But there is no data to indicate that it's >0% effective either. So until we have data to back things up one way or the other, talking about it just creates more science disinformation.
Early studies suggested that vaccine antibodies were much weaker but boosted individuals still had antibodies that had some effect on omicron, and gave no reason to believe that non-antibody parts of the immune system would have 0% effect. So based on that, and high level of protection against previous strains, my default assumption would be "some, but much lower, protection."
Then, as of Dec 26, being vaccinated in CA still resulted in a much lower case rate per 100K: https://covid19.ca.gov/state-dashboard/#postvax-status That likely isn't 100% omicron data, but the ratio looks the same as what it was before, so still not reason to drop my belief to 0%.
It is quite the leap to say "new strain, I should restart my assumption at 0% effectiveness."
Not saying restart all assumptions. I am saying that whatever you say should come with the "based on the previous..., it may or may not apply to current..." proviso.
The problem is that it doesn't show in the stats in practice. In the UK, the % of positive covid tests that are vaxed pretty much follows the % of people vaxed in the population (by age). If vaxed people were less infectious, you would expect the virus to circulate much more in the unvaccinated population. Particularly given that vaccine hesitancy isn't homogenously distributed in the population.
What exactly do you mean by "% of positive covid tests that are vaxed"?
In the US, with the delta wave, case-rate-per-100k-people very much showed that the vaccinated were less likely to catch Covid. For instance: "From December 20, 2021 to December 26, 2021, unvaccinated people were 3.9 times more likely to get COVID-19 than fully vaccinated people." (with a chart showing the trend similarly for months). https://covid19.ca.gov/state-dashboard/#postvax-status
I expect the omicron wave to be less dramatically tilted, but that there will still be some difference.
For instance 79% of the people >18yo who tested positive in December were vaccinated. And that's pretty much the % of people over 18 that are vaccinated in the UK. You get pretty much the same result for each age tranche:
Positive of which % pos test % population
Age Tests vaxed vaccinated vaccinated
<18 395,335 57,284 14% 35%
18-29 257,526 181,705 71% 60%
30-39 254,435 193,623 76% 65%
40-49 230,670 195,908 85% 77%
50-59 147,033 129,440 88% 85%
60-69 58,233 51,037 88% 90%
70-79 18,858 16,263 86% 95%
>80 9,067 7,658 84% 95%
Total > 18 975,822 775,634 79%
Ah, yes. That's not a very useful stat compared to something like case-rate-per-100K since the denominator could be all over the map.
What's the case rate per 100K at the population level there?
Edit: actually, didn't find exactly that table, but did find a section in the doc you link, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/..., on page 14, that shows vaccine effectiveness remains against symptomatic disease as a result of a study against delta and omicron both. But I would love to see the overall case rate to know about asymptomatic disease too.
Not sure what you mean by denominator? The denominator for vaxed positive cases is all positive cases. The denominator for vaxed in the population is total population (within the age range).
The % per 100k is available p40 of the same pdf. But I find that much harder to read given that the size of the vaxxed and unvaxxed populations vastly differ.
In "percent vaxxed among positive tests" you're only looking at those who got tested and were positive at a snapshot in time. At the very least, you also need to include all the people who tested negative. You complain that the size of the vaxxed and unvaxxed populations are vastly different but then use numbers where you look at just positive tests, ignoring counts or negative counts. That gives you numbers with even more potential sources for skew!
The table on page 40 is consistent with US data, where case rates at the population. It says to read in conjunction with pages 32 to 34, which basically says "stats won't be as accurate as formal assessment of vaccine effectiveness, please see the formal data." The formal data suggests effectiveness against transmission. The raw cases-per-100k numbers agree. Yet you latch onto a different number - another one that the report says isn't authoritative for those purposes either - to claim the data shows ineffectiveness! That seems backward.
> The democratic party has hung their hat on how bad covid is and how important it is to get vaccinated and to state at this point, NVM lets just get back to normal would be a loss of face.
During the recent recall attempt for Gov. Gavin Newsom, the ads supporting him essentially said, "The Republican candidate will remove the mask mandate and kill your grandma. Vote to keep Newsom, he'll keep grandma alive with mask mandates." so yeah I figure it's gonna be a while before California Democrats, at least, can support easing up on the masks.
I encourage everyone eligible to protect themselves by getting vaccinated but vilifying people who make unhealthy choices is never an effective public health measure. We should have learned that from the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
You can't compare HIV/AIDS to COVID in this simplistic way, including the attitudes and public debate around them, and this comment is dangerously close to some sort of public health version of a Godwin's Law violation.
What I remember about HIV in the early 80s was that fear of it fueled a lot of homophobia from those who were ignorant about the disease, certainly to begin with. In fact I remember it originally being seen as a disease that only infected homosexuals and drug addicts - and those being the people who were vilified - which proved to be a fatally uninformed point of view for some.
But HIV is, fundamentally, a very different pathogen to COVID. In the 80s HIV was a death sentence: if you were infected with HIV, sooner or later it would develop into AIDS and you would die. However, a relatively small proportion of the population was infected, and it wasn't very transmissible (you had to have sex or other transfer of body fluids, such as a blood transfusion). Nowadays, HIV treatments have improved to the extent that in developed countries most people receiving treatment can expect to lead a fairly normal and full life, and to live a normal lifetime (ignoring other causes of death that might intervene). I'm not sure what the story is in less developed countries, but I imagine it's not as encouraging.
COVID has never close to that deadly, but is far more transmissible. It's that high transmission rate that has seen so many people die, even though these represent a small fraction of those infected. And this time, nobody is being vilified for their sexual preference, or their gender identity, or any other characteristic that is fundamental to who they are and over which they may not have had much if any agency. You might argue that drug addicts have agency but they don't have very much once they're hooked.
No, with COVID, people are being vilified for wilful ignorance, which is a choice: a conscious decision, and one that - in this case - has a substantial negative impact on their surrounding community and the world at large.
I can't tell you how effective, or not, that vilification is, but I can tell you that a lot of people - myself included - who are fully vaxxed, boosted, and will gladly accept further vaccinations (and would also welcome effective treatments for those who are sick), are getting enormously fed up of having restrictions placed on our lives which, to a non-trivial extent, are being propagated as a result of people who are spreading misinformation and choosing not to get vaccinated. I'm not old - somewhere in the middle - but the remaining count of the best years of my life is finite and even in the best possible case very limited, so I'm getting sick to death of people telling me what I can and can't do with them.
I even agree with you that pointing fingers and calling names won't change anything, but it doesn't matter. Lots of people have had their fill and the anti-vaxxers are a convenient, and frankly not entirely unjust, target for their rage and frustration, which pays to a key point: the rest of us, the "vaxxed and done", or whatever you want to call us, will eventually tire of allowing the lowest common denominator to set the agenda. That's not a threat: it's just a reality, just who we are. Eventually we'll tire of the yoke and throw it off.
"are getting enormously fed up of having restrictions placed on our lives which, to a non-trivial extent, are being propagated as a result of people who are spreading misinformation and choosing not to get vaccinated" I am assuming you are a tech worker and can find a remote job. Just move somewhere with no restrictions. There are essentially zero restrictions in states like Florida or Texas. I live in one of those states and aside from maybe 35% of people voluntarily wearing masks there are few signs of the pandemic. I am not denying that people are getting sick I'm just saying that if you dont want to deal with the restrictions then there are options.
Sure, I work in tech, but like plenty of other people who work in tech, it's not as simple as "just move somewhere else." I've only ever driven through Texas, and it's a big state, so I can't comment on what it would be like to live there but I properly detest the climate in Florida, which I'd find impossible to tolerate, and the topography there is extremely uncompelling. Still, I suppose who doesn't love a bit of Miami from time to time? But even ignoring those relative trivialities, there are a bunch of serious issues I'd have to negotiate to make any major relocation a reality:
1. I live in the UK. Sadly I can't just up and move anywhere I choose. Even more frustrating, since we left the EU I can't even just up and move anywhere I choose in Europe (not that restrictions-wise it's much better there at the moment).
2. My close family are all in the UK and, although the rules have made it hard to see them as regularly as I would have liked over the past 2 years, it's been a lot easier (and less costly) than it would have been had I "just moved somewhere else", and I want to continue to be nearish to them.
4. My girlfriend and her close family live in the UK. I'm not leaving her to move somewhere else, and especially not to move to Florida - WTF. Just as importantly I can't see her being keen on living that far from her family.
5. Most of my friends live in the UK, either close to where I live now, or close to where my parents live. I could start again somewhere else but, overall, I'm fairly content with my life. Ditto my girlfriend's friends.
6. My current employer places a 45 day limit on working abroad for tax reasons. This isn't insurmountable. I could find another job but finding another job is another barrier, and I quite like my current job.
7. I have a house that I'm part way through refurbishing. I'd have to figure out what to do with that but, whatever the outcome, that decision will require a significant investment of time, or money, or both. The reality is it would be a trade-off between the two but, in any event, would represent a substantial investment that due to the need to act quickly might well outweigh what I'd invest if I were less constrained by time.
8. I've never wanted to live in the US, though I like visiting, and I'd certainly want better employment conditions than I'm likely to find there: i.e., sensible amounts of holiday, decent employee rights, not to mention public healthcare.
Yes, if I was still 28, single, had my whole career ahead of me, and hadn't yet bought a house, I could simply up sticks and leave, as long as practicalities rather than relationships were my major driving factor. But it's not so simple, and the fact that I work in tech is basically irrelevant because the only part of the equation it simplifies is the "getting a job" part, which isn't even the most important aspect of said equation. As an aside, somebody like Joe Rogan can move from California to Texas relatively easily because he's a jetsetter and all his mates are jetsetters so he pretty much only gets the upsides from that move (not a criticism: with the kind of money he has, I might well see things differently too).
But far more important than all of that, your comment plays hard to the point I was making: why the hell should I give everything up because, in some part, of a bunch of people who won't see sense? What difference does it make whether that's because of rules and restrictions, or because I've had to walk away from my life and start again because of them?
All good points, I assumed you lived in the US, my fault. If everyone in the UK was vaccinated tomorrow would all of the restrictions go away? Iceland and Israel essentially show that the cases don't stop and Israel is experiencing a case load as high as they have ever had. I would argue that your main problem is not the unvaccinated but the restrictions put in place by your government that they in turn blame on the unvaccinated.
Fair, and no worries, I'd guess at least 50% of the readership here is from the US. Also, sorry if I came off a bit sharp: that was all written fairly hastily.
That's a great question, and it also touches on the reason I'm not only infuriated with antivaxxers: vaccines don't fully protect against illness, nor do they stop transmission. So whilst I vaccines are of substantial benefit they're clearly not a total solution to the problem of COVID, nor do I think such a total solution exists or can exist within any foreseeable timeframe.
One becomes jaded living with controls over a situation that doesn't appear to be particularly controllable; certainly not a situation that can be controlled by the UK government, or other governments in Western Europe.
I've tolerated - we've all tolerated - restrictions for nearly two years now but, if they're not making much difference, well, eff the restrictions, I've had enough. I'm not getting any younger here and I'm fed up of wasting my life away. I suppose, to some extent, I'm a bit consumed with a sort of impotent frustration.
What's the situation where you are, if you don't mind me asking?
"Also, sorry if I came off a bit sharp: that was all written fairly hastily." Nope, my fault, was a bit flippant of me to suggest you just pack up and move. I probably would have reacted the same way. I'm in Florida and its pretty relaxed here. There are no real restrictions that I am aware of, including no mask requirements. My kids go to school and no one wear's masks. Funnily enough school only opened last week and I got a call saying the county recommends but does not require that everyone wear a mask. So we sent the kids to school with masks and literally no one including the teachers were masked so masking died the first day and we have not enforced it.
Along the same lines my kid is also quarantined for the the next few days as someone at his table tested positive this past Friday (did not even make it a week). They can either do virtual schooling for 10 days or return once they have a negative test. Only the 4 kids at his table are quarantined, rest of the class is not. He has actually had a low grade fever (99 - 100 degrees F) the last 3 days so he may have it but he tested negative on a covid test, so technically he can go back to school monday. Not sure I trust the test and will hold him home for a few more days until he has no fever. Other than that he has no symptoms. No one else in the family is symptomatic.
In grocery stores about 35 - 40% of people wear masks. I am hit or miss, mainly miss on masks. I used to mask all the time and not sure there was a conscious decision to stop but it just kind of faded away. I did recently get the booster. Have not vaccinated the kids yet, go back and forth on it. Service workers are generally masked, not sure if by choice or company policy, I am assuming the latter. No vaccination or masking req. to eat at a restaurant. Feel a little bad about the almost dual class structure created where the service industry is masked while those they serve are not.
There are places in the US like NYC that check your vaccine card before they will admit you. Federal government is attempting to push a vaccine requirement for all companies over 100 employees through the courts, sitting at the supreme court right now, not sure what will happen with that.
It is very hard to get a test though here and the state government is encouraging people not to get tested unless they have severe symptoms. Not sure I agree with this.
I am very center of the road politically and politicians here are now extreme so I find myself lost in the shuffle not agreeing with most of those that represent me. Covid has been very much politicized now with Republican governors essentially removing all restrictions and many democratic governors adding much more stringent restrictions although I think most of them fall short of Euro style restrictions and are not close to Australian levels.
My kids did not do well with the isolation that came with the initial outbreak so I think I have tailored my response more to ensuring they are mentally well than any real concern for the physical risks of Covid which are generally low (not saying zero) in younger patients.
I vote Democrat usually but find myself disliking the hardline approach they have taken on vaccination but dislike even more any politician that refuses to acknowledge how egregious what happened when they attempted to overthrow the election for Trump last year. So I just kind of worry about my family now and attempt to block out the country at large.
This is really interesting - thanks. Some things are the same, some things different.
One of the things that really resonated with me is that if you're a customer of the hospitality industry, you don't have to wear a mask, but if you're a staff member, you do. It's very two tier, and they're obviously at far higher risk of contracting COVID than the rest of us.
Something that is different is that a fair number of events do check COVID passes - my GF and I went to a gig a couple of days ago, for example, where this was the case. So this is similar to NYC.
Like you, I'm pretty centrist, but I don't think COVID has become quite the political hot potato here in the UK that it perhaps is in the US. There's a lot of sniping but there's also broad cross-party support for measures that attempt to control the pandemic. That being said, there is still a notable left/right divide with, for example, some conservatives being very heavily against certain measures (e.g., COVID passports), and some on the left always being in favour of more restrictions.
There's quite a bit of politics playing across countries in Europe around travel measures as well, with the UK I think probably as guilty as other countries in this regard.
The situation with schoolchildren has been similar, but with mask wearing for teenagers now mandatory. No issues with younger kids though, which I think is good but also marginally aggravating when GF and I take her kids places, and we have to wear masks but they don't.
The quarantine/isolation rules are loosening, which I think is pragmatically sensible, with a testing regime defining when quarantine can end, rather than some sort of fixed 7 or 10 day rule. This is really an improvement because, before, you might not even realise you have COVID for a few days, then have to isolate for 10 days after testing positive, which was pretty difficult.
We are experiencing widespread disruption across the economy due to COVID related absences though. I was in a meeting a few days ago where, out of the 7 of us, 2 had COVID, and 1 was still recovering from quite a severe infection that had hospitalised him. We've never experienced that before, and clearly it's quite widespread with many people I know now having had it recent weeks.
I don't get the impression there's much appetite for further restrictions in England or much chance of further lockdowns but, across the Union as a whole, it's a pretty mixed picture, so it's hard to say how it's going to play out over the next few months. There is a sense that people are starting to care a lot less about the pandemic though.
The government, of course, have not done themselves any favours with recent revelations about parties and drinks events. The outdoor stuff I'm not so bothered about, but what I think a lot of us find tough to swallow is the "one rule for us, another rule for them" mentality that is perhaps behind it.
(Btw, sorry I was also a bit rude about Florida: it's the heat and humidity in summer that kills me but there's a lot there to like, obviously, and despite being drenched in sweat the moment I step outside in June in Orlando, I've had great times on both the trips I took there, both for business, even managing to catch a shuttle launch one evening back in 2007, which was incredible. I imagine the winters would be fine but the summers would definitely cripple me.)
The only hard question is hospital triaging. Who gets treatment if there's only room for 50% or 20%? Who can even decide? Does anyone volunteer to be excluded from medical care? This affects more than just covid patients too.
Any way we choose, it amounts to sacrificing XYZk people so we can go back to living a normal life. I don't think that's an exchange most people are willing to take.
And yes, lockdown measures are usually in response to hospitals filling up. Check for example [0] against the timeline of lockdowns for that area. If you know any counter examples I'd like to hear about it.
> As viruses can remain active on surfaces, unless you irradiate the deliveries with a UV lamp (and do it again after unboxing them, since there may be viruses on the actual item) even that would not be enough.
Covid does not spread in any meaningful way via surfaces. All of the cleaning and disinfecting nonsense that is still going on is pure theatre.
> Any way we choose, it amounts to sacrificing XYZk people so we can go back to living a normal life. I don't think that's an exchange most people are willing to take.
It's an exchange everyone makes every single day in order for society to function.
> Covid does not spread in any meaningful way via surfaces. All of the cleaning and disinfecting nonsense that is still going on is pure theatre.
You may be correct about covid, but cleaning surfaces helps to prevent other illnesses from spreading anyway. In a situation where hospitals are impacted there's a strong argument that such behavior and precautions leads to better healthcare outcomes.
> Covid does not spread in any meaningful way via surfaces. All of the cleaning and disinfecting nonsense that is still going on is pure theatre.
It's a reasonable precaution take, at least until we know precisely how the virus could get to the isolated Belgian Antarctic base, where everyone was isolated for weeks and tested and retested prior to being sent there.
It was a reasonable precaution to take in March of 2020. But enough studies have been done by now to show that it's no longer a reasonable precaution in general. We may never know how it got to that base, and even if we find out that it was via surface contamination, that doesn't invalidate everything else we know now.
Perhaps we should incentivize recruitment of, and reduce restrictions for, medical professionals. Things like residency availability, overhead from various requirements and restrictions, and a ton of upfront investment followed up with long hours and potentially decades to pay of debt.
Something has to be done around capacity issues, or we'll be in the same situation indefinitely. Or even worse when the next pandemic hits.
Probably not realistic, but I would love to see more personal involvement in care. One level could be prevention, and not just the vaccine. Lose weight, exercise, eat right. It's hard to change people though.
Another is care after the fact. Short staffed? Give me a procedure card and let me do the less skilled stuff. Most of nursing is really basic and many things are handled by machines (when's the last time a nurse took your BP with a manual sphig?). Maybe that's beyond many people's abilities, but there are some who are used to wearing respirators, practicing aseptic techniques, and following procedures. The artificial constraints of regulation and law prohibit it. So I guess that's another way society might be making the choice to sacrifice people.
It probably comes down to other things such as costs for medical equipment, legal medical malpractice liability, costs for training, investment in more facilities and equipment, etc.
I wonder if they have looked into it- not a new idea, China famously built a hospital early pandemic.
I do have the same questions as you though. How can we make this happen?
In a scenario where people are left to die or risk malpractice, I would hope the system sees this as an extenuating circumstance. I would think on the brink of collapse many of the tedious red tape rules will be ignored.
The question is of degree. Is "covid overwhelmed" meaningfully the same as "yearly flu season overwhelmed"? Based on Government actions, it seems like covid is much worse.
(I wish I had the epidemiological understanding to look at data and understand that conclusion, but I don't.)
I was under the impression that this was already a solved question in the medical community (essentially boiled down to: who will benefit the most from treatment)
Or are you talking about other considerations like vaxxed/in-vaxxed?
You may be right. I guess there is a risk that even the number of people dying from treatable conditions exceeds capacity. The spectrum you mention seems more geared to handle broken arm vs heart attack situation, not "We have 100 people dying and 20 beds".
This takes place daily in any ER on a low intensity basis (broken arm can wait for the heart attack), but hospitals specifically consider the 100 people dying 20 beds situations when they train for mass casualty events (with specific doctors and nurses tasked with triaging incoming patients)
Unfortunately we could have made this exchange in March 2020. Mostly older people in exchange for younger people. It would have been over in a few months. June/July of 2020. Now we make the exchange but this time it's everyone. Someone younger having heart attack, cancer etc. So we're mostly worst off had we just let it rip through society back then.
> The only hard question is hospital triaging. Who gets treatment if there's only room for 50% or 20%? Who can even decide?
The voters should decide. A jurisdiction could simply decide to allocate capacity based on vaccination status (ie, if 20% of the population is unvaccinated, they get 20% of available beds for COVID). Completely fair.
> Omicron is essentially impossible to avoid at this point short of locking yourself in a room and having everything delivered to your front door. The risks are known and its time to trust people to weigh those risks and make their own decisions.
As viruses can remain active on surfaces, unless you irradiate the deliveries with a UV lamp (and do it again after unboxing them, since there may be viruses on the actual item) even that would not be enough.
> Even if we locked down for 3 months, once we were released someone from another country would come in and re-infect everyone again.
That's if you assume away animals, as viruses that affect mammals are rarely limited to humans (ex: chicken flu)
> Also during lock down do we once again tell the poorest among us that while they are 'essential' that they are also worth less and must continue to work and face the risk alone so as to ensure the rest of us can isolate in safety at home
Agreed. It's time to accept we're not immortals, viruses exist, and yes it's a shame that covid is now endemic, but it's even worse to perform lockdowns of dubious efficiency that only have one guaranteed effect: hurting the economy, and the "poorest among us".
> As viruses can remain active on surfaces, unless you irradiate the deliveries with a UV lamp (and do it again after unboxing them, since there may be viruses on the actual item) even that would not be enough.
Cases of COVID-19 spreading through fomites (particles on a surface) are extremely rare[1][2] and COVID-19 has a short lifespan on cardboard[3]. Just leaving deliveries somewhere for a day is probably enough to stop transmission.
I see the focus being solely on vaccines leads to a lost of mistrust in the agencies meant to protect our health. Everything is viewed through a lens of "will this cause more or less people from getting vaccinated". At every turn the agencies push vaccines and vaccines alone as the answer, ostracizing those who choose to live with a higher risk tolerance. Whether its true or not, a lot of people feel that coverage is skewed to push vaccines and anything relating to treatment or healthy lifestyles is downplayed.
I too am double vaccinated an boosted, but everyone has a point at which they say enough is enough and will stop getting boosters and isolating indefinitely.
For instance, take the CDC guidance on preparing for a hurricane or tropical storm:
Furthermore, a lesser-talked about side-effect of extended (semi-)lockdowns and associated measures is a general reduction in the physical health of the populace. How many of us have put on a few extra pounds? This survey [1] (which, admittedly, seems to be probably skewed by sampling bias), shows that millennials put on 40+ (!?) pounds over the pandemic.
> The democratic party has hung their hat on how bad covid is and how important it is to get vaccinated and to state at this point, NVM lets just get back to normal would be a loss of face.
It actually still is important and advisable to keep your coronavirus vaccinations up to date. There's a reason why Israel marches ahead and begins to distribute the fourth shot in a year to the most vulnerable groups, and likely access will be expanded similarly like it was for the first three shots.
FWIW, it should become a normality that people visit their general practitioner once a year, get their general fitness and blood checkup done and their missing/expired vaccinations refreshed. Our societies may very well benefit from eliminating millions of workdays lost every year to the ordinary flu [1].
I'm advocating for a massive mandatory vaccination program, which goes against conventional liberal/libertarian standpoints - even though all of the vaccines have proven their efficiency and safety in militaries worldwide and up to now, no one has complained.
We are losing a lot of wealth, a lot of life simply because politicians are afraid of anti-vaxxer propaganda and because prior generations have abused minorities for medical experiments (e.g. the Tuskegee syphilis experiment) or vaccination programs for military purposes (e.g. the Bin Laden discovery).
It’s time we start moving on with our lives. We’re going to figure out what it takes to live with a new disease, so we may as well do it now. The damage done to the to the general mental health due to the breakdown of personal human networks will exceed the loss of life due to infection with poor physical health.
I, for one, will not go on living in fear like this.
Saying that someone has a comorbidity is not a judgement. Its simply a fact. The virus is here, we know it affects people with certain conditions. If we can reduce or remove that condition then it is on us to do so. I am probably 30 pounds overweight, 20 of which I put on over the last year+ with covid. I am now working out and trying to drop those 30 pounds because in the context of the virus it just makes sense to do so. Its not a moral judgement on anyone.
? That is very much a stretch. This is a pandemic, not a politically correct hug fest. We all must be responsible for our own health. If I am overweight and I get covid and I die because of that co-morbidity, then I bear at least some of that responsibility. To deny our own responsibility for our physical states where it is in our control is madness. Just like if I get covid and I am unvaccinated and get a severe case that is also my fault. This is a pandemic, not a woke celebration of not hurting each others feelings. This is not a moral judgement, some people are overweight and they are more susceptible to severe cases of covid, why not do what you can to reduce that risk?
obsesity is an epidemic. covid today is pandemic. while it is problematic like any diease that affects a smaller subset of the population, it lot less concerning than a pandemic. it has nothing to do with you deserve it or not.
no one is saying anyone deserves to die. 42% of americans are obese, so while it is not a majority, its not that far away either. Obesity is very much related to your odds of having a serious case of covid should you contract it. I really dont understand what you are arguing. I am saying that to reduce chances of a bad covid reaction people should attempt to reach a healthy weight. This does not in any way detract from the argument that vaccines are beneficial as well. To say it does is either disingenuous, seeks to not hurt anyone's feelings or is just plain wrong.
> Instead of just saying that the virus has evolved and is less lethal now they have continued to double down on the vaccine mandate which I don't agree with.
What makes you say with any degree of confidence that the virus is less lethal now?
The data's not in yet. At this point, it's all magical thinking.
> So if that is the case, there is no longer a real need to vilify the unvaxxed.
This is such a bad take. Unvaxxed cause the majority of hospitalizations, deaths and complications. This is just objectively wrong that it doesn't matter that much.
Agreed. It's also likely that the unvaxxed could be accounting for a greater part of the overall spread too. They tend to be sicker for longer, and given their anti-vax proclivities, will likely not wear masks and continue about their normal daily activities spreading it far and wide.
The same people who are vaccinated are the same ones who will likely isolate/mask-up if they catch the disease.
The CDC is a bought voice of the corporate ruling class whose only interest at this point is getting working people back to work, with the exception of the pharmaceutical companies who want people to get vaccines. This is why the government has no consistent position on anything.
I get your point as a summary judgment, but it lacks evidence, not veracity. The CDC has multiple entities, some of which are non-governmental, and supported by business interests. Some would say that a little yeast spreads throughout the loaf.
> To understand how ideologically scrambling the Omicron wave has been, consider this: Some 2022 Democrats are sounding like 2020 Republicans. ... In the current Omicron wave, these Republican talking points seem to have mostly come true—for most vaccinated non-senior adults, who are disproportionately Democrats.
This is such a stupid lead sentence. 2020 Republicans and 2022 Democrats are talking about different diseases in an entirely different global context.
The talking points didn't "come true" any more than saying it's raining while it's sunny out "comes true" if it happens to start raining a week later. The Republicans in 2020 were completely wrong to downplay the seriousness of a rapidly spreading disease we knew little about, that was killing thousands of people, and that we had no vaccines or good treatments for.
The fact that the current strain is less deadly, we've learned more about it, millions are vaccinated, and we have better treatments doesn't mean they were somehow right all along.
I am a gen-x firmly in this camp. I feel I've done my part for nearly 2 years. Unless omicron starts decimating people I'm also pretty much done except for future boosters as recommended by CDC and research. I am burned out. I am hanging out with friends who are in the same boat as me. I will respect masking up with people who want to do that, but that's much more rare these days with friends and family. Life is full of risk and we just have to weight the situation and go from there. For me, currently, that is I don't bother with masks and count on my immune system and vax.
From conversations with various people (and not any kind of meaningful study), it seems to me that there is a qualitatively different experience of this situation for people that naturally think about things all the time. For my wife, having to skip the occasional event that she'd like to go to isn't a big deal, but having to constantly think about how risky each behavior is and make a conscious decision weighing that risk against other factors (like social expectations and psychological needs) is _extremely_ effortful.
I view "vaxxed and done" as a form of rounding, selected by people who find it psychologically untenable to handle a changed _risk profile_ by changing their behaviors in moderate ways. I'm boosted, as is everyone I'm in contact with - that has shifted my risk profile sufficiently that I felt comfortable eating at some restaurants (but not others) and at nearly any normal outdoor event, but not at a concert, a crowded bar, or a packed bus. But I have to keep an eye on infection rates, and change my behavior when they shift radically (as now), or when the risk profile updates for a new mutation.. And that's tractable for me - I think about everything I do, constantly, which I assume is much more true among the tech crowd than the population at large.
But most people _just don't do that_ kind of thing - being told to keep worrying about and considering a thing constantly sounds to many like "just keep stabbing yourself in the arm every day and eventually things will be fine". I don't know what there is to do about that, but I think it would be valuable for some folks in here to have a more realistic idea of the cost constant vigilance so often imposes.
i’m young, vaxxed, and i still think about the implications of covid when going to events. It goes kind of like this:
- Is this a public area where immunocompromised people have to be (e.g. grocery stores, doctors offices?) If so then I wear a mask
- Is this an area which isn’t really safe for immunocompromised people anyways (e.g. restaurants, gyms). If so then i don’t wear a mask unless they require it or someone asks me
- Am I hanging out at a friends house or venue with other friends, all young and presumably vaccinated? If so then i don’t take any precautions, even if it’s a large tightly-packed gathering the risk of any serious infection is minimal and the virus is spreading anyways
People need to understand that “stay safe and weigh the risks” does not mean “take unnecessary precautions and constantly worry”. It takes 2sec to realize that hanging out with vaccinated friends and family and strangers is completely fine, and maybe i should bring a mask in my pocket just in case i need to call a Lyft or stop somewhere. It’s basically automatic
My process is somewhat more complex than that, but similar. I don't know if you've ever tried telling a worrier not to worry about something, but it's not a terribly fruitful approach :-)
i’m young, vaxxed, and i still think about the implications of covid when going to events. It goes kind of like this:
- Is this a public area where immunocompromised people have to be (e.g. grocery stores, doctors offices?) If so then I wear a mask
- Is this an area which isn’t really safe for immunocompromised people anyways (e.g. restaurants, gyms). If so then i don’t wear a mask unless they require it or someone asks me
- Am I hanging out at a friends house or venue with other friends, all young and presumably vaccinated? If so then i don’t take any precautions, even if it’s a large tightly-packed gathering the risk of any serious infection is minimal and the virus is spreading anyways
People need to understand that “stay safe and weigh the risks” does not mean “take unnecessary precautions and constantly worry”. It takes 2sec to realize that hanging out with vaccinated friends and family and strangers is completely fine, and maybe i should bring a mask in my pocket just in case i need to call a Lyft or stop somewhere.
"For more than a year, I did everything that public-health authorities told me to do. I wore masks. I canceled vacations. I made sacrifices. I got vaccinated. I got boosted. I’m happy to get boosted again. But this virus doesn’t stop. Year over year, the infections don’t decrease. Instead, virulence for people like me is decreasing, either because the virus is changing, or because of growing population immunity, or both. Americans should stop pointlessly guilting themselves about all these cases."
Yes, indeed. It's time for people to resume critical thinking regarding this, and not be guided by "lizard brain" level fear responses. The virus has evolved, we've learned more, we know who to protect the most -- time to adapt.
There is also this weird fixation on being the single person who will infect another who for whatever reason is at high risk either due to obesity, not being vaccinated despite being in a high-risk group, etc. As if you're very presence in some public location is going to be the only way another person encounters the virus.
It's just not realistic. Every single person will eventually catch a cold just like every single person will eventually catch the omicron variant or whatever one surfaces next.
This fixation that we, or the government, is capable of isolating human beings in a manner to prevent them from ever being exposed to an endemic virus is utterly absurd.
Given that this has an animal reservoir, and has now infected multiple mammals, I think we can put it in the "Never Going Away" category, in that even if we stopped human-to-human transmission entirely, it would still pop up like rabies.
The best case scenario is that it begins to look like the flu, unless someone comes up with a vaccine which makes you immune to all variants forever.
One of the bigger mistakes around this focused on a compliance percentage that was unrealistic. We can't even get people to stop killing one another, the idea that everyone was going to upend their lives in a sudden bout of cooperation was not a reasonable expectation. The resistance we are to expect is beyond the four percent "lizardman constant" and probably closer to twenty or thirty percent. And the moment it became politicized, the compliance percentage would drop even further.
Then you have to ask yourself, how long will people put up with it? How long will people stick to a diet? How long will they keep to their budgets? Generally, long-term discipline does not happen as much as we would like.
Most pandemic responses were formulated with overly optimistic opinions about compliance rates and how long people would do whatever you told them. Meanwhile, various authorities are fumbling around and eroding confidence. At one school in a city where Omicron rates were booming, school administrators made attendance mandatory for some gathering to talk about the hat situation. Apparently, dealing with the hat situation was more important than avoiding creating a possible superspreader event. The more of this senselessness that becomes evident, the less people are apt to do what they are told.
Frankly, we've done about as well as I could have expected.
I wish I could feel "vaxxed and done". My whole extended family is vaccinated and everyone who's old enough is boostered.
But I have three children in elementary and middle school. Like school systems across the country, ours is in chaos due to COVID absenteeism. Roughly 1/3 of the students and 1/4 of the teachers are currently out sick due to positive tests, some symptomatic, some not, and the numbers keep going up every day. Just waiting for our turn and then the kids have to stay home for two weeks! Hopefully February will be easier?
This is an artifact of the refusal to admit that SARS-2 is an endemic respiratory virus. If you have to isolate whenever you encounter a possible COVID exposure, it will always be untenable to be able to actually function as a society. We need to go back to the way it always was in pre-COVID times: you stay home when you're sick, but you don't drop everything and stop the world if a friend of yours gets the flu, or adenovirus, or any of the other 4 circulating hCoVs, etc
Nit: "Boostered" is not a word. "Boosted" is [0]. This is similar to when I hear people say "orientate" instead of simply "orient". We don't need to over-Latinize when simpler speech will do.
My mistake, the requirement is currently 10 days, not 2 weeks. But it's up to the school district, things don't change overnight just because the CDC changed their recommendations.
One of the big takeaways for me, personally, was that the push for boosters may be, in part, due to measuring the wrong thing, namely circulating antibodies as a measure of resistance to infection. Even when antibody levels dropped weeks/months later, it seems people still maintained B-cell and T-cell immunity.
From the link:
"A Johns Hopkins study in pre-print shows the importance of T-cell immunity in protection from COVID
-This is an under recognized part of the immune system and absent from much COVID discussion
-T cell immunity is solid against Omicron as it is for Delta"
P.S. - Here's my chance at one of my favorite dad jokes: Why have scientists been researching ants to battle COVID? Because they all have ant-y bodies... :-)
Every viral replication is an event that could yield a new variant. A new variant can lead to new problems. It is therefore of interest to limit viral replications. This, in addition to the health care system capacities, are crucial targets to address.
Fortunately, vaccines can improve both targets due to the reduced (though now less effectively so) infection rates, shorter infection periods, etc. This makes me personally hopeful that Omicron will become the final "pre-endemic" variant. However, while I too feel tired and sympathize with the described "vaxxed and done" mentality, I know we must stay vigilant and continue to reduce opportunities for this virus to find new ways to remain a pan- rather than an endemic. Acceptable costs of this vigilance, and the nature of it, i.e. the measures we take, need to be updated just as everything else.
How can you simultaneously say that Covid will become endemic, and also that we need to try to control its mutation rate? Ongoing mutation is a fact of (viral) life.
The risk is now "priced in" to our consciousness. Back when it first started, covid was a big scary unknown risk to take for simply going outside and interacting with people. Now, it's a well-known risk, and people are willing to take that risk, along with other well-known risks for going outside, like the risk of getting into a car accident or slipping and falling.
One, we've greatly reduced the risk of COVID through vaccines. This is the primary thrust of the article; if you've vaccinated, you're very unlikely to have serious consequences.
Two, we're fatigued. You just can't be constantly vigilant for two or three years without something breaking. This compounds point one. We don't, as the article mentions, know what kind of relationship Omicron has to long COVID, but at this point, many are too tired to care. "I'm safe enough" is all we have the capacity for.
Third, a large portion of the population is in denial about their own levels of risk. If there was a 1% chance of dying every time you drove a car, or even a 1% chance of dying every time you got into a car accident, there would be panic in the streets, no pun intended. But a lot of people round a 1% chance of dying from COVID down to zero.
> Third, a large portion of the population is in denial about their own levels of risk. If there was a 1% chance of dying every time you drove a car, or even a 1% chance of dying every time you got into a car accident, there would be panic in the streets, no pun intended. But a lot of people round a 1% chance of dying from COVID down to zero.
I don't think you and I differ much in our broad conclusions on covid, but I don't think it makes sense to compare "chance of dying every time you drove a car" with "chance of dying if you catch covid"--basically this is a type error, you're comparing apples and oranges. The proper comparison operand for "every time you drove a car" would be "every time you interact with one or more people in person". Of course, you don't have a 1% chance of dying by covid every time you interact with one or more people in person because each interaction has a relatively low chance of contagion. Moreover, if there's a 1% chance that the average person would die from covid, that doesn't imply that a healthy person (i.e., no co-morbidities) has a 1% chance of dying from covid, so it's perfectly possible that the cohort who are risking covid exposure also have a lower risk of dying from covid than the average person (of course, I'm just responding to your framing of self-preservation--there's a good moral argument that healthy people should also be concerned about their contribution to spreading the virus irrespective of their own risk).
This is an excellent distinction because it denies all-encompassing judgement in the instance where one individual sees another who isn't taking as much precaution ("oh typical anti-masker"; judging others for interacting when you have been self-isolating - but probably not as well as you think).
An obvious example of this is that the CDC numbers on COVID deaths by age. It's blatantly obvious, yet people on here wave their hand and say "1%" as if most HN readers are remotely close to 1% death rate, when it's a community composed of software engineers, a profession that skews young as a whole.
Here's the stats. Bear in mind that the distribution of CASES skews young.
Minor correction: it's actually nearly a 2% chance of dying (1.7%), after Delta became the dominant variant. Folks never really upgraded their talking points but subjectively 2% feels _much_ higher than 1%.
Source? You are claiming that the IFR for COVID doubled between alpha and delta. You also didn't expand upon the numbers. Is the 2% death rate for fully vaccinated, partially vaccinated, unvaccinated? The three groups aren't remotely at the same risk. So which group has a 2% IFR from delta? Which nation released these stats? Where are they? And what about the asymptomatic cases which go undetected and are therefore not present in the denominator? Seroprevalence surveys have always indicated a gross underreporting of cases due to asymptomatics not pursuing tests.
I don't intend to be rude, but what you are stating is a huge deal, and should have been earth-shattering news in the media. A doubling of fatality for a pandemic is not something that fails to make it into talking points when governments across the world are struggling to convince people to get vaccinated.
Additionally, I live in the US state of Colorado. A few days ago, a post on HN's front page showed that Colorado's cases are now 100% omicron. That's not being addressed in your statement. Eventually, omicron will crowd out delta in other places as well.
Even if you're not vaccinated, you're extremely unlikely to have serious consequences unless you're elderly and/or have comorbidities. The infection fatality rate of COVID19 (which can only be estimated) is something like 0.20%. "Long COVID" is extremely rare and severely overstated.
Show your math on 0.2%. This does not appear to hold true for any country I can think of off the top of my head. US and Canada are somewhere around 1.3-1.5% last I checked.
Case Fatality Rate = confirmed deaths / confirmed cases
Infection Fatality Rate = total deaths / total infections
Total infections can only be estimated, and is much higher than confirmed cases because most people who get COVID-19 don't get tested for it (either because they're asymptomatic, unable to get tested, or don't see see a point since they already know they're sick). Thus the infection fatality rate is substantially less than the case fatality rate.
Also worth noting that deaths could be overestimated since anyone who dies having tested COVID positive is counted as a COVID death, and pretty much all patients who enter a hospital these days are tested for COVID.
You are forgetting that there really is not a 1% chance of dying of covid across all risk categories.
The numbers are very clear on this:
There are people who have a 1% or greater risk of dying if they catch it.
Most people do not fall into that category, not even close.
Let's start with the fact that the 1% IFR is calculated using a faulty denominator. Due to the high prevalence of asymptomatic infection, the denominator is far smaller than it should be.
I was the only one in my household to have a single symptom when I caught it in February. My wife and two children did not have any symptoms and would not have been tested if I had not gotten myself tested. Wow this is an anecdote, it is directionally aligned with seroprevalence surveys.
Omicron is even less symptomatic and therefore, we still have a denominator that is far too small.
To put it into perspective, school children at the elementary age are actually at higher risk of death from an influenza infection than they are from a covid one. Obviously this does not apply to children who are immunocompromised or have comorbidities. They are the only age group that has a higher death rate from the influenza than from covid. But it is still notable. We have been sending our kids to schools without masks for decades even in the midst of various influenza epidemics.
Over time populations in the US that are less sensitive to media reporting, especially working class people, have formed their own intuitive risk calculations based on their anecdotal experience. Your average taxi driver has a pretty good understanding of who is at high risk and who isn't. I experienced this in Vegas when a woman driving my taxi stated to me that the people she knew who had died were all old or "really really fat". Her words not mine lol.
The people who are under 50 years of age who round 1% down to zero are more accurate than you are in their assessment. I hope I don't sound rude when I state that but based on the numbers it is accurate.
Some people were in the "willing to take that risk" from the beginning, and were relentlessly demonized. Now it's OK though if everyone feels that way.
I can't help but feel that the state of US politics from 2016 onwards plays a role in this. Many early COVID skeptics who pushed for a more laissez faire style of government intervention were also Trump supporters. After the events on 1/6/2020, Trump supporters were even further entrenched as the nation's new bogeyman, and any views they hold as a collective have been systematically cut down the last several years.
This is further evidenced in the article, in which literally the _very first line_ is a mild dunk on the GOP. Why do Americans do this? Why must literally any policy decision be chiefly looked at through the lens of Red vs. Blue?
This is coming from a Canadian whose frequently frustrated that one can't voice any concerns about COVID policy without being lumped in with a crowd which I otherwise share almost nothing in common with.
Being willing to take on the risk yourself and being willing to inflict it on others aren't the same thing.
If you could drive drunk without risking other people, it'd be more societally acceptable. Similarly, now that vaccination is widely available for at-risk groups, it's a bit more acceptable to take actions that spread the virus that puts those folks at risk.
> Similarly, now that vaccination is widely available for at-risk groups...
It was widely available a year ago. The most at risk groups were the first and most comprehensively vaccinated. What gives? If the conditions for re-opening were met a year ago why were we wearing masks outdoors and whatnot this whole time? Comments like these seem like little more than mental gymnastics to justify having held an opinion that didn't age well w.r.t. the various degrees of covid measures we've endured.
Edit: Fine then, call it 6mo. Regardless, I'd be very interested to see someone provide in a "better than just saving face" quality defense of why businesses have been at reduced capacity, government services have been limited in their accessibility, etc, etc. beyond the point at which the vulnerable were vaccinated and why we're continuing to have this debate. I know information was less great then but we have it now. How do people oppose re-opening wholesale-ish. I foresee nursing homes keeping some precautions but the DMV, using covid as an excuse for why I can't register a car at a certain service location, being masked at outdoor venues, come on.
Who makes the decision that covid is over and no one has to wear masks any more? There's no central authority here. Business and government offices are closed not because of any mandate, but because people don't feel safe going there. Rightly or wrongly.
You're acting like there's someone who can just declare a national preoccupation to be over. As always, your problem isn't the government. It's that the majority of your fellow citizens do not agree with you.
Well, they demonized for doing so on the back of the current medical system, which was very close to being completely overwhelmed. Omicron has made this the case again, though what changed in the meantime was the messaging after the vaccine. It was true that while you were immunized you could take these risk, but Omicron changed that and the messaging didn't change.
In the first year of the pandemic, the people you're talking about were okay with the personal risk, which is fine, but also ignoring, downplaying, or refusing to care about the risk to others who couldn't protect themselves. Which is less okay in my opinion.
But now, the vast majority of people still at risk have chosen not to protect themselves. So vaccinated individuals choosing to live life normally are increasing the chances the virus spreads, but not increasing the risk of serious injury or death to the defenseless and vulnerable.
It was never just a personal risk, so yes, those people were rightly scolded. Now that there are effective vaccines (and effective treatments here now/coming soon), it is more like a personal risk.
Taking the risk to spread it after two years of the virus not going away is questionable; taking the same risk at the beginning when nobody had any idea how bad it could become is pure lunacy.
I think the big question is whether deaths were front loaded. IE, in future waves, far fewer people will die, because people most predisposed to death had already died. This is my guess, but it's decidedly non-scientific.
Yes it's sort of like the alarming scourge of preventable automotive deaths, except that it's over 10 times worse. Also like slipping and falling, but about 20 times worse.
I am confident permanent paralysis is up there if not worse than long COVID. My argument is that you cannot just put a blanket statement of which one is worse by looking at a single metric. Also, people are still performing a calculated risk, wether the risk is greater or smaller.
But very few people injured in car accidents are permanently paralyzed.
There are only 17k people per year who receive any kind of spinal cord injury, from all sources, not just cars.
That means you could even count all spinal injuries as a death!! If every person with a spinal injury somehow just died, it would still be a smaller problem than COVID deaths.
COVID would still be 7 or 8 times worse than these theoretically extra-deadly roads. Even if Long COVID didn't exist, the deaths alone would blow it out of the water.
"Vaxxed and done" is a strange label for this sentiment:
"For more than a year, I did everything that public-health authorities told me to do. I wore masks. I canceled vacations. I made sacrifices. I got vaccinated. I got boosted. I’m happy to get boosted again."
I was expecting the article to be about people who, like me, are vaxxed and boosted and not really interested in getting more shots for this every six months perpetually.
Covid is no longer an emergency. It's been two years.
It's time for the executives and individual teachers to stand down and work within the intent of the laws as they are on the books. If the legislatures didn't pass the right laws, then too bad, and people may die.
But anything else is tyranny of the executive. And if we don't take the power back from them now, they will never give it up later. It may already be too late.
It's interesting that COVID and vaccines for it are treated so much differently than others. Does the average person on the street know which variants of influenza are currently circulating? Do they have a preference for manufacturer of their influenza vaccine? Do they know what type their influenza vaccine is? Probably not. But suddenly everyone cares deeply about all of these things for COVID.
To me it's simple: I ask my doctor what I should do and then I do it.
I get where you’re coming from, but I think that the obvious difference is that regardless of the severity of the current covid variant in vaccinated people, the flu hasn’t upended every bit of life as we know it for a 2+ year period any time in recent memory.
I know a fully vaccinated person (2x pfizer vaccine) in NYC who's also received 2x boosters and is NOT immunocompromised and has legitimately tested positive for covid three separate times.
I'm vaccinated with a booster and I'm starting to loose sight of the point.
That said, cases are skyrocketing and hospitalizations (most of which are unvaccinated people) have only slightly increased.
I've already given up two years of my life, that's about enough.
Covid is now endemic. I have yet to see any expert analysis to contradict this. Endemic means that your probability of catching the virus eventually is 1. Covid restrictions at this point are a joke. I'm vaxxed and done.
I'm not an angry conspiracy theory guy but the government gave me the idea that we could beat corona if we just got everyone vaxxed and follow guidelines.
Two years and 3 jabs later it's still SNAFU.
At some point you get demoralised. And I know it isn't anyone's fault which somehow makes it worse.
The Alex Jones supporters at least have someone to hate.
> - What is the average level of risk to someone taking reasonable personal precautions?
Depends on how full hospitals get. We all get into accidents. We fall and hit our heads, we might get a heart attack, a pregnancy might suddenly go bad and a C-section (or worse surgery) is needed.
As COVID19 fills up hospitals around the country, the risk isn't from Omicron itself anymore, as much as it is from an overburdened health care system.
--------
The big example was the Montana train derailment last summer. It was difficult (but possible) to get all of the injured to an appropriate hospital, many being forced to go to hospitals hours away because the nearby hospitals were full of COVID19 patients. But this new wave of Omicron is even worse than the summer of 2021 by any measurement.
> - What level of state-sponsored violence is justifiable to further reduce that risk?
While the health care system of the USA is technically a free market, with a mix of for-profit hospitals (and charity / religious hospitals, and a few state-sponsored ones for groups like veterans)... people expect hospitals / health care systems to be functional.
Since the state is ultimately responsible for the health care of its local population (whether they want to be responsible or not), its important to take actions needed to keep our hospital open.
The state will pull in the national guard, they will call in Navy hospital ships, they will declare emergencies to help. From that perspective, asking everyone else to get vaccinated or booster-vaccinated is just more of the same, its another action to minimize hospitalizations. Forced vaccinations are far more effective than national guard in this situation.
> Governments and societies have been acting out-of-control and it needs to stop.
I know someone who went to work while testing positive for COVID19. The amount of apathy and callousness the "individual" has in this situation knows no bounds.
"Individualism" is now selfishness. Its more important to save a few hours of PTO / leave rather than protect your fellow customers or coworkers from the disease.
People have lost their goddamn minds over this. They ignore the hospitalization stats, they ignore the overflowing morgues. They focus on selfish self-centered action rather than community.
How many of the COVID-19 patients currently in hospitals really need to be there, and how many would be triaged out if more urgent cases presented? If a hospital has bed space, why would they not admit a COVID patient? It's money, and they are a business for the most part that wants to maximize revenue.
Hospitals in my area have cut 20% of surgeries (ie: triaged out care to make room for COVID19). The governor has deployed National Guard to the hospitals to help out with tasks.
Are you just blind to the issues happening right now? This is happening, this is happening now. Take off your blindfolds and talk to a damn nurse or doctor. This is happening all over the place as far as the eye can see.
---------
Just call up your local-clinic and ask them for a flu-shot. Stand in line for 4-hours for things _COMPLETELY_ unrelated to COVID19, and come back and tell me that its fake. Go ask the receptionist "why is the line so long", and they'll tell you: COVID19.
I know because I done it. (Well, not for a flu-shot but for a TDAP. Nearly the same thing)
yeah, but... you know... of course they're prioritizing all the COVID patients first, before anyone else, because they get more money from the government for 'COVID' patients!
/s
That was an actual exchange I had with someone a few weeks ago with this same scenario. They'd gone from 'it's all faked' to "well, yeah, there may be people there now, and they're taking resources from non-covid patients, but the govt wants it that way, that's why they pay hospital more for covid patients! they're incentivizing people getting covid!"
I don't think it makes any sense at all, but interactions like these are more signs to me that it's harder to have meaningful interactions 'across the divide' these days.
> Just call up your local-clinic and ask them for a flu-shot. Stand in line for 4-hours for things _COMPLETELY_ unrelated to COVID19, and come back and tell me that its fake.
Note that this varies by where you are. Locally, there is no health care crunch: it's easy to get a flu shot or other vaccine with no wait, and ICUs still have capacity despite a huge increase in cases. We're probably screwed in a few weeks since there's only about a 60% vaccination rate here and the most recent surge didn't start until maybe two weeks ago.
A good way to address your point would be to compare the situation to Canada.
In the province of Quebec, where we have a highly vaccinated population, the intensive care units (ICUs) in all hospitals will be full within two weeks, if the rate of transmission and hospitalization continue this way. Demand greatly outstrips supply.
In Canada, the financial incentives for hospitalization and discharge are very different. Physicians get paid by a complex mix of hourly pay in addition to a fee-for-service schedule, both paid by the government. Hospitals get paid by the type of patient they admit, and their length of stay, but not always in a straightforward way.
In Canada, because of the remuneration system, physicians are the most influential decision-makers in deciding who gets to use the ICU. Roughly, no one doesn't get admitted "because they can't pay", and no one gets admitted "because they have money" .
Since hospitals are overwhelmed in Quebec, physician's incentive would be to discharge patients rather than admit. Their hourly wage wouldn't rise if they got more patients. Indeed, there is some evidence that as ICU capacity drops, physicians start discharging patients from the ICU earlier.
I should be fair to physicians in Quebec: their behaviour reflects a deep concern about the public health emergency rather than their financial gain.
I believe that, in Canada, all hospitalized patients in the ICU really need to be there.
Source: I have been studying hospitalizations due to COVID-19 illness in Quebec, Canada, and providing forecasts to the local government since the start of the pandemic.
"Triaged out" doesn't mean "doesn't need to be here". It just means "less likely to die tonight if not in ICU", if it is at the point where you are talking about "triage".
> But if the system is still crashing under load in five years? Ten years? At what point is it my fault?
The Maryland hospital system can support a bit over 10,000 hospitalizations. Over 3000 of those hospitalizations are COVID19 right now, and our cases continue to grow exponentially.
----------
Our hospital systems don't _normally_ get hit with 3000+ cases of a singular disease. Compared to other parts of the country, we have more hospital space, nurses and more, and we're still feeling stressed from all of this.
You _cant_ have enough hospital space during a pandemic. You just can't. The disease grows too fast, you get hit with way more cases than you've ever seen in the past 10, 20, 30, 50, 100 years. It doesn't make sense to design a system with 100-years worth of slack. It makes more sense to ask the public to do actions to cut back on hospitalizations during these rare 1-in-a-hundred-year situations.
OK, so now people are framed as fighting against history. What does that change?
Everything is just as controversial and the issues are the same.
Jacobson v. Massachusetts said the solution to compulsory vaccination is democratically repealing policy and law. This is exactly what these people want and are fighting for
> OK, so now people are framed as fighting against history. What does that change?
Are you complaining that I'm using rhetorical techniques against you? The smallpox and 1918 flu pandemics from 100 years ago are guidance for what is going on today.
We can look at how our grandfathers solved the issue in their time, and compare-and-contrast with what worked today. As you mentioned, it was controversial back then. Both you and I have arguments we can borrow from them.
---------
How about instead of arguing against history, you actually take those arguments and use them for yourself? Or perhaps you recognize that the arguments said 100+ years ago weren't actually that strong or powerful.
> Jacobson v. Massachusetts said the solution to compulsory vaccination is democratically repealing policy and law. This is exactly what these people want and are fighting for
Cool.
Now explain how you'd get rid of smallpox in the early 1900s.
> It seemed like you felt including that case precedent somehow reframed the discussion. I don't see that it adds anything
You're welcome to add whatever you think adds to the discussion.
Or do you just sit around and counterpunch in discussions, never actually contributing directly? There's a reason why sitting around and just countering arguments is called the "fallacy fallacy" / "Argument from fallacy".
--------
I bring up smallpox and "Jacobson v. Massachusetts" for a few reasons.
1. We defeated smallpox. It took decades, but it was soundly defeated.
2. Legally, there's a strong set of arguments that prove that these measures are constitutional.
3. There were big controversies in the early 1900s over these arguments, and we can replay those arguments again if you so desire. In effect, we know that the state's right to protect our health care system trumps the individual's choice on whether-or-not to get the vaccine.
> - What level of state-sponsored violence is justifiable to further reduce that risk?
This is the line I'm responding to.
------
You know damn well that libertarians do this bullshit when playing with "use of force" language in these discussion.
A fine is "government use of force" to a libertarian. I'd rather not get stuck in the weeds over such details. But you're trying to pin me from the other side, and I don't appreciate it.
Also, chances are we’re going to exit this pandemic (whenever that happens) with a severely reduced medical system. We’re burning through medical personnel at an unsustainable rate, and we’re all going to suffer a diminished level of care until replacements can be retrained and hired.
News flash: hospitals are businesses, and like all businesses, they are most profitable when running at close to capacity, therefore they're at close to capacity most of the time because staffing is sized accordingly.
You imply that running any enterprise (public or private) at near capacity is a bad thing, but in fact it's an economic necessity. You also imply that making these public enterprises would make it possible to run them at less than near capacity, but it's pretty clear from rationing in, e.g., the UK, that this is not so. The reason public health care is run at near capacity is the same as private healthcare: wasting resources is silly.
Yes, I referred to profit, because profit is what "not wasting resources" translates to for the capitalist, but the real underlying moving force is economic and real regardless of ideology.
We largely imply that Denmark's hospitals are more efficient than US hospitals. In terms of cost, in terms of how much they can handle, in terms of number of COVID19 cases, etc. etc.
Even if we cut down to highly-developed parts of the USA, such as New York vs Denmark specifically (rather than including all of the lesser-developed rural areas which puts the US at a disadvantage), we're clearly not as good at health care as Denmark.
Efficient or not, they must run at close to capacity. The comment I was replying to said "Depends on how full hospitals get", and, my response is that they're always close to full, and that is true regardless of whether they are public or private institutions. Please don't interject points that are not on-topic.
Let's do the same with every other risky behaviour then. Smokers, drug addicts, overweight people, people doing lots of outdoor sport, people who don't wear the appropriate personal protection at work,...
I believe that is how car insurance works is it not? And yes there are different tiers of insurance for those who need to cover more things and those who cover fewer things. If the feedback mechanisms are completely detached from your premiums then you'd have no incentive to actually improve anything.
From what I understand most of the insurance covering COVID regardless of deductibles was a voluntary thing, and some have started billing for unvaccinated hospitalizations (within the constraints of the plans of course).
> If people don't want to take personal precautions, they should be at liberty to assume the additional risk.
I agree, the problem is no one is making them assume the risk. If they truly assumed the risk of not getting vaccinated, one of a few things would happen:
1. The risk of not getting vaccinated would be priced into their health insurance premiums and their costs would skyrocket.
2. If they require hospitalization, they should be turned away at the door if there is insufficient capacity. Alternatively, they can be hospitalized but discharged the minute their presence begins to strain resources. They could even be refused assistance generally.
3. If I can suggest that my infection came from person X (e.g. I was around them when they had the virus), then they should be liable for damages.
None of those things will happen, because people don't want to assume the risk that comes with their choices, they want to offload it onto other people. They want to be able to not be vaccinated then scream for help when they get in trouble and have the healthcare system ride to the rescue.
> - What is the average level of risk to someone taking reasonable personal precautions?
How much risk to others is acceptable? Even though someone who follows reasonable personal precautions, but decided not to vaccinate and, therefore, has a higher risk of being a carrier and infect someone else who also followed reasonable precautions but cannot vaccinate for medical reasons. That second person now faces a 3% risk of dying a horrible death. Even if the second person is fully vaccinated, the chances of dying are non-zero, and increased because another person decided not to be vaccinated.
If we could contact-trace perfectly, would it be fair to charge person A with reckless endangerment, because person A didn't take all available measures to prevent further deaths? If person B dies because of person A, should we call it manslaughter?
>If people don't want to take personal precautions, they should be at liberty to assume the additional risk.
I agree to a point. If their personal choices endanger others, then it's less about their liberties and more about how their choices impact others negatively.
Another part of the problem is more human in nature. People are tired of others crying about their own freedoms in regards to vax, but declaring other's freedoms are their choice as well. You know the political party I'm speaking of.
> What level of state-sponsored violence is justifiable to further reduce that risk?
@oauea:
> What violence?
torstenvl was specifically referring to state vaccine "mandates". Any state mandate must be enforced through violence or it has no effect.
Lest you believe that state mandates do not require violence, consider what happens if people refuse the vaccine. You can order them to get daily tests, but what if they refuse that? Eventually physical force (violence) will be required.
> Any state mandate must be enforced through violence or it has no effect.
I don't see how that is really true. The state can, for example, refuse to provide you services if you're not vaccinated. If you're not allowed to enter a government building while unvaccinated without a justification, so as not to endanger the civil servants in that building, I'd hardly call that "violence".
Getting people fired from their jobs because they didn't want the vax is a form of state power. State power is ultimately backed up with police and prisons, where violence by them on you is legal.
I'm in this group. It's not that I desperately want to go on a vacation or back to a normal life, whatever that is, but that the governments around the world have demonstrated total cluelessness on how to fix the problem. And I am even OK with that! Nobody knows and it's ok. But at least show some form of a plan and stick to it. Instead we have just a ton of interest groups each pulling in their own direction. So we have lockdowns, maybe something is gained from it, but then everything opens up, we need to save restaurants etc. and then of course we need another lockdown and so on. We're not accomplishing anything, that we have a new worse variant every nine months is proof of that. So yeah, I got my booster, I wear a mask, test when meeting larger groups of people (and others do too), but obsessing about it all day does not accomplish anything.
Most vaccination opposition I've encountered in my personal life fits squarely in the venn overlap of personal fiat and political posturing. It's now fashionable to be anti-vax, whether because it demonstrates your disdain for the government or a particular political party. More than once I've had family members insist that vaccination, or mask-wearing, or any kind of caution, was merely a "personal choice" before themselves getting sick and infecting someone else who became gravely ill because of it.
Any talk of our cultural schism over the remedial responses to the epidemic which does not include discussion of political leadership and propaganda is itself seriously flawed and misleading. Nobody gave a crap about flu vaccines. We all know why this is different.
For those who think the addition of boosters is odd or suspicious, I suggest looking at the vaccine schedules published by the CDC. Not for Covid, but for the dozen or so vaccines most of us have already had. There is a lot of variety in how different vaccines are scheduled and multiple boosters are very common.
I, personally, find it amazing that so many people were willing to sacrifice nearly two years of their quality-of-life to fight a virus that wouldn't hurt most of them. I know everyone is doom and gloom about covid, but I'm actually pretty impressed with how much the typical person (outside of political manipulation and coercion) was willing to sacrifice for others.
If you had asked me in early 2020 how long it was possible to keep this up, I'd have guessed 6 months or so. Lament all you want that people are dropping their vigilance, or about how effective any of it actually was, but I'm generally pretty impressed with how far the "common man" was willing to go.
> so many people were willing to sacrifice nearly two years of their quality-of-life
This always smacks of hyperbole. How much quality of life was sacrificed, really? It's not like we had to all go dig trenches or something. We just had to stop going to brunch.
Man the privilege required to say what you just wrote is amazing. Not everybody works some cushy work from home tech job. Many people had their life’s work destroyed, their career ripped from them, they got to watch the education system fuck over their kids.
Maybe all you lost was brunch, but these last years cost many people a lot.
It’s almost insulting to just brush off what we did the last two year as something minor.
The parent commenter that I was replying to was talking about:
"people [who] were willing to sacrifice [..] their quality-of-life"
Not people who got fucked over as collateral damage by the pandemic. But people who sacrificed. A sacrifice is "giving up something highly valued for the sake of something else", and it's something you "give", not something someone takes against your will.
The essential workers who sacrificed were and are heroes. First responders, nurses, doctors, teachers, grocery store clerks, vaccine scientists. The people keeping us alive. They deserve our respect and admiration for their sacrifice.
But the parent commenter says they sacrificed their "quality of life". That's something very vague. It's not necessarily their livelihood, or apartment, or life. "Quality of life" could mean nearly anything that makes you happy.
There's a whole bunch of people who are not essential workers who think that what they sacrificed is just as important, and those people's "quality of life sacrifice" were leisure activities like brunch. Or, like the parents who just don't want to deal with their kids, "sacrificed their kid's education" (even though no kid's education is destroyed by a year or two of sitting inside). Probably a majority of the population complaining about their quality of life are these people, and that's who I'm referring to.
I wonder if sociologists can explain the americans obsession with politics in everything. This is not normal, there seems to be something exceptional about how it is normalized to discuss natural phenomena with political lingo
Because anything with two sides can be advantageously leveraged if it correlates with political alignment. An apolitical question is an opportunity to create and align a political question.
Why would you have empathy for them? They have fought the vaccines for close to a year now and if they haven't gotten it they probably have a pretty good reason. Shouldn't the vaccine protect vaxxed people from everyone?? I seriously do not understand vaxxed people who care about other people's vaccination status, especially when those people aren't their elderly friends and family.
I don’t think you need to lack empathy or patience to desire a return to normalcy with an understanding that if someone decides not to protect themselves they may experience negative consequences.
We all have our choices and risk tolerances, people can make their decision and move on with their lives. I don’t stay off roads just because some people might not be wearing seatbelts.
> I’m prepared to treat this like I’ve treated the flu: by basically not worrying about it and living my life normally.
I wish I could feel this way! I actually have little to fear from the initial covid infection and, if covid were 'just like' the flu, I would go back to my old patterns.
Unfortunately, I know people in higher-risk categories (my parents included) for whom a covid infection would be significantly worse than the flu (though likely not fatal) and the research on 'long covid' is both developing and scary[1]. We aren't sure about the risk factors yet, which means it's hard to estimate how careful to be[2].
Ultimately we will all, individually, need to make decisions about when things seem 'safe enough.' I don't begrudge people making their own decisions, as long as they behave in a way that allows me to continue to make my own decisions.
I'm continually astonished that discussion of the vaccines seems to continue as if we can't plainly see that they are totally ineffective at preventing infection and transmission, and that the virus is a very minor threat for non-elderly, healthy people. It's as if some people are living in a parallel universe where vaccinated people are not getting infected, and other people are still dropping dead on subway platforms in viral videos.
i think i'm done with current level vaccines. I've had 3 mrna. The second and third each took me out for 2 days. I don't see any reason for more unless a better one comes out. I do think 3 are important though.
I'm the exact same as parent comment. For me, I was a bit pressured into getting the booster. I also thought it was 3 and done, it wasn't clear that it could potentially be recurring. I also thought maybe the reaction wouldn't be as bad as after the 2nd shot, but it was. Also, I've read more about myocarditis and don't really want to keep exposing myself to that risk.
Is having your heart hurt a normal side effect? A lot of anecdotes mention it as a symptom. How many of them actually go to get diagnosed?
I actually believed we'd be able to go back to having normal mask free existence with 3. As of now that's not proven to be the case so I'll continue to wear an N95 as I have family to protect. Hope it will burn itself out and my under 5 child and older family can have a better idea of the risks in time.
My favorite part is where the referenced document doesn't say that. It literally shows that a third shot of Pfizer-Biontech is still 90+% effective against the Delta variant after 10+ weeks. And close to 50% against Omicron after 10+ weeks. The only significance of 10 weeks is that was where their data ended, because boosters haven't been generally available that long.
I'd definitely consider 50% efficacy against the most prevalent variant
(by far) after 10 weeks to be "waning".
That might change if we ever get a booster targeted toward Omicron specifically, but we don't have one, and by the time we do, I'm sure there will be other variants around.
From the linked article, the vaccine effectiveness of 10 weeks factoid you mentioned is a bit incomplete. It only talks about effectiveness against symptomatic infections. The effectiveness is dropped to about 40% around 10 weeks for people with AstraZeneca and then Pfizer or Moderna booster, or Pfizer and then Pfizer booster, and to about 70% around 9 weeks for people with Pfizer and then Moderna booster.
There was insufficient data to estimate the effectiveness against severe disease.
Yeah, after contracting COVID in January 2021, and now 3 shots (including a booster), I'm just tired of the whole thing. If I'm not immune "enough" after all that, so be it.
I’ve gotten my flu shot yearly for my entire living memory. I don’t really understand why a booster vaccine for a pandemic that’s killed an order of magnitude more people than the flu does per year is some serious burden.
My second shot made me feel more ill than I have any other time in the last half decade or so aside from a bout with dengue. It’s likely I’ve also had COVID within that stretch and it barely registered (had a slightly sore throat for a few days after confirmed exposure).
I’ve also had the flu shot most every year, even though I really have never been seriously ill from the flu, because it’s an easy preventative measure without side effects. If the booster for COVID regularly makes me more sick than the disease it protects against that’s definitely a burden, a rather large one. Just because it’s killed vulnerable people doesn’t mean the calculus for me or others with strong immune systems is the same.
Flu shot never made me more than uncomfortable for a day. Second shot of Moderna took me out of commission for 5 days. 2 of them being with 38C fever. I am done with the these shots. Did not get booster but did get Omicron over the holidays, it was like a weak cold that dragged on for a few extra days.
If you didn't get sick from it (current formulation or perhaps new ones in future), would you just take it and move on?
Known downtime of a day or two (and not feeling well) is, to me, still a tradeoff to make compared to the potential of being intubated in an ICU. Each Pfizer shot I've had I've had somewhere of 8-18 hours of being really knocked out, usually starting around 24 hours after injection. I usually have milder (but some) reaction to flu vaccine each year (usually up to 8 hours of fatigue/headache/etc) within a day or so.
> compared to the potential of being intubated in an ICU.
Comments like this are only intelligible if one considers the probability of each outcome.
Deterministically (probability 1) getting unpleasant vaccine side effects vs. deterministically ending up intubated in an ICU? Sure, give me a booster every month. But that's not actually the relevant calculus -- your probability of ending up in an ICU is already extremely low after two shots.
if I didn't get sick or there was a new one that's better of course I would take it. I think t-cells are still robust long term so I'm safe from severe disease. That's what I've read so far in the news but I'll keep monitoring.
Because there's no evidence more boosters have any efficacy. And there are side-effects, despite people trying to downplay them. My SO had a legit allergic reaction to an mRNA vaccine...
"no evidence". The first round of boosters have shown strong efficacy. Why would a second round of boosters not have any efficacy? It seems that you've chosen the wrong null hypothesis.
Show a study, any study (and not just a news article that links to another article claiming 'studies' show blah) where they reduce the risk of serious infection or transmission versus only 2 doses.
Simply pumping up antibodies for a couple weeks isn't the same as efficacy.
First off, I need to point out that you are committing the logical fallacy of selective rigor. An increase in neutralizing antibodies is not the same as a clinical trial proving efficacy, but I'm pretty sure that increases in neutralizing antibodies STRONGLY correlate with vaccine efficacy, across different diseases. So you've already called out your own bias.
So, here is a pre-print that does show real-world effectiveness (as opposed to efficacy). https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.11.15.21266341v... And of course I know that you will apply your selective rigor by pointing out that it is a pre-print. But less-biased people will realize that science can only work so quickly.
The lethality of influenza is grossly overexagerated to sell vaccines. This started in the 90s when pharma realized there was an untapped market of aging Americans they could scare into creating demand for their product.
"The current crop of Covid vaccines" all of which are engineered based on the original variant. Ignorance like this has contributed to the virus mutating, and obviously the newer variants have increased fitness against whatever immune response the original one provokes - otherwise it wouldn't exist.
If you look at the history of vaccinations against other diseases like measles, mumps, rubella, polio, smallpox, etc. you won't see untying like what we're seeing now - those were all able to be largely or completely eradicated.
What we appear to have with COVID-19 is akin to influenza - endemic, will never be eradicated, and thus it will mutate regularly and require new vaccines/boosters. Given that, people understandably want to treat it like the flu and get back to normal life.
> Ignorance like this has contributed to the virus mutating
Ignorance contributes nothing to the virus - it doesn't care if you have knowledge or not. This virus was going to mutate faster than we could produce vaccine no matter what we did.
It's always been understood that antibodies wane over time. That's why other cells in our bodies 'remember' viral infections and essentially are primed to create antibodies again when infected (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2550-z)
From what I've seen so far the antibodies don't really last long enough. I'll rely on long term t-cell protection. At least that's what I think so far.
the reasoning is 3 provides robust long term immunity due to the several month gap between 2 and 3. While 4 won't add much benefit except to boost antibody count for a short while.
We've been convincing people to get vaccinated so they can restart normal life again. It is no surprise that lots of people are getting frustrated if the promise has not been delivered and there is no end in sight. Particularly, when they themselves are low-risk or already had mild COVID in the past.
I've never had a problem with the COVID restrictions or vaccines. They're almost comically benign. There are so much more horrible things that people are forced to go through every day in this country; people who are homeless, who get abused, who don't have enough to eat, who risk getting shot or stabbed just walking through their neighborhood, who don't have access to transportation, education, jobs. Or those who juggle multiple jobs, childcare, eldercare, relationships, going paycheck to paycheck. I am incredibly lucky to be healthy and safe with a steady job.
To imagine that I can save a human life just by getting a shot, putting some cloth on my face, and standing 6 feet away from people, is amazing. Happy to do it. When I'm old I'll be grateful if today's children do the same for me.
Why are we still debating this bullsh1t? This current global crisis has stopped being a healthcare one for a year now [I frankly would say almost 2 years now because until ~april-may 2020 any statement about the virus would have been hard to verify].
Its really weird how the "its just a flu, lol" crowd is totally okay with flu vaccines yearly but having more than 3 vaccines against a thing that has killed millions of people is JUST TOO MUCH. CAN'T HAVE THIS.
It's amazing how many can't see overshoot when they're in. Even more amazing that they don't realize that those who are the loudest in overshoot tend to end up being those most effected by the blowback that results. Funny enough, one of those is going to end up being Donald Trump, who is still trying very hard to cast himself as the savior of the pandemic. Of course he will be mostly isolated from the consequences other than having his dream of a 2024 comeback dashed. It's going to be hard on those with lesser resources to ameliorate the storm they find themselves in.
I've vaxxed and boosted and will continue to get boosted as often as is recommended. I follow the local regulations, which in NYC mainly involve masking up and showing a vax proof for indoor activities like dining, concerts, and riding the NYC subway. I'm not stopping my life though. I've travelled internationally in the past few months, both to see family and sight-see. Seems like not a bad compromise. The one thing I don't as much is masking up outdoors, which is more common now in NYC than it was a month ago. I'd say 70% of people are doing that in Lower Manhattan.
I am vaxxed and boosted. Everyone I know in my very Republican rural county got the new wave of Omicron in the last ten days, including me. No one got seriously ill. My symptoms were barely detectable.
I am done with Covid, I did my part to stop prevention. At this point, it is damaging children to keep them locked up. People should live their lives as normal. People who are vulnerable are welcome to take precautions for themselves if they wish. I am returning to life as normal and recommend all of you do the same if you don't have a risk factor.
The author missed one point about the 'vaxxed and done'... some actively WANT the virus to spread at this point. If everyone is going to get it, then there is an argument to be made to just "get it over with". There are valid reasons to wait (hospital concerns, availability of Paxlovid), but there are also valid reasons to want this done now. The cost of waiting is high. The US is only expected to have 10m courses of Paxlovid by June. For a population of 330M, this means less than 1 in 30 people would even have access to it.
The problem is that "being done" or "being over it" doesn't matter. The virus doesn't care how we feel. There are still consequences for catching the virus, even if vaxxed. There are consequences for spreading it, since vaccination rates in many places are low and unvaxxed end up in the ICU and tie up resources.
You, being over it and not isolating or being cautious, could mean someone's Stage IV cancer surgery is cancelled. It's not what people want to hear, but it's the truth.
It's a really hard position that we find ourselves in. In the beginning when we believed that there was a chance of containing Covid-19, many people I knew(myself included) thought that we would finish with this pandemic within a year. Due to a variety of reasons including poor over all handling of the pandemic by world governments, people refusing to wear masks or respect social distancing guidelines, or to get vaccines, that path was closed to us. We are now two years into this, and for people like me who are vaccinated and boosted... Who have spent the entire pandemic following guidelines, avoiding social gatherings, watching others flout the rules... Getting Omnicron and riding it out at home for supposed "super immunity" is looking pretty attractive. I'm exhausted from dealing with the pandemic, everyone is. My heart hurts for the people who can't get the vaccine and want to, but my sympathy is running low for folks who have simply refused. I experience shame when I catch myself thinking, "We can't let this run our lives forever!", knowing that it was the rallying cry of people early on in the pandemic who refused to cooperate with CDC recommendations.
I very rarely share personal anecdotes involving my family, but here goes:
I have been watching my mother care for my grandmother whom is in hospice care for about a year now. My grandmother was already sickly enough that they chose not to get her vaccinated when the vaccine came out. This in part because my grandmother has a bad enough grasp on reality at this point that she becomes confused when she leaves her house and my mother is trying to avoid her having a panic attack and possibly hurting herself or straining her already damaged heart. My grandmother is housebound and mostly bed bound, and my mother mostly works at home and takes care of her. In the beginning my mother wasn't letting people into the house to see grandma, but my mother thought that there would be time for the pandemic to pass for my grandmother to see her other family members before she passed. Now grandma's health is declining and there is a growing sense of urgency. My mother is distraught... Does she let grandma pass without seeing her family members again(Really more for the family members than grandma at this point, but maybe not in my mother's mind), or does she risk bringing covid into the house and ending grandma's life potentially a bit prematurely and frankly awfully? My mother is caught in the very non-enviable decision between quality of life and length of life... For her own mother. I know this is a decision that many families have to make for their loved ones, but in the midst of a global pandemic when so many have lost their lives it feels even sadder somehow.
I think I can tell how this will be received, but here it goes.
I'm vaccinated, not boosted. I consider myself "vaxxed and done" because, based on the data we are seeing, I don't believe it makes sense for me as an individual to become more vaccinated. People should have the choice to take it based on their own needs. As with pretty much every one-size-fits-all health program to come from the federal government, to me it's pretty clear that applying the same logic to SARS-CoV-2 is a not-so-good move in the long term. The fact that federal mandates and several boosters are on the table does the opposite of convincing me that I should continue to be a part of this science experiment.
People against these vaccines or those who had one and aren't getting any more might very well be wrong, but their reasons aren't necessarily stupid. You may not agree with my current stance, but am I stupid or crazy?
Having had COVID twice (once before the vaccine and once after) as a young person who is fit, works out, eats healthy, and has survived without even being able to tell the difference between this particular disease and a bad cold, I can't distinguish a benefit to more vaccines for myself or for others around me. If I can still spread the disease during the vaccine's full potency, and the virus is here to stay, and others can choose to keep taking vaccines, and I spend the vast majority of time isolated at home, and I get antibodies from catching the disease, and I regularly take greater risks with my life than I have from COVID as an individual, then I really just can't see the point.
What's worse is I really struggle to recognize the authority of those whom are still, nearly 2 years later, insisting on masks and vaccines and social distancing. Putting effort into vaccinating very young children and prioritizing that over vaccinating other parts of the world makes little sense to me, at least in relation to the narrative that this is a virus we can control. Is it great that we have these mRNA treatments? Absolutely. Is taking them indefinitely, using them on people who don't have a great need for them, and continuing this whole mask and distancing thing reasonable and sensible? I don't see the sense in it.
The fact that every indoor establishment, in my experience, forces you to act like the virus is only a danger until you sit down 15 feet from the entrance tells me a lot. Once you sit down at a table, then being maskless is a-ok even if you haven't gotten your food yet. It tells me that a large swath of the public either doesn't truly believe in the danger. It tells me that we are doing irrational things, and irrationality rarely occurs in isolation.
People should do what they think is important. If you're elderly, the vaccine is probably right for you. Now that we've lived in a pandemic for what seems like forever now, the intellectual insult in having absurdities thrown in my face is worse than the virus has been to me. So no, I don't plan on getting a booster, and I've moved on with my life. If SARS-CoV-2 is here to stay as another seasonal endemic disease, then it's really time to settle down with the panicking and allow it to develop into effectively any of the other coronaviruses that are already endemic. We are fortunate that's even a possibility that seems to be proving out.
This is why I got the vaccine. I'm personally not afraid of COVID.
But the healthcare system shutting down to the point where we have patients dying in the hallways? That scares me.
Too many kids who want to become lawyers or software developers instead of doctors and nurses.
With an ageing population that's not good.
I got both doses of Pfizer as soon as I could last year. But until a more severe (than Omicron) variant arrives, I’m not planning to get a booster.
That calculus may be different for others and I totally understand. In fact, I encouraged my parents and grandparents to get the booster as soon as they could.
Its time to move on. Everyone has had a chance to get vaccinated and boosted that is at high risk (under 5s are not at high risk). We can't live in our houses forever.
Said another way, the mental health issues with being stuck in our houses are much more severe than COVID-19 at this point.
I am curious if those (especially posting here aligning with this position) would change their minds if a more deadly variant were to arise, if the vaccines available evolved to better match the strains by probability, or otherwise.
I'm somewhat concerned by this notion that eventually everyone will get the Omicron variant. I personally do not have any family members, friends, neighbors, coworkers, etc. that have gotten any form of Covid (that I know of), much less died. We've all continued to wear masks and social distance and have gotten vaccinated. None of us has even had a little cold in 2 years! I hope that "everyone will eventually get the Omicron variant" is not true.
my guess for a while has been that covid is endemic at this point and will be "a thing to live with" like the flu, where it would be in the best interest of everyone if they stayed home, got vaccinated every year (or as necessary), etc. - but is now a "personal responsibility" or however you would like to frame it
It feels like a lot of the replies here are dubious and I suspect a large number of them are from antivaxxers who are trying to amplify a message of, "See, even people that got the vaccine are sick and tired of it. They're with us even though we don't agree with them"
I am vaxxed and done. I was told by doctors and by government officials, that vaccine will make me immune to virus indefinitely, and I do believe that. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar and antivaxxer for me.
I enjoy such balanced pieces and I think in times of hugely divisive topics like with COVID we need more of them! My big thanks and compliments to the author.
> We have no idea what the effects of Omicron on long COVID will be, but evidence of lingering symptoms should make us wary of just letting tens of millions of people get needlessly infected.
That... reads a little bit like what your typical hypochondriacs say. We have lingering symptoms of other illnesses as well (like bronchi-pneumonia).
Mathematically speaking, all hypochondriacs are technically correct, but the same applies for many other things that people just don't think about. There is no such thing as "zero percent risk".
In the end it's all about (a) the risk % and (b) whether that % is acceptable but alas, I don't think humanity will soon agree on actual numbers related to COVID. That's the crux and the core of the entire segregation issue.
It boils down to: if COVID truly kills 3% of people then that's horrifying; but if it kills 0.03% then why bother at all?
---
I sympathize a little more with the "vaxxed and done" group. Endlessly worrying about risks that get smaller and smaller as herd immunity is nearing completion does not seem to be worth shutting down society for (if the risk is indeed getting smaller but random bits and pieces of news make me think this is the case). And we're also likely mortally wounding the economy so much that the kids whose physical health we are so worried about right now will have to deal with our mess and suffer severe mental health problems for decades (maybe a next Great Depression even?). I think that's a worthy discussion to have.
---
"We need to keep the measures for the kids"
I hear you but I don't think people will ever arrive at an universal consensus on this topic. Even if the lockdowns last forever a lot of cultures around the world will still not change. E.g. where I live kids having a scratchy cough merits a pat on the head and insistence of drinking hot tea with lemon and honey and a few pills, and the matter is considered done (and 99% of the time it really actually is done).
On the other end of the spectrum we have parents that give me murderous looks if I sneeze in the mall at a 5m distance from their kid. Sorry but it gets a little absurd at this point. I get it, you get over-protective when you are a parent but you should also abide by the society you live in. If you are that worried then maybe don't live in the city? I definitely have not gone out just to murder your kid so maybe loosen up a little. We're all in this together.
---
Many things in this world carry some risk and we just accept it and don't think about it. And I literally mean thousands such things. As COVID starts looking like a minor threat more and more with time (also illustrated by the "flurona" thing lately; it almost sounds like some medical professionals are ready to call COVID "a flu"?) we have to start asking ourselves if we aren't perpetuating extreme measures for a dwindling threat.
Continuous reassessment and readjusting is key. Maybe it's time to take a hard long honest look on how things are today. As a starting point, many doctors are saying that Omicron is more infectious but that a lot of their patients barely feel it.
IMO we shouldn't get distracted by segregation and point fingers at each other. That solved absolutely nothing so far and it's not realistic to expect it to change in the future.
Let's work on getting some actual numbers and see what we should do next?
This chart has helped me understand how public-health entities could explain future interventions.
The major issue it illustrates is the choices of the voluntarily unvaccinated can affect everyone by clogging hospital availability for everyone. Targeted interventions can reduce this impact.
This is, notably imho, different from attempting to protect medically at-risk people who cannot be vaccinated.
Mackay says that, whether or not we want this outcome, the world is making public-policy choices that will lead to humans living alongside endemic SARS-CoV-2 forever.
He says the turning point will come when there is no longer a number to put on the wall:
> And at some point soon, testing levels will drop as the public realise there is little point in queueing and getting swabbed or paying for rapid antigen tests (RAT) when there are few conditions in place to do anything with those results. Slowly those who are sick “enough” or need evidence that they are infected will get tested. Fever clinics and drive through testing will slow down and pack away. We will know only very approximately how many cases are in the community from at that point. This is a significant shift from the super intense scrutiny of case numbers we’ve had in Australia. Then the media will also stop caring as much.
While he's writing about Australia, and I think writing in the context of a public-health expert who is dispirited by seeing a case explosion accompany the lifting of restrictions, his point resonates -- my feeling is that the pandemic will be "over" in the US when nytimes.com no longer has the little sparklines with covid case counts.
Mackay suggests that the shift to endemic illness means some people who are currently being protected will die:
> Even with a great vaccine, there will be those with waning immunity. There will be new birth cohorts with no immunity. There will be those who don’t get vaccinated. There will be those with immune systems that don’t work as well as needed. There will be some with risk factors that may override the protection afforded by vaccine immunity, subjecting them to a baseline of worse outcomes. Together these people will likely see more severe COVID-19. This is a tale that can also be told about other infectious diseases. There is always a proportion we can’t protect.
He highlights post-covid conditions as the remaining wild card. What fraction of people who are infected and recover will have long-term health impacts? Will we have to adjust society to accommodate those people?
I also thought his "Swiss cheese" diagram ( https://virologydownunder.com/the-swiss-cheese-infographic-t... ) did a good job of communicating why classrooms should have 5-6 air changes per hour of MERV13 filtered or outdoor air and how that fits in with other ways of reducing all sorts of respiratory illness (even beyond covid).
I can understand why people feel this way, and in the UK this is also somewhat prevalent. In part, it stems from the poor messaging on COVID risks (at the individual and population level) and control measures we have available. In short, the UK media are somewhat pushing "COVID is over" at the same time as "the only tool is lockdown, and we can't do that again". These two factors, I suspect, mean that people are encouraged by the vaccination-heavy strategy we're pursuing.
Children are one group for whom this strategy may be problematic, and is a more significant issue in the UK than US right now given that only 12+ are eligible. This review discusses some of the arguments around this topic: https://adc.bmj.com/content/early/2021/11/01/archdischild-20...
In addition to the health risk/benefit to the individual, there is also the societal cost to lost productivity. This is where keeping low COVID prevalence may be worth pursuing on a solely economic basis through low-invasiveness NPIs.
Of course, there's also the risk of escape variants, and that's just simple maths. As vaccine-only strategies do not keep R(eff) < 1, there is reasonable potential for escape variants like Omicron to surface. Though I am not an expert, I am personally sceptical of arguments that suggest the evolution pathways of a virus are constrained to low virulence.
In general, I think the UK is talking about living with COVID, but really means "ignoring COVID". There is room for making accommodations to our lives that keeps COVID incidence lower than present, and these are for the most part quite easy to do. Unfortunately, our vaccine-only policy & poor mask messaging has really damaged the public's appreciation for a multi-faceted public-health approach. The UK is currently enjoying far fewer restrictions than in the early waves, and life is for the most part "back to normal". However, high incidence rates after Christmas are leading to people adjusting behaviour despite few restrictions. Anecdotally, I would not visit the pubs that I went to in October/November because COVID incidence is ~7%.
It feels to me as though western countries have forgotten that the rest of the world is in the throes of the pandemic, and ignoring this fact isn't going to help us in the long run. Despite the fact that we're all tired of this pandemic, keeping on top of things doesn't have to be draconian, and will be in our best interests whilst the majority of the world are unvaccinated.
- One of Biden's major election point was combating Covid and curbing infections.
- This has largely been a catastrophic failure. More Americans have died from Covid under Biden than under Trump (not that it matters)
So, the left media will now begin a year long campaign down playing domestic covid severity, and make sure that Covid will NOT be a major talking point for the 2022 elections.
Edit: republican will 100% pull a "i-told-you-so" move in their campaign trails. I'm Canadian and our government (even conservative learning province/state government) is still using the partial lockdown as a mean to curb infection, it's very very obviously NOT working.
What will be really interesting is just how the medical community is so detached from the political community. I understand you shouldn't bring politics into science, but you also can't blind yourself and optimize for only one metric.. everything is a trade-off.
If you hear nothing else I say tonight, hear this: Anyone who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain President of the United States." Joe Biden
And his predecessor did not have the vaccines available to combat deaths. So they are in a tough spot to be sure. The only thing they can do now is to downplay and reframe:
"The overwhelming number of deaths, over 75% percent, occurred in people who had at least four comorbidities, so really these are people who were unwell to begin with." CDC Director Rochelle Walensky
It’s amazing how much of what is being said was something that got you banned, ridiculed and yelled at by people… almost like the skeptics were right all along…
> So, the left media will now begin a year long campaign down playing domestic covid severity, and make sure that Covid will NOT be a major talking point for the 2022 elections.
Good luck with that. When the CDC decreased the isolation time to five days, all the talk was about how they were corrupted by capitalism.
As someone who was painted hard with the "science denier / conspiracy theorist" brush for my objections to mandates, it's a very deep level of schadenfreude to see the very same people devolve into conspiracy theories of their own that put them at odds with "the science".
The government has created a dangerous foil for the "anti-vaxxers" -- people who are terrified to leave their bubble of presumed safety. Perhaps we can come up with a pejorative term for them... "Pro-hypochondriacs"?
> More Americans have died from Covid under Biden than under Trump (not that it matters)
It matters enough to write it, and it struck me as weird so I looked it up. Kind of hard to put the numbers together, but it seems we're at 830k[0] deaths now; 350k were in 2020[1] (though most cases started being reported in April) which is indeed less than half of current total. I also looked up Jan. 2021, curious if it changed anything in a meaningful way and there were 77k through Jan. 26[2]; it puts the total deaths at roughly 50/50 between presidents, though one presided over ~9 months of deaths and the other over 12.
I guess that means the rate of deaths is slowing down, but not by much.
> What will be really interesting is just how the medical community is so detached from the political community.
Regretfully, I don't think this is actually true anymore. I can only speak for the US. Maybe it was never true, but we're just now seeing it. The health insurance industry is heavily political, lots of money is spent drafting business friendly regulation. The pharma industry has an incestuous relation with the regulatory bodies that are supposed to keep it in check. So, it's note exactly red vs blue politics, but in my mind, there is a degree of green politics, and the actual politicians are simply clamoring for scraps of political capital during the crisis, while big pharma and unelected bureaucrats are spending tax payer dollars and controlling the medical community.
> This has largely been a catastrophic failure. More Americans have died from Covid under Biden than under Trump (not that it matters)
True, but Trump only dealt with Covid for about 9 months at most, and that was starting from 0 cases in February, meanwhile Biden has dealt with it for 13 months at this point, and also took office in the middle of the major winter wave, and then the Delta wave in mid 2021, and now the Omicron wave at the end of 2021, which were much more infectious and mostly affected those that could not or refused to be vaccinated (once vaccines were widely available in April at least).
Biden didn't create those waves, by the way. This is a global problem, and judging by how the US got the variant spikes after most of the rest of the world did, likely didn't originate here. He could have been like China or Australia and enforced hard indefinite lockdowns, but it was clear after the one Trump agreed to a partial two-week lockdown that the US public wouldn't even comply to that, so good luck Biden imposing any future lockdowns.
Yes, the majority of people were vaccinated in 2021, but I'd argue a good chunk of those same people (waves hi) were self-isolating as much as possible until they got vaccinated anyway and were much less likely to be included in the deaths of 2020 anyway.
Biden definitely could have done a better job managing Covid (ordered increased home tests made and ship them to citizens before Omicron became a thing, for one idea), but there's a good amount of the population that wouldn't have listened to him no matter what measures he tried to push.
I also disagree with you that Democrats are going to downplay covid (the media might, but it sounds like it's just to force people to go back to work and kids to stay in school because they're too afraid of the economy getting worse).
About the only thing Biden can point to as something good he's done, is the vaccine rollout, so if they downplay it they don't have much to go on.
But I agree it won't matter in the long run because the Democrats are going to lose the midterms, big time, and probably the presidency in 2024.
Biden has indirectly blamed all COVID deaths during the Trump administration on Trump, so it's fair to blame Biden for COVID deaths during his administration on him, too. Biden has had office for longer, but the vaccine has also been available for about that long, too.
I don't even blame Trump for all the Covid deaths that happened during the Trump administration. There were a bunch of factors involved, and state governments and the attitudes of US citizens had a lot to do with it as well.
Trump made several colossal fuckups, especially when it came to his public communications, but he made some good decisions as well (letting the early shelter-in-place orders happen, stimulus checks, freezing student loans, pushing the vaccine program, etc).
All I'm saying is that of course Biden would have had higher deaths while he was in office than Trump, unless he managed to convince ~95%+ of the public to get vaccinated right away, which was never going to happen, and unless the whole world got Covid-19 under control in about the same time period as Trump was in office while the pandemic was in the US, and if there were no other more infectious variants that happened during that time.
Well, the vaccine rollout was planned under Trump and execution was in full force when Biden took office (1 million jabs a day).
Biden didn't really do much after he took office, other than annoy people with inconsistent communication, federal over-reach and always singling "the others" as the root of all evil - which made them more reluctant to anything he proposed.
Trump had to scale out testing, respirators, PPE, the vaccines etc. 2020 looked much more busy than 2021, and then we got Omicron and we're completely unprepared.
I am vaxxed and boosted, but I don't want to be forced to get a shot every 6 months.
I'm trying to figure out why it took so long for the emergency OSHA mandate to become an emergency mandate. If it was so important to protect people at work then this mandate should have been figured out 9 months ago and already have been in front of the Supreme Court. One has to have realized that any such mandate would be challenged and have quite a delay before it could be ruled on in the courts and possibly put into effect.
Does a comment like this actually contribute to anything? I don't want to be mean, but this is a comment that would probably be more appropriate on Reddit or 4chan.
That said, a fatalistic viewpoint is valid enough philosophy, but I am still in the camp of "even if I don't like them very much, the unvaccinated are still humans and we should still try and minimize how many of them get sick."
NOTE: I'm vaccinated and boosted, and wouldn't have a problem getting another booster if the WHO or CDC recommends it.
It's short and curt, but it seems to present some good ideas that can be discussed. If COVID is endemic, then it seems mostly pointless to continue COVID restrictions indefinitely. I've never bought the "we need COVID restrictions to protect unvaccinated people" argument - being vaccinated should protect them enough, and unvaccinated people (who won't be following restrictions) present a much greater threat to each other.
I think the parent comment is relevant to the extent that controlling spread is a consensus problem.
E.g., if I knew that a variant will be endemic unless 90% of a community follows certain practices, but 40% state they won't comply, that matters. If nothing else, it makes it seem pointless for me to bother wearing a mask for others' protection.
It's not a fatalistic viewpoint and it does contribute. This disease will always be with us and the sooner we find a way to return to semi-normalcy rahter than osciallting around every time a new variant with different properties shows up, the better.
It really didn't. It reads like something I'd see in a JPG compressed meme you'd see on /r/forwardsFromGrandma.
Are you saying that we shouldn't do anything if we see a new variant?
> This disease will always be with us
That sounds fatalistic to me, at least with the more colloquial use of the word.
To be clear, I don't necessarily think you're wrong. It's a valid viewpoint, and I think it's not unreasonable to say "the sooner we find a way to return to semi-normalcy rahter than osciallting around every time a new variant with different properties shows up, the better."
It contributes in the sense that we comment here to manipulate the opinions of others, and at this point, the best and most important message to communicate is "this isn't going away no matter how much we science it, so we better start planning for the endemic nature".
As for fatalism about a virus- I grew up during HIV/AIDS. It's still here (I went into biology and got a PhD and almost became a professor to work on anti-HIV drugs). Is it fatalistic for us to assume HIV will be with us even though we know how to completely abolish transmission, but people still do things that lead to transmission?
best to be realistic about the future and plan for it than hope vaccines are going to magically solve problems for us.
> As for fatalism about a virus- I grew up during HIV/AIDS. It's still here (I went into biology and got a PhD and almost became a professor to work on anti-HIV drugs). Is it fatalistic for us to assume HIV will be with us even though we know how to completely abolish transmission, but people still do things that lead to transmission?
I don't know anything about the specifics of HIV so I cannot speak to it, but we have eradicated one virus completely (barring some frozen samples in labs): smallpox.
Obviously it's an apples to orange comparison since smallpox isn't nearly as transmissible as COVID, but my point is that I'm sure that there were people in 1900 that said "we will never get rid of smallpox".
yes, that's true, we have eliminated smallpox. I don't think that's in any way some sort of evidence that vaccines are generally successful at eliminating diseases.
I think what we've seen is that there is likely no chance that even 100% vaccination would have permanently eliminated the disease, and total lockdowns aren't super-effective either, given their heavy societal costs.
10 minutes to get it, anywhere from 0 days to a week to get over the side effects. Source: personal experience. If the calculation changes from “one and done” to “do this every few months on a schedule”, I’m leaning towards taking my chances with the virus. I’ll reconsider if there’s a newer, broad spectrum vaccine available though.
If you are one of the lucky few that doesn’t get unpleasant side effects for 24-48 hours afterwords, this may be true.
I am not, and anecdotally nobody close to me is either. It’s not a pleasant experience that I want to repeat ad infinitum. Particularly if it’s not even going to stop the current C19 variation.
Bullshit, I spent hours trying to get an appointment for a booster, just like I spent hours last spring trying to find a vaccination appointment (which was 90 minutes away). And I lost a day to the 2nd shot, and another day to the booster, as both wiped me out for 24 hours.
You might have a point if I could have walked in to any pharmacy, knowing that I could get a walk-in vaccination. But that hasn't been the case in Redmond, WA. So while you say "non-event", I say "what a pain in the ass (and arm) that was".
So many commentators who say, "Your suffering is an indication that the vaccine worked!" or "That's the exception that proves, the rule! Look at this science!" when people raise concerns with the objectivity of our scientific institutions themselves. I am having a hard time distinguishing between these people and the thousands of CPP affiliated commenters that come on every YouTube video related to Chinese propaganda and policy. Here's a much better quote for this situation:
"Who are you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" - Groucho Marx
Yep, this hits the nail on the head. I've got my shots, and now I'm firmly in the "let it rip" camp. Omicron is the endgame as far as I'm concerned.
The point of all the onerous COVID rules and vaccine mandates was to prevent the spread, right? Keep pressure on the hospitals down? It didn't work. In the US anyways, COVID is, and has been, everywhere. Masks? Useless. Student/teacher/daycare exclusions for exposure? Useless. Vaccines? I think worthwhile, but in the face of Omicron, also basically useless.
More and more people are realizing they will be exposed to COVID during their life. It's not an if, but a when. I knew this the minute it became a pandemic, but others had some idiotic "we can beat this virus" mentality, promulgated mainly by the (left-leaning) media.
Well guess what? The only thing that would have made one bit of a difference (besides the vaccines) was bolstering the healthcare system. But the current administration in the US has done nothing of the sort. Time to let it buck, let the cards fall where they may.
If you think this is bad, wait until there is a recombinant variant that is a mix of Delta and Omicron. They are already calling it deltacron.
-
Frankly, I don't know how much more the collective psychological fabric can withstand. So many are well-past their breaking point.
-
Sending positive thoughts to all of you that we can continue to survive and persevere.
-
Many of us don't have the option to just stop (as much as I'd like to). I've got a wife and two kids to provide for. My asthmatic mom just caught Covid. I'm past burnt out but I'm just showing up until I can't even do that anymore. I'd consider myself a pretty tough person normally but this thing has just broken me. I can't imagine how others are coping.
-
Meanwhile I'm left thinking, how can we go on like this? How can I help others?
"deltacron" is pure memery just like "flurona" was a few days ago. something that comes and goes in the news cycle, people consume the fear porn, then a day or two passes and everyone's forgotten about it and moved onto the next thing while the fear instilled remains. I haven't kept up with this stuff because the whole thing is a joke at this point but a day or two ago when "deltacron" was announced, it was already being announced before the day's end that whoops it was a mistake... but it could still be coming!!
As a parent of a young kid it kind of feels like everyone has just moved on. I know folks in here will tell me that statistically speaking my children are unlikely to be hospitalized and so on, and I agree. But I know enough kids who got COVID and suffered the symptoms (e.g. a months-long scratchy cough) that I'm not going to stop worrying about it. We're still very unclear on the long-term effects of COVID, after all.
Couple that to daycare/preschool shutdowns: if there's a case in the class we've got to keep our kids at home for a week. We both work. We can deal with it, lord knows we've had to do it enough times already, but it's absolutely draining. And the stress of waiting/expecting the phone call from the school is always there, particularly in this Omicron phase where it feels like everyone and their dog is contracting it. And this comes from two parents that work from home. We're the luckiest of the lot!
Pfizer has already announced their trial with under 5s was not successful and they'll have to restart. Moderna was supposed to close out a trial in late November but instead expanded it to hundreds of new participants. Why? Unclear. Last I saw no-one seems to be covering it in detail. Out of sight, out of mind.