Anti-vaccination: Is it right?
Anti-vaccination sentiment (as it relates to COVID19) is tied to suspicions about the origins of the disease and the profitability of vaccines, as well as fears about it's safety.
But now that the Astra-Zeneca vaccine is being put on hold, at least one arm if opposition seems to have been vindicated.
What about the notion that the vaccine is a tool for extracting money from the population? How suspicious are you?
But now that the Astra-Zeneca vaccine is being put on hold, at least one arm if opposition seems to have been vindicated.
What about the notion that the vaccine is a tool for extracting money from the population? How suspicious are you?
Comments (1027)
I've come to believe that unless I am personally willing to invest the time and resources necessary to make myself an expert on a given subject then I will, generally, defer to those who have. That doesn't mean I close my mind, or don't have my doubts, or ask questions, but here is how I opt to wear a mask:
I wear a mask for the same reason I wear a gun: Sick people. I did a subjective, unscientific calculation of the odds versus the inconvenience and decided it ain't no thang. Besides, I'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it. I figure if everyone wore a mask and a gun we'd have fewer sick people. It may take a while to get there, but that's how it would shake out in the end. You'd have to be a real pussy to be inconvenienced by a piece of cloth. When I see those without it, I try to give them the benefit of the doubt and just assume they are mentally or physically handicapped.
I also like the cartoon of the little girl saying "Momma, what's that?" To which the mother replies "That's my Small Pox Vaccine scar." The little girl asks "Why don't I have one?" The mother replies "Because it worked."
So look, if Bill Gates wants to chip me, or big pharma wants to milk me, I say give unto Caesar. But, with SSNs and cell phones and biometrics and whatnot, we are all in the data base already. The old Greeks and Socrates (I'm a fan) had a habit of abiding the State when it came down to it. Sure, they'd rock the boat before hand, but when the rubber met the road, they stood up. Good enough for me.
Finally, I think Ronald Regan was full of shit when he opined that government was the problem. I think government can be a problem. But I've seen a lack of government before and it's not pretty.
I don’t think any anti-vaccine sentiment is right. I just believe people shouldn’t be forced to take it or be discriminated against if they do not.
Buy they're just average people. The anti-vaccination thing has been on my mind because I visited with a friend and her relatives informed that the information "is all over the place" that the coronavirus was engineered by Bill Gates and he's making a profit off the vaccine. They say this like it's totally normal to believe this sort of thing.
I started wondering if this has always been true of people: that they're primed to believe conspiracy theories? Maybe I'm the naive one, lol.
Your post was very sensible. Thanks!
I don't think anyone is being discriminated against, are they?
There’s talk of “vaccine passports”, people getting fired for not taking it, and anti-vaccine people are routinely demonized.
I will discriminate against those who do not play ball. I won't violate the law in doing so, and I won't seek to call out, shame or embarrass, but on my property, when I had a business (I just retired), I discriminated against those without masks, and I would do so against those who didn't vax up when they had the chance. I have a rant on something similar, taken from another context:
"Cancel Culture is a non-governmental, private sector, personal, individual, conservative choice. It has been widely practiced in conservative, small, rural, and even tight-knit urban communities since time immemorial. It is called ostracization. It has also been called consequences. It has also been called social engineering. The point here is, if you are going to be an a**hole, you can expect to get treated like one."
Now that last sentence may seem a little harsh in the current context, but the general idea is there. I like it because there is no physical violence and everyone still has their freedom of choice. It's just that, well, . . . It speaks for itself.
I can understand discriminating between sick and healthy, but discriminating against people who do not conform, whether they are healthy or not, doesn’t sit right with me. The same goes for cancel culture, which is little more than the enforcement of thought crime through mob tactics.
I appreciate that. I have to learn to accept this with grace, which is hard for me. I have a habit of aligning with Groucho Marx :"I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member." I've been banned from more discussion forums that I can shake a stick at, because, once I start fitting in, I intentionally fuck it up. I'm sure Freud or some other shrink would have a word for it. But I'm working on turning that around.
Quoting tim wood
It's that whole question of "need" and how one perceives it, I guess. I've rarely ever needed it but it's the reason I'm sill typing.
I used to have a tendency toward that, though I never went off the deep end. I recall a quote from Churchill (I think) who, paraphrasing, said something like "When you are young, you are not concerned about what others think of you. When you are in the middle, you are concerned about what others think of you. When you are old, you realize no one was ever really thinking about you." LOL That quote helped me realize that the plutocracy really doesn't give a shit about me or my money. They are, however, concerned about a physical threat that we might pose to them. That's a good thing, I reckon. Let that be their paranoia.
The vaccine comes from our taxes so I am not suspicious at all. I guess vaccines are important because it prevents us from dying of COVID... I would even reinforce the laws just to provide the right of vaccination to everyone
Oh. So it makes me important to Bill Gates, as opposed to just being nobody. Of course!
Quoting James Riley
They throw us bones to keep things quiet.
You are correct. I agree that is what it is. In my opinion, it's nothing more than the social contract; a contract of adhesion (it's forced on you whether you like it or not, a monopoly on a necessary widget). If a body does not comply, then they can change their ways or continue to suffer. The free market would have them liable for the damages to anyone they infected. But, since they would avail themselves of legal burdens of proof that would let them off the hook, the people come in and say "Our only recourse to protect ourselves from your selfish, inconsiderate, disrespectful choices is to turn our backs on you. If you want to take your ball and go home, then go. We will find another ball and continue playing without you."
I remember seeing a video of a cow elk in Yellowstone, under assault by a pack of wolves. She ran in amongst a group of bison, seeking shelter. I don't know if she thought they would protect her, as fellow herbivores, but that is what I thought. They did not. They literally through her to the wolves. They pushed her down, horned her and tossed her from the group. I don't know what the lesson was in all that, but I try to learn from it anyway.
Bill Gates helped fund the development of the vaccines. I guess that's where the theory comes from.
Yessiree! In a society where the teaming masses are armed to the teeth, it's wise to keep the bread and circuses flowing, lest lady razor get hauled out from storage.
We are not from the same country. My vaccines come from the European Union and it is paid by our taxes not by Bill Gates.
We could put the burden of proof upon them to show they or indeed normal and healthy. But that would be deemed an imposition. We could ask the market to take care of it (demand they insure) but who would insure them? In the end, prohibiting the private sector from exercising their right to ostracize would be an equally scary trend. Hey, if Cletus can't be forced to sell a cake to a gay couple, then how can I be forced to sell a widget, or provide a service to an anti-vaxer? There is no imprisonment, or corporal punishment here. No shoes, no shirt, no service. While I think folks should be able to walk around in public, buck-ass naked, and that would be part of their right to bodily integrity, like not wearing a seat belt or a helmet, society too often pays the price.
Don't forget Dolly Parton!
Cancel culture negates any chance of forgiveness and reform. The ostracized tend to gather at the fringes, where their views and resentment metastasize away from the withering light of free and open debate. It always escalates. Soon we get McCarthyism and the like, ostracism based on rumors, smear campaigns, until it expresses itself in injustice and tyranny. Rather than protect the “social contract”, it violates it, leaving everyone at risk.
I’m of the mind that we must bring these people closer, protect their right to express their opinions, and hopefully change their minds. I think this pertains also to the covid and vaccine sceptics.
Is the money just appearing out of nowhere?
I don't know if the Gates Foundation helped with the Atra Zeneca vaccine. It was partially funded by the US government, though.
So not just your taxes, chief.
Dolly Parton?
I disagree, entirely. I think of some of the indigenous communities where the ostracized were always forgiven, even in advance of the ostracization, as evidenced by the fact they were not simply killed, or subject to corporal or some other punishment. And they were always welcomed back into the fold, when the lesson was the genesis of their reform. Now, of course, there are always those who are petulant, stubborn little children who refuse the "get the point", but Darwin will take care of them.
As to the compounding of stupidity in the safety of a conservative safe-room echo chamber for snow flakes, that is what happens when you allow these people to continue to avail themselves of the benefits of society while still harboring and sharing their anti-social tendencies.
I don't advocate limitations on free speech. But nor do I advocate forcing anyone to associate with assholes.
Quoting NOS4A2
That's what we've been doing for a year. And I agree, is should be done, even before ostracization kicks in, but society doesn't have to wait around for ever. While our society (U.S.) wants to encourage individualism and liberty, it doesn't have to let sick people roam the streets at will.
There is not only Astra Zeneca, there are more vaccines...
She tossed a cool million into the vax development pot. She's a hero, but Bill Gates is the devil.
In the context of this conversation, that could be taken two ways. Are you talking about the individual right to not get a vaccine, or the individual right to not deal with someone who doesn't get the vaccine? As far as I know, no one is violating either.
It's not a matter of "should." It's a function of nature, Darwin, society. Why, just recently I was told that if someone did not abide the rules of chess, there would be no game of chess. One could leave the board, I suppose (that was my argument). They might even find new and better rules. Go for it. But I also think of the lone wolf. As much as we like the idea of them, rarely, rarely, do they find their own territory where they won't be eaten.
And I also want to address your use of the word "pressured." No one is forcing. It's only perceived as pressure if the person want's something they have no right to. The anti-vaxer has no right to receive goods or services from the private sector. Nor does he have a right to have the government step in on his behalf. Driving a car is a privilege, not a right. You can be compelled to get a license if you chose to move that way. Otherwise, you are free to walk.
I am sure RR was full of shit on many subjects, but on this one he was 100% correct. Government is the only institution that has the power to do truly horrific things...aptly demonstrated last century.
Although you need government to rein-in the lunatic fringe, you don't need much more. It's like your significant other, too little/too much [fill in the blank] and it doesn't work.
Stipulating, for the sake of argument, that it is the only institution capable of truly horrific things does not mean it is not capable of truly great things which the private sector cannot do. Indeed, it was government that destroyed the governments that brought the bad things, aptly demonstrated last century. RR was full of shit on the contested point. Wait, check that. I was wrong. Government was the problem for Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, et al. So yeah, I guess you are right. RR was right. I was wrong.
It's not a semantical hair being parsed, nor is it "suggesting." It is an argument that so far stands un-rebutted.
One problem which I see with the vaccine in England is that having had it or not is being planned as a whole basis for reorganisation of life as we know it. Boris Johnson, who initially said it would never be used in this way, is planning to introduce vaccine passports, as a whole basis for allowing people to access cafes, pubs and many aspects of public life.
Many people are in disagreement but I am sure that Boris will force it through. He says that people who have not had the vaccine can show positive tests. However, the whole idea is using vaccine passports on phones is going to set up inequalities and exclusion. For example, not every person has a smartphone, so it may be that certain people are excluded from pubs, cafes and other social places, putting them into indefinite lockdown and isolation. Also, it paves the way for loss of privacy of personal and medical information. So, the vaccine comes with a whole hidden agenda and agenda which goes far beyond Covid_19.
Then you're probably definitely in Bill Gates territory. Unless you're taking the Russian one?
I can't imagine it would be hard to forge one. My local health department was just giving out cards and they let recipients fill them in.
Spain is developing one vaccine but sadly it is slower than the rest because our authorities don’t invest that much as other countries...
How do you put the little "100%" emoji in a post?
I got stabbed April Fools day and they gave me a little card saying it was J&J. I had to fill out the rest. I also did not give them a driver's license or any such ID. I did give them a Colorado Health card, but it really doesn't have any ID on it and I could have picked it up from some else. I thought "Damn! This is a poor way for Bill to slap a brand on his cattle." Maybe they got me with the facial rec coming in? But now that the chip is in me, it's too late too speculate on such things.
I believe that it is going to all be done on phones with scanned in data, and barcoded information, to prevent forgery. One outcome which I can see is a dramatic increase in phone theft.
:100: Click the smiley face on the top right.
Hopefully no one is forcing you to associate with assholes. I would argue, though, that throughout history, the inquisitors were the assholes and those they cancelled were victims. Cancel culture is a lighter form of bullying than the abject cruelty of mob violence, sure, but it is eerily reminiscent. It’s much better to defend human rights for everyone, especially for views we dislike, than to pick and choose who gets them.
Anyways, I don’t want to derail Frank’s thread.
That said, I support businesses and state policies which decline services to, effectively discriminate against, people who refuse to wear masks or do not get vaccinated. Freedoms entail responsibilities and their exercise has consequences. I accept that, and others should stop being infantile hysterics (& entitled whiny bitches) and do likewise. :mask:
No one is forcing me to associate with assholes. Yet I do it all the time every time I step outside and get on the road. It's part of life. Likewise, no one is forcing anyone to get a vaccine. I loose business and money by not engaging with anti-vaxers. They lose my widget or my service. Everyone still has freedom of choice.
Maybe they can patronize anti-vaxers that sell widgets or services like mine? Freedom is a wonderful thing, but it cuts both ways. If Uncle Sugar want to create a passport to aid me in my vetting process, like I said, it is based upon privilege and not right. Now, if government creates a passport to speak, or publish, or carry a gun, then it has ventured into the realm of rights. I've got a real problem with that. Nevertheless, I see it happening. If I were to get upset about anything, it would be the area of rights, not personal decision-making. Rights are not unlimited, I know, but not dealing with an anti-vaxer has not even touched on the area of rights.
There is a world of difference between inquisitors and the freedom to not associate.
Public health has always trumped individual rights since the days of lepers being made outcasts. And when Ebola comes to your neighbourhood, you will be imposing quarantine yourselves at gunpoint or at whatever other point you have available.
Again, how does one insert that "100%" emoji? I agree with you 100%.
Thanks. :100:
I took the Pfizer vaccine in December even though I was a little freaked out by the technology. But I work in ICU, so I had a good reason.
Or you could just lock your door. Why is violence the default mode of thinking?
How many months supplies do you have stored behind that door? and how strong is it? There are going to be some frightened desperate people coming down the road.
That is a good question. I believe the answer is this: Were I to just lock the door and stay inside, I would be the one who's right/freedom to interstate or other travel would have been denied, if only by my lack of courage to go outside and mingle with the sick. Society, in defense of my right to travel, will limit the right of others (the diseased) to travel. Where society fails to step up, and we are all left to our own devices, some carry disease, I carry a gun. Like the zombie apocalypse, we shoot zombies. Zombies have forfeited their right to life.
:mask: :cheer:
I think I had Covid in November of last year. I was with a friend who did test positive.We spent a raucous, drink-sharing, bowl-passing weekend and at the end, while we were lazily recovering, he got a call from a friend who'd tested positive. He (my friend) then went to get a test, and tested positive himself. Figuring the mutual damage was done, we decided he'd quarantine at my apartment instead of going back to his place and putting at risk his roommates He stayed for two weeks, we both got sore and fatigued and coughy, it slowly faded, and at the end everything was normal.
Part of me feels like I don't want to go through the rigamarole (and without insurance too) of getting a vaccine, but I also am synced up with enough people who would probably want me to before hanging out, and I have a wedding coming up in June. Long story short, I just don't know. I'm a strange, marginal person; If i was more in the thick of things, it'd be a no-brainer. Everything is happening so fast, though - I do have a rock-in-my-shoe suspicion of any expedited science. Nothing deeply principled, just a constant discomfort and unease.
I'll probably get it.
It's free.
I don't have much of an excuse then. Probably should have learned that already, but learned now, I'll most probably get it. I think I broadly feel the same way as @180 Proof I'm in a hibernation period and at very little risk for infecting others (I'm not too worried about being infected myself.) I wear a mask when I get groceries, and put one on when I pass people walking. But, I mean, I got that wedding coming up. I guess it's inevitable I'll get vaccinated.
So's syphilis. Without taking a position on the covid vaccine, what kind of reason is that to do anything?
(ps -- Yes I know you were responding to someone who complained that they didn't have insurance to pay for the shot. Just drive-by posting tonight.)
Not the least, not the slightest. It’s an unbearably sinister view, that there’s this cabal of evil millionaire pharmaceutical companies scheming to get rich by pulling the wool over the citizen’s eyes.
Yes, I can acknowledge genuine concerns about vaccine safety in light of the thrombosis issue. But I’d trust the boards and management and scientists at these pharma companies a long while before I trusted conspiracy-mongering internet posters or their lunatic fringe antivaxer cheer squad.
Quoting 180 Proof
They haven’t yet? One thing to consider is that the disease is a lot worse than the prevention, even if the purported adverse reaction statistics are true, i.e. a far higher proportion of total COVID infected persons die from the disease that the proportion of those having adverse reactions to the vaccine. In Europe, when the thrombosis complication was announced, there were something like 15 cases out of tens of millions of doses, whereas there would be thousands of deaths from an equal number of COVID cases.
Correct.
This is from an article arguing against vaccine passports on civil liberties grounds. Worth your time to read, slightly (but not completely) off-topic from the specific focus of this thread. Interesting in light of the fact that numerous colleges and universities are requiring vaccines to return to school. There will be litigation no doubt.
https://thefederalist.com/2021/04/02/vaccine-passports-are-a-serious-threat-to-american-civil-liberties/
Cornell announced today that they're requiring vaccination of all students returning in the fall.
https://www.syracuse.com/coronavirus/2021/04/cornell-university-will-require-students-returning-in-fall-to-have-covid-19-vaccinations.html
:up: Fair enough. I understand that.
This is my position too. But I understand how fear works and there is no doubt that most people would like more time to see how the vaccines pan out.
Where a question is a gift, I feel I should at least acknowledge it, so I say this: When one answers their own question, as you did, a response is not needed.
That leaves me with my own question: Why did a feel I should acknowledge the gift? Perhaps a fellow human, driving around at night, is reaching out?
I don't know, but it is funny that I was just thinking about gifts before I got on and read your drive-by this morning. I was figuring that something need not be given to be perceived as a gift. I had a whole pile of arguments in support of that proposition but since it is a major digression from the OP, I will check myself now and save that for later. Peace.
Too, why stop your accusations/allegations of deplorable conduct at drug companies? What about the economic system that enables profiteering big time? Isn't that the very economic system that you're part of and that facilitates your livelihood? You can't eat your cake and have it too is the most appropriate adage here.
I don't care if pharma makes money on the vaccine. Good for them; people need jobs, pharma creates jobs. I get that. I simply want the right to decline the vaccine. I have done the research and there are tons of red flags popping up. Likely the vaccine won't cause much nasty long term effects, I admit that. However, since we don't know, I can't recommend it to any of my patients. I won't take it myself. The sales pitch math doesn't add up, and the efficacy of the vaccine is highly questionable, again due to methodology of testing and the premise used to determine said efficacy. Lastly, it has been a professional expectation and requirement that I do my own information and research gathering with respect to medication administration prior to administering said medication, for any and all medications I am expected to administer. Know what, know why, know how, know what can go wrong, from sources other than the manufacturer. Peer reviewed articles, etc. Standard operating practice really, and it makes sense; my patient expects me to know something about whatever treatment, medication or otherwise, that I recommend.
Enter the Coronavirus vaccine: Never before has the registering college made it a registration requirement to promote a public health policy. I used to be required to advocate for my patient, each patient, based on their individual needs. Now apparently my patient is...the public health agency. And their position is so weak that it cannot bear scrutiny, and so must mandate the support of registered healthcare workers, rather than simply be robust and allow us to determine that supporting the policy is sound. I have said to my superiors, "rather than tell me how to tell my patients this is a good idea, convince ME that it is a good idea. I will have no difficulty speaking with my patients after that." The collective response amounted to "because". That is a full stop in my book.
This is a fatalistic attitude that neoliberals across the world invested heavily in: the notion that it's just inevitable, it's nature, no other system works, anyone who questions it is a "loony leftist."
I'm not a leftist. Leftists irritate the crap out of me because they're usually stupid, belligerent assholes who don't realize they're exactly like the people they criticize.
Still, I'm questioning this so-called inevitability.
Damn. Thought we was homies, comrade. :mask:
I meant except for you.
do you feel the same about the johnson vaccine which is a more traditional one and I'll admit freaks me out less?
It's not a 'view', it's in black and white in the articles of association for the company. They are incorporated to make money for their shareholders. It's not some tinfoilhat-wearing conspiracy theory that pharmaceutical companies try, above all else, to make as large a profit as they can. What exactly do you suppose would prevent them, should the opportunity arise, from lobbying to have their particular 'solution' be the government approved one? Do you suppose the quarter of a billion dollars the pharmaceuticals spent on government lobbying at the outset of this crisis was just spare cash that they thought they might as well spend despite it being unlikely to work?
As the author of the above paper said "The return on investment on a dollar of lobbying appears much higher than a dollar of R&D". Basically, lobbying hard to get a drug supported by the government yields a higher return than producing a drug that is actually more effective than its rivals.
As yet, yes, but I live deep in a rural backwater, the decision is a different one for me than for others. I'm not particularly concerned about short-term side effects though, I'm fairly healthy with no allergies, I think the chances of me sustaining an adverse reaction are very small indeed. Most vaccines have side-effects so this one is not exceptional in that respect. I should like to have had more information about the effects on vulnerable groups ,but now it would be considered unethical to have large control groups so that's not going to happen.
For me it's more a political position. There are many ways to tackle this crisis. Each with their risks and benefits. For example, whilst I'm not concerned about side-effects myself, I'm not sure that now (with our hospitals at breaking point) is such a good time to give a new medicine to billions of people. Even with normal safety precautions that would likely lead to thousands of adverse reactions, all of which will need hospital treatment, and this particular treatment has not had normal safety precautions.
Regardless of the repective cons, only one of the possible solutions makes a small amount of people an enormous amount of money, I'm not going to stand in line to cheer that fact that our collective governments chose that one above all others.
Are we likely to see investment in ICU capacity after the enormous expense of vaccination? I don't think so. Community healthcare, emerging threat surveillance programs, nursing home staffing, critical care... are any likely to now see the investment they need to protect us against the next covid? Again, I don't think so. But no doubt after only a few million unnecessary deaths the great pharmaceutical companies will come to our rescue again with another short-term [s]get rich quick scheme[/s] solution.
Absolutely. Being anti-vax is a position that vaccination is never the solution in any circumstances . That's not the same as saying that vaccination is not the best solution is some specific given circumstance.
I find, however, that there are no fewer blind pro-vaxers (vaccination is always the solution in all circumstances), as there are blind anti-vaxers (vaccination is never the solution in any circumstances). Reality is, as usual, more complicated than can be captured in polemics.
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines didn't take any short cuts in testing. Three phases, same statistical approach they always use. What more did you want to see? Testing on children? I think they're doing that now.
Hospital CEOs will probably see increased pay.
What statistical approach would that be, and what trail data are you comparing it to?
so what do you think is going on here? Why are you being pressured to do so?
I'll admit I find the conspiracy theories that covid is being manipulated as part of some plot by global elites to enslave us all, as pretty much irrational.
On the other hand, when there is a broad policy approach that curtails liberties and promotes the adoption of a drug only approved on an emergency basis by the FDA, it makes you wonder, if the science is so clear that the virus is not a threat to 99.9% of the population under 50, what exactly is going on here?
If more targeted balanced approaches, like that taken in Sweden, clearly don't seem to obviously result in more adverse virus outcomes then why are all these medical professionals in support of the dominant narrative and dismissive of more balanced approaches?
is it big pharma with such amazing world influence?
As if you could! Do you need to do your own trials?
What information are you missing? A quick search of the net will bring up the relevant data. Perhaps the problem is not the available information but your knife-carrying paranoia.
I've had a look around the research and can see no reason not to, and plenty of reason in favour.
Indeed, there's something timorous about the attitudes demonstrated in this thread. One would have expected more from a group who spend so much time discussing morality. Get it together and take some responsibility for the common good.
Or is it all just talk?
What's trail data? They tested it the same way the always test vaccines. You said it was lacking normal safety precautions.
There are multiple reasons why it seems that most medical professional are supporting the dominant narrative, rather than balanced approaches: Firstly, the threat of losing our employment is real if we speak out against the current sales pitch. (Notice the my name is not featured on my posts). Secondly, not that many are willing to look too hard at the "facts". (We get nervous too, and many, many people will cling to false hope, rather than admit reality). Lastly, which ties into the second point, about false hope, if I tell you the vaccine won't work (I am not saying that, I have no idea) do you want to believe me, or would you rather that I am wrong, that I must be wrong, so you feel better, more secure.
Also, the leaders (?) of the world felt compelled to act last spring, and act fast. So, regardless of the initial science against it, the world went into some version of lockdown, (which was advised against by WHO and a multitude of other advisors) then the world went to general masking, (Which was also advised against by the WHO and a multitude of advisors) and the leaders of the world were clearly seen to be doing something (the fact that there was no actual science to support these decisions was glossed over). Then in April, suddenly the science changed. In Canada this change took place over the weekend: Thursday the Chief medical officer of Canada said essentially "there is no scientific support for lockdowns, border closures, or generalized masking. None of these interventions will help stop the virus, however they will cause severe harm to the economy and the mental health of the populations affected." Our prime minister had a "weekend emergency meeting" with the provincial leaders and Chief medical officers...Tuesday the same chief medical officer said "Lockdowns, border closures, and general masking will provide an effective control of the virus; the science is there." I call bullshit. Science doesn't change that fast. Political pressure moves that fast though. The WHO changed it's tune as well, doing a complete 180 on it's previous stance; thereby backing all the governments that had already made these changes based on needing to be seen to do something.
So I put it out there: Does anyone think that, if the lockdowns and border closures and masking were a mistake, any government would admit that mistake? Not a chance in hell. Way easier to motivate the leaders of a few key areas to support the changes than to own the catastrophe.
Of course, rather than all this conspiracy bumf, it just could be that the 'dominant narrative' is roughly right...
Yeah, I know, that's not going to fit in with the need to post crap on the web, nor with whatever paranoid fantasies one might entertain.
But it is the simplest explanation.
I don't want to do my own study. That is ridiculous. However, I did research the methodology used to determine the efficacy of the first three vaccines. Questionable is the kindest term I am willing to use. I have spent approximately 100 hours doing lit research on coronavirus vaccines, recent and more distant, nothing really reassuring came up. I have researched mask usage, again, nothing reassuring came up. Physical distancing as well, that one has actual value and real data to support it, so yay, 1 out of three so far. Lockdowns, nothing to support. Border closure, still nothing. So 1 out of 5 with real data to support it. No way could I run my practice with that poor of a track record.
Few people want to hear what I have to say. Most react on par with you. Which is fine, we all have our own positions and thoughts. Interestingly though, I am not name calling anyone on the other side, or calling them down. Hell I am not even saying I am right. I am presenting an alternative, and pointing out why, potentially, it could be the correct version of events. The emotional level of the responses to my theory, frankly, adds strength to it. If I said the response to Covid was brought about by beagles I would be ignored, that I have not been is highly suggestive that people believe me, and that makes them nervous.
"there are none so blind as those who will not see"
The beauty of conspiracy theories is that they require no evidence and the more malicious and ridiculous the motive you can concoct, the more followers you get.
To the OP, yes, anti-vax is wrong. The tapering of covid related deaths hasn't happened because covid got tired of being a dick, but because science stopped it.
This puts me in mind of the various threads on Wittgenstein's response to scepticism; it's not at all unreasonable to doubt this or that, but it is quite unreasonable to doubt everything.
You are suggesting that something sinister happened to the Canadian Chief medical officers such that a meeting with the PM obliged them to change their advice. Now we might enter into a discussion of that particular circumstance, and iron out the pros and cons of a con having occurred.
But it's not just that one incident, is it - your narrative is that there is a widespread conspiracy, only apparent to yourself after having spent 100 hrs (not all that long, really) in browsing the web...
my own reading of publishers - including, for example, ABC News, the Conversation, the Lancet, Nature - has provided me with nothing that would cast a general doubt on the 'dominant narrative'.
It's reasonable to question the motives of the Chief medical officers; it's not reasonable to mix this with scepticism towards all the many government, corporate and academic institutions across the entire world who overwhelmingly support he use of vaccine.
Combine this with a disdain I have developed from reading your posts in various other threads across the forums, and I have pretty much no reason to take your opinion seriously.
This post () has the air of martyrdom about it, which is common in psychoceramics.
Astrazeneca vaccine wasn't put on hold because of safety concerns or lack of efficacy, there was just a production error. They mixed up ingredients at the facility. Irregardless its efficacy is lower than Pfizer and Moderna, so if I were you I'd go with one of those.
It's on hold in some European countries due to coagulation issues.
Quoting aporiap
The high efficacy of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines reflects when their testing took place. All the vaccines are highly effective regarding severe illness or death from COVID 19.
I was vaccinated the day before Christmas. I'm in a study looking at how long the antibodies last.
'Irregardless' is incorrect English btw.
EUA is not just a political stamp, it involves rigorous safety, manufacturing, and efficacy standards. The difference is in follow up safety requirement. FDA approval requires safety monitoring for at least 6 months post vaccination, EUA requires at least 2 month post vaccination safety monitoring. Both EUA and FDA approval involve the same efficacy requirement. Pfizer and moderna vaccines, have excellent safety profiles compared to other vaccines per data on thousands of vaccinated individuals. Pfizer just actually finished analyzing their 6 month monitoring results and are planning to apply for full BLA licensure soon. The risk at this point for taking the pfizer vaccine is demonstrably minimal; I figure it will be the same for Modernas given their safety profile in phase III.
It's great you are not in a risk group, your risk of symptomatic illness without vaccine is still higher than with vaccine. It is true masking and distancing reduces your transmission risk, but the risk is still elevated if you were to become symptomatic and in close quarters with family, friends and strangers so in aggregate I'd say it would be a better choice to take the vaccine now with respect to reducing risk.
Thanks I wasn't aware. I've read some more now, and it looks like there was a statement issued on the 18th of March by the EMA safety committee: there is still no causal link between the vaccines and the clots and the frequency of clots in the study population is not more than one would expect in the general population. They still conclude the benefits outweigh the risks.
I still think the concern over one vaccine shouldn't generalize to concern over all. Each one has gone through independent clinical trial process and as I mentioned before the data is very robust for pfizer and moderna.
What do you mean by the bold? Regarding second sentence, that's correct. Pfizer has also demonstrated efficacy against COVID infection [80-90% range].
That's great. That doesn't preclude the existing robust data on safety and efficacy up to 90 days.
Both German and Norwegian scientists have identified a mechanism by which the Astra-Zeneca vaccine triggers an autoimmune response which can be fatal. In Norway 1 in 20,000 had serious side effects attributed to the vaccine.
Quoting aporiap
Just in case you didn't know it's incorrect, like if I unsolicitedly tell you there's spinach in your teeth. I'm being helpful.
Anyway, apparently, early on he was poo-pooing the mask, only to later become a great champion of it. This, the conservative, "hoax" crowd will point to as proof the whole Covid thing is BS. I, however, assume that Fauci was simply looking around and seeing the moronic run on butt-wipe and thinking "Gee, if these knuckle-draggers are going to scoop up all the toilet paper, maybe they'll snag all those N-95s in Home Depot and True Value, when they should better go to Doctors and Nurses. I could tell the truth, and explain it to the public, but they have already demonstrated their inconsiderate, selfish and stupid nature, so maybe it would be more effective for me to down-play the idea that masks will do them any good."
Of course, if true, it came back to haunt him. One should always err on the side brutal honesty when dealing with Americans (or maybe anyone?).
When this is combined with the very nature of the scientific profession, constant changes, and fluctuations, it may be why the "word from on high" keeps changing, and is therefor unsettling for people who need consistency and stability to feel safe. Most folks are not comfortable with uncertainty. I personally have always taken it as a challenge to not be like people. So, while the conservative likes to think he's a rebel, a renegade, an independent thinker, who finally has an opportunity to "defy the man", I roll the other way.
Science may be all over the place, but if you wait to get a consensus, security, safety, then you may get none of that. Roll the dice.
It's possible and was discussed in the March 31st EMA update. We are still talking about a very low risk; in the 11 million AZ vaccinations across Europe assessed by EMA, there were 469 reports, only 26 of which were associated with low platelets [an essential feature of the VIPIT syndrome mediating the mechanism the Norwegian scientists were concerned about]. This risk is still orders of magnitude lower than one's risk of clotting with COVID.
Again, however, there is no worry about this sort of risk for the mRNA vaccines moderna and pfizer. Those vaccines work by different mechanism than the AstraZeneca vaccine. I don't think a worry about one vaccine should generalize to a worry about COVID vaccines generally.
I think it is also reassuring that these concerns are being taken by appropriate regulatory bodies. The hold placed on AZ implies the governments are looking out for the safety interest of their citizens.
I appreciate that, sometimes unsolicited corrections can be interpreted as a slight. I'll take your word on your helpful intention.
I meant trial data. As if that wasn't obvious...
Quoting frank
Right. I've given the data I have in previous threads from reputable journals like the BMJ and STAT. I'm asking you for the data you're basing your view on. What trial data are you using and what 'normal statistical methods' are you comparing them too. I've read, in several places, that special measures have been put in place, specifically, as I've cited twice now, that trials were smaller and more homogeneous than usual and that peer statistical review was shorter and less well staffed than usual. If I'm wrong about that it would be good to know so that I don't keep repeating the same error (errors criticising health narratives are basically conversational suicide), but I'm obviously not just going to take the word of some random internet poster, so I'm asking for your sources.
It's a damning sign of the state of debate about this that I just had to explain that. "What are your sources?" really should not be a confusing request on a topic as technical as this.
I don't know what you might mean by 'false equivalence'.
Quoting tim wood
Really? This is a highly technical subject and the best you can do is a Penn and Teller YouTube clip? Whatever point you're trying to get across it should not be too hard to lay your hands on the source for it. I can't think what's given you the impression that I need my information dumbed down by TV celebrities, and if that's the actual source of your information...
This doesn't make the COVID-19 vaccine 'a tool for extracting money from the population' (as it was described in the OP) - unless the same description is applied to absolutely everything that is sold for profit, in which case it is barely a criticism of the vaccine, so much as of capitalism as a whole.
It literally makes it a tool for extracting money from the population. That may or may not be a bad thing depending on whether that tool happens to be useful. Sometimes its utility is the best way of making money out of a product, other times not. The point is that the company considered the development and sale of it to be profitable. The point of the economic analysis in the paper I cited is that lobbying for a product (regardless of efficacy) is a better return on investment than research to ensure an effective one.
And yes, it's a criticism of capitalism as a whole. Anyone who thinks that private corporations through the mechanisms of a capitalist economy are the go-to method of dealing with a global health crisis have a seriously blinkered view of the role such corporations and economic systems have had in society.
Thank you. Just so long as that is clear. It may be true that capitalism doesn’t have the best way of responding to this crisis, but what alternatives are there. There is no alternative to go to. Besides, what I was calling out was the anti-science undertone of the OP, which God knows had been an enormous impediment to an effective response under the Orange Emperor.
I think you need to read that info a little more closely. Some people developed low platelets, some had thrombosis.
This isn't the kind of thing we just brush aside. If we proceed with the AZ vaccine in some populations, we need to be able to tell people what the risks are and what signs to look for post treatment.
I was genuinely interested in your statement that normal safety measures weren't taken. I remember the articles you cited, so I'm disregarding your comment.
Well, there's socialism...
Seriously. There are, unarguably, a number of factors which help prevent the impact and spread of this, and future, pandemics...
1. The general health of the population - yet no additional action at all is being taken on junk food, excessive sugar and salt, sugary drink advertising, sedentary working conditions, community health and fitness facilities, atmospheric pollutants, overcrowding, poor housing conditions... I could go on.
2. Surveillance programs for emerging diseases - yet funding has been and still is actually cut from these programs.
3. Frontline healthcare - proper ICU care cut deaths from Covid by over 60% in one study, yet we've seen no investment in better ICU care, no promises of such, no talk of more access to care for poorer groups. Nothing.
4. Community healthcare - better geriatric care, more access to hospitals and doctors, better delivery systems. All have been shown to minimise damage from pandemics, yet none have received any further investment at all resulting from this one.
5. Community action (handwasting, social distancing, lockdown measures) - action on these has been better but decidedly half-hearted and too late.
6. Tracing contacts - virtually no efforts at all toward this in either England or America.
7. Mass vaccination - the only option on the list that will make billions for the most powerful industry in the world. Also the only option on the list being pursued with any fervour at all.
In (accidentally, I hope) lumping all anti-vaccine sentiment with the nutjob redneck conspiricist, one would be implying that option 7 just coincidentally happens to be the best approach and the fact that the major beneficiaries of it just happen to be the most powerful lobbying industry in the world is entirely irrelevant to the favouring of such an option.
Obviously that's ridiculous. Which leaves us with the only sensible default being that if an industry spends more than four times as much as it's nearest other industry on lobbying (both governments and institutions), that expenditure is going to result in those governments and institutions favouring options which benefit said industry over those which don't.
I'm afraid I'm quite baffled as to why the pronouncements of the medical industry are taken as such gospel truths. We wouldn't treat the oil industry, or arms manufacturers the same way. If any policy favours either of those we're (quite rightly) immediately deeply suspicious. We suspect lobbying pressure, we suspect insider dealing, we suspect backhanders, share deals etc. The pharmaceutical industry spends four, five times more than either of those on lobbying and yet those same suspicions when levied against them are treated as mad conspiracies.
Edit - "baffled" is rhetorical. I'm not baffled at all. We fear death, the medical industry offers us a way to postpone it, we fear rejecting them.
:up:
From what you're mentioning now, that's a lot of risk being taken compared to vaccinating. It is of course up to you, but from a risk-taking standpoint I'd say it is a better choice to vaccinate in such a situation.
The worrisome mechanism they mention is termed Vaccine induced prothrombic thrombocytopenia. It is counterintuitive, but it is a syndrome characterized simultaneously by low platelets and thrombotic risk. From the EMA article, only 26 cases had thrombotic events with associated low platelets.
I agree about not brushing it aside. It just needs to be taken into context of risk magnitude. To my understanding and as recommended by EMA, the prevalence of these events is very low and not more than one would expect by being a member of the general population and certainly lower than one would expect if actually infected with the virus. Since the frequency of occurrence is known and so low and since the benefits still outweigh the risk per EMA [which takes these and other important safety considerations into account when making such public recommendations], it's still valid to recommend taking the vaccine even as the mechanistic basis of some of these low frequency side effects are being investigated.
... confusing prevalence with risk.
:up:
Quoting aporiap
The people who have died from the syndrome so far probably would have done well with a COVID19 infection. They were young, healthy women.
You're basically saying you're fine with those women sacrificing their lives without even knowing they were taking that risk.
Nope.
It wasn't, by the way. I actually googled "trail data". lol
There was a website about national parks.
Oops! My apologies for my sloppy spell-checking in that case.
It's ok.
Thanks, I'll edit the post
Well I think one would need to look at it from a population perspective, if you took 80 people of that demographic, 40 contracted covid naturally and 40 vaccinated - from the data now you would expect there to be more thrombotic complications in the COVID group than the vaccinated group. The clotting prevalence is low in non-ICU admitted COVID adults, ~5% for clotting events in veins and ~1% for clotting events in arteries. But this is still significantly higher than the prevalence we are talking about for these VIPIT events. There may be increased risk, but the prevalence is still very low and not higher than one would expect from natural COVID infection.
Sure, go for it if that's your decision; you have good odds for not getting severe form of infection. I appreciate your masking and distancing.
Despite sharing many of your health considerations, and there being no local cases, I had the AstraZeneca yesterday. I was simply not willing to increase risk to those around me.
I find your approach puzzling.
So you're saying these women were more likely to die of this weird syndrome without the vaccine than with.
I don't have the figures in front of me, but I don't believe that. Why do you believe it?
Which would be a rational fear. There have been numerous cases reported in America of individuals who have spurned medical advice or refused vaccination re COVID and have died as a consequence.
I've seen a lot of COVID patients throw clots into the lungs, heart, and brain. I've never seen one do that with thrombocytopenia.
In fact I've never seen a case of prothrombic thrombocytopenia. Have you?
Yes those are more common, but systemic coagulopathy involving lower platelets is associated with COVID. The coagulopathic state most associated with COVID is very similar to DIC but characterized by milder thrombocytopenia and elevated D-Dimer and Fibrinogen. D-dimer is a breakdown product of clots, fibrinogen is a component of clots. You can read more about it here: https://www.hematology.org/covid-19/covid-19-and-coagulopathy
I think it's pretty clear that the patients who died from the vaccine didn't go into a DIC-like state. If your point is that COVID19 is related to coagulation issues of a different etiology, then, yes, sure.
I'll leave it at this:. for some reason you're making an assumption about the safety of the AZ vaccine that is truly not supported by data. Your approach to this issue is of a kind that undermines the confidence we'd like to see in the population.
I've just been going by EMA's conclusions thus far after their review of evidence obtained on over 11 million AZ vaccinations in the EU. They conclude benefits of vaccination still outweigh risk considering this and other metrics they utilize in determining public health recommendations; the last public statement was the 31st. These recommendations are made on best available evidence, and so far are still standing. They are still investigating the causal link between vaccinations and these events, but as mentioned before because the prevalence of these thrombotic events is so low, it is unlikely to change their recommendation.
:up: I have a feeling the prevalence numbers will rise now that we know about the link. AZ is probably re-analyzing their data with the link in mind.
Going forward, they could at least explain who is at greatest risk for this kind of reaction and how to identify the signs of it so people who have it will go ahead and get life-saving treatment.
EMA's new statement. They hit at your worries and explain who seems to be at risk - women under 60. As previously, the prevalence is extremely low and according to evidence, benefits still outweigh the risk.
--. CNN
The UK is advising people under 30 to use a different vaccine. Plus they're making sure everyone knows the signs of this syndrome
I'm going with the UK over the EMU over this.
^I agree on this, AZ is also not as effective as some of the other vaccines.
They're having to make a really tough decision in a short amount of time with limited data. If 1/million people die from this vaccine (which happens to be the risk associated with the small pox vaccine), then we know that when we vaccinate 300 million people, 300 will die. In the midst of rising death tolls from a pandemic, that makes sense. As soon as the pandemic ends, though, we'll have to stop the AZ vaccine and reassess. It might still be safe for people over 60, but not under.
I think the AZ vaccine is effective enough at reducing the risk if severe illness or death. That's what's important. Whether it actually limits the spread of the disease is still unknown.
I am surprised to hear that you are waiting. The FDA will approve the vaccine. At this point it is a matter of bureaucracy rather than safety or efficacy, which have been amply demonstrated.
You've chosen masks over the vaccine, which probably wasn't the best choice. The science on the effectiveness of masking isn't great, especially with the variations in types of masks and the consistency of compliance. The science of the vaccine is very strong, and there is no good reason not to get vaccinated other than general distrust of government. I think it's good to be skeptical of government sometimes, just not this time. In fact, in this instance, it's a maladaptive protective instinct that was forged under very different circumstances.
Whether it makes sense to have waited for the FDA seal of approval can be debated, but since it's right around the corner it's not worth the debate. Whether you vaccinate because of the science, the FDA, or whatever, doing the right thing is the right thing, regardless of reason. It's the right for any reason standard.
Why would you think that?
Quoting Hanover
So do you have a source for your assertion with more authority that the CDC's own advisor on immunization?
Quoting Hanover
Why not? What is it about this time that gives the government a free pass?
Because it has been shown to be safe and effective.
That doesn't make sense. It's not a binomial. There's a threshold of proof that a EUA requires and a higher threshold that full approval requires. If the work done to meet the lower threshold wasn't just bureaucracy, then I don't see the justification for saying that the additional work of exactly the same form to meet the higher threshold is 'just bureaucracy'.
The role of the FDA is to verify that products are safe and effective. There is ample evidence that the vaccine is safe and effective. They are still required to do a thorough review of the data, but if there are problems serious enough to prevent approval they would have become evident by now. See what happened with emergency approval of hydroxychloroquine and a coronavirus antibodies test. An EUA may be issued without the clinical trials necessary for approval, but the millions of vaccines already given is far more than what is given in any clinical trial, far more than is necessary for approval.
Then what are the FDA looking for when they...
Quoting Fooloso4
...? Are the FDA just wasting time and money looking through data which cannot yield any useful information. Why do you think they would do that?
Quoting Fooloso4
Clinical trials don't just hand out the product and then stand back and wait to see if anyone calls them.
Edit - also, you've not yet addressed the main point.
Quoting Fooloso4
'Safe and effective' is not a binomial status. Nothing is without risk. The vaccine is safe enough and effective enough for the purposes to which it is put. That threshold, for emergencies, is lower than for general use.
It's not a free pass. It's all the available evidence that has been published by any source, with no source suggesting otherwise. https://time.com/5942076/proof-covid-19-vaccines-work/ Unless we buy into a vast conspiracy, involving every medical journal, every major research university, every nation on the planet, and various independent research organizations, we have to conclude the vaccine works. There is no study to say otherwise, just general cynicism towards governments and pharmaceutical companies that cause people to make invalid objections.
You can sit on the fence of neutrality and calmly say that each side has the right to their opinion and we shouldn't be so critical of those not in our camp, but you're wrong, just plain wrong. The vaccine works and fear of it is irrational. You can go on and on and about this having to do with there being two sides to every issue, but I don't live in a post-truth world. The truth is what is and there's nothing particularly woke about embracing everyone's views, regardless of how poorly informed they are.
Whether we need to cater to irrationality to maintain harmony is a political question, but not a scientific one. The vaccine works. Stop suggesting otherwise. You do no one any good to spread falsity.
It was reported in the NY Times approval is expected by September. https://news.yahoo.com/fda-expected-approve-pfizer-biontechs-000907206.html
Again, you've not answered the question of what you mean by 'works'. What does a vaccine need to do to 'work'? Answer that question, and then see if every institution in the world agrees. Then take that answer and see if it applies equally to every person in the world.
Quoting Hanover
It's not the optimism I was questioning. It was the relegation of important investigations by dedicated scientists to 'bureaucracy'.
The point is that what the find will confirm that the vaccine is safe and effective.
Quoting Isaac
It is sometimes the case that a product is approved and then pulled from the market based on problems that are found only when they are used widely and they are called.
Quoting Isaac
Yes, they are relative terms, but they are the terms used by the FDA.
Quoting Isaac
First, although research is ongoing, at this point approval is based on work that has already been done. Second, most of that work is done by the pharmaceutical industry and academic institutions. The FDA's role is primarily to compile and evaluate data provided to it.
Wearing a gun can be a totum that represents someone's desire to be self-sufficient and prepared to defend themselves. Obviously it can be a danger to other people, since having a gun doesn't mean you know how to use it. And the sheer killing capacity of a gun (compared with a sword or a knife) may overshadow its symbolic role. But the idea that people shouldn't wear guns because other people with guns will protect them just seems like an admission of helplessness and dependency.
So they are wasting their time then? If what they'll find is already known.
Quoting Fooloso4
It is, but that's not what a phase IV trial is, nor is it the type of data the FDA are looking at.
Quoting Fooloso4
I've provided a direct quote from the FDA's lawyer on the other thread. A EUA's terms are that...
Doesn't evenue mention 'safe', no binomial interpretation at all. If you've got some information to the contrary then it's customary to cite it, rather than just make the unsupported claim.
Quoting Fooloso4
And you think that role a trivial foregone conclusion? The fact that 'most of that work is done by the pharmaceutical industry and academic institutions' is the very reason why the FDA are checking it.
There is a process in place that must be followed. It still needs to be rigorously documented. That is not a waste of time. That it is is your assumption.
Quoting Isaac
Phase IV trials are for products that have been approved and are already on the market. Phase IV trails are not the only way that problems are reported. Do you have a point here?
Quoting Isaac
We are talking about approval. EUA was issued months ago. The question is whether the vaccine will be approved based on the evidence to date.
Quoting Isaac
It is not a trivial conclusion. Again that it is trivial is your conclusion. What problems can you cite that will lead them to deny approval?
What source are you using for your assertion that the full approval process consists of only 'documenting' that which is already known. You've yet to provide a single citation to back up anything you're saying. I don't see why you'd expect anyone to just take your word for it. Unless you're perhaps an expert in this and I'm just unaware of that.
Quoting Fooloso4
The point is simply that the absence of any negative reports is not the same thing as an investigation to determine safety.
Quoting Fooloso4
You said it had already been shown to be 'safe and effective' by the FDA. The FDA have currently given it EUA status, which does not even mention 'safe' and measures 'effectiveness' relative to the emergency, not in general.
Quoting Fooloso4
It's not that complicated, full approval checks...
So the problems would be some limit to efficacy, a risk in the manufacturing process, or some methodological error in the follow up trials.
That is your assertion not mine.
Quoting Isaac
The investigation has been ongoing from the start. It include both positive and negative reports.
Quoting Isaac
I did not say that. I said it has been shown to be safe and effective, not that the FDA has shown it to be safe and effective.
Quoting Isaac
That does not address my question: What problems can you cite that will lead them to deny approval?
Quoting Isaac
And where do you see evidence of such problems?
When I made my decision over four months I did so on these bases and the course of the pandemic since, despite mass vaccinations, is consistent with my assessment. That said, last week I'd convinced my 79 year old, exceptionally healthy mother, who's a retired nurse of a half century and living in the Portland, Oregon metro area, to take the Pfizer vaccine which she received her first dose today. I might not wait much longer after all.
You said...
Quoting Fooloso4
I asked if the exercise was then a waste of time, your conclusion was...
Quoting Fooloso4
But if I've misunderstood, then we can easily clear the matter up. What, if not just documentation, do you think the FDA are doing in their full approval process?
Quoting Fooloso4
Fine. A mixture of both positive and negative reports is still not a clinical trial.
Quoting Fooloso4
I see. Then again, I'd ask what you think the FDA are doing. If third party research concluding it is safe and effective is sufficient for the FDA to find it so also, then they don't seem to have a role to play. Other, of course, than the 'documentation' you wish to distance yourself from.
Quoting Fooloso4
I wrote the answer directly below the sentence you cited.
Quoting Fooloso4
Why would I see evidence of such problems? I'm neither privy to the research methodology, nor the manufacturing process.
This isn't science. It's a theory. You'd have to prove it experimentally. You've got thousands of variables you have to control in order to correlate flu reduction to mask use and even if you could correlate it, you'd have to prove an equality between the flu and covid.
Meanwhile they've shown the vaccine works.
Since you're not keen of the line of questioning regarding what 'works' means, perhaps this might be more interesting - how many people, in actual numbers, do you think this group consists of?
The peer review team of every medical journal (which would publish on vaccine safety) - maybe ten key journals, lots of overlap in peer reviewers used, maybe 10-15 people, 30 at most.
Research institutions working directly on vaccine safety - the WHO lists 42, each with maybe 2-5 qualified lead staff (not including lab technicians and support staff), 120 or so.
Every nation on the planet - would get their data from the previous two.
Various independent research institutions - not sure what this is supposed to refer to.
I can't bring the list to much above about 200 people the majority of whom are working directly (or directly funded by) the pharmaceutical industry. Is that 'vast' to you? The June 2021 petition to the FDA to request that they not prematurely grant full approval is signed by 24 doctors and research scientists, including the Editor in Chief of the British Medical Journal, so if we expand the network to include people peripherally involved you lose the apparent consensus you're claiming.
I struggle to see how it is so hard to understand people who think that a couple of hundred individuals (most of whom work for the pharmaceutical companies) have been unduly influenced by those companies - the single largest industry in the world, the single largest lobbying budget of any industry in the world and one which spends more than four times the budget on lobbying than even it's next biggest in rank.
Are you suggesting that it's completely beyond understanding that people might think the largest lobbying group in the world might have unduly influenced a few hundred people?
This study had 3000 alone. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0329-COVID-19-Vaccines.html
Show me why even in the studies you cited why the sample size was statistically invalid.
Show me your study disproving the effectiveness of the vaccine.
Quoting Isaac
I'm suggesting I'm not interested in conspiracy theories. That you've arrived at a motive for why people might fabricate results does not prove they fabricated results. Proof would be showing the results invalid or in having a witness come forward, which apparently everyone from the lab to the boardroom has taken a vow of silence on. It's preposterous and based upon groundless speculation, like all conspiracy theories. Instead of doubling down and fighting the obvious, how about just admit the best evidence is that the vaccines reduce your chance of getting the original strain of covid (>95%) and virtually eliminate your chance of getting seriously sick from the Delta strain. That is, the vaccines "work." The hospitals and morgues are filled with the unvaccinated.
Whether it's PC to say the anti-vaxxers here are stupid is another question, but, suffice it to say, they are wrong, harmful, and their arguments depend upon creative writing conspiracy theories that they mindlessly spout.
You are part of the problem. That you don't like hearing it isn't part of the problem. The solution is to go get vaccinated.
I'm not talking about sample size. Your claim was that it would invoice a 'vast' conspiracy if claims about the vaccine's safety and efficacy were compromised. I asked you how many people you thought would be involved in such a conspiracy. The participants in a trial are not responsible for interpreting the results of it. You know what a peer review team is, yes?
Quoting Hanover
1. You've still not confirmed - effectiveness at doing what?
2. Medicines are required to prove their own effectiveness. It's not for others to prove ineffectiveness. The problems that have been highlighted are oversights, omissions and flaws with the studies proving efficacy, they're not studies proving ineffectiveness.
Quoting Hanover
I never once mentioned fabricating results.
Quoting Hanover
Really. So you'd stand by the claim that no qualified academic has come forward to raise concerns about the covid vaccine's trial methodology, safety and efficacy?
Quoting Hanover
I haven't disputed that claim, so I haven't a clue why you would think I'm 'fighting the obvious'.
Quoting Hanover
Explain how. You're here making a accusation that I'm actually part of the devastating crisis that is the covid pandemic, I think I at least deserve an explanation. How is what I do exacerbating that problem?
Perhaps this might help
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-brief-fda-provides-guidance-master-protocols-evaluating-prevention-treatment-options-covid-19#:~:text=%E2%80%9CDuring%20this%20global%20pandemic%2C%20the,a%20very%20time%2Dconsuming%20process.
The clinical trial experts are from the pharmaceutical industry and academia, not the FDA. The FDA's main job is not to conduct clinical trials but to review and either approves or rejects the products based on their evaluation of the trial results.
I'm not sure what it is about my responses that's given you the impression I'm unaware of what the FDA's role is since I cited their own lawyer explaining it, but I appreciate the effort nonetheless.
So, the undelined is the issue at stake. Only two possible states;
1. The FDA have yet to perform some of these checks which may lead to them rejecting the product on the basis of their evaluation of the trial results.
Or
2. The FDA have no more checks to do that could lead to them them rejecting the product on the basis of their evaluation of the trial results. They're just wasting time doing paperwork which cannot possibly make any difference to the decision.
Which do you think is happening and what evidence are you using to support your conclusion?
I am not going to chase down what you quoted in another thread.
You said earlier in this thread:
Quoting Isaac
I think the problem may be your lack of understanding of what a bureaucracy is. The FDA's function is bureaucratic.
Quoting Isaac
At this point it is no longer just trial results. Millions of doses of the vaccine have been administered. The protocol for a trial is very different from actual use. The main difference is that no one is receiving a placebo. The FDA is no longer looking at just trial results.
Quoting Isaac
It is a bureaucratic process. It takes time. I don't know what you think "paperwork" means as part of this process.
If there are serious problems or even suspected problems with either safety or efficacy that have come to light, the FDA and/or the vaccine manufacturers would already have stopped using the vaccine, at least temporarily. It is highly unlikely that anything yet unknown will come to light in the next few weeks before approval.
You missed the use of the word 'relegation'. It's the evident lack of utility you ascribe to it, quibbling over semantics is irrelevant when we have your assertion that there is no difference in risk between taking the vaccine now and taking it after approval. That relegates the work the FDA are doing to work that is of no consequence to the safety of the public. What we choose to call it is immaterial.
Quoting Fooloso4
You keep adding these additional details about how the FDA carry out their checks as if a) I didn't know, and b) it impacts the discussion in some way. The matter at hand is whether the remaining work the FDA has to do prior to approval has any impact on reducing the risks faced by the public with regards to the vaccine. I don't see how the fact that the work consists of more than just trial data has anything to do with that.
Quoting Fooloso4
Again, the terms we use are irrelevant. It's the 'wasting time' that matters. You have just avoided the main question with all this fluff.
Do you think the FDA are carrying out any work at all which reduces the risk to the public from the vaccines? It would help move us on if you could just answer that question, in preference to acting as if you were playing the FDA round in a general knowledge quiz or arguing over the definition of 'paperwork'.
This is your misunderstanding that you attribute to me.
Quoting Isaac
The only way it would reduce the risk is if something previously unknown or undisclosed were to come to light in the next few weeks. It is unreasonable to assume that the FDA is hiding things from us, allowing vaccination to continue for the next few weeks only to deny approval.
Quoting Isaac
And yet you took exception to the use of the term bureaucratic. It is your "quibbling over semantics" that started this discussion.
quote="Isaac;576757"]It's the 'wasting time' that matters.[/quote]
Again, your accusation.
Quoting Isaac
As I have said, most of the work has already been done, but they must be thorough and complete the job.
You said...
Quoting Fooloso4
How can we interpret that in a way that means the FDA are doing something that is of consequence to the safety of the public? You've directly said that the work does not relate to safety and efficacy.
Quoting Fooloso4
Why would they be 'hiding' something? The work is not yet finished. What's at issue is facts they've yet to discover. They're not sitting on all the data they need twiddling their thumbs for a few weeks.
Quoting Fooloso4
I took exception to the context in which bureaucratic work was treated as being of little consequence. Again...
Quoting Fooloso4
Quoting Fooloso4
Again...
Quoting Fooloso4
With the pharmaceuticals, government departments, universities and doctors clamouring for full approval you're accusing the FDA of delaying such important approval so they can do work which has no bearing on either safety nor efficacy. On what do you think the work they're doing does bear?
Quoting Fooloso4
As above. What is it you think this remaining work consists of, and on what grounds?
The ones profiting are the ones profiting off the fiction. People eat up controversy and so the internet profiteers keep cooking it.
You have not given a single reason why you think it will not be approved.
Rather than repeat myself I will leave it there.
It's not like people are suddenly going to rush out and get it upon finalized approval. It's not rocket surgery to imagine the effect of with holding a vaccine could be worse in some cases. If everyone gets a virus before a vaccine can be approved then what was the point of the approval process. It's a simple risk/reward analysis, but it has to be made from the point of view of a population. Looking at it on an individual level is misleading.
I didn't say that I think it won't be approved. I said that the risk to the public is higher prior to them completing their checks than it is after they have done so. My reason is that the FDA are still checking it. If it was already ready to approve they would approve it. What else do you think they are going to be doing over the coming months?
Not sure why you'd suppose that since I've not claimed anything even close to such a proposition.
Quoting Cheshire
It depends entirely on how poorly working it is and what the alternatives are.
Quoting Cheshire
What's the anti-VAX position got to do with anything I've said. Generally I'm staunchly pro-vaccination.
Quoting Cheshire
The general consensus is that they would.
Quoting https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/poll-finding/kff-covid-19-vaccine-monitor-june-2021/
Honestly, this information is not hard to find...
Plus it would make mandates easier to enforce.
Quoting Cheshire
Indeed. The entire purpose of EUAs.
Quoting Cheshire
Yes. Basically the whole of the point I've been making recently. That a policy is a good public health initiative is not the same as it being necessary or even appropriate for every individual.
The consensus may be an excuse. They can't find another excuse? There is a mutli-billion dollar industry built on products that aren't FDA approved for medical treatment. But, are consumed without hesistation.
Quoting Isaac Rather, I was acknowledging the intuitive rationality behind hesitation. If I perceive a vaccine risk higher than my perceived virus threat then the decision is do not take. If every decision is made from this subjective view then no one takes a vaccine that might have worked. It's a rational strategy for an individual to optimize that is detrimental to a group outcome. "every individual" is a bit of an empty term in a medical context beyond we all need air.
Consider the harm of vaccinated 1 too few versus 1 too many. Over-shooting is the reasonable target.
Safer if you, and they, know how, and are willing, to use said weapons to defend themselves.
If they are unable or unwilling, then they are not safer, you have provided a weapon to someone who is able and willing to use it.
Now how does this apply to the vaccine issue?
But why? The population will not feel any side effects of the vaccination, but the individual will, therefore it is an individual decision.
The "better for the population long term" argument should also support non-intervention for anyone that is suicidal as less individuals would mean more resources for others, less environmental damage, more job availability, etc. And yet, we are not advocating suicide, despite being able to spin the positive effects for society.
Strange how the supply of evidence vacillates between being a marker of one's sanity to being entirely optional depending on which side of the debate one is on.
Quoting Cheshire
Why would no one take a vaccine under these terms. Are vaccines so badly presented that literary everyone is going to perceive the risk from taking it to he higher than the risk of the disease. Is that the view you generally hear in public forums?
Quoting Cheshire
Only if the resultant group exceeds the inverse of the proportion required for herd immunity. If not, it really doesn't matter at all. If they adopt other strategies to minimize transmission it also doesn't matter one jot. If I'm healthy, live alone, remain masked in my occasional public visits, sanitise my hands regularly and remain a few feet apart from anyone I meet, explain to me how I'm going to have a higher probability of passing on a virus than if I did none of those things but took a vaccine at 70% symptomatic effectiveness... and yes, I will expect you to cite sources, not just make it up.
...in case you're wondering what citing sources looks like.
Quoting Cheshire
Depends entirely on the circumstances, the method by which you achieve the target, the alternatives available, the status of the virus concerned and the status of the one too few/many. It's not a simple metric.
* Jesse Goodman, a former chief scientist at FDA who’s now at Georgetown University.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/07/when-will-covid-19-vaccines-be-fully-approved-and-does-it-matter-if-they-are
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/22/health/covid-19-vaccine-approval-when/index.html
I won't disagree with you about people generally being safer without there being some guy with an AR walking down the street. My point was that I don't see how we can have safe gun laws while also respecting a person's wish (right?) to be able to defend themselves. Technology has made the concept of self-defense practically obsolete. Gun enthusiasts are clinging to a value (a perfectly legitimate value) which is now outdated due to the weapons they claim to love.
Centuries ago, it was not really a big deal to walk around with a sword or a pistol. You could stab or shoot a couple people, maybe, but these weapons aren't obscenely lethal. Nowadays such a weapon is useless against an automatic rifle. The only chance a person has to defend themselves from someone with a gun (and not depend on someone else) is if they also have a gun (and if they know how to use it). But if the threat to the overall community is to deemed to be too great to allow people to bear arms, then the system will disarm the public and convince them that it's for the greater good. This gradually conditions them into being dependent upon a social order (and not themselves) to provide aid in times of crisis. In my opinion, this is a gross violation of human dignity.
I'm not sure why you're addressing that to me. It's precisely the argument I've been making.
The FDA work makes "a real difference" in significant areas such as "real-world data on effectiveness and safety".
So the difference in risk between an EUA approved drug and a fully approved BLA is significant. You are wrong to say that
Quoting Fooloso4
"I expect there's no tiger in that room" and "I've checked; there's no tiger in that room" are two entirely different statements of safety and two entirely different risk scenarios for any person about to enter that room.
The above replaces the term 'me' with the term population and continues on as if that changes the perspective. It proves my point; that hesitation is a miscalculation that results from point of view.
Quoting Book273 If I produced this paragraph I would question what else I was willing to rationalize. It's not a compelling argument. We aren't discussing suicide.
You recognized the populations need and then described an individual strategy. It proves my point better than I could.
Well, no you aren't, because you could be doing all these things and also be vaccinated.
I think you ought get vaccinated.
I never said I am a completely self-sufficient individual. I understand the importance of gun control in maintaining the social order that you and I have been conditioned to be helpless without. I'm just pointing out that this is a restriction on something that I consider to be important to the overall dignity of a human being, that being their ability to defend themselves against other people.
The overall idea is: strip everyone of the ability to defend themselves, so this isn't ever used as a means to hurt people. When tragedy strikes, don't let the people defend themselves, let them be rescued. I understand that this desire to be able to protect oneself may not be reasonable to satisfy in the society we live in. I understand that it may be a case of choosing a lesser evil. But to me, this is a sign that something is wrong with society. Being able to defend yourself is a basic human right; but a technological society cannot give this to its citizens, because technological weapons in the hands of individuals would undermine it. Yet it is this technological society that produces these weapons to begin with. Gun nuts want their guns but they don't understand that the society that has produced these guns cannot allow the nuts to have them. If gun nuts got their way, there wouldn't be a society left to make the guns they so love.
https://www.pei.de/EN/medicinal-products/vaccines-human/covid-19/covid-19-node.html;jsessionid=2B63E490BE792D9B53A9923FF500FA08.intranet242
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_COVID-19_vaccine_authorizations
You said that not taking the vaccine was...
Quoting Cheshire
...I'm asking you how it is detrimental to a group outcome in the scenario I outlined. I don't see how me asking the question proves your point.
Their client could have mandated vaccinations, didn't, and someone died - big payout: Their client mandated a fully approved vaccination and someone died from it - FDA's fault, no payout.
I don't think their calculations were that complicated. It why most lawyers are pushing hard for the BLA to be approved, it shifts the legal responsibility for injury.
So, what level of risk reduction absolves one's social responsibility here? Is there a point where we can reasonably be said to have done enough to reduce the risks to which our lifestyles expose our communities, or must we in all cases do everything that it is within our power to do?
I wonder about the extent to which this metric applies to risks that aren't all over the news.
The European Medicine Agency doesn't work in the same way as the FDA. Four vaccines have been approved, but their approval rating has a sub-category "Conditional marketing authorisation" which is
These are the vaccines currently authorised under those terms.
https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/human-regulatory/overview/public-health-threats/coronavirus-disease-covid-19/treatments-vaccines/vaccines-covid-19/covid-19-vaccines-authorised
I don't know about Australia's system though.
I don't have an 'opinion' on the matter, I'm not an expert in immunology. David Dowdy, Associate Professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins says...
So, about 70% of the population should either take the vaccine or be certain of their acquired immunity.
The issue isn't really with how many though so much as who. Some people are massively more at risk from the disease than others and some people are massively more at risk of spreading it than others. If we simply assume that there is a moral obligation not to put your community at too great a risk by your lifestyle choices, then you should take the vaccine if you feel (after listening to expert opinion) that doing so would be necessary to absolve that social responsibility. That's simply not going to be the case for everyone.
:ok:
Yeah. I think this is one of the most interesting things about the progress of this pandemic. It's really highlighted the way in which the Pharmaceutical industry are treated in popular (left-wing) media. They've pulled off a really neat trick. Were they any other industry, the left-wing media would be suspicious as hell of any product, announcement, research or advice given by them (or by agencies directly funded or heavily lobbied by them). You see it with heavy industry, energy companies, agricultural industries, fishery, tobacco, arms... And right they are too to be suspicious. But somehow the pharmaceuticals have pulled off the trick of not only being above suspicion, but of getting the left-wing media to actually work for them.
If you mistrust the safety claims of an agricultural company about their pesticides, you're a wise and savvy environmentalist, if you mistrust the pharmaceutical company's claims about their medicines, you're a lunatic. If you follow the money and raise an eyebrow at the results of an industry funded research institute on thriving fish stock, you're seeing through the PR whitewash to the real motivation, if you follow the money and raise an eyebrow at the results of an industry funded research institute on medicine efficacy, you're a full on foam-flecked conspiracy-theory-wielding nutjob.
I don't know how they managed it.
Now mistrust is not only a sign of idiocy, it becoming flat out evil. The polemicising effect of social media has pushed the pro-pharma side so far in the direction of beatification, that the only alternative slot to put anti-pharma is with the demons. I think even the pharma PR guys are shaking their heads thinking "fuck, we were not expecting it to work that well"
You are right, it is remarkable. My guess is that they managed it by developing good products which provide more benefit and prevent more harm than any alternative. The crowds, in their wisdom, sense this and so trust the products. There is an element of desperation: we would not normally trust a new drug so quickly and if someone suspects that corners have been cut they may also imagine drowning in their own mucus and ask themselves 'what have I got to lose?' If it turns out (I hope it doesn't) that there are severe long-term harms associated with the vaccines or anything else the companies make then we will know that evil big pharma has hoodwinked us again. We won't hear the end of it. The PR people will still be in a job.
Many disagree. They think that in their case the benefit to be gained or harm to be prevented do not outweigh the risks and the invasive process. These people are derided, excoriated and threatened. They may well be wrong. But they are not stupid idiot evil kind of wrong. They are voicing the hesitation that would be normal for most of us in less desperate circumstances. They are reminding us that there are many uncertainties and that we are all anxious. We hate reminders like that and so we lay into the people who provide them.
I don't see that being enough. The measles vaccine alone is responsible for saving millions of lives, but so are fertilisers, it doesn't make us trust the agrochemical industry any more. Heavy industry has lifted millions out of poverty, but we don't now treat their critics as if they were lunatics. Water treatment saves millions from disease, but that doesn't give the water companies an army of bouncers.
I don't see the connection between an industry's product being in a general class of products which actually work and us trusting them to provide accurate data about those products. I mean, most products work. It's pretty much the bare minimum standard required of an industry, to make products that work. The pharmaceuticals are not in any way unique here.
Quoting Cuthbert
Possibly, yes.
Caller: The Government has mishandled the pandemic and killed tens of thousands.
Presenter: What about the vaccination programme?
Caller: Well, that's the scientists and all their great work, not the Government.
I don't know the answer to your question but it is a very good question!
Yeah. As I said, the polemicising effect of social media pushes this kind of narrative. Government evil. Scientists saints. No nuance. No balance. I'm just a little surprised that the worlds largest, most powerful corporations somehow ended up in the 'saints' category.
No, absolutely not. But, as I said above, many other industries can also lay claim to outstanding achievements, it doesn't seem to buy them a free pass when it comes to trustworthiness.
Quoting Janus
Yes, I think you're right. But the obvious answer is to pay more attention to critics of the official narrative (expert critics only, of course). Tempting though it might be, I don't think simplifying the decision for the layperson helps any. If working out their individual risk profile is complex, then it's complex. We can't pretend it's simple by just ignoring dissent, I don't think that helps either.
I think the other issue here is this kind of epistemo-moral imperative which has somehow been snuck in to recent narratives. No longer is it sufficient that one's view is justified with good reasons (such as expert opinion, evidence, etc), but now there's an additional mandate that one's view must also conform directly with the 'majority' of scientists. We've abandoned the judgement of good reason for a childlike correspondence test against whatever seems currently to be 'the consensus'.
Reality, however, is not decided by vote - not even expert votes, so I don't know from where this requirement gets it's normative force.
The effect is to remove options from the layman, making their decision easier I suppose, but at the cost of any mature engagement with science. I'm not sure that's worth it.
Mainly the UK Guardian/Obsever, plus my experience with generally left-wing colleagues who've perhaps read more widely. I read the Jacobin quite frequently, and have to say they've been quite critical, which is why I confined my critique to 'popular', I think 'mainstream' would have captured better what I was trying to say.
Quoting 180 Proof
It's not so much their practices and abuses, but rather the claims resulting from them. It's as if (again, mainstream only, perhaps) everyone knows the industry is riddled with the usual corporate deceit, yet somehow everything which comes from it is nonetheless perfect.
I suppose 'popular' and 'mainstream' go pretty much hand-in-hand here. We've only recently got used to having more than four TV channels, whereas you have several million it seems. It may be a cultural difference, but the 'mainstream corporate media' as you put it is popular here, both left and right leaning versions. Alternative news sources are not anywhere near what I would call popular, perhaps even less so in the left wing than the right.
That's what I'm saying. The lawyers gave the green light prior to fda approval.
Also, and really the fundamental question, why is the school expected to protect your child from something his is just as likely to catch in the community, or bus, or simply by living? Covid is endemic now and should be treated as such.
Quoting Isaac
People not likely to be injured from a vaccine is how I would make a determination. In order to allow for the 30% that either can't take it or don't respond to it. But you suggest otherwise, Quoting Isaac The elderly and the unvaccinated.
Quoting IsaacAgreed.
Quoting Isaac Add a rationalization.
Quoting Isaac And all of a sudden; the directive toward 70% from your stated sources no longer applies?
It is either 70% or it is each person based on their personal interests. Because data suggest it isn't both.
Quoting Book273
Ahh, I misread you. Interesting, but I don't think it's a majority is it? Most talk (Eric Topol recently, for example) has been about the difficulty mandating without full approval. As to the motivations of those that do on the EUA alone, I'd speculate it's still for the same reasons ultimately. A EUA still gives you someone to shift the blame to, for some lawyers that might be enough.
Quoting Isaac
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
So you think that 30% of the population are likely to be injured from taking the vaccine?
Quoting Cheshire
And the immunocompomised (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7332436/), the obese (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41574-020-0364-6), smokers (https://www.who.int/news/item/11-05-2020-who-statement-tobacco-use-and-covid-19), those with diabetes(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7332436/), people who don't exercise (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8050880/), people who live in polluted cities (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7517216/), those living in close proximity to others, those who don't mask, wash hands, clean surfaces...
Quoting Cheshire
What data? You haven't cited a single source for anything you've said yet.
Some are of the misguided belief that safety and efficacy will not be established prior to FDA authorization.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/safety-of-vaccines.html
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/is-the-covid19-vaccine-safe#:~:text=Vaccine%20for%20Coronavirus%3A%20Is%20it,continuous%20and%20intense%20safety%20monitoring.
https://www.doh.wa.gov/Emergencies/COVID19/VaccineInformation/SafetyandEffectiveness
https://healthy.kaiserpermanente.org/health-wellness/coronavirus-information/vaccine-learn/safe-and-effective
Eh?
Are we just going to go through the whole dance again?
Safe and effective are not binomial measures. They're continuous variables. Things can be safe, and then more safe. Things can be effective, and then more effective.
Your inference regarding my statement was absurd. Which is understandable when maintaining an untenable position. But, to say I'm suggesting Quoting Isaac is almost child like, so my complaint concerns the quality of the evasion. Eh?
I cited your source of 70% uptake. It is 70% need to take it or choose as each individual sees fit. Data suggest 70% is the better guide post.
We agreed that 70% of the population should take the vaccine.
I asked who the 70% should be, you replied...
Quoting Cheshire
Leaving the 30% to be made up of people likely to be injured from the vaccine... or else you've left off a criteria.
Quoting Cheshire
Not if 70% of people see fit to take it. Then there's no 'or'. The two sets are not mutually exclusive... unless you have some data demonstrating them to be
Quoting Isaac
The pandemic that doesn't seem to be ending due to lack of uptake of gd preventive tool demonstrates they may be mutually exclusive.
Alright. We won't arrive at an agreement as long as we disagree with this point. I'm satisfied with that much.
Not sure how you think repeating it is going to help. You could just explain how you think the inference is wrong. Unless you genuinely think that my deliberate misinterpretation is the only explanation, that your written presentation is so utterly without flaw that the only way anyone could have misinterpreted it is with deliberate intent. You wouldn't be the first.
Quoting Cheshire
Why? How quickly are you expecting the pandemic to end in your null hypothesis?
General knowledge that vaccines that harm 30% are not released to the public. Common knowledge. Rational thought. It is an unreasonable inference; you may be confused as to my meaning. But, given the context and reasonable intake of reality; this inference can not be arrived upon. Quoting Isaac Looking like a lot longer than I expected.
The VAERS data is freely available here https://vaers.hhs.gov/data.html. It's considerably less than 30%.
Quoting Cheshire
I really can't make any sense of that I'm afraid.
Quoting Cheshire
Why would how long you expected it to last give you a figure for the uptake of the vaccine? I'm not seeing the connection.
We would not have gone through it the first time if not for your penchant for disputation. I said the vaccines were safe and effective. Authoritative sites support that claim.
Quoting Isaac
A favorite ploy. You have done this several times, arguing against your own claim as if I had made the claim.
Quoting Cheshire
Well, this has taken a turn for the Kafkaesque
No. It doesn't require research to know that fewer than 30% of the population are injured by vaccines. It doesn't make it any clearer why you decided to use the inverse figure to populate your 70% who should take the vaccine.
I don't think obfuscation is at fault here. You claimed to know that the uptake of the vaccine will be less than the required 70% on the basis of the fact that the pandemic is lasting longer than you thought it would. The claim's quite clear, it's just a really odd thing to claim.
You said...
Quoting Fooloso4
It is your claim that the FDA work from this point does not address safety and effectiveness that I'm disputing.
Perhaps not. Doesn't support your repeated claim of having made a reasonable inference.
Quoting Isaac
It is; and seems deliberate apart from this near pivot. Well, there is a thing called a rate of infection that trends. Maybe, make an inference from that information.
Well then maybe you could clear that up?
Quoting Cheshire
The original sentence you took issue with was a question, so cannot be an inference and I've not once suggested that it was reasonable (mainly because it wasn't an inference in the first place). I've basically just spent the last few posts trying to work out what on earth you're trying to say.
Quoting Cheshire
Again, then maybe you could correct that?
Quoting Cheshire
Nope, none of that is making any sense. What is a 'near pivot', and what does the fact that the rate of infection trends have to do with your ability to detect vaccine take up from your subjective feeling about pandemic duration?
We have already been through this, but you evidently desire a dance partner. The safety and efficacy have been established. The vaccine has not yet been approved because the beaurocracy is slow and thorough. They have procedures and protocols to follow that must be completed. This is standard for every approval and is in place to assure safety and effectiveness, but in this case, given the millions of vaccines already administered we have enough information to be confident of its safety and efficacy. Still, the review process must be completed. It may be that approval will include specific recommendations for certain groups, but at this late stage it is highly unlikely that there will be any unanticipated surprises.
If 70% ought take it, then what is the expected value that you should also take it?
So, Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research is lying when he says...
In actual fact they can just use that data because? ... you seem to have missed off the citation supporting...well, literally anything you're saying.
Depends on the factors determining that 70% and whether any of them apply to me. I assume you're not suggesting it's random.
The factor is being a member of the population without medically specified exception. Self-interest doesn't qualify. Want me to run the numbers? Or is this pathological?
Of course. To the extent vaccines reduce the risk of severe illness I can do likewise by reducing the factors known to be associated with over 90% of severe disease (or being lucky enough not to suffer from those out of my control). To the extent that a vaccine reduces transmission I can do likewise by adopting the non-clinical interventions proven to reduce transmission. Nothing remotely controversial there.
Quoting Cheshire
Since your last reaction, I'm not going to assume you mean that 30% of the population have medically specified exceptions. Instead, we'll just jump to the fact that such a criteria alone overfills the 70% requirement you previously agreed on.
Quoting Cheshire
Well, yes. That's exactly what I've been asking you to do.
Is there some allergy to citations I'm not aware of around here?
There's a 70% chance you ought take it, based on your citation concerning the number of people who should take it. I know you know that; I read your summary of a Nature article that I can't make heads or tails of; you're smarter, but it won't make you right.
No there isn't. 70% is the prevalence. The proportion of a population who fall ( or in our case, should fall) into some set. It's only the same as 'chance' (risk) if you assume the factors conferring membership of that set are random. In our case they're not, so chance and prevalence are not the same.
Let me give you an example. Dying in a plane crash has a prevalence of 1 in 14,000,000 (one in every 14,000,000 people who die, do so via plane crashes). What's my risk of dying in a plane crash?...bearing in mind I don't fly.
If 70 in every 100 are in the group {ought to take the vaccine} and there are factors determining who is and is not in that group, my chances of being in that group could be anything from 0% (if I know I have none of those factors) to 100% (if I know I have all of those factors). The range in between depends on my uncertainty about whether I have any of those factors.
We've yet to agree on what those factors are. Your suggestion of 'not having a precluding medical condition' oversubscribes the set. You may feel oversubscribing is the best strategy, but you've yet to support that argument. Otherwise you might think some other exclusory criteria are also useful, but you've yet to say what they are.
The good doctor just said 70%; seemed like a reasonable source. People that breath air?
Oversubscribes the set.
That's our other matter of dispute. Here in the UK take up is over 90% for the first dose and 74% for the second https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55274833. Though some framing methods make it slightly less. I understand it's lower in the US, but over 70% is clearly quite achieveable, I don't see any pragmatic impossibility.
Yes, turns out we were discussing different populations relative to you.
In response to the OP: Most people will have no symptoms of covid, and no long term effects. Those are the ones that get infected. Not everyone will get infected, so those people have zero need for a vaccine. The ones that will suffer zero symptoms also need not get the vaccine. So far, in this explanation, no one needs the protection offered by the vaccine. There are those who will experience symptoms, roughly 20% of the population. Most of those will benefit from vaccine protection. I say most because not everyone will get protection from it; for some it won't work. SO, lets say 95% of the 20% who need protection get protection. That's a good thing. And let's also say that 95% of the 80% who do not need protection also get protection...That's irrelevant, they were fine anyway. Since transmission after vaccination still exists, vaccination to end transmission is not a thing, so should not be considered into the discussion.
Therefore, since 8/10 people get nothing from the vaccine, I say personal choice regarding to receive or not to receive is the correct path. I am not Anti-vaccine. I am pro personal autonomy.
Bad life choices cause much more death and suffering than Covid. No one mandates 1 hour daily gym work outs, or no more takeout food, or smoking, or alcohol. All of which affect more than 80% of the population.
Like I said; honest. Yes, if you exclude virus transmission of the highly transmissible virus. Then, the analysis maintains.
Why the need to twist and render hyperbolic every statement? I said several times that they cannot simply rely on an incomplete review.
Once again, you are conflating safety and efficacy with FDA approval. I cited several authoritative sources saying that the vaccine is safe and effective. That does not mean that the data can simply be used in place of the FDA review process. According to an interview with WP Marks said:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/08/02/coronavirus-vaccines-fda-full-approval-timeline/
As I said several times, the process takes time. The FDA will not approve the vaccine until the process is complete. That does not mean that until that time we are in the dark, left wondering whether the vaccine is safe and effective. It is.
While in the UK.
No one is denying it's safe and effective. As I said
Quoting Isaac
Quoting Fooloso4
No one is denying it takes time either...
I'm not sure who you're arguing against here.
Quoting Fooloso4
Again, not sure why you're mentioning this seeing as no one has claimed anything to the contrary.
I'm at a loss as to what you think you're arguing against but it's clearly nothing I've said so I don't see as this has anything to do with me anymore.
You claimed the ongoing work of the the FDA was not concerned with the issue of safety and efficacy. I said that was wrong. That's all. Every FDA source that has been quoted has said that it is concerned with safety and efficacy. You've refused to even speculate as to what you think they actually are doing, but rather persist with this odd campaign to insist that safety is measured only binomially (either safe or not), leaving anyone who's previously used the expression 'more safe' wondering how they'd got it so wrong all these years.
I'm fairly sure there's no tiger in the next room. I've checked as best I can using a standard tiger-searching method. It's safe to go in the room.
Someone else then checks that I carried out the tiger searching method correctly. It is now more safe to go in the room.
Long term safety certainly has not been established. That said, I have no doubt many therapeutics are approved prior to long term safety being established.In this case, since we are dealing with a virus that will evolve, long term efficacy cannot be established.
600,000 thousand and counting dead in the U.S. from the virus or complications. How many deaths from the vaccine? What long term deleterious effects are you rationally contemplating that could make the vaccine the less good choice?
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-covid-19-vaccine-holocaust-the-latest-antivaccine-messaging/
It seems reasonable to think that just because someone is a well-respected Professor in the medical field, that doesn't preclude the possibility that they might lose the plot and start having and fueling paranoid delusions..Part of those what certainly seem to be delusions are driven by what @Isaac identified as a justifiable distrust of "Big Pharma".
On the other hand the possibility that experts are rejecting these kinds of possibilities out of hand on account of fearing criticism from their peers for not towing the official line, losing their positions or research funding and so on, should not be blithely dismissed either. There would seem to be some truth in that too.The complaint from the "anti" side is that there is no reasoned debate. But it is an emergency situation, and if these concerns are not merely dismissed out of hand, but publicly debated, the worry is that it would spook even more people increasing vaccine hesitancy thus undermining the response to the emergency.
It's a complex situation, but I'm certainly not convinced by what seem to be conspiracy theories and wild speculations that are abounding. But then I also realize I'm just a lay person and not really in a good position to judge what is correct and what is not, and so I, like most other people, are left with the decision as to whether to place trust in the official narrative, in regards to which it seems reasonable to think there are good reasons not to trust it entirely, or be left completely at sea with wacko conspiracy theories, or speculation involving possibilities which are dressed up as being likelihoods or even certainties, which it seems we have no reason at all to trust..
The choice seems clear;I'm going to go with the dominant, the official narrative, but not entirely without misgivings, which means I have some empathy for those who place themselves on the other side, and don't want to simply dismiss them, even though the emergency nature of the situation seems to call for that.
From the petition sent to the FDA by (among others) Peter Doshi, Associate Professor, Pharmaceutical Health Services Research,University of Maryland School of Pharmacy (also Editor in Cheif of the British Medical Journal), Linda Wastila, BSPharm, MSPH, Professor, Pharmaceutical Health Services Research, University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, and
Also there's
Paediatrics professor Ruediger von Kries, a member of Germany's advisory vaccine committee,
also there's the issue of Myocarditis https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X21006824 in young people which significantly outweighs their risk from Covid-19.
Of the FDA's own Dr Philip Krause who explains
or Dr Stepen Baral Professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins
From the paper:
[b]"Interpretation
Our report of myocarditis after BNT162b2 vaccination may be possibly considered as an adverse reaction following immunization. We believe our information should be interpreted with caution and further surveillance is warranted."[/b]
I think it's a bit of a leap from that to your conclusion that the risk of myocarditis from vaccination outweighs the risks from Covid.
Yes, sorry. I missed out the important analysis of the statistics - here (see chart no 3) https://medium.com/@wpegden/weighing-myocarditis-cases-acip-failed-to-balance-the-harms-vs-benefits-of-2nd-doses-d7d6b3df7cfb. I was rushing, thanks for picking up on that.
You are so busy arguing you can't keep track of what you are arguing for or against.
Quoting Isaac
Quoting Isaac
Still going?
How have you translated my saying that your argument doesn't make sense into me disagreeing with one of its propositions?
If I claimed trees were yellow because custard is yellow, and you said "that doesn't make sense", would I then be entitled to say "ah, so you think custard isn't yellow"?
I'm not disagreeing with the proposition that the vaccine has been shown to be safe and effective. I'm disagreeing with the proposition that the FDA work does not relate to safety and efficacy. As I explained literally in the same post you cherry-picked that quote from.
The vaccine being safe and effective does not have any bearing whatsoever on whether someone can make it more safe by being even more certain, nor whether someone can find it the less safe by finding errors in the methods used to check its safety at first. In neither case need anyone conclude that the vaccine is not safe because it's possible for things that are safe to be more safe or less safe. Safe is not a binomial measure, it's not 1or 0, safe or unsafe - there's quite safe, averagely safe, very safe, extremely safe... all forms of safe.
The FDA are expecting to take a vaccine which is safe and make it more safe. There's a very small chance they might find it to be less safe, but even in this case it might still be safe, just less so than we thought.
I can't believe I'm having to explain how continuous variables work...
In that case once again you are disagreeing with a claim of your own making. I said nothing of the sort. What I said is:
Quoting Fooloso4
The problem begins with your lack of understanding of the term bureaucracy:
Quoting Isaac
From there you raised additional claims about wasting time and money, paper pushing, trivial conclusions, and the FDA delaying approval so they can do work which has no bearing on either safety nor efficacy, only to then argue against these claims as if someone other than you made them.
After all this, you seem to have come around to the position I started with:
Quoting Fooloso4
You do not dispute that is is safe and effective:
Quoting Isaac
Despite your wild claims that you attempted to attribute to me, you also seem to be aware that the process take time.
Now unless you have some other claims you want to make up in order to argue against them I think we are done.
Why have you started from the middle of our conversation?
You said
Quoting Fooloso4
That is wrong. That's all I've been arguing. Your own later comment says as much. It is logically incoherent to claim that
Quoting Fooloso4
And then claim that their main job is some other work rather than safety and efficacy work.
You are arguing for marginal safety on principle. That's like proving that time passes.
It's a blessing just to hear from someone who actually understands at least the structure of the argument I'm making... at least I'm not having to explain how continuous variables work...
However, if you want to argue that it's marginal then I expect to see some evidence to that effect. It really shouldn't be too much to ask.
Once again making claims and then attributing them to me.
What I said was:
Quoting Fooloso4
Note the bolding: AT THIS POINT. Is that not clear enough? That is not to deny the purpose and function of the FDA. It is a matter of where they are in the process of approval. The problem with the length of time it takes to approve a product is well known. They have taken measures to reduce the amount of time but it still takes time to complete that process.
Let's turn thins around. As you admit the vaccine has been shown to be safe and effective, so why hasn't it been approved yet?
Pursuant to all of this, there are also moves towards mandatory vaccination. The State and Federal Governments, both Liberal, say they would never make vaccination compulsory as a matter of principle, but in practice it's beginning to happen, in that workers who live in a designated area might be obliged to produce proof of vaccination if they want to work in another area. So to all intents that is a form of compulsion. It's a delicate question - I can see why a person is soveriegn over their own body and should have the right to refuse vaccines. But then, the person that might end up paying the price for that might be someone they infect. So perhaps the compromise is, anyone has a right to refuse to be vaccinated, but by so doing they forfeit the right to move freely in society.
Excellent point. And by the same token, I assume you favor restrictions on the free movement of the vaccinated, since they too may infect others.
Vaccinated People May Spread the Virus, Though Rarely, C.D.C. Reports
You agree? If not, why not? If perhaps you're going to invoke the word "rarely," what's your standard for restricting free movement? Have you hard data on how many people are being infected by the unvaccinated? Is that rare, or common? What are the actual numbers? What is the science? I think people on all sides of these issues would like to see the data. Why is the Biden administration itself growing frustrated with the lack of CDC transparency?
From that latter article: "Public Health England published data collected through the end of July showing that vaccinated people are less likely than the unvaccinated to become infected with Delta, but once infected, they may be equally contagious."
I guess we SHOULD restrict the vaccinated individuals' freedom to move through society after all. If you have hard data on any of this I think we'd all be grateful, particularly the Biden administration. Of course you don't have data, because the CDC won't release it.
What if they do not have the virus and present no risk to anyone?
The ethical implications of quarantining Typhoid Mary are one thing—her activities infected others—but removing the right for the healthy to move freely in society, where no one is at risk for interacting with them, could never be more than a policy premised on the ignorance and fear of those in power. In short, you would be discriminating against the wrong people.
Besides, it’s far better to protect oneself than expect everyone else to protect you. That way lies tyranny.
Perhaps their freedom of movement may also be curtailed, though less so. Perhaps 'social distancing', the wearing of masks, and other hygeine measures, will henceforth remain as part of civil society.
LOL. Can you comment on my point here? You said the unvaccinated should have their freedom of movement restricted because they may spread covid. I linked an article showing that the vaccinated spread covid at the same rate as the unvaccinated. In view of that, shouldn't the vaccinated be prohibited from free movement as well?
Have you a response?
Firstly, where they are is right in the middle of their main job - full approval of a BLA for a new medicine.
Secondly, you've still not given any detail on exactly what it is you think the FDA are doing over the next stage in their work (this mysterious 'bureaucracy' which is apparently unrelated to either safety or efficacy). Nor, more importantly, provided a shred of evidence to support whatever that belief might be.
I think you really ought to share your evidence about what the FDA is doing. I mean even Leana Wen, Public Health Professor at George Washington University doesn't know, nor do any of her colleagues so the fact that you do is pretty big news...
Quoting Fooloso4
Because it has not yet been shown to be safe enough. As has been explained in the three quotes cited directly from FDA staff, the full approval is a more thorough process looking at trial methodology of longer-term data sets and manufacturing processes.
The EUA checks to see if the medicine is safe enough to balance the risks from the emergency in question, the full approval checks to see if it's safe enough to use even without that risk (and without specific usage guidance). Two levels of safety, for two different purposes, one higher than the other.
I'm not just going to re cite all the evidence I've already provided for this. At this point I give up. If you think the FDA are doing something other than I describe simply cite your evidence supporting that assertion, I'm not going to respond to unsupported claims anymore.
I think this only holds if you can somehow quantify each of the safety levels (unless I've misunderstood what you mean by 'marginal', I took it to mean 'small'). The EUA threshold is one level of safety, the BLA approval is another, higher, level. To know that the difference between the two is 'marginal' we'd need some way of quantifying each. I don't think such a way exists, which is why - going right back to the beginning of this whole shambles of an argument - which was...
Quoting Fooloso4
... I think it's not 'surprising' at all. Only each individual can determine for themselves whether the difference in safety between EUA and BLA approval is significant for them because we each only know our own risk profile (in consultation, hopefully, with health experts - our doctor, the ample research available online...). As such only the individual can make an assessment of whether they personally need that extra margin or not.
Whether or not they are as contagious once infected, they are infected at lesser rates. As continual testing of everyone is impractical, they therefore present less danger to the public than the unvaccinated.
The unvaccinated are making this choice to (in their mind) improve their well being, at the expense of the public well being. It is therefore rational public policy to restrict their freedom of movement, to both protect the public well being, and to discourage this selfish choice.
The situation is rather similar to driving. Everyone on the road presents some danger. But drunk drivers, as a result of their selfish decision to be drunk drivers, present a greater danger. Therefore their freedom of movement is restricted, to protect the public and to discourage drunk driving.
The rate of increase in marginal safety between approved/unapproved for public disbursement seems fairly exponential; increases following that I assume approach a limit on a logistical curve. Increases along a logistical curve are increasingly less significant. Speculating, I would suppose you are waiting for reductions of uncertainty concerning the last 5% which simply comes with time. In 10,000 years you can be certain the safety of the vaccine can not be reasonably increased. How long do you suppose your "behavioral vaccine" will remain uncompromised? The safety of a vaccine should be considered relative to the threat of serious infection?
You repeatedly conflate the question of whether the vaccine has been shown to be safe and effective enough to get vaccinated now with the issue of full approval.
Here is a letter in the NYT from July 9th by Peter Marks: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/09/opinion/letters/fda-covid-vaccines.html
It ends:
Marks is recommending being vaccinated now.
Quoting Isaac
What they are doing is exactly what I said they are doing, reviewing and evaluating the data. Which is exactly what Marks said in his letter. In the meantime Marks is recommending getting vaccinated now.
We can all speculate, that's the point of each individual being left to decide for themselves (on proper scientific advice, of course).
Safe and effective enough is an individual judgement. Do you expect the government to tell you if you'll personally find riding a motorbike to be safe enough? It's safe enough for some people, too unsafe for others. Safe enough is a personal judgement and can only be made by the individual taking the risk.
The FDA are not even in the businesses of telling people what risks they should and should not take, their job is to determine if a medicine is safe enough according to strick legal definitions. They determined it was safe enough to be given a EUA. Marks also thinks it's safe enough for him to advise it. None of which has any bearing on what my, or anyone else's, personal threshold of risk happens to be, or should be.
Marks is an expert on vaccines, this doesn't confer him with any expertise at all on what level of risk any individual should be willing to take.
None of which had any bearing on the actual point at issue, of course, which remains...
Quoting Fooloso4
...data relating to safety and efficacy, hence you are wrong to say the the work they're doing is other than safety and efficacy work, which is the sole point of disagreement.
By the same logic we can all doubt. Proving the capacity for inquiry doesn't speak to the state of affairs. Because I was speculating I selected the number that errored against my position. The assumption of a .05 Alpha isn't exactly what I would call grabbing numbers out of the sky.
Indeed. And you'd have a perfectly reasonable and well-evidenced support for your position if you were to believe that.
The point is that there are other positions. Also well-supported by expert opinion and good evidence. As I've clearly shown, a substantial number of experts in vaccines, epidemiology and immunology do not think the FDA should approve the vaccine at this current level of evidence. They believe that more data is required before it can meet the higher threshold of safety the BLA approval confers.
So you have a good, well-supported view that the safety of the vaccine is, currently, near sufficient for BLA approval, and so little will be gained on meeting that threshold.
I have a good, well-supported view that the safety of the vaccine is, not currently, near sufficient for BLA approval, and so much could be gained on meeting that threshold.
What we used to do is maintain a difference of opinion without assuming our opponents were lunatics, sociopaths or liars. That seems too much to ask these days.
Nowhere do I say that "the work they're doing is other than safety and efficacy work". Of course the data is related to safety and efficacy, that is what the FDA does. You are simply making up claims, attributing them to me, and then arguing against those claims. Read my early posts including this:
Quoting Fooloso4
The evidence of safety and efficacy is sufficient to lead Marks and many other experts to recommend vaccination now even though the approval process is not complete.
Quoting Fooloso4
Are you unsure what 'rather than' means?
Are you deliberately trying to misconstrue what I've said? What was at issue in my initial comment to @180 Proof was the choose of getting the vaccine now or waiting for approval. Waiting at this point should not be about safety and efficacy, they have been established. The reason the FDA has not yet approved the vaccine is not that they have doubts about its safety and efficacy, it is, rather, about the workings of the agency. Its processes and procedures take time. That does not mean its workings are about something other than safety and efficacy. It means that the processes and procedures must be fully carried out for each product it approves. The delay in approval is at this point a bureaucratic problem rather than a problem with the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. That is why Marks and others are recommending getting the vaccine now rather than waiting for approval.
Quoting Fooloso4
Again we are back to your misunderstanding of the term bureaucracy and how this particular bureaucracy works. All of their work is to establish safety and efficacy. In this case we have a clear view of the safety and efficacy ahead of approval. Clear enough for Marks and other experts to recommend getting the vaccine, but they will not just approve it before they complete their work for approval. They must complete their review. As Marks said, they are working to streamline the review process.
Again, we are already quite sure. Therefore you should just get the vaccine now, even though we haven't got the extra bit of sureness from the FDA yet.
Is that basically what you were trying to say Fooloso?
I don't know what the BLA is or what it's approval entails. I do know fringe media outlets are profiteering off selling the conspiracy excitement of confirmation bias. I know vaccine hesitancy is a catalyst for unnecessary death and suffering that is happening in real time.
Quoting Isaac
The vaccine you aren't taking now will be the vaccine I wager you won't take then. I thought about not enduring an immune system response. It sounded unpleasant. I believe this is the reason people want to have a reason not to take it.
Quoting Isaac
According to your population data the choice to take it seems more like a matter of community solidarity. My population needs uptake to increase in order to curb an uptrend in suffering. If your community already has upwards of 90%, then whether you personally take it is disproportionally immaterial to vaccine hesitancy happening in other places. You are in a rare position to have only yourself to worry about for the most part. It is a unique experience. So, I would expect your position is being wrongly ascribed the negative responsibility for damage that exist elsewhere.
No, sometimes scientific rigor is out paced by pragmatic urgency. In fact, they may be taking more time knowing it doesn't limit access.
At this point it is still up to you, but that might change.
It is not just me saying this. Peter Marks, Director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) at the Food and Drug Administration and many others are saying this. See the letter to the New York Times he wrote that I linked to above.
What some here do not seem to understand that it is not simply a matter of review and approval. Regulatory personnel from the participating companies meet with the FDA where questions are raised that must be answered and concerns must be addressed. In many cases approval comes with recommendations, requirements for packaging and labeling, and restrictions for certain groups.
I'm sorry to have to say it, but this is simplistic. Firstly the vaccinated are far less likely to spread infection, even though it is acknowledged to be possible. The vaccines are not perfect, and to say that because they are not perfect I won't be vaccinated is like saying I won't put locks on my doors because sometimes thieves can pick them. Simplistic thinking!
And secondly, the vaccinated are following the medical advice in doing what is judged to be best for society as a whole, whereas the deliberately unvaccinated are acting only out of self-interest and against what is best for all.
One aim among others of vaccination is to allow freedom of movement and opening of borders and businesses which is what is needed lest our economies crumble causing much more suffering, hardship and many more deaths.
If people don't want to play their part then why should they enjoy what those who are playing their part do? And how much less so if they are also much more likely to become sick and burden the hospital system perhaps thereby denying a bed to someone else who needs it for some Covid unrelated emergency condition.
No one is saying that even the vaccinated will enjoy totally unrestricted freedom in any case. Mask-wearing and social distancing may become the norm, since the latest advice is that Covid is very unlikely to be totally eradicated and the vaccines are only around 70-90% efficacious in preventing symptomatic infection. None of them are sterilizing vaccines. A sterilizing vaccine would be ideal; but we don't have it.
How about this: if you want to remain unvaccinated would you agree to sign a waiver relinquishing your right to hospitalization if you became infected with Covid and sick enough to require it?
So confused.
Quoting Fooloso4
Quoting Fooloso4
Quoting Fooloso4
...They must complete the thing they've actually already done - because all their work is about safety and efficacy which they've already established.
You've still not answered the very simple question I've asked three times now. What are the FDA doing, right now, and how is it that you know (when seemingly even experts in public health don't even know)?
Quoting Fooloso4
I don't think you understand what a EUA is. It's when the FDA decide that the risks from a new medicine are outweighed by the risks from the emergency - meaning that they think people ought to take it. It would have been rather foolish of them to give it EUA and then not endorse taking it, wouldn't it? So obviously Marks is going to recommend getting it, the crisis whose risk outweighs the risk from the vaccine is still going on. None of this has any bearing on the lower threshold of risk the full approval requires.
Interesting. How is it that you know this?
Quoting Cheshire
What you believe is irrelevant. why would your guess as to the reasons of others have any bearing on the matter?
Quoting Cheshire
The people who believe that have already taken the vaccine. We're talking here about the people who don't believe that - what should they do? Are you suggesting that other people should act, not on what they believe is right, but on on you believe is right? How would you feel if it were the other way round?
Far less likely than whom? The unvaccinated? The unvaccinated but masked? The unvaccinated but healthy, the unvaccinated but rural dwelling, the unvaccinated but young, the unvaccinated but non-smoker...
Here is the PHE study showing reduced transmission in the vaccinated...you tell me.
Quoting Janus
Where does medical advice suggest that getting vaccinated is best for society as a whole? Give me one single medical advisory that suggests I should get vaccinated, in my circumstances.
Quoting Janus
Show me the evidence that I am much more likely to get sick enough to need a hospital bed if I don't take the vaccine. Any scrap of evidence at all will do.
Quoting Janus
Would you advocate the same for smoking, drinking eating red meat, not exercising enough, practising sports, doing office work, foreign travel, insufficient handwashing...
The problem here seems to revolve around two things;
Firstly the confusion between medical advice as to the safety of the vaccine and ethical decisions as to what risk it is fair to take (for what gain).
Secondly, this new idea which has emerged that one must believe whatever the consensus, or majority or official, scientific opinion is, not simply that one ought to have their beliefs suitably supported by scientific opinion.
The first case is simple to lay out. Let's say that the FDA, or equivalent body, are such experts on vaccines with such a wealth of data that they are 100% right all the time. Say we can measure safety on a scale of 1 to 10. Using their data and 100% accurate analytical skills they determine that the vaccine is exactly 9.675 safe. Now...where, in all their expertise, did they learn that 9.675 is the level of safety at which we ought to take a new medicine? How has their expertise in vaccines conferred upon them an ability to judge ethics?
The second I've no idea on. Even two years ago it wasn't the case. I've presented a post full of actual qualified experts who think there are problems with the vaccine that the FDA are not addressing, but for some reason, in this new world, that's insufficient to justify forming a view based on their expert opinion. Not just insufficient, but "acting only out of self-interest and against what is best for all". You'll have to tell me what you think the advantage to society is in stifling proper scientific differences of opinion.
If vaccination is roughly 90% efficacious at preventing hospitalization compared to lack of vaccination then it would be far less likely for the unvaccinated compared to the vaccinated in all of those categories, most likely.
I haven't seen the latest figure but here in NSW a week or so ago all bar one out of the 150 people in hospital with covid were unvaccinated. The other one had had one shot, so was not fully vaccinated.
Quoting Isaac
In general if it is true that vaccination greatly reduces transmission of the virus then it is obviously in society's best interest that as many people as possible be vaccinated. I don't know your circumstances, so I can;t comment about that.
Quoting Isaac
Those activities do not enjoy pandemic status and are unlikely to overwhelm hospitals, so probably no.
I don't follow you. Why, if it's on average 90% efficacious would it be less likely in all categories? If, on average drunk people are more likely to have a car accident, does that mean drunk people are more likely to have a car accident even among those who don't drive? Averages don't apply to all groups unless the criteria are random, which, with susceptibility to hospitalisation with covid-19, we know they're not.
But that's an aside because I asked about transmission, not hospitalisation. The same applies here though. The fact that on average, transmission is halved for those who are vaccinated it doesn't mean that transmission would be halved in the subset, say, of those who live in rural areas, or those who wash their hands frequently, or those who are better at any of the non-pharmaceutical measures. The reason I posted the study is to show that the study did not account for these factors.
It is simply false to say that vaccines reduce transmission of the virus in all cases. They have been shown, by one study, to reduce transmission, on average, in a limited number of cases, for a specific cohort.
To have a moral case that someone ought to take the vaccine to protect others you'd have to show that the vaccine was more capable of protecting others than other methods that that person might be willing to adopt. There is no evidence of this capability to date, and so absolutely no moral case that anyone ought to take the vaccine to protect others.
Nor is there a moral case that anyone ought to take the vaccine to help eradicate the virus. As Prof Pollard told the All Party Parliamentary Group only yesterday
So with no moral case for protecting others and no moral case for eradication - what is the moral case that any individual ought to take the vaccine?
Quoting Janus
I don't disagree with that. I think vaccination is an excellent public policy response in general.
Quoting Janus
Exactly. And yet...
Quoting Janus
...is commenting on individuals, isn't it? Do you know their circumstances?
Quoting Janus
Beds occupied by Covid-19 patients currently stand at about 2,500 out of 115,000 beds (source https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-hospital-activity/), about 2% of activity. About 20% of those 115,000 beds are occupied by those with avoidable illness (source https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/causesofdeath/bulletins/avoidablemortalityinenglandandwales/latest). Over a the short period of time the pandemic will run for, making vaccination mandatory would, at best relieve just under 2% of the pressure on health services for a few years. Making the lifestyle choices that cause avoidable illness prohibited would relieve nearly ten times that. Hospital admissions for Myocardial Infarction alone are at about 280 a day (source https://www.bhf.org.uk/-/media/files/research/heart-statistics/bhf-cvd-statistics-uk-factsheet.pdf) - every day, every year crisis or no crisis.
So it's simply false to say that lifestyle choices which lead to avoidable illnesses don't put the same pressure on health services that Covid-19 hospitalisations do. One of the main reasons why hospitals can't cope with Covid-19 is that they're overwhelmed by those other cases caused by avoidable lifestyle choices.
Not to mention the fact that the vast majority of severe hospitalisations with Covid-19 are the result of underlying commorbidities such as obesity and diabetes, caused by the very lifestyle choices you're relegating the harm of.
Empirical observations from local nurses.
Quoting Isaac
Human nature is fairly consistent when it comes to avoiding discomfort. I demonstrated this on this thread when 180 reversed his position. Quoting Isaac
I would probably be annoyed. But, if harm to my community was the issue I would listen.
Your position remains tied to your population. But, your argument generalizes to others. What good is localized data for speaking to an international matter? I agree, in your particular case, the decision is largely moot. Others have already shouldered the necessary risk to arrive at projected herd immunity requirements. It is a specific context from which to argue. It is not the case elsewhere is the point. Who these other people you think you speak for are; confuses the matter. Their communities have not arrived at herd immunity and their decisions carry more impact to those around them. Some things aren't best left to taste or preference. If I could take a vaccine for someone else I would, but I can't.
My county reissued a mask mandate to the public during this discussion. Is yours having emergency meetings? It's like arguing against taking shelter because there's no tornado near my house. It doesn't translate to places with tornados.
Indeed you are! You are confusing authorization with the widespread professional opinion backed by substantial evidence that the vaccine is safe and effective. This does not mean that they are without risk. Even with approval there will be individual cases where there are problems.
Quoting Isaac
It is, rather, you who does not understand. An EUA is not a recommendation for use. It allows the product to be used. In the case of the vaccine the EUA provided through the use of the vaccine for sufficient evidence of it safety and effectiveness that Marks and others recommend getting it. It is not regarded as safe and effective because of the EUA, it is regarded as safe and effective because of the evidence, including the evidence of millions of shots that were made possible by the EUA.
The medical advice was vaccinate a minimum of 70% of the population for the population to gain protection from the virus. The ethical matter is whether excluding yourself from the 70% is fair to the others in the population making the same choice. Is another's safety less valuable than yours without any known reason for qualification other than your willingness to doubt it? No authorities approval will predict a single outcome perfectly. Quoting Isaac
No it is an old idea; that when a group is asked to function together for a common end then a consensus is the best it can rely on.
It is a case where being wrong negatively effects others; made worse by distribution to others that might have otherwise decided correctly. There aren't resources available to soothe every possible apprehension one chooses to imagine. You've ignored the difference in population arguments 3 times by now; if hasn't been addressed at this reading. I consider my view valid and dismissed.
Quoting Cheshire
...?
Quoting Cheshire
Maybe, but if I disagree with you about the causes, then the consistency of human nature doesn't help arbitrate between our positions does it?
Quoting Cheshire
It's funny how important it seems to be that everyone gets vaccinated in whatever country you're in. Apparently, completely healthy people are either selfish, or scared, or deluded, for not getting a vaccine in one country regardless of the rest of the world. The myopia is shocking.
You're at about 50% and rising still. You'll be fine. You can stop wringing your soft first-world hands about it.
You're also at 14% of your stock...which constitutes most of the world's stock. If you were truly worried about people's health, you'd be preserving stock for those who need it most around the world, most third world countries are barely at 10%. But no, much more productive to wag a disapproving finger at your co-nationals...the ones who could still infect you.
None of that has any bearing on the matter of whether it will be rendered more safe by the work being done to complete the BLA approval. It's just a load of bizarre psychologising about the motives for advocacy without, again, a shred of evidence.
Fourth time...
Quoting Isaac
The chance to be "fine" evaporated a long time ago. There are 600K dead. As a former machinist I take offense to your characterization of "soft first-world hands".
Quoting Isaac It isn't funny. It is the entire basis for the argument I've made; which you choose to ignore. What part of 'group project' is unclear. The myopia is what preserves your position in your own mind. You in the first quote pretend my circumstances are yours; then extrapolate from yours onto mine. What is a polite word for asinine?
Yes, that's what I said.
Quoting Cheshire
No, that's not the choice is it. If I said to you "wearing a hat will kill you", you're not then deciding whether your fashion choice is more important than your life. You're deciding whether your belief that wearing a hat is fine outweighs my assertion that it isn't. If you're referring to people who completely believe the FDA and the pharmaceutical companies, but still don't get vaccinated then yeah, fuck 'em. But I don't know anyone in that position, so it's simply not a part if any ethical dilemma.
Quoting Cheshire
Is it? On what grounds?
Quoting Cheshire
Evidence. Honestly, we can't have a proper discussion if you're just going to make shit up. I could just say "the vaccine is poisonous anyway so no one should take it". His does that constitute an argument. Cite your fucking sources! It's like arguing with children.
Your argument is that everyone in America should get vaccinated even if they live rurally, are healthy, socially distance etc. Thus using up precious stocks, taking them away from those that really need them in other countries.
Forget 70%. Forget anyone who isn't vulnerable. Forget the mad anti-vax brigade who'll never take them anyway. Forget mandates. Forget the doubters. They're an irrelevance compared the truly needy whose doses they'll be using up just to save you from having to do so much non-pharmaceutical intervention.
Bit of a pivot. Let me think about it.
There was an antivax movement that lead to a measles outbreak on the island of Samoa that would serve as evidence if the casual implications aren't obvious enough for your tastes. As a follow up, try and guess how many covid cases they have today.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/samoa/
It may be rendered more safe if the FDA makes recommendations for changes with regard to labelling, packaging, identification of groups for whom the vaccine has greater risk because of age or health conditions or other things, but without making changes approving it does not render it more safe. It simply confirms that it is safe and effective.
Quoting Isaac
Evidence of what? The motives of experts who advocate getting the vaccine? I am not "psychologising" the motives of Marks and other experts. I assume their concern is for people's health and safety. Do you find that bizarre? The only thing that is bizarre here is your incessant need for disputation.
Quoting Isaac
Why would you think that I know what is going on right now at the FDA? Do you think that they are the only ones doing work on the safety and efficacy of the vaccine? Are you unaware of the CDC, the NIH, the WHO, and other regulatory agencies?
What's good about anti-vaxxers is they give a clear signal to the medical & scientific establishment that people won't tolerate substandard work/products. Vaccines, as they rightly complain, do have side-effects ranging from life-threatening anaphylaxis to long-term neurological complications. These are rare of course, so rare in fact that they the benefits overshadow the risks therein. However, such adverse outcomes of vaccinations indicate there's plenty of room for improvement. It appears the medical, pharmacological and scientific communities were caught with their pants down, they were resting on their laurels and didn't even notice the chink in our armor against bugs viz. we don't have effective treatment modalities against viruses.
Rigorous industry standards have nothing to do with anti-vaxxers. Vaccines are only one class of regulated pharmaceutical products.
Quoting TheMadFool
Shingrix and Gardasil are effective viral vaccines. But you are right, more work products need to be brought to market.
You could replace every post you've made with a single one that simply says "I'd rather not". And I would respect that more; than the reaching, wandering, and misdirection by authoritarian demand. Why?
I have a small point and a large point to make. I'll start with the small. First, to recap. @Wayfarer posted:
Quoting Wayfarer
I pointed out that when the vaccinated acqire a breakththrough infection, they are just as infectious as the unvaxxed. Therefore their movement should be restricted too. And that's when you pointed out that they're infected at lesser rates.
This point is easily refuted. The fact that the average vaxxed person is statistically unlikely to infect you means nothing. After all, the average person is not a serial killer, but we endeavor to take serial killers out of society to protect the public. The argument that a random individual is unlikely to cause harm is no argument against separating that indvidual from society.
Likewise drunk drivers, which you mentioned.
Quoting hypericin
In terms of protecting the public well being, you need to restrict the movement of the vaccinated as well, since they are just as contagious as the vaccinated, even if perhaps fewer in number.
So in the end, your point is purely punitive and unrelated to public health.
Quoting hypericin
But by your logic the contrary conclusion is forced on us. The average driver is statistically rare, even if all too common. Since contagious vaxxed people and drunk drivers alike are statistically rare, they should both be free to travel. After all, your likelihood of encountering either one is relatively low.
So your statistical argument is wrong, and all you have left is your feelings that the unvaxxed should be punished for their "selfishness," as you put it. How about people who don't get their flu shots? People who don't contribute enough to charity? Those with unpopular political opinions? If punishment is your only argument, you yourself wouldn't want to live in the world you wish for.
Now to the larger point. @Wayfarer suggests,"Perhaps their freedom of movement may also be curtailed ..."
Ok. Let's think that through. I can think of two extremes. One is what is done by the a grocery store near me. They have a sign out front that non-vaccinated people must wear masks. They don't check, and rely on the honor system. Then again I live in a relatively small, laid-back town with a relatively low infection rate.
The other alternative is full on police-enforced compliance. You're walking down the street, and the police may ask to see your papers. If you can't produce a vax card, you're arrested on the spot.
Those are the extremes. Perhaps you and @Wayfarer would like to say, specifically, how you think the restriction of free movement in the US (or your country, whatever it may be) should be implemented.
I well remember a few years back when the US state of Arizona wanted to implement a "show your papers" law to challenge brown-skinned people on their immigration status. Decent people across the country were rightfully outraged. Most people think of "show me your papers" as something said in a German accent in a late-night black and white movie from the 1940's. In the US, at least, we don't "show our papers" to the authorities without the police having probable cause or a damn good reason.
So perhaps you think this is a good reason, and that American citizens should be required to show their papers on demand. Can you see how this would quickly go south? Did you get your flu shot? Have any unapproved political opinions? Maybe you tweeted that "All lives matter," or that you believe in rationality and hard work. Those ideas are racist, according to the Smithsonian.
Can you look at history and give me an example of when "show your papers" ever came out well for a society and didn't quickly get abused?
How about when you're driving? Surely if freedom of movement is to be constrained, we need highway checkpoints. That's not so farfetched; there are already interior immigration checkpoints as far as 75 miles inside the US border, where travelers staying entirely within the US may be stopped, interrogated, and searched. Of course if they happen to find a joint or some other contraband, that's your bad luck. What, the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution forbids such an abomination? Sadly, courts have repeatedly allowed these interior checkpoints. It would be easy to set up a lot more of them to check people's vaccination status.
Do you think that's a good idea? Is that the country you want to live in?
Let me point out one more "inconvenient truth," as Al Gore once put it. Who in fact are the unvaxxed in the US? In the popular imagination they're white, MAGA hat-wearing deplorables with unapproved ideas.
In fact, the unvaxxed are blacks and Latinos. Don't believe me?
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-race-ethnicity/
https://thenewamerican.com/leftists-vaccine-passports-are-racist-under-the-lefts-own-thinking/
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/31/nyregion/nyc-covid-vaccine-race.html
So what are you going to do? Start pulling over or checkpointing black drivers, accosting blacks and Latinos on the streets and demanding their papers, refusing access to great numbers of blacks and Latinos to restaurants and movie theaters? Can't wait to see how that works out.
We have a real-life datapoint coming up. In New York City, restaurants and other indoor venues will soon require proof of vaccination for entry.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/03/nyregion/nyc-vaccine-mandate.html
But it turns out that only a fraction, one third or so, of NYC blacks are vaccinated.
The policy takes effect this Monday, August 16, and enforcement begins in September. It will be administered by the health department and not the police. So can you imagine what it's going to be like when two thirds of the black people in New York City are banned from restaurants?
The WSJ has the summary. Most of the article is paywalled but the free part says plenty.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/bill-de-blasio-new-york-city-covid-vaccine-mandate-coercion-11628022693
[quote=WSJ]
The modern progressive speaks the language of high-minded purpose but always ends with coercion. Witness New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, the uber progressive, who announced Tuesday that New Yorkers will soon need proof of vaccination to do everything from dining out to working out at a gym. He’s proud that New York is the first U.S. city to impose such a mandate.
“It’s time for people to see vaccination as literally necessary to living a good and full and healthy life,” he said at his press conference. You gotta love Mr. de Blasio telling you what is necessary for a good and full life. According to the data, roughly 55% of the city’s residents are fully vaccinated, ranging from 46% in the Bronx to 67% for Manhattan.
His response is to exclude the unvaccinated from many of the functions of daily life. He doesn’t seem to care that this burden will fall heaviest on the city’s black population, which is only 31% fully vaccinated (versus 71% for Asian Americans, 42% for Hispanics and 46% for whites).[/quote]
@Wayfarer and @hypericin, is this what you want? 69% of black people in NYC excluded from public life? And if not, then what DO you mean when you talk about restricting people's movement?
Feedback appreciated. You disagree with my facts? My reasoning? Or are you you all in on "show me your papers" to every non-white face in New York City? You want to bring back stop-and-frisk but for vax cards instead of guns and knives?? And if you did implement nationwide walking and driving checkpoints, how long do you think it would be before the inevitable scope expansion and mission creep set in? Check for your vax card, check your wants and warrants. Behind on your child support? Carrying any unapproved contraband? Tweet any unapproved thoughts recently?
You serious? Anyone thinking this thing through? Or do you all want to live under the Chinese social credit system and can't wait till it's implemented here? I'm afraid that's exactly what some people want.
Your car accident analogy doesn't work. If the virus is circulating through the community then everyone has an equal chance, statistically speaking, of coming into contact with it. The point is, if you get vaccinated and you are exposed to the virus, your chances of infection are reduced, your chances of symptomatic infection are reduced, your chances of hospitalization are reduced and your chances of death are reduced.
I see no reason why this would not apply to the unhealthy, smokers, the obese, alcoholics, drug addicts, the healthy, athletes, fitness fanatics, and so on. Unless you isolate yourself completely you cannot ensure that you will not come not contact with the virus; if you do come into contact with it your chances of a good outcome are increased greatly if the experts are to be believed..
If your chances of infection, symptomatic infection, hospitalization and death are reduced, then chances are you will, if infected, carry less viral load and thus be less infectious. So, on average, vaccination will reduce transmission.
All of this is assuming that what we are being told by the medical authorities, which is, or at least should be, assuming good will, the dominant expert consensus, is true. If we reject that then what do we have to guide us?
I acknowledge that all forms of lockdown and restriction of movement are an infringement on civll liberties, but in light of the severity of this illness, I believe that imposing a lockdown is a lesser of two evils. I mean, giving up some freedom of movement and even income, is generally preferable to getting a life-threatening illness, in my opinion.
Australia generally has succeeded in controlling the infection, although the Delta variant outbreak that started in Sydney June 16 has well and truly escaped the net. There is a lot of commentary that the mistake the NSW Govt made was in not locking down faster and harder - there was a super-spreader event on June 26th that transmitted the virus from Sydney’s East to the vast Western Suburbs, which is when it really began to escape, as there are many more large households and a high degree of geographic mobility. That’s where it remains - yesterday’s case numbers were 344, two deaths, and also cases appearing in regional centres.
As I think I said earlier, community attitudes to vaccination have dramatically shifted in the last month, due to the insidious nature of this variant, and the fact that there’s a lot of younger people in ICU, with two otherwise healthy and comparatively young people dying. I think everyone now realises that getting a severe case of COVID-19 is a life-changing event even if it doesn’t kill you. So vaccination rates have ticked up enormously, supply problems are being overcome, the Moderna vaccine has now been approved and the country is on track to be around 80-90% vaccinated by year’s end.
As to whether lockdowns have to be enforced, I still don’t see any other option. The laissez faire approach of some of the US GOP governors simply results in higher rates of infections and more deaths. Some US states with comparable populations to NSW are having thousands of cases and hundreds of deaths every day, which NSW might easily be matching, had not the lockdowns been enforced.
The Wall Street Journal is a Murdoch paper, is it not? More likely crying crocodile tears over the poor benighted black population to feed meat to their civil-libertarian right-wing audience than out of any genuine concern for the former. Murdoch media worldwide are probably alone responsible for [s]tens[/s] hundreds of thousands of infections by spreading their anti-vaccination nonsense along with all the many other lies and propaganda they peddle around the world every day. I would never cite or refer to any articles published by any Murdoch outlet in support of any point whatever.
What I meant was scientists/doctors developed vaccines, a heroic feat no doubt, but they didn't make the follow-up move which is to make vaccines better in the sense reduce the number and severity of their side-effects. Had they done that, anti-vaxxers would have never been able to do what they're doing right now - undermine decades of medical progress.
Quoting Fooloso4
I was referring to treatment (cures/medicine). Vaccines don't treat, they prevent. Bacterial infections can be treated (antibiotics) and prevented (vaccines) but viral ones have either no or only a few drugs available and that too of less than optimum efficacy.
You give baby aspirin to enough people and someone will choke to death. It is an unreasonable expectation on the part of the anti-vaxer that supports their position.
Oral medication can be improved e.g. powder forms that'll prevent choking . A similar logic should apply to vaccines. The medical/pharmacological communities are asleep at the wheel.
How many vaccinated people have told you to avoid it?
Zero! Your point?
Now I see where you're coming from - you think vaccineas hould be accepted in spite of causing more common minor discomfort (minor side-effects, MiSE) and the rare death/disability (major side-effects MaSE). The benefits (disease immunity) , as has be shoved down our throats, outweigh the risks (MiSE/MaSE).
What I'm advocating for is people to adopt an approach similar to if not identical to the approach we have towards good/products sold to us by businesses big and small; after all we do have to buy vaccines. What's this approach? A demand for quality - improve or we won't make the purchase. This simple rule has companies spending billions in R&D with the express purpose of correcting imperfections in their products. In vaccine terms, imperfections are the risks (MiSE and MaSE) and had we been as quality-savvy with vaccines as we are with smartphones, TVs, and gadgets, we would've provided the impetus for vaccine manufacturers to make their vaccines better i.e. vaccines with fewer/no MiSE and MaSE should've been a reality by now.
That this didn't happen indicates that vaccine manufactures don't care about quality (less/no MiSE and MaSE) as much as they do about money - it's more profitable to sell vaccines as they are (with risks) because people are more worried about not dying than dipping into their savings.
With anti-vaxxers, the situation has hopefully changed for the better - a clear message has been sent to vaccine manufacturers that people won't tolerate a compromise on quality, they want vaccine manufacturers to adopt the exact same policy towards their customers as Samsung & Apple have towards their clients - extra emphasis on quality which for vaccines must include, among other positive features, a reduction or elimination of negatives (risks), another name for safety.
Our difference would be that I think a vaccine is a novel product category. And I don't think it is dangerous. I think we should adopt this argument in regards to the actual product quality. People shop on price too much. Quoting TheMadFool I'm not really following you here. I understand what you are saying though.
The problem is in thinking that a groups reaction correlates 1 for 1 with the actual quality. Perhaps people are idiots and not fit to judge the quality of a vaccine. But, suppose they don't know it and instead say whatever their little minds produce.
Quoting TheMadFool Anti-vaxxers as a group are idiots in regards to their expertise in a subject of choice. I don't call NASA commenting on rover designs for the same reason.
Granted, others fall outside this model and are 'rather' complicated in their rationalization of a phobia.
I'm not implying that we should wait for the perfect vaccine, just like we don't wait for the perfect smartphone. What I do want to see with vaccines is something like what's happening with Apple smartphones: iPhone 4, 5, 6, 7,..., a tangible progression in the features of the vaccine as the years go by, including but not limited to improved safety (minimal or zero risk).
Quoting Cheshire
I feel you shouldn't ignore risks like that. True, the risks are negligible, near-zero, but someone always wins the lottery and it might just be your "lucky" day when you get your jab if you know what I mean.
Quoting Cheshire
Anti-vaxxers are right on the money as far as I can tell.
Indeed, statisically speaking, given how extremely unlikely serious side effects to vaccines are, anti-vaxxers are loco.
However, anti-vaxxers have a hidden benefit that seems to have escaped our notice. What they do or should do is galvanize vaccine developers into paying attention to reducing the risks, minor & major. Until now, vaccine developers have gotten away with it in a manner of speaking by constantly harping on the positives of vaccination and how the negatives are so negligible. Anti-vaxxers are having none of that - their demand, unrealistic perhaps but definitely describes an ideal, is all or none i.e. zero side effects or no to any and all vaccinations. This should put vaccine developers into combat mode, get those cogs turning in their heads, and quite possibly, they can design perfect vaccines, side effects: NIL.
Why would evidence of the effectiveness of the measles vaccine have any bearing on the effectiveness of the covid-19 vaccines? We're not discussing the general point that vaccines work. We're discussing this one specific situation. Otherwise you could just generalise it to 'all medicines'.
Quoting Fooloso4
Reducing uncertainty (confirming) is making it more safe (not to mention the possibility of all those other things you mentioned). Safety is entirely about uncertainty. If we knew for certain it would cause x side-effect in person y we just wouldn't give it to person y. It's unsafe to the exact extent that we don't know if it will cause x side-effect in person y. The FDA work reduces that uncertainty, thus increasing the safety.
Quoting Fooloso4
Yes. It's not the general motivation (concern for the health of the population) you're making the argument that their specific motivation is not the EUA but the evidence from millions of vaccine shots (despite me posting a direct quote from Marks to the contrary, but hey, evidence seems to be irrelevant on this thread, so...)
Quoting Fooloso4
Because you said that despite their main work being about ensuring the safety and efficacy of medicines, their current work is not related to safety and efficacy. I'm asking how you know that unless you know what it is they're currently doing.
Quoting Janus
Simply untrue. The more isolated have a lower chance, those practising more non-pharmaceutical interventions have a lower chance.
Quoting Janus
Do you have any evidence for this? Or do you expect me to just argue against whatever you reckon?
Quoting Janus
Unbelievable! How does one argue against such insanity? You're advocating injecting the entire population of the world with a chemical that had not even been invented a few years back on the basis of the fact that 'you don't see any reason not to...' Not on some evidence you've got immediately to hand.
And this despite the fact that I've presented evidence the contrary which I know for a fact you've read - evidence which shows a strong possibility that for the under 24 year old age group, hospitalisation might actually increase as a result of mass vaccination.
Quoting Janus
No, if your chosen experts are to be believed. I've presented evidence from experts who believe that vaccination does not significantly increase the chances of a good outcome. You've chosen to ignore them in favour of some vague notion that 'the experts' say it will without even having any evidence to that effect which you can cite.
Quoting Janus
Again, simply not proven, and I've even posted a link to the evidence showing reduced transmission on average to show that it does not prove what you claim here.
Quoting Janus
No one is arguing against vaccination reducing transmission on average, that much has been quite well demonstrated.
Quoting Janus
Other experts? Do we all have to have the same opinion nowadays? Has difference become such an anathema in our new polemic world that we all have to have exactly the same opinion or else we're lost at sea?
Honestly. I give up. It's pointless me troubling to make a fully cited case for a nuanced approach in a difficult to navigate circumstance, only to have it ignored in favour of polemic sound-bytes from the media. This is people's lives we're discussing here, actual real people who may or may not face a greater risk of being harmed by the intervention you're all advocating and you can't even be bothered to actually look up any evidence at all, let alone analyse it, before publicly condemning anyone who fails to toe the party line. It's a disgrace.
If the number of experts dissenting from the official line were significant enough then of course that would be a different story.
So,
Quoting Isaac
That's true. It was hastily written, but what I meant was that if the virus is everywhere through the community then if you get out at all there is a fair chance you will come into contact with it.
Quoting Isaac
My only evidence is that this seems to be the official consensus. That said, if the vaccines stop the virus replicating then it seems to stand to reason that the vaccinated will, on average, carry a lower viral load than the unvaccinated, and thus shed less virus and be less infectious.
Quoting Isaac
No, I'm advocating it because it seems to be the expert consensus motivating the official advice, and I don't have anything else to go by. Do you?
Quoting Isaac
Again, they are not my chosen experts, but the majority expert consensus. Or are you denying this?
If we followed your argument and applied it to global warming we might discard the majority expert consensus, and follow the minority that deny it on account of the fact that doing anything about climate change will hurt the economy and might cause more suffering and death than global warming will.
Quoting Isaac
The only "evidence" I've seen is in the form of theoretically possible long term negative outcomes; ADE seems to be the main one; purely speculative stuff. This is opposed to the majority consensus which says there is no reason to believe the vaccines are not safe and effective for the vast majority of people and that there is no sign of ADE and it is believed to be highly unlikely. Of course this consensus might turn out to be wrong; there is always some risk, however small. But it is a matter of risk assessment, and frankly you are sounding somewhat hysterical.
Anyway its is also a matter of pragmatics. This vaccine rollout, in the absence of any future evidence of likely significant negative outcomes, will proceed, and if you are unvaccinated your activities may be severely curtailed and you will have to make a decision based on whether you are prepared to give up eating out, travel, sporting and musical events, cinema and so on, just so that you can protect yourself against what seems to be the very minor risk of a serious negative outcome from vaccination.
I have a good friend who thinks just like you, and I was thinking somewhat along those lines myself earlier, and I have been through all the arguments, but as I say I am not an expert, so I realized I have to follow some advice more or less blindly and I can't see any better candidate to follow than the official expert consensus. Good luck.
I don't have any interest in you believing them. You do you. What bothers me is that the fact that I don't is being used to paint me (and others of my opinion) as selfish, stupid, or uninformed. It's not me attaching any epithets to you. I think you're perfectly justified in believing the consensus of scientists. As you say, why wouldn't you.
Quoting Janus
Indeed. But then I don't see an argument for any moral imperative to not come into contact with the virus. The moral imperative is to not put too much strain on your community's health services and to limit your transmission of the virus to others who might be more vulnerable. The first can be satisfied by keeping healthy in general, the second by taking non-pharmaceutical distancing measures. I don't see a moral case for taking the vaccine.
Quoting Janus
That's yet to be adequately demonstrated. Much of the viral load is carried in the nasal mucosa (https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2001737) and viruses there are unaffected by the adaptive immune system (https://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/fulltext/S1931-3128(21)00098-6). It's not clear how much less virus a vaccinated person will shed compared to an unvaccinated healthy individual - ie whether vaccines reduce viral load in transmissible areas faster or more effectively than a normal healthy immune system is, as yet, unknown.
Quoting Janus
The question isn't who we go by, it's why advocate anything at all. I think there's a serious misunderstanding among the public about what this 'consensus of experts' consists. With regards to, say, the issue of advocating vaccination of the under 25s, there's been (by my count) four studies in the world, two of which are contested. About 15 people in the entire world know what the evidence is first hand and not all of them even agree. The studies have been hurriedly put together...
...why would we actually advocate anything at all on the basis of that kind of certainty - it's madness.
Quoting Janus
No, not at all. I'm denying the moral imperative to agree with the consensus, and I'm denying that consensus among a very small group arrived at over a very short period of time is sufficient ground to carry out a mass intervention on the whole human race. I mean, am I sounding mad here? A handful of people (literally a handful) in the space of a few weeks reach a narrow consensus that something is safe, in an environment we know for a fact to be heavily lobbied and funded by the industry providing that solution, and on that basis alone we advocate that it should be given to the entire human race - does that really sound sane?
Quoting Janus
We might - but then we'd investigate further. What have the pro-warming scientists got to gain, who funds their research, how much time has been spent gathering data, how well established are the theories on which they're basing their data, what is to be lost if we take their advice...? Then we'd do the same for the anti-warming scientists... All this seems normal practice and has already been done with global warming. The issue I'm raising here is why it's not being done with vaccinations.
Quoting Janus
Exactly. And are the experts you cite here experts on risk assessment? No. They're experts on vaccination. Nothing about their expertise tells us what risk we should or should not take.
Quoting Janus
Yes. A vaccine is about to be approved (and is already being encouraged) for children who often have no say in the matter, on the basis of a handful of experts hurriedly putting together a few contested studies to achieve a level of protection that they're not even sure will help. I'm absolutely hysterical.
Quoting Janus
It has nothing to do with protecting myself. I'm too old to suffer from any of the consequences at a significantly greater risk than the risk of Covid complications. For me I could take it or not, I think my risk profile would be barely any different either way. I'm cross about the moralising, and the treatment of children as lab rats.
---
I wasn't going to reply at all, but your response was carefully thought out and measured, despite disagreeing with me. Thanks
Wow I'm really not following this "logic". The argument that a random individual is unlikely to cause harm is generally an excellent argument against separating that individual from society. Infection, unvaxxed status, serial killerhood are all reasons for separation of that person from society.
Quoting fishfry
The vaccinated and infected are rare. If they are identified as such, they should be restricted.
Drunk drivers are rare. If they are identified, they should be restricted.
Quoting fishfry
Vaccination should be a requirement for entry to high risk areas such as transportation, supermarket, bars, restaurants, movie theaters, etc.
The rest of your post is slippery slope hysteria and race baiting.
This doesn't address the larger harm the unvaccinated, and the scumbag public figures that encourage them, do to society. If everyone was vaccinated, and diligently performed basic social distancing and hygiene during local outbreaks, we might be done with the pandemic, at least in the US. Instead, hospitals and morgues are filling up again, and actual freedom, the freedom to enjoy life without risk of death or mutilation, has slipped away.
Really, from that perspective the restriction of freedom of movement is too mild. Vaccination should be mandatory, full stop.
Still looking for something to argue against. What I said was:
Quoting Fooloso4
It sometimes happens that a drug is approved and is later found to cause problems. Whether it is safe or not depends on the drug and people who take it. If the vaccine is approved on Tuesday it does not become safer than it was on Monday.
Quoting Isaac
Why the perverse need to make claims and then trying to attribute them to me? What is your motivation? I am not talking about motivation at all. I am simply saying that the evidence from the millions of vaccine shots supports the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.
Quoting Isaac
And yet again! I said no such thing. We have been through this already.
Quoting Isaac
It is safer on Tuesday because by Tuesday we'll be less uncertain about it's effects than we were before Tuesday, because the FDA will have finished checking the safety data. Or are you saying that checking something has no impact on safety? That planes are just as safe going into the air without pre-flight checks as they are with them.
Quoting Fooloso4
In direct contradiction of the expert I cited explaining how those millions of shots do not provide the level of safety information the FDA require.
Quoting Fooloso4
You said...
Quoting Fooloso4
Again, I'm beginning to think you just don't know what 'rather than' means...
.."rather than safety or efficacy" you said, ie 'and not safety and efficacy'. You've directly said that the matter the FDA are attending to now is not safety and efficacy.
The vaccinated infected make up about 40% of all covid-related hospital admissions (source - https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/60-people-being-admitted-uk-hospitals-had-two-covid-jabs-adviser-2021-07-19/).
Assuming this reflects the proportions infected, that's a mighty odd definition of 'rare' you've got there. I've never heard 40% of all cases being referred to as 'rare'.
Unless you're wanting to say that a vaccinated person is more likely to need hospitalisation once infected than an unvaccinated one, to such a huge extent as to bring that 40% figure down to something any normal person would call 'rare'.
You requested* evidence for a causal relationship between vaccine hesitation and population harm. The case of a documented anti-vax movement resulting in an outbreak on an island seemed to match up for this particular request for evidence. The matter of effectiveness was not mentioned in my post.
Reference:
It is a case where being wrong negatively effects others; made worse by distribution to others that might have otherwise decided correctly.
— Cheshire
Quoting Isaac
Breakthrough is rare except with the delta variant and they're still collecting data about that.
Regarding the article you cited,
"a higher percentage of breakthroughs may simply reflect that fully vaccinated people are a bigger chunk of the population,"
NYT, may be behind paywall, sorry
The degree of certainty of its safety does not make it more safe, it simply makes us more certain that it is safe. It does not miraculously change the composition of the vaccine or how it will affect someone.
Quoting Isaac
Of course it doesn't! Again, you are arguing against claims that are of your own making. The millions of shots is evidence of safety and efficacy. That is not the same thing as saying this evidence alone is sufficient for the FDA to make its determination. Does this really need to be explained to you?
Quoting Isaac
We have been through this. The safety and efficacy have been well established. Even you admitted that:
Quoting Isaac
Safety and efficacy and FDA approval are not one and the same thing. If someone is concerned about safety and efficacy of the vaccine at this point RATHER THAN wait for FDA approval there is already sufficient evidence that it is safe and effective.
Taking things out of context can change the meaning. Rather than admit that you failed to understand what was said in context you obstinately ignore the context and double down. Why?
The only benefit of anti-vaxxers is the default position as a self-selected control group with minimal loss to the aggregate IQ of society from remaining untreated.
Well then I wasn't clear enough. I wanted you to support your claim that...
Quoting Cheshire
'It' being the take up of the covid vaccine. Evidence would therefore have to apply to the covid vaccine. As I've said multiple times, I'm a staunch supporter of most vaccination programs. I think they save millions of lives and in most cases anti-vax campaigners are dangerous. That doesn't mean I'm just going to blindly throw my support behind every vaccine going. So to support your claim you need evidence from this vaccine, because our disagreement is entirely and only about this vaccine.
Yeah. I think that's exactly why we're seeing the higher percentages.
The point was about restriction on movement. In that context it was claimed that the vaccinated infected are rare. They're not. They're about 40% of all infected, if the hospitalisation figures are even close to representative of infection. If breakthroughs are rare, yet comprise 40% of all hospitalisation, then we must conclude that unvaccinated infection is rare also, or we must argue that vaccinated people are more massively likely to be hospitalised post infection.
Ludicrous. I advise risk analysts. Safety is entirely measured in terms of certainty. If anyone is 100% certain of a negative effect it is mitigated. The remaining measure of safety is exactly the degree to which we are uncertain about the negative effect. We don't give drug to people where we know they will cause harm, we do so where we're uncertain if they will or not, a risk.
Quoting Fooloso4
It's not you explaining it to me. You suggested that it was evidence of the safety of the vaccine in the context of the FDAs work on safety...
Quoting Fooloso4
Yeah right!
Quoting Isaac I believe we have different definitions of what qualifies as blindly.
It is a demand for deductive evidence for the unknown outcome of a probabilistic trial awaiting inductive corroboration. It is a function of the amount of time that has passed; that makes the request impossible to meet. I don't know the outcomes of things that have not happened. If you take a Bayesian approach the number of currently healthy vaccinated people increasing at a steady rate should be reasonably compelling. The number of unhealthy unvaccinated people clogging hospitals in places should also be reasonably compelling.
I still find your position largely temporal. Prove to me what happens to me in the future. Can't be done. But, it has no bearing on the actual make up of this vaccine. You have conclusively proved it is a new vaccine.
Yes, and those who comply are the test group.
Test vs Control. Classic Experimental Set up.
Let's be candid here. Vaccines usually take much longer than the 1 year Covid-19 vaccines have been developed within. My hunch is fast-tracking the process like this a realy bad idea - shortcuts, I'm told save time but there's a tradeoff here between speed and safety/efficacy which everyone, oddly, seems to be ignoring.
We are not dealing with quantum mechanics. The measurement does not alter what is being measured. The safety of a product and the determination of its safety are not the same. A product does not become safer because it is approved. It is approved because it has been shown to be safe. It is not its safety that changed, it is rather our degree of certainty of its safety that may change.
Quoting Isaac
The context is whether he or others who are concerned for the safety of the vaccine should wait for FDA approval. If you did not understand that before, there is no good reason you would not now since it has been pointed out to you more than once. What is it you hope to accomplish be continuing to argue about your misunderstanding of what was said?
If you've done design and manufacturing work; then you are aware a lot of the progression can be derived from the initial setup or concept. Suppose whoever made the prototype knew what they were doing. The lack of changes and reevaluation to an original design also makes for quick output.
Why would I require proof that it's not an extraordinary case?
Quoting Cheshire
Yep. Which is why I wouldn't demand that it's met. I'm not demanding anything here. It's other people doing the demanding, I'm happy to just let people make up their own minds.
Quoting Cheshire
Why? With an increase in vaccine uptake we'd expect an increase in healthy vaccinated people in all cases (except the vaccine actually being lethal). Increasing numbers of healthy vaccinated people tells us nothing.
Where's your evidence for "The number of unhealthy unvaccinated people clogging hospitals in places ". In the UK 40% of hospitalisations related to covid are among the vaccinated.
Quoting Cheshire
No one is asking anyone to prove what will happen in the future. I don't know where you're getting this from.
Quoting Isaac I'm pretty sure I was verbally abused for not providing evidence which you now acknowledge can't exist. Letting people make up their own minds does not entail justifying their bad ideas; should covid prove to hold the ordinary dynamic of having been less effective due to anti-vaxxer spread of speculative danger.
Quoting Isaac
Should someone take advice from someone that holds no significance to the health of people following vaccination; when the matter is the effect of a vaccine on health? Then, why provide it? Beyond justifying one's own choice to the detriment of others?
Quoting Fooloso4
Yes. And the argument is that waiting will increase the safety by decreasing the uncertainty (risk). As I said, safety and efficacy are not binomial, everything is only ever some given level of safety. Some people (like @180 Proof) want to wait for a higher level of safety, a greater degree of certainty. The question is what qualifies the FDA to determine what level of safety people ought to accept?
Exactly the kind of anecdotal evidence we've been trying to stop anti-vaxxers from using to spread disinformation.
Quoting Cheshire
Yes, it is. What difference does that make to a claim that it is the unvaccinated who are clogging hospitals? And yes, things might be different in the US, or they might not. We don't know do we, because you're too lazy to actually look up any evidence for us to discuss.
Quoting Cheshire
We haven't established that they're bad ideas yet.
Force, and threat of force, is, for the most part, the only tool in government's tool box. If we're going to force people to be vaccinated, why not force them to work, force them to contribute to the "greater good", or force them to live a certain way in order to achieve some lofty, universal goal? Where is the line drawn? Why pressure your neighbor to be vaccinated if your vaccine is so great? If a vaccine requires majority consensus before it can be possitively effective, then why even bother making it?
It looks to me as though covid is just the new terrorism. Eventually it will be a new boogeyman to scare us all into submission and have us fighting amongst ourselves to establish some new standard of safety, of course at the cost of merely a few pesky freedoms, another pinch of liberty, and perhaps the last layer of our collective sanity.
Quoting Isaac
It is evidence your position is untenable and must result to holographic facts. At least 40% of all affected were probably also British by residence. No one needs a dishonest tactic to present the truth. I consider this a concession your position can not be maintained.
Quoting Isaac
See above.
Oh, it didn't appear to be a quote.
Quoting hypericin
So people keep saying. No one has yet explained how that gem of statistical understanding everyone is so proud of is relevant to a claim about the rarity of the vaccinated infectious.
Quoting hypericin
Indeed. So evidence of a significant difference in transmission rate between strategies (vaccination vs other non-pharmaceutical methods vs both) is what we'd need to establish a moral imperative for a person to choose one over another. Do you have such evidence?
Evidence that vaccinations reduce transmission at a rate significant to cases of not vaccination. Besides the remarkable initial reduction in transmission following the introduction of a vaccine. Hold on I'm gathering evidence the sky is blue for a different study.
I probably wouldn't take it if I were you. The irony could be deadly.
Quoting IsaacQuoting Isaac
I think you've been hacked.
When an assessment is made it cannot measure things that only become evident at a latter date. If it is discovered years later that a drug poses a danger to a certain group of individuals, then the safety of the drug must be re-evaluated. It is the evaluation that changes. The danger was there all along, it was simply unknown.
Quoting Isaac
It does not increase the safety but it may increase our understanding of the safety, but then again, it may not. Such an increase in our understanding may occur years from now rather than between now and its approval. Where do you draw the line?
Quoting Isaac
You did, but you said so in defense of your claim that it doesn't make sense to say that the vaccine is safe and effective:
Quoting Isaac
And later you said that no one is denying its safety and efficacy. But also:
Quoting Isaac
Can you explain how the vaccine is effective but does not significantly increase chances of a good outcome? How do you reconcile these conflicting claims?
Quoting Isaac
That is a question but not the one that was raised. In this case, for him, based on what he said,FDA approval is the determining factor. The question is whether there is likely to be a significant increase in what is known about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine between now and approval, and whether that degree of confidence is offset by the danger of being infected.
Yes. And as I've cited, that's the definition of 'safety' used in the industry. Safety is the degree to which we know what the dangers are. If a medicine will cause thrombosis in patients over 80 it will be recalled or not prescribed to them. The extent to which a medicine is 'safe' is the degree of certainty that it won't. They can't say with 100% certainty that it won't, but the more checks that are done, the more certain they can be that it won't, the 'safer' that medicine is said to be.
To be clear, if 'safe' is a property of the vaccine, not our knowledge of it, then the FDA are lying. They don't know whether it's 'safe' do they, it might not be. We're in a much stronger position accepting that 'safe' is about their knowledge of it, otherwise everything can be declared 'might not be safe'. I really don't think that will help.
Quoting Fooloso4
Good question. I can't see an argument that experts in vaccines are in any way more qualified than anyone else to answer that question. Yet that is the question being treated here as if they had. People are being told that they morally ought to accept the consensus of vaccine experts opinion on what level of risk they ought to take.
Note, we're not talking about what level of risk there is. That is something the experts do indeed have expertise in. We're talking about what level of risk people ought to accept.
Quoting Fooloso4
I meant that your use of that proposition in your argument didn't make sense, as I've already explained. If you state an unrelated, or irrelevant fact as proof, I'd say "that doesn't make sense". It's not disagreeing with the fact, it's saying that it's use in that place is nonsensical. Your use of the fact that the vaccine had been declared 'safe and effective' to argue that it ought to be taken was nonsensical because the person concerned had already said that they'd prefer to wait until it was proven more safe, a greater degree of certainty about the dangers.
Quoting Fooloso4
Because efficacy is not binomial either. Something can be more or less efficacious and still be labelled 'efficacious'. The argument I've presented from the immunology experts is that whilst the vaccine is a good risk/benefit balance for adults and vulnerable children, it is not a good risk/benefit balance for younger adults and children where they have no pre-existing vulnerability.
Quoting Fooloso4
In my view it is exactly the one which was raised. Someone was told that they ought to take the vaccine because it had passed a certain threshold of safety and efficacy. But there's no scientist who can determine what risk we ought to be willing to take, no scientist who can tell us who we ought to trust.
It's my belief that we can make judgements about what risk we ought to take and who we ought to trust, but those judgements should be based on reason, not votes. I have presented perfectly adequate reasons for the position I hold, nearly 30 citations to support it. It's not the most popular position, but it's a perfectly well justified one. That ought to matter.
Delta makes this complicated, especially since published numbers are all over the place. But I was wrong, what really matters is (difference in infection rate) x (difference in transmission rate). So even modest protection in both factors can multiply to make a significant difference.
To be clear, you are making things less clear. We cannot evaluate the safety of a vaccine without some knowledge of it. When it is said to be safe this means to the best of our knowledge. If it turns out to be less safe than the evaluation concluded that does not mean that they are lying, but that they were mistaken.
Quoting Isaac
Does that mean that when you say:
Quoting Isaac
that is not helpful?
Quoting Isaac
It is not so simple. When discussing communicable disease we have to consider what level of risk the community ought to accept. More and more in both the private and public sector the answer is that the risk of the vaccine is lower than the risk of an unvaccinated community.
Quoting Isaac
Once again you misrepresent what I said. I did not say it ought to be taken. I said I was surprised to here he was waiting. It is his choice to wait and I did not challenge that. For some perverse reason you keep returning to this. It gets us nowhere.
Quoting Isaac
It seems as though you do not actually know what this means. The fact that something can be more or less effective does not mean it is not effective. When the vaccine is said to be effective that does not mean that it does not significantly increase chances of a good outcome. If it did not significantly increase chances of a good outcome it would not be regarded as effective. I think you know this, but just can't help arguing.
Quoting Isaac
At first it was thought that there was not much risk for younger people but that is no longer the true. In any case, as with any vaccine that is considered safe that does not mean that it would be helpful for everyone.
Quoting Isaac
I suppose one advantage of being you is that you will never be lonely. You always have the voices in your head to argue with.
If what you say about the studies done to determine the safety of the vaccines in the under 25s is true then that is cause for concern and I would be worried too if I had children in that age group. Well, I am concerned anyway, I wouldn't want to see young people as a group harmed by the vaccines, but of course I would be more worried if I had kids myself.
In an emergency situation, which I think this arguably is, there does seem to be an imperative to suppress the voices of dissenters just for the pragmatic reason that they create unwarranted fears in many impressionable people, which serves to undermine the program. I say unwarranted because there are many dissenters, some very well-regarded medical experts, who speak as though they know this is going to be a disaster, an experiment on a vast scale that is going to cause millions of deaths and so on.
See this for example. According to my anti-Covid vaccines friend there is a league of thousands of doctors in the US, who believe the vaccines are killing and injuring many more people than the official figures show. But this all seems to be hyperbolic speculation (or should I have said speculative hyperbole?) as far as I, the non-expert, can tell.
The issues involved in more informed disagreements over safety, whether they have a more or less equal balance of advocates on either side or relatively few on the dissenting side, are beyond the capabilities of non-experts, that is those who are not epidemiologists, virologists or immunologists, to critically assess, and that seems to be a big problem.
Agreeable.
[s]Why not? If a particular activity (here vaccine development) was/is done faster than usual, some standards must've been flouted and therein lies the rub. I'm not saying the Covid-19 vaccines are duds but there definitely is a difference between them and other vaccines that were developed as per well-established procedures.[/s]
Quoting Cheshire
I suppose the process (vaccine development) can be sped up if the standard duration (longer) is due to logistics issues and not due to biological factors that have to do with the pathogen (Covid-19) or the test animals/humans. Good point!
It's not as simple as I thought it was! :up:
Well if the whole country was vaccinated, 100% of those infected would be vaccinated. Further, children, who are ineligible, and young adults, who get vaccinated in lower numbers, make up a significant part of the unvaccinated population. Their natural immunity partially removes them from the pool of potential viral hosts. Whereas the older demographic groups, with the weakest immune systems, also have the highest vaccination rates. https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/811B/production/_119915033_934ed1dc-65ea-4439-9d4c-b82dd0fe28e0.png
I agree with the combination, but not the way you've put it. Infection is morally irrelevant without transmission (which you already account for in the second term). The two morally relevant factors are need for health services (not the same as infection, clearly) and transmission. A moral case for taking the vaccine would have to show that it reduces the need for the use of health services and/or the rate of transmission relative to other strategies, and to a greater extent that other lifestyle choices we already consider morally irrelevant.
For example, we don't morally compel people not to skydive, or box, or compete in motor-sports. We don't morally compel them to exercise, avoid red meat, eat fruits and vegetables... We basically accept that some people will risk burdening the health services to a greater extent that others, so long as that extent is not huge we don't create any moral imperative. Freedom and diversity are more important considerations for us than the community burden those choices carry.
For anyone below middle age, your chances of hospitalisation are around 9-10 in 100,000 (source https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2020.0982). Your chances of needing hospital services just from being overweight are about 50 times that (source https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/statistics-on-obesity-physical-activity-and-diet/england-2020/part-1-obesity-related-hospital-admissions-copy). So, the vaccine's effectiveness is irrelevant here 1/10,000 risk of hospitalisation is already not something we normally have a moral imperative to avoid in the first place so any reduction carries no normative weight.
As for transmission - as I've said, we've no evidence yet for a reduction in transmission compared to other strategies so it's unknown.
All true. I'm not seeing any relevance to the claim that the unvaccinated infectious are clogging up hospitals, or that the vaccinated infectious are 'rare', which were the two claims I used that statistic to counter.
I've literally quoted the medical dictionary on what it means and you still persist as if you were some font of knowledge...
Quoting Fooloso4
Depends on the context. If someone is citing 'risk' as a reason for avoiding something, or lack of 'risk' as a reason for doing something, then yes, it is useful to point out that nothing is without risk.
Quoting Fooloso4
That's not an answer. If the question is 'how much risk ought the community accept?' the answer can't be to compare two risks to see which is the higher. That's the answer to the question 'which risk is higher?', not the question 'what level of risk ought we accept?'
Quoting Fooloso4
I see. So why were you surprised? A substantial number of people are waiting for full approval before taking the vaccine, why would it surprise you to find 180 was one of them?
Quoting Fooloso4
Of course it would. Most drugs are effective only in certain circumstances, or dependent on the risk/benefit calculation. Not to mention the stunning naivety in suggesting that because the FDA say it's effective it must therefore be effective...
Paracetamol - https://www.evidentlycochrane.net/paracetamol-widely-used-ineffective/
Cancer drugs - https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2589085
Anti-depressants - https://www.research.ox.ac.uk/article/2016-06-08-most-antidepressant-drugs-ineffective-for-children-and-teens-study-finds
All FDA approved as safe and effective, serious questions over the effectiveness of all of them... It's almost as if the world's largest and most powerful lobbying group ever might have had some influence over the matter... surely not though, I expect they spend four times as much on lobbying than any other industry just for the fun of it, not because it works!
Quoting Fooloso4
'True'? So now you have the hotline to what is actually 'true', not just expert opinion, not even consensus anymore, we went past that barrier quickly, now it's what's actually True. So Stephen Baral is actually lying (not just presenting a different opinion) when he said
Quoting Stephen Baral
Quoting Fooloso4
No, exactly. So each individual should be able to make up their own (informed) mind about whether it's suitable for them, yes?
Not sure if I cited this already, but there's a blog in the BMJ recently on the issue you might be interested in - https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/05/07/covid-vaccines-for-children-should-not-get-emergency-use-authorization/ and a discussion in the Journal of Medical Ethics about it here - https://jme.bmj.com/content/47/8/565
Quoting Janus
It's possible, yes. But for an alternative view point on the effect of suppressing dissenting voices - https://documents.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/99rsppp.html. I think there's a danger, as Vinay Prasad put it that
If dissenting voices are to be suppressed, they should be suppressed on the basis of good science, not on the basis of their agreement with institutions, especially government ones.
Quoting Janus
Yeah, I think that's the point we've reached. It seems reasonable to read of the usual dismissal of quackery we get from sciencebasedmedicine.org (I quite like it a lot of the time), until we read this line "he’s rehashing the same dubious arguments made by Peter Doshi in January to claim that the actual efficacy of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines is much lower than the clinical trials found".. Pete Doshi...an associate professor of pharmaceutical health services research at the University of Maryland and editor of the British Medical Journal. How is David Gorski (an oncologist specialising in breast cancer) in a position to claim that Pete Doshi (an epidemiologist and editor of the world's foremost medical journal) is making 'dubious' arguments?
I mean there's no doubt in my mind that McCullough is exaggerating in order to promote his own personal 'cure' - same old story. What's insidious is the way the article is used to subtly (or not so subtly) attempt to throw any dissenting opinion under the same bus.
Find some whacko saying something is bad - et voilà - proof that it's good. It just doesn't work like that (or at least it shouldn't).
The other wierd issue here is that the people who would accuse a doctor like McCullough of deception to promote a product are the same ones dismissing the influence of the pharmaceutical companies' commercial interests as mad conspiracy theory. Either doctors are willing to risk lives to promote products or they are not, and with more power comes more ability to do exactly that.
Quoting Janus
Yes. As I said earlier in this thread, there's only a handful of people actually involved in this who know the facts first hand, a few hundred at most. The rest - governments and agencies included - are choosing who to trust. I feel like that used to be recognised in the sciences (though maybe I'm being nostalgic), these days it seems we're asked to believe the chosen ones have the Truth™ and the rest are sociopaths or lunatics.
I expect a higher level of wariness from those responsible for public health. If even a single expert (well-recognised, in the correct field) says there's a problem, then the course of action is uncertain. Hesitancy at least, certainly not legally mandating the chosen course and banning discussion of the alternative as has been mooted in this case.
The government should make a decision and make it mandatory for people to comply. If it doesn't, this can mean several things:
-- The matter of public health is not as severe as originally thought or as popularily presented.
-- The matter of public health is worse than originally thought or as popularily presented.
-- The government doesn't have a solution, but refuses to admit so.
-- The government has a solution, but refuses to enact it, because it would possibly lead to public disapproval, and the government doesn't want to deal with that (it's either too weak, or too concerned about being reelected).
Yes. If the governments are so damn sure of the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, then why didn't they push the makers of the vaccines early on to produce sufficient amounts for everyone?
Why did the governments let the private pharmaceutical companies dictate the pace of the pandemic early on, at that crucial time when the pandemic could have been reigned in with an effective vaccine (even if not a particularly safe one)?
You might be interested to read https://jacobinmag.com/2021/01/capitalist-competition-covid-19-vaccine-rollout
One of the things that is happening is that efforts to capitalize the pandemic are being masked by emphasizing to place the blame on the currently unvaccinated.
There is also a dangerous simplificationism going on where the experimental covid vaccines are being advertised and praised as if they'd be in the category of classical effective and relatively safe vaccines, trying to borrow the glory of those classical vaccines.
If we are not sure, why would we take it?
If it doesn’t, why take it?
If it does, why bother if others choose not to?
Yes. Evidence of this here on this site, where Coronavirus posts have focused almost exclusively on the moral culpability of the unvaccinated, with barely a mention of any culpability on the part of the gigantic multinational corporations risking thousands of lives to protect their profits. Rather, these are the white knights to whom we should all submit in our ignorance.
Quoting baker
Indeed. Xavier Symons writing in the Journal of Medical Ethics makes the same point
Quoting Xavier Symons
Thanks for considering it. I think it does have some basis in reality, but I was really just demonstrating how much concern was being derived from assumptions regarding time. I don't know of any other vaccinations that were produced in hopes of thwarting an endemic cycle during a pandemic. The novel case of being both new and heavily encouraged due to trying to outpace a pandemic seems to be reason alone to discard it. Then, the necessary scale demands the ability to organize and mobilize capital; which entails using a large medical manufacturer. So, the vaccine arrives on the table condemned, because it hasn't already existed and hasn't been produced by some imaginary artisan small batch vaccine operation.
Can you please help me see how this is a philosophical topic? If so, to which category in TPF does it belong?
Applied ethics.
Condemned? I think you're confusing 'condemned' with 'reluctant to inject the entire future generation of the human race without a little more data'.
More like reluctant to extend my personal decisions to the scope of the world's children to maintain a position.
There is an interesting bias that comes along with this discussion. Because, each position correlates to action or inaction in recent memory. It is rare a philosophical position is being lived.
Quoting Isaac
Nice. Thanks.
Yes, but without infection transmission is impossible. If the vaccine reduced infection and transmission each by 50%, overall likelihood of the subject transmitting the virus is reduced to 25% versus baseline. Even if the protective effect was merely 30% in each of these, this would equate to roughly 50% less transmission, which given its exponential can vastly change outcomes of a pandemic. Even given some of the somewhat disheartening recent data, this condition is met:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-study-moderna-vaccine-far-better-than-pfizer-at-preventing-delta-infection/
This does not even touch on transmission rates.
Protection against ICU admission is a separate issue, and demonstrably robust with the vaccine:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/08/10/us/covid-breakthrough-infections-vaccines.html
Do you really believe that a tremendous amount of death, suffering, and economic loss would not be prevented if everyone was vaccinated?
If you do, you can only be cherry picking data to satisfy some ulterior agenda.
If you don't, then how is that an insufficient moral imperative? What exactly is your aim?
Certainly. How is what constitutes good science to be assessed by the layperson, though, if not by using the majority consensus as the yardstick in any field?
The majority consensus seems to be that the vaccines are for the most part safe and effective. It is understandable that governments and authorities operate on the assumption that, in an emergency situation, public debate with dissenters from this consensus, would only confuse the populace and lead to an increase in "vaccine hesitancy", which could only worsen the situation. Some small risk is acknowledged but people are being asked to accept that personal risk for the sake of the common good. Given the situation; given the damage extended lock-downs will inevitably do to economies, with the increased suffering, illness and death that would inevitably entail, it does not seem to be an unreasonable request..
I was wondering this too. Also the converse: how much worse would it be right now if we had no vaccines at all? All the evidence points to: a lot worse.
Yes. So vaccination is one way of reducing transmission. I'm not sure who you think is denying that.
Quoting hypericin
True again. So the vaccine is one way to reduce ICU admission too. Again I can't see where you might be getting the impression that anyone's denying that.
Of course you completely ignored the actual argument...
Quoting Isaac
... If you don't understand my arguments, that's fine, you can ask for them to be clarified, but it's pointless discussing if you're just going to ignore them.
Quoting hypericin
Yes. Not everyone needs to be vaccinated to avoid that
Before you reply, since this thread has taken such an odd course thus far - I'm not picking on you for any reason other than you happen to be the one I'm replying to at the moment - just take a moment to think. I've just quoted a professor in medicine at Harvard Medical School (one of the top medical schools in the world). I've previously cited papers from immunologists and epidemiologists from the world's top medical journals in support of my position. Do you think you replying with whatever it is you 'reckon' that you've picked up from the newspapers is going to constitute a compelling counter argument?
Relevant qualification, publication in a respected peer reviewed journal, and lack of obvious conflict of interest. Does that seem complicated to you, it seems quite obvious and simple to me - what am I missing?
Quoting Janus
I'd agree for adults. For children (and on the matter of boosters) I wouldn't even agree that it's a clear majority, but let's assume is is for the sake of argument (even if only a narrow one)...
Quoting Janus
Well no. It might have been reasonable had the government taken no advice at all on the matter. That would certainly be an attractive theory. The problem is, the government has been advised, and it's been advised that this is unlikely to be the case.
https://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2021/01/26/medethics-2020-107076, https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/07/26/what-does-public-health-really-mean-lessons-from-covid-19/, https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/93803, https://jme.bmj.com/content/47/5/296, https://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2021/03/08/medethics-2020-106805
...I could go on, but citations seem to be of limited use here. I'm not claiming the psychologists and behavioural scientists are all of a mind here - there's dissent! - but the majority are arguing that a refusal to discuss the serious issues actually promotes vaccine hesitancy. It just makes the government and their institutions sound clandestine, authoritarian and conspiratorial, which are the three main triggers for not trusting them. But of course, why should we trust what the majority of scientists are telling us...!
Quoting Janus
No indeed. it's a perfectly reasonable request. It's often the way the debate is framed, which is baffling. It's like it's being framed using a theory of mind we should all have discarded by the age of about three. We have different minds, yes? So in the minds of the people refusing the vaccine, it is not serving the common good. So the weigh-up is irrelevant. The people who believe it's for the common good have already taken the vaccine, those remaining (generally) don't believe it's for the common good, so they're unlikely to be persuaded by an argument like that. They believe it's for the benefit of the pharmaceuticals (or China, or occasionally the lizardmen from the centre of the earth!) and that their governments are lying to them about both the risks and the benefits.
The question is - what is now the best course of action to take to convince these people that the governments are telling the truth, and that the vaccine is in their community's best interests, not the interests of some global cabal? Is it to shut down debate, call everyone who disagrees a lunatic/idiot/sociopath and continue to filter additions to the £52 billion to the pharmaceutical companies have already made in direct contravention of the WHO advice? Do you really think that's going to convince the hesitant?
Quoting Isaac
And pray tell, what are these other strategies? Endless lockdowns? Wearing masks the rest of our lives? Keep in mind that the same mouth breathers screaming about their "freedom" to infect others via not vaccinating are the ones screaming about their "freedom" to infect others via not wearing masks and fully reopening no matter what.
Or is your idea to let the virus run its course and infect everyone? Sorry, I absolutely do not accept this reckless endangerment of my or my loved ones well being in service of politically motivated pseudoscience.
Quoting Isaac
Quoting Isaac
Quoting Isaac
Is this ignorant "argument" really worth addressing? Obesity and skydiving are not transmissible diseases. Nor are they pushing hospitals to the brink of collapse.
Quoting Isaac
Says who? Because Martin "herd immunity" Kulldorff does not. Rather, for him letting the virus run rampant, causing unknowable lives lost, or ruined by long covid, is somehow acceptable. Preventing this does not rise to the level of "need".
So rather than have everyone vaccinated, you must prefer the current state of affairs. Where, driven by massive disinformation (an effort you seem eager to make your little contribution to), people are refusing the vaccine in droves, making us suffer through yet another nightmare surge.
Quoting Isaac
Please. Who cares? You can cherry pick fringe "experts" all day. This is mere appeal to second-rate authority. Who will you cite next, Scott Atlas?
And so long as they are anti-wherever-I'm-at-at-any-given-moment
Depends on what you mean by "conflict of interest".
All the data so far seem show the vaccines to be safe and effective for the most part. Long term issues are merely theoretical possibilities, no one knows just what will happen, but the consensus is that there is no good reason to think there will be widespread long term issues with the vaccines. There would be no point at this stage to have a public debate about that anyway, just because there is no long term data. How do you think the public would react if public debates about the merely conjectured future safety of the vaccines were played out? There should be clear determinations, tabulations and accounts of the actual presently evidenced level of risk of injury and death from adverse effects of the vaccines versus presently evidenced risk of injury and death from the virus for the various demographics; I'll agree to that much.
It reduces the rate of transmission more than any "lifestyle choice". Unless you are wondering around not exhaling. The moral question is whether publicly justifying yourself for your own self-satisfaction is worth the possibility of misleading others. Simply, suppose your wrong and just making yourself feel better with these epic debates. What benefit is it to anyone else? What harm, is arguably non-trivial.
You acknowledged the lizard people camp is in full support. Is that not reason enough to take a step back?
Quoting Isaac
Your mind dictating reality again? It is considered from a collective point of view because the pandemic operates on a collective level. Covid isn't your personal interruption, it is everyone's problem.
I mean something like being paid by the industry benefitting from your results, having a personal relationship with test subjects, beneficiaries, or funders... The usual stuff that goes into COI statements (or should do). It's often possible to dig a bit deeper than the COI, which I think is sometimes a good idea, if a lone scientist is saying something whacky... Standard stuff, not a controversial idea.
Quoting Janus
Well, that's the subject matter of the medical ethics papers I cited. It's not as simple as you seem to think. If, instead of being honest about the safety, the public are told it's 100% safe and anyone suggesting otherwise is a lunatic, a large minority are just going to find that super suspicious. Does that really strike you as so odd? A massive multinational corporation stands to make billions out of a product and meanwhile we're told it's totally 100% safe and anyone saying otherwise needs to shut up right now. Can you really not see how that's going to go down with the exact demographic that currently need to be persuaded?
And it's not limited to covid, which, despite the crisis level, will pass. The suspicion is now going to fall more heavily on things like polio, MMR, hepatitis... All of which save millions of lives.
It's an unbelievable misjudgment of human nature to think you can persuade anyone to take a vaccine by saying "shut up, you're totally wrong, you idiot. Now, roll up your sleeve" , I mean, who on earth thinks that would work and what rock did they spend their childhood under?
The other issue is that quashing debate about the safety and efficacy of the vaccines has a knock on effect depending on the types of strategy used. If you look at the sort of hyperglycaemic rant typical of the pro-vaccination YouTube/Facebook/Twitter post we get, such as , for example. This kind of rhetoric is seriously at risk of killing thousands more and prolonging the crisis, by making remaining unvaccinated into a moral proscription. It's exactly the problem we see being played out now with the WHO warning...
Far from the naive moralising of "If more people had been vaccinated we wouldn't have the Delta variant", it's actually the case that if fewer people had been vaccinated (in Western countries) and the vaccines instead went to the vulnerable in the developing world, we might not have the delta variant.
Overly simplistic messages in a complex situation inevitably backfire.
Except the public has never been told it's 100% safe. It has always been acknowledged that there are adverse reactions and a small number of deaths.There is an official consensus assessment of the efficacy and safety of the vaccines, based on case numbers for the former and reported adverse reactions and deaths for the latter, and anyone disagreeing with that must be using a different set of statistics or else indulging in speculation about theoretical possibilities.
So, there really is nothing to debate, is there?
You're assuming the public get their information from official sources like the FDA, WHO, or CDC. I'm not here accusing the official public health institutions of suppression (though there is a case to be made). I'm talking (in this whole thread) about the ethics and pragmatism of individual moralising. The majority of the public get their information through WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter. News outlets next. The number who get it direct from the institutions is small.
The point I'm making here is about the actions of individuals. The manner in which we treat others in our community, you know, basic ethics. What I (and the majority of medical ethicists) am saying is that the treatment of dissenting views from qualified experts by ordinary citizens (via social media, even forums like this) is detrimental to the resolution of the pandemic. It condenses opposition to vaccination, actually lends support to conspiracy theory, and causes difficulty changing policy in a dynamic situation.
So regarding...
Quoting Janus
Reacting in the way we see here, and on social media, to reasonable people presenting well-supported dissenting opinion is dangerously unhelpful. Depends if you want to debate that...
Oh really, Issac? Its my kind of rhetoric that is doing this?
Quoting Isaac
After spending untold hours manning the forums sowing doubt about the vaccines, he piously bemoans the public's declining trust in vaccines.
Amazing.Quoting Isaac
I don't care if you take it or not. Just shut up.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/15/vaccine-hesitancy-broken-relationship-state-conspiracy-theorists
You quoted out of context. The objection was to the lie you offered concerning 100% support. I'll pleasantly exchange a difference in opinion, but cheating the matter to support the false outrage isn't the same as variance in scientific perception of the facts.
The truth is the rest of the public had the same reservations and put themselves at risk for something greater than themselves. Demanding respect for a heightened phobia under the guise of reasonable and plainly emotionally charged discourse is the only conspiracy that is observable. Would you like to borrow a razor?
Struggling to distinguish rhetoric from claim doesn't surprise me from you. I'll offer a guide since the territory is clearly unfamiliar; claims are the propositions followed by an indication of the source - a citation, a quote, a mention of the origin... something like that.
As to the inference, are you suggesting that it's untrue that media posts treat vaccine safety as a binomial function, statements like "the vaccine is completely/totally safe" don't occur? Similarly do you think you could readily supply pro-vaccine media posts with expressions such as "the vaccine is not completely safe, but..."? No. The sources I'm referencing are quite homogeneous in their polemic interpretation of 'safety'.
Quoting Cheshire
Ah, so you do know the difference between rhetoric and claim. Or are you prepared to stand by this statement as the proven truth about 'the rest of the public's motives?
Quoting Cheshire
In what way would that be a conspiracy? I mean, good effort at anacoluthia, but falls a little short.
Never mistake what is doing as a reasonable exchange of ideas in search of the truth. His role is to be an apologist for the indefensible, giving it the veneer of legitimacy. This is an easy distinction to miss, and it deserves much more attention than it gets.
His arguments are paper thin, but that is beside the point. Tear one down, the goalposts shift, and two more take their place. Argue with a flat earther, a 9/11 truther, a holocaust denier, a climate skeptic, and you will have the same experience.
Find any atrocity in history, any massacre, any genocide, and you will find "intellectuals" fulfilling this function of providing "reasonable, intelligent" cover for the indefensible.
And make no mistake, this is an atrocity: thanks in large part to the grotesque and intentional mishandling of the pandemic, and the outrageous politicization of masks and now the vaccine, the number of dead in the US will in a few days exceed that from the Civil War. The Issacs of the country provided cover for Trump's death cult then, and [b]over 300 9/11's worth of casualties[b] later, they continue to do so now.
I agree, but given that the non-expert mob mentality will ensure that this is just what will happens, then it would be better to have open forum and debate on contentious issues confined within the fields of study and then the results made public when or if consensus within the community of experts is reached. Governments, if they are sensible enough to follow expert advice will always follow what is perceived by their own political advisers to be the best expert advice, that is what the expert consensus is understood to consist in at any given time. The public take is always uninformed, gratuitously sensationalized and politicized. .
If a sector of the populace rejects the official line in an emergency, this can only serve to undermine the strategies that have been adopted to address the crisis. I don't hold with morally condemning anyone who chooses not to be vaccinated; but they will have to live with the restrictions that will likely be placed on them, not by governments so much as businesses and industries.
In Australia the prime minister is already warning businesses that if they place such restrictions on the unvaccinated they may be subject to litigation. It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out, but I would hazard a guess that the majority of people support the unvaccinated being subject to such restrictions. .
Indeed. But you acknowledged it by making a unsupportable claim, in other words, you used a rhetorical tool to give some force to that acknowledgement. A well-known and perfectly legitimate device...or a 'lie' depending, of course, on whose side you're on.
Quoting Cheshire
I don't believe the data supporting your claims is publicly available. I don't believe it's privately available. I have my doubts about it being transcendently available too...
But governments demonstrably are not sensible enough. So what do we do? The governments of the US, UK, France Germany and Israel for a start are rolling out booster programmes despite every health and vaccine authority on the world telling them not to. Why would they do that? - The hysteria generated by social media. Tell everyone you've got a panacea, then try to restrict distribution. Sure recipe for a riot. The government's hands are tied on this really, and now millions more will die as a result.
Governments hyped the numbers to start with (and still are) just to get people to take the action they needed to, then they overplay the vaccine efficacy, just to get the necessary take up. I get why they did both and I don't even disagree strongly with what they did, but it has consequences further down the line. Consequences we're feeling now as supplies of vaccines run low and Western countries are using up vital doses leaving developing countries to act a breeding grounds for new variants.
Similarly, I think clandestine decision-making might be supportable now for the reasons you give, but it will come back to bite us later as trust in governments and scientists is eroded, just at a time when we need that trust to be as high as possible. It's a very risky strategy.
Quoting Janus
Yes. I agree. This is one of the moral questions I think this crisis raises. If your community want to pursue a solution which requires your compliance, to what extent are you morally obliged to comply, even if you think it harmful? To comply would be to cause harm to others (in your view), avoiding which seems like the essence of acting morally; but to not comply means that a solution the majority agree with cannot be enacted - you're essentially abusing your power to have your way against the majority view. Not an easy dilemma.
Quoting Janus
Our countries are well over 50% vaccinated, but with under 20% of our vaccine stock left. Countries in the developing world are lower than 10% vaccinated, not even enough to cover the vulnerable, and struggle to even get a share of the limited stocks available. Again - really interesting altering of the ethical landscape this crisis has produced. What we're seeing is the powerful making a grab for limited stocks of something to save their own skin at the expense of others more vulnerable. Normally this would be ethically frowned upon, today it's morally mandated. How did that happen?
Imagine this was food. There's a limited supply, people are starving. Rich people, who've already eaten and can probably handle a few days without a meal, are scooping up all the remaining food leaving others, who can't so easily handle the privation, to starve. In what world does that become even morally permissible, let alone morally promoted?
Quoting Janus
Yes, I get that feeling too. I'm dumbfounded at the ease with which people accept the idea of a government mechanism being in place to, in any sense, legally require (or impose) the purchase of a privately produced, profit-making product. Prior to this, would you have trusted your government to work closely with the tobacco industry to produce a 'healthy' cigarette and not be unduly influenced by the industry's lobbying power? Would you have trusted your government to invest all their climate change funding into a scheme devised by the major energy companies and not be even a little suspicious that it might serve their interests a little more than ours? The pharmaceutical companies have the largest lobbying budget of any industry - four times larger than even their next nearest contender, and that's before the quarter of a billion they added to it just as this crisis broke. Do you think it's reasonable to assume that all that money has, just on this one occasion, had no effect whatsoever on policy?
Seems like a valid observation. Continuing to argue based on carefully constructed attempts at mutual objectivity just warranted a beating. Quoting Isaac Yeah I know. Yet you don't hesitate to request it at every turn. I don't think this can be reconciled by demanding black swans from one position.
They did it's called the tobacco institute. It's about 10 miles from my location. Rather the building is currently standing.
The problem with this line of argument is that the vaxxed are every bit as contagious as the unvaxxed. The number of breakthrough infections is significant. How significant we don't know, because The CDC stopped tracking breakthrough cases in May. Wonder why.
Now it's true that if you are vaxxed and you get covid anyway, your symptoms will be reduced. That's a good reason to be vaccinated. But if you do get a breakthrough case, you're just as contagious. And there are a lot of breakthrough cases. Israel, which has an 80% vaccination rate, reports that the Pfizer shot is only 39% effective.
So your numbers just don't add up. The average person you meet is highly unlikely to be contagious at that moment in the first place. Of those that are, they're more likely to be vaccinated for the simple reason that most people are vaccinated, and the vaccines simply aren't that effective.
So there's no scientific argument at all to decree that unvaccinated individuals should "forfeit the right to move freely in society," which was @Wayfarer's original quote that I objected to.
And even if you could make such an argument, the downsides of such Othering of a group -- dirty, disease-ridden, danger to society -- would outweigh any good. I defy you to name any time in history that such an Othering came out well. And I'm sure you know all the bad instances I could name.
Quoting hypericin
Ok. Now that is entirely different than what @Wayfarer said. You agree that the vaccinated yet infected should be isolated. That's not even what we're talking about, and you are in effect conceding my point.
Quoting hypericin
I'm not even talking about that. @Wayfarer said that the unvaccinated should "forfeit the right to move freely in society." I'm pointing out that this is one, not scientifically supported because of the high vaccine failure rates, the fact that the vaxxed are just as contagious as the unvaxxed, and the Othering that would inevitably produce results that nobody would want to see.
I'm not talking about any other issues, whether the unvaxxed should be allowed into bars and whatnot. I'm talking about "forfeit[ing] the right to move freely in society." That's a tremendous overreach and poorly thought out position. I wouldn't be surprised if @Wayfarer would be willing to say, "You know, I just typed that in, but I didn't really think about it, and it's wrong on many levels and totally unworkable." I don't know. You're taking up an argument on someone else's behalf but you yourself don't seem to remember what the argument was.
Quoting hypericin
Asking someone to drill down a level of detail is not a slippery slope. If you propose to restrict the free movement of the unvaccinated, how do you determine who they are? You have to interrogate everyone. Perhaps you discount an additional, say, one million police/citizen encounters per day. Maybe you haven't read the papers about public opinion of police encounters. It's not a slippery slope argument to challenge a highly impractical suggestion by asking the proposer to supply the details of how their idea would be implemented.
Quoting hypericin
How so? The proposal is to restrict the free movement of 75 million or so Americans. I think I understated the likely consequences of such a nonsensical and dangerous idea.
Quoting hypericin
How so? I pointed out that only 31% of blacks are vaccinated, so that if you start restricting their movement or rights in large numbers, you would create social problems that hardly need to be mentioned to be perfectly obvious to anyone who follows the news. You act like you don't follow the news.
In any event, the New York Times made much the same point when they reported four days ago, Why Only 28 Percent of Young Black New Yorkers Are Vaccinated.
Perhaps you could read that article in its entirety and explain whether you think the New York Times is race baiting too.
In any event, my comments were regarding New York City's plan to require vaccinations for entry into public spaces. The New York Post reported on the details of the plan today. They said that the venues themselves would be fined, not the individuals. Seems that unlike you, New York City actually put some thought into the consequences of their policy, and enacted enforcement mechanisms intended to avoid the obvious racial consequences instead of exacerbate them.
See how that works? People have an idea, but then they have to think through the consequences and modify and implement their policies accordingly. That's what you call "hysteria" and "race baiting." I call it basic thoughtfulness and common sense.
Quoting hypericin
Yes, you're just the person I'd pick to Other 75 million Americans and select them for special treatment. What could possibly go wrong?
But as I pointed out, your statistical logic is flat out wrong. The vaccines aren't even 50% effective. There are huge numbers of breakthrough cases, so many that the CDC won't even report them. And while the vaccines keep you from getting as sick as you would without them, you are just as contagious. So there is no scientific argument to be made that the unvaxxed are any more dangerous to society than the vaxxed.
What's dangerous is people letting their fear cloud their common sense. And don't you think the lockdowns themselves are harming society? Children born during pandemic have lower IQs, for one thing. The increase in alcoholism, domestic violence, and substance abuse are noteworthy. Every action has consequences both good and bad. There's no thoughtfulness and balance in the simplistic "lock everyone down and shoot the unvaxxed" kind of thinking.
What, am I being hysterical again? UP AGAINST THE WALL: California Congressional Candidate Says Anti-Vaxxers Should Be Shot. I'm not hysterical, I'm just someone who follows the news from a variety of sources.
Quoting hypericin
Might. And might not. The adverse reactions to the vaccine are off the chart, and nobody knows the long term consequences because there haven't been any studies. You're making a claim that can't be backed up by science. You're letting your lizard brain flood you with fear. Take a step back and try to think. Who's violating hygiene and social distancing? Who's arguing against it?
I'm arguing against the thoughtless and mindless claim that the unvaxxed should "forfeit the right to move freely in society." That's what I'm arguing against and that's ALL I'm arguing against. Are you sure you're not the one who's hysterical?
Quoting hypericin
Well that's just terrible, I agree. I'm disagreeing that it's practical to selectively restrict the freedom of movement of 75 million Americans without a lot of unexpected and highly negative consequences. Why don't you stick to the actual topic of what I said, and try to think the issue through?
Quoting hypericin
The vaccines don't even work all that well. The adverse reactions, including death, are off the charts. Nobody knows if they're safe long term because the studies haven't been done. They have no FDA approval. I think you are so panicked by the media hysteria you'd send Jews to the ovens if someone told you they carried disease, which is exactly what the German media told people. You're just that kind of person. I hope you'll step back and get a grip on your own hysteria.
Quoting Cheshire
Ok, and I appreciate your saying that. Because other than that one point, I haven't said or advocated anything. Except to push back on my hysterical and propaganda-addled friend @hypericin.
Quoting Cheshire
The numbers don't bear you out. As I posted, the Israelis, who are 80% vaccintaed, report that the Pfizer shot is only 39% effective. The numbers for the other shots are in that range. And now everyone is supposed to get a booster shot. So in terms of effectiveness, the vaccines are essentially a bust. Yes they do make you less sick than you'd be otherwise; but you are just as contagious.
And since most people are vaxxed, the chances that the next person you run into is contagious and vaxxed or contagious and unvaxxed are more or less the same. So there's no statistical argument to be made about treating one class differently than the other on the basis of contagion.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes, but are you denying their factual claim that only 31% of black are vaccinated? As I posted above, the New York Times reported that only 28% of young blacks are vaccinated. If the WSJ prints a fact, then it's a verifiable fact no matter how you feel about their editorial stances. Right? If you don't like the WSJ's 31% number, then just take the NYT's 28% if you prefer that.
Quoting Wayfarer
Well I don't much care either, I just want to see the hilarity ensue. A bit of sarcasm, don't get excited.
But as I also linked above, the New York Post reported that the enforcement actions in New York City will be against the venues and not against individuals. Meaning that they took my point to heart and realized that the optics of arresting or ticketing or shooting (as one California congressional candidate wants to do) unvaccinated black people would not look too good in heavily black NYC.
You see once again that I am trying to get people to be thoughtful about what they're saying; and as support for my position, New York City itself was thoughtful about this point. Whether they are genuinely concerned about black people or whether they just don't want the bad optics; they're only fining venues and not individuals.
Quoting Wayfarer
LOL. Don't hold back, tell us how you really feel.
You're right, I actually quoted too much from the WSJ article. All I cared about was the 31% number. If I'd known it would trigger you I wouldn't have bothered.
But it's a fascinating point. The stanard mainstream belief is that the unvaxxed are MAGA-hat wearing racist deplorables. But it turns out that the real unvaxxed are blacks and Latinos. And Ph.D.s. That's right, the single group with the greatest degree of vax avoidance is people who hold PhDs. The article didn't say why, but my guess is that people who have done actual scientific research can recognize the sham, politicized pseudoscience for what it is.
Quoting Wayfarer
I gave you a New York Times link reporting much the same information. You seem to have forgotten to argue your own point, you got so triggered by the WSJ.
Quoting Wayfarer
Now that is an entirely different matter that your original suggestion that the unvaxxed should forfeit the right of free movement.
I might (or might not) argue against a general lockdown, but I'm not discussing lockdowns here. Lockdowns affect everyone equally. To implement a lockdown you don't have to Other 75 million people (in the US), subject everyone to demands to show their papers, and add a few million or so daily police/citizen interactions. Those are the issues I'm concerned about.
Lockdowns, regardless of their merits, apply to everyone equally, and therefore don't have the problems I'm concerned about regarding your earlier idea.
Quoting Wayfarer
I looked this up. Australia has some 25M people versus 300M in the US. And the US has only 1.27 times the area. So Australia has a much smaller population and much much sparser population density. You have no idea what it's like to get 300 million crabby Americans to do anything.
And besides, having just discovered that the US government has been lying to us for 20 years about the progress of the war in Afghanistan, which we are even as we speak losing in a majorly humiliating fashion, I doubt that American are inclined to believe anything the government says. I remember the anti-government sentiment of the 1970's after our loss in Vietnam, and I expect the same to happen now. So you can't lock down the US. Can't be done even if was the black plague.
And from what I hear, Australia has surrendered its civil liberties in ways that. to this American, are truly frightening. I always thought of Austrlians as liberty lovers, Crocodile Dundee kinds of folks. Guess that was only a movie.
I'm not saying lockdowns wouldn't be effective. Only that American is an unruly country full of unruly people not currently inclined to believe anything the government says. It's just a practical matter.
Quoting Wayfarer
I don't disagree that locking everyone down works in a pandemic. China was apparently successful doing that. But they're a majory authoritarian regime. And like I say, Australia has a much smaller population.
But mainly, why are we talking about lockdowns? I'm not talking about lockdowns. Lockdowns are imposed on everyone equally. To lock down a country you just patrol the streets and shoot or fine or chastize everyone who's out without a good excuse. Your original idea, to restrict the free movement of only the unvaxxed, involved interrogating everyone, necessitating millions of cop/citizen interactions every day, many of which, if you read the US papers, don't go particularly well, especially when there are minority groups involved. Black people are not interested in being accosted by the police in the US and frankly I can't say I blame them.
And by the way, where are you getting all these extra cops? As a result of the anti-cop sentiment in the US, cops are quitting in droves. You can't find enough cops to enforce a selective lockdown that involves asking everyone for their papers.
So a lockdown for all, whether it's a good or bad thing, is completely different than a lockdown for some.
Quoting Wayfarer
Not disagreeing. Only pushing back hard on the idea that the unvaxxed should have their freedom restricted; especially because there are a lot of breakthrough infections, and that the vaxxed are just as contagious as the unvaxxed. So the statistical argument for restricting only the unvaxxed is false. Let alone the problems of asking for everyone's papers in a country like the US that is in the midst of both an anti-cop hysteria and a crime wave.
Quoting Wayfarer
Why did you so radically change the subject? You can enforce a lockdown easily, just shoot/arrest/fine/shame anyone you see on the street.
A selective lockdown, on the other hand, entails interrogating EVERYONE and asking for their papers. Which entails a lot of cop/citizen interactions; which, in the US, often go south in terrible ways. So that's a bad idea.
AND it's statistically unsound, since your chances of meeting a contagious vaxxed or a contagious unvaxxed person are about the same, and they are equally contagious. So you haven't got a case, and you have a very poorly thought out position.
Have you backed off your earlier proposal, or just changed the subject to universal lockdowns?
Quoting Wayfarer
Statistics are mixed. Some red states are doing better. But I am not discussing laissez faire approaches. I'm pointing out that restricting the free movement of ONLY the unvaxxed would one, be a complete policing disaster; two, would in fact fall heavily on minorities, as I've documented; and three, is flat out wrong anyway since the vaxxed are just as contagious and there are a lot of breaktrhough infections, which in the US the CDC will not even report.
So your idea is a non-starter. Is that why you changed the subject?
Quoting Wayfarer
Well we're not talking about lockdowns at all. You proposed selective lockdowns against a population that can't be distinguished from the vaxxed and therefore needs to be challenged for their papers; would mostly consist of harassing minorities; would be an unmitigated policing disaster; and wouldn't help anyway, since the vaxxed are potentially just as contagious.
And that's the only point I was making. A selective lockdown against the unvaxxed wouldn't work and wouldn't help.
Your link is dodgy. The Carnegie study direct from the preprint server is here https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.20.21260795v1.full-text
I thought that data set was misleading when I checked it out last week. I believe the 39% was the lowest of quite a range being considered and that was specifically the result of the variant which the vaccine wasn't tested or designed for initially. Arguably, transmission out paced production and uptake; meaning the product itself arrived viable.
Quoting fishfry
Like you acknowledged; I'm not arguing for any restriction on the right to free movement. But, I wouldn't extrapolate from the Israel numbers onto a millions of people population. The statistical argument is the same as it's always been. Don't over run your medical system. As long as anti-vaxer's also refuse the hospital it shouldn't be a problem.
I've already covered this, the whole of covid hospitalisation are about one fiftieth of those caused by obesity alone. The unvaccinated represent about half of those.
Quoting Isaac
So explain to me why they should refuse hospital treatment and not the overweight, or smokers, or reckless drivers, or alchoholics, or bacon-eaters...
I doubt that's a static figure. The people at the hospitals seemed concerned. Do you work at the hospital?Quoting Isaac
Didn't say they should do anything. I said it wouldn't be a problem if they did.
I'm sure it isn't. It would need to fluctuate over a thousand-fold to affect the argument.
Quoting Cheshire
Why on earth wouldn't they be concerned. They're seeing thousands of extra people needing hospital treatment. I'd be concerned.
Quoting Cheshire
So it would be a problem if they didn't? So is it a problem if the overweight, or smokers, or reckless drivers, or alchoholics, or bacon-eaters... don't refuse hospital treatment?
Quoting Isaac Has bacon eating simply escalated to unheard of levels? How do you account for this anomaly of happenstance?Quoting Isaac No, generally it's frowned upon to deny people life saving care. I didn't expect that to be outside of your wheelhouse. What's the counter position? People bare the cost of the decisions they so freely made; instead of choosing to confuse their political identity with public health and safety measures. No, that wouldn't be fair, and it's what's fair that matters. Right?
Can you cite the studies or at least actual statistics that substantiate your claims here. You said Israel's population is 80 % vaccinated which is incorrect; it is around 60% fully vaccinated.
https://ourworldindata.org/vaccination-israel-impact
In any case this may be of some interest given the current situation in Israel and the Israeli prime minister's claim that the Pfizer vaccine is only "38% effective" at stopping transmission. The article states that in the trials Pfizer was never tested for its efficacy at preventing transmission whereas AZ was. AZ may turn out to be the better choice after all.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2021-02-05/covid-19-vaccines-do-they-prevent-coronavirus-transmission/13121348
I took issue with fishfry's blanket statement that the vaccines are less than 50% effective. It may turn out to be true of Pfizer, but it doesn't follow that it will apply to other vaccines.
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/israel-50-of-infected-are-vaccinated
Wrong about what? I don't see how this statement follows at all from anything I've said.
Quoting Cheshire
Covid-19 obviously, why would you think it had anything to do with bacon? Where, in what I've written, did I suggest I thought the recent rise in hospitalisation had anything to do with bacon? Honestly, you can't expect to have an intelligent discussion by just skimming the first and last words and throwing together a response, you have to read. The point I made is that the total number of hospitalisations is made largely from other preventable lifestyle choices. If you've over-packed you suitcase, it's not compulsory to take out the last thing you put in, you can take out anything, it will have the same effect. The covid pandemic has over-burdened our health services, that doesn't somehow mean that the only way to reduce that burden has to be via reducing covid cases. Literally any reduction in hospitalisation form any source will free up the same space. Health services are not overburdened with covid cases that's the media misrepresenting the facts to sell stories. Health services are overburdened with patients, many of whom have covid infections. A reduction in any of those patients will ease the pressure on services brought about by the pandemic. There are specific cases (such as intubation) where demand is for particular equipment and so easing that demand would require easing of cases using that equipment, but it's still not unique to covid, any such case will have an identical effect.
So the question still stands - at this time of crisis for the health services where we desperately need to reduce the burden of services, what is the moral imperative that it must be the unvaccinated who must bear that burden (and do what they'd rather not do) when absolutely anyone using the health service to support a riskier lifestyle choice could have the same effect?
Quoting Cheshire
Then what's your point? What point are you trying to make with
Quoting Cheshire
...?
Quoting Isaac
I knew what you were getting at; but I couldn't slam my head against the wall at the correct angle in order to interpret how you found it compelling. I see the above explains the logic-sink I was originally faced with interpreting. So, it's incorrect because when the last thing you packed was an exponentially growing virial infection, then it's obvious what needs to be addressed to anyone. Quoting Isaac
There is no question because immoral things can be morally permissible and this is one of those cases. You don't want to help push fine; don't complain as loudly when efforts fail. I suppose as long as one refrains from deliberately transmitting a virus then they have risen to only imposable moral floor. It's beyond tedious, the only correct approach to antivaccination rhetoric is swift, uncalculated, dismission to guard against accidentally validating a phobia. Want to fix things by telling people vaccination isn't an imperative; then by all means proceed. Let me know when it starts working. Till then we'll keep digging 6ft holes, to fill with your brilliant observations.
Yes, it's exasperating when educated and intelligent people won't simply agree with your totally unsubstantiated assertions... and you even used your most condescending tone as well...
You poor thing. If only there wasn't that legal contract forcing you to reply...
Quoting Isaac
The problem is not imaginary and shifting subjects will not solve it. There is no argument.
Try to think rather than fall back on the narrative you've been fed. What doesn't make sense?
The health services have a number of incoming patients to deal with, that is their 'burden'. These patients have all sorts of conditions with all sorts of causes. Some of those causes are preventable, some of these preventable causes are deliberate choices made by the patient.
I'm asking you to justify why the deliberate choice, made by a patient to risk covid infection by not taking a vaccine counts as over burdening the health service, whereas the deliberate choice by the patient to eat a poor diet counts merely as an ordinary burden.
It isn't proportion - the obese make up a higher proportion of patients than the unvaccinated covid cases.
It isn't risk - the chances of a healthy young adult needing hospitalisation with covid are much smaller then their chances of needing hospitalisation from obesity.
It isn't harm to others - there's no evidence that being unvaccinated increases transmission to any greater extent than non-pharmaceutical measures, and taking a vaccine if you're healthy reduces the number available for other countries who need them to protect their vulnerable.
The overwhelming pressure on hospitals always was, and still is, poor health, resulting from poverty, reduction in community healthcare and lobbying by fast food manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies. That they can't cope with extra covid cases is not anyone's fault but the criminal lack of investment in health.
If you want to help prop up the corporate feeding trough by joining in this global exercise in distraction then be my guest, it only reflects poorly on your critical capacity, but don't expect to do it uncontested.
A series of massive, completely predictable failures of governments and institutions have lead to millions of deaths and an almost unprecedented transfer of wealth to the rich. And all you guys can find to direct your vitriol toward are an unlikely minority hodgepodge of nutcases and cynics. It's one of the most pathetic displays of corporate bootlicking I've had the misfortune to witness.
https://vaers.hhs.gov/
Joking. Hope all goes well. For discussion see...well, literally anything I've posted for the last month!
Quoting Isaac No, it's the waste of resources that would be necessary constantly to maintain a pandemic cycle peak level of infrastructure. It would be like adding a 100 doors to every building on the off chance everyone wants to leave at once on any given day.
The problem is of a marginal rate of patients accelerating do to the acceleration in transmission. It seems too painfully obvious to argue against, so putting down these cleverly constructed absurdities just requires a frame of reference I'm not able to invoke.
If I translated what I'm reading into a fire fighting strategy it would be some acknowledgement of smoke and complete denial of fire or the possibility water should be a reasonable prescription.
Again, this is why we look at actual numbers rather than guess what the numbers might be based on the strength of media interest.
Quoting Isaac
A building normally has two doors, right? We'll call that the 115,000 beds normally occupied. Covid has required an extra 2,500. So your analogy is miles off - emotive hyperbole. It's not like adding a hundred extra doors (which obviously sounds ridiculous), it's adding an extra one twentieth of a door. Barely even a catflap.
So we take your absurd example derived from your hysterical guesswork, add some real figures from, you know, actually checking the fucking facts, and we find you're off by a factor of two thousand.
Your real example is the suggestion we add a catflap to every building to add a little extra escape capacity. Does that still sound so ridiculous now we've bothered to check?
There's no way to be constantly ready for a pandemic. Last year hospitals stopped doing elective surgeries to devote all the ICUs to covid19. Most hospitals are heavily dependent in the income from surgery, so ironically, hospitals suffered financially through the crisis.
Hope it goes well for you. I had a sore arm for a few days and some lethargy.
You just extrapolated from the hospital conditions on your island to support an argument that spans the globe. Make that make sense. I'll wait.
My house is on fire! Can't be because mine isn't.
I disagree. For a start, emerging pathogen monitoring was cut to the bone, it should never have been. Emergency measures were drafted but not acted on. Both would have dramatically reduced infection rates, as can be seen in the countries which acted more quickly than others.
That done, there should be no need for the crisis-level ICU occupation.
Secondly, still over 90% of ICU admissions have pre-existing comorbidities. We know from the preventable disease study I've already cited that better community healthcare can more than half ICU occupation. So half the existing occupation and nearly half the Covid occupation (half the comorbidities, halves the hospitalisations) and your ICU has bags of capacity.
Thirdly, I'm not, nor ever would be, advocating not using other forms if intervention - lockdowns, masks, sanitation, vaccines... I've never advocated just letting it rip. What I'm opposed to is the narrative which hides all of the massive societal failings which brought this crisis about under the blanket of vaccine hesitancy.
Vaccine hesitancy is a nothing issue, trivially unimportant compared to the practically genocidal strategies adopted by governments and corporations which are the root cause of this.
No one, literally no one, blames the crisis on hesitancy for a vaccine that didn't exist. You must wear very high boots in order to safely walk around in this much bullshit.
Really? You're still persisting? Did you even check the figures, or did you , again, just presume I must be wrong because the telly says so?
https://scdhec.gov/covid19/hospital-bed-capacity-covid-19
Covid occupancy in the US 1,800 out of 13,000 beds, obesity the most common comorbidity in covid https://www.nature.com/articles/s41366-020-0640-5, over 90% of covid cases in hospitals have comorbidities https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32578683/.
Even without taking any other public health action your 100 extra doors example is out by a thousand fold. In the US, it's half a door extra.
Even assuming no other strategies at all (why we would assume that, I don't know) your building example is a hundred times too extreme. Maximum occupancy with no vaccine was about a quarter of available beds, so a normal two door building would need an extra half a door. Your hyperbole is absurd.
An increase of only half the entire capacity? So, just make it 150% of what's available. Did I mention doormen were required. It's the same in regards to how practical it is as an undertaking.
I'm not talking about pre-vaccine times, I'm talking about right now.
Quoting Cheshire
Quoting Isaac
Read first, comment second.
Oh, and England in the 80s had double the hospital capacity we have now. It's not hard.
Your perspective is afflicted by a disconnection with the real world. Chinese authorities knew about the pathogen and they responded by suppressing communication about it. This is just one of the thousand ways pathogen monitoring can be reduced to reporting on what we already know.
It's called Murphy's Law.
Quoting Isaac
That sounds absurd, but let's go with it. We've cut ICU occupation in half. What you're missing is that ICU capacity is not space. It's trained staff. What you're suggesting is that my hospital could pay nurses, therapists, pharmacists, secretaries, central supply employees, intensivists, radiologists, cardiologists, neurologists, surgeons, orderlies, and me to stay at home until the next pandemic.
Seriously?
Good. I thought I was insane.
Pathogen emergence used to be monitored to a greater degree than it is now, so it did actually happen in the real world. Countries did put swifter emergency measures in place and thereby reduced their case load, that actually happened in the real world too.
Quoting frank
Really? Why do you think that 'sounds absurd'? Do you think I'm likely to just quote figures I've got no support for, is that something my posting history suggests?
Quoting frank
How are your shifts? Busy? In England 18hrs is not uncommon for a junior. No-one would have to stay at home, just a normal fucking working day would do it.
Besides, as Cheshire was so delighted to pretend I didn't say, I'm not suggesting a need to double normal capacity (though we could), increasing capacity is one of a number of things which need going, including better community healthcare, hygiene, lockdowns and vaccines.
They're American figures there. Read first, comment second
It turns out people have to actually take the vaccines.Quoting Isaac
They weren't initially; nor is the one posted to support the claim. Which isn't quoted here.
Quoting Isaac
That might well be why, several pages back, I said...
Quoting Isaac
To a pandemic? But, that requires quick production of a vaccine. If there's not enough data about something that was produced just recently; people will pretend it's deficient. And we'll have to use a business with access to vast resources. All of them are evil for some reason.
Yes.
Quoting Cheshire
Some will, others clearly won't.
Quoting Cheshire
Why?
Quoting Cheshire
Pretty evil, yes. I'd call restricting access to a life-saving vaccine and thereby leading to thousands of deaths evil. The head of the WHO seems to agree likening it to "apartheid". Why, do you think that's just OK behaviour?
It just doesn't square with my experience in trauma, neuro, surgical, and medical ICUs that half of the patients on any given day wouldn't be there if they'd had better preventative medicine. Are you sure you weren't looking at hospital admissions vs ICU admissions?
Quoting Cheshire
To make a lot of something fast requires many something makers.
Quoting Isaac This is a different thread.
Fin
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7390529/
...was where I got the figure from. Other studies have given lower figures, but still over half, it seems to depend on what comorbidities are measured (obviously)
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(21)00074-0/fulltext
Obesity alone gives ten times the likelihood of ending up in ICU, miss that out, your figures are going to be a lot lower. Just a thought (not trying to be disparaging to Americans, but maybe you guys don't even see obesity as a comorbidity? It's so common in the US).
The point would still stand even at the lowest figure I've seen (~60% if I recall).
Does it?
Quoting Cheshire
You brought it up.
Quoting Cheshire
I wish.
Quoting Isaac
You did. It's essentially a child asking to mail his vegetables to Africa in regards to how it relates to this discussion. Quoting Isaac
Granted.
Thank you :flower:
It's rather selfish of me to want you to be around for a long, long time, but it is what it is. :flower:
I'd like to call it love but I don't want you to be uncomfortable
I don't see how that article supported your claim. Could you point it out specifically?
US with a population of 331,000,000: Quoting Isaac
So England has almost 10 times as many hospital beds as the US with about one sixth the population? This would mean there is (roughly) 1 bed for every 556 people in England and 1 bed for every 25,460 people in the US. Surely this cannot be right?
Sure. Take the 72.2% figure from the first study (which didn't include obesity) and add to it the OR (as a factor of case admissions) in the Lancet study. I get 91.4%
Other studies I've read since have shown obesity to be a much higher factor in ICU admission - this one https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7262326/ for example has it at 76%, but since it didn't use separate ORs I couldn't add that one (as I'd have no way of knowing how much overlap in comorbidity there was - obese and CVD for example)
Either way, if you're happy with the data from the CDC showing over 90% of hospital admissions have underlying comorbidity, and the data (again CDC) showing over 90% of mortality with underlying comorbidity, then why would you be suspicious of ICU admission rates which match. It'd be odd if the didn't match wouldn't it? A lower ICU rate than admission rate would mean that hospitals were actually increasing the general risk for healthy patients. Possible, I suppose, but seems unlikely.
If you're interested (I can never tell whether you genuinely are interested or whether you're just playing 'catch Isaac out'), anyway - on the off chance you're actually interested from a medical point of view - this article breaks down the ICU requirements in term of ORs https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7228874/?report=reader.
The figure I quoted was for one state in the US. I couldn't find any figures for the US as a whole - Cheshire was trying to claim (without any evidence) that the situation in the UK was not comparable in terms of the risk one took of putting pressure on hospital services compared to other lifestyle choices. I was just trying to show it's not that dissimilar. Why I'm running around gathering the evidence for his claim I don't know, but that's the best I could find at the time. There's probably whole US figures out there, but they didn't stand out on the first search I did, and since it's not even my claim (that the US is radically different to the UK), I'm not much inclined to do the legwork to support/falsify it.
72.2 percent... of what? The first article was about identifying risk factors for ICU admission of COVID19+ with underlying CVD.
Quoting Isaac
Again. You've lost me. Are you thinking that all COVID19 patients are admitted to ICU? If so, no. Some go to floor rooms. Some to intermediate care rooms
Quoting frank
No. If the population of hospital admissions are made up of 90% red-heads, then taking an unbiased sample out of the group (to ICU, for example) you'd expect that sample to also be 90% red-heads. Unless there's some factor biasing the selection of that sample against/for red-heads.
Are you suggesting there's a factor which might bias the selection of patient to transfer to ICU that favours those without underlying comorbidity? If anything it'd intuitively be the opposite, no?
I would probably look for research aimed at identifying what percentage of patients admitted to ICU have comorbidities. But using that data, how do you determine the percentage of patients who would be free of comorbidities with better preventative care?
Quoting Isaac
No. It's the reverse.
You don't (not using that data) The data linking preventative care with lower rates of comorbidity is huge. I can present a sample, but I'm assuming that's not the point - or are you really questioning whether preventative medicine even works?
Quoting frank
Right. So if 90% of a population are red-heads, and you have a selection procedure that biases in favour of red-heads, your selected sample is going to be at more than 90% red-head. Imagine a jar full of mostly red beads and a few yellows, you prefer red and are picking a sample, it's going to be at least as much red as the jar, if not more.
You don't even know what the comorbidities were. Some of it was diabetes, some hypertension. What about cancer, asthma, MS. etc?
Plus you said that with preventative medicine, 50% of ICU beds in use would be empty, didn't you? How did you get that figure?
All of which have high levels of preventable causal factors.
Quoting frank
It was a rough estimate based on figures I've read. Here's a good example...
Hypertension, asthma, and MS don't. That's why I mentioned them. :razz:
Quoting Isaac
You were guessing, then.
Quoting frank
Quoting frank
Quoting frank
The CDC are guessing? If anything I underestimated. 80% preventable heart disease, obviously almost 100% preventable obesity. Those two alone make up more than half the comorbidities associated with less favourable outcomes from covid-19.
It's mostly genetic.
Asthma is mostly genetic.
We don't know what causes MS, but you'd need to show a proven preventative strategy to stay consistent with your earlier claim
Quoting Isaac
You were guessing that 50 percent of ICU beds would be vacated with preventative medicine.
I'm going to have to drop out now. I know you well enough to see when the conversation is going nowhere.
Evidence?
Quoting frank
Evidence?
Quoting frank
I've not made any claims about MS, it's a very minor comorbidity.
Quoting frank
Yes, it's the usual point that seems pretty much universal around here. I make an argument supported by citation, interlocutor claims it's false without any citation at all but rather because they just 'reckon' it is, then implies I'm the one arguing in bad faith.
I have a meeting to get to anyway so glad of the break...A meeting in which people will be discussing matters by presenting and interrogating evidence. Crazy, huh?
I think this probably deserves at least two clarifications. The first being a general complaint that citing the conditions in England as evidence for conditions elsewhere is in principle a dubious approach to a data supported argument. The second is the increased marginal rate of patients is novel to a hyper transmittable virus making the argument that other conditions are equally as responsible for over loading a medical system misleading at best.
Is the evidence particular to a single event? Which is what we are discussing, whether a single person should refuse a vaccine. The area under the curve for a single event is zero by nature of the variable. The inability to predict idiosyncratic outcomes doesn't inform the decision, but does make for plenty of illusionary doubt. Or would you suggest that recommending others avoid a vaccine during a pandemic, because that is the decision made for oneself is morally responsible?
Incase anyone is wondering the composition of the wall they intend to bang their head against.
Take warning all ye that enter here
Quoting Isaac
I agree that preventative medicine, a diet of whole grains and veggies for everyone, replacing cars with bikes, gun control, etc. would reduce the load on the healthcare system. Also if a frog had wings it wouldn't bump its butt while hopping, although I don't have a citation for that so it's up in the air (frog, wings, up in the air, ha)
I think you do engage in a little bad faith argumentation becuse you just like arguing. Others on the forum do it. It's subtle Putinesque agression that rubs me the wrong way because of Trumpism. I realize I may be misunderstanding, tho.
It's like, if Socrates hates you and has a database of unrelated facts.
More dubious than rejecting it without citing any evidence from anywhere?
Quoting Cheshire
How? This argument seems to be lacking any structure. How does the fact that it's transmissible alter the proportion by which it is responsible for occupying healthcare resources?
Quoting Cheshire
?
Quoting Cheshire
??
Quoting Cheshire
No. I don't think that would be morally responsible. Not sure what that has to do with the discussion.
Quoting frank
What has the likelihood to do with the moral argument? It's unlikely the we'll ever get football hooligans to be less violent, but it doesn't affect the immortality of their actions. The argument here is that poor investment in preventative healthcare is responsible for more hospitalisations than covid vaccine hesitancy. That remains true regardless of the likelihood of either changing.
Quoting Isaac You know exactly what I'm saying.
Quoting Isaac Read back slowly the title of the thread.
El Dorado? Hmm.
I think this might be an El Dorado of misplaced intellectual weight.
Quoting Cheshire
It's interesting how you both have to create this alternative narrative for what's going on here. I've presented perfectly coherent arguments backed up whenever necessary by cited evidence, I've even referred to a few other experts in the field who share my views.
This all seems quite normal to me. In fact it's my job, a normal occurrence in my day-to-day life. I also listen a lot to other people doing the same and we clash occasionally.
But only here do I experience this odd narrative, that denies I could simply be a normal, educated professional with an adequately supported opinion. Somehow that option is ruled out. If either could explain why I'd be fascinated to hear the thought process behind it.
Just had one thanks.
I have no idea what you're asking here.
That's so weird to me. Your job orbits around abstraction, mine around concretion, usually shattered in some way.
I'm a consultant in psychology, I advise (among other clients) long-term risk analysts. They usually have a team of academics from all sorts of fields so there's considerable debate. None of it goes like this!
Quoting frank
Yes. It's true we're at different poles of sociey's mortal injury, you trying to stem the bleeding, me trying to decide how the blood loss is going to affect people's decisions over the next five years. Do you think either has primacy on strategic decision-making?
Yes, yours has primacy.
I'm sure that's fascinating but I (as with about 50% of what you write) have not the faintest idea what you're talking about.
Increasingly cryptic, I like it. The 'matter at hand' being? The thread? My argument? Your response? My job? Your most recent aphorism?...
Gosh. It's been quite long...
The question seemed to be about whether anti-vaccination sentiment was right. Anti-vaccination sentiment is not homogeneous. As has been cited, the most prevalent education level who are anti-(this)vaccine are PhD educated. Do you imagine there's been an outbreak of professors suddenly believing in lizardmen, or is it more likely that there's some technical merit to the opposition?
So, the simple answer to the thread is - some of it is, and some of it isn't. It's not a plot by Bill Gates, it's not got Chinese nano-bots in it, it's not going to kill more than it saves... But also it's not a panacea, the risk/benefit assessment is not positive for everyone, distribution is complex, and the economics of using profit-making private enterprises interferes with policy...
The question of moral obligation arose. I think the only possible moral imperatives that could be relevant are reducing the extent to which one is a burden on one's healthcare system, and reducing the risk of transferring the virus to another. The former, as I've shown, can be achieved with greater efficacy by making healthier lifestyle choices. The latter can be achieved with about equal efficacy (as far as we currently know) by taking non-pharmaceutical hygiene measures. So, since a person has options as to how they might meet their moral obligations other than by vaccination, I don't see any moral imperative to get vaccinated. I do see a moral imperative to do something to absolve both those duties, but it's not yet demonstrated that that something has to be vaccination.
One of the strategies which evidence shows absolves both those duties. There needn't be a single answer.
Quoting Cheshire
No, but we can do so by broad cohort. It's a normal part of the safety and efficacy checking. People (by which I mean experts in the field) disagree as to the results. I don't see what the urgency has to do with it. Urgency only advocates that we do something, quick. It doesn't alone advocate any particular thing.
Quoting frank
I don't believe that's the case. There's been less than a handful of studies on transmission, none, to my knowledge, have compared vaccination to other hygiene measures, only to non-vaccination with undifferentiated other actions. One, the PHE study, had a proxy differentiation by age group, but lacked pillar I data so couldn't give a full picture. I think the evidence is quite compelling that vaccination lowers transmission on average and so is a good public policy, but we're questioning moral duty here, not public policy. The two are different and operate under different assumptions.
Edit - unless you think there's a moral obligation to follow public policy? I'd be interested to hear that argument if so.
See this is why someone would accuse you of arguing in bad faith. You throw out a scrap of data and build all sorts of assumptions around it to support your view, and then throw spitballs at good science when you don't like the conclusion.
You don't demonstrate a demeanor appropriate to a scientist, plus you're on a mission to find an El Dorado of misplaced intellectual weight.
Are you disagreeing with my claim about what the studies covered? You know how science works right? If you want to test for something you must measure that thing, it's no good testing something else on the same topic and then fudging your conclusions to cover. The limitations of the PHE study are listed by the study authors, they're not 'spitballs', and CDC policy refers directly to the PHE study.
So what ought I conclude and why?
I presume you think I should read a study which demonstrates a moderate reduction in transmissibility between vaccination and non-vaccination and conclude, in spite of the the limitations cited by the study's own authors, that this means vaccines always reduce transmission when compared to absolutely anything. What I can't for the life of me understand is why you would want me to do that.
Are we trying to find out what actually is the case, or are we just looking for the least crumb of data to support the current policy?
Do you see why you appear hypocritical here? If not, we're sorely be lacking in enough common ground to carry the question further.
Antivaccination as it's understood would not consider vaccination a good public policy.
We're all somewhat guilty of seeking data to support pet theories, yes. The difference here is that I'm not trying to tell you that your strategy is wrong. It's well supported. If you think vaccination reduces transmission in all cases you'd be quite justified in thinking that. I don't agree, and am also quite justified in doing so. The evidence is sufficiently imprecise to support a difference of opinion. The hypocrisy is in thinking I'm the only one susceptible to it. Remember ,we're not discussing public policy here, where it's sometimes necessary to pick an option despite uncertain science. We're talking about moral justification, the threshold here being only for sufficient justification
Quoting Cheshire
I don't think anti-vaccination as a sentiment is that homogeneous.
No, the hypocrisy is in doing the very thing you criticize.
What defines the set? If not a person opposed to a particular policy, activity, or idea.
I didn't criticise it. You and I have surely crossed swords sufficiently often for you to know that I hold a view of belief that is completely opposed to any 'one true answer' philosophy.
Language users I suppose. I've heard some of the academics I've cited called anti-vaxxers. If you want to talk only about some particular homogeneous group then the conversation might be different, but that's not the terms in which I first engaged.
I can doubt a vaccine, am I an antivaxxer?
As I said. It's a term I've heard applied in those cases, yes. I think the thread would have been a lot shorter and considerably less interesting if it had only asked "are anti-vaxxers right?", meaning only those lunatic conspiracy theorists. "No, obviously". Next thread... "Do flat earthers have point...?" Is that seriously what you thought we were discussing?
So, in order to maintain your position you have to argue the prefix -anti (in this novel case) does not imply opposition, but merely the capability for balanced inquiry. I don't think that's representative of the case.
No. My 'position' has nothing to do with the term 'anti-vaccine', it just happens to have arisen in a thread of that title (threads are like that sometimes) and then you asked me about the term. Gods! Who's arguing for arguing's sake now?
Oh, I thought this discussion was taking place in a context. Yes, there's lots of things spooky about vaccines. Immune responses can swell your brain and kill you. So, doing what's it's designed to do is still a threat. And your right, corporations are in business to make money. Setting objective welfare in opposition to profit brought us the Pinto. An exploding American vehicle. All that's well and good. And none of it is reason to oppose vaccinations; merely question them. You are not anti-vaccine. Glad we agree.
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/pandemic-has-never-been-worse-in-mississippi-top-doctor-says-as-20000-students-are-quarantined/
I see. Well I can respect that.
I don't. All my misgivings about the vaccine exist in a maelstrom of shit about public policy. I can't even ask those who have the creds about misgivings because they too are in the same maelstrom; anything they said would be spun by stupid people into a "see, It's bad" talking point. It's like a climate change expert expert expressing a doubt about some nuance. Some idiot will jump on that and claim it's all BS.
The same way they overcome any fear. Unless they are those who don't overcome any fear, and choose to hide under the bed. Personally, I stare at the needle as it goes in and embrace the sensation. I challenge it to overcome me. LOL! It can't, of course, because I'm not a pussy.
I get it. To extrapolate, I do have questions, and questions can become misgivings, if you let them. It's just that once I make the call, I don't let them become misgivings. It's too late.
If some bad shit happens because I got the vax, then Baker, et al, can say "I told you so!" But here's the thing: they didn't tell me anything, because they don't know anything. All they did was speculate. They aren't smart enough and don't have the training to tell me anything. All they can do is question, wonder, speculate or regurgitate what others have said to make them scared. There is nothing wrong with that, I guess. But I don't live my life that way.
Again, if I were to take a deep dive on my questions, I could do so. I have several thoughts about what could go wrong, or what the motivation was behind pushing the vax, but I'm not going to give a loaded gun to a toddler.
The thread merely assumes any question is about the belief of certainty and no actionable concern. If testing the matter lets you think about something else afterwards. Then, by all means. Which is a more compelling case the threat of harm or the questionable motivations?
If harm were separate from motivation, unintentional, a mistake, then I'd have fewer questions. Science is often wrong, and people are often Guinea Pigs, whether they volunteer or not. I think Doctors and health care workers have good intent, even when they fuck up. I'll roll with them. Doctors are behind the vax and all the politicians and Faux News types are behind it for them and their family. I don't know why they want their constituents to get sick. Though I'm cool with Darwin.
What would worry me, if I thought about it, is that harm and motivation were not separate. If I put on my tin foil hat and assume the $kajillionaires are as smart as me (but have the best science minds in the world to prove I'm right), then they know the human race is far beyond the Earth's carrying capacity. Trying to figure out a good way to thin the herd, when it's this late in the game, might involve a virus, or a vaccine, either one.
If I wanted to play that game, then I'll go back to school, major in the sciences, get an advanced degree in viral immunology, and read all the deep shit that makes 99.9999% of the population's eyes cross and go to sleep (or blather on the news and interwebs about shit that is over their pointed little heads). Then I could know if they are out to get me.
I could let the fear mongers spin me up, or get schooled. I pick the third: which is neither.
So, to answer your question, there is no compelling case for either, or it's over my head if their is.
I think Bob Frost was repairing a New England Wall with his neighbor. The only way to lock in a round rock was with a spell. He'd say something to the effect: "Stay put, until we turn our backs." LOL! Get the shot, turn your back and move on. That's what I say.
I've met more than a few people that take it for granted that population reduction is something that the super wealthy desire. It has a pleasant intuitive fit like too many people in the boat. Less people, better boat viability. But, to me the amount of disruption caused would be more of a threat than the population itself. They already have access to resources as if people weren't around through their wealth. Their wealth is only significant if it's in demand, so getting rid of people would devalue their assets. Essentially, changing the rules to a game you are already winning.
Yeah, that's why I don't go down that road. On the other hand, I do remember lessons from biology and ecology about too much of a good thing. They are only winning so long as their prey base is healthy. They are what they eat and if what they eat is not fit, then they won't survive as the fittest. They eat Earth, along with the rest of us.
The angle about the vaccine that I find really interesting is this: People have varying levels of risk aversion, ranging between total avoidance and ready acceptance. This goes for anything involving risk. This is the first time that I have been aware of political views playing a critical role in personal risk management. Conservatives, who are otherwise proactive in health care decisions, have decided THIS vaccine is risky. The vaccine doubters (and acceptors, for that matter) almost never possess the background to evaluate a good vs. poor vaccine.
But having voted for Trump seems to guide the amount of risk aversion they feel about this vaccine. They may wear masks compulsively, avoid crowded rooms, commercial venues, etc., keep their distance, and so forth -- but the vaccine is NO GO.
I can see how an uninformed person could be alarmed by discussions of the vaccine -- like, "RNA? What's that? I don't want that in my body." Some people are scared by technical terms.
If all those who are vaxxed were going to die within a couple years, as is claimed to be likely by Dr Peter McCullough and others then it would seem reasonable to think that our whole economic infrastructures and societies would catastrophically collapse. Is it plausible that the financial elites could want this to happen, and plan it? I agree with you in thinking not, not unless they are far more stupid (and powerful) than we give them credit for.
It's more of a context for discussion. I'm trying to create a more of a space than a target. I think some people had/have doubts. Telling a person what they can not doubt is wrong in a way. So long as everything is prefaced with...this is about doubting certainty not informing public policy; then maybe people can raise their concerns without anyone being threatened by ideas.
It comes off as contrarian if you've never experienced any hesitation. But, yes it's also strange for a group to select 'not immunized' as a part of their identity. It's funny because it unites the right more with what you find on the far left.
Quoting Cheshire Any actionable idea would be outside the scope of the OP.
Some people are just scared.
I had my two jabs of Pfizer and no side effects. I don't generally suffer form paranoia about government or the wealthy, even if both groups frequently showcase an ugly agglomeration of unprincipled douche canoes. The wealthy and governments generally struggle to organise a bonk in a brothel so a billion person death conspiracy is surely beyond them. Besides, if they wipe out all the poor people, what will the rich have to eat?
(OK, so granted, the 1918 stats are estimates because about a quarter of the states did not report influenza case counts and deaths in 1918. Don't know why they didn't. 3/4ths of the states managed it.)
I agree, but I don't assume I'll ever achieve any actual level of opposition. I might maintain the price floor but producers will always sell to the highest bidder. If goods were suddenly priced on a proportional system relative wealth and they found themselves bidding directly against us then maybe they would have a reason.
I am acknowledging every ecosystem has a limited carrying capacity, but I don't see that threat as reaching an extreme that would suggest a coordinated response in progress. I do follow the casual chain of logic though.
Yes, I thought a break from emoting hysteria might be interesting. It's totally justified, but doesn't seem to be getting the job done.
If only we had panicked more....said no one.
It seems rude to pretend to that level of suffering for the sake of argument. I could literally be talking to myself right now in regards to where I stand and how much consideration of an oppositional vaccine position is worth discussing. But, we don't have the authority to tell people what they can not doubt while knowing the truth of the matter. Otherwise the conversation begins with a power imbalance based on imposing a lie. I can doubt anything man can produce and that's common ground.
Scary, though, I guess... People haven't been dropping left and right, though. There aren't wheelbarrows full of corpses on the street, exactly.
And I just do feel like we're obeying the Karens on this one. You gotta deal with death in the world, you just do, it's a fact of life, sorry. They can't accept that, and the world's gonna end up suffering untold for it. For their false sense of security.
Yes, several. But, primarily the theme of being off putting and condescending(though warrented) doesn't seem to be improving the situation. What part of, I'm just as frustrated but looking for solutions is not computing. Quoting tim wood Because that is an extreme level of suffering and pretending to it disrespects those who endure it. And the people I hope to sway are loaded up with emotional arguments that keep them too unstable to identify logic from emotional ranting. Quoting tim wood
Because of Cogito, ergo sum. I prefer not to start from a position that denies the only known undoubtable truth. Quoting tim wood Right, well unfortunately sensible people demand you present yourself with creditability. Which often involves a degree of indifference as to whether they believe you. Quoting tim wood
Right, it's obvious, so why does it need to be said forcefully? Will it make it more true or compelling or will it just confuse the beast with emotional signals?
Quoting tim wood
We are at the mercy of the free will of fools. Act accordingly.
It's a vaccine for something that did mutate. Developing a natural immunity is a lean in strategy toward a pandemic. I have read the articles that claim getting covid is better protection from covid. Well, it's not if you have to get it first. But, I've seen the way it's been framed to look compelling. Like, the best protection against death is being dead; but lets explore some alternative options at least. Your right though; noodling with nature has led to unintended outcomes. I can imagine any number of things. It's whether being able to suppose it is reason enough to assume it is a "best fit" strategy.
Quoting theRiddler
Right, that's true. I mean a lot of people are dead; it's the nature of a virus that spreads quickly but doesn't burn itself out by killing all it's host. A more deadly virus would be devastating but arguably shorter lived. No doubt things could be much worse in a black plague collapse of society sort of way; but that's the point where "what should we do" starts showing up in the rear view. It is a valid observation regardless.
Quoting theRiddler
Yeah, people unloading their frustrations doesn't make for an interesting discussion. I don't want to be defending myself for having my own ideas. But, again the lean in strategy has a bit of a point of no return that still appears a little reckless when there are options on the table. It is the simplest and requires least amount of participation, so in that respect; it's the easiest to execute.
Hope I was fair. Been a long day.
It seems reasonable to think that if someone vaccinated has a breakthrough infection, then they might carry a similar viral load to someone unvaccinated who was comparably ill. But if vaccines are say 70% effective at preventing infection then you would have only 3 chances in 10 or about 30% the chance of being infected than a vaccinated person does. Then if the vaccine is 90% effective in preventing serious illness, you would have about 10% the change of being seriously ill and becoming equally infectious as a seriously ill unvaccinated individual.
I realize this has not been studied comprehensively but this seems plausible enough to my layman reasoning. The other point is that if vaccination makes you less likely to be a vector or a burden on the hospitals, and other strategies also make you less likely to be a vector and a burden on the hospitals then the wise thing to do would be to adopt all stategies, because taken together they will reduce your chances of being infectious and a burden even further.
I can see how that applies to philosophy, but do you think it applies to science? I mean would there not be "one true answer" to the question:'does vaccination reduce viral transmission?' even if we might not presently know just what that answer is? And does the answer not seem, on the face of it, more likely to be 'yes' than 'no'?
See, that's just it. _I_ wouldn't tell you "I told you so".
But you don't care. You just put me into the same category with anyone who isn't all that enthusiastic about the covid vaccine.
But here's the thing: You don't care. You don't listen. You think in black and white terms, all or nothing. No nuance, no detail, nothing. Like a total redneck. This is what puts many people off.
You're sending the message that anyone who is rabidly in favor of the covid vaccines is entitled to spew hatred and contempt at those who aren't, and that those others are obligated to accept that hatred and contempt on their knees.
But public policy is the problem.
For one, the official government outlets are offering simplified and thus misleading information about covid and about the covid vaccines. They paint a black-and-white picture of the situation which, indeed, makes things easier from an administrative/bureocratic perspective for the government, but not in terms of handling the pandemic. The fully vaccinated now get barely ever tested, and they behave as if all was well: and so they spread the disease unchecked (because being vaccinated doesn't stop one from being contagious).
For two, if one does get bad side effects from the vaccine, there is, at least in some EU countries no medical protocol for that, no protection. One is left to oneself. Because the covid vaccines are legally
still treated the same way as any other experimental medication.
For three, there are medical practices related to covid that have greatly complicated things for people. For example, people have been diagnosed with covid by their doctor, but no test done to confirm it. Now, when they try to get a covid pass (which is necessary for so many things in the EU), they can't get it, because a covid pass requires an old enough positive test. Further, those that have had bad side effects after the first dose of the vaccine, are left to themselves; even their doctors advise them not to take the second dose. But if they don't, they can't get a covid pass.
In short, the government and the medical establishment, given some very bad practices they have done in the past and are still doing them, are demanding too much trust from people.
See, you're just looking for a scapegoat. Instead of acknowledging the complexity of the situation, you opt for a simplistic outlook which makes it okay for you too see the world in black and white terms, making it easy to point fingers and to bask in righteous indignation.
The pleasure you get from despising those who aren't enthusiastically in favor of the covid vaccine is so intoxicating, isn't it.
Vaccines don't prevent you from being infected, nor from carrying the virus, they help you to clear the virus and so limit the chances of needing hospital care. The theorised reduction in transmission is because the viral load should be lower (on average) in the vaccinated because of this speedier clearance. Neither affect the viral load outside the bloodstream, in the nasal mucosa, for example, which, as I cited earlier, carries a significant proportion of the transmitted virus particles.
The point is, that as the current evidence stands there no reason to assume vaccination reduces viral load to any greater degree than a healthy immune system does (only the average immune system of the study's cohort), and there's no reason (no medical mechanism even) to assume it has any effect on the most transmissible viral load in the nasal mucosa. Hence the ambiguity about transmission.
The studies that are needed would be cohort studies against health groups already known to respond differently to the virus (the young, the fit...). To my knowledge, these have not been done. Certainly the PHE study the CDC are using for their transmissibility claims doesn't, as the authors themselves admit - (not that this makes the CDC wrong, they never claimed it reduces transmission in all cases).
As has been a theme here, it's a very good public policy bet that mass vaccination will reduce transmission. This doesn't translate into a moral claim that one ought to get vaccinated because an individual has other options which (as current evidence stands) are equally efficacious given known factors of their personal circumstances.
I sure as hell felt it. Maybe it's the technique of the person injecting, which makes a difference, like the dentist with freezing. And afterwards, I felt like I got punched in the arm.
Rather off topic, but as far as I can see, 'truth' is a human term which can only be understood of propositions already conceptualised (and so constructed). If there's one external state of affairs which cause our perceptions (which I believe there is), it's not this to which we refer when we use the word 'truth', it propositions constructed internally.
The data here overdetermines the theory (the same data fails to falsify more than one theory), so... more than one 'truth'. Some things, of course, are false, and maybe one day 'does vaccination reduce viral transmission?' will be something to which a false answer might be possible, but I don't think that's today.
"I Don't Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other People." Dr. Fauci
When there is a social stampede, it is one's moral obligation to run with it, even if one sees that the stampede is heading toward a cliff ...
"Have to change there way of life?" By social distancing, wearing a mask and vaxing? How inconvenient. :roll: Fuck the state. The state has not done shit but ask, politely, for people to step up. But would they? No. Not because of "incomplete information." But, rather, because they are inconsiderate, disrespectful, selfish, obstinate little babies.
They eat all kinds of food and take all kinds of medicine and do all kinds of shit based solely on their precious "convenience" and based on incomplete information. Like the turd who was interviewed coming out of 30 days in the ICU on vent (to the exclusion of others who needed the bed) and, when asked "Do you wish you would have taken the vax?" He said "No." When asked why, he said "Incomplete information, and not approved by FDA." The doctor (being the kind, considerate, Hippocratic oath guy that he was), did not point this out to the dummy, but mentioned to the camera, that virtually all the drugs that dummy was treated with to save his worthless life were experimental and not approved by the FDA. DOH!
And you watch, just as soon as the FDA approves the vax (tomorrow?) all the little babies will pivot to some other reason for not taking it. And the irony of all this is, a lot of these dummies don't trust government to get the vax but they don't vax because the government hasn't approved it yet. That just shows why this had nothing to do with what the idiots claim. They are un-American cowards who won't step up in a time of war. They might say they would take a bullet for their country but they won't even take a vax for their neighbor.
The government has not forced anyone to do anything. I hope the private sector ostracizes all these people. I hope hospitals turn away all covid patients who didn't get vaxed. But they won't. You know why? Because of the Hippocratic Oath. But you wait, some guy is going "fall down" and "break bad" and I hope he walks and the judge says "Hey, the turd he ripped off the vent and killed to make way for his wife was a parasite."
I know my position is subjective. Entirely. But the fact that others disagree and have every right to be wrong, does not mean they are right. They don't have to distance, mask or vax. But they should stay away from other people who do. They should stay home and hide under the bed. And if they get Covid, they should stay the fuck out of the hospital and away from the people (doctors) who told them how to not get Covid.
I saw a good meme the other day about driving drunk. Yeah, your body, your right. But it affects others. People wear clothes when they don't have to, but they won't wear a mask? Seat belts, helmets, they keep the insurance rates down for everyone.
No one is treading on their rights. They are treading on their privileges'. You don't have right to get a disease any more than you have a right to get meth. You don't have a right spread disease any more than you have a right to deal meth. And it's not about libertarian rights to do what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home. It's about society having to pay for your right to come out in public and be an asshole. If you think January 6th was evidence of people getting fed up, you ain't seen nothing yet. You wait and see what happens when this virus continues to mutate because of assholes.
An unusual position...
Another issue which cropped up in a discussion I had with colleagues yesterday regarding the possibility of mandatory vaccines, slightly related to the issue you raised here.
In mandated court psychological treatment, there has to be a clear benefit to the public interest. The defendant's mental health issue doesn't have to be proven beyond reasonable doubt, it's sufficient that they have such a condition on the balance of probabilities alone - but the benefit to society (ie that they actually committed the crime we're trying to stop them from doing again) does have to be shown beyond reasonable doubt.
We could not, for example force people to take carbamazepine on just a balance of probabilities that their aggression would otherwise be harmful to society.
So, is it sufficient to show that a person is more likely than not to harm others by avoiding vaccination, or do we require it to be shown beyond reasonable doubt. If not, are we going wrong in assuming such a high threshold of proof for other court mandated medicines such as psychological drugs? Would we be happy to have every impulsive aggressive forced to take carbamazepine on the balance of probabilities that it will reduce the harm they'd otherwise probably cause?
These other options are becoming increasingly obsolete, as there is an ever greater need for covid passes, so the trend is to make vaccination something one does in order to get a covid pass. Vaccination is becoming an administrative/bureocratic measure.
Indeed. Morally reprehensible, but such are the downsides of democracy which we accept for lack of better alternative.
Not at all. Issues of social psychology need to be taken into account. In times of crisis, people tend to give up critical thinking. It's not clear for how many people this applies, but some of those for whom it does apply are extremely vocal and influential. Resisting those people can result in short-term and long-term harm for the resisters.
There are also issues of the placebo effect, en masse: If enough people have enough faith in the covid vaccines, the covid vaccines can, in effect, be more safe and more effective than they would be without that faith.
Is it moral to refuse to participate in a mass social delusion, if said delusion can have at least short-term good effects for society at large and for the individual as well?
I think so, yes. I don't think much morality has ever been based on short-term gains, I mean, Epicureanism suffices for that. Morality, typically, has been about encouraging people to do that for which the immediate benefits are not readily apparent. Seems a bit redundant if the gains are all obvious.
That's only because you lack depth of thought, and think only of yourself. Had you any analytic reading skills, you would have seen all the care for others, replete throughout my posts. Fauci's point was not so much an expression of frustration, but a simple acknowledgement that he, like me, lack the ability to teach. We don't have that Tucker Carlesonesqe ability to persuade, to dumb things down for simple people. As I stated, those who know lack confidence (Socrates?) and those who don't know are full of confidence (Tucker Carlson, et al).
A long time ago, archaeologists and anthropologists discovered, along with our innate human capacity to kill each other, and to fear (hate), we also had the ability to care. We'd set bones, or bring food to the wounded and nurture them along. We'd even show reverence for the dead. Fauci was referring to this latter quality. If you can't step up, then he really doesn't know what to do with you. It's not his job. He's done his job. He would help the stupid people if he could. But you can't fix stupid. Covid can, but Faucci can't. Covid can, but I can't.
If you are missing that innate human tendency to feel empathy for, and care for, and work with your fellow man (by and through your own chosen democratic processes) for a common good, then I'm sorry. So you continue to roll coal, fuck the planet, fuck others, for your "convenience." We will continue to take care of you, even in your fundamental stupidity and selfishness. That's just they way we are. If you won't listen to your own fucking doctor, then there is nothing we can do for you. You are sick. We'll just continue to feed you, take care of you, and allow your socialist, parasitic ass to continue to suck off the rest of society.
But if it comes down to my loved ones, or another person acting for his loved ones, then I will support tossing a non-vaxxed Covid patient out the hospital window to make room for a human being. That doesn't make me selfish.
Had you some good science behind you, then you would not take it to the public. You'd take it to your peers. There would be legitimate, peer-reviewed dissent. But all you have is Tucker Carlson, Putin, and their ilk, spinning you up like the little sheep you claim folks like me to be.
I guess we'll just have to wait to find out who was right. Me? I don't know the vax is right. I'm just not a selfish pussy. If the vax kills me, it won't be because I was mislead by charlatans or Jewish space lasers. It will be because my heart was in the right place and I rolled the dice for my fellow man (of which we have way too many).
https://chrismaley.com/2021/08/03/their-undeserving-little-smiles-are-called-einsatzgruppens/?fbclid=IwAR2PkhSVhRvloL0YuSiHQzdhqhm-fi_sLrXo5ovZOE7Rayt3ngJy3uu007c
Dissent to what? What exactly is the view you think the peer-reviewed science supports?
Indeed! I have seen it on TV here in Holland. There were two people not willing to take the vaccine. They were almost burned down by those in favor. They were even considered a thread to the majority taking the vaccine... How could they? The ones vaccinated can't get ill no more. So they believe (and probably true).
That's my point. I don' know. I'm not a "peer." But, like climate change, it seems most peers are on one side of the coin. Right or wrong, I'm throwing my lot in with those who have BTDT, paid their dues, got the schooling and seem to have a consensus. If there are peers who disagree, let them hash it out with their peers. I'm certainly not going to take my que from posers. You know, the ones who pivot from experts on virus one day to Afghan defense experts on the next day.
Not true. Especially when dummies are propagating new variants all the time. By "dummies", I mean those who think the "vaccinated can't get ill no more."
But you said...
Quoting James Riley
...How do you know there is no such dissent if you don't even what the view is there'd be dissent against?
Don't you think that this is a bit ironic, given the content of your posts?
You barely know me, but I am sick, a pussy, selfish, etc., and all the other things you assumed I must do or be. Your heart may be in the right place, but your writings suggest you have no ability to sympathize with people whose opinions you do not share, and upon those people with whom you do not agree you project the worst of qualities.
You fault people for not caring about the problems of others, yet you don't care about their problems either.
The link you shared likens those who do not share your opinions to "Einsatzgruppen", Nazis, murderers. It drips with pure, inept hatred, and people that are capable of harboring such burning hatred for people on the basis of ideological differences have no right to call anyone else a nazi; more irony. Well-placed as your heart may be, I sincerely hope yours is not as dark.
Your avatar is a fitting symbol - a walking contradiction? I think I may have said that before, haven't I?
All 50 states require that children take the measles vaccine before they fan go to school. Why should this be any different? Employers, especially in health care and other critical jobs, should require employees to be vaccinated before they come to work. If they don't, they should be liable for damages for employees and others who are infected.
If you don't want to be inoculated, I'm ok with that. Just stay in your room with the door closed.
For what it's worth, at least 40% of all people in all but seven states have been fully vaccinated.
The non-vaccinated are suffering from the delta variant at the moment. They'll get some immunity that way.
Here's where your thinking fails you. I have a saying which is a play on words from another, older saying: "If the shoe doesn't fit, then why the hell are you wearing it?"
Discuss among yourselves.
I think there is confusion between the merits of the argument and the existence of the argument. I don't know shit about the former, but I am aware of the latter.
I don't know climate science, but I know the view that global warming is, at least in part, man-caused. I know there is dissent, but it has not held up to peer review, outside of Faux News. The people I see in dissent sound like idiots to me, and I'm not even an expert! Likewise Covid. I am aware of the science says take the vaccine. There may very well be some scientists who disagree. But my doctor took it and he advises me to take it and all the dissent I see is on Faux News with no peers. And all those dissenters sound like idiots to me, and I'm not even an expert.
So, I decide to roll the dice and side with those who say man-caused global warming exists, smoking is bad, wear your seat belt, take the vaccine and side with those who appear, from my lay-perspective, to have paid their dues. Especially when the dissent sounds like idiots.
I hope that clears that up for you.
That's not the issue here. Your decision to take the vaccine is not in question. Your response to those who decided otherwise is.
Why would you judge others on the basis of your own unqualified and self-admittedly incomplete assessment of the dissenting scientific opinion? If you don't know (and admit you don't know), then on what grounds the vitriolic judgement?
But I dont refuse to get compensation from a corporation or boss. In fact I like it that it is obliged before going to work. I dont have to work for them like that. But why should I stay inside (which I have already done for about a year, quite coincidentally). I cant make the vaccinated ill...
True. But why they are considered a thread by the non-vaccinated?
As has been explained, in this or other threads (I'm losing track) I judge others based upon their equally unqualified, incomplete assessment of the prevailing scientific opinion. They don't know, and yet they expose others to their ignorance, possibly at the peril of others. If I don't drive drunk, then at least I've ameliorated the risks (you know, instead of saying it is my body, my right to drive drunk and no one else's concern). Like seat belts, I'm under no illusion that many people could give a shit about me getting hurt in a wreak. But they have a legitimate reason to want to keep their premiums down. There might be people out there who do care about me, and that's the Fauci idea about caring about other people. But beyond that, "the experts say . . . ." and the dissent sound like selfish idiots.
So, yes, I judge because you are not just (possibly) hurting yourself, but you are (possibly) hurting others. And the weight of the professional opinion is on my side.
So yeah, I judge those who are against following the prevailing advice of experts, because it is not simply them they are placing at risk. They are risking others.
Risk yourself. And, at the very least, if you do get sick, for crying out loud, don't go to the fucking doctor.
You want to challenge my empathy because I'm harsh on those who have no empathy, and because I reserve my empathy for those who have empathy? See how far that gets you. Sure, I'll come to your defense, and pay your bills, so long as you haven't refused my help or efforts to pay. But if you have, don't be surprised if I break bad. You brought it on yourself. I still have empathy, just not for you.
But I dont refuse to get compensation from a corporation or boss. In fact I like it that it is obliged before going to work. I dont have to work for them like that. But why should I stay inside (which I have already done for about a year, quite coincidentally). I cant make the vaccinated ill...
So why should I stay inside? The high percentage is reached by the way because the propaganda wotks well. You can say" oh just shut up and get shot", of course.
But you've now three times failed to provide the details of what that 'weight of professional opinion' actually says on the matter. So how do you know it's on your side?
Quoting James Riley
So if you get sick as a result of any of your choices, do you avoid going to the doctor?
No, I have not so failed. You clearly are being obstinate. The details are these, read my words (watch my lips): Distance, mask, vax. Wait, hold on. Let me try saying that again: Distance, mask, vax. Maybe wash your hands once in a while. :roll:
If you want more, go to school, get an advanced degree in the area and engage your peers.
"It's not a matter of "should." It's a function of nature, Darwin, society. "
What do you mean? That it is only Natural to take away individual rights?
In what scientific peer-reviewed journal is the conclusion that everyone ought to distance, mask, vax reached? What methodology would such an experiment even employ?
Quoting James Riley
I already have. It's your position I'm interested in here, not theirs.
I've lost the context from which you quoted me. Can you please re-insert it? I *think* I might get your question but I don't want to answer without seeing the context in which I said what you quoted. Thanks.
Im not sure what happened. I saw your comment above I think. But it's not there. It involved your reaction to suspiciousness to non-vaccinators. Im not sure now...?
I think I already explained to you that I am not a peer or an expert. Nor do I read the journals. Nor would I know what methodology any experiment would employ. I listen, rather, to those appointed by and working for institutions that I support as part of my chosen, democratic form of government (You know, like the CDC, Fauci, et al).
In typical internet argumentative fashion, you might ask me to ask you to step up and show me in what scientific peer-reviewed journal is the conclusion that no one needs to distance, mask, vax, or what methodology they used to arrive at their conclusions. But you see, I don't give a shit. I couldn't (or don't want to invest the time, resources and energy necessary to) understand what it is they are saying. I'm not following the evidence. I'm following those who I trust to have followed the evidence. They aren't Tucker Carlson or Isaac.
Oh just shut up and get shot.
Maybe I will. I cant even go visit my family in Italy. Maybe in 10 years...
Well, I did not delete it so I don't know what happened. In any event, I don't think I have argued, in the context of this thread, that Darwin would say it is natural to take away individual rights. It's a good question, though. He might. For instance, I am a strong supporter of the right to keep and bear arms. However, if the exercise of the right ever presented a substantial, credible threat to the security of a free state (nuclear, biological, chemical weapons, or exercise of the right to the exclusion of the right of others to bear) then yeah, the right could be infringed. If one were to believe in political Darwinism, then yes, individual rights can be trashed to maintain a state which perpetuates the species beyond the ability of other, competing states that jeopardize the species. But that is a long walk from this thread. Sorry for the digression.
I don't know what you are doing, but your quotes come up "6mOptions" and it's disconcerting. Might want to ask some techy what's the hell is going on.
Apparently the vaccinated can be infected in some cases, but that's not the main problem. Yes, you can infect the unvaccinated. You can also infect those for whom the vaccine hasn't worked, like my brother who had a kidney transplant and is immunosuppressed.
Nono. Dont be sorry! I kinda like digressions. There are times I think its a good idea to have a gun around too. But then again, I can alsi throw the bullet... Im not sure I agree with the Darwinian view on countries as a whole. I think thats a bit too abstract. On a personal level Im Lamarckian, rather than Darwinian (or Dawkinskian, the selfish gene guy)
Does it still show? Let's look...
Yup, still there. I'm not the guy to help. I don't know tech.
I just tapped the "quote" button...Strange indeed! Your message should appear. Curious what appears now...
Still there!
This thread ought be merged back to Anti-vaccination: Is it right?
Folk do react negatively to freeloaders, yes.
The vaccine does not prevent one from catching the virus. It may reduce the probability of doing so, and certainly reduces the severity of the consequences. Hence those who are vaccinated are less likely to need hospitalisation.
But if the hospitals are full of recalcitrants, that will be difficult.
And recalcitrants will make it more likely that the vaccinated will become sick. They will ensure the virus remains a problem despite the efforts of the vaccinated.
It would be odd were you to not expect a backlash against your recalcitrance.
"recalcitrance"
That word sounds already very negative. Honestly I dont care if I got sick by the virus ir sick by the vaccination. I just dont want someone to push a needle in my arm and inject some stuff in it. Even it was for my own or others good. Unless the needle contained nice stuff...
See how often you use the word "I"?
Curious,
Yes, indeed, recalcitrant should be read as negative. You are acting against the common good.
"freeloaders"
Good one...
Do you have references for this claim? The information I have been able to find on the issue of viral load suggests that the more infected you are the more virus you will be shedding. I agree that vaccines are not claim to be sterilizing, so they don't totally prevent infection, but it is the conjecture that the vaccinated will be on average significantly less infected and hence less infectious that seem to me, in the absence of counter-evidence, plausible.
Quoting Isaac
OK, but you haven't addressed the point as to why one should not adopt all the strategies that work, because together they will be even more efficacious than any single strategy. You are offering other strategies as alternatives to vaccination, why should they not be adjuncts?
Good. I wouldn't have any reason to want you to do otherwise. But here (again), we're not discussing how you reached your decision since no-one has raised the least concern about it. We're discussing your seething hatred of those who didn't use your method for deciding, those who, perhaps, did not trust those institutions, who instead, did read the journals, found enough evidence there to support an alternative position. I'm asking you about your ground for thinking those people so utterly worthless as to be deserving of nothing but to be kicked to the street to die.
As I asked you before, if your decision, your chosen method of dealing with your lack of expertise, leads to injury, do you expect to be kicked to the street by those who chose differently?
Are you saying that there might some day be a true answer to the question as to whether vaccination reduces viral transmission, but that there is no fact of the matter today because we are not able to determine it? If it is something to be determined as opposed to invented, then why would the fact of the matter not exist today, even though we might not be yet able to determine it?
Even 4-year-olds dislike freeloaders
But who are the freeloaders? The people who get their free vaccinations for which I have to pay too?
There aren't any freeloaders.
Three times I use the word I. I am not to be blamed if I use I that many times. Why am I to blame for using I when I want to? Am I an egoist if I use I as many times as I want?
They get loaded for free.
I've already explained this to you Isaac. Those people you reference don't exist. They are utterly worthless as to be deserving of nothing but to be kicked to the street because that was their choice. So, when it turns out they were wrong, they want to come, on bended knee, to the very system they failed to trust, because they did some penny anti BS research in search of conformation bias, and then found it? Tough. As NOS would say: consequences. They must be made to suffer for their choices or they and no one else can learn. Right? Ask NOS. And here's the kicker: I would not feel so heartless if, in the process of their disrespectful, inconsiderate, selfish conduct they had not added to the variants, the full hospital beds, and social costs. You want to be a danger to yourself? Go for it. But don't impose your filthy disease on the rest of us.
So, the real question is, not why these people would refuse the vax, but what kind of society raises people who think they can listen to a charlatan and somehow know better? I'll tell you what kind of society that does that: One that doesn't spend enough on education, teaching people how to think. They are all rebel and no cause.
Quoting Isaac
I don't remember you asking me that but I'm happy to answer. It's simple, really: Those who chose differently, yes, I would expect them to kick me to the street. After all, that is the kind of people they are.
But I would NEVER, not in a million years, go to them for treatment.
On the other hand, I would not expect to be kicked to the street by the system that told me to distance, mask and vax. If it turns out they were wrong, I not only expect to be treated by them, but I expect they will be the ones who discovered they were wrong and who have the knowledge and expertise to best treat me. You know: Doctors.
Those who choose not to get the vaccine.
Let's be clear: they seek an advantage at the expenses of everyone else.
Quoting Prishon
You sound like a tantruming toddler. "I, me, mine".
Nono. It are the vaccinators who seek advantage at the expense of those who dont want. A free shot! And I gotta pay! Let them pay themselves!
I havent used the word mine one mine, eeeh, time.
I cant even pass the border freely. Its my own responsibility. Its mine.lll
That's not true. The vaccines are not 100% effective against infection.
The chances are bigger that the vaccinated make me sick.
One begins to take an ethical position when you begin to use words such as "we", as one begins to consider the consequences of their actions for others.
Here's the deal: You aren't smart enough to know if a needle contained "nice stuff." The dummies who don't vax, get covid and run to the hospital like little hypocritical babies end up getting lots of needles, some full of stuff that has not be FDA approved. All in hopes of saving their selfish lives.
Oh, and I doubt very seriously you pay any taxes that end up funding vax. Just a guess.
Doubtful.
If vaccination on average reduces transmission then an unvaccinated person would be more likely to infect you than a vaccinated. On the other hand if there are sufficiently more people vaccinated than unvaccinated then that ratio even against the greater statistical likelihood that, all other things being equal, an unvaccinated person is more likely to infect you, might mean that you are more likely to be infected by a vaccinated person. If that seems unclear, then think of it this way; in the extreme case that everyone except you is vaccinated then you could only be infected, if at all, by a vaccinated person, and the likelihood that you would be infected by an unvaccinated person would then be zero.
Yeah, they won't be able to bend a knee. They will be on a stretcher, begging through gasps and drowning on their own fluids, giving docs permission to treat them with shit that has yet to be approved by the FDA.
Do you think I dont know whats in a seringe? Im not going to any hospital ever. I dont trust medical science. In general. Unless my leg is broken or if I need methadone. Or my eyes need scars (I did radial keratotomy). Or whatever I do trust.But not for a cure against corona. That would be hypocritical indeed. For a gunshot I would certainly gi.
I dont say that the chances that I get infected by a non vaccinated one are smaller. These are bigger indeed. But the chances a vaccinated one making me sick are bigger than me making them sick.
Thats exactly the negative attitude I meant. Why should I be a dummy for not wanting something. I just dont want it. And I not wanna be saved by the same system that is responsible for the virus emerging and soteading in the first place.
I think some of the other kids on the playground have schooled you about all the "me me me me" BS. Of course it's going to engender a negative attitude. What, you think negative attitudes are bad? Should we all play nice? Should we all play safe together? If that's what you want, then STFU and get a vax. Think about someone besides you for a change. And if you don't, then don't be surprised when you get negativity, ostracization, consequences, cancelled.
Oh, and if you do get a bullet or some other malady, don't go to the hospital: The beds are for Covid kids. And they may have to vax you to let you in.
Nice example. Would I get infected if I were the only non-vaccinated? But what arguments a vaccinated person can have to make me vaccinate if I dont want it. You can say you just refuse because you want to excercise your self decision right. And indeed, that is the reason. No one can make me. Even if that means I get ill. Call that stupid. The decision is not based on anything other than that I dint want it. So what? Its my life.
Who are you to tell me what to di. You soeak aboht your own views on it all the time. You you and you. STFU and let ne kive in peace. Djeezus...
Where did you go to school? Just curious. :lol:
Oh man! I cant stop laughing now too! Upon rereading.
And then it reads 7mReplyoptions...
Isnt it possible that people getting mad at non-vaccinators (and hinestly, I must get one if I wanna go to my family in Italy) are getting mad maybe because they are afraid of infecting them? So they cant give them a hug anymore?
I can't make heads or tails of that. I need to know who the "they" is. Making some assumptions about what you meant, I suppose that might be a reason for some. Not me. It's more generalized for me. Here's a tip of the iceberg:
"Here we go, Texas. There is an ER doc from Houston crowdsourcing on a physician Facebook group of 50K doctors. Patient is mid-40s, sick w/ something w/ high probability of death (not COVID) & needs ICU care & GI procedure stat. ER doc can’t find any beds and “will fly anywhere.”
This is why people saying “my choices and personal freedom don’t affect you” drive me insane. When large hospital systems get overwhelmed by largely unvaccinated patients who all of the sudden decide to trust doctors and want non FDA-approved treatment, everyone suffers.
The group of 50.000 doctors came through and he’s on a helicopter. Doc didn’t say where but this dude is really, really sick. I hope he pulls through."
https://twitter.com/dremilyportermd/status/1429222295919337477
"They" are the vaccinated.
People who dont wanna take the vaccine (untill now still me) and then, when ill, wanna get treatment are hypocrites. But still people. On who you can get mad. People are irrational. You have to live with that. Nkn-vaccinated getting ill should be treated too, if they want. But if a vaccinated gets ill too he or she must be treated firstly.
Typical anti-vaxer
What’s the point of discussing anything with you then if you know you’re wrong and don’t care?
In the United States at least, yes we can. The Supreme Court ruled on that issue over a hundred years ago. It is vaguely within the doctrine usually referred to as "the US Constitution is not a suicide pact".
So, rewriting, it would say: "Isnt it possible that people getting mad at non-vaccinators . . . are getting mad maybe because the vaccinated are afraid of infecting them? So the vaccinated cant give them a hug anymore?"
Okay, possible. But I don't think that is the primary reason. I'll stick by my other response.
Quoting Prishon
Agreed. Especially in the U.S. where everyone thinks he's a rebel. :roll:
Who says Im an anti vaxer? If people wanna have their shot then Im not saying they cant.
What clever, well-informed, articulate folk they be.
"The recalcitrants"
If there is anything that pi... makes me recalcitrant then it is this presumptious and prejudicious use of language. Im not "a recacitrant". Im just a human being with things he wants and things he doesn't.
"And what do WE learn..."
Sticking to a group. Always safe. And cowardly.
"know I’m a hypocrite and irrational. You can be mad at me but I won’t do anything about it”
Where did I write that? I wrote that people who are nonvaccinated demanding treatment for their covid19 infection afterwards are hypocrites. I didnt say I demand it. Im not irrational. The reason I don't want it is because I dont want it. I dont think about others in that case. So? Should I be forced to think about others? I think about others. They can do whatever they want. Take the juice or not.
As cowardly as being scared of a needle?
Right… but I’m pretty sure you would. You’re telling me if you got COVID you would simply lie down and say “Ah, well, time to accept my fate”?
Quoting Prishon
Yea. That’s the problem isn’t it.
If someone robs you and justifies it with “I don’t want to live honestly because I don’t want to. I don’t think about others in that case” would you think this is a reasonable justification? Is he in the right now? Should he not be punished?
Yes, from your point of view I'm acknowledging the severity of the problem and suggesting people continue to make it worse through doubtful conversation. It must appear to be quite absurd.Quoting tim wood Yes, this is a bit of a red herring. People certainly have free will and invalidating it is problematic to making a convincing argument. In regards to the immediate context, to the counter position I'm suggesting you don't share. Which is ok. If we all agreed there would be nothing left to fix on Tuesday.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33320052/
Quoting Janus
Same here.
Quoting Janus
Less infected and infectious than whom? Less infected and infectious than the unvaccinated in general? Yes. Less infected and infectious than a healthy young adult? What reason have we to assume that? Both the vaccinated and the healthy immune system are doing the same job - quickly clearing the virus. We'd need to see that the vaccine cleared it more quickly, on average, over the time between doses/boosters. No such study has been done, to my knowledge.
Quoting Janus
Because one is usually held to have satisfied one's moral duty at a reasonable point. It's not normal to expect one to do absolutely everything in one's power to protect others from harm. Think about your actions which put others at risk of harm - driving, sports, consumer choices, polluting activities... is it not generally held sufficient that you take steps to reduce the harm these cause, rather than expend every effort until such harms are eliminated? We have to have a concept of reasonable risk, otherwise society would grind to a halt.
Quoting Janus
No, I'm saying that the proposition "vaccination reduces viral transmission" is already constructed, it's a human social construction - the terms, the grammar, the logical structure... If we apply the word 'truth' to such constructions (and it seems we do) then it is already overdetermined, the proposition itself is already constructed of theories. What we'll one day find is something we're (mostly) happy to apply the word 'true' to.
Oh I wasn't suggesting you did, I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough. It was related to you point about it being more likely than not the the vaccinated have lower transmission rates. I only brought it up because I thought you might be interested in, or have an opinion on, the related ethical dilemma.
Quoting Janus
Yes, but only if that can be shown beyond reasonable doubt. That was the point, it's not usually sufficient that it be only more likely than not that medication will prevent harm.
What an unusual claim. Carrying on though...
Quoting James Riley
So do you not do anything the medical system has told you is a risk? Never smoke, drink, eat red meat, exercise too little, get stressed, skip the veggies, engage in sports, ski, drive, breathe city air, travel...
Quoting James Riley
You've just got finished telling us you don't know what the experts are actually saying, nor do you know what the dissenters are actually saying. You said you trusted the institutions of your government. So this has nothing to do with charlatanism - you're not in a position to judge that. This has to do with choices about who to trust, that's the only thing you personally have any knowledge about. You trust the institutions of your government and what you perceive to be the consensus of scientists. Others don't. That's all you can judge on, because that's all you're qualified to know about the situation.
Quoting James Riley
As above - do you never engage in any activity the healthcare system has told you is a risk to your health?
If someone robs you and justifies it with “I don’t want to live honestly because I don’t want to. I don’t think about others in that case” would you think this is a reasonable justification? Is he in the right now? Should he not be punished?
Soeone robbing me wants it. Do you compare me with a robber?
So actually I want to take it. But I just say that I diont want?
The majority of vaccine hesitancy is among those educated to PhD level.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.20.21260795v1.full-text
Until this latest freakshow turned up there was a well informed, properly cited and intelligent debate which drew zero response from you.
Yep.
And?
...until then we just assume whatever explanation suits our narrative?
Yes, but I don't think that's relevant, I'd be just speculating.
The point is already made - you scanning a few posts is clearly sufficient for you to draw the conclusion that recalcitrants are not "clever, well-informed, articulate folk" yet a massive, peer-reviewed, study conducted by experts on the matter apparently is insufficient as yet to draw any substantive conclusions...
The simple fact is that your 'what we've learned' has been demonstrably shown wrong, to at least the same standard of evidence used to draw the first conclusion, if not substantially better.
But I have posted to this thread previously.
I wasn't aware of that, no. But as you were aware, it may have behoved you to make a more reasonable assessment of the general tenor of vaccine-hesitant posts before judging the entire position... If you've posted to this (new) thread before then presumably you'll have been aware of reasonable, cited, arguments derived from experts in their field?
I guess ... something ... runs in that family.
No reason, I was only saying that it seems plausible to think the vaccinated in general would be less infectious than the unvaccinated in general.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/motorsport/48297727
Yeah, same with motorsports...
Indeed. Only, 'in general' doesn't apply to the moral argument. An individual need not consider their own actions as if they knew nothing of their circumstances.
It was not Prishon to whom you limited your judgement.
Some just can't get enough rush from virus infections...?
I agree for adults (to the 'general' question), but the evidence is not anywhere near so clear for children. There's been strong disagreement among the scientific community as to whether the risk/benefit is in favour of vaccinating the under 17s.
Some people like riding fast bikes, some people like being free of prophylactic medication. Have you some argument as to why one is a reasonable preference and the other not?
And yet with potential vaccine passports and restrictions on travel and social venues linked to vaccination status, plus the clear media representation of the unvaccinated as little more than scum, it seems unlikely that this already criminally underrepresented group are going to have any true freedom to make a decision in their own best interests.
Fortunately the risks both ways are quite small, but any further erosion of the rights of children over their own bodies would, I think, be kicking the already beaten.
Yes. In that you do whatever you want without thinking about others.
Someone robbing you does it because they don’t want to get a job and don’t care what they have to do to others instead. Someone not taking the vaccine does it because they are afraid of a needle and similarly doesn’t care about the consequences to others.
Quoting Prishon
No clue where you got that from. No, you don’t want to take it because you couldn’t care less about hurting the people around you severely just to avoid a needle.
I understand some people may actually be concerned about the efficacy and side effects of the vaccine but you just seem to be of the unfathomably selfish kind. You just don’t want it, and you know you’re hurting others by not taking it but fuck em.
If I am the robber actually not want to rob then people taking the vaccin are the robbers actualy robbing and wanting it too! Forgive for saying but then you are doubly bad.
Placing myself at risk is one thing. Placing others at risk is another.
Quoting Isaac
No, I did not just get done saying that. Let me try again by telling you exactly what I just got done telling you: I know exactly what the experts are saying: Distance, Mask, Vax. I know exactly what the dissenters are saying: No need to do what the experts are saying. Read that again.
Quoting Isaac
You are wrong. In the military they have a term: "BTDT." And anyone who pretends to have been somewhere or done something when that is not true are called "posers." The law has the same thing, with the various Bar Associations. So too the Medical Community, and a great number of other vetted professions and activities. You know, like a certificate for graduating from kindergarten. One need not be a BTDT or an attorney or a doctor to find out if a person is a BTDT or an attorney or a doctor. The rest are posers, charlatans, or the people who believe posers or charlatans. You can vet an expert, or you can rely upon government, self-regulating entities, degrees, rank, whatever. Dr. Fauci is a vetted professional. If he was not, then you can bet all those who disagree with him and the charlatans would have vetted him and pointed out that he does not have the expert credentials that he says he has. There are others who agree with Dr. Fauci. You know, like your doctor. Have you been to your doctor? What does he/she say?
You, Isaac, are not qualified to challenge Doctor Fauci on the merits of any discussion related to Covid. Likewise all the people that you listen to. If and when a smart person who knows as much as him denounces his recommendations, you can bet we will hear about it. You know why? Because there is no grand conspiracy to shut down the truth. We don't even shut down the lies. If we could shut down the truth then you know we would shut down the stupid people and the liars. Like Faux News. Like Tucker Carlson. Yet they blab away.
Quoting Isaac
Asked and answered. Life is not always about me, Isaac. I know that is hard for you to grasp. I don't know how I can explain to you that you should care for other people. Neither does Dr. Fauci. Please stay at home and don't get close to other people. You are a danger.
Slight digression, but instructive: You know how so many conservatives and Republicans are always whining about government regulations? Did you know that no regulation was ever promulgated in a vacuum? Every single regulation was promulgated in response to the failure of someone to protect the rights of others. I think everyone knew that you shouldn't shit in the river. And everyone who didn't know was asked "Please don't shit in the river." But some people, people who are disrespectful, inconsiderate and selfish, continued to shit in the river anyway. Thus, regulations were adopted. Now, we can argue about whether the regulation is properly designed to the task, to broad, to narrow, etc. But it would not exist had everyone abided the pleas of everyone else, the government, the experts.
So, in the instance of covid, the government started out nice. You know, asking. Pleading. Providing incentives, free shit. If disrespectful, inconsiderate, selfish people obstinately refuse to be respectful, considerate and helpful, then a regulation will be adopted. Laws. And then the whining and wailing and gnashing of teeth will really start. Imagine NOS and all the libertarians and people who hate government and regulation. They will be apoplectic. And it will all be due to people who can't distance, wear a piece of cloth over their pie hole/snozzle honk, or take a vax. Hell, had we all played ball on the first two, we would not even need a vax.
But you people have been warned: You are bringing what is to come upon yourselves. You do not respect the rights of others.
Yep. Nothing whatsoever to do with the argument you were attempting though, which was that someone who took a risk to their health that they had been previously warned about by some institution should not then seek help from that institution.
If you want to change that argument to "someone who puts other in a position some institution considers a risk, ought not seek aid from that institution if they get ill", then you'd need some new argument as to why. But let's say, for the sake of argument you have such an argument. The same would apply to fast food outlets, gun shops, tobacconists, car rental firms, ski resorts, diving schools...
Quoting James Riley
That is about as far from 'exactly' as it can get. Three words. There's been over two hundred papers on the subject in the main journals alone, and you think three words sums up 'exactly' what they're all saying? Seriously?
Quoting James Riley
The people I've quoted in this thread are all as or more qualified than Dr Fauci, every single one. If you disagree, pick one of my citations and point out the error.
Quoting James Riley
We have heard about it. The articles I've cited are published in peer reviewed journals, the main one being the BMJ (but only because I happen to get a copy, other journals publish similar articles), one of the world's leading medical journals.
It's my guess you are a military man. How can you care so much about others (by getting vaccinated) while at the same time you wear a gun? Guns always worsen the situation, especially in the USA, where unheard teenagers make themselves heard by shooting. This disease is slowly spreading the globe. I can get protection (like the vaccine) by getting a gun too, but this only worsens the situation. Likewise you can argue that vaccinating is good for everyone but this is short-term thinking. In the long run it gives weak people, dying already of a cold.
It's my guess you are a military man. How can you care so much about others (by getting vaccinated) while at the same time you wear a gun? Guns always worsen the situation, especially in the USA, where unheard teenagers make themselves heard by shooting. This disease is slowly spreading the globe. I can get protection (like the vaccine) by getting a gun too, but this only worsens the situation. Likewise you can argue that vaccinating is good for everyone but this is short-term thinking. In the long run it gives weak people, dying already of a cold.
Sorry. The post above was not meant for you. My mistake. ?
I stack a needle in my arms before. But it didn't contain a vaccine. I think you want me vaccinated so you can hug me safely, without infecting me. Or are you just worried about my health?
What is wrong with you Isaac? You asked a question and I answered it. Directly. If you wanted me to address the issue of seeking help from an institution whose adivce was rejected, then you should have asked me a question about that. You did not.
Quoting Isaac
I'm not changing any argument. Rather, you are failing to keep up. But I will entertain your effort to change the argument back to what we were talking about before you asked me your silly question that I directly answered. In the future, though, if you want me to answer a question about something, then ask the question about that.
Carrying on: Some people won't vax because they don't trust the gubmn't. Those same people say the vax is not FDA approved. The FDA is part of the gubmn't. So they should have the courtesy of not making that argument.
Some people won't vax because the vax is not FDA approved. However, they go to the hospital and are treated by several different drugs that are not FDA approved. Should not the Doctors refuse giving such drugs to people who don't want them?
Some people don't trust doctors. Yet they go to doctors when they get sick.
Whatever. The point here is this, in answer to your argument: Those people should not be treated to the detriment of others who took the vax but got in a car accident or suffered some other illness that demands medical care in a hospitals with limited resources. If a vent is on a person who refused the vaccine, and someone else needs it, that vent should be ripped out of the covid patient's mouth and he/she should be brought to Tucker Carlson's house so he can take care of them.
So, that should answer your question. But let me digress into the nuances of fast food and whatnot: The same analysis should apply. If someone acts against their own interest, that is fine as long as it does not inure to the detriment of someone else. Use the smoking debate for an example. People smoke. That is against their best interests. They know it. The States, who had to pick up the bill for all these sick people, sued the tobacco companies. Regulations and laws were implemented. Taxes on tobacco went through the ceiling. Kids can't legally smoke. People can't smoke in bars and restaurants. Tobacco companies had their contents regulated, and the list goes on and on. But in the end, the government did not outlaw smoking. People can still smoke. It's just that their right to smoke is limited to where it does not adversely impact others. But yes, if they are receiving treatment to the detriment of another patient, they should be pushed to the curb. Just like states charging people for rescue operations when they get lost in the woods.
Here's another distinction: Tobacco, fast food and what not, all have corporations selling their product to people who want to buy it. No one, to my knowledge, wants covid and no one is selling covid on the market.
Finally, when society decides to assume a risk (end prohibition, for example) because people demand it, then that is a conscious decision to assume risk. Society has not decided to assume the risk of Covid. Society is trying to fight covid. See the difference? If society wants to throw in the towel and champion the right of people to not distance, mask or vax, then it can do so. And, quite frankly, it has. It merely wants those who exercise that right to not share their filthy disease with other, innocent third parties.
Quoting Isaac
I already explained to that I (and most definitely you) are not capable of understanding what is in those papers or journals. But we are capable of seeing who says distance/mask/vax and who says don't. The is not far from "exactly" as it can get. It is right the fuck on point.
Quoting Isaac
I have not seen you quote a single name. And even if I had, I've already told you that I am not qualified to enter the debate between Fauci and his peers. Neither are you. You can't even follow an argument.
Quoting Isaac
What you mean "we" Kimosabi? If any of those articles are saying "don't distance, don't mask and don't vax," then their respective professions are complete failures in taking down charletons like Fauci. Hell, even the Bar Associations have taken down Giuliani. Are you saying the medical profession is allowing Fauci to endanger people's health? As stated, I am not qualified to argue the merits of the discussion between his peers (and neither are you) but I am qualified to judge whether a profession is vetting, supervising, disciplining, guiding and maintaining their own objective standards. Show me where the names you cite are jockying to advise government, be in Fauci's position, and he should be in the street.
.
Why do you take a word like "Placing" out as a quote in isolation? Either quote the sentence/context or just ask your question or make your point.
Quoting Prishon
Asked and answered.
Quoting Prishon
"Always" is too big a word for you to use. It makes me want to ignore the rest of your post. It's hyperbole.
If you think the vax is short term thinking, and that, in the long run, letting it run it's course is a good thing, then you could use the same reasoning for guns. Give a gun to everybody and let nature take it's course. Sure, there will be a messy start, but things will settle out and all we'll have left is good people and a polite society.
Why do you take a word like "Placing" out as a quote in isolation?
Same happens now. I push quote and there shows up a random word. I asked already to fix that.:) A hyperbole has its function. Of course not always. But only a government should be allowed to wear them. If not, the end is near.
Use your left mouse button to highlight the text you would like to respond to. Then you should see the word "Quote" immediately to the lower right of the text you just highlighted. Press that word "Quote" and the text you just highlighted should appear in the response box. You would then type your response to that that quote. If that is what you are doing and it's still not working, then I don't know how to help.
I am in rabid disagreement on the government/gun thing, but that is beyond the scope of this discussion so I'll let it be.
Thanks for the advice. Im using a phone. I think thats the problem. And the cause of me typing wrongly sometimes. These dials are so fu... da.. eeeh small. :). I as a new question about guns. Though I think this has been discussed a 167846 times already and well never reach agreement on that. I had a pressure gun once. If not, a ducklin would still live.
Quoting Kaitor Kay/KFOR
As an aside, someone wrote a piece comparing the deniers with various cults. Where the included cults could be characterized as suicide cults, the deniers were more like a homicide cult. A tad hyperbolic, but I can see their argument. Detroiter Jason Hargrove ain't forgotten. RIP.
The deniers are fertile ground for the virus to "live on", spread mutate kill, much to the frustration of medical workers.
That's not true unfortunately. There are risks.
What a ridiculous thing to say. There's not a scientists in the world you could get to back up that statement. There's just been a massive disagreement about whether the risk/benefit is even positive for the under 25s, most still disagree it is for the under 12s.
Quoting jorndoe
No, they chose to try and do without prophylactic medicine. I asked you why that was any different to motorsports. I'm sure the families of any who die from anything are distraught, life contains risks, some of which we deliberately choose to take. Deciding that some people are sub-humanly stupid for choosing one particular risk is ridiculous.
Quoting jorndoe
Your article conflicts with WHO advice
...it's almost as if scientists are not one mono-vocal legion...surely there couldn't be some complexity and disagreement could there?
The argument you made was...
Quoting James Riley
Since you've now admitted that it being their choice is irrelevant we can assume you've relented.
Quoting James Riley
So?
Quoting James Riley
Yes.
Quoting James Riley
Sounds daft to me.
Not sure what any of these examples have to do with me.
Quoting James Riley
What argument is that? I haven't given any argument regarding the people you mentioned above. You've given three reasons why people might not take a vaccine and then assumed that's a counter-argument to anyone not taking the vaccine. Was three your limit? Did you have trouble thinking of more?
Quoting James Riley
What the fuck has marketing got to do with reasonable risk?
Quoting James Riley
So you're saying we're morally obliged to take only the risks that have been approved by society? Harsh, but consistent at least. Bullshit though.
Quoting James Riley
"Distance/mask/vax" are policies. No scientific paper could ever produce a policy, they produce OR values, or plausible mechanisms, depending on the objective. Policies are something politicians decide, based on their values and objectives.
Quoting James Riley
I've given more than thirty citations in this thread alone, probably more in the other Coronavirus thread. I'd be very surprised if anyone here has cited more papers than I have on this subject.
Quoting James Riley
That's why I asked you 'exactly' what you think Fauci is saying.
Quoting James Riley
Yes. That is the opinion of experts, including the official opinion of the World Health Organisation.
Quoting James Riley
Why would they have to be wanting Fauci's job, what's that got to do with anything?
But that is not the argument you asked about when you asked me about my risk. Maybe put more context, or more of my argument (like you just did with the kick-to-the-curb argument I made). Then I would respond to that. See how that works? That way you won't get all confused by answers to questions you didn't ask.
Quoting Isaac
I haven't relented on anything. My argument is consistent and solid, and I've handed your ass to you. Don't ASSume, son. You're making an ass of yourself.
Quoting Isaac
That is a nonsensical response. Up your game or I will tune you out.
Quoting Isaac
Well, then. We agree. However, all these sick people are going to the hospital and getting drugs that are not FDA approved. That makes no sense.
Quoting Isaac
Me too, but understandable. I just wish when the doctor's save their lives with drugs that aren't FDA approved, the patient would not dig in their heels, double down and say they wouldn't take the vaccine because it's not FDA approved. They don't know what's in it. These people eat all kinds of shit from the grocery store, get tats with ink and avail themselves of tons of stuff that they don't know what's in it.
Quoting Isaac
The record speaks for itself.
Quoting Isaac
You asked about kicking to the curb. I answered. It flew over your head. Okay. I see who I'm dealing with.
Quoting Isaac
You tried to draw an analogy to fast food and other risky activities. Covid has no market. The other activities that you tried to analogize have a market. Try to pay attention, son.
Quoting Isaac
No, son, that is not what I'm saying. Go back and read your posts and how I directly responded to the issue you raised, shot it down and left you with nothing but pretending that you don't know what I'm saying or how it relates. It's a weak man's cop out. Just admit you were wrong. Go ahead, it's cathartic.
Quoting Isaac
Policies are something people decide based on evidence. They often come from recommendations of experts. Sometimes that evidence is scientific. Sometimes the experts are scientists. Doctors, even.
Quoting Isaac
But I just told you, son, I have not seen a single one. And I also taught you that it would not matter one bit if you were to go regurgitate all that alleged shit that you posted that I have no read, because I'm not going down that rabbit hole with you. I am not qualified, and neither are you. You are only qualified to decide if you like the policies, values and objectives that the government has laid out based on evidence. You aren't smart enough to weigh the evidence. Neither are the politicians. They are just relying on experts.
Quoting Isaac
And I answered, for the umpteenth time: He is saying distance, mask, vax. If you make this mistake one more time I will have to add you to my personal ignore list. I can't keep engaging obstinate children.
Quoting Isaac
So, have they moved to remove Fauci from his position? Can you show me where steps have been take to remove his license to practice? I'm just curious, because that is how it would be done. I mean, if he is endangering the lives of people and your experts are really experts, his peers, then surely there is a movement afoot.
Quoting Isaac
Well, if they are really his peers and if he is really endangering peoples lives by saying distance/mask/vax, then they would want him replaced. If they would not want such a person replaced then surely they are not worthy of consideration. I mean, you know, Hippocratic Oath and all.
Maybe on the short term all those vaccines work. On the long term they will produce weak people. And then the non-vaxxers will laugh.
Well, yes, everyone already knows. Minimal. Don't have numbers handy, but suspect stupidity have those risks outdone. (By the way, whenever we've had flu shots in the past, one of the questions was always about allergies.)
• Suspicions grow that nanoparticles in Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine trigger rare allergic reactions (Dec 21, 2020)
• COVID-19 Vaccines: 6 Vaccine Myths Explained (Mar 8, 2021)
• Teen boy dies a few days after receiving second COVID vaccine shot (Jun 26, 2021)
• Three things to know about the long-term side effects of COVID vaccines (Jul 6, 2021)
• BLOOD CLOTTING, COVID-19 AND VACCINES (Jul 7, 2021)
• The Johnson & Johnson Vaccine and Blood Clots: What You Need to Know (Aug 4, 2021)
Quoting Isaac
Nah, it ain't. Comment ? suggests lack of proportional sense. :eyes: We already know some stuff.
• Children with long covid (Feb 27, 2021)
• When will children under 12 be vaccinated against COVID-19? (Jul 6, 2021)
• Should children get COVID vaccines? What the science says (Jul 20, 2021)
Quoting Isaac
They were conspiracy theorists thinking in terms of mind control or whatever ridiculous nonsense. Now they're dead. :death: RIP.
Quoting Isaac
Already spoke to risks. There's no magic :sparkle: spell. Everyone already knows, including WHO.
I call bullshit :point: @Isaac
I guess it's a social thing. Not the same as pizza with pineapple. There are social consequences to take into account as well.
By the way, our dog was already vaccinated against Corona in 2008. A different variant though.
Then why did you say it was harmless?
Maybe a quick overview of some related history would be worthwhile? Typhoid Mary? The 1918 flu pandemic? Sentiments like some of those expressed here aren't particularly new. History is a fine teacher, has an odd way of repeating itself.
[sup]Whatever 2021 reports ...
• COVID-19 Vaccines Work. Here’s the Real-World Proof (Feb 24, 2021)
• One Year After Coronavirus Pandemic Declared, How Many Deaths From Covid-19? (Mar 13, 2021)
• Researchers are closing in on long covid (Apr 29, 2021)
• Impact of vaccination on new SARS-CoV-2 infections in the United Kingdom (Jun 9, 2021)
• SARS-CoV-2 Delta VOC in Scotland: demographics, risk of hospital admission, and vaccine effectiveness (Jun 26, 2021)
• States with low vaccination numbers had Covid-19 case rates last week 3 times higher than others where people are fully vaccinated (Jul 12, 2021)
• 'The sky is not falling': Provincetown outbreak shows vaccines work, even against Delta (Jul 30, 2021)
• Natural infection isn't enough to protect against COVID-19, experts say. You still need a vaccine. (Aug 11, 2021)
• San Diego County Covid-19 hospitalizations. (Aug 12, 2021)
• Confirmed Cases of COVID-19 Following Vaccination in Ontario: December 14, 2020 to August 7, 2021 (Aug 16, 2021)
• Vaccinations Against COVID-19 May Have Averted Up To 140,000 Deaths In The United States (Aug 18, 2021)
[/sup]
I was looking for honesty. Don't tell people it's harmless. That's not how you build trust. Tell them the truth.
Quoting Prishon
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re a troll
Which metaphor are you referring to? This is by the way the zillionth time I am called a troll. After which bans followed from: physics (for asking fantasy questions and about the rishon model), biology (just for doubting the central dogma) , philosophy (a Kant guy didnt like my ontological relativism), skeptics, worldbuilding (for being smarter than a mod), economy (for doubt about the growth model), mathematics, astronomy (bad contributions while in reality a mod didnt like my knowledge about black holes), psychology, polotics, law, AI, and now a yearlong networkwide suspension. The argument of the troll is a well known defense mechanism. Is calling me a troll giving me the advantage of the doubt?
Robber to unvaccinated.
Robber wants money without a job, so he steals, and doesn’t care that it harms others.
An unvaccinated person is too scared of a needle (most), so they don’t get vaccinated, and don’t care that it harms others.
Quoting Prishon
Oh God it’s another Bartricks. Maybe you should consider the possibility that you’re not as smart as you pretend when faced with unanimous agreement that you’re a troll?
A shift in identity? What do you mean by that? Is that a way of saying that "they" should be forced, causing a shift in identity indeed? Whatever one's reason, be it irrational (I just dont want) or hyperrational (giving you a book full with reasons, or arguments, as you probably call them), let them be! Who are you to decide over them? They might be stupid, but do they harm you? If anyone then its themself they harm.
What has knowing 'some stuff' got to do with a claim that the vaccine is harmless and the virus not? Your own citation outlines the very uncertainty I referenced. Your defensiveness betrays your lack of confidence. I wrote a post claiming there's disagreement and you respond by showing that arguments in favour of one side exist. How is that supposed to contradict the proposition that there's disagreement? Obviously, in a disagreement there's going to be two sides, so presenting one of them doesn't tell us anything.
Quoting jorndoe
So still not going to tell me how this differed from motorsports? Both risky, both lead to deaths. Why are motorcyclists entitled to take risks but conspiracy theorists not?
Quoting jorndoe
Bullshit on what? I gave a direct quote from the associate director of the World Health Organisation which contradicts your article's claim that "mask mandates for vaccinated people are mostly about protecting the unvaccinated". What exactly is bullshit about that?
Yes. But people already know this, don't they? It's not as if it's some new-found complex aspect of human social behaviour.
There's no interest in persuasion here at all, nothing but pious flag-waiving - if people seriously wanted to convince others to vaccinate, they might want to consider carefully presenting the scientific evidence on risk, or addressing the moral arguments on responsibility, rather than chanting like a bunch of football hooligans.
Yes. I know a guy whose teen was vaccinated and something went awry with his heart. They don't know yet if it will clear up or if it's permanent.
Never lie to people about possible adverse side effects. They need to weigh the facts for themselves.
... matters. (y)
Quoting Isaac
The information is available, there's just no accounting for stupidity, and mis/dis/mal-information.
Quoting Isaac
Already clarified once, here "harmless" isn't the same as "something you never interact with", suspects listed included allergy, blood clotting, adverse reactions in some children. Not playing a semantics game where you decontextualize and seemingly pretend to not understand.
Quoting Isaac
Mind-reading? Bullshit again. (not that it matters, but most people around here, including me, have been double-vaccinated)
Quoting Isaac
You're entitled to think you can fly and safely jump off a skyscraper, and that governments have crafted mind-control with vaccines. I don't think there's any particular law against stupidity, and that's what father and son were - stupid. Emphasized now if it wasn't clear in the original comment:
Quoting jorndoe
Is it worthwhile repeating what others have already pointed out?
Quoting James Riley
Some have just had it with the seemingly endless conspiracy theories and ignorance.
[sub]• How Typhoid Mary left a trail of scandal and death (Apr 20, 2020) - history is a fine teacher
• Study Finds More COVID-19 Cases Among Viewers Of Fox News Host Who Downplayed Pandemic (May 4, 2020)
• Their Patients Have COVID-19 and Still Think It’s a Hoax - Nurses treating coronavirus skeptics are being spit on and harassed. Many want to quit. (Nov 25, 2020)
• Persuasion, not coercion or incentivisation, is the best means of promoting COVID-19 vaccination (Jan 26, 2021)
• 15 Infuriating Stories About Doctors Who Had To Diagnose A COVID-19 Denier With The Coronavirus (Apr 21, 2021)
• The YouTubers who blew the whistle on an anti-vax plot (Jul 25, 2021)
• The vaccinated are angry. That's understandable but unproductive, health experts say (Aug 8, 2021)
• Vaccine Outrage: Why the Delta Variant’s ‘Sudden Doom Effect’ Is Making Us Snap (Aug 10, 2021)
• Companies mulling charging unvaccinated employees more for health coverage: report (Aug 14, 2021) - I suppose this was to be expected eventually
• Parent rips face mask off teacher in confrontation at school, Texas district says (Aug 19, 2021) - let them cool off behind bars for a bit with drug dealers
• An Alabama doctor watched patients reject the coronavirus vaccine. Now he’s refusing to treat them. (Aug 18, 2021) - maybe a bit heavyhanded but making a point
[/sub]
Catholic School Opens Nudity Door (Jul 22, 2021)
Toddler Cites Freedom Of Choice In Refusal To Use Potty (Aug 11, 2021)
How do you place others at risk by non-vaxxin? It's only yourself you put at risk. And other non-vaxxers. But that should be no problem as you know how they are like. Just like you! Not wanting a load or shot.
:rofl:
From twitter: "I'm not sure there is a non-condescending way to say 'Stop eating horse dewormer.'"
I'm beginning to think, like others have opined, that you might be a troll. At first I understood the inability to use the forum tech. After all, I'm no tech guy myself. Then I thought it was your fat fingers on your cell, as you suggested. But there's something more than typos here. Finally, I thought that maybe English wasn't your first language and that maybe you sounded like a fool for that reason. After all, you're a physics guy so you can't be stupid. It must be the language thing. But when you are patently obstinate, I'm inclined to put you on my informal, personal block list. Hmmm. I guess I'll hide and watch.
God forbids idoltry (am I writing this correct?). All people should wear masks all tbe time. Only three tiny holes are allowed (five for those with astma).
This is a debating platform, not a blog. If you don't intend to answer any of the issues put to you then there's little point posting.
Others? Only one bloke who didnt catch my thoughts. I cant help it if he doesnt understand.
Please put me on your personal block. I have put you there already. I cant argue with fat stupidity...
:ok:
:lol:
Is this what you're on about? Persuasion? (Btw, "flag-waiving" should totally be a thing.)
Why? There is a sliver of the population that is well-educated and has made an informed judgment of the risks; are you interested in convincing them they have overlooked a piece of evidence or made an error in reasoning? Or perhaps in agreeing that their choice is reasonable given their circumstances?
How would you talk to these folks? Arkansas Town Hall
I for one am not optimistic about the chances for success in "presenting the scientific evidence on risk, or addressing the moral arguments on responsibility" in Siloam Springs, Arkansas.
A third or so of the population of the United States wants a return to what we used to call the Dark Ages. Maybe with cellphones and cable TV, but otherwise, the Dark Ages. We have managed, so far, to keep them from turning the US into a Christian State, but sadly the Christian bubble they live in is not proof against viruses, so their behavior does affect the public health of the nation as a whole.
It wasn't supposed to be like this.
Do you mean the non-vaxxers who hold arguments?
Do you mean on this whole thread or just in response to @jorndoe? I've written such a lot on this thread, it's hard to keep track of who I've spoken to and who I've not, nor who's read what of the stuff I've written previously.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
The latter perhaps more so here.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I don't think I would. They need a preacher or a TV celebrity to do it. Point is probably no-one needs to. We don't need 100% vaccination and there's other countries need the vaccines far more urgently. It's absolutely clear. The developing world has lower than 10% take up, the idea that people (as those I'm disputing with here) are 'fighting the good fight' trying to combat vaccine hesitancy is absurd (hence the accusation of pious flag-waiving). It's pointless and obviously so. Anyone remotely concerned about the progress of the pandemic would immediately direct all their vitriol and twittering at the pharmaceutical companies and governments who are preventing the fair distribution of vaccines, not the idiots who think it hooks them up to China's 5G. But the latter are easier targets.
:100: :up:
:100: Yeah, it's like the experts were saying early on: The U.S. could distance, mask, vax and wash their hands 100% but it would be all for naught if the rest of the world was not on board. Turns out we were the recalcitrants. And now, because the adults didn't play ball, the kids are the new petri dishes that they have always been. Saddle up, boys. It's going to be a long ride.
Can I ask, in return, at whom do you think the pro-vaccine invective here is aimed? With the largest proportion of vaccine hesitancy among the PhD educated, do you think the collection of guesswork, swearing and press clippings here are going to be persuasive in their turn to that demographic?
A. Perceived dilemma
1. Either vaccines are mandatory or vaccines are optional
2. If vaccines are mandatory then freedom is at risk
3. If vaccines are optional then many will die
Ergo,
4. Freedom is at risk or many will die (1, 2, 3 CD) [lose-lose]
B. Protagorian solution
1. Either vaccines are mandatory or vaccines are optional
2. If vaccines are mandatory then fewer will die
3. If vaccines are optional then freedom is secure
Ergo,
4. Fewer will die or freedom is secure (1, 2, 3 CD) [win-win]
BUT...of what use is freedom if you're dead?!
Conversely, of what use is life without freedom?
Tough call!
:chin: Hmmm.
Cool. That and the rest of your post makes sense.
I'm not here much anymore. Looked in and couldn't quite figure out what axe you were grinding.
What's the difference?
Less will die or more will die. Freedom is at risk in the first case and assured in the second case.
As an irrational anti-vaxxer (why should I be thankful?) the second case seems to be the more appealing as long Im alive. I dont agree with that Philippinean tyrant who wants people to be put in jail and have a needle stuck in their ar....., eeeehm, bottom. "Bottoms up, preeeesent aass!" No thanks.
Last month loads of that stuff were superfluous here in Holland. Why not giving them to poor countries? Costs too much. Maybe THAT's something to worry about!
Ah
Why? Do they work?
My phone thought I had said enough there, but I could add: no idea.
Using this forum is not an effective way of broadcasting your opinions, though I admit not everyone seems to share that view.
Yes, noted your absence - quality of conversation deteriorated.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
...and so you asked. Lamentably a novelty these days.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Indeed. It is, however, an excellent means of gathering opinions, or more specifically arguments. A godsend for a curator like me.
Work at what? Like asking 'do cars work?' They get you from A to B, in general. Fine if you're at A and your dinner's at B. Useless otherwise.
There's still the bulk of the population to vaccinate in the developing world. There's only one thing preventing that - vaccine supply.
And what's holding up vaccine supply? The pharmaceutical company's profiteering and morons like you whipping up such a frenzy that all the rich white folk want their double dose plus boosters regardless of their actual risk.
Quoting Prishon
Quoting Cheshire
Yes, in order to distribute an argument it would have to exist first. It's the difference between stating a preference and reason. Simply, stating one's preference doesn't imply others should believe they have a reason to be compelled to share it. The "reason" element would be derived from an argument. I feel like I'm over explaining; was that rhetorical?
So just saying I dont want it is more harmful than giving arguments or reasons?
Whats a harmful argument in this context?
That's obvious moron: Do they work at whatever would compel you to say they are needed. Do they work at that?
If they do, I will then ask you what they work at, if anything.
Quoting Isaac
That would be irrelevant if they don't work. First, tell me if they work. Then I will ask you what they work for. Then we can discuss whether morons like me are holding up the supply, or morons like you are dissuading people from using them. First things first, Isaac. Do they work?
Cool, I've never taken part in a scripted argument before, sounds intriguing.
Me: They work, yes.
(Exits pursued by bear) --am I allowed my own stage direction?
Cool. What do they work for? (Why would you say they are needed? What for?)
Me and Riley have blocked one another but in all honesty I have to say that he certainly is no moron!!!
They work by having a high chance of reducing the severity and duration of the disease to below that experienced by most adults, especially those who are overweight or have comorbid conditions. This then reduces the burden on healthcare services. They might also reduce the extent to which an average person can transmit the virus, although that is less clear. Also, if around 70% of people in a population are immune, the virus may not be sufficiently able to find a new host before it is eliminated from the one it's in (herd immunity). The vaccine works by giving some immunity to those which don't have sufficient acquired immunity or who may come to harm acquiring it.
We established that it works.
I'm going out on a limb here and assuming it is needed because it works, and not for some other reason. I forgot to insert that question in the appropriate order. Correct me if my assumption is wrong, and if there is some other reason that it is needed instead of the fact that it works.
As to what it works for, part of the reason is:
Quoting Isaac
This raises a question in my mind: If it gives some immunity to the people you mention, does it not provide some immunity to other people? Or does it only provide some immunity to those you mention? Is there something about the people you mention that allows them to get some immunity, but others not?
It'll give immunity to almost anyone, but some people already have some immunity, others can acquire immunity using their own antibodies without suffering too much harm. Others will not get sufficient immunity, the vaccine is not 100% effective.
We agree it's needed (but maybe not here in the U.S.);
We agree it works.
We agree it's needed because it works.
We agree it works for several reasons, some more than others, and some possible, but not proven.
Now, another assumption on my part: You came to these conclusions through application of your analytic and critical thinking skills applied to the peer-reviewed and expert literature, after considering debate within the community of experts. Great! More power to you.
I just listened to https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/keythingstoknow.html?s_cid=10493:covid%2019%20vaccination:sem.ga:p:RG:GM:gen:PTN:FY21
and listened to the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, and the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the Chief Medical Advisor to the President.
After listening to them, I got the J&J on April Fools Day. Now, granted, the U.S. Government is fucked up for many reasons, and they have screwed the pooch in several misadventures (the most recent of which is Afghanistan), and they have, or have allowed the use of U.S. citizens as Guinea Pigs (like black folks and venereal disease, etc.), but all in all, I don't think they are out to get me. So I vaxed. And I encourage everyone else to get vaxed. And I think that if everyone would have followed the polite request of the government, there would be no variants and there would be no pass-throughs and we would have herd immunity, and hell, had we distanced and masked, we might not have even needed the vax!
Anyway, I'm glad you agree it's needed and works for several reasons.
One and done. I take those risks all the time, every day. I don't know what's in half the shit I eat or drink and I put my life in the hands of countless idiots every time I get on the road. I took a shot. Whooptie Doo!
I'll go find another thread to argue about some other shit. Fuck Covid and all the maelstrom surrounding it. I did my part and will continue doing so. If I end up magnetic, or Bill Gates starts telling to buy his shit when I sleep, or I up and die because I took the vax, so be it. I'm a rebel! A devil-may-care, risk-taking captain of daring-do! Gotta get me one of them Stars and Bars flags. But I guess I've been trod on, so I can't get one those snake flags. I'm bummed.
There's a lot of work being done there by "can" right? (I'm asking because you're better with the science and have clearly done more research than I have )
What I mean is, a person must go from shedding (if that's the right term) no virus right before they're infected to quite a lot once the disease has taken hold. I don't expect a simple linear relationship between how sick you are and how dangerous you are to others (probably more sigmoid) but there's a positive relationship.
On the other hand, if you're sick enough, say, to be bedridden, you probably have fewer transmission opportunities. If sick but not too sick people take no precautions to protect others, being a little sick could be much worse for their community than being very sick. If that's true, vaccines alone would be a terrible public health policy.
But vaccines should also reduce the time it takes your body to clear the virus right? And that surely reduces the number of people you transmit to, for most people.
And therein lies the problem. Not everyone needs to get vaccinated and you 'encouraging' (quite vociferously, you'll grant) everyone to get it creates a demand in rich countries which the pharmaceuticals are only too happy to meet, at the expense of the people who actually do need it (the vulnerable, the city dwellers, the obese etc.) in the developing world.
Making people feel like idiot scum for not being vaccinated when you're happily approaching your 70% target already doesn't help (using up 85%of your vaccine stock in doing so). Not only does it create unhelpful demand, but it makes the hesitant even less likely (when stocks finally reach high enough levels for everyone) because all you've done is entrenched their paranoia - "the vaccine is 'harmless', well that's a lie from the outset, what are these people tryin' a hide? Why are they so mad for me to get it?"
It would take the form of "I'm not getting a vaccine and other's shouldn't as well because of X"
Do I have to state this isn't a conversation between doctors?
Yes, there's a lot of complexities; much of the viral load is in the airway mucosa and the vaccine doesn't seem to reach there (although there's disagreement about that), sick people stay in bed, whereas vaccinated carriers move around (as you rightly point out - a particular flaw in the PHE study which excluded Pillar I reports, the very sick), the problem is massively exacerbated by the vaccine being advertised (falsely) as a way out of restrictions, then there's the problem of decreasing effectiveness over time (if people are unaware of this, they may confuse covid with flu and not isolate)... A ton of, mostly behavioural stuff, muddies the otherwise only slightly murky water of scientific theory - that's why there's so much consultancy work around at the moment for psychology academics. Pandemic's been an earner for me. Forget China, I'd look to the BPS or APA for the real instigators!
There's only been a handful of studies on this in the world (to my knowledge), and absolutely no cohort studies - comparing different groups of unvaccinated rather than only as a single cohort. No studies have examined transmission in high vulnerability groups, no studies have compared vaccination to various non-pharmaceutical measures to check which is most effective - all this, obviously, is only what I've been told, there may be stuff out there I've missed.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Yes, I don't think there's any doubt that the broad theory works, for most people. The devil will be in the details.
I can link any sources you want tomorrow, it's late here now and I'm on my phone.
LOL! First you say I'm:
Quoting Isaac
Then you say I'm making them:
Quoting Isaac
Which is it?
And you say we are:
Quoting Isaac
Uh, no. We aren't happily approaching our target. And we aren't because idiots like you aren't backing your own hand. That's why we have variants. And then, when the vax won't work, you'll be blaming me and my ilk. DOH! You're like the tobacco champ saying their is conflicting evidence about smoking and cancer. "I mean, just read the papers and the science and here's this guy (who works for Phillip Morris) who says blah blah blah."
The answer isn't to coddle the Faux-News-hesitant, and hope they come along while we vax up the rest of the world. The answer is to vax up the whole fucking world, including us. We are already on the losing side of this while others clamor for the vax. Seems the foreigners (many who want the vax) are ready to play ball. Get them the vax. But little good that will do if all the imbeciles in America are listening to you and we create new variants and render the vax useless.
Finally, I'm no fan of big pharma. For the life of me, I could not figure out why everyone was worried about espionage. All the science should have been shared, world-wide, free of charge, to any swinging dick or tit that wanted it. After all, it was U.S. taxpayer dollars, or the promise of them, that was and is going to pay for it in the U.S. If it was really a ww emergency then we should have been spreading all the latest data around like a rampant virus. Up to and including dumping pallets of the vax on our enemies in Afghanistan. From what I've heard, the virus doesn't respect borders.
No, no. Just nice to get a take from someone who's looked at some research. I've only dug into the culture war part of it, which ...
Thanks for humoring me.
Quoting Isaac
Why others should the argument be false? Why should a non-vaxxer want others not to vax too? I dont want them! Let them! Their offspring will notice!!!
Exactly
Are you addressing me?
I just have to let you know:
"Why make others feel like scum if their 70% is reached?"
Im on your side! And referring to how lucky we should be that the big pharmaceutical companies take care for us is bullshit. They made it in the first place (dont feel obliged to believe this though...I could be wrong).
Yes, but in my native language. How would you phrase this in English. Quoting Prishon
Ah yes! I see what you mean. Must have mixed two sentences up. What I meant is why should the argument not to vaxx be false? What if its right?
Both. Encouraging is an intentional activity, it doesn't imply success. Like I'm 'encouraging' you to actually think...
Quoting James Riley
https://usafacts.org/visualizations/covid-vaccine-tracker-states/
61% and still rising. In what way is a figure over 60 and still rising not approaching 70? How far past 60 would a still rising number have to be before you'd consider it to be approaching 70? Are you using some idiosyncratic number line?
Quoting James Riley
No, it categorically isn't. But then the actual facts have never bothered you have they?
https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/covid-19/variants-concern
None one the variants of concern come from the US, none of the variants of interest come from the US. A single named monitored variant might possibly...
Quoting James Riley
So no actual argument then, just spittle-flecked invective. How, exactly, do you plan to 'vax up the whole fucking world'? What method do you advocate which doesn't include reducing current vaccine demand in the US? Does it involve waiving you gun around and shouting 'yet hah' by any chance?
:lol:
Then why did you bring it up? You could have "false" replaced by "right".
I didnt say it is complicated. I say you could have replaced "false" (in false arguments) by "true" (so it become true arguments).
Don't think I used that word anywhere.
No problem.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Yeah, amazing isn't it? I actually came out of retirement to take up a consultancy just because of all this. I couldn't miss it. A phenomena (vaccine hesitancy) shared equally by both the uneducated and the PhD educated, but violently shunned by those in between... I don't think anything like this has ever occurred before, it's fascinating.
I've long been interested in the way the pharmaceutical industry has somehow become a poster boy for the left since way before the pandemic. One of the most profitable industries in the world, the largest lobbying budget the world has ever seen, sales practices bordering on psychopathic... ripe targets for right wing support you'd have thought (like arms, oil, and tobacco), but no. it's the left for whom they can do no wrong, the left who'll work tirelessly to dismiss any suggestion they might be doing anything underhand... A real oddity.
And then this shitstorm happened. Now the plan is to inject the whole world with a (possibly endless) round of a privately developed, commercial product for a profit-making corporation and there's not a peep from the usual suspects about maybe having a look at whether that's entirely sensible. And, no, not because it might contain Chinese nano-bots, or 5G receiving mercury... just because private, profit-making industries have a track record at looking after the welfare of the population about as good as Pol Pot's
But thinking about how people are responding (and more importantly, going to respond in future) to these sorts of events... Social media has changed the playing field entirely, this place is just a microcosm. The polemicising effects are well document already, but the degree to which it actually creates narratives so fast, which then become the constructed reality... We've never lived in a world in which global social narratives can be created real-time in response to events as they unfold, but divorced from any real-world anchors, where governments can actually devise responses based on the narrative that's only just emerged. Interesting - fucking terrifying, but interesting.
Its getting all mixed up now. If someone has an argument for not taking the vaxx, it can be a potential harmLESS argument as well. Why do you emphasize harmFULL? Because thats worse? Of course. But thats the point. You dont know. So better be sure and not take it. Off course with the chance of getting infected.
Then you stepped on your dick. If I am failing in my efforts to gin up U.S. demand then you would champion my driving them away. But since you walked yourself into that corner and slapped yourself, I'll just leave it at that.
Quoting Isaac
It's been how many months that the U.S. and state governments, and the people you think you know better than, have been begging, pleading and providing incentives for people to vax, even pre-delta, and we haven't reached that goal? A goal that you and your ilk have been interfering with, by questioning the governments and the people who are smarter and wiser than you? A goal that we would have met long ago, but for the likes of you and Faux News and Tucker Carlson, et al? We'd be at 80% months ago, but for the dummies who think they know better than the CDC and Fauci, et al.
Quoting Isaac
BS. We have variants because we haven't distanced, masked and vaxxed. It's people like that have killed thousands of people who listen to your ilk. This isn't a U.S. problem. The virus does not respect borders. People like you are in France, Germany, Brazil and all around the world, naysaying the advice of people that are smarter than you. All because you think you have the critical and analytical skills to make yourself an expert in the area by reading some articles. You, and people like you, remind me of the meme: "If you are not a scientist and you disagree with scientists about science, it's not a disagreement. You are wrong." I don't care if you, Isaac, actually might be some kind of scientist; you don't know shit or you wouldn't be here on TPF flapping your key board. You'd be hard at work somewhere helping out.
Quoting Isaac
Just because you can't rebut the argument doesn't mean it's not there.
Quoting Isaac
Well, if you really want to help, you'll quit undermining efforts to get people to distance, mask and vax with your pseudo-scientific questioning of people who you couldn't even carry the corn in their shit.
Quoting Isaac
First, there was little demand in the U.S. (thanks to you people) until the variant came along and even more people started dying, and sharing their come-to-Jesus meetings on T.V. after a close call. There were providers standing around with their thumbs up their ass because there was little demand. There is still not enough demand. But regardless, we (the whole fucking world) should have dumped everything into production, seven months ago, shared the tech and spun up a proper response.
You want to help? Take a god dam seat.
Quoting Cheshire
I emphasized potentially.
Quoting Prishon
Don't see how. I essentially provided a single sentence that I've had to requote against misstatement several times.
Do you disagree with the sentence? Would establishing that prior to throwing words at it help zero in on your target?
The very fact that you write "harmful" lroves that you emphasize harmful. Why didnt you write "potentially harmless"?
There's more than one demographic in receipt of your rhetoric.
Quoting James Riley
Any evidence for that, or just more of your storytelling?
Quoting James Riley
I asked what your plan was, not mine.
Quoting James Riley
I've asked before for you to back up these accusations, but you've failed to do so. What is 'psuedo' about the scientists I've cited, are you suggesting the BMJ is a 'pseudo' scientific journal, is the World Health Organisation a 'psuedo' health organisation? Is this your new go-to, anyone who doesn't support your naive John Wayne inspired version of the solution is 'pseudo'-whatever?. If you can't provide any evidence you shouldn't be making such strong statements.
Quoting James Riley
Evidence?
It's implied by the use of the word potentially that arguments which are harmless exist. In example, anyone reading this discussion would not be overwhelmed by the perceived creditability derived from the counter position being served. If you made a really good argument that compelled some one to forgo protection from the virus it would potentially be harmful. The harm is ultimately done by an outcome that results in an element of chance. Currently, it's a 29x greater chance of harm from an infection without a vaccine.
No it isn't. Check your statistics (or learn some).
I'm 70% right by your math.
As usual, I haven't the faintest idea what you're on about. I asked you to check the source of your claim. In what bizarre, Twitter-corrupted world is that a strange request meriting such an eccentric response?
Find that number on paper.
Well, according to you, I'm doing you a favor and freeing up the vax for overseas.
Quoting Isaac
Can't prove a negative. It's like how many lives were saved by all those people who played ball since day one? How much worse would it be if they had all been like you? It's all academic BS that you'd probably waste time and resources studying instead of distancing, masking and vaxxing.
Quoting Isaac
That's my plan. Calling out your BS so everyone who thinks you're the bees knees can see it. Trying to get you to change your plan, take a seat and quit killing people.
Quoting Isaac
I've already taught you about experts. I never claimed to be one.
Quoting Isaac
I didn't say they were, I said you are.
Quoting Isaac
Again, I already taught you about the professions and how they work. When I walked you through the vax questions, you agreed with Fauci, et al, and I left you hanging on one thin little made-up reed that had to do with the U.S. hogging all the vax with a non-existent high demand.
Quoting Isaac
Yeah, I saw them at Fremont County DHE drinking coffee and waiting for people to show. I saw it in Denver and I saw it on the boob tube. It picked up, marginally, with Delta and FDA approval. Some people couldn't bring themselves to pivot after using the FDA as an excuse. But others are still taking their que from the likes of you.
I cited the US vaccination rates. The supply rates are changing all the time, but the figure I got was from https://www.ft.com/content/a832d5d7-4a7f-42cc-850d-8757f19c3b6b.
Now your turn - your 29x citation please.
Did I speak too quickly for you?
Quoting James Riley
Well then don't use one as support for an argument.
Quoting James Riley
The plan I was referring to was how to get the whole world vaccinated. Even if everyone was 100% in favour of vaccination the problem we're facing now would be untouched. It's about distribution of vaccines, not willingness to take them.
Quoting James Riley
That's why I cite my sources. These aren't my arguments, they are the arguments of experts in their field.
Quoting James Riley
So you are an expert now? You know all about how the academic world works yes? What level of academic qualification do you have? How many years have you spent in the field?
Better?
Not my problem, I'm happy to retract any pay-walled citations, it doesn't affect the argument, there aren't enough vaccine shots for the world to be vaccinated, it's not a controversial claim. A good overall view is here https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00727-3
That study shows that unvaccinated infected are 29 times more prevalent than vaccinated infected. It would only translate to one's 'chances' if it were random. We already know it isn't. I suggest you learn some statistics before trying to use them in an argument.
Here's a primer - If the prevalence of yellow balls in a container is 20% and red 80%, my chances of picking a yellow ball are 20% assuming I pick randomly. If, however, I'm predisposed to pick yellows, my chances of picking yellow are greater than 20% even though the prevalence of yellows remains unchanged.
You didn't speak at all. You wrote. You opined that I was unsuccessful in my intent, and driving people away from the vax. You know, freeing it up for the other countries.
Quoting Isaac
Then don't ask for it. It's like I taught you, Isaac: It's all academic BS that you'd probably waste time and resources studying instead of distancing, masking and vaxxing.
Quoting Isaac
I've already explained my desires on viewing the planet without borders. The problem we are facing would not exist if people would have distanced, masked and vaxxed. No thanks to you and your ilk.
Quoting Isaac
And I already taught you about how experts in their field deal with peer issues. But after pressing you, it turns out you agree with me and Fauci on the vax. So that issue has been resolved.
Quoting Isaac
I know how licensing works. Decades ago I was an expert on it, with attorney's and engineers, and I was involved in some medical malpractice claims. I'm also a blue-booker, so I know how to properly cite, and I'm trained in analytic and critical thinking. But the most important thing is this: I don't pretend to know shit about things I don't know shit about. I know when to defer to experts in a given field, and if I want to take them on, I put them on the witness stand and ask questions I already know the answers to because I hired one of their peers to help me do it.
You can be predisposed but how can that influnce your picking of a ball? Im predisposed every time to win the lottery but never won it.
Good. Not my problem either.
Quoting Isaac
Correct.
Perhaps get a shot then.
Yes. The lottery is an example of something which is random. As I said
Quoting Isaac
--
Quoting Cheshire
Why would I do that based on the prevalence? Did you not understand my explanation of the difference between risk and prevalence? Would you like me to walk you through it?
The prevalence of head injury for helmet-wearing motorcycle riders is many times lower than the prevalence for non-helmeted riders. So should I wear a helmet, even when not riding a bike? There's an independent risk factor involved (riding a bike), if I know my grouping (non bike-rider) I can know my risk is not the average.
Same with covid. There are known risk factors which I know I don't have, so the average chance (prevalence) is definitely not my chance (risk).
One thing to consider is that the symptomatic are probably more likely to spread the disease than the asymptomatic simply because they cough a lot more, so if the vaccination reduces the chances of symptomatic COVID then the vaccination reduces transmissibility, irrespective of whether or not it reduces viral load.
Yes. But if you pick a ball with the intention to pick a yellow one and truly pick it you have to look into the container.
The vaccine reduces symptomatic Covid by reducing viral load. The question is whether it does so to a greater degree than a healthy immune system's own antibody production when taking the viral particles of the airway into account. We've only evidence that it does so on average (ignoring known cohort variation in immune response to SARs-cov-2 infection)
The natural immune system produces an Ig response in the airway mucosa too, the vaccine doesn't because it's injected into the blood (although, as I said, there's some disagreement on this, last I checked). There's been some talk of a nasal vaccine that would produce the Ig response in the nasal mucosa - that would really lessen transmission, but nothing in production yet, as far as I know.
Yep. It was just an example of the difference between random selection and biased selection. In this case the bias is you looking and preferring yellow, I could have had the bias being someone putting all the yellow balls to the top before you picked.
And it's not just about transmissibility. The increased hospitalisations of the unvaccinated increases the burden on the health care system, taking up ICU beds and doctors' time. That's part of the reason that those who refuse a vaccine are vilified. Getting a vaccine is hardly a burden, and doesn't require any lifestyle changes, and so refusing one is seen as a pointlessly selfish societal harm.
Again, true of the average, which is why I've said many times that I think vaccination is good public health policy. It's not true of all cohorts. My chances of needing a hospital bed, even if I get infected, are absolutely tiny. Way smaller than my chances of needing a hospital bed from a dozen other lifestyle choices not so vilified - like eating bacon, or drinking excess alcohol, or skiing, or...
Quoting Michael
If you're happy with the risks as presented to you, then no. If you don't trust those presenting the risks to you then yes, it is a burden.
Quoting Michael
Indeed, and for many, it would be. But for others, the risk of them either transmitting or needing hospital treatment for the disease is way smaller than the risk from many other lifestyle choices not so vilified.
I don't think there's any way of knowing if one's own natural immune system works better than or as well as the vaccine, so the studied average is the only evidence we can use to make the decision. Young and healthy people can, and have, caught COVID and been symptomatic, so one can't use one's age and lifestyle as evidence.
The scientific evidence is that getting the vaccine reduces the chances of illness and the severity of illness and of showing symptoms, and so if symptomatic COVID increases transmissibility then the vaccine reduces transmissibility.
The evidence is overwhelming that comorbidities are strongly correlated with the need for hospital treatment. Over 90% of hospital admissions for covid have comorbidities which are easily identifiable. Things like being obese (OR of about 10), having diabetes (OR of about 6), having high blood pressure (OR of about 2), ...and so on. The evidence is not even in question here - hospitalisation with covid is overwhelmingly the result of comorbidity.
Here's the proportions with age for example https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2020.0982
Here with obesity https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32788355/, and another https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32857454/
People who drink excess alcohol are vilified.
In cases like eating bacon or skiing they're not vilified (except by some vegetarians in the case of eating bacon) because we understand the reason(s) why people choose to do them, and deem them acceptable reasons. But this isn't the case for not getting a vaccine. Unless you have allergies or other underlying health conditions that make vaccinations more dangerous than COVID, there are no acceptable reasons to not have the vaccine. Even among those who have a low risk of death or serious illness from COVID, the risk of death or serious illness from the vaccine is even lower, so it's irrational to not get vaccinated, hence it being an unacceptable decision (given the effects having COVID may/can have on transmissibility and hospitalisation).
That's true. I don't see what that's got to do with the case I'm arguing. I'm not suggesting that society finds the risks from lack of vaccination to be acceptable, or the risks form eating bacon unacceptable. I'm quite clear on what society thinks of the matter. None of this changes the cold hard fact that the risks (for certain cohorts) are comparable.
Let me give an example.
Hospital admission rates for heart disease are something in the region of 200/100,000, depending on which country you're in. The CDC has determined that 80% of heart disease hospitalisations could be prevent by a combination of dietary changes and exercise (both of which I've adopted). The hospitalisation rate just for my age group from covid is somewhere between 1 and 70 per 100,000 depending on where in the spread of the pandemic we were. We know that having none of the relevant comorbidities reduces my risk to at least one tenth of that, so already vaccination to prevent a 7 in 100,000 risk of hospitalisation is a whole order of magnitude below dietary changes and exercise to prevent a 160 in 100,000 risk from heart disease.
Edit - I should add that I'm quite old. The comparison for young people is astronomically smaller. Virtually everything they do carries a greater risk of hospitalisation than avoiding vaccination does.
Quoting Michael
... is bullshit. Try posting you went on a bender last night here on this forum, then post that you've no intention of getting the vaccine. Get back to me when you receive the same sort of response to both and I'll reconsider this line of argument.
Assume that the effects on the health care system of people eating bacon is the same as the effects on the health care system of people not getting vaccinated against COVID. Given that the reason(s) for eating bacon are acceptable we don't vilify those who eat bacon, and given that the reason(s) for not getting vaccinated against COVID are unacceptable we vilify those who don't get vaccinated against COVID.
If your decision affects others then reasons do matter. An irrational decision that harms others is one that ought be vilified. A rational decision that harms others is one that can be excused.
Yes, agreed. But the reasons we, as a society, currently find acceptable are not in question. I'm arguing about the data, not society's capricious preferences.
The simple facts are that a) the risks of death and illness from the vaccine are less than the risks of death and illness from COVID (except for those who have health conditions that make vaccinations more dangerous), b) being unvaccinated against COVID increases the chances of placing a burden on the health care system (and possibly of transmitting the virus), even if young and healthy, and c) getting vaccinated is a minor inconvenience at best.
Therefore (except for those who have health conditions that make vaccinations more dangerous), there is no rational reason to not get vaccinated and so those who choose not to ought be vilified.
My reasons for not getting the vaccine are: it's unnecessary for my age/health group the risk is lower than many other acceptable risks, there is limited supply and my vaccine would be better off given to a diabetic slum dweller in India than to me, I don't trust my health to a private profiteering corporation with more lobbying power than the arms industry.
In what way are those less acceptable than - I like the taste of bacon.
That risk is still greater than any risks from getting the vaccine, and so being vaccinated is better than being unvaccinated.
You not getting vaccinated doesn't mean that your vaccine gets to go to a diabetic slum dweller in India. It just means that your vaccine goes to waste.
Millions of Covid vaccines could go to waste as states stockpile them (USA)
Covid vaccines ‘thrown away as not enough people coming forward’ (UK)
So you're saying that you believe the vaccine is more dangerous than COVID? That's just flat-out false.
In that your reasons are either false or irrational.
And there are rational reasons to have an abortion, which is why it can be excused. Whereas there isn't a rational reason to not get vaccinated (except in those with health conditions that make vaccinations dangerous), and so can't be excused.
I'm not the arbiter, but I am right.
Irrelevant. We are not, in any other walk of life obliged to reduce our risks until they are as low as it is possible to make them. In all other walks of life the obligation is only to reduce your risk to an acceptable level. My risk of needing hospital treatment from covid infection is below the level we already find acceptable for many other lifestyle choices. Stopping eating bacon is a lower risk than eating bacon (even though it might cause you some sadness), yet there's no moral obligation to do so simply because the risk is lower than the alternative.
Quoting Michael
That others who ought to act in a chain of events aren't doing their bit does not remove a moral obligation to do my bit. I free up the supply. If others are too lazy, greedy or stupid to do with that what's needed, then that's not something I have any control over. Not doing my bit doesn't help, it just encourages the situation to persist. In lowering the demand in my country I'm opening the possibility for redistribution, that's all I can do. If I don't buy extra food it doesn't go to the starving either, it goes in the bin, so should we no longer care about food waste?
Quoting Michael
I didn't make any claim of fact, so it can't be false. I said I don't trust them. It's my preference. I asked you to justify how it's less acceptable than "I like the taste of bacon" as a reason.
Possibly. If she is in the midst of a psychotic break and believes that the foetus is the spawn of Satan then I think there are reasons to prevent any rash decision that she may regret after treatment.
Quoting Michael
... are not your standards are they? As the question asked (related to vaccine hesitancy) was "...if the reasons for a woman to have an abortion are irrational by your standards, should she not be allowed to have?" A woman being in the midst of a psychotic break is not something a layman would typically judge. The issue @Tzeentch is raising related to covid is that lay people are typically judging the reasons of others. Citing a diagnosable mental health issue as an exception doesn't answer the question at all.
Agreed.
A ways back in this thread, I related a discussion with colleagues about prescribing carbamazepine to reduce aggression. We cannot simply do so on the grounds that it's more likely than not to reduce harm caused by the aggressive outbursts. The normal moral right to one's bodily autonomy means that it has to be shown beyond reasonable doubt before any mandatory psychiatric medicine is prescribed. The same is true with abortion (though it's not my field). It's insufficient to simply say that a woman's reasons are probably not rational, they must be shown beyond reasonable doubt to be irrational before a court can intervene.
Your example here provides maybe reasons which are beyond reasonable doubt irrational. Can you do that for the reason I gave above?
(incidentally, I agree with you about abortion, it merely serves here as a bodily autonomy argument)
If so, what good would it bring?
I'm not saying that you're morally obliged to get vaccinated because the risks from the vaccine are lower than the risks of COVID. I'm saying that it's irrational to not get vaccinated when the risks from the vaccine are lower than the risks of COVID (and when there are no positives to not being vaccinated, which is where eating bacon and skiing differ).
The moral obligation comes from the fact that a) it's irrational to not get vaccinated and b) not being vaccinated increases the risk of harm to others.
Regardless of what other people are doing, the fact of the matter is that either you take the vaccine or that vaccine goes to waste. Therefore "other people need the vaccine more" isn't a valid reason for refusing the vaccine, and so is an irrational reason.
As above, this alone isn't what establishes a moral obligation; the moral obligation comes in with the additional fact that not being vaccinated increases the risk of harm to others.
I don't know how to interpret "I don't trust them" in this context as anything other than "I don't trust the safety or efficacy of the vaccine", which I don't know how to interpret as anything other than "I don't believe that the vaccine is safe and effective."
The vaccine is safe and effective; its risks are less than the risks of COVID and it reduces the chance of developing symptomatic COVID (and reduces the severity if symptoms develop).
So all-in-all, you have presented no rational reason to refuse the vaccine. It's irrational to refuse the vaccine and being unvaccinated puts others at risk. Therefore you ought be vilified.
Vaccines have already been put on hold, for example in Denmark, because exactly this was suspected not to be the case.
Besides, to say the vaccine is safe is a guarantee no one can make. For one, there is no way the long-term effects could have been mapped, because the vaccines do not exist long enough for that. Secondly, for certain persons the vaccine has proven to be very much not safe, as they have suffered serious side-effects or even death.
So an irrational action must carry zero risk, but a rational action can carry a non-zero risk, morally. Is that your position?
Quoting Michael
You've not answered the case with food waste. Are you denying any non-consequentialist moral position?
Quoting Michael
The vaccine was safe and effective when tested. That it continues to be so through production to the actual vaccine I'm having administered requires my trust in the pharmaceutical industry (not to mention believing the tests in the first place requires trust). We're not talking about matters of fact here, my vaccination is an event in the future, there are no matters of fact about it yet. It's a matter of trust. Are you claiming it's actually irrational not to trust the pharmaceutical industry? What would be your argument for that?
Quoting Michael
Finally, as mentioned at the top of this post, you've introduced this idea that irrational choices have to reduce risks to a greater extent than rational ones, even when the rational ones are nothing more than idle preference (bacon). Have you any argument to support this?
It depends on the circumstances. I'm not involved in such cases directly, but I'd imagine the rights of the father and the woman's previously expressed wishes would possibly come into it. Most consideration with court mandates is harm to others and the court does not consider a foetus an 'other', so without the interests of a legally considered other party I expect psychosis would make little difference to her request.
It made a passable moral example, but in the real world probably not so similar to vaccination.
I honestly can't see how this can be acceptable, whether she is deemed irrational or not.
It is a rock and a hard place, but I know to which side I am leaning.
Yes, I agree, I was only trying to outline what might be considered, but it's outside my area of expertise. An extreme case I can think of could be where a married couple decided to have a child and a few weeks in, the woman has a clearly psychotic episode and wants an abortion. I can see the courts, in that case, denying her that right, for the sake of both the father and her non-psychotic interests. But in such a case it would only be a stay, I can't imagine a court ever mandating to full term.
My interest was different: early on I had some hope this could be an inflection point.
The fundamental problem with climate change, for instance, is overcoming our hardwired discount on the future, and the inherent slowness of the process. And that climate modeling is inherently probabilistic. Thirty years now we've had good reason to believe we ought to do something, and we've done basically nothing.
But if science came through with the vaccines, and public health officials, who by definition juggle science and politics, came through with good policy, if these folks working 16-hour days for our good came through, there'd be something be something tangible to show people the value of science and of good government, and maybe some people would wonder if they'd been wrong. Maybe science and government are pretty good ideas.
But it turns out I can still be astonished by the willful ignorance and irrationality of people.
It's simplistic, I know, but I believe everyday all of us face a choice between the Star Trek future and the Mad Max future. Some people don't. They believe it's Mad Max, now and always. They don't believe in the project of civilization. And a lot of them believe their time on earth is just a prelude to their real life anyway. I keep hoping we can work around them, and get all of us, the skeptics included, to the promised land, but their imaginary lives keep having effects in the real world. By not believing in civilization, they make it harder. This, as they say, is why we can't have nice things.
It could be both. See HG Wells' Time Machine. Our species emerged from a stew of intermingling groups in Africa. It can go the other way as well: we can break up and evolve in independent groups. Climate change is the kind of stressor that could make that a reality, maybe. Some of us leave for the stars, some of us keep losing skills till they're not even stone age anymore.
You can drink until you die for all I care. But we have actual punitive laws for those who get behind the wheel and risk the lives of others. So, stay in your home, or go to a place for people like you and stay there. You can snuggle if you want. And if you need help, help each other, but don't take up a scarce hospital bed when you think you need it. I hear if you drink bleach you can clear things right up.
You are lucky that in spreading Covid, it is too hard to prove the culprit. Drive drunk and hurt or kill my loved one and gubmn't will be the least of your worries. Because of this, don't be surprised at scarlet letters and hostility.
Having read through your exchange with @Michael now, this is what bothers me:
Yes, there are other things people do that put their health at greater risk than going without the vaccine and getting infected. I finished a cigarette before typing that, for instance. They are comparable in the sense that such behaviors could lead to needing medical care, indirectly making it measurably (whether that number is large or small) harder for someone who did not engage in those behaviors to receive care they need.
But that is not the only potential impact. My smoking is not contagious. [hide="*"](I know little about second-hand smoke, but I haven't smoked indoors or around lots of people in decades. Not the same thing anyway.)[/hide] My eating bacon is not contagious. Going skiing is an interruption of my everyday life in which I absent myself from work, school, stores, etc. in my home town, where I have repeated and sometimes prolonged contact with people, sometimes in confined spaces. And it's not contagious.
It's not just your taking-up-a-bed that counts, but the fact that you also risk causing others to need a bed (and them causing others to need a bed, and them causing others ...), and the further fact that all you need to do to risk harm to others is go about your daily life.
What's more, no one else knows what choice you've made about the risks to yourself and to them. If you and I go hunting together, we accept that we are a danger to each other -- hunting accidents do actually happen. If we interact in daily life, your obesity and heart disease and lung cancer present so little risk to me that it's irrelevant. Your drinking too much at dinner presents little risk to me and others in the restaurant, and others between the restaurant and your home -- unless you choose to drive home.
It seems very straightforward to me, and @Michael has the right of it.
(And this is also why the abortion comparison is spurious: it is not only a choice about what you do with your body, but what you do with the bodies of everyone you interact with, both directly by potentially transmitting the virus and indirectly by requiring medical care. We are not discrete units, but organisms embedded in an environment, an environment that includes other organisms just like us.)
Indeed it would be if there were suitably compelling evidence that vaccination did indeed reduce transmission in two key ways;
1. Over and above other measures one might choose to take to achieve the same ends.
2. Do so to below a level which is already considered acceptable (passive smoking being a good example, the air pollution from driving another, many other forms if pollution and social harms from one's consumer choices...)
Without those two, I see no moral case. Yes a vaccine might reduce my chances of transmitting the virus, but why am I required to reduce my chances of harming others to as low as possible. I'm not so required in other areas like those listed above, only to below a reasonable threshold.
As I said in my response to you a few posts back, the evidence is just not there for making the case that n relying on non-pharmaceutical measures to reduce transmission creates an unacceptably high risk of transmission in any given cohort. It's nit even close to being there.
The key issue that confuses this is that evidence for the public policy case is not the same as evidence for the moral case. The former deals in prevalence, the latter risk (see my little primer above if necessary, i'm not going to teach you to suck eggs).
As a public policy, it may be more likely than not that mass vaccination will reduce transmission. I don't think the matter is clear cut, there's a lot of behavioural issues to factor in, plus the progress of variant, the duration of immunity... but overall I've no issue with taking that gamble as public policy. But that's not the same as a moral duty.
A good example is potatoes. Public policy was to not say that potatoes were a vegetable (of the 5 a day kind). The policy wasn't because it's true, it's because they considered that admitting as such would make most people think chips and crisps counted. I would not do that. Am I still somehow morally obliged to stick to public policy nonetheless, or can I safely count my potatoes (proper vegetables as they are). I'd say the latter. I an, in this case, not the average at whom the policy is aimed.
Likewise the j-shaped curve in the negative effects of alcohol consumption. Again not reflected in public policy. There are countless examples. Public policy is a blunt instrument.
The moment evidence is shown that a vaccine reduces my* chances of transmitting the virus to below the accepted thresholds of risk, I'll agree to a moral case.
* by 'my', I mean my general cohort of known factors (age, comorbidities, population density, diligence with hygiene, etc), I'm not asking for a personalised proof!
Until then, I don't see a case for why my preferences (which I take seriously, and are both social welfare based, not personal gain based) need be sacrificed to achieve a risk threshold which is not demanded of others exercising far more trivial preferences.
A good example is a lifetime study of epidemiology.
Quoting Isaac
No ones complained about a preference; it's the nonsense supporting it that is the issue. The question is regarding dissemination of reasoned positions for convincing the public it ought succumb to viral infection. Like I said weeks ago, simply stating "I rather not" is the pseudo responsible approach to this maelstrom of idiocy. No one needs justification for making that observation. It's the need to convince yourself by convincing others or in this case arguing to no foreseeable end that your decision though detrimental when applied broadly is the best course of action.
I do not see a legal objection against a legal obligation to vaccinate perse. However, that has to be deliberated carefully and the bar is high, so only in case there is no less severe alternative (subsidiarity) and in case the panemic causes (or continues to cause) serious social disruption.
:up:
Arguing philosophical positions, such as ethical ones, is what we do here. Did you not notice the sign above the door?
Yes, and? It is an ethical question nonetheless. The complaint raised against them is not a technical one, it's that they are unethically putting others at risk. The whole question of consent, duty, reasonable risk, freedom, obligation... it's entirely a matter of ethics.
Quoting Cheshire
I don't see anything trivially entertaining about discussing ethics, no. I think it's very serious. There's some entertainment in poking the ants, but the subject matter is a serious one.
:100:
From what I hear, that is also true for getting it, only the antibodies go away sooner than that. No, I don't have a cite.
I know a guy who was infected and never got long term antibodies, just the short term ones (we're all enrolled in antibody research).
As one wag said to an anti-vaxxer: "So you don't want to be part of a government research project? Guess what? You're in the control group."
Do you need me to provide all of my 30 something citations again? Do you think enough time has gone by now that you can safely pretend I haven't fully cited every claim I've made with several experts in the field? And you accuse me of arguing tactically...
Quoting Cheshire
Quoting Isaac
Your citations create the illusion of such a chorus, but this thread is a solo performance.
Out of a group telling me Bill Gates wants to install an update in my brain to help depopulate the world; I have one person arguing the nomenclature of 'prevalence' that is understood to be common to epidemiology studies. You have been conceding it's good public policy and not citing info wars like a scientific journal. Either you really can't differentiate between an antivax position and the principle of anything being doubtable or this is a charade.
Right here is quality antivax material. Using an idiom incorrectly to support a position. Generally stating the Rosemary's Baby hypothetical they brought to the table is undecidable and suggesting a preference. Like, I prefer to divide by zero from right to left.
Quoting Tzeentch
If you have room to lean you aren't exactly caught between two rigid structures.
It's not an 'illusion' if they're all real is it. Are you claiming I've fabricated them?
This study seems to indicate that naturally acquired immunity is not as effective as vaccine acquired immunity: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34103407/
Yes, in the one aspect they measured (antigen breadth). Natural immunity has the advantage of not costing anything, not taking vaccines from those who need them more, and not interfering with bodily autonomy (for those that don't like/trust the pharmaceutical companies), so it's not a binomial choice, there needs to be some weight to the difference in effectiveness to outweigh the disadvantages, it's mere presence is not sufficient. Maybe that weight is there, but the paper doesn't show it.
A larger study has just come out showing the opposite.
Quoting https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1
The study is in preprint, so should be taken as preliminary, but the picture may not be so clear as your study indicates.
Yes, that's right. Although only if you measure 'downside' in terms of immunity only, not risk or cost.
Not for the under 24s (well, not compared to the benefits anyway - the risks definitely are minimal in real terms)
https://medium.com/@wpegden/weighing-myocarditis-cases-acip-failed-to-balance-the-harms-vs-benefits-of-2nd-doses-d7d6b3df7cfb
https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/05/07/covid-vaccines-for-children-should-not-get-emergency-use-authorization/
And yet both Germany and the UK are rolling out vaccines to children, contradicting their own advisory committees.
Quoting Janus
Absolutely.
Quoting https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2027
As Gavin Yamey, professor of global health and public policy put it recently in the BMJ
Maybe right, maybe left. You have to examine it.
I don't understand how half the country fights tooth and nail against socialized medicine since recent memory, but when the vaccine is produced by the same system it's untrusted? Where are all the free market capitalist insisting it must be the best vaccine because it's made for profit? The conservative right is doing a handstand on this issue.
'My view' is a rather broad term so it's difficult to answer that question. I don't want to go off on some long spiel only to find you meant some quite specific aspect of it. Which part of 'my view' are you asking about - or do you actually mean my entire response in this thread?
I have not been following this discussion closely, but I gather you have qualms about vaccination. Perhaps the question is, which of those qualms do you think would have some general acceptance amongst those in the field?
Ah - OK, that's the easier question to answer.
The hesitancy to authorise the vaccine for children is very widely supported, most advisory bodies are either split or have actually come out in favour of not.
The reluctance to support boosters until the rest of the world has sufficient first doses is actually WHO policy, so plenty of support there.
The qualms about the efficacy are not so widely shared (though still a reasonable basis in qualified, respected experts - I don't do 'woo').
The belief in natural immunity was a fairly uncommon position, but is now (see the study above) becoming more common, still not a majority though.
The concerns about the pharmaceutical industry's practices in general are shared by a small but significant group of experts in the field.
As to the ethical stuff...
If papers in the Journal of Medical Ethics are a weathervane (I only really have time to keep up with one ethics journal, and they never make it into the mainstream news - poor ethicists!) then I'd say about 50/50 papers in favour of things like accepting a variable response and directed approach vs papers which think that won't work socially and we need to scare the bejeezus out of everyone just to get a 70% take up.
Interesting stuff. My medical knowledge is not generally up to much more than the secondary literature; so for the most part I will ride along with the expressed considered opinion.
It's all a bit complex...
You're lucky to have at least that. Where I live, one is on one's own. It takes one doctor to diagnose covid by symptoms, or a covid death by symptoms (no test and no autopsy required), but a medical board must convene before they even consider that something could be the side effect of a covid vaccine. You could die from the damn thing, and it still wouldn't be counted among "serious negative side effects of the covid vaccine".
But not in the case of this pandemic. Nobody gets excused, everyone is put into the same category.
Right in the beginning when they first started vaccinating, the plan was expressed that first the healthy should be vaccinated, in order to protect the most vulnerable. This is the standard approach to vaccination in general.
But in about a week or so, this concern completely died out, and a medically dangerous practice was adopted of vaccinating the most vulnerable first.
It's not clear whether there is any other medication where this approach is taken. Normally, if a person is already immunocompromised or otherwise of vulnerable health, they aren't forced into medical treatments that further stress their already compromised immune system. But with covid, all this caution was thrown to the wind.
But if the Israel scenario is anything to go by, then, even if the majority of the population gets vaccinated, this will not stop the pandemic.
What jurisdictions? Nursing homes and hospitals?
A Jan-Jun 2021 probe somewhere out there ...
... via KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor: In Their Own Words, Six Months Later (Jul 13, 2021)
:100:
Yes, yes you are. Not only that, but there are unfounded assumptions about those with comorbidities (i.e. that they are the ones pushing vax); or that those who push vax are not also pushing for other health-saving choices; and a failure to distinguish between knowingly assuming risk and thinking there is no risk; and risking others beyond the self. Those who are allegedly killed by, or suffer from the vax also had comorbidities. Should we take them off the table and say the vax does not harm at all?
If one is going to fail logic by an appeal to authority (as I do), then at least have the authority appealed to be an actual authority; not like some generally smart people who don't know shit.
Everyone on both sides has already bet. The difference is, which lives were anteed up? At least I didn't throw someone else on the table.
I could go on, but the the failures of reason/logic go on and on, and I tire. I just hope those who answered the call to service haven't done so in vain.
Dont two wrongs make it right?
Fully mandated vaccination in Indonesia, and Turkmenistan; public sector workers in Canada, Fiji and Saudi Arabia and much of the US; large gatherings in the UK, and most of Europe; restrictions on travel in most countries. Mandates are in no way restricted to hospitals and nursing homes.
https://www.reuters.com/world/countries-make-covid-19-vaccines-mandatory-2021-07-13/
An alternative to wry incredulity is just to look stuff up.
Not at all. Resources are limited. Where there are two wrongs you focus on the biggest.
An alternative to your response would be to address the entire sentence. What color is your "Covid Passport" for internal travel within your borders? I don't have such a document and I doubt you do either. But, you ignore that and PRETEND I asked only about mandates. Let me know if any honest observations strike you.
All internal and international travel for EU citizens; it's not possible to enter a EU country without a valid covid passport. Then, depending on the EU country: access to public transportation, schools, bars, restaurants, cinemas, any gatherings of more than 50 people, sports facilities, hair salons, cosmetic salons, access to some medical facilities.
These are just the most notable ones, but there are more, and, as promised by the governments, even more to come.
In the end, irony will be the winner!!!!!!
No, just a troll that will out-last reason/logic. You know, like you.
https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-55718553
For those truly interested, and not simply trying to dig in and defend an ignorant position, here's an excellent summary by Dr. Suppinger:
http://www.williamsonherald.com/opinion/commentary-why-should-i-care-if-others-get-vaccinated/article_96e737c2-b369-11eb-90ce-c79d7571ff9a.html
... to which I receive a serious look by the injection administer, who's clearly not amused.
Genuine medical progress, a great scientific achievement, if it pans out.
What will the anti-vaxxers say, though?
Would you please explain to me how concerns about the origins of a disease and about the profitability of the corresponding vaccines should function as justifications in a deliberation about whether to receive one of those vaccines?
Suppose someone is selling gas masks proven safe and effective in protecting against mysterious and deadly clouds of gas recently found creeping around the planet; and the government is purchasing the masks and distributing them for free. What sane person would refuse to use those masks on the grounds that the manufacturers of the mask profit from the sales and that this suggests a potential conflict of interest for the manufacturers; and on the grounds that someone may have intentionally produced and released the mysterious deadly gas?
What on Earth could possibly lead a human being to refuse to wear the mask on such grounds?
So far as I can see, the most important difference between that hypothetical deliberation and the real deliberation about whether to receive COVID vaccines, is that most people who refuse the COVID vaccine would thereby increase the risk for everyone in the world, while most people who refuse the gas mask would mainly increase the risk only for themselves and for whatever unfortunate dependents they may have.
To be clear: I'm not suggesting it's foolish to question and to investigate the origin of COVID-19 and the profits some have made in its wake, including through vaccine production and distribution. I'm suggesting that the answers to those questions shouldn't have any bearing on a reasonable person's deliberation about whether to take the vaccine.
Wherever it came from, and whoever might profit from it, the virus is already here. If it's relatively contagious; if it has relatively high rates of highly negative outcomes for the infected; if many people at high risk for those negative outcomes would prefer not to suffer them; if a high rate of transmission is likely to accelerate the evolution of more contagious, more destructive, and less manageable strains of the virus; if there are egregious long-term socioeconomic consequences of letting the virus run rampant for longer periods of time… What else do you need to know, besides that the vaccines are safe and effective?
Is there any reasonable doubt that some of the vaccines produced so far have met strict standards of safety and efficacy?
Moreover, how many of the people still holding out from (mostly imaginary) concerns about safety take the same cautious stance in weighing all the other choices they make? Are they strict and well-informed about diet and exercise? Do they abuse alcohol? Do they smoke cigarettes? Do they know what pesticides have been sprayed on their marijuana, or how much fentanyl is in their cocaine? Do they consume any products manufactured by pharmaceutical companies? Do they consume unregulated dietary supplements? Have they checked the safety of their homes and cars and home goods -- their car seats and dashboards, carpets and floors, cabinets and finishes, couches and headboards, dishware and cookware, sanitary and cleaning products, electronic and digital devices? Have they tested the water they drink? Do they get tested for allergies before they try new foods? Do they go swimming? Do they use condoms? Do they drive cars? Do they cross streets? Do they own guns?
I suspect it's a rather small fraction of the community of COVID vaccine-refusers who take such a thoroughly cautious approach to mitigating risk in all their consumer and lifestyle choices. The rest of them, with few exceptions, have been riled up and confused by the echo chambers into making a choice that's inconsistent with their own principles, and thus irrational as well as inhumane.
I presume the fraction of risk-mitigation extremists is probably too small to make a difference to our collective success at COVID mitigation. Still it may be worth pointing out that in some cases their choice would be irrational and inhumane. It's irrational if they don't adjust their life circumstances, for instance by strict social distancing, to make the risk of their experiencing negative outcomes from COVID smaller than the risk of their experiencing negative outcomes from vaccine. And it's arguably inhumane as well as irrational, if the total risk they would take on by receiving the vaccine is significantly less than the total risk they would add to the rest of the world by their refusal.
I'm not sure how that works.
I was talking to a sick woman (who later died of covid19). She told me she was going to be vaccinated, but that they still needed to find out what caused it.
IOW, the two issues were bound together for her. The vaccination portion was resolved for her since she was ill.
I know people say it's Facebook, talk radio, and Fox news, but I'm not sure it's that simple.
I'm tempted to say it's an exercise of power. For some reason they don't understand that they're only hurting themselves and their loved ones.
Quoting Cabbage Farmer
Yes. Some do actually hold out (against vaccination) even after their bodies have been ravaged by the disease. Some archetype on the scene, maybe. Jung said to ask yourself what myth you're in. We can try to understand that about others.
There's a theme that the vocal pro-vaccers don't seem to understand, and which is also strongly tabooed in our society. I've brought up this theme several times in these discussions, with little, and mostly no reply. The theme is: Is life worth living?
There are some people who flat out have a death wish, but who don't commit suicide. Such people welcome dangerous situations in which they could die.
Then there are those who wish death upon others and who less or more actively act in accordance with that desire.
Then there are those who are bored of life, or sick of life. They don't actively want to die, but they don't want to live either. These are the resignated types who don't seek death, but who don't mind if it comes.
Then there are those who believe that if their "time has come", then "that's it", and they will die. People who have accepted the inevitability of (their own) death.
It's not clear what percentage of the population is in these categories or how consistently, but they exist.
These people are not likely to get vaccinated or seek much other medical treatment.
These above categories and topics are not something society at large would want to openly talk about, and the people in them themselves aren't likely to be open about their motivations with just anyone. They just seem like regular anti-vaccers or the vaccination-hesitant.
To change them (and to get them vaccinated or follow other epidemiological measures), one would need to convince them that life is worth living -- more: that _every_ life is worth living.
But nobody is really interested in that, right?
Some of the people in the above categories are the detritus of capitalism and liberalism. Capitalists and liberals certainly don't clean up after themselves.
You keep forgetting the issue of social trust. Capitalism and liberalism encourage the destruction of social trust. It usually takes social trust to agree to a medical treatment, even more so after one has been negatively affected by what other people did.
This is offensive.
A consideration like this is only relevant if a person sees themselves as a worthy member of society, and if society sees one as a worthy member.
You can't convince outsiders and outcasts with such arguments, especially not if you yourself have cast them out.
The vocal pro-vaccers don't seem to understand that they cannot simultaneously push for a liberal agenda as well as a socialist agenda, as the two are mutually exclusive.
In us and them perspective, essence to the problem is we are being present with 2 possible bad outcomes, lesser and grater one:
1. Take a vaccine with the possibility of side effects.
2. Running the risk of infection.
Running the risk of side effects is low and less dangerous compared to infection chance, possibility of death is also lower by taking the vaccine.
Therefore it is prudent to take the vaccine.
Extracting money from the population, even if that's indeed the motive of COVID, it doesn't change our choices, so taking the vaccine is still valid.
Based on what statistics?
Canada for example:
https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/vaccine-safety/summary.html
Side effects expressed in percentage are therefore 0,0004
According to WHO there are 28,881 cumulative death cases in Canada, with 27,792,564 persons being fully vaccinated:
https://covid19.who.int/
Unfortunately there is no data of how many out of 28,881 cumulative death cases were fully vaccinated persons but what ever math you do it's extremely unlikely that 0,0004 would be the result of death cases of vaccinated persons caused by infection.
For example, assuming ALL of these death cases were vaccinated persons you get the result of 0,001 percent of deaths of vaccinated people, which is higher than 0,0004.
28,881 / 27,792,564 = 0,001
In other words, running the risk of side effects is much lower than running the risk of infection.
Both can result with death outcome but that's irrelevant to decide between 2 risks because for that comparison we have:
20,818 people with side effects and
28,881 death cases (with unknown number of vaccinated persons)
You brought up good points.
Yep.
So it's impossible to properly calculate the risks of vaccination.
I'm not sure what you mean. If a person is willing and able to discuss "reasons" for choices and actions, and to accommodate moral considerations in such conversations, then distinctions between rational and irrational choices, and between moral and immoral choices, seem quite relevant.
Quoting bakerI haven't cast anyone out. If someone is strongly disposed to flee from people who disagree with them in conversation, I might not try very hard to stop them. Depends on the circumstances.
What would such a timid creature be doing in a place like this? Lurking, perhaps. Boo!
Quoting baker
I'm not sure what this means either. I agree, however, that the urgency of present circumstances makes a strong case in favor of democratic socialism as an alternative to complacent liberal incrementalism. As if the suffering and exploitation of generations of oppressed and marginalized people for centuries to come were not sufficient to jog the liberals from their self-satisfied delusion.
Time's up.
Disenfranchized people and those on the verge of disenfranchizement are less likely to cooperate with the government's agenda and with society at large.
I'm talking about people who are disenfranchized by the government or by society at large, and people who are on the verge of such disenfranchizement.
We're now beginning to pay the price of centuries of suffering and exploitation of generations of oppressed and marginalized people by capitalism and liberalism.
So you think it makes perfect sense to expect the disenfranchized to play along as if all was well??
Not doing so threatens the health of yourself and others who have made the same choice. It doesn't threaten - not in any serious way - the health of the vaccinated. Look up the odds of dying if you are vaccinated - they're very small.
It is ludicrous to cite the tiny minority who can't get vaccinated - that's like arguing that peanuts should be banned because a tiny minority have a deadly allergy to them.
What about the fact that unvaccinated people will clog up the hospitals? Well, the site of the injustice there - if injustice there be (and there isn't) - lies with the hospitals and their admission procedures, not with those who have decided not to get vaccinated. Take it up with the hospitals. Argue that hospitals should discriminate, based not just on medical need, but how the need was acquired. Don't pass the buck and place the blame on the unvaccinated. That's like blaming immigrants for immigration policy.
It still threatens the health of the vaccinated, and increases the likelihood of variants.
We've been over this again and again, for months. The fact that these lines keep getting repeated is simply a matter of willful ignorance at this point.
The odds of dying from COVID are very small in either case overall, but much more likely for the unvaccinated.
Quoting Bartricks
It's nothing like that at all.
Quoting Bartricks
No, it lies with the unvaccinated, who are choosing not to take a safe and effective vaccine for no rational reason whatsoever, but rather because this issue has become politicized.
What are the odds of you dying from covid if you are vaccinated? (They're miniscule)
The reason for the lockdowns is nothing to do with protecting the vaccinated. It is to stop hospitals from being overwhelmed. Which is not a good reason to make people get vaccinated, for the reasons I explained.
It's not solely for either reason.
Quoting bakerRampant industrialization and oppression plagued anticapitalist economies as well as capitalist economies during the 20th century. Exploitation, injustice, and mass destruction have plagued human civilization from the beginning. The roots of the problem go deeper than easy generalizations about capitalist ideology and capitalist modes of organization, though of course the negative effects of inadequate regulation and unjust policy are increasingly obvious worldwide in our times, just as capitalism in various forms has finally covered the globe.
In the last couple decades it's become harder even for relatively privileged people in relatively privileged regions to deny, to rationalize, or to ignore the acceleration of ecological instability and socioeconomic injustice. But it seems clear that the people of Earth have been paying the price of irrational and inhumane policy for a long time.
Quoting bakerGiven the state of things, I don't think it makes sense for anyone to play along as if all is well. All is not well. Far from it.
That doesn't make it reasonable to lash out at random, much less in lethally misguided rage and confusion on the basis of blatant misinformation. It's clear enough that the outrage and mistrust prevalent through the anti-vaccination community is driven in part by foreign and domestic oligarchs whose agents skillfully rattle the echo-chambers to corrupt hearts and minds and divide the people. It's ironic that in their manufactured rage at "the government", the anti-vaxxers play into the hands of the rich assholes who dominate governments like they dominate all resources of Earth. The same tragic irony runs deep through the Koch-funded libertarianism that in recent decades has become so popular in the US. Of course this is just a variation and intensification of the tactics of elite right-wing politics dating back at least to the Southern Strategy: They use hateful bullshit to enrage and confuse people into acting against their own interests.
By contrast, the bullshit spewed and swallowed by "the liberals" during the same period has been complacently optimistic, not hatefully pessimistic.
Quoting baker
Who isn't one of these people nowadays? I doubt you could use that criterion to distinguish COVID-vaccine receivers from COVID-vaccine refusers, though it may have some statistical weight.
It's still not clear to me what point you're making. Do you mean merely to suggest that people who feel threatened are more likely to lash out in irrational and inhumane ways? It's understandable, but not advisable, that people act thus.
Or do you actually mean to recommend that everyone who has woken up to smell the bullshit in right-wing and liberal rhetoric and ideology should "stop cooperating with the government" and with "society" and with "the liberals"? That just sounds like more groupthink nonsense to me, another drop in the ocean of confusion that's helping the oligarchs run away with the ball.
There's plenty of nonsense like that plastered all over social media, accompanied by spooky music and cheap tricks. I prefer to engage people who may still be moved by reasonable conversation.
Some of those people are COVID-vaccine refusers who haven't figured out who's rattling their cages.
I believe there is an individual risk of a harmful reaction to the covid vaccination, as in war the individual or group of individuals can be killed. But as our soldiers risk their lives for the rest of us, we must take that individual risk for the good of all. The consequence of not taking that risk is keeping everyone in danger and that can make covid endemic rather a temporary threat.
A pandemic means a disease the spreads from one place to the next and the correct response can limit the spread of the disease and make it a temporary problem.
Endemic means the disease is embedded in the population and does not go away, such as areas where malaria is endemic, or the common cold.
Our refusal to take the risk to protect others means we can be the carrier who infects others, leading to their suffering, their possible long-term poor health, and possibly their death. And we could carry the responsibility of the disease mutating and being more deadly and/or so embedded that future generations will still have the problem. I think we need to ask, is my one life, more important than all the others? Does a valuable member of society put everyone else at risk? What is the honor of behaving as a soldier who flees to save his own life?
That might be your view, but I disagree that one can simply decide for another what individual risks they should or shouldn't take, moreso because it concerns their most valuable human right: that of autonomy over their own body.
Quoting Athena
The chance of me infecting someone and them undergoing serious health problems as a result of it is no bigger than the risk of stepping into a car and causing a collision: very, very small. I am healthy, and wise enough to take caution around vulnerable people.
You may say something like: but if everyone thinks that way, it will pose a risk to people, etc.
To that I say, I accept responsibility only for my voluntary actions, and no one else's.
Point me to the person I hurt by refusing this vaccine, and I will take responsibility. But you cannot, because likely there are none, and I won't accept your claim to my body on the basis of empty accusations.
Quoting Athena
What I assume you consider valuable members of society put everyone else at risk every day. They step in cars, they don't get their flu shots, they procreate, they smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol, etc.
To cherry pick one particular risk and assign it so much weight is completely inconsistent and unconvincing.
Besides, what "society" considers valuable is of no concern of mine. I think "society" in a general sense is terribly dysfunctional.
Quoting Athena
War is a pointless, tragic thing. Honor is the carrot "society" has used for centuries to lure its young men into an untimely death for the benefit of the few. The individual shouldn't accept to be sacrificed on the altar of the collective; not in war, not in a pandemic.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/01/opinion/vaccine-mandates-biden-republicans.html
Except, once you "take responsibility" it might be too late.
That's not taking responsibility, it's irresponsible. :fire:
Should SARS-CoV-2 be left to replicate propagate mutate unchecked with no containment efforts, leaving whatever in its wake, as your sentiment suggests? :down:
Should asymptomatic pathogen factories (active carriers) be treated/avoided? :up:
COVID-19 isn't really bad, but it's bad enough, and doesn't care about people's ideologies; could be a suitable rehearsal for a worse one.
The right thing to do is to stomp the pathogen down, learn, and get on with things.
I guess you could stay away from others, or get tested before freely intermingling with the unsuspecting?
I assume you mean you can isolate yourself and that may be a fine choice for people who can do that, but it is not a choice medical personnel, firemen, teachers, and store clerks can make. And the cost of isolation is high. Until the infection rate is low enough for life to return to normal, unvaccinated people are the cause of much human suffering, and here is how.
Before the vaccination, many businesses had to close and people were isolated. The nutrition sites are giving meals to take home, but we can not go inside and visit as we do in normal times. Those living in congregate housing such as independent living apartments, assisted living, and nursing homes were isolated in their rooms, no activities, no socializing during meals, no visitors, and this was harder on the elderly than children. They lost strength and their minds faded away. Then when they were all vaccinated they regained freedom, but life has not gone back to normal because when we let our guard down the infection rate went sky high.
When everyone could be vaccinated and the infection rate was very low, we got to return to almost normal. But thanks to all the people who refuse to get vaccinated and follow the rules, the infection rate went sky high. I can not see my clients, we can not go places and we can not socialize at the nutrition sites. Our hospital was so overwhelmed and we called in the National Gaurd and people could not get medical care. Our beloved supervisor who was vaccinated still got infected and the virus attacked her heart. She fears she will die within a year.
Hopefully, all this is only temporary but the virus can become so embedded in our population, then we will have to live like this from now on. People who refuse to get vaccinated are holding us all hostage. We could have returned to normal months ago, but no, people think their liberty comes first and all of us are paying a price for that.
How do you take responsibility for the skyrocketing infection rate that has returned us to the worst of times? If you got covid and had to be hospitalized, the medical bill could keep you in debt for the rest of your life, and are you willing to be responsible for other people's medical bills if you did pass the virus on to them? If your hospital is overwhelmed with covid, how can you be responsible for all those who can not get medical care?
Quoting Tzeentch
Driving is a serious responsibility, especially when I have passengers. I make every effort to do so responsibly and that is equal to getting vaccinated. Even with the vaccination I can become infected and infect others. I think that is why we went from letting people decide if they want a vaccination or not, to mandatory vaccinations because it is not a 100% sure thing. The virus mutates and we are fighting to stay on top of that. My car has good steering and good brakes, and I am vaccinated. Life is not without risk, but we can reduce the risk and this is not cherry-picking. Not being vaccinated is like driving a car with bad brakes. When I was young I tried that and decided it was not a good idea. :lol:
Quoting Tzeentch
I think that depends on the war. China now has hypersonic nuclear weapons and we do not have a good defense against them. Perhaps the subject of war deserves its own thread? Unless our democracy is defended in the classroom, it is not defended and the next big election will be interesting. We may be our own worst enemy? We took our democracy for granted and this was a mistake. We took our military superiority for granted and this may have been a mistake?
We can of course hope the pandemic so weakens the world, no one goes to war. Resolving the global overpopulation with a pandemic could be a good thing? :grin:
Iraq WMD [math]\rightarrow[/math]Iraq War
Is there a pattern here or is it just me?
I am the person who argues that US is the military-industrial complex we defended our democracy against. If anyone wants to discuss war, start a thread for that and pm me.
No. Your government is keeping you hostage with the way it frames and deals with the issue. This line of argumentation is dependent on whether all the measures taken to combat the virus are effective, and there are plenty of indicators that they aren't. (A report made by the Dutch government itself estimated that the Covid measures taken had saved around 100,000 QALY's, and cost a whopping 620,000 QALYs for a net loss of 520,000 QALYs in the Netherlands alone. This report was, predictably, ignored.)
People who are vaccinated still contract and transmit the virus, and to think things would go back to normal if everyone were vaccinated is an illusion. This is all about control.
Quoting Athena
Certain liberties, unalienable human rights of which the right to autonomy over one's own body is the most fundamental, are the only thing that seperates us from the era of Sun Kings and Mao Zedongs, and indeed all that stops human society from being a thinly veneered group of apes.
If history has taught us one thing, it is that humans are incapable of wielding certain types of power, and that those who tend to wield power are in fact least fit to wield it. That's why human rights exist, and this understanding should form the basis of any mandate given to states to wield power over individuals.
Quoting Athena
I don't need to take responsibility, because I am not responsible.
Quoting Athena
But I do not.
Quoting Athena
Well, I don't think that is enough. I think you should drive a bike instead of being so reckless to drive a car and take a risk with other people's lives. Would be better for the environment too.
Quoting Athena
Quoting Athena
And now you are taking your liberties and human rights for granted, and in fact squandering them for the promise of safety. That is most certainly a mistake; a Trojan horse.
“A lie can travel around the world and back again while the truth is lacing up its boots.”—Mark Twain.
Sorry. when it comes to covid I will rely on science. When the government decides we all have to wear blue uniforms I will worry about the political play. Right now I think people who believe Covid vaccinations are about politics, are as wrong as people who feared witches in the Dark Ages before science. That fear is socially spread hysteria and if you want to argue otherwise, that could be interesting. :lol: Too much Fox news and not enough reasoning.
Vaccinated people develop infections, but they don't usually get critically ill.
I started this morning with the thread about Afghanistan and the Taliban and marveling over the success of the United States and the very high level of security I have despite having disabilities and living below the poverty level. When I was raising children my life was not this easy, but never was it as bad as what mothers are experiencing in Africa and Afghanistan. Why do you all think life is better in the US than in many places where people fear for their lives and do you think we will become as those other countries?
Seriously the people who believe our government is out to get us, seriously scare me. They are like the Taliban and I fear at any time they will become violent.
The mutant virus, that is not well controlled by the vaccination for the original virus, is causing havoc. I get the impression people are thinking we are dealing with one virus, not mutations of that virus. A big concern is if we do not stop the spread of the virus it will continue to mutate and then the vaccine may become completely ineffective.
It hardly gets more political than this, and science provides no answers to any of these dilemmas.
Maybe you believe the narrative that there is no moral dilemma, that safety provides a limitless mandate for the use of power and the breaching of human rights, and that the power of science in the hand of our omnibenevolent and incorruptable governments ran by philantropists will lead us to the promised land. A road to hell, to be sure.
Stability comes and goes in human social groups. Humans make large scale groups that can last for centuries. It's usually most stable near urban centers which act like population hubs.
Lots of things can result in social breakdown, like invasions, war, famine, natural disasters, and uprisings. Those things will tear the US down eventually, but probably not in our lifetimes.
:lol: And that is the problem, you a few million others do not think they are responsible. "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem". :lol: That goes with "Paranoia will destroya" and "Don't anyone over 30". 1960-70
What gives a social group stability? Should we start a thread for this subject?
They can tweak the virus fairly easily. That's what's great about thus kind of vaccine.
But yes, we just had a delta wave where I am. We're now expecting a bad flu season because of the lockdowns last year.
I am starting a new thread because the subject is so exciting and I want to make it easy for everyone to find. "Creating and Destroying a Civilization"
We could. I think it's basically the same thing that gives a wolfpack stability (got an awesome book recommendation about that).
I started a thread to discuss Creating and Destroying a Civilization.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/12077/creating-and-destroying-a-civilization
Remember Rome was begun by two brothers raised by a she wolve.
Quoting History Channel
:grin: I think the wolf is a symbol of wildness. We're domesticated dogs, but we never lose our wild roots, and in fact everything we are springs from that natural source.
There was a study about how people behave when they're sick. About 50% seek to be cared for by others, and 50% want to go off alone.
That's kind of how we are in general, I think. Some of us congregate together and open doors to the part of our potential that requires cooperation and the ability to compromise.
Others of us will go out beyond the group to be free like Cossacks. Both kinds of people have value to the species.
This is an exaggeration of the position for those opposed to making vaccines mandatory. To be 'anti-vax' is a completely different issue. It is precisely such broad painting with a brush of anyone who questions or disagrees that is the heart of the problem.
I don't believe the government is using vax's to 'control' people but it is fairly clear that we're talking about freedoms and we've seen creeping laws against 'terrorism,' 'hate speech' and such that have not exactly instilled people with confidence.
I'm not a US citizen btw and the laws of my homeland are opposed to ANY compulsory vaccinations so my perspective is different.
:lol:
Tyranny!
I think you'll have to try that again and don't mention vaccination.
Eh, they sure as heck don't make she-wolves like they used to. Though maybe that's best for all involved.
And they aren't. If you believe the "unvaccinated" are responsible for the covid pandemic, you have simply fallen for the government's "us versus them" narrative hook, line and sinker.
Moreover, If people exercising an unalienable right is a problem to a society, then the society is the problem. Those rights were instated as the absolute lowest standard of what can be considered humane and legitimate statescraft.
I remember page after page of condemnation of Israeli actions towards Palestinians, and the double standard is remarkable. How did we enjoy Israeli framing of Palestinians as a threat to safety, potentially being infected with the virus (terrorism)? The indignation knew no end.
But sprinkle a little fear in people's minds, or tickle their desire for control over others and now we're here.
Quoting Athena
And what is this, if not an attempt at more framing of "the enemy"?
"The unvaccinated" are now a threat to civilization?
The types that use this sort of language either have their rational minds paralyzed with fear, or are drunk on power.
That may be true when it comes to exercising rights. But rights must be distinguished from privilege. The courts long ago drew that distinction with driving. You have a right to travel, but you don't have a right to a drivers' license, to use the roads drunk, or to travel any old way you want on public ways. Driving is a privilege. So is a job. You may have the right to work, but you don't have a right to any job you want. A condition can be placed on a job, or access to a venue or a place of business (no shoes, no shirts no service). And government largess (incorporation, licensing, grants, division of federal dollars, etc.) don't have to be doled out to those who don't want to abide the rules in place for eligibility.
Quoting Tzeentch
Not necessarily. If one removes government from the equation and looks solely at Covid, it would be a genius if it had a brain. It kills just enough people to prevent it's eradication by people. If it killed like the Black Death, etc, then we would have eradicated it with masking and distancing alone, long ago. Because all the people who resisted masks and distancing would not have done so. As cowards, they would have been the first in line to distance an mask up. (These are the tools Fauci was afraid of running on masks like toilet paper, to the exclusion of Doctors and nurses). Every swinging dick and tit in the world would have masked up and distanced and Covid would never have created a single variant. Then, throwing the vaccine on top of that, it would have gone on to history with polio and measles, etc.
However, Covid only killed 700+k in the U.S. and some millions world wide; largely people that the anti-vaxxers don't care about. You know, expendable people. Sick people. Old people. Weak people. Fat people. The people that the strong and wise used to take care of in the old days, before conservatives and Republicans gained such foot-hold in the uneducated community with the attitude that victims had it coming.
But the upshot here is that, the "genius" of an unthinking virus is that it just kills enough to allow people to think it is not worth inconveniencing their lives, which allows it to generate variants that have and will work their way around masking, distancing and vaxxing. As everyone knows, when you aid and abet a virus, you will be rewarded with more. That's how evolution works.
And if you don't believe in evolution, and if God will protect you with your immune system, then you might ask your God why he won't protect you from a vaccine? Is he a pussy? Or could it be that he created the vaccine through scientists working to save people?
It's not the government's "us vs them" narrative. It's the "us vs. them" narrative of the anti-vaxxers who think their privileges are rights. Talk about an entitlement mentality.
You may choose to live in fear. I do not. That is why I am reasonable, and you are not.
Quoting tim wood
Human Rights Principles :roll:
Not sure what your whole spiel is supposed to convey. :chin:
You think your tirades and personal attacks will convince me of anything other than your deplorable character?
You are afraid of a vaccine.
But you are right to be afraid. Be very afraid! The evil people got together, rubbed their hands greedily and said "Let's come up with a six-step plan. 1. We will create a virus in our communist lab and release it upon the people. 2. Using our biometrics and facial recognition software, we will separate the independent, thinking, rebels from the sheep with a distancing requirement. Then we be able to see who the real threats are, and who is not. 3. Then we will further divide with a masking requirement. 4. Then we will reserve the antidote for us (the shepherds, and the good people, the sheep). 5. We will charge them for the antidote through our proxy government, making kajillions of dollars! 6. Then we will release the variant that kills all the rugged individualist, boot-strapping adventurous warrior testosterone types; you know, the real Americans, the real men (and their women folk). They will be proud to have died a valiant death! Once they are out of the way, we can have our communist utopia! But there will be a few underground rebels left, who are smart and recognize us as a big government dystopia. They will fight heroically, but evil will win in the end HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!.
The right of autonomy over one's own body is not a priviledge, it is a human right.
Right to Integrity of the Person
From the United Nations website:
Human rights are the bottomline to which we hold states, and indeed all that seperates us from chimpanzees - the sole achievement of mankind over its animal nature over the course of thousands of years.
The two cannot even remotely be compared. A bit stunning people need to be told the importance of human rights on a philosophy forum.
Quoting James Riley
But you care, of course, for every single one of those people I'm sure. Because you tell yourself you're a 'good guy', and I'm a 'bad guy'. Quit the framing already, it's predictable and boring.
Quoting James Riley
Not really. I refuse to take the vaccine out of principle.
(PS: I am not an "anti-vaxxer" - I respect people's right to make a decision as much as I expect them to respect mine)
Now that is something to talk about. I think Bush really overstepped when he began a war on terrorism. That is to board and I really do not like the way it has been applied to domestic problems. I am pondering what you have said, and the notion of hate speech, and I don't want to sound weird but could it be said we are manifesting the anti-christ with the concepts of terrorism and hate speech? Sorry, but I am coming from the thread about nothing and it looks to me we are creating a problem that did not exist by creating concepts of evil and acting as though these evils are tangible and we need laws to protect us from them, as in the past people worried about protected from Satan. Could a less abstract vocabulary set limits that support our sense of liberty, instead of threaten our sense of liberty?
I've no problem with that. Like I tried to teach you, though, no one is interfering with that right. No one is holding you down and giving you a shot. No one is interfering with your autonomy over your body. But you have no right to go out into the public right-of-way and spread your disease. You have no right to be a cop. You have no right to be a firefighter. You have no right to go into this or that store without complying with lawful rules and regulations. You have no right to interfere with the bodily autonomy of others by injecting them with your virus.
Quoting Tzeentch
I just showed you why your principle is not based on right to bodily autonomy. It's base on fear. Fear you will lose your privilege. Fear you will lose what you perceive as entitlement.
Now please, I beg you, before you continue on this misadventure regarding "right to bodily autonomy" understand thatI know what that is and I agree with you fully. No hold on. Wait. One more time, just in case you didn't read that: I know what that is and I agree with you fully. I would never support government tracking you down, cuffing you, vaxxing you and then releasing you. That would be an interference with your right to bodily autonomy. Kind of like preventing a women from having an abortion.
I would, however, support government telling you that you cannot avail yourself of certain privileges unless you obey the rules of getting vaccinated. That would be ON YOU. That would be your freedom of choice. Take your virus home and play with it all you want. But don't come out and interfere with the bodily autonomy of everyone else.
It most certainly is.
There is little a government can take from me that I put any value in, but it can make life impossible to the degree where I have no choice. If you are against that, then we are, roughly speaking, on the same page.
Quoting James Riley
Quoting James Riley
An unvaccinated person isn't really more infectious than a vaccinated person. In fact, natural immunity is more effective and effective longer than a vaccine. This is more "us versus them" narrative; baseless and inflammatory.
Serious question; how many shots will you take before you object? Five? Ten? At what point will you understand that people do draw a line and say "I will take no more"? Or will you follow authority without question, and expect everyone else to do the same?
It is not a human right to spread disease. When the disease was tuberculosis we separated infected people from the larger society. Typhoid Mary was not allowed to work in kitchens when it was realized she carried the disease. Such decisions are based on science and the protection of the whole of society. Without social efforts to protect everyone. we are unprotected and that is not right. Not when we know the science and can stop pandemics!
Let us be very clear about this. Liberty is not the freedom to do anything we want and to hell with everyone else. Liberty is understanding the law, and in this case, it is law made known through science. Those who refuse to live by the law of science to stop the spread of disease, need to be separated from the rest of the population. They don't have to be vaccinated, they just have to avoid contact with the rest of us. The people who are willing to follow the science can then have liberty. That reasoning is what separates us from the apes.
Quoting Tzeentch
Yes, and if you are not vaccinated please stay home so I have the liberty of living without fear of a disease. Our goal is to stop the spread of a deadly disease and if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem.
An unvaccinated person is more likely to spread the disease than a vaccinated one. There is absolutely no other reason for the government supporting the effort to stop the spread of the virus.
Thinking the government has any other goal than stopping the spread of the virus is a mental disease.
Completely untrue, which is why this argument has long since been abandoned and replaced for the "unvaccinated put more pressure on health services"-argument, which seems to be just as baseless, since in my country about 80% of the people on the IC are vaccinated, in a country where about 80% of the people are vaccinated (Implying there is little to no correlation).
Geeze, I think you are right. But maybe we can salvage this thread? Before our democracy, kings had absolute power and people believed a God gave them that power. How did these monarchies begin?
What makes a democracy different? Hint, the answer is science and a different way of deciding who has authority that is based on reason.
Please take your arguments about covid to the thread for those arguments and stop derailing this one. This one is about how civilizations are created and destroyed.
:100:
No, it is not. Your so-called principle is based on your desire to continue availing yourself of the privileges and benefits of society while not having to face a scary needle.
Quoting Tzeentch
And there we have it. You find it impossible to stay home with your filthy disease. You want the choice to hurt others.
Quoting Tzeentch
Okay, Doctor Tzeentch, if you say so. The experts disagree with you. But I know, you did your research.
Quoting Tzeentch
Well, to be honest, when I joined the Marine Corps I felt like a fucking pin cushion! LOL! They wanted us immune to the panoply of viruses running wild in the third and fourth world shit holes that we went to. However, it turns out, I'd already been stuck several times before that, just to go to school and protect my family, school, community and country. I still get stuck for flu and tetanus every now and then. So, I seriously can't answer your question. Let's just say "a lot." That's what men do. That's what women do. That's what little children do. That's what real Americans do. I can't speak for foreigners. I can't speak for traitors, or for those who aid and abet an enemy or a virus. That ain't in me.
P.S. I like the meme where the little girl asks her mother: "Mommy, what's that mark on your shoulder?" The mother says "Why, that's my polio scar." The little girl ask "Why don't I have one of those?" The mom says "Because it worked."
DOH!
P.S.S. And for those fretting that the Covid vax may become an ongoing thing, guess what? That's only because enough Petri dishes aren't getting it, won't distance and won't mask, so they are cranking out variants.
P.S.S.S. In addition to all those shots, I also use lots of other science and technology. Hell, I even eat and drink stuff without know what's in them.
Thank you James, I am reminded of the Native Americans who were decimated by disease.
Tribes with a leadership that kept them separated from those who spread the disease, survived and those that were friendly with the European's spreading the disease were completely wiped out. A civilization depends very much on leaders making good decisions.
Hitler was able to take control of Germany because Germany had reactionary politics as the US has today. I think the same things that gave Hitler power are what gives Trump power, and that we have already lost the democracy we defended in two world wars. This is about education and culture.
Does anyone here know Weber's explanation of leadership?
Let us look at why that is untrue.
Quoting DANIEL ESTRIN
We are back to step one. Wear masks and keep distance and social isolation. It is hoped a third shot will get the desired result of making people immune to the virus and its variants. Understanding this should result in people doubling the effort to stop the virus and the risk of new variants and making the virus endemic. That is by now we should realize how important it is to do what we can to stop the spread the virus. This is not a good time to ignore science and give up.
This thread is completely out of control and useless as a discussion about how civilizations are created and destroyed. If I could I would delete the whole thread and try again to start a discussion of how civilizations are created and destroyed.
Start another thread and don't mention vaccines.
You're just repeating nonsense on both accounts.
Quoting James Riley
Again, untrue. If life is made impossible, in a similar fashion as life is made impossible for Palestinians by Israel, for example, are you against that, or are you for that in the case of unvaccinated?
Quoting James Riley
No they don't. You won't find an expert that will tell you an unvaccinated person is more contagious than a vaccinated one, nor will you find one that tells you a vaccine is more effective than natural immunity.
Quoting James Riley
You do as you're told and expect others to do the same, but not everyone has this slavish disposition and unwavering faith in government. Maybe I have asked this before, but what exactly is that trust in government based on, considering the US government has a history of unethical medical experimentation?
Also, do you ever wonder what the point is of going to all those third-world countries to drop bombs on poor people? Or is not asking questions about that also a part of being a "real American"?
Well, you admitted it yourself. You just don't want to be inconvenienced by your own choice. Nobody is violating your body.
Quoting Tzeentch
It's not impossible. You, apparently, don't know how tough life can be. Hiding at home is an easy thing to do. You don't have to hide under the bed. You can watch T.V.! And whine on the interwebs about how evil government won't let you go out and spread disease.
Quoting Tzeentch
You'd have to do research that involved more than confirmation bias. But you be you, Dr. Tzeentch. :lol:
Quoting Tzeentch
Yeah, not everyone. Just those men and women who made this a country that you want to go out and spread your disease in.
Quoting Tzeentch
Well, for me, it's based on the civics and patriotism I was taught in school. It's part of community and selflessness, gratitude, grace, and giving. But that's an old school thing. I don't think they teach kids those kind of things these days. That's not why I joined the Marine Corps, though. That was reckless disregard, risk-taking, courage, and devil-may-care. I got the shot for my loved ones and my community.
I will grant you this, though, if I was black or Indian some other group that the U.S. had experimented on, I might think twice. How about you, Tzeentch? Were your people experimented on by government? Or are you from a privileged class?
Quoting Tzeentch
Well, I think going to all those third-world countries to provide them with vaccines, not bombs, is the order of the day. I'm not asking questions about that, and I hear those countries are asking for us to help. So it's really only the stupid people who are refusing to help. The stupid people are the ones dropping virus bombs on the world. What new variant are you working up, Tzeentch?
Err two wrongs still don't make a right.
We still have to deal with the darn virus.
You are smart enough to know the difference between an inconvenience and Israeli practices. I asked you a straightforward question: would you be in favor of such practices in the case of unvaccinated people, or are you against it, Travis?
Quoting James Riley
Again, you won't find a medical expert that disputes any of those things, so the joke's on you. I understand that your us versus them narrative makes little sense when that is a given, so perhaps it is you who needs to worry about their biases?
Quoting James Riley
You trust your government based on your love for it (patriotism) and your noble character?
That's not a basis of trust, that's called being naive and gullible.
Quoting James Riley
What does ethnicity have to do with it? The US experimented on all types of people. Do a Google search on "American Nuclear Guineau Pigs: Three Decades of Radiation Experiments on U.S. Citizens".
And yes, you read that correctly, three decades. It's only one of many examples.
Quoting James Riley
I don't belong to 'a people' or a class.
Quoting James Riley
Haha, America, spreader of democracy, freedom and now vaccines, through subversion, revolution and at the end of a gun barrel!
God bless the USA.
I understand things are a little less far along in the US (I don't know if you're American), , but in Europe we're starting to see an eerie repeat of the '30s.
I didn't bother to read your post. I find your arguments too cowardly, selfish, inconsiderate, disrespectful and un-American. So I'll not waste my time. I'll just close with the following:
I understand, Tzeentch. Not everyone is made of the same stuff I’m made from. A lot of folks these days are afraid. They’re afraid of needles. They’re afraid of their own government. They are afraid of other people that don’t look or act like them. They find their comfort in echo chambers, with chicken-hawk kids like Tucker Carlson, Donny Trump and Fox News. They are selfish, inconsiderate and disrespectful. Thinking their government is out to get them. As if they are important enough to have something the government wants, beyond help in fighting a virus. They have no sense of civic responsibility, grace, or gratitude. They are the center of their self-entitled universe. As sheep, they have been told by their shepherd that they are independent rebels. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.
Be brave, little man, be brave! Or you be you. But please don’t spread your filthy disease. It’s not very nice. Take personal responsibility for your actions and stay home. We are trying to have a society, a civilization out here. We do have a lot of cool stuff and we are happy to share; even with parasites, but remember, they are privileges, not rights.
Bye, son. I hope you grow up some day.
You don't have to be vaccinated. Simmer down.
Opinions aren't selfish or inconsiderate - actions can be, and of my actions you know almost nothing. But of course it is very easy to create a mental image of someone whose opinions you don't like, and assume they must be terrible people. A simple trick of the mind to avoid having to deal with conflicting opinions.
I show everyone common courtesy. When I am shown the same, respect can be earned and reciprocated. None of these things sadly applied to our conversations, and when I am continuously insulted and belittled, I have no problems holding up a mirror. And apparently you did not enjoy having your own behavior mirrored to you. Food for thought, perhaps?
Our conversations can be as pleasant or as unpleasant as you make them, to me it makes no difference.
Quoting James Riley
It is funny you should say that, because it shows the differences between our views.
You believe "to grow up" is to accept a subjugation of the mind to the demands of the state - and that is what states want: subjugated minds that march to the beat of its (war)drums at their beck and call.
I believe to grow up is to emancipate oneself completely from the mental impositions of the state and society. It is a vital part of self-actualization.
But I wish you much the same. Grow up, son!
Yeah yeah yeah— you’re very special for going against the grain. How brave of you. How unique.
It's a different mentality with these folks. Their shepherds have them believing they are rebels, rugged individualist, standing up to the evil forces of big government. :roll: They are chicken hawks. Anti-intellectuals, afraid of science, the future, needles; they are sheep who follow charlatans. Just make sure you never rely on them to have your six.
If you ever want to distinguish between the coward and the real freedom-loving individualist, just look at who let others do all the work, and who stood up. The proof is in the pudding.
Here are some ideas for filling in the ???:
- Individuals whose opinions their government doesn't like
- Individuals whose opinions they don't understand (important one)
- Individuals in general
- Whoever their stately overlords have appointed