5 ms·

They risk their lives cleaning hospitals. Now, they are getting vaccinated

16 points by jelliclesfarm 6y ago

chrisseaton 6y ago
This is a really weird title. It sounds like they think vaccination is a bad thing? It seems completely sensible to vaccinate these people early but the title is worded like 'they did something good, now something bad happens to them'.
- xwdv 6y ago
  Vaccinated should be in quotes. Then it would make sense and the title would take on a sinister tone.
  - dehrmann 6y ago
    Reminds me of when people would use quotes for emphasis. "Quality" ingredients.
    - cryptoz 6y ago
      I haven't been to the "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks in a while and I couldn't believe they are still posting! http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/ http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/
    - EdJiang 6y ago
      Is this a reference to this skit? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DqoQq1zME8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DqoQq1zME8
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    It would indeed give the title a sinister tone, but it wouldn't describe the article at all! These workers are in fact getting the vaccine, not some fake pantomime!
    - xwdv 6y ago
      The workers are essential, but there’s not enough vaccines to go around, so some people will get placebos to keep them working.
      - tialaramex 6y ago
        That's not a thing. Medical ethics relate to individual patients, so even if you have a coherent public health strategy that makes sense (and a placebo to spread supplies more thinly could be such a strategy), the medics insist on applying ethics to individual patients. For example the early data for HPV vaccination was enough that as public health policy it made sense to immunise boys. The men would not spread HPV and thus contribute to reduced cancer in any future female partners. But that would be unethical because it's no direct benefit to the boys you're vaccinating. So they waited until they had data showing it would likely also prevent some cancer in men, bingo now it's both ethical and good policy.
      - CyberDildonics 6y ago
        Not only are there "enough vaccines to go around", no one is getting placebos and these people have already been working through the pandemic, why would they need a placebo?
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      Quotation marks mean... quotation. I don't know why everyone thinks they mark something as not true these days?
      - xwdv 6y ago
        Because they are often used to quote something someone said that is probably not true, but you don’t want to take responsibility for it or legitimize it by presenting it as your own word or belief.
      - mewse 6y ago
        Fundamentally, putting a thing in quotes distinguishes between what words you’re standing behind yourself, and what words you’re attributing to someone else. (there are some other orthogonal uses of quotes, of course, my favourite being when we’re talking about words themselves rather than about the things the words normally signify. For example: My favourite type of animal is dog, but my favourite word is “dog”. The quotes signify that I’m talking about the literal three-letter word “dog”, and not about the type of animal) In general, people (including people who work for the media) put words or statements in quotes when they’re doubtful of the veracity of those words or statements, and aren’t willing to put their own reputation on the line by making the statement themselves. Instead, they just report that other people say those things. And so maybe it’s not surprising that a high percentage of stuff which gets communicated to people in that kind of quote structure eventually turns out to be untrue (and often is just laughably untrue on its face). Since people aren’t stupid and since English is a living language (apologies if you’re a linguistic prescriptivist, but that’s not a fight that can be won), then it probably isn’t surprising that people have learned to associate that syntactic structure with falsehoods. That’s just how it’s used in the real world. And has been for quite a long time.
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  I read it as: "They risk their lives cleaning hospitals. Now, they are (finally) getting vaccinated" ...vaccination as their due for being on the front lines. I think vaccination is a positive thing, and my reading of the title was positive.
- tshaddox 6y ago
  The full title has one more sentence at the end: ‘I want people to know that we exist’ I think the idea is to highlight the existence of an group of people whose role in society is important, hazardous (particularly during a pandemic), and often overlooked.
- jelliclesfarm 6y ago
  I realize that now..I had to keep with HN title word limit. I didn’t want to make up my own headline.
zamalek 6y ago
My mother used to direct the pantomime in my local town, and various other shows. She'd always have the cleaners and curtain crew on the stage at the end: "there wouldn't be much of a show with the curtains closed." These people are possibly the most important staff in the hospital: nobody else would be able to do a thing without them, as everything would be an unsanitary mess.
- Armisael16 6y ago
  > These people are possibly the most important staff in the hospital: nobody else would be able to do a thing without them I find this viewpoint a little confusing, because that’s true of almost everyone working there. No one gets treated if there aren’t doctors and nurses even if all the equipment is sparkling. No one gets treated if the back office isn’t procuring supplies. The only way to split things along these lines that I’ve heard that makes sense to me is “could the hospital run without these people?”, where you say “not at all even briefly” for the most important group (as opposed to “yes” or “yes for a little bit”).
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - nugget 6y ago
    Another way to look at it is the number of different jobs a certain person could do, if necessary. A surgeon can operate, but if needed, also likely fill in as a nurse, CNA, phlebotomist, and could of course sterilize a room. That's not to diminish the contributions of any particular group but not all individual skill sets are created equal because some (literally) encompass many others.
- mam2 6y ago
  Yes but they are repleacable.. Its cute but it's basically populism...
LeCow 6y ago
I'm genuinely annoyed with headlines like this. "risk their lives" Unless they're old or vulnerable -- then they're not risking their lives. There's a likelihood that they may catch an incredibly mild virus. inb4 "it's deadly" Yes, to the vulnerable and the old it is, to everyone else...not so much. It's not a literal death ray, unless you consider walking to work/driving in the same realms of risking your life.
- computerphage 6y ago
  What's your threshold for how risky a disease had to be before you'd call it risking they're lives?
  - throwaway201103 6y ago
    I'd say working at a hospital has always been risking your life more than many other jobs. The places are bacteria cesspits, full of sick people.
- bluquark 6y ago
  More than twice as many young adults died of Covid in 2020 than died of car crashes (or any other one cause, including the former top one, opioids). Source: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2774445 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2774445
  - jMyles 6y ago
    > More than twice as many young adults died of Covid in 2020 than died of car crashes (or any other one cause, including the former top one, opioids). Source: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2774445 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2774445 This paper does not include or support the assertion you are making. It is not a valid or plausible source for the claim for which you have used it as a citation. The leap you have made is far beyond the already tortured reading that this poor paper has received throughout social media. In order for the same number of people (leaving aside the "more than twice" claim in your comment) in the 25-44 cohort covered by this paper to die of COVID19 as died of opioid overdoses in 2018 (which is the figure this paper uses), essentially all of the other 62% of the increase in all-cause mortality which does not yet have an available documented cause of death, among a group especially vulnerable to the second-order effects of lockdowns, would have to instead have come from a virus that is known to kill them at vanishingly rare rates and diagnosis of which is now routine nationwide. Put another way: two-thirds of the lethal COVID19 cases in the 25-44 cohort have to have been completely missed by this nation's medical professionals (and even then, opioid deaths have to have remained at 2018 levels, which is also unlikely). This is just in order for COVID19 deaths to be close to the number of opioid overdose deaths. It is completely impossible for COVID19 to kill twice as many. To be clear: all of the reliable data - every shred of it - shows convincingly that the assertion you are making is strictly false. The number of opioid overdoses has far outpaced the number of COVID19 deaths (having increased since 2018 rather than remaining flat as you implicitly assert); the same is almost certainly true of car crashes. Depending on what you mean by "young adults" (ie, if you are including the 18-25 cohort in addition to the 25-44 cohort studied in this paper), it will be surprising if COVID19 kills even a third as many will have died in car crashes, as this group dies even more rarely of COVID19 and even more frequently of car crashes. Moreover, even if your claim were within 60% of being true (and there's no reason, given the available data, to believe that it is) the comment to which you are responding said "old or vulnerable" (emphasis mine), whereas the paper you've provided showing over 4,000 deaths (again, just to be crystal clear, this is less than half of those from opioid overdoses) includes people in this age group with other (sometimes grave) comorbidities. It is true that people who are neither old nor suffering from one of the three most frequently indicated comorbidities have a risk of adverse effects similar to seasonal coronaviruses. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eci.13423 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eci.13423 tl;dr: Around 4,000 people under 45 have died COVID19-related deaths, while more than 10,000 died of opioid overdoses in 2018, the latest year for which a reliable figure is available (but every credible expert believes that the number will be much higher this year).
loraa 6y ago
Everyone but me needs to take this.

16 points by jelliclesfarm 6y ago

This is a really weird title. It sounds like they think vaccination is a bad thing? It seems completely sensible to vaccinate these people early but the title is worded like 'they did something good, now something bad happens to them'.

xwdv 6y ago
Vaccinated should be in quotes. Then it would make sense and the title would take on a sinister tone.
- dehrmann 6y ago
  Reminds me of when people would use quotes for emphasis. "Quality" ingredients.
  - cryptoz 6y ago
    I haven't been to the "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks in a while and I couldn't believe they are still posting! http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/ http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/
  - EdJiang 6y ago
    Is this a reference to this skit? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DqoQq1zME8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DqoQq1zME8
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  It would indeed give the title a sinister tone, but it wouldn't describe the article at all! These workers are in fact getting the vaccine, not some fake pantomime!
  - xwdv 6y ago
    The workers are essential, but there’s not enough vaccines to go around, so some people will get placebos to keep them working.
    - tialaramex 6y ago
      That's not a thing. Medical ethics relate to individual patients, so even if you have a coherent public health strategy that makes sense (and a placebo to spread supplies more thinly could be such a strategy), the medics insist on applying ethics to individual patients. For example the early data for HPV vaccination was enough that as public health policy it made sense to immunise boys. The men would not spread HPV and thus contribute to reduced cancer in any future female partners. But that would be unethical because it's no direct benefit to the boys you're vaccinating. So they waited until they had data showing it would likely also prevent some cancer in men, bingo now it's both ethical and good policy.
    - CyberDildonics 6y ago
      Not only are there "enough vaccines to go around", no one is getting placebos and these people have already been working through the pandemic, why would they need a placebo?
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    Quotation marks mean... quotation. I don't know why everyone thinks they mark something as not true these days?
    - xwdv 6y ago
      Because they are often used to quote something someone said that is probably not true, but you don’t want to take responsibility for it or legitimize it by presenting it as your own word or belief.
    - mewse 6y ago
      Fundamentally, putting a thing in quotes distinguishes between what words you’re standing behind yourself, and what words you’re attributing to someone else. (there are some other orthogonal uses of quotes, of course, my favourite being when we’re talking about words themselves rather than about the things the words normally signify. For example: My favourite type of animal is dog, but my favourite word is “dog”. The quotes signify that I’m talking about the literal three-letter word “dog”, and not about the type of animal) In general, people (including people who work for the media) put words or statements in quotes when they’re doubtful of the veracity of those words or statements, and aren’t willing to put their own reputation on the line by making the statement themselves. Instead, they just report that other people say those things. And so maybe it’s not surprising that a high percentage of stuff which gets communicated to people in that kind of quote structure eventually turns out to be untrue (and often is just laughably untrue on its face). Since people aren’t stupid and since English is a living language (apologies if you’re a linguistic prescriptivist, but that’s not a fight that can be won), then it probably isn’t surprising that people have learned to associate that syntactic structure with falsehoods. That’s just how it’s used in the real world. And has been for quite a long time.
pmoriarty 6y ago
I read it as: "They risk their lives cleaning hospitals. Now, they are (finally) getting vaccinated" ...vaccination as their due for being on the front lines. I think vaccination is a positive thing, and my reading of the title was positive.
tshaddox 6y ago
The full title has one more sentence at the end: ‘I want people to know that we exist’ I think the idea is to highlight the existence of an group of people whose role in society is important, hazardous (particularly during a pandemic), and often overlooked.
jelliclesfarm 6y ago
I realize that now..I had to keep with HN title word limit. I didn’t want to make up my own headline.

zamalek 6y ago

My mother used to direct the pantomime in my local town, and various other shows. She'd always have the cleaners and curtain crew on the stage at the end: "there wouldn't be much of a show with the curtains closed." These people are possibly the most important staff in the hospital: nobody else would be able to do a thing without them, as everything would be an unsanitary mess.

Armisael16 6y ago
> These people are possibly the most important staff in the hospital: nobody else would be able to do a thing without them I find this viewpoint a little confusing, because that’s true of almost everyone working there. No one gets treated if there aren’t doctors and nurses even if all the equipment is sparkling. No one gets treated if the back office isn’t procuring supplies. The only way to split things along these lines that I’ve heard that makes sense to me is “could the hospital run without these people?”, where you say “not at all even briefly” for the most important group (as opposed to “yes” or “yes for a little bit”).
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- nugget 6y ago
  Another way to look at it is the number of different jobs a certain person could do, if necessary. A surgeon can operate, but if needed, also likely fill in as a nurse, CNA, phlebotomist, and could of course sterilize a room. That's not to diminish the contributions of any particular group but not all individual skill sets are created equal because some (literally) encompass many others.
mam2 6y ago
Yes but they are repleacable.. Its cute but it's basically populism...

LeCow 6y ago

I'm genuinely annoyed with headlines like this. "risk their lives" Unless they're old or vulnerable -- then they're not risking their lives. There's a likelihood that they may catch an incredibly mild virus. inb4 "it's deadly" Yes, to the vulnerable and the old it is, to everyone else...not so much. It's not a literal death ray, unless you consider walking to work/driving in the same realms of risking your life.

computerphage 6y ago
What's your threshold for how risky a disease had to be before you'd call it risking they're lives?
- throwaway201103 6y ago
  I'd say working at a hospital has always been risking your life more than many other jobs. The places are bacteria cesspits, full of sick people.
bluquark 6y ago
More than twice as many young adults died of Covid in 2020 than died of car crashes (or any other one cause, including the former top one, opioids). Source: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2774445 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2774445
- jMyles 6y ago
  > More than twice as many young adults died of Covid in 2020 than died of car crashes (or any other one cause, including the former top one, opioids). Source: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2774445 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2774445 This paper does not include or support the assertion you are making. It is not a valid or plausible source for the claim for which you have used it as a citation. The leap you have made is far beyond the already tortured reading that this poor paper has received throughout social media. In order for the same number of people (leaving aside the "more than twice" claim in your comment) in the 25-44 cohort covered by this paper to die of COVID19 as died of opioid overdoses in 2018 (which is the figure this paper uses), essentially all of the other 62% of the increase in all-cause mortality which does not yet have an available documented cause of death, among a group especially vulnerable to the second-order effects of lockdowns, would have to instead have come from a virus that is known to kill them at vanishingly rare rates and diagnosis of which is now routine nationwide. Put another way: two-thirds of the lethal COVID19 cases in the 25-44 cohort have to have been completely missed by this nation's medical professionals (and even then, opioid deaths have to have remained at 2018 levels, which is also unlikely). This is just in order for COVID19 deaths to be close to the number of opioid overdose deaths. It is completely impossible for COVID19 to kill twice as many. To be clear: all of the reliable data - every shred of it - shows convincingly that the assertion you are making is strictly false. The number of opioid overdoses has far outpaced the number of COVID19 deaths (having increased since 2018 rather than remaining flat as you implicitly assert); the same is almost certainly true of car crashes. Depending on what you mean by "young adults" (ie, if you are including the 18-25 cohort in addition to the 25-44 cohort studied in this paper), it will be surprising if COVID19 kills even a third as many will have died in car crashes, as this group dies even more rarely of COVID19 and even more frequently of car crashes. Moreover, even if your claim were within 60% of being true (and there's no reason, given the available data, to believe that it is) the comment to which you are responding said "old or vulnerable" (emphasis mine), whereas the paper you've provided showing over 4,000 deaths (again, just to be crystal clear, this is less than half of those from opioid overdoses) includes people in this age group with other (sometimes grave) comorbidities. It is true that people who are neither old nor suffering from one of the three most frequently indicated comorbidities have a risk of adverse effects similar to seasonal coronaviruses. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eci.13423 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eci.13423 tl;dr: Around 4,000 people under 45 have died COVID19-related deaths, while more than 10,000 died of opioid overdoses in 2018, the latest year for which a reliable figure is available (but every credible expert believes that the number will be much higher this year).

loraa 6y ago

Everyone but me needs to take this.