6 ms·

Something like 50% of the people in intensive care for COVID still die. Even if we were able to handle the load on the healthcare system, that still would be a

Something like 50% of the people in intensive care for COVID still die. Even if we were able to handle the load on the healthcare system, that still would be a very large amount of unnecessary suffering and death. And even though there are some fundamental issues with working conditions and pay in this area, fixing them would not be enough to be able to handle the load that an exponentially growing viral disease could cause if it remains unchecked. If you do not stop the exponential spread, even with twice the capacity you'd only gain another 1-2 weeks until you're at capacity anyway. The vaccines work well and are safe. The problem is that too many people didn't take them. There's plenty of problems with how this was organized in Germany, but in the we simply didn't manage to convince enough people to get vaccinated.

gizmo 5y ago
The problem isn’t simple and certainly not a matter of just vaccinating. A big part of the problem is that govt was confident that two jabs in the summer would be sufficient because of two faulty assumptions: that immunity would last and that fully vaccinated people would not spread covid.
- crooked-v 5y ago
  Also, more broadly, that people would actually be willing to get vaccinated at a rate high enough to reduce the R-value below 1.
  - tremon 5y ago
    The vaccines were never proven to reduce virus spread, were they? I mean, the clinical trials were about reducing susceptibility, not infectivity. I don't think there were any numbers available on the vaccine's effect on virus transmissibility. It was implicitly assumed that fewer symptoms would translate to fewer transmissions, but was this ever proven? Point being, we didn't know what vaccination rate would reduce the R-value below 1, and FAFAIK we still don't know. Not even for the original Sars-cov-2 virus, and not for any of the variants.
    - neuronexmachina 5y ago
      Vaccination reduces transmission: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2106757 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2106757 > Cases of Covid-19 were less common among household members of vaccinated health care workers during the period beginning 14 days after the first dose than during the unvaccinated period before the first dose (event rate per 100 person-years, 9.40 before the first dose and 5.93 beginning 14 days after the first dose). After the health care worker’s second dose, the rate in household members was lower still (2.98 cases per 100 person-years). These differences persisted after fitting extended Cox models that were adjusted for calendar time, geographic region, age, sex, occupational and socioeconomic factors, and underlying conditions. Relative to the period before each health care worker was vaccinated, the hazard ratio for a household member to become infected was 0.70 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.63 to 0.78) for the period beginning 14 days after the first dose and 0.46 (95% CI, 0.30 to 0.70) for the period beginning 14 days after the second dose. ... Not all the cases of Covid-19 in the household members were transmitted from the health care worker; therefore, the effect of vaccination may be larger.1 For example, if half the cases in the household members were transmitted from the health care worker, a 60% decrease in cases transmitted from health care workers would need to occur to elicit the association we observed (see the Supplementary Appendix). Vaccination was associated with a reduction in both the number of cases and the number of Covid-19–related hospitalizations in health care workers between the unvaccinated period and the period beginning 14 days after the first dose.
      - tekknik 5y ago
        Given that vaccination reduces asymptomatic infection with SARS-CoV-2,2,3 it is plausible that vaccination reduces transmission; however, data from clinical trials and observational studies are lacking.
    - TulliusCicero 5y ago
      > The vaccines were never proven to reduce virus spread, were they? I mean, the clinical trials were about reducing susceptibility, not infectivity. Populations where people are less likely to get infected are less likely to spread. You have to be infected before you can spread.
  - int_19h 5y ago
    What would be the rate in question for Delta? My understanding is that it was feasible for earlier variants, but Delta has R too high to begin with.
  - landemva 5y ago
    If your focus is on R value for transmission, then you will also need to eradicate it from every single cat and deer on the planet. Good luck with that.
- red_trumpet 5y ago
  Also, the government knowingly ignored warnings by the RKI (german institute for public health) saying that numbers and hospital admissions will go up rapidly in autumn.
fileeditview 5y ago
The argument always is that there are not enough beds for non-corona patients. More beds would certainly help. It is nonsense to vaccinate young and very healthy people, especially kids. Their risk from COVID is minimal to non-existent. Also the spread is not stopped by vaccinating. Vaccinated still spread the virus. If it is reduced is still unclear. There was a study in GB that showed the incidence numbers in vaccinated was just as high or higher than in unvaccinated. The sample sizes of vaccinated and unvaccinated were equal as they should be. Reports in Germany about these numbers forget to mention that vaccinated people are basically not tested. > The vaccines work well and are safe. They do not work well enough. First of all people still transmit the virus after only about 2 months after the vaccination. Then the protection goes down extremely between 2-6 months after the vaccination (that is why we need boosters all the time). It is still unclear if we continue to need boosters after the third shot.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  Vaccines do reduce spread. While vaccinated people who get infected still spread the virus, they’re less likely to get infected in the first place, which is a necessary precursor to spreading.
  - tekknik 5y ago
    Not necessarily true with the new variants, and it won’t be true for future variants either. The virus jumped to wild animals so it’s freely mutating in unvaccinated hosts outside of the human population.
    - TulliusCicero 5y ago
      IIRC the effectiveness is reduced for delta, certainly, but not to zero. But yes, we’ll probably need updated vaccines, similarly to how we update the flu shot every year.
- WickyNilliams 5y ago
  > There was a study in GB that showed the incidence numbers in vaccinated was just as high or higher than in unvaccinated I would like to see the source for that if you have the link?
Scoundreller 5y ago
> Something like 50% of the people in intensive care for COVID still die. I don’t think this is too far from the survival rate of those admitted to intensive care in general. But I think the point is that COVID really increases your chances of being admitted there in the first place.
- bduerst 5y ago
  ICU survival rate is highly dependent on the cause, diagnosis, and/or disease that the patient is admitted for. It can range from 70-10%.
- daddylongstroke 5y ago
  >But I think the point is that COVID really increases your chances of being admitted there in the first place. If you're in a certain age range, and have several comorbidities.
- tekknik 5y ago
  So far I know 4 that have contracted COVID and all explained it felt like a bad flu but no where near enough to go to the hospital. But mileage will vary here for sure.
krater23 5y ago
You forget one, the people that are dying have taken the risk for ther own and didn't want to get vaccinated. It's ok when they die, it's their decision that's gone wrong. Other people didn't got vaccinated and will never get covid anywhere. This is a decision that not the government has to make for the people.
- discreteevent 5y ago
  Those people don't refuse to go to hospital and they don't refuse the ICU bed.
  - jpttsn 5y ago
    Would you support a comprehensive healthcare opt-out, where an unvaccinated person would forego right to treatment, and also not have to pay taxes for public healthcare?
    - CamperBob2 5y ago
      No, because at the end of the day, we're not going to literally let them die on the sidewalk outside the hospital just because they can't pay. That means that somebody has to pay for them. Given that unavoidable but inconvenient fact, basic health care and life support might as well be organized under the auspices of the state and the costs shared among all residents.
    - kelnos 5y ago
      If you aren't willing to do your part to protect yourself and your community, why should your community protect you, when doing so would endanger others' lives?
      - mensetmanusman 5y ago
        The same can be said if many STDs though, drug use, and obesity.
      - landemva 5y ago
landemva 5y ago
The smallpox and polio vaccines worked well. The corona shots have people still getting sick and transmitting live virus. That was not success even a couple years ago.

gizmo 5y ago

The problem isn’t simple and certainly not a matter of just vaccinating. A big part of the problem is that govt was confident that two jabs in the summer would be sufficient because of two faulty assumptions: that immunity would last and that fully vaccinated people would not spread covid.

crooked-v 5y ago
Also, more broadly, that people would actually be willing to get vaccinated at a rate high enough to reduce the R-value below 1.
- tremon 5y ago
  The vaccines were never proven to reduce virus spread, were they? I mean, the clinical trials were about reducing susceptibility, not infectivity. I don't think there were any numbers available on the vaccine's effect on virus transmissibility. It was implicitly assumed that fewer symptoms would translate to fewer transmissions, but was this ever proven? Point being, we didn't know what vaccination rate would reduce the R-value below 1, and FAFAIK we still don't know. Not even for the original Sars-cov-2 virus, and not for any of the variants.
  - neuronexmachina 5y ago
    Vaccination reduces transmission: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2106757 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2106757 > Cases of Covid-19 were less common among household members of vaccinated health care workers during the period beginning 14 days after the first dose than during the unvaccinated period before the first dose (event rate per 100 person-years, 9.40 before the first dose and 5.93 beginning 14 days after the first dose). After the health care worker’s second dose, the rate in household members was lower still (2.98 cases per 100 person-years). These differences persisted after fitting extended Cox models that were adjusted for calendar time, geographic region, age, sex, occupational and socioeconomic factors, and underlying conditions. Relative to the period before each health care worker was vaccinated, the hazard ratio for a household member to become infected was 0.70 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.63 to 0.78) for the period beginning 14 days after the first dose and 0.46 (95% CI, 0.30 to 0.70) for the period beginning 14 days after the second dose. ... Not all the cases of Covid-19 in the household members were transmitted from the health care worker; therefore, the effect of vaccination may be larger.1 For example, if half the cases in the household members were transmitted from the health care worker, a 60% decrease in cases transmitted from health care workers would need to occur to elicit the association we observed (see the Supplementary Appendix). Vaccination was associated with a reduction in both the number of cases and the number of Covid-19–related hospitalizations in health care workers between the unvaccinated period and the period beginning 14 days after the first dose.
    - tekknik 5y ago
      Given that vaccination reduces asymptomatic infection with SARS-CoV-2,2,3 it is plausible that vaccination reduces transmission; however, data from clinical trials and observational studies are lacking.
  - TulliusCicero 5y ago
    > The vaccines were never proven to reduce virus spread, were they? I mean, the clinical trials were about reducing susceptibility, not infectivity. Populations where people are less likely to get infected are less likely to spread. You have to be infected before you can spread.
- int_19h 5y ago
  What would be the rate in question for Delta? My understanding is that it was feasible for earlier variants, but Delta has R too high to begin with.
- landemva 5y ago
  If your focus is on R value for transmission, then you will also need to eradicate it from every single cat and deer on the planet. Good luck with that.
red_trumpet 5y ago
Also, the government knowingly ignored warnings by the RKI (german institute for public health) saying that numbers and hospital admissions will go up rapidly in autumn.

fileeditview 5y ago

The argument always is that there are not enough beds for non-corona patients. More beds would certainly help. It is nonsense to vaccinate young and very healthy people, especially kids. Their risk from COVID is minimal to non-existent. Also the spread is not stopped by vaccinating. Vaccinated still spread the virus. If it is reduced is still unclear. There was a study in GB that showed the incidence numbers in vaccinated was just as high or higher than in unvaccinated. The sample sizes of vaccinated and unvaccinated were equal as they should be. Reports in Germany about these numbers forget to mention that vaccinated people are basically not tested. > The vaccines work well and are safe. They do not work well enough. First of all people still transmit the virus after only about 2 months after the vaccination. Then the protection goes down extremely between 2-6 months after the vaccination (that is why we need boosters all the time). It is still unclear if we continue to need boosters after the third shot.

TulliusCicero 5y ago
Vaccines do reduce spread. While vaccinated people who get infected still spread the virus, they’re less likely to get infected in the first place, which is a necessary precursor to spreading.
- tekknik 5y ago
  Not necessarily true with the new variants, and it won’t be true for future variants either. The virus jumped to wild animals so it’s freely mutating in unvaccinated hosts outside of the human population.
  - TulliusCicero 5y ago
    IIRC the effectiveness is reduced for delta, certainly, but not to zero. But yes, we’ll probably need updated vaccines, similarly to how we update the flu shot every year.
WickyNilliams 5y ago
> There was a study in GB that showed the incidence numbers in vaccinated was just as high or higher than in unvaccinated I would like to see the source for that if you have the link?

Scoundreller 5y ago

> Something like 50% of the people in intensive care for COVID still die. I don’t think this is too far from the survival rate of those admitted to intensive care in general. But I think the point is that COVID really increases your chances of being admitted there in the first place.

bduerst 5y ago
ICU survival rate is highly dependent on the cause, diagnosis, and/or disease that the patient is admitted for. It can range from 70-10%.
daddylongstroke 5y ago
>But I think the point is that COVID really increases your chances of being admitted there in the first place. If you're in a certain age range, and have several comorbidities.
tekknik 5y ago
So far I know 4 that have contracted COVID and all explained it felt like a bad flu but no where near enough to go to the hospital. But mileage will vary here for sure.

krater23 5y ago

You forget one, the people that are dying have taken the risk for ther own and didn't want to get vaccinated. It's ok when they die, it's their decision that's gone wrong. Other people didn't got vaccinated and will never get covid anywhere. This is a decision that not the government has to make for the people.

discreteevent 5y ago
Those people don't refuse to go to hospital and they don't refuse the ICU bed.
- jpttsn 5y ago
  Would you support a comprehensive healthcare opt-out, where an unvaccinated person would forego right to treatment, and also not have to pay taxes for public healthcare?
  - CamperBob2 5y ago
    No, because at the end of the day, we're not going to literally let them die on the sidewalk outside the hospital just because they can't pay. That means that somebody has to pay for them. Given that unavoidable but inconvenient fact, basic health care and life support might as well be organized under the auspices of the state and the costs shared among all residents.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    If you aren't willing to do your part to protect yourself and your community, why should your community protect you, when doing so would endanger others' lives?
    - mensetmanusman 5y ago
      The same can be said if many STDs though, drug use, and obesity.
    - landemva 5y ago

landemva 5y ago

The smallpox and polio vaccines worked well. The corona shots have people still getting sick and transmitting live virus. That was not success even a couple years ago.