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So in other words, covid is a vaccine against covid that actually works, and the vaccines are not vaccines against covid, don't, and also have cumulative negati

So in other words, covid is a vaccine against covid that actually works, and the vaccines are not vaccines against covid, don't, and also have cumulative negative externalities. Why are people still talking about mandating this nonsense?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
icoder 5y ago
The vaccines against Covid actually work, and (probably) come with a small risk. Sure, just getting Covid does too and probably a bit better, but comes with a great risk. Now, does that warrant mandating? I'm not so sure, that's a much more difficult discussion swaying us (among other things) back and forth the between freedom of one person and the health of another.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  Not for kids and people talk about mandating vaccination for them. Aside from that it should be voluntary for adults as well.
  - icoder 5y ago
    Yeah for kids it is even more difficult to defend a mandate, even to defend their vaccination altogether (we don't do general vaccination for kids here in the Netherlands, yet). There still IS something to discuss, as we see kids spread it (a lot), which does eventually increase the risk of adults for which the vaccine doesn't work. But to me that's not enough. As for adults, what we've seen here (86% of 18+ vaccinated) is a lot of pressure on health care (and especially, the people working there) directly and on people in need of non-immediate, non-covid care indirectly (as that gets dialed down), as well as society as a whole through new lockdown like measures. This pressure came from unvaccinated people, initially mostly, later still disproportionately (and after boosts, possibly mostly again). It's a crazy difficult dilemma. Luckily we've managed to stay away from mandates so far, but it's costing.
    - maxerickson 5y ago
      It's not settled yet, but it's pretty likely that males under 12 are at still higher risk of a severe course of illness (hospital care) than they are at risk of myocarditis following vaccination.
      - raxxorrax 5y ago
        And how many would that would be? 15 people? Please, elaborate in regard to the demographics of any country of your choice.
        maxerickson 5y ago
        I am (somewhat speculatively) comparing rates of a specific demographic. I expect it will be true everywhere that vaccinating younger males leads to an overall reduction in harm to the vaccinated.
      - concinds 5y ago
        At most, moderately higher risk, and that's assuming 100% would get covid (just like the government wants 100% to take the vaccine). You can't compare infection vs vaccine if only 50% would ever have caught Covid (without even counting children with previous infections who are practically guaranteed to never be hospitalized from it), while 100% will get vaccinated; the risk-benefit is likely to shift into the mostly-nefarious territory. Also keep in mind that risk-of-myocarditis-from-infection is overestimated, because plenty of people are utterly asymptomatic and aren't counted in the stats.
        maxerickson 5y ago
        Correct, higher risk from infection than from vaccination.
    - raxxorrax 5y ago
      In Germany in the last summer we had monetary incentives to reduce intensive care units. Active ones, as you got funding for reducing the amount of beds in intensive care. To now blame the situation on unvaccinated instead of policy makers is misattributed. Also, we had severe problems even before covid became a problem too. I heavily doubt that the 14% are the cause of the problems instead of being a very convenient excuse.
- etherael 5y ago
  When you say "work" do you mean better than an absolute risk reduction for mortality and hospitalisation of say 2%? Because that doesn't sound like "working" to me, even completely ignoring the potential side effects of endless mandated boosters, which if you don't do makes it look even more ridiculous.
  - icoder 5y ago
    I'm not arguing for mandating anything. And note that boosters boost, they are not for maintenance. A lot of existing vaccins have a booster without it being 'endless'. If Covid-19 mutates enough we might need different vaccins yes, perhaps that's what you meant, but I don't think those are technically boosters. With "work" I mean they get rid of a large percentage of mortality, hospitalisation and (a bit less certain) long haul covid. How big that absolute risk reduction is differs per person. But more importantly: I don't see our society getting through Covid-19 in a humane manner without vaccins. Without vaccins, the IC's will flood, or we'd need (suffocating) measures and a lot of patience. But I'm ver much open to different ideas here.
    - etherael 5y ago
      Sure it varies, and the high number on ARR is 1.32 percent. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33652582/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33652582/) I added a margin over that for safety and its still just not impressive. As far as getting through this without vaccines that's not the question I asked. I asked in light of the data on the ground why are people still trying to push mandates. If people want to take these products with the efficacy rate and risk factors as they are knowing the manufacturers are wholly shielded from any and all liability that's one thing. The suggestion anyone ought to be forced to is entirely another.
      - icoder 5y ago
        I'm not really debating that ARR for hospitalisation (or worse) may be only a few percent on average, but the article you linked to doesn't help. If I understand it correctly they say: more people got infected (!) in the control group, but that's still a very low percentage of the entire group. Calculating the ARR in that case is only 'absolute' for the duration of the experiment right? That didn't age well at all, especially with newer variants, it's assumed most will eventually get infected, increasing the ARR. Then again de RRR for infection seems to drop by itself, which works the other way. So the conclusion of this paper is debatable at the least, and regardless it doesn't even cover what we were discussing, ARR for hospitalisation or worse. I really was trying to answer your question regarding pushing mandates. Again I'm not saying I'm for them (here in the Netherlands we're staying away from mandates, for now at least). Individual efficacy (vs risk) is not the ONLY argument for mandates (actually I'd find that a less strong reason by itself even with a higher ARR), my argument would be the benefit for society as a whole. Sure, we should be able to make it through also without 100% vaccination rate, that's probably why mandates are less clearly on the table in places where it's high without mandates already.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

icoder 5y ago

The vaccines against Covid actually work, and (probably) come with a small risk. Sure, just getting Covid does too and probably a bit better, but comes with a great risk. Now, does that warrant mandating? I'm not so sure, that's a much more difficult discussion swaying us (among other things) back and forth the between freedom of one person and the health of another.

raxxorrax 5y ago
Not for kids and people talk about mandating vaccination for them. Aside from that it should be voluntary for adults as well.
- icoder 5y ago
  Yeah for kids it is even more difficult to defend a mandate, even to defend their vaccination altogether (we don't do general vaccination for kids here in the Netherlands, yet). There still IS something to discuss, as we see kids spread it (a lot), which does eventually increase the risk of adults for which the vaccine doesn't work. But to me that's not enough. As for adults, what we've seen here (86% of 18+ vaccinated) is a lot of pressure on health care (and especially, the people working there) directly and on people in need of non-immediate, non-covid care indirectly (as that gets dialed down), as well as society as a whole through new lockdown like measures. This pressure came from unvaccinated people, initially mostly, later still disproportionately (and after boosts, possibly mostly again). It's a crazy difficult dilemma. Luckily we've managed to stay away from mandates so far, but it's costing.
  - maxerickson 5y ago
    It's not settled yet, but it's pretty likely that males under 12 are at still higher risk of a severe course of illness (hospital care) than they are at risk of myocarditis following vaccination.
    - raxxorrax 5y ago
      And how many would that would be? 15 people? Please, elaborate in regard to the demographics of any country of your choice.
      - maxerickson 5y ago
        I am (somewhat speculatively) comparing rates of a specific demographic. I expect it will be true everywhere that vaccinating younger males leads to an overall reduction in harm to the vaccinated.
    - concinds 5y ago
      At most, moderately higher risk, and that's assuming 100% would get covid (just like the government wants 100% to take the vaccine). You can't compare infection vs vaccine if only 50% would ever have caught Covid (without even counting children with previous infections who are practically guaranteed to never be hospitalized from it), while 100% will get vaccinated; the risk-benefit is likely to shift into the mostly-nefarious territory. Also keep in mind that risk-of-myocarditis-from-infection is overestimated, because plenty of people are utterly asymptomatic and aren't counted in the stats.
      - maxerickson 5y ago
        Correct, higher risk from infection than from vaccination.
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    In Germany in the last summer we had monetary incentives to reduce intensive care units. Active ones, as you got funding for reducing the amount of beds in intensive care. To now blame the situation on unvaccinated instead of policy makers is misattributed. Also, we had severe problems even before covid became a problem too. I heavily doubt that the 14% are the cause of the problems instead of being a very convenient excuse.
etherael 5y ago
When you say "work" do you mean better than an absolute risk reduction for mortality and hospitalisation of say 2%? Because that doesn't sound like "working" to me, even completely ignoring the potential side effects of endless mandated boosters, which if you don't do makes it look even more ridiculous.
- icoder 5y ago
  I'm not arguing for mandating anything. And note that boosters boost, they are not for maintenance. A lot of existing vaccins have a booster without it being 'endless'. If Covid-19 mutates enough we might need different vaccins yes, perhaps that's what you meant, but I don't think those are technically boosters. With "work" I mean they get rid of a large percentage of mortality, hospitalisation and (a bit less certain) long haul covid. How big that absolute risk reduction is differs per person. But more importantly: I don't see our society getting through Covid-19 in a humane manner without vaccins. Without vaccins, the IC's will flood, or we'd need (suffocating) measures and a lot of patience. But I'm ver much open to different ideas here.
  - etherael 5y ago
    Sure it varies, and the high number on ARR is 1.32 percent. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33652582/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33652582/) I added a margin over that for safety and its still just not impressive. As far as getting through this without vaccines that's not the question I asked. I asked in light of the data on the ground why are people still trying to push mandates. If people want to take these products with the efficacy rate and risk factors as they are knowing the manufacturers are wholly shielded from any and all liability that's one thing. The suggestion anyone ought to be forced to is entirely another.
    - icoder 5y ago
      I'm not really debating that ARR for hospitalisation (or worse) may be only a few percent on average, but the article you linked to doesn't help. If I understand it correctly they say: more people got infected (!) in the control group, but that's still a very low percentage of the entire group. Calculating the ARR in that case is only 'absolute' for the duration of the experiment right? That didn't age well at all, especially with newer variants, it's assumed most will eventually get infected, increasing the ARR. Then again de RRR for infection seems to drop by itself, which works the other way. So the conclusion of this paper is debatable at the least, and regardless it doesn't even cover what we were discussing, ARR for hospitalisation or worse. I really was trying to answer your question regarding pushing mandates. Again I'm not saying I'm for them (here in the Netherlands we're staying away from mandates, for now at least). Individual efficacy (vs risk) is not the ONLY argument for mandates (actually I'd find that a less strong reason by itself even with a higher ARR), my argument would be the benefit for society as a whole. Sure, we should be able to make it through also without 100% vaccination rate, that's probably why mandates are less clearly on the table in places where it's high without mandates already.