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I agree. This overzealous attitude from health regulators not good. I see it as nothing more than authoritarians in the health domain. They know what’s best fo

I agree. This overzealous attitude from health regulators not good. I see it as nothing more than authoritarians in the health domain. They know what’s best for everyone, and clearly don’t trust that freedom empowers people. This is at the heart of many of the issues the public has had with the US government’s response to the pandemic.

scoopertrooper 5y ago
Yeah, the American public have really shown how rational they are during this pandemic. The government is giving out the best vaccine in the world for free (also the best against Omicron) and 27% of adults are still not fully vaccinated. And it took some harsh mandates and a crazy new mutation to get them even that far.
- eru 5y ago
  Freedom includes the freedom for people to make choices that you (or me) disagree with. An individual getting vaccinated or not has some externalities for the rest of society. The answer from orthodox economics is to measure / estimate these externalities, and then apply taxes and/or subsidies appropriately. The vaccines are already free for the patient, that's a generous subsidy. If that's not enough, they could give everyone who gets vaccinated fifty bucks or tax unvaccinated people some extra fee. Another example: in Singapore the government used to cover everyone's covid hospitalization costs, recently they changed to only covering them for vaccinated people (or those with a medically valid excuse).
  - smegger001 5y ago
    Personally I like the idea of significantly taxing un-vaccinated people without a medical exemption, and using it as a toward stimulus for the vaccinated in their area. They endanger our health (viruses can become resistant or otherwise overcome your bodies defenses) they can compensate me for the risk they put me in. say start at a $100 a month and raising it at regular intervals eventually they wont be able to afford to go un-vaccinated.
    - eru 5y ago
      That's a nice revenge fantasy, but it's very different from what orthodox economics would suggest. Mainstream economics takes the preference of some people to go unvaccinated serious. The idea would be to arrive at an accurate estimate of the externalities, and then charge that (or alternatively, subsidize the vaccinated to that amount). So that people can make accurate decisions that take their preferences _and_ the costs and benefits to wider society into account. The idea is NOT to apply an ever increasing spiral of costs on people who make decisions we disagree with. Over time as vaccines get better the size of the externalities might even go down. In the idealised extreme case of a vaccine that is 100% effective and can be taken by anyone who wants it, there's no externality from anti-vaxxers at all. (In reality, there are some people who can not get vaccinated for medical reasons, and our available vaccines don't even seem to be good enough to give herd immunity at the moment.)
      - denton-scratch 5y ago
        > available vaccines don't even seem to be good enough to give herd immunity at the moment AFAIAA, no COVID vaccines confer "immunity" - they confer resistance. Vaccinated people can still catch and transmit COVID. The vaccines are effective at preventing you being hospitalised; this protects health services from being overwhelmed, and reduces the chance that you'll die. I don't think that even catching live COVID confers immunity. I imagine that live COVID confers better resistance than a vaccine, especially a vaccine such as these mRNA vaccines that target a specific spike protein. But I have no reliable source for that notion (/me not a doctor or researcher, just some dude on the internet!)
        eru 5y ago
        Keep in mind that I was talking about 'herd immunity', not 'immunity'. If vaccines provide enough resistance (or whatever) to bring r0 below 1, that's herd immunity: any infection transmittion chain (or tree) fizzles out.
- klabb3 5y ago
  The best against omicron? Better than nothing, I suppose. Last numbers I've seen is 40-70% efficiency (compared to 96% of the initial strain) and those numbers are for recently vaccinated, and it's a quickly waning protection that needs at least 3-4 injections that we know today, likely more (Israel is debating dose #4 atm). On top of that even 2 doses have problems with cardiotoxicity in young people, according to the FDA. It's a great vaccine for reducing deaths but it won't exterminate covid, even with a fully vaccinated (2-3 doses at time of writing) population, by a long shot.
  - ianbutler 5y ago
    40-70% efficacy is basically as good as the yearly flu shot. My point being is Covid is going to wind up being endemic and we just need to control it to a point where deaths, transmission and strain on healthcare are comparable to the flu -- we can't go on with our lives on pause forever. We'll get our shots every 6mo to a year and plan around it and influenza on the medical side. Exterminating this before we return to 'normal' is starting to look ridiculous to me and I was someone who locked down pretty tightly over the last two years.
    - klabb3 5y ago
      Yeah agree that's where we're heading, I think independent of how hard we push vaccinations and lockdowns. Most of the outcome is determined by the dice roll of each new strain, which nobody can control. The difference is the "new normal" can be used to push mandates, censorship and other measures permanently, the same way the patriot act and TSA is still around. We're already seeing the rhetoric shifting from absolute to relative risk. For instance, the current public health narrative for vaccination (of non-risk groups and people with existing antibodies) against the new dominant omicron strain which appears much milder, is "the infection risk is reduced compared to not taking the vaccine" which is a trueism and at best misleading in terms of risk of serious disease. That said, Omicron appears contagious enough to saturate populations even in tightly locked down regions, which would be novel even for this pandemic.
- ddingus 5y ago
  Let's step back a minute. The American Public is quite possibly the most propagandized citizenry in the world. That has very high costs, and we don't talk about that anywhere near the degree we should. What you just wrote is part of that cost. I'm not excusing them, nor advocating their position on this, but a quick look at all this from their point of view can be illuminating. They have been lied to, ripped off, fear mongered, and manipulated to a point where they can, do and are experiencing genuine ambiguity rooted in a basic lack of trust and inability to reason well, when said reason crosses various politicized or over exploited (manipulated) lines. And, it's not free! We are all paying for it, and that's fine. I'm a fan of such things and feel our tax dollars could be delivering a much higher net value for all of us given a different set of priorities, but I also digress, save to point out those people will tell you it's not free, and that fact coupled with the lies and manipulation mixed in with for profit medicine issues are all more than sufficient to trigger mistrust and or reluctance to buy into what they may see as an overblown crisis. To be clear, we are in a pandemic, yes we all need to get the shot, and we will benefit from those things in a number of ways, all of which are important. Now, I'm stopping there with the intent of making a point: Blaming people, calling them too stupid, or crazy, or whatever basic, issue is assigned to "the problem" does not help any of us. Doing that actually makes it worse, and it makes for a more impotent conversation aimed at solutions, progress, improving on things too. Fact is when we invest in people, we get returns. Fact also is when we spam people with BS non stop for decades, we get costs.
  - eru 5y ago
    > The American Public is quite possibly the most propagandized citizenry in the world. What makes you think so? Have you looked at other countries in detail?
    - ddingus 5y ago
      I have to some degree. Travelling abroad was an interesting experience and media was part of that. There is a lot published about this. Might be worth a bit of time when you have an idle minute or few. As a starting point, repeal of the fairness doctrine (Reagan) coupled with media deregulation (Clinton), transformed mainstream media. Today, access journalism, massive media consolidation, poor clarity programs (fact is poorly differentiated from opinion), and an AD driven culture make for quite the barrage of information, much of it contradictory when viewed as a whole. We may not be at the top, and sorting that kind of thing out is very highly debatable anyway, but we are up there. It's not hard to understand how very large numbers of us struggle to make sense of the information available today. Sidebar: There is struggling to make sense and say coming to a wrong, or very poorly supported conclusion. That's one potential. The other one is far more subtle, and that is being confused, being aware of it, feeling one isn't capable, or lacking in time, perhaps education, and seeking authorities to trust. That is more the kind of thing in play regarding vaccination struggles we see today. People quite literally do not trust public institutions because of the political games they have seen played, poor performance of government, and generally unclear mainstream media. It's been going on for a while now, and it's starting to really add up. (in my view, of course) End sidebar Intrigued? I was. Best way to start is to tune out for a while, say a few months. During this time, seek original documents, if you have a need to be informed, and you might not. It's nice to just tune out for a while, get grounded, sort of reset. When you do seek something, get original documents, say a report, paper, whatever it is. Then compare and contrast to media on the same topic. When I did this some time back, I was frankly shocked at basic things, such as elevating speculation to fact, or cherry picking from documents to emphasize something the authors did not intend. I don't have good answers other than to encourage people to use more diverse media sources and seek original documents where they are available and make sense to read.

scoopertrooper 5y ago

Yeah, the American public have really shown how rational they are during this pandemic. The government is giving out the best vaccine in the world for free (also the best against Omicron) and 27% of adults are still not fully vaccinated. And it took some harsh mandates and a crazy new mutation to get them even that far.

eru 5y ago
Freedom includes the freedom for people to make choices that you (or me) disagree with. An individual getting vaccinated or not has some externalities for the rest of society. The answer from orthodox economics is to measure / estimate these externalities, and then apply taxes and/or subsidies appropriately. The vaccines are already free for the patient, that's a generous subsidy. If that's not enough, they could give everyone who gets vaccinated fifty bucks or tax unvaccinated people some extra fee. Another example: in Singapore the government used to cover everyone's covid hospitalization costs, recently they changed to only covering them for vaccinated people (or those with a medically valid excuse).
- smegger001 5y ago
  Personally I like the idea of significantly taxing un-vaccinated people without a medical exemption, and using it as a toward stimulus for the vaccinated in their area. They endanger our health (viruses can become resistant or otherwise overcome your bodies defenses) they can compensate me for the risk they put me in. say start at a $100 a month and raising it at regular intervals eventually they wont be able to afford to go un-vaccinated.
  - eru 5y ago
    That's a nice revenge fantasy, but it's very different from what orthodox economics would suggest. Mainstream economics takes the preference of some people to go unvaccinated serious. The idea would be to arrive at an accurate estimate of the externalities, and then charge that (or alternatively, subsidize the vaccinated to that amount). So that people can make accurate decisions that take their preferences _and_ the costs and benefits to wider society into account. The idea is NOT to apply an ever increasing spiral of costs on people who make decisions we disagree with. Over time as vaccines get better the size of the externalities might even go down. In the idealised extreme case of a vaccine that is 100% effective and can be taken by anyone who wants it, there's no externality from anti-vaxxers at all. (In reality, there are some people who can not get vaccinated for medical reasons, and our available vaccines don't even seem to be good enough to give herd immunity at the moment.)
    - denton-scratch 5y ago
      > available vaccines don't even seem to be good enough to give herd immunity at the moment AFAIAA, no COVID vaccines confer "immunity" - they confer resistance. Vaccinated people can still catch and transmit COVID. The vaccines are effective at preventing you being hospitalised; this protects health services from being overwhelmed, and reduces the chance that you'll die. I don't think that even catching live COVID confers immunity. I imagine that live COVID confers better resistance than a vaccine, especially a vaccine such as these mRNA vaccines that target a specific spike protein. But I have no reliable source for that notion (/me not a doctor or researcher, just some dude on the internet!)
      - eru 5y ago
        Keep in mind that I was talking about 'herd immunity', not 'immunity'. If vaccines provide enough resistance (or whatever) to bring r0 below 1, that's herd immunity: any infection transmittion chain (or tree) fizzles out.
klabb3 5y ago
The best against omicron? Better than nothing, I suppose. Last numbers I've seen is 40-70% efficiency (compared to 96% of the initial strain) and those numbers are for recently vaccinated, and it's a quickly waning protection that needs at least 3-4 injections that we know today, likely more (Israel is debating dose #4 atm). On top of that even 2 doses have problems with cardiotoxicity in young people, according to the FDA. It's a great vaccine for reducing deaths but it won't exterminate covid, even with a fully vaccinated (2-3 doses at time of writing) population, by a long shot.
- ianbutler 5y ago
  40-70% efficacy is basically as good as the yearly flu shot. My point being is Covid is going to wind up being endemic and we just need to control it to a point where deaths, transmission and strain on healthcare are comparable to the flu -- we can't go on with our lives on pause forever. We'll get our shots every 6mo to a year and plan around it and influenza on the medical side. Exterminating this before we return to 'normal' is starting to look ridiculous to me and I was someone who locked down pretty tightly over the last two years.
  - klabb3 5y ago
    Yeah agree that's where we're heading, I think independent of how hard we push vaccinations and lockdowns. Most of the outcome is determined by the dice roll of each new strain, which nobody can control. The difference is the "new normal" can be used to push mandates, censorship and other measures permanently, the same way the patriot act and TSA is still around. We're already seeing the rhetoric shifting from absolute to relative risk. For instance, the current public health narrative for vaccination (of non-risk groups and people with existing antibodies) against the new dominant omicron strain which appears much milder, is "the infection risk is reduced compared to not taking the vaccine" which is a trueism and at best misleading in terms of risk of serious disease. That said, Omicron appears contagious enough to saturate populations even in tightly locked down regions, which would be novel even for this pandemic.
ddingus 5y ago
Let's step back a minute. The American Public is quite possibly the most propagandized citizenry in the world. That has very high costs, and we don't talk about that anywhere near the degree we should. What you just wrote is part of that cost. I'm not excusing them, nor advocating their position on this, but a quick look at all this from their point of view can be illuminating. They have been lied to, ripped off, fear mongered, and manipulated to a point where they can, do and are experiencing genuine ambiguity rooted in a basic lack of trust and inability to reason well, when said reason crosses various politicized or over exploited (manipulated) lines. And, it's not free! We are all paying for it, and that's fine. I'm a fan of such things and feel our tax dollars could be delivering a much higher net value for all of us given a different set of priorities, but I also digress, save to point out those people will tell you it's not free, and that fact coupled with the lies and manipulation mixed in with for profit medicine issues are all more than sufficient to trigger mistrust and or reluctance to buy into what they may see as an overblown crisis. To be clear, we are in a pandemic, yes we all need to get the shot, and we will benefit from those things in a number of ways, all of which are important. Now, I'm stopping there with the intent of making a point: Blaming people, calling them too stupid, or crazy, or whatever basic, issue is assigned to "the problem" does not help any of us. Doing that actually makes it worse, and it makes for a more impotent conversation aimed at solutions, progress, improving on things too. Fact is when we invest in people, we get returns. Fact also is when we spam people with BS non stop for decades, we get costs.
- eru 5y ago
  > The American Public is quite possibly the most propagandized citizenry in the world. What makes you think so? Have you looked at other countries in detail?
  - ddingus 5y ago
    I have to some degree. Travelling abroad was an interesting experience and media was part of that. There is a lot published about this. Might be worth a bit of time when you have an idle minute or few. As a starting point, repeal of the fairness doctrine (Reagan) coupled with media deregulation (Clinton), transformed mainstream media. Today, access journalism, massive media consolidation, poor clarity programs (fact is poorly differentiated from opinion), and an AD driven culture make for quite the barrage of information, much of it contradictory when viewed as a whole. We may not be at the top, and sorting that kind of thing out is very highly debatable anyway, but we are up there. It's not hard to understand how very large numbers of us struggle to make sense of the information available today. Sidebar: There is struggling to make sense and say coming to a wrong, or very poorly supported conclusion. That's one potential. The other one is far more subtle, and that is being confused, being aware of it, feeling one isn't capable, or lacking in time, perhaps education, and seeking authorities to trust. That is more the kind of thing in play regarding vaccination struggles we see today. People quite literally do not trust public institutions because of the political games they have seen played, poor performance of government, and generally unclear mainstream media. It's been going on for a while now, and it's starting to really add up. (in my view, of course) End sidebar Intrigued? I was. Best way to start is to tune out for a while, say a few months. During this time, seek original documents, if you have a need to be informed, and you might not. It's nice to just tune out for a while, get grounded, sort of reset. When you do seek something, get original documents, say a report, paper, whatever it is. Then compare and contrast to media on the same topic. When I did this some time back, I was frankly shocked at basic things, such as elevating speculation to fact, or cherry picking from documents to emphasize something the authors did not intend. I don't have good answers other than to encourage people to use more diverse media sources and seek original documents where they are available and make sense to read.