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I am one of those, triple vaxxed and done. CDC has now said that the majority of those that died had 4+ co-morbidities. They have also indicated that getting va

I am one of those, triple vaxxed and done. CDC has now said that the majority of those that died had 4+ co-morbidities. They have also indicated that getting vaccinated does not reduce your ability to spread the virus. So if that is the case, there is no longer a real need to vilify the unvaxxed. CDC statement appears to indicate that the primary reason for people dying is poor physical health prior to infection. With that said I do think vaccines likely reduce the severity of the infection but I don't buy all these people saying they would have died if not for the vaccine, how do they know? This has motivated me to start working out again and to try and lose weight. Going to make sure my kids are physically active now as well. Omicron is essentially impossible to avoid at this point short of locking yourself in a room and having everything delivered to your front door. The risks are known and its time to trust people to weigh those risks and make their own decisions. I think the issue now is a political one. The democratic party has hung their hat on how bad covid is and how important it is to get vaccinated and to state at this point, NVM lets just get back to normal would be a loss of face. Instead of just saying that the virus has evolved and is less lethal now they have continued to double down on the vaccine mandate which I don't agree with. I am a democrat so I am not coming at this as a republican. I am not downplaying the severity of the virus but at this point it is here to stay. Even if we locked down for 3 months, once we were released someone from another country would come in and re-infect everyone again. Also during lock down do we once again tell the poorest among us that while they are 'essential' that they are also worth less and must continue to work and face the risk alone so as to ensure the rest of us can isolate in safety at home. Edit: I said "does not reduce your ability to spread the virus" I meant to say "does not remove". My fault.

vkou 5y ago
> Instead of just saying that the virus has evolved and is less lethal now they have continued to double down on the vaccine mandate which I don't agree with. What makes you say with any degree of confidence that the virus is less lethal now? The data's not in yet. At this point, it's all magical thinking.
- wonderwonder 5y ago
  https://www.cnet.com/health/medical/all-indications-suggest-omicrons-milder-than-delta-fauci-says-but-dont-get-complacent/ https://www.cnet.com/health/medical/all-indications-suggest-...
nodamage 5y ago
> CDC has now said that the majority of those that died had 4+ co-morbidities. This is in reference to a specific study that followed 1.2M fully vaccinated individuals and found that 28 of the 36 deaths had at least 4 high-risk factors (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7101a4.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7101a4.htm). They are not referring to the unvaccinated who still have a much higher risk of hospitalization and death.
- kixiQu 5y ago
  And from your link I'm seeing "risk factors" included being over sixty five years old, which isn't typically fair to itself call a "co-morbidity".
- nradov 5y ago
  Back in 2020 when everyone was unvaccinated the CDC issued this statement: “For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death.” https://acdis.org/articles/news-94-patients-who-died-covid-19-had-complicating-conditions-data-confusion-surrounding https://acdis.org/articles/news-94-patients-who-died-covid-1... Fortunately the vaccines and other improved therapies are now pretty effective at preventing deaths even among high risk patients.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  Your quote is from the end of a sentence that began with someone explaining that they were triple-vaxed. Seems like the perfect study to help them make decisions. The unvaccinated are unvaccinated. They know what they're getting into (even if they deny it), and they don't believe studies anyway. Once they catch it a couple of times, they'll be as good as vaxed anyway. edit: if there's anything that should be done about the unvaccinated, it's to make sure that vaccines and tests are convenient and free. There are still plenty of people who aren't vaccinated because it's too much of a hassle.
  - pseudalopex 5y ago
    > Your quote is from the end of a sentence that began with someone explaining that they were triple-vaxed. Seems like the perfect study to help them make decisions. The quote was the whole sentence. And the following sentences implied they meant everyone. The clarification was important.
srcreigh 5y ago
The only hard question is hospital triaging. Who gets treatment if there's only room for 50% or 20%? Who can even decide? Does anyone volunteer to be excluded from medical care? This affects more than just covid patients too. Any way we choose, it amounts to sacrificing XYZk people so we can go back to living a normal life. I don't think that's an exchange most people are willing to take. And yes, lockdown measures are usually in response to hospitals filling up. Check for example [0] against the timeline of lockdowns for that area. If you know any counter examples I'd like to hear about it. [0]: https://www.alberta.ca/stats/covid-19-alberta-statistics.htm?fbclid=IwAR2N14Dno27OZNFr4BRNzuJvKyvskHMzlR2mVL2KmomxuENSrNTct_cpn48#healthcare-capacity https://www.alberta.ca/stats/covid-19-alberta-statistics.htm...
- jaywalk 5y ago
  > As viruses can remain active on surfaces, unless you irradiate the deliveries with a UV lamp (and do it again after unboxing them, since there may be viruses on the actual item) even that would not be enough. Covid does not spread in any meaningful way via surfaces. All of the cleaning and disinfecting nonsense that is still going on is pure theatre. > Any way we choose, it amounts to sacrificing XYZk people so we can go back to living a normal life. I don't think that's an exchange most people are willing to take. It's an exchange everyone makes every single day in order for society to function.
  - csdvrx 5y ago
    > Covid does not spread in any meaningful way via surfaces. All of the cleaning and disinfecting nonsense that is still going on is pure theatre. It's a reasonable precaution take, at least until we know precisely how the virus could get to the isolated Belgian Antarctic base, where everyone was isolated for weeks and tested and retested prior to being sent there.
    - jaywalk 5y ago
      It was a reasonable precaution to take in March of 2020. But enough studies have been done by now to show that it's no longer a reasonable precaution in general. We may never know how it got to that base, and even if we find out that it was via surface contamination, that doesn't invalidate everything else we know now.
elpakal 5y ago
American here, totally agree with your points and upvoted. I’m just wondering if you can provide a source for this? > They have also indicated that getting vaccinated does not reduce your ability to spread the virus
- wonderwonder 5y ago
  https://www.deseret.com/coronavirus/2021/12/28/22855392/fully-vaccinated-people-spread-omicron-variant-to-others-cdc https://www.deseret.com/coronavirus/2021/12/28/22855392/full... I said "does not reduce" I meant to say "does not remove". My fault.
csdvrx 5y ago
> Omicron is essentially impossible to avoid at this point short of locking yourself in a room and having everything delivered to your front door. The risks are known and its time to trust people to weigh those risks and make their own decisions. As viruses can remain active on surfaces, unless you irradiate the deliveries with a UV lamp (and do it again after unboxing them, since there may be viruses on the actual item) even that would not be enough. > Even if we locked down for 3 months, once we were released someone from another country would come in and re-infect everyone again. That's if you assume away animals, as viruses that affect mammals are rarely limited to humans (ex: chicken flu) > Also during lock down do we once again tell the poorest among us that while they are 'essential' that they are also worth less and must continue to work and face the risk alone so as to ensure the rest of us can isolate in safety at home Agreed. It's time to accept we're not immortals, viruses exist, and yes it's a shame that covid is now endemic, but it's even worse to perform lockdowns of dubious efficiency that only have one guaranteed effect: hurting the economy, and the "poorest among us".
- AlexandrB 5y ago
  > As viruses can remain active on surfaces, unless you irradiate the deliveries with a UV lamp (and do it again after unboxing them, since there may be viruses on the actual item) even that would not be enough. Cases of COVID-19 spreading through fomites (particles on a surface) are extremely rare[1][2] and COVID-19 has a short lifespan on cardboard[3]. Just leaving deliveries somewhere for a day is probably enough to stop transmission. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34136133/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34136133/ [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-95479-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-95479-5 [3] https://www.sciencealert.com/how-long-does-coronavirus-last-on-surfaces https://www.sciencealert.com/how-long-does-coronavirus-last-... > Similarly, on cardboard, no viable SARS-CoV-2 particles could be found after 24 hours, or SARS-CoV-1 after eight.
- munificent 5y ago
  > As viruses can remain active on surfaces We've long known that transmission of COVID through fomites (surfaces) is very low: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/science-and-research/surface-transmission.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/science-and-r... If this wasn't the case, grocery store protocol would have been very different during the early days of the pandemic.
maxerickson 5y ago
Vaccination makes you much less likely to get sick in the first place and probably reduces how long you are infectious if you do get sick. Neither of those things fit with 'does not reduce'.
- srcreigh 5y ago
  Yep, county by county in the USA, as of Sept 2021, higher %age vax populations is correlated with lower case numbers. Strangely, you can find this information in Fig 2 of this short anti-vax paper claiming the vaccine doesn't correlate with case numbers at all. I don't blame people for being confused. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10654-021-00808-7.pdf https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10654-021-008...
- starik36 5y ago
  > Vaccination makes you much less likely to get sick in the first place Do you have a reference for this claim? Nearly everyone I know that has caught it and has gotten sick in the past 2 weeks has been vaccinated, sometimes boostered as well. I don't think this claim is true with Omicron. Vaccination makes you less likely to end up on a ventilator.
  - majormajor 5y ago
    I have seen much discussion of vaccines being less effective at preventing infection with omicron but no indication of them being 0% effective. Of course, it will probably be at least a few more weeks before we have good overall data on this (e.g. December/January case rates among vaccinated vs unvaccinated). And in a big storm, even everyone being 25% less likely to get infected impacts rate of transmission, which is the big one for resource constraints and such.
    - starik36 5y ago
      > no indication of them being 0% effective But there is no data to indicate that it's >0% effective either. So until we have data to back things up one way or the other, talking about it just creates more science disinformation.
nopenopenopeno 5y ago
The CDC is a bought voice of the corporate ruling class whose only interest at this point is getting working people back to work, with the exception of the pharmaceutical companies who want people to get vaccines. This is why the government has no consistent position on anything.
- clarge1120 5y ago
  I get your point as a summary judgment, but it lacks evidence, not veracity. The CDC has multiple entities, some of which are non-governmental, and supported by business interests. Some would say that a little yeast spreads throughout the loaf.
majormajor 5y ago
If we want to get rid of vaccine mandates I think the give and take has to go both ways. For instance: https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/statement-on-patient-prioritization-for-outpatient-therapies/ https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/sta... : "Unvaccinated individuals at the highest risk of severe disease (anyone aged ≥75 years or anyone aged ≥65 years with additional risk factors)." in Tier 1 for priority usage of new, hard-to-get treatment. Those who don't want to get vaccinated should take personal responsibility for that, not expect society to take as much care of them when they're choosing not to help take care of society (even in terms of "reducing burden on healthcare system by getting a likely-less-severe case", even if transmissibility isn't affected as much).
- vkou 5y ago
  This sounds like a wonderful idea. Drop the vaccine mandates, and drop the mandates to treat the unvaccinated. If people don't want treatments that work, they should be free to explore the full space of treatments that don't. If you have ethical qualms about this, I'd like to point out that ethics go both ways. It's unconscionable to take a hospital bed away from someone who needs it, because you refuse to take your medicine, with predictable consequences.
  - peterangular 5y ago
    You can't expect those who are unvaccinated taking up beds (potentially or not) to think about ethics. For a good part of our country it's a race to the bottom of "I got mine, f u" and those folks seem largely represented in the group that's currently stressing our hospitals. I do agree however. And, I think it's an ethically defensible position to not treat people who refuse to get vaccinated... even though it will never happen.
    - danenania 5y ago
      If you open that door, should treatment also be denied to smokers, motorcycle riders, obese people, uninsured people, etc., etc.? It's about as slippery as a slope can get.
nradov 5y ago
I encourage everyone eligible to protect themselves by getting vaccinated but vilifying people who make unhealthy choices is never an effective public health measure. We should have learned that from the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
- bartread 5y ago
  You can't compare HIV/AIDS to COVID in this simplistic way, including the attitudes and public debate around them, and this comment is dangerously close to some sort of public health version of a Godwin's Law violation. What I remember about HIV in the early 80s was that fear of it fueled a lot of homophobia from those who were ignorant about the disease, certainly to begin with. In fact I remember it originally being seen as a disease that only infected homosexuals and drug addicts - and those being the people who were vilified - which proved to be a fatally uninformed point of view for some. But HIV is, fundamentally, a very different pathogen to COVID. In the 80s HIV was a death sentence: if you were infected with HIV, sooner or later it would develop into AIDS and you would die. However, a relatively small proportion of the population was infected, and it wasn't very transmissible (you had to have sex or other transfer of body fluids, such as a blood transfusion). Nowadays, HIV treatments have improved to the extent that in developed countries most people receiving treatment can expect to lead a fairly normal and full life, and to live a normal lifetime (ignoring other causes of death that might intervene). I'm not sure what the story is in less developed countries, but I imagine it's not as encouraging. COVID has never close to that deadly, but is far more transmissible. It's that high transmission rate that has seen so many people die, even though these represent a small fraction of those infected. And this time, nobody is being vilified for their sexual preference, or their gender identity, or any other characteristic that is fundamental to who they are and over which they may not have had much if any agency. You might argue that drug addicts have agency but they don't have very much once they're hooked. No, with COVID, people are being vilified for wilful ignorance, which is a choice: a conscious decision, and one that - in this case - has a substantial negative impact on their surrounding community and the world at large. I can't tell you how effective, or not, that vilification is, but I can tell you that a lot of people - myself included - who are fully vaxxed, boosted, and will gladly accept further vaccinations (and would also welcome effective treatments for those who are sick), are getting enormously fed up of having restrictions placed on our lives which, to a non-trivial extent, are being propagated as a result of people who are spreading misinformation and choosing not to get vaccinated. I'm not old - somewhere in the middle - but the remaining count of the best years of my life is finite and even in the best possible case very limited, so I'm getting sick to death of people telling me what I can and can't do with them. I even agree with you that pointing fingers and calling names won't change anything, but it doesn't matter. Lots of people have had their fill and the anti-vaxxers are a convenient, and frankly not entirely unjust, target for their rage and frustration, which pays to a key point: the rest of us, the "vaxxed and done", or whatever you want to call us, will eventually tire of allowing the lowest common denominator to set the agenda. That's not a threat: it's just a reality, just who we are. Eventually we'll tire of the yoke and throw it off.
stuckonempty 5y ago
> They have also indicated that getting vaccinated does not reduce your ability to spread the virus That is not correct. Vaccination does reduce, but does not eliminate, transmission of the virus “ We found that both the BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccines were associated with reduced onward transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from index patients who became infected despite vaccination.” https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116597 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116597
- xkbarkar 5y ago
  look at data for iceland, 92% of the adult population and spread is mainly among the double vaccinated. Triple is lower but that is expected to wear off ( if Isreal is to be beleiveied ). https://www.covid.is/data https://www.covid.is/data. No, vaccination dos not reduce spread of omicron. Not even a little. It does do a fantastic job of reducing hospitalisations among delta infected.
  - vkou 5y ago
    > look at data for iceland, 92% of the adult population and spread is mainly among the double vaccinated. If getting vaccinated reduced your odds of spreading the virus by 90%, and 92% of the population were double-vaccinated, then the majority of the spread would be... Among, and by the double-vaccinated. (8.28% vs 8%) Most people that die in car crashes are wearing seatbelts, but you'd be a fool to not wear one. Just like you'd be foolish to not get vaccinated.
    - jusssi 5y ago
      > Most people that die in car crashes are wearing seatbelts Funny enough, I just recently checked the stats for that. According to the first report I found with a simple googling, 47% of people who died in car crashes were not wearing seat belts.
      - weaksauce 5y ago
        yeah, because the number of people getting into car accidents and surviving is much, much greater with those that wear seatbelts where if you don't wear one it's a high probability it's not survivable.
nwiswell 5y ago
Some of your points have validity, but three are borderline dangerous misinformation: - The majority of those who died WITH THE VACCINE had 4+ co-morbidities. The virus is still very dangerous to the unvaccinated - The vaccine does indeed reduce your propensity to spread the virus, although it doesn't eliminate the risk. - The reason for lockdowns is not to make the virus "go away". It is to control the impact on the healthcare system. We have now surpassed the previous hospitalization record and this thing is still going exponential. You may be fully vaccinated and at low risk for a COVID related death, but if you'd like to be able to get acute treatment for appendicitis or a heart attack, we need to take steps toward a lockdown immediately. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-breaks-covid-19-hospitalization-record-omicron-surges-2022-01-10/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-breaks-covid-19-hospital...
- dnautics 5y ago
  > The virus is still very dangerous to the unvaccinated Do we know this about omicron? How dangerous is "very dangerous"? As it is with pre-omicron, CFR for COVID-19 was, pessimistically, 0.5-1%, less if you're not in an at-risk group. AFAICT we have no reliable numbers on "long covid". For the record, I am not anti-vaxx, I am vaccinated, I'm just anti-using-science-as-an-ideology.
  - clarge1120 5y ago
    Also, let’s define “very dangerous”. Every recovery chart I’ve seen shows a 98 percent or higher recovery rate: similar to a bad flu season.
  - nwiswell 5y ago
    > Do we know this about omicron? Here's the early numbers out of major cities: https://i.imgur.com/g8tyRdQ.png https://i.imgur.com/g8tyRdQ.png It's probably somewhere between 75% as serious and as serious as Delta, but we can't be sure yet. The handwaving about 0.5% - 1% is ultimately not something I can address because it is opinion. A million Americans are dead from this and more deaths are coming. Reminds me of the Stalin quote.
gbjw 5y ago
Furthermore, a lesser-talked about side-effect of extended (semi-)lockdowns and associated measures is a general reduction in the physical health of the populace. How many of us have put on a few extra pounds? This survey [1] (which, admittedly, seems to be probably skewed by sampling bias), shows that millennials put on 40+ (!?) pounds over the pandemic. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1257041/average-weight-gain-reported-by-us-adults-during-the-covid-pandemic/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1257041/average-weight-g...
ketzo 5y ago
> there is no longer a real need to vilify the unvaxxed I very, very much disagree with this. Unvaccinated people have a much higher rate of severe illness that requires hospitalization. Filling up hospitals unnecessarily kills people, and delays preventative care. People who are voluntarily unvaxxed without a medical necessity are, to be clear, 1) categorically stupid 2) responsible for the injury and death of others.
- cm2187 5y ago
  > Unvaccinated people have a much higher rate of severe illness that requires hospitalization. Filling up hospitals unnecessarily kills people, and delays preventative care. Not if they already had covid or are young and healthly. I would agree with your statement with the qualifier "unvaccinated people that are over 60 or have comorbidity".
  - ketzo 5y ago
    You are, unfortunately, incorrect, at least about the "young and healthy" part. Unvaccinated people of all ages are significantly more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than vaccinated people of the same age group [1]. 12-34 year olds are 10 times more likely to be hospitalized. Even if the absolute numbers are very low for young and healthy people – even if that's 0.01% instead of 0.001% of cases – that is an absolutely unacceptable amount of people to be putting into hospital beds when they could just get a motherfucking shot instead. [1] Page 3 of https://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Documents/1600/coronavirus/data-tables/421-010-CasesInNotFullyVaccinated.pdf https://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Documents/1600/coronavirus/... Study published 3 days ago.
    - cm2187 5y ago
      The risk of covid to healthy 12-34 is minuscule, less than the flu apparently. You can divide this risk by 10 but that will do nothing materially to the risk to this population nor to ICU usage.
      - 5y ago
bko 5y ago
I see the focus being solely on vaccines leads to a lost of mistrust in the agencies meant to protect our health. Everything is viewed through a lens of "will this cause more or less people from getting vaccinated". At every turn the agencies push vaccines and vaccines alone as the answer, ostracizing those who choose to live with a higher risk tolerance. Whether its true or not, a lot of people feel that coverage is skewed to push vaccines and anything relating to treatment or healthy lifestyles is downplayed. I too am double vaccinated an boosted, but everyone has a point at which they say enough is enough and will stop getting boosters and isolating indefinitely. For instance, take the CDC guidance on preparing for a hurricane or tropical storm: Step 1: get a covid vaccine. https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/features/hurricanepreparedness/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/features/hurricanepreparedness/inde...
bserge 5y ago
mschuster91 5y ago
> The democratic party has hung their hat on how bad covid is and how important it is to get vaccinated and to state at this point, NVM lets just get back to normal would be a loss of face. It actually still is important and advisable to keep your coronavirus vaccinations up to date. There's a reason why Israel marches ahead and begins to distribute the fourth shot in a year to the most vulnerable groups, and likely access will be expanded similarly like it was for the first three shots. FWIW, it should become a normality that people visit their general practitioner once a year, get their general fitness and blood checkup done and their missing/expired vaccinations refreshed. Our societies may very well benefit from eliminating millions of workdays lost every year to the ordinary flu [1]. [1]: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1225629/umfrage/grippebedingte-arbeitsunfaehigkeiten-in-deutschland/ https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1225629/umfra...
- bb88 5y ago
  I'm not sure why you're voted down here. A lot of good information.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    I'm advocating for a massive mandatory vaccination program, which goes against conventional liberal/libertarian standpoints - even though all of the vaccines have proven their efficiency and safety in militaries worldwide and up to now, no one has complained. We are losing a lot of wealth, a lot of life simply because politicians are afraid of anti-vaxxer propaganda and because prior generations have abused minorities for medical experiments (e.g. the Tuskegee syphilis experiment) or vaccination programs for military purposes (e.g. the Bin Laden discovery).
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
floren 5y ago
> The democratic party has hung their hat on how bad covid is and how important it is to get vaccinated and to state at this point, NVM lets just get back to normal would be a loss of face. During the recent recall attempt for Gov. Gavin Newsom, the ads supporting him essentially said, "The Republican candidate will remove the mask mandate and kill your grandma. Vote to keep Newsom, he'll keep grandma alive with mask mandates." so yeah I figure it's gonna be a while before California Democrats, at least, can support easing up on the masks.
clarge1120 5y ago
It’s time we start moving on with our lives. We’re going to figure out what it takes to live with a new disease, so we may as well do it now. The damage done to the to the general mental health due to the breakdown of personal human networks will exceed the loss of life due to infection with poor physical health. I, for one, will not go on living in fear like this.
bb88 5y ago
* People can be overweight for decades without dying. * People can be over 65 for decades without dying. * People can be cancer survivors for decades without dying. * People can have type-1, type-II diabetes for decades without dying. * People can have heart valve issues for decades without dying. * People can have COPD for decades without dying. Let's quit blaming those people who are in the high risk category dying from a clearly preventable illness.
- wonderwonder 5y ago
  Saying that someone has a comorbidity is not a judgement. Its simply a fact. The virus is here, we know it affects people with certain conditions. If we can reduce or remove that condition then it is on us to do so. I am probably 30 pounds overweight, 20 of which I put on over the last year+ with covid. I am now working out and trying to drop those 30 pounds because in the context of the virus it just makes sense to do so. Its not a moral judgement on anyone.
  - bb88 5y ago
    It's no different than saying "It's your fault for dying by being fat during a pandemic -- so we don't need vaccines."
    - wonderwonder 5y ago
      ? That is very much a stretch. This is a pandemic, not a politically correct hug fest. We all must be responsible for our own health. If I am overweight and I get covid and I die because of that co-morbidity, then I bear at least some of that responsibility. To deny our own responsibility for our physical states where it is in our control is madness. Just like if I get covid and I am unvaccinated and get a severe case that is also my fault. This is a pandemic, not a woke celebration of not hurting each others feelings. This is not a moral judgement, some people are overweight and they are more susceptible to severe cases of covid, why not do what you can to reduce that risk?
      - 5y ago
adamredwoods 5y ago
Done? I still get yearly flu shots. I'd be okay with a yearly covid booster.
jorblumesea 5y ago
> So if that is the case, there is no longer a real need to vilify the unvaxxed. This is such a bad take. Unvaxxed cause the majority of hospitalizations, deaths and complications. This is just objectively wrong that it doesn't matter that much.
- purephase 5y ago
  Agreed. It's also likely that the unvaxxed could be accounting for a greater part of the overall spread too. They tend to be sicker for longer, and given their anti-vax proclivities, will likely not wear masks and continue about their normal daily activities spreading it far and wide. The same people who are vaccinated are the same ones who will likely isolate/mask-up if they catch the disease.
jmull 5y ago
> They have also indicated that getting vaccinated does not reduce your ability to spread the virus. Think about this: spreading covid misinformation like this leads to people dying earlier than they would have otherwise died.

vkou 5y ago

> Instead of just saying that the virus has evolved and is less lethal now they have continued to double down on the vaccine mandate which I don't agree with. What makes you say with any degree of confidence that the virus is less lethal now? The data's not in yet. At this point, it's all magical thinking.

wonderwonder 5y ago
https://www.cnet.com/health/medical/all-indications-suggest-omicrons-milder-than-delta-fauci-says-but-dont-get-complacent/ https://www.cnet.com/health/medical/all-indications-suggest-...

nodamage 5y ago

> CDC has now said that the majority of those that died had 4+ co-morbidities. This is in reference to a specific study that followed 1.2M fully vaccinated individuals and found that 28 of the 36 deaths had at least 4 high-risk factors (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7101a4.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7101a4.htm). They are not referring to the unvaccinated who still have a much higher risk of hospitalization and death.

kixiQu 5y ago
And from your link I'm seeing "risk factors" included being over sixty five years old, which isn't typically fair to itself call a "co-morbidity".
nradov 5y ago
Back in 2020 when everyone was unvaccinated the CDC issued this statement: “For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death.” https://acdis.org/articles/news-94-patients-who-died-covid-19-had-complicating-conditions-data-confusion-surrounding https://acdis.org/articles/news-94-patients-who-died-covid-1... Fortunately the vaccines and other improved therapies are now pretty effective at preventing deaths even among high risk patients.
pessimizer 5y ago
Your quote is from the end of a sentence that began with someone explaining that they were triple-vaxed. Seems like the perfect study to help them make decisions. The unvaccinated are unvaccinated. They know what they're getting into (even if they deny it), and they don't believe studies anyway. Once they catch it a couple of times, they'll be as good as vaxed anyway. edit: if there's anything that should be done about the unvaccinated, it's to make sure that vaccines and tests are convenient and free. There are still plenty of people who aren't vaccinated because it's too much of a hassle.
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  > Your quote is from the end of a sentence that began with someone explaining that they were triple-vaxed. Seems like the perfect study to help them make decisions. The quote was the whole sentence. And the following sentences implied they meant everyone. The clarification was important.

srcreigh 5y ago

The only hard question is hospital triaging. Who gets treatment if there's only room for 50% or 20%? Who can even decide? Does anyone volunteer to be excluded from medical care? This affects more than just covid patients too. Any way we choose, it amounts to sacrificing XYZk people so we can go back to living a normal life. I don't think that's an exchange most people are willing to take. And yes, lockdown measures are usually in response to hospitals filling up. Check for example [0] against the timeline of lockdowns for that area. If you know any counter examples I'd like to hear about it. [0]: https://www.alberta.ca/stats/covid-19-alberta-statistics.htm?fbclid=IwAR2N14Dno27OZNFr4BRNzuJvKyvskHMzlR2mVL2KmomxuENSrNTct_cpn48#healthcare-capacity https://www.alberta.ca/stats/covid-19-alberta-statistics.htm...

jaywalk 5y ago
> As viruses can remain active on surfaces, unless you irradiate the deliveries with a UV lamp (and do it again after unboxing them, since there may be viruses on the actual item) even that would not be enough. Covid does not spread in any meaningful way via surfaces. All of the cleaning and disinfecting nonsense that is still going on is pure theatre. > Any way we choose, it amounts to sacrificing XYZk people so we can go back to living a normal life. I don't think that's an exchange most people are willing to take. It's an exchange everyone makes every single day in order for society to function.
- csdvrx 5y ago
  > Covid does not spread in any meaningful way via surfaces. All of the cleaning and disinfecting nonsense that is still going on is pure theatre. It's a reasonable precaution take, at least until we know precisely how the virus could get to the isolated Belgian Antarctic base, where everyone was isolated for weeks and tested and retested prior to being sent there.
  - jaywalk 5y ago
    It was a reasonable precaution to take in March of 2020. But enough studies have been done by now to show that it's no longer a reasonable precaution in general. We may never know how it got to that base, and even if we find out that it was via surface contamination, that doesn't invalidate everything else we know now.

elpakal 5y ago

American here, totally agree with your points and upvoted. I’m just wondering if you can provide a source for this? > They have also indicated that getting vaccinated does not reduce your ability to spread the virus

wonderwonder 5y ago
https://www.deseret.com/coronavirus/2021/12/28/22855392/fully-vaccinated-people-spread-omicron-variant-to-others-cdc https://www.deseret.com/coronavirus/2021/12/28/22855392/full... I said "does not reduce" I meant to say "does not remove". My fault.

csdvrx 5y ago

> Omicron is essentially impossible to avoid at this point short of locking yourself in a room and having everything delivered to your front door. The risks are known and its time to trust people to weigh those risks and make their own decisions. As viruses can remain active on surfaces, unless you irradiate the deliveries with a UV lamp (and do it again after unboxing them, since there may be viruses on the actual item) even that would not be enough. > Even if we locked down for 3 months, once we were released someone from another country would come in and re-infect everyone again. That's if you assume away animals, as viruses that affect mammals are rarely limited to humans (ex: chicken flu) > Also during lock down do we once again tell the poorest among us that while they are 'essential' that they are also worth less and must continue to work and face the risk alone so as to ensure the rest of us can isolate in safety at home Agreed. It's time to accept we're not immortals, viruses exist, and yes it's a shame that covid is now endemic, but it's even worse to perform lockdowns of dubious efficiency that only have one guaranteed effect: hurting the economy, and the "poorest among us".

AlexandrB 5y ago
> As viruses can remain active on surfaces, unless you irradiate the deliveries with a UV lamp (and do it again after unboxing them, since there may be viruses on the actual item) even that would not be enough. Cases of COVID-19 spreading through fomites (particles on a surface) are extremely rare[1][2] and COVID-19 has a short lifespan on cardboard[3]. Just leaving deliveries somewhere for a day is probably enough to stop transmission. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34136133/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34136133/ [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-95479-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-95479-5 [3] https://www.sciencealert.com/how-long-does-coronavirus-last-on-surfaces https://www.sciencealert.com/how-long-does-coronavirus-last-... > Similarly, on cardboard, no viable SARS-CoV-2 particles could be found after 24 hours, or SARS-CoV-1 after eight.
munificent 5y ago
> As viruses can remain active on surfaces We've long known that transmission of COVID through fomites (surfaces) is very low: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/science-and-research/surface-transmission.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/science-and-r... If this wasn't the case, grocery store protocol would have been very different during the early days of the pandemic.

maxerickson 5y ago

Vaccination makes you much less likely to get sick in the first place and probably reduces how long you are infectious if you do get sick. Neither of those things fit with 'does not reduce'.

srcreigh 5y ago
Yep, county by county in the USA, as of Sept 2021, higher %age vax populations is correlated with lower case numbers. Strangely, you can find this information in Fig 2 of this short anti-vax paper claiming the vaccine doesn't correlate with case numbers at all. I don't blame people for being confused. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10654-021-00808-7.pdf https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10654-021-008...
starik36 5y ago
> Vaccination makes you much less likely to get sick in the first place Do you have a reference for this claim? Nearly everyone I know that has caught it and has gotten sick in the past 2 weeks has been vaccinated, sometimes boostered as well. I don't think this claim is true with Omicron. Vaccination makes you less likely to end up on a ventilator.
- majormajor 5y ago
  I have seen much discussion of vaccines being less effective at preventing infection with omicron but no indication of them being 0% effective. Of course, it will probably be at least a few more weeks before we have good overall data on this (e.g. December/January case rates among vaccinated vs unvaccinated). And in a big storm, even everyone being 25% less likely to get infected impacts rate of transmission, which is the big one for resource constraints and such.
  - starik36 5y ago
    > no indication of them being 0% effective But there is no data to indicate that it's >0% effective either. So until we have data to back things up one way or the other, talking about it just creates more science disinformation.

nopenopenopeno 5y ago

The CDC is a bought voice of the corporate ruling class whose only interest at this point is getting working people back to work, with the exception of the pharmaceutical companies who want people to get vaccines. This is why the government has no consistent position on anything.

clarge1120 5y ago
I get your point as a summary judgment, but it lacks evidence, not veracity. The CDC has multiple entities, some of which are non-governmental, and supported by business interests. Some would say that a little yeast spreads throughout the loaf.

majormajor 5y ago

If we want to get rid of vaccine mandates I think the give and take has to go both ways. For instance: https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/statement-on-patient-prioritization-for-outpatient-therapies/ https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/sta... : "Unvaccinated individuals at the highest risk of severe disease (anyone aged ≥75 years or anyone aged ≥65 years with additional risk factors)." in Tier 1 for priority usage of new, hard-to-get treatment. Those who don't want to get vaccinated should take personal responsibility for that, not expect society to take as much care of them when they're choosing not to help take care of society (even in terms of "reducing burden on healthcare system by getting a likely-less-severe case", even if transmissibility isn't affected as much).

vkou 5y ago
This sounds like a wonderful idea. Drop the vaccine mandates, and drop the mandates to treat the unvaccinated. If people don't want treatments that work, they should be free to explore the full space of treatments that don't. If you have ethical qualms about this, I'd like to point out that ethics go both ways. It's unconscionable to take a hospital bed away from someone who needs it, because you refuse to take your medicine, with predictable consequences.
- peterangular 5y ago
  You can't expect those who are unvaccinated taking up beds (potentially or not) to think about ethics. For a good part of our country it's a race to the bottom of "I got mine, f u" and those folks seem largely represented in the group that's currently stressing our hospitals. I do agree however. And, I think it's an ethically defensible position to not treat people who refuse to get vaccinated... even though it will never happen.
  - danenania 5y ago
    If you open that door, should treatment also be denied to smokers, motorcycle riders, obese people, uninsured people, etc., etc.? It's about as slippery as a slope can get.

nradov 5y ago

I encourage everyone eligible to protect themselves by getting vaccinated but vilifying people who make unhealthy choices is never an effective public health measure. We should have learned that from the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

bartread 5y ago
You can't compare HIV/AIDS to COVID in this simplistic way, including the attitudes and public debate around them, and this comment is dangerously close to some sort of public health version of a Godwin's Law violation. What I remember about HIV in the early 80s was that fear of it fueled a lot of homophobia from those who were ignorant about the disease, certainly to begin with. In fact I remember it originally being seen as a disease that only infected homosexuals and drug addicts - and those being the people who were vilified - which proved to be a fatally uninformed point of view for some. But HIV is, fundamentally, a very different pathogen to COVID. In the 80s HIV was a death sentence: if you were infected with HIV, sooner or later it would develop into AIDS and you would die. However, a relatively small proportion of the population was infected, and it wasn't very transmissible (you had to have sex or other transfer of body fluids, such as a blood transfusion). Nowadays, HIV treatments have improved to the extent that in developed countries most people receiving treatment can expect to lead a fairly normal and full life, and to live a normal lifetime (ignoring other causes of death that might intervene). I'm not sure what the story is in less developed countries, but I imagine it's not as encouraging. COVID has never close to that deadly, but is far more transmissible. It's that high transmission rate that has seen so many people die, even though these represent a small fraction of those infected. And this time, nobody is being vilified for their sexual preference, or their gender identity, or any other characteristic that is fundamental to who they are and over which they may not have had much if any agency. You might argue that drug addicts have agency but they don't have very much once they're hooked. No, with COVID, people are being vilified for wilful ignorance, which is a choice: a conscious decision, and one that - in this case - has a substantial negative impact on their surrounding community and the world at large. I can't tell you how effective, or not, that vilification is, but I can tell you that a lot of people - myself included - who are fully vaxxed, boosted, and will gladly accept further vaccinations (and would also welcome effective treatments for those who are sick), are getting enormously fed up of having restrictions placed on our lives which, to a non-trivial extent, are being propagated as a result of people who are spreading misinformation and choosing not to get vaccinated. I'm not old - somewhere in the middle - but the remaining count of the best years of my life is finite and even in the best possible case very limited, so I'm getting sick to death of people telling me what I can and can't do with them. I even agree with you that pointing fingers and calling names won't change anything, but it doesn't matter. Lots of people have had their fill and the anti-vaxxers are a convenient, and frankly not entirely unjust, target for their rage and frustration, which pays to a key point: the rest of us, the "vaxxed and done", or whatever you want to call us, will eventually tire of allowing the lowest common denominator to set the agenda. That's not a threat: it's just a reality, just who we are. Eventually we'll tire of the yoke and throw it off.

stuckonempty 5y ago

> They have also indicated that getting vaccinated does not reduce your ability to spread the virus That is not correct. Vaccination does reduce, but does not eliminate, transmission of the virus “ We found that both the BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccines were associated with reduced onward transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from index patients who became infected despite vaccination.” https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116597 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116597

xkbarkar 5y ago
look at data for iceland, 92% of the adult population and spread is mainly among the double vaccinated. Triple is lower but that is expected to wear off ( if Isreal is to be beleiveied ). https://www.covid.is/data https://www.covid.is/data. No, vaccination dos not reduce spread of omicron. Not even a little. It does do a fantastic job of reducing hospitalisations among delta infected.
- vkou 5y ago
  > look at data for iceland, 92% of the adult population and spread is mainly among the double vaccinated. If getting vaccinated reduced your odds of spreading the virus by 90%, and 92% of the population were double-vaccinated, then the majority of the spread would be... Among, and by the double-vaccinated. (8.28% vs 8%) Most people that die in car crashes are wearing seatbelts, but you'd be a fool to not wear one. Just like you'd be foolish to not get vaccinated.
  - jusssi 5y ago
    > Most people that die in car crashes are wearing seatbelts Funny enough, I just recently checked the stats for that. According to the first report I found with a simple googling, 47% of people who died in car crashes were not wearing seat belts.
    - weaksauce 5y ago
      yeah, because the number of people getting into car accidents and surviving is much, much greater with those that wear seatbelts where if you don't wear one it's a high probability it's not survivable.

nwiswell 5y ago

Some of your points have validity, but three are borderline dangerous misinformation: - The majority of those who died WITH THE VACCINE had 4+ co-morbidities. The virus is still very dangerous to the unvaccinated - The vaccine does indeed reduce your propensity to spread the virus, although it doesn't eliminate the risk. - The reason for lockdowns is not to make the virus "go away". It is to control the impact on the healthcare system. We have now surpassed the previous hospitalization record and this thing is still going exponential. You may be fully vaccinated and at low risk for a COVID related death, but if you'd like to be able to get acute treatment for appendicitis or a heart attack, we need to take steps toward a lockdown immediately. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-breaks-covid-19-hospitalization-record-omicron-surges-2022-01-10/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-breaks-covid-19-hospital...

dnautics 5y ago
> The virus is still very dangerous to the unvaccinated Do we know this about omicron? How dangerous is "very dangerous"? As it is with pre-omicron, CFR for COVID-19 was, pessimistically, 0.5-1%, less if you're not in an at-risk group. AFAICT we have no reliable numbers on "long covid". For the record, I am not anti-vaxx, I am vaccinated, I'm just anti-using-science-as-an-ideology.
- clarge1120 5y ago
  Also, let’s define “very dangerous”. Every recovery chart I’ve seen shows a 98 percent or higher recovery rate: similar to a bad flu season.
- nwiswell 5y ago
  > Do we know this about omicron? Here's the early numbers out of major cities: https://i.imgur.com/g8tyRdQ.png https://i.imgur.com/g8tyRdQ.png It's probably somewhere between 75% as serious and as serious as Delta, but we can't be sure yet. The handwaving about 0.5% - 1% is ultimately not something I can address because it is opinion. A million Americans are dead from this and more deaths are coming. Reminds me of the Stalin quote.

gbjw 5y ago

Furthermore, a lesser-talked about side-effect of extended (semi-)lockdowns and associated measures is a general reduction in the physical health of the populace. How many of us have put on a few extra pounds? This survey [1] (which, admittedly, seems to be probably skewed by sampling bias), shows that millennials put on 40+ (!?) pounds over the pandemic. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1257041/average-weight-gain-reported-by-us-adults-during-the-covid-pandemic/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1257041/average-weight-g...

ketzo 5y ago

> there is no longer a real need to vilify the unvaxxed I very, very much disagree with this. Unvaccinated people have a much higher rate of severe illness that requires hospitalization. Filling up hospitals unnecessarily kills people, and delays preventative care. People who are voluntarily unvaxxed without a medical necessity are, to be clear, 1) categorically stupid 2) responsible for the injury and death of others.

cm2187 5y ago
> Unvaccinated people have a much higher rate of severe illness that requires hospitalization. Filling up hospitals unnecessarily kills people, and delays preventative care. Not if they already had covid or are young and healthly. I would agree with your statement with the qualifier "unvaccinated people that are over 60 or have comorbidity".
- ketzo 5y ago
  You are, unfortunately, incorrect, at least about the "young and healthy" part. Unvaccinated people of all ages are significantly more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than vaccinated people of the same age group [1]. 12-34 year olds are 10 times more likely to be hospitalized. Even if the absolute numbers are very low for young and healthy people – even if that's 0.01% instead of 0.001% of cases – that is an absolutely unacceptable amount of people to be putting into hospital beds when they could just get a motherfucking shot instead. [1] Page 3 of https://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Documents/1600/coronavirus/data-tables/421-010-CasesInNotFullyVaccinated.pdf https://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Documents/1600/coronavirus/... Study published 3 days ago.
  - cm2187 5y ago
    The risk of covid to healthy 12-34 is minuscule, less than the flu apparently. You can divide this risk by 10 but that will do nothing materially to the risk to this population nor to ICU usage.
    - 5y ago

bko 5y ago

I see the focus being solely on vaccines leads to a lost of mistrust in the agencies meant to protect our health. Everything is viewed through a lens of "will this cause more or less people from getting vaccinated". At every turn the agencies push vaccines and vaccines alone as the answer, ostracizing those who choose to live with a higher risk tolerance. Whether its true or not, a lot of people feel that coverage is skewed to push vaccines and anything relating to treatment or healthy lifestyles is downplayed. I too am double vaccinated an boosted, but everyone has a point at which they say enough is enough and will stop getting boosters and isolating indefinitely. For instance, take the CDC guidance on preparing for a hurricane or tropical storm: Step 1: get a covid vaccine. https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/features/hurricanepreparedness/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/features/hurricanepreparedness/inde...

bserge 5y ago

mschuster91 5y ago

> The democratic party has hung their hat on how bad covid is and how important it is to get vaccinated and to state at this point, NVM lets just get back to normal would be a loss of face. It actually still is important and advisable to keep your coronavirus vaccinations up to date. There's a reason why Israel marches ahead and begins to distribute the fourth shot in a year to the most vulnerable groups, and likely access will be expanded similarly like it was for the first three shots. FWIW, it should become a normality that people visit their general practitioner once a year, get their general fitness and blood checkup done and their missing/expired vaccinations refreshed. Our societies may very well benefit from eliminating millions of workdays lost every year to the ordinary flu [1]. [1]: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1225629/umfrage/grippebedingte-arbeitsunfaehigkeiten-in-deutschland/ https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1225629/umfra...

bb88 5y ago
I'm not sure why you're voted down here. A lot of good information.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  I'm advocating for a massive mandatory vaccination program, which goes against conventional liberal/libertarian standpoints - even though all of the vaccines have proven their efficiency and safety in militaries worldwide and up to now, no one has complained. We are losing a lot of wealth, a lot of life simply because politicians are afraid of anti-vaxxer propaganda and because prior generations have abused minorities for medical experiments (e.g. the Tuskegee syphilis experiment) or vaccination programs for military purposes (e.g. the Bin Laden discovery).

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

floren 5y ago

> The democratic party has hung their hat on how bad covid is and how important it is to get vaccinated and to state at this point, NVM lets just get back to normal would be a loss of face. During the recent recall attempt for Gov. Gavin Newsom, the ads supporting him essentially said, "The Republican candidate will remove the mask mandate and kill your grandma. Vote to keep Newsom, he'll keep grandma alive with mask mandates." so yeah I figure it's gonna be a while before California Democrats, at least, can support easing up on the masks.

clarge1120 5y ago

It’s time we start moving on with our lives. We’re going to figure out what it takes to live with a new disease, so we may as well do it now. The damage done to the to the general mental health due to the breakdown of personal human networks will exceed the loss of life due to infection with poor physical health. I, for one, will not go on living in fear like this.

bb88 5y ago

* People can be overweight for decades without dying. * People can be over 65 for decades without dying. * People can be cancer survivors for decades without dying. * People can have type-1, type-II diabetes for decades without dying. * People can have heart valve issues for decades without dying. * People can have COPD for decades without dying. Let's quit blaming those people who are in the high risk category dying from a clearly preventable illness.

wonderwonder 5y ago
Saying that someone has a comorbidity is not a judgement. Its simply a fact. The virus is here, we know it affects people with certain conditions. If we can reduce or remove that condition then it is on us to do so. I am probably 30 pounds overweight, 20 of which I put on over the last year+ with covid. I am now working out and trying to drop those 30 pounds because in the context of the virus it just makes sense to do so. Its not a moral judgement on anyone.
- bb88 5y ago
  It's no different than saying "It's your fault for dying by being fat during a pandemic -- so we don't need vaccines."
  - wonderwonder 5y ago
    ? That is very much a stretch. This is a pandemic, not a politically correct hug fest. We all must be responsible for our own health. If I am overweight and I get covid and I die because of that co-morbidity, then I bear at least some of that responsibility. To deny our own responsibility for our physical states where it is in our control is madness. Just like if I get covid and I am unvaccinated and get a severe case that is also my fault. This is a pandemic, not a woke celebration of not hurting each others feelings. This is not a moral judgement, some people are overweight and they are more susceptible to severe cases of covid, why not do what you can to reduce that risk?
    - 5y ago

adamredwoods 5y ago

Done? I still get yearly flu shots. I'd be okay with a yearly covid booster.

jorblumesea 5y ago

> So if that is the case, there is no longer a real need to vilify the unvaxxed. This is such a bad take. Unvaxxed cause the majority of hospitalizations, deaths and complications. This is just objectively wrong that it doesn't matter that much.

purephase 5y ago
Agreed. It's also likely that the unvaxxed could be accounting for a greater part of the overall spread too. They tend to be sicker for longer, and given their anti-vax proclivities, will likely not wear masks and continue about their normal daily activities spreading it far and wide. The same people who are vaccinated are the same ones who will likely isolate/mask-up if they catch the disease.

jmull 5y ago

> They have also indicated that getting vaccinated does not reduce your ability to spread the virus. Think about this: spreading covid misinformation like this leads to people dying earlier than they would have otherwise died.