4 ms·

Europe's loud, rule-breaking unvaccinated minority are falling out of society

5 points by kungfudoi 5y ago

ipspam 5y ago
- nojokes 5y ago
  There are easier ways to say that I am not as smart I think I am. No need to use 1000 words for that.
- moistly 5y ago
  Do you not wonder about the severe lockdowns in China? Last I heard it was three cities totalling twenty-some million people. The ruling party is risking a lot, IMO. Xian’s population (14M) is is particularly upset. Angry, too. Apparently the CCP thinks covid is a major risk. Thinks that pissing off tens of millions of middle-class citizens is the better choice. What do you make of the CCP’s take on covid?
  - ipspam 5y ago
    The Olympics are on the line. It's Beijing's 1936 moment, and they aren't going to screw it up, if they can help it. Will be an impressive totalitarian success of they can keep Omicron it for the Olympics.
    - moistly 5y ago
      That’s the reason China’s media keeps giving us: it’s for the olympics. Seems like a heck of a stretch to me. China has already hosted an olympics. They’ve had their 1936 moment. And for the past twenty months everyone has understood that the 2022 games would not be the usual circus. The events are being held in other cities and will be attended only by a select few ultra-privileged CCP supporters and foreign dignitaries (see story below) … common foreigners are banned, the general citizenry is banned, no one in Xi’an was ever getting near the olympics. Beijing’s excuse for lockdown is BS. The CCP is scared shitless of this virus. https://www.si.com/olympics/2022/01/17/beijing-winter-olympics-2022-tickets-limited-covid-19 https://www.si.com/olympics/2022/01/17/beijing-winter-olympi... I have to say I’m surprised you subscribe to the CCP’s framing of their lockdowns.
      - ipspam 5y ago
        I've made no comment about the morality, legality, or other stick with which to measure. This is simply a dick wagging contest, and the better China does, the more the western elites will be envious of China's ability to exert total control on its population. I don't think this is a good thing. It's just how I see it as it happens. The obvious answer is to buy local, buy once (quality), and make a small effort to keep a list of bad companies to not support. Whether that list is just China companies, leftist companies, DEI companies, or just companies that play politics, you have more power than you know. Losing 4% of sales is a big deal, especially if that money is going to more worthy companies.
  - a0-prw 5y ago
    Hard-core, zero covid countries such as China have made a serious mistake. (note: I am not anti-China). Omicron is very infectious. It moves incredibly quickly. Almost my entire workplace (a school in Denmark) has had it, including me. I'm unvaxxed 55 yrs old, everyone else is vaxxed. It was like a moderately unpleasant cold. The guy who's renovating my gf's takeaway had it: he's 70 and has cancer. He didn't even break stride. What do these countries think they're going to do when covid is an endemic, seasonal cold in the rest of the world? Are they going to keep their borders closed forever? The whole thing is ridiculous.
  - dirtyid 5y ago
    > ruling party is risking a lot, IMO The alternative is catastrophically worse. Even conservative estimates of PRC adopting western strategies of vax and opening has 6-7 figure deaths due to quickly overwhelmed medical system that's underdeveloped relative to west. This was pre-Omicron and assumes high mRNA vaccine penetration, which has utterly failed at preventing spread / breakthrough infections with omicron. It is looking like "superior" mRNA is as useless as traditional vaccines at preventing spread and comparable in preventing death, assuming developing literature that traditional Chinese vaccines has robust T-cell response for preventing severe cases. Which makes covid-0 the far superior choice for PRC, if it can be maintained. Simply no amount of vaccination will avert massive deaths in country of 1.4B that skews old and has marginal medical resources. Presently there's no better option than covid-0. Harsh lockdowns sucks for those going through it, but flip side is propaganda from overseas Chinese diaspora relaying the circus of western responses that's essentially resigning to herd immunity despite promise of mRNA magic of ending the pandemic. Omicron has completely vindicated PRC zero-covid strategy. Again, if it can be maintained. Of course long term, herd immune countries can return to normal sooner. The path is harder for PRC. Who knows what the end game is, I think maybe hold out for hope that even milder variants will evolve and open up for herd immunity then. Either way, dodging original and delta strand was worth it considering lockdowns only ever affected a small fraction of the population after initial country wide quarantine effort. Even now most of PRC is relatively open.
    - ipspam 5y ago
      You forgot the rule that all covid modelling is complete BS because it ignores personal agency and ascribes all rates of change to government action. It also is one of the only academic studies that has a built in, purposeful, skewing of all data to make it look much worse than it is. (Prepare for the worse, hope for the best). Modeling is broken because it doesn't even try to predict the future, its sole purpose is to influence the future. And that works well for them. Overpredict, change behaviours, claim it was the predictions and actions that changed behaviours and made the model wrong, not the fact that the model was just dead wrong to begin with, and on purpose. Look no further than every single failed prediction by Imperial college london and Niell Ferguson.
grappler 5y ago
I feel we're jumping the gun a bit by ostracizing antivaxxers when current vaccines don't don't do a whole lot to prevent spread. Vaccine benefits are mostly personal to the recipient, by significantly lowering risk of hospitalization. With the breakthrough infections observed with Omicron, the justification to enforce vaccination mandates is weaker still. I know there's work underway to develop new improved vaccines, targeted at more recent variants like delta and omicron. I'm hoping new vaccines will also be demonstrated to significantly lower risk of spreading. Then, I'll feel I can confidently defend measures taken to isolate people who refuse those improved vaccines for the safety of everyone else.
- mbg721 5y ago
  It doesn't matter, if it's a foot on the wedge in the doorway of the "Being unhealthy costs us all as a society, so we need to have universal monitoring of your daily life for the public good" argument. Never mind if that thing being measured is adherence to a flawed food-pyramid or ineffective vaccines or whatever; compliance is king.
- moistly 5y ago
  > current vaccines don't don't do a whole lot to prevent spread But do a hell of a lot to keep people out of the hospital. > Vaccine benefits are mostly personal to the recipient Everyone benefits. Ultimately we all pay for healthcare. We are all kicking into the kitty to fund emergency healthcare. Your taxes and insurance payments are used in part to cover hospital costs for others. Everyone in our society helps cover ICU costs for the unfortunate few, so that should we ever be so unfortunate, we’ll have coverage, too. The unvaccinated are costing an outrageous amount. Won’t even bring up long covid, brain rot, time off work, disease spread. The unvaccinated want all the benefits of society, without paying all the dues. I don’t think we can afford that. It will break the healthcare systems.
  - grappler 5y ago
    I agree with all that, but the argument for "you can't come into the <public place> unvaccinated" will be a lot stronger when it can be followed by a simple "due to a significant risk you'll infect people".

5 points by kungfudoi 5y ago

nojokes 5y ago
There are easier ways to say that I am not as smart I think I am. No need to use 1000 words for that.
moistly 5y ago
Do you not wonder about the severe lockdowns in China? Last I heard it was three cities totalling twenty-some million people. The ruling party is risking a lot, IMO. Xian’s population (14M) is is particularly upset. Angry, too. Apparently the CCP thinks covid is a major risk. Thinks that pissing off tens of millions of middle-class citizens is the better choice. What do you make of the CCP’s take on covid?
- ipspam 5y ago
  The Olympics are on the line. It's Beijing's 1936 moment, and they aren't going to screw it up, if they can help it. Will be an impressive totalitarian success of they can keep Omicron it for the Olympics.
  - moistly 5y ago
    That’s the reason China’s media keeps giving us: it’s for the olympics. Seems like a heck of a stretch to me. China has already hosted an olympics. They’ve had their 1936 moment. And for the past twenty months everyone has understood that the 2022 games would not be the usual circus. The events are being held in other cities and will be attended only by a select few ultra-privileged CCP supporters and foreign dignitaries (see story below) … common foreigners are banned, the general citizenry is banned, no one in Xi’an was ever getting near the olympics. Beijing’s excuse for lockdown is BS. The CCP is scared shitless of this virus. https://www.si.com/olympics/2022/01/17/beijing-winter-olympics-2022-tickets-limited-covid-19 https://www.si.com/olympics/2022/01/17/beijing-winter-olympi... I have to say I’m surprised you subscribe to the CCP’s framing of their lockdowns.
    - ipspam 5y ago
      I've made no comment about the morality, legality, or other stick with which to measure. This is simply a dick wagging contest, and the better China does, the more the western elites will be envious of China's ability to exert total control on its population. I don't think this is a good thing. It's just how I see it as it happens. The obvious answer is to buy local, buy once (quality), and make a small effort to keep a list of bad companies to not support. Whether that list is just China companies, leftist companies, DEI companies, or just companies that play politics, you have more power than you know. Losing 4% of sales is a big deal, especially if that money is going to more worthy companies.
- a0-prw 5y ago
  Hard-core, zero covid countries such as China have made a serious mistake. (note: I am not anti-China). Omicron is very infectious. It moves incredibly quickly. Almost my entire workplace (a school in Denmark) has had it, including me. I'm unvaxxed 55 yrs old, everyone else is vaxxed. It was like a moderately unpleasant cold. The guy who's renovating my gf's takeaway had it: he's 70 and has cancer. He didn't even break stride. What do these countries think they're going to do when covid is an endemic, seasonal cold in the rest of the world? Are they going to keep their borders closed forever? The whole thing is ridiculous.
- dirtyid 5y ago
  > ruling party is risking a lot, IMO The alternative is catastrophically worse. Even conservative estimates of PRC adopting western strategies of vax and opening has 6-7 figure deaths due to quickly overwhelmed medical system that's underdeveloped relative to west. This was pre-Omicron and assumes high mRNA vaccine penetration, which has utterly failed at preventing spread / breakthrough infections with omicron. It is looking like "superior" mRNA is as useless as traditional vaccines at preventing spread and comparable in preventing death, assuming developing literature that traditional Chinese vaccines has robust T-cell response for preventing severe cases. Which makes covid-0 the far superior choice for PRC, if it can be maintained. Simply no amount of vaccination will avert massive deaths in country of 1.4B that skews old and has marginal medical resources. Presently there's no better option than covid-0. Harsh lockdowns sucks for those going through it, but flip side is propaganda from overseas Chinese diaspora relaying the circus of western responses that's essentially resigning to herd immunity despite promise of mRNA magic of ending the pandemic. Omicron has completely vindicated PRC zero-covid strategy. Again, if it can be maintained. Of course long term, herd immune countries can return to normal sooner. The path is harder for PRC. Who knows what the end game is, I think maybe hold out for hope that even milder variants will evolve and open up for herd immunity then. Either way, dodging original and delta strand was worth it considering lockdowns only ever affected a small fraction of the population after initial country wide quarantine effort. Even now most of PRC is relatively open.
  - ipspam 5y ago
    You forgot the rule that all covid modelling is complete BS because it ignores personal agency and ascribes all rates of change to government action. It also is one of the only academic studies that has a built in, purposeful, skewing of all data to make it look much worse than it is. (Prepare for the worse, hope for the best). Modeling is broken because it doesn't even try to predict the future, its sole purpose is to influence the future. And that works well for them. Overpredict, change behaviours, claim it was the predictions and actions that changed behaviours and made the model wrong, not the fact that the model was just dead wrong to begin with, and on purpose. Look no further than every single failed prediction by Imperial college london and Niell Ferguson.

I feel we're jumping the gun a bit by ostracizing antivaxxers when current vaccines don't don't do a whole lot to prevent spread. Vaccine benefits are mostly personal to the recipient, by significantly lowering risk of hospitalization. With the breakthrough infections observed with Omicron, the justification to enforce vaccination mandates is weaker still. I know there's work underway to develop new improved vaccines, targeted at more recent variants like delta and omicron. I'm hoping new vaccines will also be demonstrated to significantly lower risk of spreading. Then, I'll feel I can confidently defend measures taken to isolate people who refuse those improved vaccines for the safety of everyone else.

mbg721 5y ago
It doesn't matter, if it's a foot on the wedge in the doorway of the "Being unhealthy costs us all as a society, so we need to have universal monitoring of your daily life for the public good" argument. Never mind if that thing being measured is adherence to a flawed food-pyramid or ineffective vaccines or whatever; compliance is king.
moistly 5y ago
> current vaccines don't don't do a whole lot to prevent spread But do a hell of a lot to keep people out of the hospital. > Vaccine benefits are mostly personal to the recipient Everyone benefits. Ultimately we all pay for healthcare. We are all kicking into the kitty to fund emergency healthcare. Your taxes and insurance payments are used in part to cover hospital costs for others. Everyone in our society helps cover ICU costs for the unfortunate few, so that should we ever be so unfortunate, we’ll have coverage, too. The unvaccinated are costing an outrageous amount. Won’t even bring up long covid, brain rot, time off work, disease spread. The unvaccinated want all the benefits of society, without paying all the dues. I don’t think we can afford that. It will break the healthcare systems.
- grappler 5y ago
  I agree with all that, but the argument for "you can't come into the <public place> unvaccinated" will be a lot stronger when it can be followed by a simple "due to a significant risk you'll infect people".