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1) The article consistently minimizes vaccine benefits. The study it points to shows that vaccination reduces spread by 40%. It’s a small study with n’s of <40
by thawaya3113 5y ago
1) The article consistently minimizes vaccine benefits.
The study it points to shows that vaccination reduces spread by 40%. It’s a small study with n’s of <40 people, but 40% is a significant reduction in transmission.
Beyond that it tries to somehow ignore the massive benefits in reducing the risk of hospitalization (therefore ignores the fact that even when the vaccinated spread the virus, they are likely to in lower intensity), by claiming that a bad flu year has 50-70k hospitalized Americans. Which is true, and just goes to show how much worse the impact of COVID is on hospitalization when the hospitalization winter peaks have been 140k and 160k, more than double the worst flu season in the US. And no, 12% of the staff not being available (largely because they are burnt out because of COVID) is not even a part of the reason that hospitalization is so much of a problem when hospitalization is 100% greater than the worst flu year.
2) The article does not provide strong studies showing the benefits of reinfections. Other than a letter to the editor, the data ends pre-Omicron, but more importantly, covers a period which is well within the 6-9 month period of the last 2 surges where immunity from both vaccines and infection is considered strong. There is research showing that immunity due to infection does, in fact, reduce dramatically after 6-9 months. It may take some time for the effects of Omicron to be isolated, but either way, at best it shows that variants are able to evade immunity by infection.
3) Finally, they don’t actually provide any downsides to the vaccine mandates. And there are no novel civil liberty based defenses one can hide behind because vaccine mandates already exist for many vaccines. At least in the US, courts have ruled in favor of mandatory vaccinations even over religious objections.
Arguably the likes of Jenny McCarthy, who have been anti vaxxers well before COVID-19 existed can take a principled stance against vaccine mandates, but it’s very difficult for others to do so considering they’ve been accepting them for so long with nary a word against them.
Consequently, an argument against a strong vaccine mandate must test on a cost benefit analysis, and it’s hard to argue against the mandate on a cost benefit analysis, and I don’t see how pointing out a bunch of benefits, without showing any costs (to those who don’t have medical exemptions, who presumably would be exempt from any version of a vaccine mandate) leads to a conclusion against mandates.
- dekhn 5y agoWhy are you saying such reasonable and intelligent things using a throwaway account? I've concluded mandates are useless because they got weaponized- the harder you try to push for vaccines, the harder the people who associated with antivax will push. I'm curious what outcomes would have been different if we'd reached, say, 99.99% vax in the US.
- grujicd 5y agoWe don't have to imagine, we already have an example of fully vaccinated population. Gibraltar: - vaccination: two doses >99%, boosted: 85% - cases: 145 (7 day avg) Gibraltar population is 33k. This is pretty good example that vaccines can't stop the spread. With examples from other highly vaccinated countries (e.g. Portugal, Australia), it doesn't look it's a path to end covid. You should get vaccinated to improve your own chances, but taking it to protect others doesn't really work. > the harder the people who associated with antivax will push. Does your definition of antivax include people who are vaccinated but oppose mandates? Because I would fit that definition and don't consider myself antivax since I do recommend vaccination to people who didn't get it yet. With small difference that I don't want to force them. And one last question for those who propose mandates. When will mandates end? What happens after 6 months when you're no longer considered vaccinated? Do you subscribe to mandatory vaccination indefinitely?
- empthought 5y agohttps://twitter.com/GibraltarGov/status/1488531136506646544 https://twitter.com/GibraltarGov/status/1488531136506646544 There are 119 new positive cases in Gibraltar today. 71 are vaccinated and 48 are unvaccinated. If vaccines didn't prevent transmission, one would expect that second number to be 10 or less given the base rate of vaccination.
- grujicd 5y agoThe fact that covid managed to get to unvaccinated >1% population suggest that at least some of vax population are carriers, probably asymptomatic. It would be quite hard for these 1% to get infected otherwise. All I sad that vaccines can't stop the spread and it still looks like that. I didn't say they don't reduce it or that they're not beneficial otherwise. Personal anecdote time: I got covid from person who was fully vaccinated 2 months before and didn't have any symptoms. Btw. since this was second time for me, plus with vaccines in the mean time, it was like a very mild cold, one day of temperature and some coughing afterwards. Hm, numbers I'm googling for Gibraltar don't really add up - population 2021: 35.120, fully vaccinated: 40.722. One explanation would be that there are non-rezidents who are working there and got vaxed, while not counted as population.
- empthought 5y agoIn the US, vaccine mandates are usually employer or educational preconditions. They've never checked them upon entry to businesses as a customer before. It seems like one can argue for the former without arguing for the latter, but in the current crisis both sides of this debate are conflating the two.