6 ms·

Putting aside many of the substantial problems with analyzing data in this field, along with not covering key issues in the overall risk-management decision suc

Putting aside many of the substantial problems with analyzing data in this field, along with not covering key issues in the overall risk-management decision such as weighing the known/unknown short/long term risks from the vaccines themselves balanced against Covid, I'd like to say that this section from the summary caught my eye. > The immunity conferred by past infection should be weighed alongside protection from vaccination when assessing future disease burden from COVID-19, providing guidance on when individuals should be vaccinated, and designing policies that mandate vaccination for workers or restrict access, on the basis of immune status, to settings where the risk of transmission is high, such as travel and high-occupancy indoor settings. Note that the summary posits "when individuals should be vaccinated" not "if", as a base assumption and leaves no room for individual choice and risk-management decisions. Ditto on "designing policies that mandate vaccination". To me, the way some of these things are worded displays a starting bias and lack of credibility.

cempaka 3y ago
A certain subset of the population which supported mandates, a now obviously failed and unjustifiable policy which caused immense harm, are going to soldier on as though that was always the right thing to do, rather than deal with the cognitive dissonance involved.
- RhodesianHunter 3y ago
  This is easy to say in hindsight. You would be singing a far different tune had the initial numbers turned out to be worse, or had one of the mutations led to far more severe risk. When dealing with the unknown at "global pandemic" scale, it seems better to be safe than sorry, given that you're potentially juggling millions of lives.
  - logicalmonster 3y ago
    > it seems better to be safe than sorry All other things being equal, it is better to be safe than sorry. But that's not the choice offered. One thing that you never needed the benefit of hindsight to understand is that there's a non-trivial risk to the vaccines as well. This always exists. For instance, it took science years to understand the full impact of Thalidomide. In the small chance that these injections end up having substantial long-term problems with something like cancer or fertility, a universally applied treatment could be the destruction of humanity. Trying to compel universal injections was always a foolish risk-management decision.
  - throwawayfear 3y ago
    Where do you draw the line? Did you see how Australia was dealing with it? They stopped being a democracy once their politicians got a taste of the immense and inordinate new powers to control the average person. This happened in the United States to a lesser extent too, with hall monitors enjoying new unwarranted authority over people's bodies and livelihood even when evidence like from this latest study was already known. Anybody who questioned the narrative or warned about the direction was treated like a pariah.
    - trog 3y ago
      So weird, I live in Australia and everywhere I look we continue to have democracy, just all over the place. (And, I'd argue, more freedom than the average American citizen in many areas, most notably healthcare.)
      - aakresearch 3y ago
        In my corner of Australia healthcare is effectively closed to me, as GPs around here demand wearing masks and allow no exemptions. I guess that's democracy in action. No mask - no rights, as per majority decision. One of the biggest regrets is letting my US GC "win" to lapse a few years ago. Oh well, it all went down the toilet over there just the same, isn't it?
        trog 3y ago
        > In my corner of Australia healthcare is effectively closed to me, as GPs around here demand wearing masks and allow no exemptions. I guess that's democracy in action. No mask - no rights, as per majority decision. This is like whining that the pub requires shirt and shoes but more bizarre. It has nothing to do with 'democracy'; in QLD at least GPs have no requirement for mask wearing so it's just up to the good old "free market" where businesses can set their own rules. Complaining that a GP requires basic healthcare precautions is truly bizarre to me.
        cempaka 3y ago
  - cempaka 3y ago
    "If this set of facts had been slightly different, then your take on firing people and excluding them from public venues for refusing to agree to an unproven and experimental medical procedure might be different." I mean, not really? Some things in life are more important than assiduously avoiding death by a respiratory infection.
- moribvndvs 3y ago
  > obviously failed and unjustifiable policy which caused immense harm Citations needed.
  - clemailacct1 3y ago
    I think the burden of research and citations can also be put back onto you as well. You can fully research this information yourself - it’s trivial.
    - moribvndvs 3y ago
      Sorry, that’s not how this works. Burden of proof is not new, nor is it complicated. Thus: > what may be asserted without evidence may be dismissed without evidence. It’s trivial to find sweeping and unsubstantiated opinions. It’s trivial to find arguments on both[1] sides[2]. Why should I trust either? Either way, what evidence trivially and unquestionably supports “immense harm”? This argument has been going in circles for 2+ years, it’s not like I haven’t seen more rigorously defended and less hyperbolic opinions before. That stuff, I’ll consider. What you and OP are doing is just noise. [1] https://www.heritage.org/public-health/commentary/the-failing-case-covid-19-mandates https://www.heritage.org/public-health/commentary/the-failin... [2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vaccine-mandates-are-lawful-effective-and-based-on-rock-solid-science/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vaccine-mandates-...
      - cempaka 3y ago
        It's not clear, do you believe that firing people from their jobs did not cause them great harm, or do you just believe that that harm was justified?
        pritambaral 3y ago
        > It's not clear, do you believe that firing people from their jobs did not cause them great harm ... It's clear to us all that you're not here in good faith.
eclarkso 3y ago
I think you are perhaps reading too much into the phrasing. If they had said "... providing guidance on when individuals should be hospitalized...", I would not take that as assuming hospitalization either.
BugsJustFindMe 3y ago
I think your own biases are muddying your interpretation. Mixing if and when is a very common linguistic quirk. Consider: "How do I know when to go to the emergency room?" The word "when" here is discussing circumstance, aka "whether", not the calendar.
- logicalmonster 3y ago
  > Mixing if and when is a very common linguistic quirk. If this was a casual blog post or something, I think you'd have a fair counterpoint that would muddy the waters sufficiently. But this is published in a renowned scientific journal. Every word choice should be carefully chosen, and it's fair game to critique it as such.
  - BugsJustFindMe 3y ago
    > Every word choice should be carefully chosen In a parallel universe words only ever have a single meaning and nobody ever misinterprets anything, but not in this one. > and it's fair game to critique it as such Ambiguity was not the given critique, so this statement is both true on its own and also in context a giant nonsequitur. It's not their fault that when assessing members of the response set for "when" you neglect to consider "never".
eganist 3y ago
> as a base assumption and leaves no room for individual choice and risk-management decisions. We're still having this dance in 2023? Businesses can likewise reject people for increasing the risk profile of the business provided such rejections don't touch on suspect classifications. And even that last bit is less likely to pose regulatory risk to businesses now that businesses in the US have been enabled by the Supreme Court to reject clients for things like sexual orientation. > Ditto on "designing policies that mandate vaccination". Workers under mandates can just as easily quit the job that has the mandate, or they can be terminated at will. Or rather, such is the typical argument I hear from the a certain crowd when workers complain about employers doing silly things that workers disagree with. If you're concerned that these workers should bargain for a right (to reject a vaccine) without fear of termination, maybe they should form a structure that can collectively bargain for said right for them. I'm inclined to agree with others who say that your own biases are tainting your interpretation, but your biases are also particularly revealing.
- throwawayfear 3y ago
  The most likely outcome is that the majority of jobs will not be allowed to discriminate on the basis of someone's covid information. I predict it will be a new protected class soon, especially seeing as one can demonstrate equivalent or better immunity from past infection and the vaccinations do not prevent infection or spread.
  - logicalmonster 3y ago
    If we had governments that weren't entirely corrupt for money and power, your train of thinking would be entirely rational and perfect. But there's substantial government interest in having things like medical passports/IDs that provide them with substantial power and bureaucratic expansion (and more importantly, a huge financial win for the medical-industrial complex) Additionally, those vaccines served as an idealogical purge mechanism where people who were willing to go against the grain and not just follow orders were drummed out of the government. Hard to believe that they're just going to give up on this because it's the right thing to do.

cempaka 3y ago

A certain subset of the population which supported mandates, a now obviously failed and unjustifiable policy which caused immense harm, are going to soldier on as though that was always the right thing to do, rather than deal with the cognitive dissonance involved.

RhodesianHunter 3y ago
This is easy to say in hindsight. You would be singing a far different tune had the initial numbers turned out to be worse, or had one of the mutations led to far more severe risk. When dealing with the unknown at "global pandemic" scale, it seems better to be safe than sorry, given that you're potentially juggling millions of lives.
- logicalmonster 3y ago
  > it seems better to be safe than sorry All other things being equal, it is better to be safe than sorry. But that's not the choice offered. One thing that you never needed the benefit of hindsight to understand is that there's a non-trivial risk to the vaccines as well. This always exists. For instance, it took science years to understand the full impact of Thalidomide. In the small chance that these injections end up having substantial long-term problems with something like cancer or fertility, a universally applied treatment could be the destruction of humanity. Trying to compel universal injections was always a foolish risk-management decision.
- throwawayfear 3y ago
  Where do you draw the line? Did you see how Australia was dealing with it? They stopped being a democracy once their politicians got a taste of the immense and inordinate new powers to control the average person. This happened in the United States to a lesser extent too, with hall monitors enjoying new unwarranted authority over people's bodies and livelihood even when evidence like from this latest study was already known. Anybody who questioned the narrative or warned about the direction was treated like a pariah.
  - trog 3y ago
    So weird, I live in Australia and everywhere I look we continue to have democracy, just all over the place. (And, I'd argue, more freedom than the average American citizen in many areas, most notably healthcare.)
    - aakresearch 3y ago
      In my corner of Australia healthcare is effectively closed to me, as GPs around here demand wearing masks and allow no exemptions. I guess that's democracy in action. No mask - no rights, as per majority decision. One of the biggest regrets is letting my US GC "win" to lapse a few years ago. Oh well, it all went down the toilet over there just the same, isn't it?
      - trog 3y ago
        > In my corner of Australia healthcare is effectively closed to me, as GPs around here demand wearing masks and allow no exemptions. I guess that's democracy in action. No mask - no rights, as per majority decision. This is like whining that the pub requires shirt and shoes but more bizarre. It has nothing to do with 'democracy'; in QLD at least GPs have no requirement for mask wearing so it's just up to the good old "free market" where businesses can set their own rules. Complaining that a GP requires basic healthcare precautions is truly bizarre to me.
        cempaka 3y ago
- cempaka 3y ago
  "If this set of facts had been slightly different, then your take on firing people and excluding them from public venues for refusing to agree to an unproven and experimental medical procedure might be different." I mean, not really? Some things in life are more important than assiduously avoiding death by a respiratory infection.
moribvndvs 3y ago
> obviously failed and unjustifiable policy which caused immense harm Citations needed.
- clemailacct1 3y ago
  I think the burden of research and citations can also be put back onto you as well. You can fully research this information yourself - it’s trivial.
  - moribvndvs 3y ago
    Sorry, that’s not how this works. Burden of proof is not new, nor is it complicated. Thus: > what may be asserted without evidence may be dismissed without evidence. It’s trivial to find sweeping and unsubstantiated opinions. It’s trivial to find arguments on both[1] sides[2]. Why should I trust either? Either way, what evidence trivially and unquestionably supports “immense harm”? This argument has been going in circles for 2+ years, it’s not like I haven’t seen more rigorously defended and less hyperbolic opinions before. That stuff, I’ll consider. What you and OP are doing is just noise. [1] https://www.heritage.org/public-health/commentary/the-failing-case-covid-19-mandates https://www.heritage.org/public-health/commentary/the-failin... [2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vaccine-mandates-are-lawful-effective-and-based-on-rock-solid-science/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vaccine-mandates-...
    - cempaka 3y ago
      It's not clear, do you believe that firing people from their jobs did not cause them great harm, or do you just believe that that harm was justified?
      - pritambaral 3y ago
        > It's not clear, do you believe that firing people from their jobs did not cause them great harm ... It's clear to us all that you're not here in good faith.

eclarkso 3y ago

I think you are perhaps reading too much into the phrasing. If they had said "... providing guidance on when individuals should be hospitalized...", I would not take that as assuming hospitalization either.

BugsJustFindMe 3y ago

I think your own biases are muddying your interpretation. Mixing if and when is a very common linguistic quirk. Consider: "How do I know when to go to the emergency room?" The word "when" here is discussing circumstance, aka "whether", not the calendar.

logicalmonster 3y ago
> Mixing if and when is a very common linguistic quirk. If this was a casual blog post or something, I think you'd have a fair counterpoint that would muddy the waters sufficiently. But this is published in a renowned scientific journal. Every word choice should be carefully chosen, and it's fair game to critique it as such.
- BugsJustFindMe 3y ago
  > Every word choice should be carefully chosen In a parallel universe words only ever have a single meaning and nobody ever misinterprets anything, but not in this one. > and it's fair game to critique it as such Ambiguity was not the given critique, so this statement is both true on its own and also in context a giant nonsequitur. It's not their fault that when assessing members of the response set for "when" you neglect to consider "never".

eganist 3y ago

> as a base assumption and leaves no room for individual choice and risk-management decisions. We're still having this dance in 2023? Businesses can likewise reject people for increasing the risk profile of the business provided such rejections don't touch on suspect classifications. And even that last bit is less likely to pose regulatory risk to businesses now that businesses in the US have been enabled by the Supreme Court to reject clients for things like sexual orientation. > Ditto on "designing policies that mandate vaccination". Workers under mandates can just as easily quit the job that has the mandate, or they can be terminated at will. Or rather, such is the typical argument I hear from the a certain crowd when workers complain about employers doing silly things that workers disagree with. If you're concerned that these workers should bargain for a right (to reject a vaccine) without fear of termination, maybe they should form a structure that can collectively bargain for said right for them. I'm inclined to agree with others who say that your own biases are tainting your interpretation, but your biases are also particularly revealing.

throwawayfear 3y ago
The most likely outcome is that the majority of jobs will not be allowed to discriminate on the basis of someone's covid information. I predict it will be a new protected class soon, especially seeing as one can demonstrate equivalent or better immunity from past infection and the vaccinations do not prevent infection or spread.
- logicalmonster 3y ago
  If we had governments that weren't entirely corrupt for money and power, your train of thinking would be entirely rational and perfect. But there's substantial government interest in having things like medical passports/IDs that provide them with substantial power and bureaucratic expansion (and more importantly, a huge financial win for the medical-industrial complex) Additionally, those vaccines served as an idealogical purge mechanism where people who were willing to go against the grain and not just follow orders were drummed out of the government. Hard to believe that they're just going to give up on this because it's the right thing to do.