12 ms·
In the times when so many people are up in arms against covid vaccines, we keep forgetting how things were and how these vaccines allowed to open up en-mass. Ye
by sytelus 3y ago
In the times when so many people are up in arms against covid vaccines, we keep forgetting how things were and how these vaccines allowed to open up en-mass. Yes, there were problems but number of lives saved is just awe inspiring.
- dalore 3y ago[flagged]
- dekhn 3y agoAre you a scientist, or otherwise qualified to make judgements like this? I see a lot of armchair quarterbacks making statements about public health, but it ussually ends up being poorly informed speculation.
- forgetfreeman 3y agoOh there's certainly moral hazard for all of the muppets that fell in line with the interlocking "reopen" astroturf campaigns that cropped up during the lockdown, but it isn't due to false or misleading claims about vaccine efficacy. It was made clear from jump that 1. the vaccines did not confer perfect immunity and 2. continuous mutation meant the goalposts for protection were moving. Individuals that chose to accept either the narrative that we were all perfectly safe once vaccinated or that there was nothing to worry about in the first place because it was all a giant conspiracy are collectively responsible for Covid making the transition from pandemic to endemic.
- astrange 3y agoIt's impossible that covid could ever have not become endemic. It can transmit through animals, we're not going to vaccinate or kill all the animals, and we haven't found the source it actually came from.
- forgetfreeman 3y agoBullshit. There was a window of time where hard quarantine could have prevented it. Instead we got politics.
- astrange 3y agoOnly if no person or animal ever left China ever again.
- forgetfreeman 3y agoBullshit. We have the ability to screen individuals before travel.
- astrange 3y agoNo you don't, covid is infectious before it's symptomatic. Australia and China tried the closest working thing to that (incoming quarantine) and it was extremely expensive and eventually failed. China also claims they've found it in fomites (inanimate objects) like frozen food shipments. Though, I dunno if I believe that one.
- forgetfreeman 3y agoClosest working thing is an interestingly loaded phrase
- thehappypm 3y agoUltimately, none of the societal restrictions really helped reduce the portion of the population that caught covid -- given enough time, it ended up rounding up to 100%, almost worldwide. Restrictions and masking really just bought us some time and slowed the process of getting to "everyone got infected". Even China, New Zealand, Australia, etc failed at zero-covid given enough time, and covid raged once it got out. Different states in the US with vastly different policies ended up with the same final outcome. According to the NY Times, Florida and New York both have 35k cases cases per 100k population -- obviously there are substantial differences in data quality, but we are clearly not looking at an order-of-magnitude difference between these two massively different responses. Given that lens, the ultimate outcome of the pandemic is "almost everyone eventually gets covid." As a result, the vaccines -- in reducing mortality -- saved an absolutely immense amount of lives.
- aredox 3y agoThey did reduce transmission. We have actual data from US prisons. If you want to look at dodgy science, anything around "moral hazards" is on very shaky grounds...
- sod 3y agoIf you have an interest in making your point, I suggest to reference trusted sources one can read through so people on the fence can educate themself. Blaming and labelling has the opposite effect though.
- ceejayoz 3y agohttps://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/covid-shots-previous-infection-may-cut-risk-spread-prisons https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/covid-shots-previous-inf... > Unvaccinated, infected inmates had an estimated 36% risk of spreading the virus, compared with 28% among infected vaccinees. After adjustment, any vaccination, previous infection alone, and both vaccination and previous infection cut the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission by 22%, 23%, and 40%, respectively. > Booster doses and more recent vaccination further lowered infectiousness among vaccinated inmates, with each dose conferring an 11% risk reduction; the risk of transmission rose 6% for every 5 weeks that had elapsed since the last shot.
- dalore 3y agoI don't know about you, 8% sounds a rounding error and probably within the error margins. It certainly wasn't enough to open the country en-mass like the OP believes. And now we have the opposite situation with those who have had the most boosters and now more likely to catch the new variant that is out.
- ceejayoz 3y ago> I don't know about you, 8% sounds a rounding error and probably within the error margins. It is not. The study is available for you to review if you like. > And now we have the opposite situation with those who have had the most boosters and now more likely to catch the new variant that is out. I’d like to see that study. Cite, please.
- dd36 3y agoGood thing we have data that proves lives were saved and you don’t have to guess.
- logicchains 3y agoWhat data is that? That data on lockdowns suggests that they didn't reduce overall excess mortality: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hec.4737 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hec.4737 >Using an event study approach and data from 43 countries and all U.S. states, we measure changes in excess deaths following the implementation of COVID-19 shelter-in-place (SIP) policies. We do not find that countries or U.S. states that implemented SIP policies earlier had lower excess deaths. We do not observe differences in excess deaths before and after the implementation of SIP policies, even when accounting for pre-SIP COVID-19 death rates.
- jeffbee 3y agoCausality. The only thing this survey demonstrates is that government orders have weak effects on actual population behavior.
- dalore 3y agoGood thing you're 100% convinced, I'm still looking for the proof
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- urduntupu 3y ago[flagged]
- chimprich 3y agoPlease don't post this nonsense on HN. This is a joke, right? It's a crank website, not a serious medical journal.
- fabian2k 3y agoThe vaccines massively reduced mortality and severe disease in the vulnerable populations. That is a big win. They also could have stopped the spread for the early variants, but the later ones were simply too contagious. There simply was no chance to keep transmission fully down at that point.
- koolba 3y ago> The vaccines massively reduced mortality and severe disease in the vulnerable populations. That is a big win. That’s changing the goalposts. The vaccines were not necessary for the vast majority of the population or society as a whole to “open up”. That’s assuming you analyze only physical harm from the spreading virus. After months of brainwashing, they were definitely required for large swathes of the population to given them a mental protection to come out of their shells. > They also could have stopped the spread for the early variants, but the later ones were simply too contagious. There simply was no chance to keep transmission fully down at that point. There was never a chance to keep transmission fully down. It was like trying to prevent a cold or the flu from spreading.
- fabian2k 3y agoThe criteria for the original license were the reduction in deaths and disease. Transmission wasn't even tested in the original phase III trials. The vaccines achieved their primary purpose, they prevented death and severe disease. COVID was a major threat to a significant part of the population. The vaccines were effective and reduced the threat to those people enormously. It would have been very nice and useful to stop transmission and achieve herd immunity. But even without that the vaccines were a huge win and saved a lot of lives.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- somenameforme 3y agoModerna seems to have moved, or removed, their initial testing results but you can still find an archive here. [1] The pharmaceutical industry was initially claiming that vaccination would completely prevent infection, as it typically does, let alone spread: "There were 11 COVID‑19 cases in the Moderna COVID‑19 Vaccine group and 185 cases in the placebo group, with a vaccine efficacy of 94.1% (95% confidence interval of 89.3% to 96.8%)." It's easy to create false memories because the politicians and pharma industry simultaneously swapped the narrative to stopping hospitalization and death once it became completely clear the vaccines were not stopping infection, but that is not what their initial purpose was. [1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20210202223626/https://www.modernatx.com/covid19vaccine-eua/providers/clinical-trial-data https://web.archive.org/web/20210202223626/https://www.moder...
- notacoward 3y agoRelated: https://www.natesilver.net/p/fine-ill-run-a-regression-analysis https://www.natesilver.net/p/fine-ill-run-a-regression-analy... There was a discussion here too, but it was hot garbage so I'm not linking to it.
- SamBam 3y agoThe conclusion of that paper: The higher the vaccination rate in a state, the lower the deaths after the vaccine was introduced. This is unaffected by the age of the state. The fact that this shift only emerges after the introduction of the vaccine means we can pretty much rule out any demographics-based causes. The "low vax" and "high vax" states were pretty much even before the vaccine. The only reasonable conclusion is that high vax rates directly caused lower death rates.
- raverbashing 3y agoReducing transmission is a bonus, and very hard to measure initially. It is not the main (measured) goal of new vaccines Nobody will worry about transmission when it provably reduces mortality > So I don't think they saved lives at all Thank deity we have data proving otherwise And even bigger thanks to Darwin who rarely disappoints
- Lutger 3y agoAny sources or data to back that up? Or is this just your own hypothesis you came up with yourself? There is an enormous body of knowledge proving vaccines did reduce transmissions, you can easily find them online. So a claim that goes counter to the outcome of hundreds of studies should have some backup, otherwise it no better than saying 'here is a snowball that proves 100% of climate scientists are wrong'
- someuser2345 3y agoHere is a paper that claims that there was no correlation between vaccination rates and an increase in covid cases: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8481107/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8481107/
- goodluckchuck 3y agoYou also are not providing any sources or data…
- d0100 3y agoFrom my time of internet arguing about vaccines, most "reduce transmission" claims started at 70% and last I remember ended up being only 30%
- usrusr 3y agoWhat would have been the alternative? Go endemic Bergamo-style? Remain in soft lockdown for a decade or two in order to go endemic at a very slow pace? At the time vaccines were widely available, chances of making the virus die out had already been at exactly zero for quite a while (well, zero, plus wherever the chances are for a sudden all life ending meteor strike). It was vaccines that allowed us come to where we are now with the amount of inconvenience we had on the way. Any path without vaccines would have been worse, one way or the other.
- amelius 3y agohttps://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths-by-vaccination https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths-by-vaccination
- lumb63 3y ago[flagged]
- xxs 3y agoSo the millions of death cases were a welcome purge?
- logicchains 3y agoSweden never locked down and has one of the lowest covid death rates overall now.
- aredox 3y agoThey just had a very sparse population and the highest rate of single-occupancy housing... And socialized medicine. Really, what a fine example for e.g. New York to follow!
- DiogenesKynikos 3y agoSweden has twice the death rate as its closest neighbors (both geographically and culturally), Norway and Denmark. Note that the differences in policy between Sweden and other European countries were largest early on in the pandemic, and the differences in Sweden's death rate then were even more extreme. In a broader international comparison, Sweden (and Europe generally) did not fare well. Countries that took a zero-CoVID approach, such as China, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam and Singapore ended up with much lower death rates, because most of them vaccinated their populations before allowing the virus to spread.
- jacquesm 3y agoI think you've made this point at least 50 times in as many COVID threads and you've been refuted at least as many times, why do you keep doing this?
- Lutger 3y agoI highly recommend everyone who wonders why people do this to read the 'Conspiracy Theory Handbook'. Unlike what the title suggests, it is a very brief primer into the psychological research done by Cook and others on conspiracy thinking, mostly from the perspective of climate science denial: https://www.climatechangecommunication.org/handbook/the-conspiracy-theory-handbook/ https://www.climatechangecommunication.org/handbook/the-cons... One of the key traits of conspiracy thinking is immunity-to-evidence: "Conspiracy theories are inherently self-healing, evidence that counters a theory is re-interpreted as originating from the conspiracy. This reflects the belief that the stronger the evidence against a conspiracy (e.g., the FBI exonerating a politician from allegations of misusing a personal email server), the more the conspirators must want people to believe their version of events (e.g., the FBI was part of the conspiracy to protect that politician)"
- logicchains 3y agoSome places never locked down, like Sweden and South Dakota, and their death rate wasn't significantly higher. Overall there's no evidence that lockdowns actually reduced mortality: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hec.4737 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hec.4737 . >Using an event study approach and data from 43 countries and all U.S. states, we measure changes in excess deaths following the implementation of COVID-19 shelter-in-place (SIP) policies. We do not find that countries or U.S. states that implemented SIP policies earlier had lower excess deaths. We do not observe differences in excess deaths before and after the implementation of SIP policies, even when accounting for pre-SIP COVID-19 death rates.
- dudinax 3y agoCompared to it's neighbors, sweden had a huge excess death rate in 2020.
- Garvi 3y agoI know you're spreading misinformation to cover the fact you were breaking all kinds of quarantine procedures because a coward called you a coward one time. Now you're faced with an overwhelming mountain of evidence that your behaviour lead to many deaths and the cowardice resurfaced. You're now a conspiracy theorist and limit yourself to circles that share your mistake. You must be spending a lot of time on Facebook and Reddit. I could cite the most objective sources and statistics, but if you haven't figured it out by now, you don't want to. You're on the level of flat-earthers. The only difference being there's way more of you than of those idiots. And if you think the number of people believing in something somehow gives it credibility, then you should start preparing yourself to meet Allah in the afterlife.
- ethbr1 3y agoSouth Dakota, the state that ranks 46 (out of 50) in terms of population density?
- TheBigSalad 3y agoWhat we call "lock down" was hardly anything. And usually in reaction to surging cases. So the data probably couldn't show it working, even if it did. And it probably didn't.
- oldgradstudent 3y ago[flagged]
- lawn 3y agoVaccination was never about "not getting it".
- oldgradstudent 3y ago>Vaccination was never about "not getting it". What do you base this bizarre claim on? From the package insert for the Pfizer vaccine: > COMIRNATY is a vaccine indicated for active immunization to prevent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in individuals 12 years of age and older. (1) A single indication, "not getting it". This is what the clinical trials tested and this is what the FDA approved.
- empath-nirvana 3y ago> to prevent coronavirus disease You can be infected with a pathogen without developing the disease associated with the pathogen.
- ceejayoz 3y agoYou'll note that insert doesn't say "to prevent infection". As with HIV (SARS-CoV-2) versus AIDS (COVID-19), the disease you can get from the virus is not the same thing as the infection itself.
- oldgradstudent 3y agoThe trials were never powered to even test for infetion or transmission. It is quite clear now the vaccine prevented neither. It was supposed to prevent the disease - basically postive test + symptoms. It didn't.
- 3y ago
- shrubble 3y agoThe ability to do it (specification) is what is being rewarded, not the merits or not of what Pfizer/Moderna/Biontech did (implementation).