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Which wasn't justified and should probably be an illegal requirement on privacy grounds. It doesn't make a difference if people doing work were vaccinated or no

by roenxi 2y ago

Which wasn't justified and should probably be an illegal requirement on privacy grounds. It doesn't make a difference if people doing work were vaccinated or not. It turns out to have had little in-practice effect on transmission, so the only important question is whether the passengers on things like a cruise were vaccinated themselves. They were evidence-free policies. We had a great natural case study in Australia of COVID through a vaccinated population. Everyone caught it over the course of a month, the vaccines did basically nothing to stop the spread. They were pretty much only useful on an individual level which means there was never a requirement for any coercive measures.

acdha 2y ago
> It doesn't make a difference if people doing work were vaccinated or not. It turns out to have had little in-practice effect on transmission This is because of Delta. The original strain was substantially reduced but an order-of-magnitude efficacy jump made that moot. You’re right, however, that we should have focused on masking and air filtration since that was actually effective at preventing spread in close quarters like a school or workplace.
threeseed 2y ago
> We had a great natural case study in Australia of COVID through a vaccinated population. Everyone caught it over the course of a month, the vaccines did basically nothing to stop the spread. They were pretty much only useful on an individual level which means there was never a requirement for any coercive measures. I am from Australia and this is all nonsense. a) Vaccines are not designed to prevent transmission. They are designed to stop people from getting seriously ill and dying. b) Vaccines and lockdowns were vital in high-density areas like Victoria and NSW which saw health care systems almost instantly overwhelmed. This was then causing mass deaths for both COVID and non-COVID cases. It was a public health emergency by every definition. c) COVID was only allowed to spread once enough of the population was vaccinated. And that was because instead of needing to go into hospital people could stay at home for a few days. And even then it has taken years for the system to recover.
- throwawaythekey 2y ago
  I hate to nitpick but as you called the previous comment nonsense > Vaccines are not designed to prevent transmission. They are designed to stop people from getting seriously ill and dying. Vaccines are commonly designed to prevent transmission. For example it is a critical aspect of the measles vaccine [1]. If a magic wand could've been waved the covid vaccines would've worked that way too, and that is why they were sold to the public as reducing transmission. > Vaccines and lockdowns were vital in high-density areas like Victoria and NSW... There are enough counterexamples of people and places where different trade-offs were chosen. e.g. Brisbane. To say they were vital is injecting your own opinion. c) COVID was only allowed to spread once enough of the population was vaccinated... instead of needing to go into hospital people could stay at home... it has taken years for the system to recover. The overwhelming majority of people were always just going to need to stay at home for a few days, even pre vaccine. The reason the system has taken so long to recover is due to the suboptimal approach we took where we elongated the period of reduced throughput through the hospital system. The effect here was threefold: 1) The backlog of surgeries needed to be cleared. 2) Many patients had worsened over covid and now required more intense treatment. 3) Preventable disease was not being caught in routine checkups etc. [1] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/herd-immunity-and-coronavirus/art-20486808 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/i...
Retric 2y ago
> It turns out to have had little in-practice effect on transmission When you look at killing thousands of people as a minor consequence you may want to rethink your priorities.
- roenxi 2y ago
  1) Little as in "0, but maybe someone wants to quibble that technically it did something so I'll hedge". As far as I can tell literally everyone I know caught COVID, so it is fair to say the vaccine had no impact on transmission. Raising the obvious question of why it matters where people caught it. 2) If catching COVID is going to kill you, by now you are dead by now. Factor in that there'd probably be between 40 and 60% uptake of the vaccine just by people being prudent and the authoritarianism was not only a betrayal of the principles our civilisation is supposed to be defending but also ineffective. And, as the current article showcases, extremely ill-advised. 3) That logic is silly. We don't mandate people do anything special about flus and that'd save far more lives than thousands. Do you consider people who advocate normal life even though influenza exists to be some sort of malign force in society? Even COVID is still killing people. 100s of thousands are still going to die from this thing. But you want to support an abandonment of basic human rights over a few thousand maybe-deaths that can't even be detected? In the extreme, more people have been purposefully murdered to secure basic liberties than that - these aren't the sort of rights that should be casually taken away.
  - Retric 2y ago
    > 1) Little as in "0, but maybe someone wants to quibble that technically it did something so I'll hedge". As far as I can tell literally everyone I know caught COVID, so it is fair to say the vaccine had no impact on transmission. Raising the obvious question of why it matters where people caught it. Many hospitalizations and deaths from COVID occurred on subsequent infections. > 2) If catching COVID is going to kill you, by now you are dead by now. False, that’s simply not how infection works. Part of the difference here is viral load on exposure. Vaccines and masks reduced viral loads in the air, which then gave people’s immune system longer to react. The immune system takes time to ramp up, but so do infections. A larger initial exposure can snowball even in reasonably healthy individuals.

by roenxi 2y ago

acdha 2y ago

> It doesn't make a difference if people doing work were vaccinated or not. It turns out to have had little in-practice effect on transmission This is because of Delta. The original strain was substantially reduced but an order-of-magnitude efficacy jump made that moot. You’re right, however, that we should have focused on masking and air filtration since that was actually effective at preventing spread in close quarters like a school or workplace.

threeseed 2y ago

> We had a great natural case study in Australia of COVID through a vaccinated population. Everyone caught it over the course of a month, the vaccines did basically nothing to stop the spread. They were pretty much only useful on an individual level which means there was never a requirement for any coercive measures. I am from Australia and this is all nonsense. a) Vaccines are not designed to prevent transmission. They are designed to stop people from getting seriously ill and dying. b) Vaccines and lockdowns were vital in high-density areas like Victoria and NSW which saw health care systems almost instantly overwhelmed. This was then causing mass deaths for both COVID and non-COVID cases. It was a public health emergency by every definition. c) COVID was only allowed to spread once enough of the population was vaccinated. And that was because instead of needing to go into hospital people could stay at home for a few days. And even then it has taken years for the system to recover.

throwawaythekey 2y ago
I hate to nitpick but as you called the previous comment nonsense > Vaccines are not designed to prevent transmission. They are designed to stop people from getting seriously ill and dying. Vaccines are commonly designed to prevent transmission. For example it is a critical aspect of the measles vaccine [1]. If a magic wand could've been waved the covid vaccines would've worked that way too, and that is why they were sold to the public as reducing transmission. > Vaccines and lockdowns were vital in high-density areas like Victoria and NSW... There are enough counterexamples of people and places where different trade-offs were chosen. e.g. Brisbane. To say they were vital is injecting your own opinion. c) COVID was only allowed to spread once enough of the population was vaccinated... instead of needing to go into hospital people could stay at home... it has taken years for the system to recover. The overwhelming majority of people were always just going to need to stay at home for a few days, even pre vaccine. The reason the system has taken so long to recover is due to the suboptimal approach we took where we elongated the period of reduced throughput through the hospital system. The effect here was threefold: 1) The backlog of surgeries needed to be cleared. 2) Many patients had worsened over covid and now required more intense treatment. 3) Preventable disease was not being caught in routine checkups etc. [1] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/herd-immunity-and-coronavirus/art-20486808 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/i...

Retric 2y ago

> It turns out to have had little in-practice effect on transmission When you look at killing thousands of people as a minor consequence you may want to rethink your priorities.

roenxi 2y ago
1) Little as in "0, but maybe someone wants to quibble that technically it did something so I'll hedge". As far as I can tell literally everyone I know caught COVID, so it is fair to say the vaccine had no impact on transmission. Raising the obvious question of why it matters where people caught it. 2) If catching COVID is going to kill you, by now you are dead by now. Factor in that there'd probably be between 40 and 60% uptake of the vaccine just by people being prudent and the authoritarianism was not only a betrayal of the principles our civilisation is supposed to be defending but also ineffective. And, as the current article showcases, extremely ill-advised. 3) That logic is silly. We don't mandate people do anything special about flus and that'd save far more lives than thousands. Do you consider people who advocate normal life even though influenza exists to be some sort of malign force in society? Even COVID is still killing people. 100s of thousands are still going to die from this thing. But you want to support an abandonment of basic human rights over a few thousand maybe-deaths that can't even be detected? In the extreme, more people have been purposefully murdered to secure basic liberties than that - these aren't the sort of rights that should be casually taken away.
- Retric 2y ago
  > 1) Little as in "0, but maybe someone wants to quibble that technically it did something so I'll hedge". As far as I can tell literally everyone I know caught COVID, so it is fair to say the vaccine had no impact on transmission. Raising the obvious question of why it matters where people caught it. Many hospitalizations and deaths from COVID occurred on subsequent infections. > 2) If catching COVID is going to kill you, by now you are dead by now. False, that’s simply not how infection works. Part of the difference here is viral load on exposure. Vaccines and masks reduced viral loads in the air, which then gave people’s immune system longer to react. The immune system takes time to ramp up, but so do infections. A larger initial exposure can snowball even in reasonably healthy individuals.