Covid: the shape of things to come

[Luftmensch]

I didn't elaborate on the "forced", but everything what you've listed is a form of forcing.

I respectfully disagree. Although I understand it is easy to view the line between coercion and forcing as paper thin.

In my mind... if it is legal to be unvaccinated, then no citizen is being 'forced'. There is no human right or reasonable philosophy that asserts our choices in life should be divorced of consequences.

While I agree that vaccine mandates for employment is heavy coercion... you still have the legal freedom to remain unvaccinated. The consequences of your lifestyle choices are yours to bear. Employment contracts are littered with obligations that stymie your 'freedoms'. Here is a glib example, you can't sell your company's IP to a competitor without obvious consequences.

 

[Keith Sinclair]

Travel pushed many holdouts to take vaccine.
To come to Hawaii first time opened up had to show proof of vac. Mainlanders flooded Oahu, after long shutdown rental cars scarce. They were chopping at the bit to come to Hawaii after long shutdown. Then Delta hit us asked tourist not to come. That's when nephew came
for honeymoon. It was great for them almost no tourist let them use my Forrester the whole time.

One of my sister's didn't want vaccine the only reason she gave in was to visit her daughter & grandkids in California. Making it tough for the
holdouts works.

 

[Noxion]

I respectfully disagree. Although I understand it is easy to view the line between coercion and forcing as paper thin.
In my mind... if it is legal to be unvaccinated, then no citizen is being 'forced'. There is no human right or reasonable philosophy that asserts our choices in life should be divorced of consequences.

I'm speaking about everyday life not legal, semantics, etc. This is the real issue with the "modern" Western society; forgot that a human is an animal and that our thoughts fiction can't influence the reality of our biological roots.
That's because it was decided that an epidemic can be "managed". It can't, it can be only dealt with on a biological basis.

 

[Keith Sinclair]

It's kind of like smoking cigarettes before on planes, Bars, eating places, movies, billboard ads. Magazines, sports ads. Smoking was everywhere. Big tobacco co. lying through their teeth saying no evidence nicotine addictive &
false claims that don't cause lung cancer.

To making it so bad for smokers anywhere.
Workers that smoked at Kahala Hilton had to do it outside by the stinky garbage bins.

Cigarettes weren't banned, just socially unfit to bother anyone else with second hand smoke.

 

[Noxion]

Cigarettes weren't banned, just socially unfit to bother anyone else with second hand smoke.

Our perceptions are a very powerful engine.
I remember the chemistry teacher asking loudly "are we animals?" The class: "noooo". The loudest were of course those who were angling for good votes. The fun was asking if they were therefore plants.

 

[user 16756]

Both sides claim to own the "Science". Neither side seems to.

"both sides" is appropriate for describing the crowd at football games.

when it comes to 770,000 deaths in the US alone, and one "side" is helping the virus add to its body count, this sort of framing doesnt apply IMO.

 

[daveb]

And that would be one sides collective opinion....

Pick the conclusion you want and you'll find a plethora of "science" to support it.

 

[user 16756]

And that would be one sides collective opinion....

Pick the conclusion you want and you'll find a plethora of "science" to support it.

I mean you can put an equals sign between any two things and pretend like that's valid.

also in this case this isnt about opinion. until the 1980s there were a shared set of facts that both sides agreed on. it was the interpretation that varied. today, there is one side that has left that base of facts and gone with an alternative set. the same is NOT true of the pro-vaccine side.

in fact, the most powerful people in the side you claim has some equal value dont actually believe the stuff their tribe does. that's why they all have vaccines. that's why at a party for an extremely old and powerful media magnate who distributes a large percentage of anti-vaccine work they didnt just require you to have proof of vaccination, they had rapid response tests.

but then I do understand, it's much easier for humans to keep believing in the con than to accept you got conned.

 

[spaceconvoy]

I mean you can put an equals sign between any two things and pretend like that's valid.

also in this case this isnt about opinion. until the 1980s there were a shared set of facts that both sides agreed on. it was the interpretation that varied. today, there is one side that has left that base of facts and gone with an alternative set. the same is NOT true of the pro-vaccine side.

in fact, the most powerful people in the side you claim has some equal value dont actually believe the stuff their tribe does. that's why they all have vaccines. that's why at a party for an extremely old and powerful media magnate who distributes a large percentage of anti-vaccine work they didnt just require you to have proof of vaccination, they had rapid response tests.

but then I do understand, it's much easier for humans to keep believing in the con than to accept you got conned.

What's the opposite of self-awareness? Never mind, keep absorbing that twitter discourse

 

[user 16756]

What's the opposite of self-awareness?

dunno youre the expert on that subject so you tell me

 

[daveb]

.... it's much easier for humans to keep believing in the con than to accept you got conned.

Which argument are you making?

 

[user 16756]

Which argument are you making?

well I thought it was pretty self explanatory but with anti-vaxx, you're either in on the con or you're being conned. and it's well known that people who get conned actually consider the psychological cost of admitting they've been conned higher than continuing along with it and it makes it INCREDIBLY difficult for folks who've bought into the whole thing to get out.

and that's how you get people showing up at the hospital with their loved ones, scared they will lose them, who scream at the doctors to prescribe ivermectin.

 

[daveb]

And I'm sure that you'll keep believing that without question.

Yawn.

 

[Keith Sinclair]

I love blabbing about Singapore. In 1990 went to mainland china, Hong Kong, Singapore, & India.
At the time the English old ferries we're still running in Hong Kong harbor.

Remember stepping on some chewing gum where I was sitting on the ferry.

Later went to Singapore found that it was illegal to chew gum there. At the time to me it made perfect sense. Two major harbors in the East, both densely populated city states.

It was also a very clean city. I took this picture these were not posted everywhere nor did you see any police around to enforce it. No need socially littering there was considered criminal.

I later read an article about Singapore where they mentioned that chewing gum was illegal there how crazy that was.

 

[Barmoley]

Some people just can't seem to understand or believe that you can be pro vax and against forced vax or vax mandates or in general question how things are done. It is not one or the other. It is not binary. It really is more complicated than some try to make it out to be.

 

[JDC]

Just to contribute some data points.
I was three days into my Pfizer booster and was invited to a small event where everyone was vaccinated. One person was coughing a little during the 6-hour event, in door, but it didn't raise any alarm. The other day we all received emails from this person saying that the person felt terrible in the morning and just tested positive.
Most of us in the event had booster shots and none were infected. But the person who had COVID infected the whole household with most family members due for the booster.

In those 6 hours we were handshaking, eating and chatting. All other attendees did multiple tests in the following weeks and we were all fine.

 

[Jovidah]

I'm not sure it's helpful to think of 'sides'... the people who choose not to get vaccinated are not a monolithic homogenuous group and there's people with very different backgrounds and demographics in there and very different motivations. Same applies to people who do get vaccinated.
Why the whole thing got politicized in the US is beyond me... it's mindboggling. You'd think everyone has roughly the same interest in keeping their electorate alive and well.

That being said... science is not religion. While people like to pick and choose whatever suits their argument a la carte, and this may give the impression that science either has no answer or is 'on both sides', that doesn't mean there can't be an overwhelming indication towards one course of action or treatment being preferable over another.
How you choose to convert that into policy and how to implement that however is another matter entirely; then you get into politics, ethics, etc.

 

[Luftmensch]

Pick the conclusion you want and you'll find a plethora of "science" to support it.

I agree that this statement is 'true'... but what next? I am not sure what real value it provides? The problem is, there is so much disinformation out there....

Having a position and seeking out information to affirm your beliefs is profoundly unscientific (I know you are not advocating for this). One of the primary goals of the scientific method is to remove cognitive biases from the process and let the evidence speak for itself. It is clearly unscientific when the "evidence" used to support a hypothesis isn't even grounded in demonstrable fact.

Bear with me, this relates to the next point.

How you choose to convert that into policy and how to implement that however is another matter entirely; then you get into politics, ethics, etc.

While I agree 100%... it makes the fatal assumption that all stakeholders agree on basic facts. For the past 50 years money and vested interest have learned how to pollute the information space. Now stakeholders don't even agree on a shared set of basic facts.

Climate change is a perfect example. I don't care one bit if you say "climate change is real but I dont want to do anything about it". It agrees with humanity's best evidence and is honest about your intentions. I do care if the conversation space is polluted with a torrent of misinformation about how climate change is some hoax or conspiracy. I have increasingly disengaged from those conversations because they are often divided along unproductive ideological lines.

 

[Luftmensch]

I'm speaking about everyday life not legal, semantics, etc.

As frustrating as it may be... if you want to talk about 'freedoms' or 'rights', semantics are everything. Semantics are the vehicle that is used and abused to write and interpret laws and constitutions.

I'll repeat, if it is legal to be unvaccinated, I don't see how anybody is being forced to take a vaccine? I acknowledge that sort of policy will impose on some belief systems and cause difficult decisions... but life is littered with tradeoffs....

 

[MarcelNL]

While I agree 100%... it makes the fatal assumption that all stakeholders agree on basic facts. For the past 50 years money and vested interest have learned how to pollute the information space. Now stakeholders don't even agree on a shared set of basic facts.

I fully agree with what you said there. The biggest problem I see is that people/groups that often are not even the key stakeholders pose as if they are, when f.e. politicians start to 'work' public opinion based information that is proven to be non factual, things get a bit scary IMO.

 

[Noxion]

As frustrating as it may be... if you want to talk about 'freedoms' or 'rights', semantics are everything. Semantics are the vehicle that is used and abused to write and interpret laws and constitutions.

'freedoms' or 'rights' as writing and interpreting laws and constitutions are a moments flicker; they come and go in the hundreds of thousand years of human existence. That's why it was once said that you cannot govern if you lack a good understanding of history.

 

[Jovidah]

I agree that this statement is 'true'... but what next? I am not sure what real value it provides? The problem is so much disinformation out there....

Having a position and seeking out information to affirm your beliefs is profoundly unscientific (I know you are not advocating for this). One of the primary goals of the scientific method is to remove cognitive biases from the process and let the evidence speak for itself. It is clearly unscientific when the "evidence" used to support a hypothesis isn't even grounded in demonstrable fact.

This was also what I was getting at. The way a lot of people basically pick and choose individual research reports to support whatever statement or position they are trying to defend has nothing to do with proper science and scientific method. It doesn't help that most reporters and journalists - even the ones with the best of intentions - tend to take this same approach, and often don't have a clue how to properly read a scientific article, or lack the overview of the entire body of literature to properly interpret and contextualize it.

While I agree 100%... it makes the fatal assumption that all stakeholders agree on basic facts. For the past 50 years money and vested interest have learned how to pollute the information space. Now stakeholders don't even agree on a shared set of basic facts.

Climate change is a perfect example. I don't care one bit if you say "climate change is real but I dont want to do anything about it". It agrees with humanity's best evidence and is honest about your intentions. I do care if the conversation space is polluted with a torrent of misinformation about how climate change is some hoax or conspiracy. I have increasingly disengaged from those conversations because they are often divided along unproductive ideological lines.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if a lot of this misinformation was fed by outside actors. The Soviet Union had a long history of trying to feed anything that could potentially disrupt, distabilize and divide their adversaries ('active measures'). It would be naive to think that the Russian Federation and countries like China aren't doing the same thing now. What better way to knock out your competitors than have them dealing with all these COVID-related problems for years to come!

I just don't understand why some high profile figures are so willing to tag along with it though; yes you might have some short-term individual political gain but in the long-term it's just shooting your own country in the foot.

Especially when it comes to climate change, don't underestimate that not everyone shares the same interests. There are plenty of countries whose economies rely massively on fossil fuel exports, or whose economies would actually benefit from global warming; again Russia is a good example of both, but not the only one.
They have every reason to do whatever they can to 'pollute the debate' and try to disrupt any progress on that agenda. I think it's really a blind spot in a lot of discussions on the matter; not all countries share the same goals.

 

[MarcelNL]

It appears we no longer need outside actors to spread nonsense, actors like Russia and China etc may well actively support the spreading of nonsense and the tactics sure fit their MO, yet the fertile soil needs to be present for anything to grow, and that condition is met.

In Germany the 'news broadcaster' RT Deutsch (Federal Russian state controlled channel) is under increasing scrutiny, for spreading Covid 'misinformatsya'... I'm sure there are numerous other and far less obvious influences, but here too it is the science behind what BS they convey that does not change, as crappy as the interpretation or selection of what is presented may be, the power of science is that it will cut through the crap like some Aogami Super straight off a stone. The big question is how to best reach the audience with the objective facts.

 

[Keith Sinclair]

I know my sister who resisted vaccine is religious don't know what sites she goes too, but she would say things like pregnant women
shouldn't take vaccine & that healthy people die after taking vac. shots.

Must be same as here in Hawaii unvac. three young pregnant mothers died & others very sick. No vaccinated Mothers died or got seriously ill.

 

[Michi]

Some recent numbers from NSW about hospitalisations due to Covid.

• 78.6% were unvaccinated or had unknown status,
• 18.1% were partially vaccinated,
• 3.3% were fully vaccinated.

It is a similar story for ICU admissions: 2.2% of ICU patients were fully vaccinated, the remainder partially or unvaccinated (or status unknown).

For fatalities, 2.2% of fatalities were fully vaccinated; all those cases were aged 70 and above.

I don't have to be a mental giant to work out that I'm better off with the vaccine than without.

 

[Nemo]

Some recent numbers from NSW about hospitalisations due to Covid.

• 78.6% were unvaccinated or had unknown status,
• 18.1% were partially vaccinated,
• 3.3% were fully vaccinated.

It is a similar story for ICU admissions: 2.2% of ICU patients were fully vaccinated, the remainder partially or unvaccinated (or status unknown).

For fatalities, 2.2% of fatalities were fully vaccinated; all those cases were aged 70 and above.

I don't have to be a mental giant to work out that I'm better off with the vaccine than without.

It's worth noting that NSW has over 90% double vaccination rates (of those over 16 years old).

 

[MarcelNL]

Those numbers are similar to what we saw here until a few weeks ago...all numbers are restrospective data, which seems to be the major issue in 'making policies' going forward, though IMO you are absolutely right in drawing the conclusion that you're better off with vaccine than without...with billions now vaccinated the side effects that previously were taken out of any realistic context should be prevalent in the official statistics and they are not.

Still the situation changes, those booster shots seem to be much needed.

interesting read, yes it's from a smal country but their academia is top notch and so is health care in general in Belgium! Only thing against it is that the article is now a month old, still; the general gist of it remains intact and I see a similar picture in the Netherlands, Germany and Austria.

https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2021/1...-covid-patients-are-vaccinated-but-the-vacci/

 

[Matus]

Just to state the obvious: Looking at hospitalization numbers and breaking them down to vaccinated / non- vaccinated / recovered / etc. makes sense ONLY if these are broken down to age categories and normalized to the respective numbers. Imagine someone comes up and say: 'hay, in country X there is 50% vaccinated in ICU' - then it really matters to have a look and find what age category the patients are and what fraction of that age category is actually vaccinated. Otherwise one can twist the argument the way they want.

 

[Michi]

Looking at hospitalization numbers and breaking them down to vaccinated / non- vaccinated / recovered / etc. makes sense ONLY if these are broken down to age categories and normalized to the respective numbers.

Yes that's an important point. Imagine a country where everyone is fully vaccinated. A small proportion of the population will still get hospitalised, because the vaccine is not perfect and wears off with time. But, in such a country, 100% of all hospitalised people are fully vaccinated. This does not mean that the vaccine does not work.

In NSW, we are well over 90% fully vaccinated now. And still the vast majority of people in hospital are unvaccinated, despite the fact that they account for less than 10% of the population. In other words, with the vaccine, I'm very unlikely to end up in hospital compared to the odds if I'm not vaccinated.

 

[ian]

Pick the conclusion you want and you'll find a plethora of "science" to support it.

The reason it seems like you can always do this nowadays is that some journalists and politicians ignore the scientific consensus and cherrypick either problematic or unsupported articles. For the most part, this isn't a science problem, it's a media problem. There are certainly some examples where there's not a real scientific consensus (probably some economic issues, for instance?), but to my knowledge there's no real disagreement in the scientific community about the fact that universal vaccination would be a good tool in the fight against the pandemic. That said, the situation early in the pandemic definitely gave science a bad rap: the world changed so quickly and we had to respond quickly, so policy was made partly using guesswork and partly for badly communicated reasons (e.g. don't wear masks because we need to save them for healthcare workers). Some of the guesses turned out to be wrong, understandably, which has given people a lot of fodder for criticism, even though not guessing and not doing anything would not have been a good option either.

Anyway, this hasn't seemed to be your point about vaccines, though, has it? I've taken your point to be that a significant number of people -- e.g. healthcare workers and people in hospitality -- are hesitant about vaccines and that mandating vaccines would result in these people leaving their jobs and straining those industries. That's certainly a valid concern, but it's a policy problem, not a science problem. In an ideal world, my solution to this would be to root out the rampant disinformation out there about vaccines so that less people are hesitant for bogus reasons, rather than reasonable ones specific to their situation, whatever those may be. However, I'm sure people pushing for the mandates are thinking "there's no way we can accomplish that in this environment, and we need to fight the pandemic NOW!".

I guess I'm posting all this because I get a bit amped up about "both sides"-ism nowadays, for instance because of the climate debate, which is one of the most extreme examples where science supports one end of the political spectrum. The consensus in the climate science community has been dire for decades, and one party has been consistently downplaying the risks. It's only in the last few years that they've started to even acknowledge that climate change is real, and that humans have a role in it, though there's been no real question about that in the scientific community for ages now. It may be literally true that you can find "science" to support whatever opinion you want, but when one opinion is supported by 99% of papers and the other is supported by 1% of papers, that's not parity. Anyway, this isn't so related to your point about vaccination mandates.