coronavirus discussion

[whitev70r]

I know of a double vaccinated person tested positive. It seems like vaccines may be able to lessen symptoms, get the body ready in case you catch the virus, but certainly not a 80-90% efficacy rate which they were touting ... if by the efficacy rate we understood it as 'you won't get it'.

I'd still get it for the protection of lesser symptoms but yah, I can see how evidence is now giving anti-vaxxers more fuel to their fire namely, double vaccinated people still testing +'ve. Having said that, the Delta variant was a bit of a game changer. Pfizer or Moderna might be more effective against original Covid but virus is out smarting and out running how humans can find solutions.

Reasonable people see vaccines lower case counts with original Covid and Delta throwing us for a loop.

Anti-vaxxers say, 'See, I told you so. Case counts still high, people with double vaccines still get it, vaccines itself side effects, eff vaccine passports, etc.'

[Traum]

The vaccine is not 100% effective against infection -- that is something we've known since their introduction. Also, we now know effectiveness against infection drops over time, perhaps a bit sooner than everyone has anticipated, but it is still very effective in offering protection against severe COVID, and it is those severe COVID and their lasting consequences that are the most damaging.

There is also no disputing that the vast majority of people infected now are:

1) infected by delta, and
2) unvaccinated

To me, this means the vaccine continues to be very effective, both in terms of significantly reducing the chances of getting infected, as well as the risks of developing severe COVID if you do get infected.

Are those reasons still not enough to get the shot? Someone would have to be an idiot to not see how the vaccine offers fantastic protection against the disease, delta variant or not.

[CivicBlues]

Originally Posted by GGnoRE

Most anti-vaxxers have a stupid reason for refusing vaccines. But regardless of their reason, they are heading towards immunity (stronger immunity than vaccination) like the rest of us who are vaccinated.

We are told to get vaccinated not just for ourselves, but for others. Well this doesn't exactly seem to be the case as I wrote above.

Even if you are vaccinated now, the virus isn't going away anytime soon and your vaccine efficacy will continue to decline. At a certain point, I would assume that more people will roll the dice at some point with no additional booster shots. We are currently drawing the anti-vaxxer line at 2 shots but that seems a bit arbitrary when there will be people who refuse their 3rd or 4th or 5th etc booster shots.

Except the point of getting vaccinated is to keep your ass out of the hospital. These anti-vaxxers will end up getting it but a larger percentage of them will require hospitalization than the vaxxed population causing further strain on our Hospitals.

The vaccination strategy was never about eradicating COVID, it was to keep our Health Care System intact.

[Hondaracer]

So you’re double vaccinated

Would you prefer to roll the dice on a mild case of covid or take another booster?

[whitev70r]

Originally Posted by Traum

The vaccine is not 100% effective against infection -- that is something we've known since their introduction. Also, we now know effectiveness against infection drops over time, perhaps a bit sooner than everyone has anticipated, but it is still very effective in offering protection against severe COVID, and it is those severe COVID and their lasting consequences that are the most damaging.

There is also no disputing that the vast majority of people infected now are:

1) infected by delta, and
2) unvaccinated

To me, this means the vaccine continues to be very effective, both in terms of significantly reducing the chances of getting infected, as well as the risks of developing severe COVID if you do get infected.

Are those reasons still not enough to get the shot? Someone would have to be an idiot to not see how the vaccine offers fantastic protection against the disease, delta variant or not.

Well, yah ... that's what the fine print is now telling us.

BUT it's hard not to deny that when they rolled out the vaccine ... it was advertised as 80-90% effective. I know it was ambiguous ... but what do you think the avg person concluded by that?

[320icar]

I’m not even going to engage. So much wrong

Guys like “bad guys can still get guns. So why bother with any attempt at gun control? Who cares if more school shootings happens ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ “

[spoon.ek9]

the average understanding of what vaccines do is flawed to begin with. as mentioned many times already vaccines do not prevent infection, they prevent hospitalization and death. that's what the efficacy percentage is rated on. the people experiencing breakthrough infections is incredibly low (roughly 1%) and of that percentage, vast majority of the ones being hospitalized have pre-existing underlying conditions.

[westopher]

We still have pretty clear numbers that I believe were stated as
You have a 17x better chance of being infected if you are unvaccinated
29x better chance of being hospitalized
10x better chance of dying if you are hospitalized
I’m not sure how anyone that can even add 1+1 can argue against vaccine effectiveness, but with these dumbfuck contrarians, I’m sure plenty of them would argue 1+1=2 is just a coverup by George soros to keep the sheep from knowing real math, so here we are.
Idiocracy is officially a documentary that was somehow released back in time.

[GGnoRE]

We all understand that vaccines work to a varying degree against variants and time. Nobody argued that. In an ideal world, we'd all get fully vaccinated at the same time. But the reality is, not everyone is going to take the vaccine. Some are anti-vaxers now and reasonable people will opt not to take boosters in the future. We are seeing data from Israel and CDC that variants can cause surges in infections or outbreaks where the majority of the cases are among those who are fully vaccinated. Covid will continue to mutate and remain as an endemic for years to come with or without vaccination.

As for trying to keep people out of hospital, I really wonder how far we should go as a society. Our society allows people to make poor choices all the time; we allow people to smoke, drink alcohol, use recreational drugs, eat garbage diet, not engage in any physical exercise, be morbidly obese etc... all of which leads to a burden on our healthcare system without any restriction or penalty. Imagine the uproar if we decided as a society that, if you have a blood pressure exceeding X or if you smoke or if BMI is above Y, all of which are common causes of heart diseases which is the number 1 cause of death and burden on our healthcare system, you will not be allowed to enter bars, fast-food restaurants etc. If you were to ask me how do we keep hospitals from getting overrun from Covid, I think we should have 20x the ICU capacity that we currently have. If we can spend over 70B on CERB, I think we can spend billions increasing the pay of current nurses, recruiting and expediting the training of new nurses specifically for managing covid patients, building emergency triage centers, manufacturing more medical equipment etc.

[westopher]

Nobody argued that.

If you believe that you haven’t been paying attention.
Agreed on increasing healthcare budgets, but other than that I’ve clearly heard, read and seen people making statements that “95% of people in hospital are vaccinated” and “vaccines make no difference in the spread of covid” which is downright bullshit. More people believe this trash than their should be.
Again on the obesity, addictions, etc.
A vaccine doesn’t limit those.

[Hondaracer]

Hospital capacity and the recruitment/training of future nurses and doctors can wait until after Trudeaus failed pandemic election.

[spoon.ek9]

Originally Posted by GGnoRE

We all understand that vaccines work to a varying degree against variants and time. Nobody argued that. In an ideal world, we'd all get fully vaccinated at the same time. But the reality is, not everyone is going to take the vaccine. Some are anti-vaxers now and reasonable people will opt not to take boosters in the future. We are seeing data from Israel and CDC that variants can cause surges in infections or outbreaks where the majority of the cases are among those who are fully vaccinated. Covid will continue to mutate and remain as an endemic for years to come with or without vaccination.

As for trying to keep people out of hospital, I really wonder how far we should go as a society. Our society allows people to make poor choices all the time; we allow people to smoke, drink alcohol, use recreational drugs, eat garbage diet, not engage in any physical exercise, be morbidly obese etc... all of which leads to a burden on our healthcare system without any restriction or penalty. Imagine the uproar if we decided as a society that, if you have a blood pressure exceeding X or if you smoke or if BMI is above Y, all of which are common causes of heart diseases which is the number 1 cause of death and burden on our healthcare system, you will not be allowed to enter bars, fast-food restaurants etc. If you were to ask me how do we keep hospitals from getting overrun from Covid, I think we should have 20x the ICU capacity that we currently have. If we can spend over 70B on CERB, I think we can spend billions increasing the pay of current nurses, recruiting and expediting the training of new nurses specifically for managing covid patients, building emergency triage centers, manufacturing more medical equipment etc.

NONE of those are infectious diseases. That's the difference plain and simple. You cannot compare poor choices with a highly infectious disease that can and will affect people against their will.

[320icar]

Don’t bother guys.

[GGnoRE]

Originally Posted by spoon.ek9

NONE of those are infectious diseases. That's the difference plain and simple. You cannot compare poor choices with a highly infectious disease that can and will affect people against their will.

Before responding to your post, I will state again that I have taken the vaccine and I support the vaccine but I am questioning what is the best way for us to move forward as a society when covid is projected to stick around for years and a growing segment of our population will be anti-vax/partially-vaxed/un-boostered.

I thought the main argument supporting harsh restrictions against those not vaccinated is to keep people away from hospitals (this is why I brought up poor lifestyle choices which leads to hospitalization), not necessarily to prevent infections in general? All of us have access to vaccines and our chances of ending up in a hospital is extremely low if you protect yourself by taking the vaccine.

If you are supporting harsh restrictions against those not vaccinated to prevent infections in general, how do we explain that there are no restrictions if you choose not to get the influenza vaccine every year? Before anyone gets upset that I compared covid to the flu, I appreciate that covid is different than the flu in terms of r0, symptoms, death rate etc etc. but who and by what criteria are we deciding which infectious disease warrants such extreme intervention from the government? Is it simply by rank ordering? i.e. if disease X is more dangerous than the flu, it warrants mandatory vaccination? Is it by some metric like r0? I guess my stance is that I don't expect nor want the government to attempt to eradicate all risks to my health via extreme measures. They provided free vaccines to everyone and I am okay with whatever risks that remain which is very low for the majority of our population.

[westopher]

You need to look at the numbers.
There hasn’t been a time in our lives where a single disease left unchecked would overrun the hospital system.
Not obesity, not the flu, not drugs (although that is overwhelming our ambulance services as of late)
That is why this disease requires different solutions. Because the system that has been constructed since the implementation of health care in this country has never had to adapt to anything of this magnitude, nor can it this quickly.
There is no comparison to be made, because these other issues are not even close to as dangerous to our population as an entirety.

[GGnoRE]

Originally Posted by westopher

There hasn’t been a time in our lives where a single disease left unchecked would overrun the hospital system.
Not obesity, not the flu, not drugs (although that is overwhelming our ambulance services as of late)
That is why this disease requires different solutions. Because the system that has been constructed since the implementation of health care in this country has never had to adapt to anything of this magnitude, nor can it this quickly.

I agree that we need a unique solution to prevent the hospitals from being overrun but my perspective is that the solution we are going about now will only strengthen the resolve of those who are not vaccinated or not-boostered in the future and create a deeper rift in our society.

[westopher]

That I can agree with. Most of the unvaccinated that are not specifically anti vax are simply making a fuss because they don’t like being told what to do, or to be alienated.
It’s like the child having a temper tantrum because he got in trouble for something he didn’t think was wrong.
What’s an alternative though? We asked, we told, we gave information. Those that are left behind are holding the rest of society back.
I did my part, why should I be punished for those that didn’t? The alternative is a sweeping lockdown for everyone. Again.
No one wants more lockdowns, except maybe JDMdreams.

[JDMDreams]

That's why we need passports to keep the unvax away from the healthy. It's 2 years in, and they made their choice. It's like that friend that never listens to your advice and get hurt or that kid that keeps touching the boiling pot when you told them not to. It makes no sense that we would risk the health of all the vaccinated ppl to please the rights and freedoms of the anti Vax. What about the rights and freedom/ health and safety for everyone else who followed the rules.

That's like saying it's my rights and freedom to drive at 200km and text while I do it. You have to face the consequences of your decision. Let them drink the bleach and shove that horse creme up their butts.

[Hondaracer]

I’m not at all against the passport, I encourage it in fact due to it being basically the last resort to twist people’s arm to get vaccinated.

However, it left me with an uneasy feeling when they had a govt. representative on the radio talk about the “temporary” passport system and she literally said the word temporary 6-7 times in a 3 minute interview lol..

[JDMDreams]

^^ same thing as them saying face masks weren't necessary, and you guys don't need masks as of July

[Hondaracer]

Not even close to the same.

[SkinnyPupp]

Originally Posted by GGnoRE

I am questioning what is the best way for us to move forward as a society

The best way right now is for everyone to get vaccinated. There's literally no good argument against it.

[hud 91gt]

I didn’t know being fat or having high blood pressure was contagious. I’ll avoid all old people from now on.

[320icar]

Also the argument about why not make smokers not allowed to go to the hospital etc.

You can’t catch cancer. BUT unlike obesity, smokers do produce second hand smoke. That’s why for the good of society it’s illegal to smoke in public parks, indoors, homes or cars with children.

Why should corona be any different

[GGnoRE]

Originally Posted by hud 91gt

I didn’t know being fat or having high blood pressure was contagious. I’ll avoid all old people from now on.

The fact that covid is contagious or infectious, in isolation alone, is too simple of an argument to warrant the magnitude of action that our government wants to take against a segment of our population who are unvaccinated. If you were to rely on that contagious aspect alone, you wouldn't be able to explain why we as a society are okay with people freely spreading the cold and flu to each other without any restrictions. The only reason and valid argument to support extreme measures against the unvaccinated is to prevent hospitals from being overrun, which covid has the potential to do but not the flu, not to prevent infections overall.

Originally Posted by 320icar

Also the argument about why not make smokers not allowed to go to the hospital etc.

You can’t catch cancer. BUT unlike obesity, smokers do produce second hand smoke. That’s why for the good of society it’s illegal to smoke in public parks, indoors, homes or cars with children.

Why should corona be any different

The question I am asking is how do we balance the "good of society" with respecting the decisions of individuals, regardless of how much you deplore those decisions. I appreciate that someone can give you covid, but the risks that an unvaccinated person pose to you as a vaccinated individual is very low. This is not me downplaying covid, doctors and infectious disease experts have said it multiples times on tv that even IF you were to contract covid, you will most likely experience mild respiratory illness as a vaccinated individual.

From a practical standpoint, I would also ask what is the end game if we go down this direction? Sooner or later, the majority of cases and infections will be among fully vaccinated individuals when you look at the new data coming from Israel and CDC. At that point, we won't be able to scapegoat the unvaccinated population by introducing more punitive measures against them. On top of that, our vaccine efficacy from the first two doses will continue to erode and we will most likely be asked to get our 3rd booster. So now, if you don't get your booster are your vaccine passports revoked? What about another booster 6 months later? Before we set a new precedent by supporting this now, do we even know what is the long-term plan? I'll state again that my stance is that I would much rather see us investing heavily in increasing ICU capacity exponentially now to prevent lockdowns from ever happening again.