Since a huge number of the people who have died from Covid are obese, how about we give a highly educated government bureaucrat the power to put everyone who doesn’t meet government guidelines for a healthy weight on a mandated diet? Now that would be a real boon to public health, maybe even a greater benefit than Covid vaccines.
Not really, no.
Even were we to take this desperate reductio ad absurdam argument seriously, the logistics would be vastly more complex, the timescales much longer, and the cost/benefit calculation very very different to the requirement of people to go to their local doctor or pharmacy maybe three times in one year for a few minutes to get a shot.
Vaccines save lives. It would be nice if everyone acted like a responsible adult and if those who were able to be vaccinated would do so in order to minimize the risks not only to themselves but others, but sadly way too many people just don’t wanna.
Yeah, I’ve been arguing that getting a vaccine isn’t free. But it’s so vastly cheaper/easier than “lose weight and keep it off” that it’s ridiculous to compare them.
More ridiculous than having people followed around in the grocery store to insure they don’t recklessly buy a pair of socks while they are shopping for Pop Tarts? Just imagine the potential for growing the bureaucracy; we could put all the TSA rejects to work. How far can we go? Is there such a thing as ‘too far’ these days?
For pharmacies located in big-box stores, such as Walmart or Costco, an unvaccinated person must be “accompanied at all times during his or her travels by an employee of the business, the pharmacy or any other person mandated by them for this purpose,” the decree reads. This person may not purchase products other than those related to the pharmaceutical service they are receiving.
Not living in Quebec, I’m not familiar with their rules and I’m not very invested in them, either.
But yes, if your summary is accurate, attempting to make people lose weight is significantly more ridiculous than limiting them to the pharmacy section of a big-box store.
I’m willing to make vaccination mandatory for all public accommodations. If you choose to stay unvaccinated, stay home.
And having developed antibodies is part of that process regardless of which vaccine you got or whether you got them from getting covid.
With Omicron vaccination now fails the standard of not causing harm to others. Shouldn’t the vaccinated stay home as well?
I’m mostly doing that. Yeah, it seems like a good idea.
I’m staying home much more, but I’m not shut down. I’m not going to crowded restaurants, I’m wearing masks in stores again, and I got the booster.
OK, back up. I think what you’re missing is that lots of the people (oh, who are we shitting…) most of the people hospitalized with covid got there by being unvaccinated. Becoming hospitalized with covid in order to gain some amount of covid antibody protection is kind of like smashing your thumb with a hammer so that in case you shut your thumb in a door it’s already numb.
Again, this is false as already explained in this thread. But here’s yet another link showing that unvaccinated are being infected at 2.5 - 6X the rate of unvaccinated depending on age. For boosters the difference is double that.
The numbers on the bottom of that page are from November, when the dominant strain was Delta. The difference by vaccination status in your risk of catching Omicron is much less, based on the studies I’ve seen. Eyeballing the graphs on that page for December, it looks like there’s still a reduction even for unboosted, (which is contrary to everything else I’ve read, but real population data trumps little studies) but the reduction looks more like 30-40% than like a factor of 2.5 (60% reduction) or 6 (83% reduction) you cite.
Yes, the graph includes most of December. The numbers I give in my post are from the end of that graph when omicron was dominant. You can tell when omicron takes over by the uptick in cases. Put the age filters on. The differences in unvaccinated vs vaccinated increase with increasing age.
Here are some cites for “vaccines don’t prevent omicron without a booster”. (Note that vaccines remain highly effective against serious illness or death, even against omicron. I’m only showing evidence they are much less effective against become symptomatic, testing positive, and being able to spread the disease.)
two doses of BNT162b2 may not be sufficient to protect against infection with the Omicron variant. However, as the vast majority of epitopes targeted by vaccine-induced T cells are not affected by the mutations in Omicron, the companies believe that vaccinated individuals may still be protected against severe forms of the disease and are closely monitoring real world effectiveness against Omicron, globally.
The study results demonstrated that the likelihood of vaccination with 3 mRNA vaccine doses (vs unvaccinated) was significantly lower among both Omicron cases (adjusted odds ratio [OR], 0.33 [95% CI, 0.31-0.35]) and Delta cases (adjusted OR, 0.065 [95% CI, 0.059-0.071]) than among SARS-CoV-2–negative controls; a similar pattern was observed with 3 vs 2 doses of mRNA vaccines (Omicron adjusted OR, 0.34 [95% CI, 0.32-0.36]); Delta adjusted OR, 0.16 [95% CI, 0.14-0.17]). The relatively higher odds ratios for the association with Omicron infection suggested less protection (ie, corresponding with lower estimated vaccine effectiveness) for Omicron than for Delta
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These ORs indicate limited to no effectiveness of the 2-dose schedule against the symptomatic Omicron infection by 4 to 6 months after the second dose
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vaccines are indeed effective against severe outcomes, even with breakthrough cases of COVID-19
We cross posted. I’m not sure i can play with filters on my phone, but I’ll take a look later. Thanks for the link.
That article went on to say:
The results do not apply to the Omicron variant of the virus, which now accounts for 99.5% of COVID-19 cases in the United States.
“The evidence in this report does not change our vaccination recommendations,” Dr. Ben Silk of the CDC and one of the study’s authors told a media briefing.
“We know that vaccination is still the safest way to protect yourself against COVID-19,” he said.
When one includes that part it sends a different message than what you implied it did in your post.
More effective at what?
Pretty much everyone admits the vaccines do not stop getting infected or transmitting.
They may help lessen severe illness.
It seems immunity from contracting and beating the virus confers better and maybe complete immunity. Which probably also lessens transmission.
Bolding added
Absolutely not. Google “reinfection”. It’s quite common for people who had a prior version of covid to catch omicron, in particular.
Is it too much to ask people to read the thread before repeating the same rebutted talking points?