7 ms·

Vaccines cut severity of disease and thus the societal burden of infection. While I agree these measures are potentially draconian it's wrong to say they convey

by dia80 5y ago

Vaccines cut severity of disease and thus the societal burden of infection. While I agree these measures are potentially draconian it's wrong to say they convey no benefit.

kuraudo 5y ago
Well said, but I think the problem we're fighting is that people don't view these as vaccines so much as preventive treatment now. The Israel, Malta, and Iceland cases with very high vaccination rates and growing number of hospitalizations means we need to acknowledge that these things don't confer immunity, but that their benefit is still tangible and real in that it confers better outcomes to those that do contract the disease.
- quotemstr 5y ago
  > benefit is still tangible and real in that it confers better outcomes to those that do contract the disease The thing is that a treatment having real and tangible benefits is not an adequate justification for the state imposing that treatment by force. And yes, laws requiring vaccine passports for participation in public life are a use of state force. If the police stop you doing something, that means the state is using force to stop you doing that thing. If the state mandates that businesses require papers under the threat of fines or losing their business license, that's also an application of force on the part of the state. Informed consent has been the bedrock of medical ethics for the past 70 years and it would be unwise to throw away this principle just to impose a preventative treatment that might be mildly good for people. People are right to point out that the push for vaccine passports --- because the vaccines are merely preventative individual therapies --- is a gravely concerning break with nearly a century of tradition and law. In general, we don't mandate things merely because they're good for people, and it would be extremely dangerous to start doing that in general. Look: elsewhere, people have suggested that I'm claiming that because the vaccines can't stop the spread, they have no benefit. That's not true. They do seem beneficial. Lots of things are beneficial. Vitamin D deficiency, for example, is common and vitamin D supplementation would benefit most people. Do we require that people present evidence of vitamin D supplementation to eat at restaurants? No, of course not! That's an individual medical decision. The whole point of mandating traditional vaccines is that eradicating a disease has huge positive externalities, ones large enough to justify public health measures --- like vaccine requirements for admission into schools --- that would ordinarily fail on civil liberties grounds. COVID vaccines simply do not have the same large positive externalities. Yes, they might be good for you, but this fact alone does not justify coercive state action. COVID vaccines are not like the vaccines that have been mandated for a long time in public schools and at border crossings. COVID vaccines are non-sterilizing. The previous vaccines were sterilizing. These are two completely different categories of medical tools, and pointing out that we've done thing X with previous vaccines is not an argument that we should do thing X with respect to COVID vaccines.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    > the state imposing that treatment by force. Do you have examples of the use of force? > we don't mandate things merely because they're good for people Vaccinations were already mandated for all sorts of things, from crossing borders to attending schools.
angelzen 5y ago
Very true. Vaccines have helped in great measure. OTOH, there are other forces at play. The very existence of covid waves that come and recede much faster than the increase in the vaccination rate should be an indication that vaccines, while very helpful, are not the end all of covid pushback mechanisms. For example in US delta is receding after a couple months of mayhem. R is estimated <1 for most of the states, see https://covidestim.org https://covidestim.org. There is a point after which the effect of human measures becomes marginal. If anything because most people would have been already exposed to covid, with or without vaccines. I can't say whether we've passed that point or not, but OTOH the draconians have not made their case either. What concrete benefit do people expect from an additional 10% of the population being forced to vaccinate? Long term there are concerns of vaccine escape. Pfizer CEO raised them recently, it's not just the 5G conspiracists. A new strain emerges for which vaccines aren't that helpful against severe complications. Some people, myself included (I am vaccinated thank you very much) are concerned that creating a population with immune monoculture is likely to result in strains bypassing the monoculture. The nightmare scenario is the emergence of a strain for which the vaccines are a net negative. Hopefully nothing terrible happens. But we don't know. Nobody knows. Perhaps we should not be placing all our eggs in the same basket, e.g. not (force) vaccinate everyone against the exact same protein.
- pbourke 5y ago
  > What concrete benefit do people expect from an additional 10% of the population being forced to vaccinate? An intact hospital / critical care system.
  - ghoward 5y ago
    > An intact hospital / critical care system. Given that there are many nurses protesting vaccine mandates, it could be that putting such mandates in place will lead to a lot of them quitting, which could make the hospital system less "intact" and resilient.
  - rdtwo 5y ago
    The system is failing under the weight of its own policies. Underpaying and understaffing nurses Failing to provide ppe And a whole slew of covid related policies that deny folks “non critical “ care like cancer treatment and surgery. I mean my friends couldn’t even get in to see their pcp for 2 weeks for an illness that presented with fever, finally gave up and hit the er. Vaccines are nice but they won’t fix this
vixen99 5y ago
You're right to insist on looking at cost and benefit. Vaccines have indeed saved lives. Problem is that the emergency authorization means that we don't yet know what the cost is aside from the adverse reactions. The latter are described as 'rare' by journalists who prefer that term to quoting freely available data which changes week by week as in the case of boys who we now know suffer x6 risk of myocarditis than the same risk if they contract Covid. Is there a further risk down the road? A number of peer-reviewed papers have pointed out that this cannot be ruled out. When the papers dutifully write 'very unlikely' we know we're looking at a lottery with unknown odds.

by dia80 5y ago

Vaccines cut severity of disease and thus the societal burden of infection. While I agree these measures are potentially draconian it's wrong to say they convey no benefit.

kuraudo 5y ago

Well said, but I think the problem we're fighting is that people don't view these as vaccines so much as preventive treatment now. The Israel, Malta, and Iceland cases with very high vaccination rates and growing number of hospitalizations means we need to acknowledge that these things don't confer immunity, but that their benefit is still tangible and real in that it confers better outcomes to those that do contract the disease.

quotemstr 5y ago
> benefit is still tangible and real in that it confers better outcomes to those that do contract the disease The thing is that a treatment having real and tangible benefits is not an adequate justification for the state imposing that treatment by force. And yes, laws requiring vaccine passports for participation in public life are a use of state force. If the police stop you doing something, that means the state is using force to stop you doing that thing. If the state mandates that businesses require papers under the threat of fines or losing their business license, that's also an application of force on the part of the state. Informed consent has been the bedrock of medical ethics for the past 70 years and it would be unwise to throw away this principle just to impose a preventative treatment that might be mildly good for people. People are right to point out that the push for vaccine passports --- because the vaccines are merely preventative individual therapies --- is a gravely concerning break with nearly a century of tradition and law. In general, we don't mandate things merely because they're good for people, and it would be extremely dangerous to start doing that in general. Look: elsewhere, people have suggested that I'm claiming that because the vaccines can't stop the spread, they have no benefit. That's not true. They do seem beneficial. Lots of things are beneficial. Vitamin D deficiency, for example, is common and vitamin D supplementation would benefit most people. Do we require that people present evidence of vitamin D supplementation to eat at restaurants? No, of course not! That's an individual medical decision. The whole point of mandating traditional vaccines is that eradicating a disease has huge positive externalities, ones large enough to justify public health measures --- like vaccine requirements for admission into schools --- that would ordinarily fail on civil liberties grounds. COVID vaccines simply do not have the same large positive externalities. Yes, they might be good for you, but this fact alone does not justify coercive state action. COVID vaccines are not like the vaccines that have been mandated for a long time in public schools and at border crossings. COVID vaccines are non-sterilizing. The previous vaccines were sterilizing. These are two completely different categories of medical tools, and pointing out that we've done thing X with previous vaccines is not an argument that we should do thing X with respect to COVID vaccines.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  > the state imposing that treatment by force. Do you have examples of the use of force? > we don't mandate things merely because they're good for people Vaccinations were already mandated for all sorts of things, from crossing borders to attending schools.

angelzen 5y ago

Very true. Vaccines have helped in great measure. OTOH, there are other forces at play. The very existence of covid waves that come and recede much faster than the increase in the vaccination rate should be an indication that vaccines, while very helpful, are not the end all of covid pushback mechanisms. For example in US delta is receding after a couple months of mayhem. R is estimated <1 for most of the states, see https://covidestim.org https://covidestim.org. There is a point after which the effect of human measures becomes marginal. If anything because most people would have been already exposed to covid, with or without vaccines. I can't say whether we've passed that point or not, but OTOH the draconians have not made their case either. What concrete benefit do people expect from an additional 10% of the population being forced to vaccinate? Long term there are concerns of vaccine escape. Pfizer CEO raised them recently, it's not just the 5G conspiracists. A new strain emerges for which vaccines aren't that helpful against severe complications. Some people, myself included (I am vaccinated thank you very much) are concerned that creating a population with immune monoculture is likely to result in strains bypassing the monoculture. The nightmare scenario is the emergence of a strain for which the vaccines are a net negative. Hopefully nothing terrible happens. But we don't know. Nobody knows. Perhaps we should not be placing all our eggs in the same basket, e.g. not (force) vaccinate everyone against the exact same protein.

pbourke 5y ago
> What concrete benefit do people expect from an additional 10% of the population being forced to vaccinate? An intact hospital / critical care system.
- ghoward 5y ago
  > An intact hospital / critical care system. Given that there are many nurses protesting vaccine mandates, it could be that putting such mandates in place will lead to a lot of them quitting, which could make the hospital system less "intact" and resilient.
- rdtwo 5y ago
  The system is failing under the weight of its own policies. Underpaying and understaffing nurses Failing to provide ppe And a whole slew of covid related policies that deny folks “non critical “ care like cancer treatment and surgery. I mean my friends couldn’t even get in to see their pcp for 2 weeks for an illness that presented with fever, finally gave up and hit the er. Vaccines are nice but they won’t fix this

vixen99 5y ago

You're right to insist on looking at cost and benefit. Vaccines have indeed saved lives. Problem is that the emergency authorization means that we don't yet know what the cost is aside from the adverse reactions. The latter are described as 'rare' by journalists who prefer that term to quoting freely available data which changes week by week as in the case of boys who we now know suffer x6 risk of myocarditis than the same risk if they contract Covid. Is there a further risk down the road? A number of peer-reviewed papers have pointed out that this cannot be ruled out. When the papers dutifully write 'very unlikely' we know we're looking at a lottery with unknown odds.