First Step wrote:michaelm wrote:First Step wrote:This is a lie. Getting vaccinated is about protecting yourself, and always has been. It's why we inoculated the vulnerable population first. If people are concerned about the virus, they should get vaccinated themselves, because science has proven taking the vaccine prevents severe illness and death.
Take the shot, you are protected. The data CLEARLY shows this.
You are incorrect actually. Whether we are at a stage in the current pandemic particularly in the US where this is still relevant is a different question, but the way to put a lid on an epidemic is to get the R1 below 1.0, which vaccination can certainly greatly assist. Small pox has been eliminated and polio virtually eliminated mainly due to vaccination.
I would at least wait to see how things go in Denmark and particularly Sweden before dismissing any role for vaccination in controlling Covid 19.
I'd be incorrect if your response addressed the content of my post. So you really don't believe that taking the vaccine provides protection for the individual taking it? The only function of the vaccine is to protect other people? Do you believe they only provide protection once we get under 1.0? Because if not, then we agree. And if we disagree, well then please read the clinical data. This clearly shows the vaccine protects the individual who takes it from severe illness or death.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2034577CONCLUSIONS
A two-dose regimen of BNT162b2 conferred 95% protection against Covid-19 in persons 16 years of age or older.
If the goal is getting the R1 below 1.0, why don't we really tighten restrictions to the point where people can't leave their homes? We can have state-run food delivery so people don't die. How much liberty are you willing to sacrifice to get under 1.0? Probably not that much.
It can do both of course, my reply was in response to you saying it was only for protection of the vaccinated individual.
There are other ways of curtailing epidemics of course as well, which with this disease don't have to involve harsh full lockdowns in the case of which I agree the cost/benefit ratio is indeed highly debatable, just reasonable measures short of same including mask wearing with good general community effort/adherence, which has worked successfully in Taiwan where they did it properly, and even in Australia for that matter where except in one state where it spread early into aged care facilities mask wearing and social distancing (EDIT and rigorous contact tracing which was very important) worked fine with pretty much no generalised lockdowns before the delta variant. Of course if you don't do anything except in a very haphazard manner and let the cases build to tens of millions you are not going to have much success in curtailing the thing. It seems likely that similarly to several other infectious diseases which occur in epidemic fashion that Covid 19 waxes and wanes independent of human agency for reasons including changes in the seasons. Should it go away and/or markedly attenuate and no longer requires vaccination and treatment only infrequently I will be more than happy. I am not even advocating mandatory vaccination for NBA players btw, although as things stand imo it should be for health workers.
The point is that medical science in 18 months (12 months with the vaccines) produced several effective vaccines, found that a repurposed old and cheap drug in dexamethasone could be effective in treating the disease, and has come up with both a monoclonal antibody and an oral antiviral agent which are significantly effective.
I and FNQ have both asked for data which shows the vaccine to be dangerous particularly in comparison with the disease or a bad idea in general. All I have seen so far is that you can't trust Joe Biden or Donald Fauci; I agree in regard to the latter in general btw despite him being one of the authors of the now obsolete major medical textbook Harrison's Principles of Internal medicine in the bookcase adjacent to my computer desk, and I am not sure why either of them want to be doing the jobs they are doing at the age of 78 and 80, along with Nancy Pelosi and octagenarian supreme court justices. You are aware that the word 'pandemic' actually means this is a worldwide disease ?, and there are actually quite a few leaders of countries other than Joe Biden and scientists other than Donald Fauci who have become involved with the response to the coronavirus pandemic. If you don' t like Pfizer the company there are other vaccines, including at least the Moderna mRNA vaccine which looks better than the Pfizer vaccine to me, the Novavax vaccine which is in the late stages of clinical trials in the USA, and the Astra Zeneca vaccine used outside the USA which were actually funded by the Trump administration in response to the pandemic.
I am all in favour of freedom in general, and if you guys in Texas want to reject modern medical science and for that matter modern dentistry and die at 40 with no teeth and have a massive maternal and infant mortality rate feel free to do so from my point of view. One thing I have learned however in this and other recent threads is that there is apparently no constitutional right to freedom to spread communicable diseases, and specifically so, the founding fathers apart from being smart men obviously in general were (rightly) worried about the plague.
