If vaccines prevent serious cases and hospitalization for a large percentage of people, and they do, we would be all good if vaccination rates reach sufficient levels. Until they do, the very limited ICU capacity will be taken up overpropertionally unvaccinated. And we will continue to have problems.
Don't we want some sort of control group to remain for these vaccines that don't formally conclude their trials for a couple of years yet? Or is everyone just 100% convinced that nothing could possibly go wrong at this point? That would be proper scientific diligence.
What would be an example of something going wrong? Are you thinking that a sub-optimal outcome might occur ("the pandemic lasted 4 months longer than it had to") or that 80% of the people vaccinated drop dead in 2025?
The first case would be an unfortunate case of the best attempt of a decision made on uncertain data turning out to be incorrect in retrospect.
In the latter case, civilization is still protected as many people chose not to get vaccinated.
I guess hopefully we don't find out, because the only way it'll ever be clearly distinguished is if it goes very badly across the board. Anything less can quite simply be explained away. Isn't it nice for Pfizer/Moderna to be able to run the long-term study with immunity in a manner that is very hard to understand clinical outcomes (except the huge side-effect profile readily dismissed as 'acceptable' because some deaths are more important than others).
These decisions were mired in a whole lot of suspicious and unnecessary controversy. Rare and specific blood clots on the order of 1 per 20,000 vaccinations turned the ethical consideration of the vaccines from "obviously good" to "obviously bad" overnight, and they were removed from the program immediately. A single-digit number of unnecessary deaths were caused, but the buck stopped there.
I'm not as encouraged by the international response to this research and operative decision. It could be argued at the time that the Scandinavian decisions were made in the light of populations that had sufficiently low mortality from covid that the ethical consideration was different than in Europe at large.
But to my eyes, the European decision to keep using the AZ and J&J vaccines had an air of "let's not look too closely, or maybe we'll see something bad". Norwegian case studies indicated that the rare blood clots were pretty frickin' hard to distinguish from conditions caused by common lifestyle diseases. Two cases were specifically diagnosed only because they happened in doctors who ran themselves through a battery of expensive tests few normal patients would have qualified for. My qualified guess: There are rare but deadly and persistent side effects with these vaccines, that won't be discovered in healthcare environments that aren't finely tuned.
I suppose my point is that if there (God forbid) happen to exist bad but rare and non-obvious side effects of the new RNA vaccines, the truth can be uncovered. I'm not sure that a deliberate control group would be any good regardless; the AZ/J&J side effects were rare enough not to be seen in the control group. But they were still bad enough to disqualify the vaccines.
The whole thing is a super interesting subject, and it's obviously so political and subject to propaganda that you'd need a very critical eye to navigate it. Unless again, heaven forbid, the effect is so bad that it's obvious. Different health authorities do have different degrees of honesty and principled handling of these questions. There are control groups available; the large population of people who decide skip vaccination.
Hitting mid-80% is actually pretty impressive.
What the vaccines are not doing: make it 2019 again.
It's pretty obvious that e.g. if a 50% vaccination rate leaves the ICU at 10x capacity during an unmitigated outbreak, a 90% vaccination rate would be preferable even if it doesn't prevent the need for quarantine measures. This means that contact-reducing measures don't have to be as severe while the outbreak is happening.
Only if you think that "people not dying" isn't meaningful, anyway.
The message is constantly that it's the unvaccinated causing it, but why is that so when they form such a small proportion of the population, there's been plenty of prior exposure and seasonality seems to show a greater effect than the vaccines? Not to mention the risk to under 40's has been extremely low throughout. How do the unvaccinated keep 'filling up' hospitals if vaccines reduce spread and there's 80-90%+ double-dose coverage?
There's no peak to preventing a fixed percentage of deaths. It's fixed.
> and yet keep putting all our eggs in that basket.
As far as I'm aware, we haven't stopped all other research, so that would be false.
> How do the unvaccinated keep 'filling up' hospitals if vaccines reduce spread and there's 80-90%+ double-dose coverage?
Because 2% of 10% of an entire country is still a big number.
The vaccine is clearly not protecting that group (the original reason for mandates), and 'preventing deaths' vs the unknowns around long term vaccine outcomes (we're all just assuming nothing serious at present) and the increases in stresses and illnesses driven from lockdown, restrictions and mandates are creating a toll that we seem happy to assume is always less than the direct covid toll and therefore acceptable.
Because they chose not to be vaccinated. Why should I limit myself when I have a very small risk after vaccination to protect someone who chose not to be vaccinated, for whatever reason?
> The vaccine is clearly not protecting that group
And that is their choice. What more is there to discuss?
Should I decide all those in religious minorities deserve whatever comes to them because they choose not to follow the major religion?
Should I decide obese people deserve no support or care because they 'choose' an unhealthy diet?
Let's not turn into horrible human beings just because we feel righteous. Righteousness has a habit of causing horrendous suffering.
In what way is this related to "other people shouldn't be inconvenienced to protect you from the choices you have made"?
> Should I decide obese people deserve no support or care because they 'choose' an unhealthy diet?
All these examples are so irrelevant that it feels like you're doing it in bad faith. We're not talking about what unvaccinated people should do. We're talking about what vaccinated people should do, and vaccinated people are under no obligation to limit themselves to protect unvaccinated people.
If you want to be unvaccinated, fine. I'm not going to go into lockdown so you don't die, though. Risking it is your choice.
Who is inconvenienced? And should I feel 'inconvenienced' by those going to hospital because of vaccine adverse events? For instance, just for Pfizer in the EU, there are 640K events reported as of now [1], with ~70K of those for Blood & lymphatic system or cardiac disorders. Now these may not all be specific to Covid and not all hospitalisations, but there's certainly some 'inconvenience' to others here, no? Or is there some lower limit of 'inconvenience?'
You might also observe that a large number of adverse events are occurring in the 18-64 group, one that is of much lower risk of covid hospitalisation/death in the first place.
But wouldn't want to inconvenience you with lockdowns now would we! How frustrating! Better let you out so you can go give some unvaccinated people covid instead hmm? Sorry for the snark but what a selfish attitude.
Vaccinated people. I feel like you aren't following the debate.
> And should I feel 'inconvenienced' by those going to hospital because of vaccine adverse events?
No, why would you?
> Wouldn't want to inconvenience you with lockdowns now would we! How frustrating! Better let you out so you can go give some unvaccinated people covid instead hmm? Sorry for the snark but what a selfish attitude.
Yeah if you think "you better stay inside so I don't get COVID because I don't want to get vaccinated" is a reasonable stance, this won't go anywhere.
I even completely fail to fathom how "you should limit your own liberty to protect me from my choices" is remotely acceptable, let alone thinking that somebody not doing that is selfish.
You can either get vaccinated and go out, or not get vaccinated and stay in. How is it at all reasonable to tell me what to do because you don't want to get vaccinated? You're basically saying "everybody else needs to stop driving because I like walking in the street instead of the sidewalk, how selfish of you to still want to drive!".
So what exactly is this inconvenience, caused specifically by unvaccinated people and not government policy?
> No, why would you?
Depends on your answer for the above.
> Yeah if you think "you better stay inside so I don't get COVID because I don't want to get vaccinated" is a reasonable stance, this won't go anywhere.
So who exactly are you protecting with vaccination then? Other vaxxed people who are also protected? And as I mentioned in another comment, why pretend to understand the motives of the unvaccinated to make them the 'enemy?'
> I even completely fail to fathom how "you should limit your own liberty to protect me from my choices" is remotely acceptable
But it's ok to limit the liberties of the unvaxed because 'risk?' Everyone has rights or no one has rights. This is fundamental. Are you ok to be called unvaccinated if they decide boosters should be monthly even if a newer variant is evading those vaccines again?
> You can either get vaccinated and go out, or not get vaccinated and stay in. How is it at all reasonable to tell me what to do because you don't want to get vaccinated? You're basically saying "everybody else needs to stop driving because I like walking in the street instead of the sidewalk, how selfish of you to still want to drive!".
But being vaccinated doesn't stop it spreading while you're out, which highlights the selfish motives for getting it. You don't care about not making people sick, you care that your freedoms aren't restricted. There's a lot of vaccinated people in hospital still, are they an inconvenience?
You said this:
> Why do we not still care for the unvaccinated regardless of their reasons or situations for being so?
The inconvenience si "caring for the unvaccinated", at least that's how I interpreted your comment. If you meant something different please let me know.
> caused specifically by unvaccinated people and not government policy?
Government policy to protect unvaccinated people.
> So who exactly are you protecting with vaccination then?
Myself, obviously.
> why pretend to understand the motives of the unvaccinated to make them the 'enemy?'
I didn't make them "the enemy". They can do whatever I want, I just don't want any limitation on myself to protect them from their choices.
> But it's ok to limit the liberties of the unvaxed because 'risk?' Everyone has rights or no one has rights.
"But it's ok to limit the liberties of the drunk because 'risk?' Everyone can drive or no one can drive."
> But being vaccinated doesn't stop it spreading while you're out
This argument would make sense if curtailing the spread was the ultimate goal, but it's not. Preventing hospitalizations/deaths is the ultimate goal. If I go into a room with vaccinated people and give them all COVID but nobody is hospitalized, then that's fine. I don't think this is so hard to understand.
> You don't care about not making people sick, you care that your freedoms aren't restricted.
Everything is a tradeoff. If you're vaccinated, you're less of a risk than if you aren't. At some point, life has to go on. Or should we have been in perpetual lockdown for centuries so people didn't die of the flu as well?
> Government policy to protect unvaccinated people.
Government policy !== health. Protecting them by punishing them so you can be 'free?' Odd. Do you not see at all how the vaccine is not in this case forming a health solution (otherwise considering the vaccine still spreads covid there'd be continued lockdowns for all anyway to protect everyone...) but controls for their own sake?
> Myself, obviously
So why do you care what decision others make about it? Direct your frustration at those making policy calls, not those used as justification.
> "But it's ok to limit the liberties of the drunk because 'risk?' Everyone can drive or no one can drive."
You're free to choose not to drink or to drink. To correct the analogy, how about we restrict those that like a drink from being able to drive at all because risk?
> This argument would make sense if curtailing the spread was the ultimate goal, but it's not
Funny, it was earlier this year. Amazing how the narrative changes over time and people just follow it along, with the usual 'oh but they're learning about it all the time and making the best decisions they can.' Which obviously highlights they're making bad decisions, but not now?
https://twitter.com/Sentinel2NO/status/1471886835152560130?s...
> Everything is a tradeoff. If you're vaccinated, you're less of a risk than if you aren't
a) you're not near 0 risk though and b) Not if you're under 40 years old with no comorbidities. Especially for those under 20, the vaccine risk (by nature of risk of being impacted == 1.0 by getting jabbed vs risk of actually contracting covid, let along having a serious reaction or spreading it) is not clearly behind the covid risk. Now we head into the logic gymnastics where we are vaccinating the young to protect others, who have been vaccinated and protected, leaving only the unvaccinated for the young to protect, except we don't care about them because 'they made their choice.' So why again are we vaccinating the young, considering vaccination doesn't prevent spread and the young are the lowest risk group by a large distance? Also remembering that earlier in the year the young already didn't readily catch or spread covid, so why now?
The information on this website relates to suspected side effects, i.e. medical events that have been observed following the administration of the COVID-19 vaccines, but which are not necessarily related to or caused by the vaccine.
Without knowledge of the expected background rate of such events, the data is impossible to interpret. In no way does it show that the vaccines are unsafe.
Covids deaths are not acceptable, but deaths in younger demographics are acceptable because they're less?
By that measure we might give up on food as well, what's it good for of people still eventually die?
> How do the unvaccinated keep 'filling up' hospitals if vaccines reduce spread and there's 80-90%+ double-dose coverage?
By getting infected and requiring medical assistance, that's how they do it.
It's an awful situation and there is absolutely no way it could be less awful without vaccines.