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Your positions, if these are all yours, are quite maximalist in one direction, and in some cases I have read pretty credible studies that contradict you. So, you may not get your Iraq moment.

Agreed. His first position on lockdowns is a GBD talking point that is strongly opposed by Sweden vs Norway through mid-2021 (the end of major vaccine rollout) when they had different positions on lockdown but shared many other characteristics. Sweden had 10x more deaths during that time period, about 1200 extra deaths per million people. It also completely ignores the morbidity introduced by all the extra cases while focusing on non-COVID morbidity.

That vaccines never did anything to prevent transmission is a pretty ridiculous contention for the initial wave.

That vaccines posed more of a danger to most of the population compared to COVID-19 itself is also ridiculous. The US had the largest vaccination drive in its history in early 2021, peaking at 3.5 million jabs per day in April. Excess death dropped dramatically throughout the rollout and kept falling past mid-2021.

> I have read pretty credible studies that contradict you.

Studies cannot show if something was the right course of action. This isn't something that can be accounted for by some peer-reviewed research paper.

The fact of the matter is, the response to covid was a massive disaster that did far more harm than good. And that is an absolute fact and one that will take a long time for people to swallow. It's hard to realize you literally wasted several years of your life for absolutely nothing at all.

I'm hoping that in a decade or so, people will stop using "vaccines never prevented transmission" as an argument since it has been said at least a billion of times since the beginning, VACCINES PREVENTED SERIOUS ILLNESS. Same thing about the imaginary widespread side-effects or the mask being useless.

Depressing.

Personally I'm more worried about the people that went full retard about covid alternative views and conspiracies, I've lost a few friends to that. Sometime I wonder if you will be able to integrate into society ever again.

It’s depressing that public institutions mishandled this so badly that a huge segment of the population has lost trust in them.

I can agree that the messaging I got was that the vaccine was meant to prevent serious illness. Regardless, the absurd policies, suppression of information and discussion on vaccine side effects was unforgivable.

People went full retard because the institutions meant to provide them with good information instead treated them like children and suppressed detailed debate. The only alternative was to go online and risk the lunacy that is internet research, so people did so.

Now more people are anti-vaxers than ever before, and not just for mRNA vaccines but old-school shots like measles.

At a minimum many institutions need change of leadership after this fiasco, and maybe complete reform of others.

Yeah, the handling was not great but sadly I'm not really sure if the population was ready for detailed debate, considering that a good chunk of it ended up misunderstanding most of the official notices and falling for the most stupid conspiracy theories.

We need to improve education, by A LOT. And it's everyone responsibility.

That attitude is what got us into this low-trust mess. It should not be up to the government to determine what debate the public is ready for.

The debate will occur anyway, so if you try to suppress it, you just push it into the depths of the internet with all the associated downside.

the issue is that the conversation is so polarized and religious its literally impossible to discuss any of these issues. the poster you are responding to states some things which are reasonable and others which are complete nonsense. Its like people cant help themselves once picking a side to just wholesale accept every position all the way to "covid isnt real" on one end and "no one should ever leave their house again" on the other end.

The initial batch of vaccines were explicitly marketed as having a 95% effectiveness against transmission for the original strain. This was the entire basis of the herd immunity narrative and it was true for about 3 months until delta happened and the medical community did an egregiously bad job of communicating that.

Cloth masks are objectively useless for personal protection.

> as having a 95% effectiveness against transmission for the original strain.

95% reduction of serious illness. The objective of the mass vaccination was having as much people as possible survive the pandemic. Herd immunity was just noise. There were a lot of noise and nonsense.

> Cloth masks are objectively useless for personal protection.

Proper masks are effective as measured multiple times, tons of statistics on it.

> I'm hoping that in a decade or so, people will stop using "vaccines never prevented transmission" as an argument since it has been said at least a billion of times since the beginning, VACCINES PREVENTED SERIOUS ILLNESS.

No. They said vaccines prevent transmission. Over and over.

You may have forgotten what was said at the time, but we won't:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1665770269418614784

It's the reason I was prevented from entering the US until just a couple of weeks ago. It's the reason why my mother-in-law lost her job as a nurse. People who refused this medical treatment, were treated as dangerous because officials claimed that we presented a transmission hazard.

This was a lie, which you are further compounding with more lies.

I don't forget anything. As I can't forget all the times that I had to explain, since the beginning, that the only statistics available where about reducing to 0 the risk of serious illness. Don't try to change history, please.

And don't link me some random idiot's tweet as proof, we are better than this.

Just stop now and accept reality, it's a good thing that they got rid of your mother in law, I wonder in how much more pseudo science she believes in.

Where I live, people that refused the vaccine were treated as utter idiots but still welcome in hospitals, most of the famous local covid denier died there too.

> And don't link me some random idiot's tweet as proof, we are better than this.

Watch the video clip in the tweet. It shows a montage of officials and talking heads claiming that the COVID vaccines would prevent you from getting COVID and transmitting it.

Here's another one if you prefer:

https://twitter.com/alliemarie777/status/1667561378398318592

> Just stop now and accept reality, it's a good thing that they got rid of your mother in law, I wonder in how much more pseudo science she believes in.

No it isn't. The NHS now has chronic shortage of nurses.

If there were a problem with pseudoscience, then they should have fired her for that, not some vague proxy.

You're rather proving my point. So many people are just not ready to have a rational conversation about these narratives. It's all just tribalism and dogma, and we will have to wait years for people like you to calm down to the point where you are able to have reasonably conversations on these topics again.

> The NHS now has chronic shortage of nurses.

Why? Because it's not an attractive profession nowadays. Not for the few hundreds of deniers that were fired.

> You're rather proving my point. So many people are just not ready to have a rational conversation about these narratives. It's all just tribalism and dogma, and we will have to wait years for people like you to calm down to the point where you are able to have reasonably conversations on these topics again.

I haven't seen any rational or unique point in everything you have written, only spitting the usual covid deniers nonsense.

You know what my real fear is? The fear that people that have this kind of opinions regarding the pandemic will apply the same reasoning to the next one or to the next crisis. I have a different opinion of preppers now.

So did you watch the montage?

If so, please admit that you were wrong when you made this comment:

> I'm hoping that in a decade or so, people will stop using "vaccines never prevented transmission" as an argument since it has been said at least a billion of times since the beginning, VACCINES PREVENTED SERIOUS ILLNESS.

My montage showed you (if you had watched it), many talking heads and officials at the time accusing the unvaccinated of increasing transmission.

The rest of your remarks about "covid deniers" are irrelevant to the point.

Nope, I don't plan to watch anything, feel free to indulge in your beliefs.

Yes - this is my point.

So many of you people have become so emotionally invested in the false narratives that you have believed, that you can't cope with any evidence that threatens your narrative even slightly.

At least we can talk about the "lab leak theory" now. This was the original point I made: it will take years for people to climb down these positions they have taken, but at least we are making small steps in the right direction.

Man, you are talking about yourself, you literally started this subthread with the basic set of round of the mill covid contrarians BS that have 0 ground in reality and survive only thanks to the emotional attachment of people like you.

When asked for evidence you post the usual cherrypicked random stuff that aligns with what you believe (the only valid sources).

My recommendation is to just stop with this imaginary fight for the truth, when everyone is moving on and no one even cares anymore about these creative reinterpretations of reality. You lost any credibility with the first message of this chain, too much BS. Free yourself.

I've presented plenty of sources and factual information: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36295718

You've presented none whatsoever.

Wow, there're a lot to parse here, and it looks like you're coming at this from an "I've already decided" and "axe to grind" angle.

> - Lockdowns did little to prevent the spread of COVID...

<citation needed>

> - Cloth masks were pointless security theatre

<citation needed> - and most rational people (and countries) immediately switched to N95 masks as soon as supply chains could support the demand. That said, I'd bet that even less-proven masks would have some lesser but still positive impact.

> - The vast majority of people except the very elderly and obese were in very little danger

...except there are plenty of examples of fit, young people having life-altering acute and/or longer-term symptoms. On a population-level, you're right that the numbers are small(er), but I'd argue that each individual case to the contrary is a disaster for the indiviudal involved.

As Stalin said: “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic.”

You appear to be looking at the statistics; I was happy to accept changes to my lifestyle to diminish risk of harm to individuals.

> - The vaccines never prevented transmission

That's a straw-man argument - that's not the primary purpose of a vaccine.

> - The vaccines only offered very limited protection for a brief period

Nah. Vaccines offered significant protection against severe disease for a period of months (which itself is a factor of how the human body function). With widespread vaccination, the world was able to 'get on top of' the pandemic, and its effects of healthcare over-utilisation.

> - The rate of side effects (including serious side effects up to and including death) is a lot higher than anyone wants to admit.

<citation needed>

> - To most segments of the population, the danger of death by vaccine side effects is greater than the danger of death by COVID-19

<citation needed>

>> - Lockdowns did little to prevent the spread of COVID...

> <citation needed>

https://iea.org.uk/publications/did-lockdowns-work-the-verdi...

>> - Cloth masks were pointless security theatre

> <citation needed>

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD...

> I was happy to accept changes to my lifestyle to diminish risk of harm to individuals.

We now have a massive unexplained excess deaths crisis, but suddenly it's "see no evil, hear no evil".

>> - The vaccines never prevented transmission

> That's a straw-man argument - that's not the primary purpose of a vaccine.

That is not public officials and talking heads were saying at the start. See this montage:

https://twitter.com/XvirtueSignaler/status/16657702694186147...

> With widespread vaccination, the world was able to 'get on top of' the pandemic

The world never "got on top of" COVID. It never had any significant control over it. Omicron came along, and spread through the population with mild symptoms, leading to widespread natural immunity.

> its effects of healthcare over-utilisation.

That never happened anywhere in the world.

>> - The rate of side effects (including serious side effects up to and including death) is a lot higher than anyone wants to admit.

> <citation needed>

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36055877/

In randomized control trials of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines here in the UK, we now know that the risk of serious adverse effects from the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines was 12.5 per 10,000 vaccinated i.e. a ~1 in 800 chance of serious adverse effects.

>> - To most segments of the population, the danger of death by vaccine side effects is greater than the danger of death by COVID-19

> <citation needed>

The UK government has now published its estimate of the number of people needed to vaccinate to prevent a COVID-19 hospitalisation:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

In Table 3, notice how in every age group except 70+, the number-needed-to-vaccinate to prevent a hospital visit figure is higher than 1 in 800.

And in Table 4 notice not even 70+ are more in danger of severe hospitalisation than 1 in 800.

looking at the majority of comments here, I'd say it'll take more than a decade...

People just seem to blank out anything really bad done by "their team" (be it either orange man bad or clinton is a traitor).

I fear for the future of Human civilization

It might also just be because most of those claims are wrong. Unless you use 'prevent' to mean 'fully eliminate', every single one of those claims is wrong except for potentially the last one, which I am not sure of because I haven't researched.

looking at the amount of people delving into their personal fantasies and projecting on to the world is and will always be hilarious

I don't agree with you