America’s Finest News Source investigates and offers this list:
Pros
- Fake vaccination cards very lucrative business opportunity
- Good way to keep HR department busy for a few months
- Would saves millions of innocent profits
- Always fun to piss off Eric Clapton
- Surely there’s at least some benefit in taking rudimentary public health measures
Cons
- Cruise ships more exciting when there a public health threat on board
- Could cripple America’s burgeoning ventilator industry
- Just came up with new argument about how this is related to Holocaust
- Waste of perfectly good needles intended for intravenous opiate use
- Violates deeply held American values of recklessly endangering others
I suppose we could add some items, but it’s a start.
Needle photo ©torange.biz and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License 
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It’s almost like you think your vaccine doesn’t work unless other people take it.
Perhaps you meant that as snark, but it’s actually true in three ways.
First, if we don’t get the the point where we can stop new surges of illness, it depresses the national (or regional as the case may be) economy. People don’t go out, universities can’t function normally, offices close or don’t re-open and so on.
Second, even vaccinated people can catch COVID. They may do so less frequently and almost always with less serious disease that mean they don’t go to the hospital, but in some cases the illness is not a trivial thing.
Third, for folks like me, that is the 3% of the population who are immunocompromised, the vaccine doesn’t work, or doesn’t work reliably. For us, even after we’ve had our shot, we’re dependent on others to get vaccinated, or else we’re in permanent quarantine until and unless the vaccination rate gets to the point that catching COVID is not a high risk because the consequences of getting it can be so severe.
If people can still catch and spread the virus regardless of vaccine status then how would any of the above problems be solved with mass vaccination efforts?
By definition, you could be next to a vaccine recipient with a breakthrough variation and then what? Are you hoping for 0% risk in this life at the expense of others possibly dealing with life-altering side effects of the vaccine they took for you?
Why not just wear an N95 at all times and protect yourself?
It’s not about zero risk, it’s about how much risk. Vaccinated people are much less likely to catch COVID, and thus much less likely to spread it. This is the theory behind the “herd immunity” that you may have heard of.
At some point, due to mass vaccination, the disease becomes quite rare. But we are not there yet. And, indeed, the longer we wait to get there, the greater likelihood of dangerous mutations in the virus as it has a greater field to evolve in.
Herd immunity means that the effective rate of transmission drops below 1. This means that a person, on average, will infect less than 1 other person so it no longer spreads exponentially.
Nonetheless, the spread itself is no longer the issue because vaccines are supposed to protect the people who take them. As you said it’s not about zero risk so why is this not enough for people?
With respect to people who cannot take the vaccine or unable to beneft from it, why should others proactively undergo medical treatment to theoretically protect them? Even with vaccines, these people are so chronically ill that something else will affect them.
Why are they not simply wearing N95 masks?
To the main question – once r < 1 then over time, the national infection rate, and thus the risk to any given person including the vaccinated, reduces. So long as r is not less than 1 then the risk tends to grow.
If the number of infectious people (and, also people who are very likely to get infected b/c they don’t vaccinate) at some moment is high that’s bad for everyone’s health and the nation’s finances. It’s less bad for the vaccinated than those with compromised immune systems or brains (or, if you prefer, belief systems), but still worse than it needs to be and plenty bad enough to concern reasonable people.
To the 2nd one, masks are a good idea for most everyone, and most certainly for high risk groups. They help a lot (I wear one whenever I’m out of the house or car), but not as much as being around folks who are not contagious.
So in other words, this won’t end.
Ever.
Nonsense. We have eradicated some infectious diseases, e.g. smallopx. And for many more we have reduced the spread to a sufficiently low point that it’s not a threat to most, or even many, people (e.g. polio outside Afghanistan and Pakistan). And for others we have -near universal vaccination (MMR for example).
If we’re reduced to this level of non-factual debate. I’m done. Have the last word if you want it.
And there you have it everyone:
Professor Froomkin believes we just need 2 more weeks to flatten the curve.
What about Gibaltar. There 100% of people are vaccinated. Nonetheless, they have almost 600 infected per 100,000, which is really high. What about Iceland. Vaccination rate really high – but also a very high incidence of infections. And in the UK we have so far the most comprehensive data regarding Delta. We see vaccinated getting infected and ending up in hospital. In relative number mos tof the deceased were unvaccinated. In absolute numbers, however, more vaccinated died than unvaccinated. All the above does not come as a surprise. Those vaccines rely only on a fraction of the pathogen, the spike protein. Mutations in a small sectiin of the virus thus lead to a much less effective immune response.
Gibraltar gets a lot of tourists, plus it has a border with Spain which is a COVID disaster area. I’d guess the people are being exposed to a lot of outside folks who come into Gibraltar or whom residents encounter if they go into Spain.
Gibraltar is also notoriously densely populated, which may add to contagion. Plus if I’m reading the data right, the current peak is much lower than the first wave — which suggests the vaccine makes a substantial difference? I didn’t find your 600 number, but the numbers I saw were lots better for Gibraltar than Spain or the UK.
But if your point there is that no one, even a highly vaccinated place, is out of the woods until other countries are too, then I agree.
Iceland is, it seems about 71% vaccinated. Looks like that is not enough?
What about all the animals? Should we vaccinate them too?
What is the definition of a vaccine not working exactly?
I have no opinion on the animals but i do know that some rare big cats in zoos have been vaccinated.
If it came from bats or other animals then 100% of people being vaccinated will not stop the spread.
Once again my question remains outstanding notwithstanding your protestations that I am clearly a science-denying, anti-vax, shameful plaguge rat that values my own safety over the greater good of others:
What does an ineffective vaccine look like?
There are agreed measures of vaccine efficacy. They are a little weird, bu they’re consistent, apparently. Thus, for example 95% of the people who got Pfizer were protected against catching COVID during a period of a set time. Some other vaccines had similar, others had lower numbers.
What an ineffective vaccine looks like is that when you study it in a consistent manner it gets a low score – ie a much larger % of people get the disease in the study period. I gather Sputnik doesn’t look so great by this measure.
Depending on how ineffectiveness presents, more may be sick and/or more may be hospitalized and/or more die. At present, people seem more concerned about the latter two measures, hospitalizations and deaths, as indicia of consequences of non-vaccination and indicia of a viccine that is ineffective generally or less effective/ineffective against a new variant.
What it looks like in a community is that r is higher even when lots of folks are vaccinated.
We may get a chance to experience this with some of the variants.
So 99% of the population will not even get Covid yet you want everyone in the world to take a vaccine with a 95% effective rate?
And before you start telling me that I should be ashamed of myself, etc. for using the critical thinking skills taught to me by you and most every other teacher in my entire life, ask yourself this:
What is the current IFR now that doctors stopped placing everyone on ventillators per the advice of the Chinese Communist Party?
PS. There’s evidence that Ebola, a very contagious and deadly disease, is transmitted from monkeys. Ebola is not eradicated. There are occasional flare-ups due, we think, to new animal–>human transmissions. But they are containable and are in fact contained.
The fact that animal-> human infection is possible doesn’t mean vaccination is meaningless. It also doesn’t mean containment is not possible.
100% vaccination worldwide with a 95% effective vaccine (if we have one) would ‘stop the spread’ in the sense it would slow it down to the point where other measures aimed at local flareups would suffice to control the infection. Most of us would have no real risk essentially all the time.
Of course, if it turned out that, say, domesticated house cats were carriers, not just at risk but carriers, of illness then spread but largely asymptomatic carriers that would be a different story.
This is what I meant by saying the measurses against the virus will never end.
There is no logical end game other than keep doing what you’ve done in the past and hope it’ll yield a different result.
We’ve tried masking, lockdowns, vaccines and still not enough for a handful of people living in perpetual never-ending fear because they are old and cannot accept they may not live forever.
It’s like trying to point out the contradictions in the bible only to be met with unyielding believers that will not listen to reason.
You are confusing the timeline. I can’t tell if it’s intentional.
Once the spread is stopped, ie disease contained, it need not be eradicated in order for us to enjoy the benefit of mostly not thinking about it.
Currently, alas, we’re till at pandemic. It is not contained. That’s why we have the repeat you complain of.
We need to do all these things to contain the disease.BOTH here and abroad. THEN we get into the happy scenario.
If, as has so far been the case, we do not do what it takes to contatin the disease, it keeps coming back in new forms and they spread all over.
All of this is scientific, based on experience, and (sadly) replicable. I have yet to hear of anyone parting the Red Sea recently.
2 more weeks.
Crazy incarnate.
Gibraltar currently has 557 infections per 100K people reported last 7 days. That is rather high. Here is the source: https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/gibraltar/
Spain has currently 380 infections per 100K people reported last 7 days. Significantly less than Gibraltar. Here is the source: https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/spain/
Thus, it seems that the proximity to Spain is not of much relevance.
The point I want to make is: the vaccines that are currently available do not stop the spread, it seems they do not even slow down the spread significantly.
The only thing these vaccines reliably achieve is a good protection from severe desease – which is a good thing.
But, the notion that one should get vaccinated “stop the spread” and ” to protect others” is utter nonsense.
This sounds as if you think we should focus on requiring masks? Or more lockdowns?
Thanks for the link to the Reuters data. When I go to the total per population tab and look at the infections per person for Europe, there appears to be something quite weird: Of the five countries with the really bad numbers, four are tiny places — Andorra, Montenegro, Gibraltar, San Marino — and the fifth is the Czech Republic. The world numbers are similar: worst places are mostly small.
I don’t know enough to know what’s skewing the numbers, but there’s an artifact here. Maybe it’s better data collection when there are no hinterlands to fail to report, maybe something else. But I have some doubt about the validity of these numbers as meaningful comparatives as a result.
Matthias – the CDC still, as of a few weeks ago per my conversation with them, cannot explain why the definition of underlying cause of death changed from terrain theory (eg, chronic health conditions) to germ theory (eg, Covid) in March 2020.
People like Professor Froomkin have essentially traded everything they ever believed about personal freedom in exchange for the hope that somehow they will live forever in the face of this world-ending virus. I remember in class when he would tell us about his disdain for giving personal information at the checkout counter but it seems if they simply said “it will help us save your life indirectly somehow” then he’d not only provide photo copies of his ID but push for legislation making it a crime to participate in society otherwise.
These people are old and unable to think critically any longer and the 24/7 fear campaign, regardless of it’s incredible lack of even the most basic logic, has these people finding religion in the form of the Church of Covid.
http://www.reddit/r/chuchofcovid
The old guard meant to keep America alive are all sell outs.
https://www.reddit.com/r/churchofcovid
I will most likely be placed on the ventilator of the damned for the typo in the previous comment.
Eric, I took Prof. Froomkins course “Internet and the Law” in 2002, 2003. I liked it. A lot.
And, I am also a bit surprised, that this once freedom loving Professor seems to be OK with forcing others to be injected with hastily developed, revolutionary new treatments that reliy on mechanisms formerly used almost exclusively for gene-therapy (transporting mRNA into the cell via adenovirus-vectors or lipid-nanoparticles to induce production of Covid-19 spike proteins via ribosomes).
Constant fear delivered by our media does impair the ability to think critically. But, that is due to the organization of our brain structure – and has nothing at all to do with age. So, I am not so charmed by you picturing the Professor as someone who is just too old to understand what is going on.
However, Dr. Chris Martenson’s advice on how to stay well during these difficult times “Get rid of your tv” rings true to me.
I did not quite get what you mean with regard to germ- vs terrain theories.
I think this goes in large part to what one means by “freedom”. There is a libertarian view which, in its more simplistic variety, is not unfairly caricatured by the Onion as the “deeply held American values of recklessly endangering others,” i.e. rejecting limits on one’s behavior regardless of collateral consequences. More sophisticated versions of libertarianism do allow some exceptions, with public health issues being a common one.
Then there is the left-liberal version, which overlaps a lot with the libertarian view (the the idea of left and right sometimes uniting against the center), which is much more open to controlling externalizes While I’m happy to see this wasn’t evident in my teaching, that’s where I tend to start out. And being contagious, or doing things that have a substantial risk of hurting others tend to be things I am fine with regulating, especially if the cost of regulation is low and the gain higher.
Thus, for example, a mask rule is not costless, but it is low cost. If it has real value (I admit the evidence is not one-sided, but consider this), then it seems to me a good rule. I imagine some libertarians will say a mask rule removes a free choice, and thus it’s a restriction on liberty that they oppose. If the likely benefits of the rule greatly exceed the certain costs, I have little sympathy with that view. And, relatedly, I have no trouble with the holding in North American Cold Storage Co. V. Chicago, 211 U.S. 306 (1908)..
The calculation for privacy is very different: the costs to the individual of loss of privacy can be catastrophic if the information ends up in the hands of a repressive government, and quite high if it is acquired by an unprincipled and manipulative corporation. That’s what I tend to talk about when I’m teaching and writing.
Being old does not mean a lack of critical skills. My comment referred to the particular class of old people still frightened by this virus that want everyone in the world to undergo medical treatment because they are too afraid to leave the house.
The lack of critical skills refers to the inability to reason that the science behind this entire global fiasco is based on simply politics and money that looks for relief from a company that never once sold a single product (Moderna) or the same entity that gave women ovarian cancer from baby powder (Johnson & Johnson).
For instance, the Delta variant is just a rename of the Indian variant from October 2020 before the vaccines were rolled out.
https://www.who.int/en/activities/tracking-SARS-CoV-2-variants/
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/06/01/1002092594/covid-variant-uk-south-africa-renamed-alpha-beta
If this variant has been around since before the vaccines, how exactly are vaccines stopping it’s spread? Giving more people a vaccine that clearly doesn’t stop this variant will not somehow retroactively make the strain disappear – it’s actual insanity.
And if the entire idea of a vaccine is not necessarily to stop the spread but make the spread irrelevant to vaccinated individuals, once again what’s with the forcing of medical procedures by severe compulsion like being left out of society? The vulnerable have their protection and can still continue to wear N95 masks.
With respect to the germ and terrain theory:
The “terrain” of an individual can be argued to be just as important if not more important to one’s overall health than the particular “germ” when it comes to determing cause of a disease.
For instance, if someone is very old then their aged body is not the same terrain as their younger self and therefore they become more susceptble to disease. They are chronically sick, immune deficient, etc. and the CDC for many years recognized this fact when it coded underlying cause of death.
http://disq.us/p/2d1p2tt
So in other words, this entire situation from the beginning has been an illogical farce that relied upon censorship, redefined terms and contant fearmongering by the New York Times et al.
People like Professor Froomking have been so traumatized by this constant messaging that I honestly feel sorry for them.
However, my compassion ends the moment they want me to undergo medical treatments because they somehow think sacrificing the young will prolong their life notwithstanding the infinite other variables besides Covid-19 that will affect their weakened bodily terrain.
And, I would like to add that the vaccines that are currently available are not as safe as they should be. To get some perspective on that you can research the official WHO database for pharmacovigilance vigiaccess.org
Type in Covid-19 vaccine or tetanus vaccine or measles vaccine. You will get the adverse events that WHO member states officialy report to the WHO. You find deaths under ” general disorders”.
Customary vaccines like tetanus or measles each have less than 40 deaths reported. The Covid-19 vaccines have already 8,700 deaths reported. Of course, those numbers do not imply a proof of causation. But, this nevertheless is a very worrying data signal.
Moreover, it is striking that 70% of the adverse events occur in women. This is somewhat unusual with regard to a vaccine.
And, it is known, that the numbers recorded in vigiaccess are underreported.
“This sounds as if you think we should focus on requiring masks? Or more lockdowns?”
Not at all. We see in many countries a decoupling of deaths and hospitalisations. There seem to be a number of factors for that: immunity due to vaccination or previous infection, now younger and more resilient people are infected etc.
I personally still wear my k95 mask when I am indoors with other people. But there is no valid reason for any more lockdowns.
What I want to say is: people should not be told to get the jab to protect others. There is plenty of date that shows this is B.S.
And: informed consent implies full disclosure of the risks.
My take is: vaccinate by age and vaccinate by comorbidity. If you are over 60, it is reasonable to get the jab. Same if you have a relevant comorbidity. CDC just published a comprehensive list of those. In the top 5 you find obesity and diabetes with complications.