While I share his sentiments, I don't think his approach is going to convince anyone to get vaccinated. He seems to be playing politics by forcing his opponents to take the far less popular anti-vax side before upcoming elections. It's sad to see politicians abuse a public health crisis like this to win political battles at the expense of the wellbeing of their people. Sad, but not really surprising.
Business meeting today was cancelled. The double vaxxed and boosted guy called to say he is sicker than he had ever been before and was going to get tested. He sounded alarmed and unhinged. Too bad the shots don't prevent infection.
Except they do. However the unending plague of unvaccinated people mean that vaccinated people are still getting sick as no vaccine for any disease has ever had 100% effectiveness. Even completely irradiated diseases never had 100% effective vaccines.
Meanwhile we have a large group of unvaccinated people who are creating a breeding ground for mutations that weaken the various vaccines. Eventually new vaccines will be needed to compensate for that, but they will still not be 100% effective.
As long as there exist large groups of unvaccinated groups with no real justification for being unvaccinated, there will be a population of carriers providing a breeding ground for new variants. However unlike the traditional animal hosts any mutation that occurs in the human population is inherently more transmissible to other humans.
Let's quote twitter: Sure vaccinated and unvaccinated people can both catch covid. Similarly, both I and Serena Williams can play tennis.
> or being unvaccinated doesn't cause harm to others
I believe that being unvaccinated in fact does not cause harm to others. Infecting other people is the thing that can cause harm.
There is a difference. People who aren't vaccinated and have never recovered from the disease and are not taking other steps to prevent spread? Sure, those people may be more of a risk to you than your typical vaccinated person (though maybe not now that omicron is rampant).
But they are a subset of the unvaccinated, and as much as your favorite news corp or bureaucrat or blogger wants you to believe everyone who hasn't taken the covid vaccine is coming to eat your children, I'd ask you to question if that's really the case. I don't think it is.
I think they’re lobbying (or lying about status) to let their unvaccinated children bring plague into otherwise vaccinated schools.
I believe they’re lobbying to force businesses to employ them despite them risking other people at work.
These statements all have verifiable behaviour to back them up.
I have yet to see anyone stand up and say “I have the right to be unvaccinated as long as I stay away from places where I have an much higher risk of harming others”. In fact all the evidence shows that they are demanding the exact opposite.
My point is that "unvaccinated" is a broad term that is including a lot of people with prior infection that you really shouldn't have been made to be concerned about. They are now more of a risk of infection for omicron, but so are folks who received double and triple shots.
> I think they’re lobbying (or lying about status) to let their unvaccinated children bring plague into otherwise vaccinated schools.
How much damage has covid (catching the actual disease) caused to children? How well do the current vaccines stop transmission when youre in a room with 30 other people for an hour?
> I believe they’re lobbying to force businesses to employ them despite them risking other people at work.
This is an interesting framing. You could also say they're lobbying various governments to not force companies to fire people for vaccine status, which as I've said is not as useful of a descriptor as everyone makes it out to be.
> I have yet to see anyone stand up and say “I have the right to be unvaccinated as long as I stay away from places where I have an much higher risk of harming others”. In fact all the evidence shows that they are demanding the exact opposite.
You're talking to someone who had a prior infection but has not been vaccinated. I test frequently, I wear masks (not that I've seen convincing evidence that they do much of anything at an individual level, but because its easy to do and it makes people more comfortable), and I stay home if I have the slightest of symptoms.
Something to keep in mind, especially with omicron: if you are vaccinated you can and will pass the virus if you are infected. You just probably won't die or be hospitalized yourself.
> I believe that being unvaccinated in fact does not cause harm to others.
They are a tiny part of society but take up a large portion of ICU capacity. This delays elective surgeries (e.g. cancer) for everybody else. Most hospitals in Ontario have already suspended all elective surgeries. Somebody with curable cancer today could die in a few months thanks to anti-vaxers.
This is evidence that it does matter. That the unvaccinated as a whole are some outsized threat to everyone is misleading at best. The subset of the unvaccinated that are seronaive are more likely to take up hospital beds, that seems to be true. The unvaccinated with a prior infection are not.
This is important because the general populace has been whipped up into a frenzy and pointed roughly in the direction of myself and people like me, who are not an issue. With asshats like Macron stirring the pot like this, its leading us to a scary place, and its all for political points.
You're citing old data that doesn't even include delta or omnicron
> Primary infection was defined as the first PCR-positive swab. Reinfection was defined as the first PCR-positive swab obtained at least 90 days after the primary infection.
Many people can also be asymptomatic and may not bother getting a PCR test for their first infection. When their reinfection requires an ICU bed, would they be counted as primary infection or reinfection?
Also what is the point of making this distinction? Every antivaxer will need to infected at least once to build immunity. Are we supposed to purposely infect the unvaxed for them to build immunity (i.e. exactly what a vaccine is supposed to do)? And if they're unvaxed primary infection, we're back to where we started, as you said, they're the main cause of ICU capacity.
> You're citing old data that doesn't even include delta or omnicron
Do you have anything showing the counterpoint? I'm very interested in seeing it if you do.
The point of making this distinction is that hundreds of millions of people have already been infected and shouldn't be hounded and harassed by people yo take a vaccine if they don't want it.
If you want me to worry that unvaccinated people with a prior infection are clogging up ICUs, show me evidence that its actually happening and I'd be happy to get on board.
You're asking for impossible data. There's not enough testing capacity and data collection to determine if an unvaxxed person in the ICU truly has a prior infection.
And what do you think we do to distinguish between the supposedly two distinct groups of antivaxxers? Should they carry a blood test or antibody passport? Even if they're no longer a threat to ICUs doesn't negate the fact that at one point in time they were a threat.
If something is difficult for you to justify, does that mean you shouldn't have to justify it?
Anwyay, we knew that reinfections were rare up through delta (even the CDC acknowledges this on their website, and there are plenty of studies to back this up). Given that, it should be safe to assume that ICU visits as a result of a rare reinfection are even rarer.
> And what do you think we do to distinguish between the supposedly two distinct groups of antivaxxers?
For data collection? We shouldn't need to because of the logic above. But if you wanted to confirm, it should be possible to study this by following up on ICU patients using all the various test result databases and following up with the ones who survive.
As for passports and really all of this covid fallout, my overly optimistic hope is that natural immunity will continue to hold, everyone will have had it after omicron finishes, and everyone will be able to empathize with each other when there isn't as much fear and division between the "clean vaccine takers" and the unclean infected (plague rats, covidiots, antivaxxers, Herman Cain awards, whatever other handy slurs people have come up with).
Of course, realistically, this shit (our behaviors) will all be with us for decades to come. Once you spend enough resources on getting people to think and feel a certain way, good luck reversing it.
I think you (and everyone else) should throw away the term antivaxxer, and say specifically what you mean.
I think seronaive is a reasonable term for the unvaccinated and never infected. Recovered is good for those with a prior infection, if you actially need to distinguish based on their vaccine status, then do that: say recovered with or without x number of shots. Anti mandate, anti mask, anti lockdown, these are all things that can exist on their own that everyone lumps into "antivax". We should just say what we mean if we actually want to communicate with each other rather than play tribal politics. How hard is it to use a few extra words?
> If something is difficult for you to justify, does that mean you shouldn't have to justify it?
The burden of proof is on you as you made the original claim that recovered patients don't go into the ICU. I simply pointed out any data that backs up this claim is biased as it's impossible to know accurately distinguish recovered and first cases as people don't just randomly get tested, especially if they're asymptomatic. In addition, there's not enough PCR testing capacity so even if they want to get tested, they may not be able to.
The only data we can accurately know is the the ratio of vaccinated/partial/unvaccinated in the ICU because everybody that gets vaccinated is recorded in a database.
> I think you (and everyone else) should throw away the term antivaxxer, and say specifically what you mean
You're right, I should just call them selfish assholes. I don't know about you but it's hard to empathize with people that would rather let cancer patients metastasize while hoping their seronaive to recovered gamble works out than take a jab.
Hey, I get it, this is an emotional topic and it's been a rough two years for everyone. I wish you all the best and I'm going to leave this thread here.
20 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 51.0 ms ] threadThe politicization of the vaccine has been entirely on the antivax side. People are just sick of letting them have free range to terrorise us.
Except they do. However the unending plague of unvaccinated people mean that vaccinated people are still getting sick as no vaccine for any disease has ever had 100% effectiveness. Even completely irradiated diseases never had 100% effective vaccines.
Meanwhile we have a large group of unvaccinated people who are creating a breeding ground for mutations that weaken the various vaccines. Eventually new vaccines will be needed to compensate for that, but they will still not be 100% effective.
As long as there exist large groups of unvaccinated groups with no real justification for being unvaccinated, there will be a population of carriers providing a breeding ground for new variants. However unlike the traditional animal hosts any mutation that occurs in the human population is inherently more transmissible to other humans.
Let's quote twitter: Sure vaccinated and unvaccinated people can both catch covid. Similarly, both I and Serena Williams can play tennis.
I believe that being unvaccinated in fact does not cause harm to others. Infecting other people is the thing that can cause harm.
There is a difference. People who aren't vaccinated and have never recovered from the disease and are not taking other steps to prevent spread? Sure, those people may be more of a risk to you than your typical vaccinated person (though maybe not now that omicron is rampant).
But they are a subset of the unvaccinated, and as much as your favorite news corp or bureaucrat or blogger wants you to believe everyone who hasn't taken the covid vaccine is coming to eat your children, I'd ask you to question if that's really the case. I don't think it is.
I think they’re lobbying (or lying about status) to let their unvaccinated children bring plague into otherwise vaccinated schools.
I believe they’re lobbying to force businesses to employ them despite them risking other people at work.
These statements all have verifiable behaviour to back them up.
I have yet to see anyone stand up and say “I have the right to be unvaccinated as long as I stay away from places where I have an much higher risk of harming others”. In fact all the evidence shows that they are demanding the exact opposite.
> I think they’re lobbying (or lying about status) to let their unvaccinated children bring plague into otherwise vaccinated schools.
How much damage has covid (catching the actual disease) caused to children? How well do the current vaccines stop transmission when youre in a room with 30 other people for an hour?
> I believe they’re lobbying to force businesses to employ them despite them risking other people at work.
This is an interesting framing. You could also say they're lobbying various governments to not force companies to fire people for vaccine status, which as I've said is not as useful of a descriptor as everyone makes it out to be.
> I have yet to see anyone stand up and say “I have the right to be unvaccinated as long as I stay away from places where I have an much higher risk of harming others”. In fact all the evidence shows that they are demanding the exact opposite.
You're talking to someone who had a prior infection but has not been vaccinated. I test frequently, I wear masks (not that I've seen convincing evidence that they do much of anything at an individual level, but because its easy to do and it makes people more comfortable), and I stay home if I have the slightest of symptoms.
Something to keep in mind, especially with omicron: if you are vaccinated you can and will pass the virus if you are infected. You just probably won't die or be hospitalized yourself.
They are a tiny part of society but take up a large portion of ICU capacity. This delays elective surgeries (e.g. cancer) for everybody else. Most hospitals in Ontario have already suspended all elective surgeries. Somebody with curable cancer today could die in a few months thanks to anti-vaxers.
I'm saying that I don't think being unvaccinated is the issue, despite people like Macron repeating that. Being seronaive and careless is.
This is evidence that it does matter. That the unvaccinated as a whole are some outsized threat to everyone is misleading at best. The subset of the unvaccinated that are seronaive are more likely to take up hospital beds, that seems to be true. The unvaccinated with a prior infection are not.
This is important because the general populace has been whipped up into a frenzy and pointed roughly in the direction of myself and people like me, who are not an issue. With asshats like Macron stirring the pot like this, its leading us to a scary place, and its all for political points.
> Primary infection was defined as the first PCR-positive swab. Reinfection was defined as the first PCR-positive swab obtained at least 90 days after the primary infection.
Many people can also be asymptomatic and may not bother getting a PCR test for their first infection. When their reinfection requires an ICU bed, would they be counted as primary infection or reinfection?
Also what is the point of making this distinction? Every antivaxer will need to infected at least once to build immunity. Are we supposed to purposely infect the unvaxed for them to build immunity (i.e. exactly what a vaccine is supposed to do)? And if they're unvaxed primary infection, we're back to where we started, as you said, they're the main cause of ICU capacity.
Do you have anything showing the counterpoint? I'm very interested in seeing it if you do.
The point of making this distinction is that hundreds of millions of people have already been infected and shouldn't be hounded and harassed by people yo take a vaccine if they don't want it.
If you want me to worry that unvaccinated people with a prior infection are clogging up ICUs, show me evidence that its actually happening and I'd be happy to get on board.
And what do you think we do to distinguish between the supposedly two distinct groups of antivaxxers? Should they carry a blood test or antibody passport? Even if they're no longer a threat to ICUs doesn't negate the fact that at one point in time they were a threat.
If something is difficult for you to justify, does that mean you shouldn't have to justify it?
Anwyay, we knew that reinfections were rare up through delta (even the CDC acknowledges this on their website, and there are plenty of studies to back this up). Given that, it should be safe to assume that ICU visits as a result of a rare reinfection are even rarer.
> And what do you think we do to distinguish between the supposedly two distinct groups of antivaxxers?
For data collection? We shouldn't need to because of the logic above. But if you wanted to confirm, it should be possible to study this by following up on ICU patients using all the various test result databases and following up with the ones who survive.
As for passports and really all of this covid fallout, my overly optimistic hope is that natural immunity will continue to hold, everyone will have had it after omicron finishes, and everyone will be able to empathize with each other when there isn't as much fear and division between the "clean vaccine takers" and the unclean infected (plague rats, covidiots, antivaxxers, Herman Cain awards, whatever other handy slurs people have come up with).
Of course, realistically, this shit (our behaviors) will all be with us for decades to come. Once you spend enough resources on getting people to think and feel a certain way, good luck reversing it.
I think you (and everyone else) should throw away the term antivaxxer, and say specifically what you mean.
I think seronaive is a reasonable term for the unvaccinated and never infected. Recovered is good for those with a prior infection, if you actially need to distinguish based on their vaccine status, then do that: say recovered with or without x number of shots. Anti mandate, anti mask, anti lockdown, these are all things that can exist on their own that everyone lumps into "antivax". We should just say what we mean if we actually want to communicate with each other rather than play tribal politics. How hard is it to use a few extra words?
The burden of proof is on you as you made the original claim that recovered patients don't go into the ICU. I simply pointed out any data that backs up this claim is biased as it's impossible to know accurately distinguish recovered and first cases as people don't just randomly get tested, especially if they're asymptomatic. In addition, there's not enough PCR testing capacity so even if they want to get tested, they may not be able to.
The only data we can accurately know is the the ratio of vaccinated/partial/unvaccinated in the ICU because everybody that gets vaccinated is recorded in a database.
> I think you (and everyone else) should throw away the term antivaxxer, and say specifically what you mean
You're right, I should just call them selfish assholes. I don't know about you but it's hard to empathize with people that would rather let cancer patients metastasize while hoping their seronaive to recovered gamble works out than take a jab.