Nah, you're too nice to be Joseph Stalin. As for being totalitarian, I think you'd have to form a government first.
COVID VACCINE - The Megathread
- Thread starter Itomaschik
- Start date
E tank
Caution: Paralyzing Agent
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Would you mind speaking with my 17 year old? He might have a few words for you....
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So you're okay with employers mandating that employees quit smoking or lose their job, that insurance companies require the people they cover to quit smoking all in the name of public health. You're okay with those same groups requiring people give up drinking alcohol because of the increased health care costs. You're okay with employers and insurance companies mandating where that you bo longer eat sugar or meat because they are unhealthy. This is the slippery slope that you're okay with everyone going diwn.
Summit
Critical Crazy
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I don't grant your slippery slope validity, but I point out that many employers have banned tobacco use by employees or attached high cost to insurance premiums. I am OK with voluntary choices resulting in higher premiums.
Are you OK with life insurance not covering BASE jumping and requiring a supplemental policy?
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I'm not okay with something like insurance being mandatory and then using that as a method to change people's behaviors. If buying insurance was optional and not mandated I'd probably have a different viewpoint.
And thank you proving my point about the slippery slope by dismissing it with nothing more than you don't grant it's validity. It is that attitude of simply dismissing a different viewpoint because you don't agree with it that does more harm than good in convincing people to get vaccinated.
PotatoMedic
Has no idea what I'm doing.
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We single out smokers, people who use alcohol, when I signed up for insurance on the exchange when I was between work it asked about high risk activities.
So your point about singling out a specific patient population moot as it is already done. There is a very obvious cost for not being vaccinated, they are just paying the risk that they are to insurance. Its simple insurance underwriting.
Also my risk of having a child is absolutely zero, yet I still pay for it. I also pay for my older coworkers who may need a cardiac cath. Insurance costs are the expected cost of the group. I'd you have unvaccinated employees the expected cost goes up, and the company is choosing to make the high risk pay for that increased liability instead of spreading it out.
PotatoMedic
Has no idea what I'm doing.
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They already discount insurance costs based on healthy habits. If you don't smoke you save x amount of money. If you don't drink you save y. If you have good blood work you save z. And now if you have the covid vaccine you save abc.
And employers are allowed to set the terms of employment. So yes I am.
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Just to clarify, you're okay with an insurance company who you are required by law to be a customer of, dictating your lifestyle choices?
Wouldn't you still have the option to choose a lifestyle, but perhaps at a higher cost? And how much does getting vaccinated have to do with lifestyle? Isn't the argument against mandating vaccines mostly about people being told to do something they don't want to do? If so, where should governments and employers draw the line against telling citizens or employees to do things they don't want to do?
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One of the issues is with how these mandates are coming about. The government doesn't have the legal basis to order everyone to get vaccinated yet, so they are resorting to "encouraging" employers and insurance comapnies to do what they can not. If the government were to get the legal basis to make vaccines mandatory, then it would be constrained by certain limits. Going this route removes those constraints. The ends don't always justify the means.
Some of the reasons against people getting vaccinated have been addressed rather well in this thread...others have simply been dismissed.
E tank
Caution: Paralyzing Agent
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We single out people with conditions or who actively *do* something like smoke. We don't single out people that *don't do* something in a negative way firstly because the list is never ending and secondly because what to single someone out for because they *don't do* something would vary as much as there are opinions on what people should be doing.
Some things are worth paying the money for. I get that that is a hard sell, but like I said, the alternative is worse, IMO.
PotatoMedic
Has no idea what I'm doing.
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They already do. By adjusting my premiums based on the risk I am to them and the pool I am joining. You make it seem like this is something new.
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No it's not new..just not sure people have looked at it from that viewpoint.
NomadicMedic
I know a guy who knows a guy.
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Shouldn’t people who practice risky behaviors while driving, like speeding or reckless driving, pay a higher insurance premium?
it’s the exact same thing. The insurance premium isn’t based on the fact that you broke the law, it’s based on the fact that you are more prone to an accident and the insurance company would be more prone to having to pay out on your behalf.
it’s the exact same thing. The insurance premium isn’t based on the fact that you broke the law, it’s based on the fact that you are more prone to an accident and the insurance company would be more prone to having to pay out on your behalf.
Summit
Critical Crazy
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We single out people who don't wear shoes and don't wash their hands with respect to entering and working in restaurants. We also single out people who don't get vaccinated for measles during measles outbreaks. When it comes communicable disease, no man is an island.
SandpitMedic
Crowd pleaser
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initial study
www.researchsquare.com
Deaths in Children and Young People in England following SARS-CoV-2 infection during the first pandemic year: a national study using linked mandatory child death reporting data
BackgroundDeaths in children and young people (CYP) following SARS-CoV-2 infection are rare. Quantifying the risk of mortality is challenging because of high relative prevalence of asymptomatic and non-specific disease manifestations. Therefore, it is important to differentiate...
www.researchsquare.com
SandpitMedic
Crowd pleaser
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Study is out of the UK on incidence of deaths of children and young people. this data was collected from the 1st year of the Pandemic.initial study
Deaths in Children and Young People in England following SARS-CoV-2 infection during the first pandemic year: a national study using linked mandatory child death reporting data
BackgroundDeaths in children and young people (CYP) following SARS-CoV-2 infection are rare. Quantifying the risk of mortality is challenging because of high relative prevalence of asymptomatic and non-specific disease manifestations. Therefore, it is important to differentiate...
99.995% survived.
Limitations to this study are it doesn’t cover delta or other variants, and (as many of you will argue) long term sequela.
Still, with data like this, I would be hesitant giving my child the vaccine. Lucky for me I don’t have to.
Summit
Critical Crazy
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1 in 20K CYP died of COVID in their dataset. The vaccine death rate is <<1 in 1M. This tracks with other complications which are vastly more common in cases of COVID illness than from vaccination. This is before considering the apparent (see below) increased virulence of Delta.
The vaccine reduces risk of infection, transmission, illness, hospitalization, long term sequelae, and death from COVID and these beneficial reductions are much greater than the risk of the vaccine.
I'd note that preprint uses some very funny math for risk calculations based on incidence vs whole population instead of in affected population, note that is is the same BS math that COVID deniers were using early in the pandemic to say that "99.999% of people survive COVID" (because they took the whole population as the denominator and very few had gotten COVID).
At face value this preprint study shows what I have been saying all through this thread: even in the lowest COVID risk group, the vaccine is still safer than the disease risk and the best bet for the individual as well as society.
Here are some other studies to read:
Largest Real-World Pfizer Safety Study to Date shows excellent safety and that complications rates in vaccinated group are lower than in unvaccinated who get COVID.
Largest real-world study of COVID-19 vaccine safety published
The Clalit Research Institute, in collaboration with researchers from Harvard University, analyzed one of the world's largest integrated health record databases to examine the safety of the Pfizer/BioNTech BNT162B2 vaccine against COVID-19. The study provides the largest peer-reviewed evaluation...
MMWR a classroom Delta outbreak with a 50% attack rate on the students from an unvaxxed infected teacher:
Outbreak Associated with SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 (Delta)...
COVID-19 outbreak associated with an unvaccinated infected teacher in an elementary school from May–June 2021 in Marin County, California.
www.cdc.gov
6mo post infection 1 in 6 COVID survivors have a new neuro/psych dx:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(21)00084-5/fulltext
Delta appears to be more virulent (higher hospitalization risk):
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00475-8/fulltext
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SandpitMedic
Crowd pleaser
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Good studies but the 1:20k CYP deaths appears to be incorrectly interpreted1 in 20K CYP died of COVID in their dataset. The vaccine death rate is <<1 in 1M. This tracks with other complications which are vastly more common in cases of COVID illness than from vaccination. This is before considering the apparent (see below) increased virulence of Delta.
The vaccine reduces risk of infection, transmission, illness, hospitalization, long term sequelae, and death from COVID and these beneficial reductions are much greater than the risk of the vaccine.
I'd note that preprint uses some very funny math for risk calculations based on incidence vs whole population instead of in affected population, note that is is the same BS math that COVID deniers were using early in the pandemic to say that "99.999% of people survive COVID" (because they took the whole population as the denominator and very few had gotten COVID).
At face value this preprint study shows what I have been saying all through this thread: even in the lowest COVID risk group, the vaccine is still safer than the disease risk and the best bet for the individual as well as society.
Here are some other studies to read:
Largest Real-World Pfizer Safety Study to Date shows excellent safety and that complications rates in vaccinated group are lower than in unvaccinated who get COVID.
Largest real-world study of COVID-19 vaccine safety published
The Clalit Research Institute, in collaboration with researchers from Harvard University, analyzed one of the world's largest integrated health record databases to examine the safety of the Pfizer/BioNTech BNT162B2 vaccine against COVID-19. The study provides the largest peer-reviewed evaluation...medicalxpress.com
MMWR a classroom Delta outbreak with a 50% attack rate on the students from an unvaxxed infected teacher:
Outbreak Associated with SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 (Delta)...
COVID-19 outbreak associated with an unvaccinated infected teacher in an elementary school from May–June 2021 in Marin County, California.
6mo post infection 1 in 6 COVID survivors have a new neuro/psych dx:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(21)00084-5/fulltext
Delta appears to be more virulent (higher hospitalization risk):
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00475-8/fulltext
“The mortality rate in CYP who died of SARS-CoV-2 was 0·2 per 100,000”
It does also say 5:100k (or 1:20k as you said) but that was people dying with C19 as opposed to of C19
Either way- delta is far more virulent and there is not much new data.
Also, you are set in “camp mandatory vaccine” for all, apparently including children once the gov gives the green light. That’s okay. You can have whatever opinion you want, I do not expect you to change your mind.
I am not in that camp. Even with my experiences with patients and having a vaccine. I am not yet convinced it is safe or even necessary in children. They are the absolute lowest risk category. We are always one mutation away from a virus wiping out the children and us, but we are not there yet.
I would like to see more of a safety profile before giving the okay to vaccinate the CYP.
SandpitMedic
Crowd pleaser
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Good info there. ThanksLargest Real-World Pfizer Safety Study to Date shows excellent safety and that complications rates in vaccinated group are lower than in unvaccinated who get COVID.
Largest real-world study of COVID-19 vaccine safety published
The Clalit Research Institute, in collaboration with researchers from Harvard University, analyzed one of the world's largest integrated health record databases to examine the safety of the Pfizer/BioNTech BNT162B2 vaccine against COVID-19. The study provides the largest peer-reviewed evaluation...