I didn’t tag you into my original post concerning the NEJ study showing that the available vaccines are effective against the Delta variant
That's not what we're debating anyway.
I’m curious if you’re vaccinated or not? I ask because I’m interested in the cultural factors that produce vaccine hesitancy.
No. I have heavy-grade asthma, my own doc advised a wait-n-see. My own case is a bit complicated, due to all manner of potential cross-reactions & sensitivities. I can go into detail if anyone's truly interested...maybe later. Any fellow asthmatics reading this that would prefer PM you can write me anytime.
I'm not anti-vax. I've taken them for other things, I allow my son to have the usuals. With Covid-vaccines, I support anyone wanting to take them, and I understand & accept they protect the patient.
My views on defending the unvaxxed against claims they are dangerous and deserving of punishments are unrelated to my own unvaxxed status, honestly. I have a thing about creeping fascism and I see it a lot in the pandemic's response. Hence the last few pages.
So a reminder again:
The debate is if the unvaxxed represent an increased danger to society, and whether their freedoms should be curtailed.
That's been the debate the whole time.
I’m not bothered about all that I’m trying to understand your position
so you accept the premise that vaccines mean people are better protected.
Yes, if you mean better protected from serious illness/death.
Given that, do you think that the more people vaccinated the better?
If
better means less deaths/hospitalisations, then sure. Just like it would be
better if no one drank alcohol or smoked or took drugs, as that would mean less deaths from them. Better if everyone drove carefully all the time, reducing the risk of traffic deaths. Better if no one got into fights, we could ban casual sex to prevent HIV-spread, we could put the suicidal in asylums to prevent self-harm, or all manner of other things we can do
better to reduce the risk of people dying.
Or...we accept the world can be messy, chaotic and risky. With new risks arriving all the time. We accept risks if it means we have freedom-of-choice. And that's why we have a tax/NI-system which pays for medical-care structures to help people, regardless of how they got into their predicament.
Educate the people that taking the vaccine is
better for them. Then let them make their own choice.
I’m not surprised that you didn’t accept the source or the findings, as it strongly suggests your claim about the risk levels of the unvaccinated to be incorrect.
I already explained it's not
scientific proof as human behaviour can explain the 3:1 ratio. Any serious scientist reading this should be able to confirm that the data is inconclusive (if the conclusion is to be that the unvaxxed are more of a danger to others than the vaxxed).
You could just admit that you were thinking in terms of the relative risk levels of those who had COVID, and hadn’t considered the evidence of the reduced chance of catching COVID, which changes the risk levels, but you’re now just doubling down to maintain your position.
I have considered it, I explained it already: human behaviour may be the cause of the 3:1 ratio (not the vaccine).
The bit in bold is a ‘just so’ story, which you have no evidence for.
It's not a just-so, it's a reasonable assumptive real-world explanation based on real data like the demographics of the vaxxed vx the unvaxxed.
We'd need to prove that the vaccinated physically infect less people than the unvaccinated, to prove that we need all else being equal (lab conditions).
We haven't yet had such a study.
We have, however, already had lab-condition studies showing us that the viral loads of the vaccinated are equal to the loads of the unvaccinated. A reasonable assumption here is that the infection rates may also be equal.
Inconclusive then.
I think you are missing a point here. The 3:1 might not be the actual figure in a closed test. But that is the figure in the real world we live in. The Wisconsin figure you posted and the Imperial study some of us posted are real world figures. Currently you are 3 times more likely to get covid if you are unvaccinated. That is the most important statistic.
That's a misinterpretation of the 3:1 ratio. It depends on the person: a vaccinated 30-year old party-goer will more likely get infected than an unvaxxed 50-year old spinster, as the 30-year old will more likely come into viral contact. But as the majority of unvaxxed are more your 18-30 sociable lot, and the majority of vaxxed are more your 40-99 quieter types...then we see where this 3:1 ratio comes from.
There's no hard evidence that the vaccine itself is responsible for the 3:1 ratio.
There is currently no scientific study out there that says you are better off not being vaccinated.
I didn't say there was.
If I spoke to someone who had studied all the science around how vaccines work and what is used in the covid vaccines and told me there is legitimate reason to be worried, I would listen to their argument.
But no one has done that. We know what is in the vaccines. We know how the AZ vaccine works as it isn’t new in terms of administering to people. The MRNA vaccines are new in terms of being used on humans, but there are decades of research behind them. And if you read about the potential benefits of them then you will see they could be game changers. Not just for things like covid but many other illnesses.
You can’t wait for something to be proven 100% effective until you use it. And no drug or vaccine is 100% effective anyway.
That's not the debate.
The debate is if the unvaxxed represent an increased danger to society, and whether their freedoms should be curtailed.
That's been the debate the whole time.
The funniest thing is I haven't a clue what the debate actually is. Ostensibly about vaccine efficacy, I think. But in reality it's about best inclusion and explanation of biomedical research. Choice.
The debate is if the unvaxxed represent an increased danger to society, and whether their freedoms should be curtailed.
That's been the debate the whole time.
No one does...it's a sargasso of sh!tposting contrarian-ness with selective attention to some posts and convenient ignoring of others.
I've handled pretty much every post. What have I "conveniently ignored"?
And a deep deep misunderstanding of the scientific process and how science is distributed via journals.
What have i "deeply misunderstood"?
