COVID-19 thread

[Vardelm]

Yes and no. I think it's a trust issue in general, but not necessarily trust in the healthcare system.
We have a decent healthcare system in France and yet our relative share of anti-vaxxers is comparable to the US.
But, just like the Americans, we tend to have very low trust in our institutions.

This. Those that are anti-vaxx (in the U.S.) have been taught to distrust anything related to the gub'ment, which means anything they see as part of a liberal beaurocracy: government organizations, universities, etc. When health care professionals and the system at large are giving the same message as Fauci and similar "conspirators", they get lumped in to the "do not trust" bucket in a knee-jerk reaction. By and large, I would say Americans trust their local doctors, nurses, hospitals, etc. to provide quality care.

[Raholeun]

Out of self-protection I will try to ignore the ephemera posts from now on, the animosity is fucking with my serentity.

Compulsory vaccination and domiciliary arrest are TOTALITARIAN measures.

May I suggest compulsory vaccination along with compulsory imprisonment for negligent homicide?

I will pray for you...

[Talskubilos]

Compulsory vaccination and domiciliary arrest are TOTALITARIAN measures.

May I suggest compulsory vaccination along with compulsory imprisonment for negligent homicide?

Do you refer to the deaths caused by COVID-19?

[Ares Land]

Compulsory vaccination and domiciliary arrest are TOTALITARIAN measures.

May I suggest compulsory vaccination along with compulsory imprisonment for negligent homicide?

Do you refer to the deaths caused by COVID-19?

Your point being?

I think exposing your point clearly would be a lot better than non-sequiturs followed by a random smiley.

[Talskubilos]

I think exposing your point clearly would be a lot better than non-sequiturs followed by a random smiley.

OK. My point is vaccines are drugs at the experimental stage, so people getting the jab are guinea pigs.

[Ares Land]

Despite the vaccines getting through clinical trials?

[Talskubilos]

Despite the vaccines getting through clinical trials?

Yes, because they're still on phase III.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phases_of ... l_research

[bradrn]

Despite the vaccines getting through clinical trials?

Yes, because they're still in phase III.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phases_of ... l_research

Only if you’re being extraordinarily pedantic. In real life, we now have more than enough data to conclusively show that the vaccines are both extraordinarily effective and very safe. Whatever the bar might normally be to approve a vaccine, we’ve jumped right over it.

(Keep in mind that the traditional phases of clinical research are there only as a process verify that a drug is (a) effective and (b) safe. They become totally redundant if we already know that both of these apply.)

[Ares Land]

That's not entirely true. A first series of Phase III trials has been run -- these are mandatory for approval. These have been finished. There are more Phase III trials underway, but that is standard procedure for new medicine.

The clinical trials were as satisfactory as they're going to get. Again, what would you prefer?
Waiting a few years to be sure, as I've seen suggested, is not feasible. The pandemic will keep going on (with the assorted deaths, plus economic and social damage as a result of the pandemic and quarantines, hence further deaths.)
If we wait five years, it's likely new variant would make the testes vaccines pointless.

If we can't use vaccines, what sort of strategy should we use to handle the pandemic?

[Vardelm]

If we can't use vaccines, what sort of strategy should we use to handle the pandemic?

Clearly we're dealing with an epidemiological expert who is also a public policy expert, so we should listen attentively to what he says.

[Travis B.]

Compulsory vaccination and domiciliary arrest are TOTALITARIAN measures.

Umm more people are going to die unless we manage to reach herd immunity, and trying to be nice about things obviously is not working - if it would have worked it would have worked a while ago. Unfortunately there are too many antivaxxers, and politely asking them hasn't worked, so "totalitarian", to use your word (as if that necessarily made it wrong), measures are necessary at this point.

[Travis B.]

I think exposing your point clearly would be a lot better than non-sequiturs followed by a random smiley.

OK. My point is vaccines are drugs at the experimental stage, so people getting the jab are guinea pigs.

Umm no. We know that they are safe and effective at this point, and the whole "non-experimental" thing is merely a formality at this point.

[Travis B.]

This. Those that are anti-vaxx (in the U.S.) have been taught to distrust anything related to the gub'ment, which means anything they see as part of a liberal beaurocracy: government organizations, universities, etc. When health care professionals and the system at large are giving the same message as Fauci and similar "conspirators", they get lumped in to the "do not trust" bucket in a knee-jerk reaction.

A good sign that people are right-wing scumbags, which very many of these anti-vaxxers are, is if they use the words "liberal elite" seriously.

[fusijui]

Despite the vaccines getting through clinical trials?

Yes, because they're still on phase III.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phases_of ... l_research

If you're taking prescription drugs in the USA, about 50-60% of them in any given year are in ongoing Phase III trials. Perhaps you don't understand how clinical trials work?

[Talskubilos]

Umm no. We know that they are safe and effective at this point, and the whole "non-experimental" thing is merely a formality at this point.

Once again, WHO's "we"?

[Talskubilos]

Umm more people are going to die unless we manage to reach herd immunity, and trying to be nice about things obviously is not working - if it would have worked it would have worked a while ago. Unfortunately there are too many antivaxxers, and politely asking them hasn't worked, so "totalitarian", to use your word (as if that necessarily made it wrong), measures are necessary at this point.

As a matter of fact, COVID-19 mortality is pretty low on the general population, as most people suffer the disease with only mild symptoms. By enforcing vaccination, you'll get more virus strains through mutations and the "plandemics" will last longer.

[Travis B.]

Umm no. We know that they are safe and effective at this point, and the whole "non-experimental" thing is merely a formality at this point.

Once again, WHO's "we"?

Of course, people who have a reasonable level of knowledge about how the world really works, rather than idiotically spout off about conspiracies and whatnot. Yes, you are the they, one of those who stand between people who would like to see this pandemic come to an end and it actually coming to and end. People like you are why we will be stuck with COVID-19 forever.

[Travis B.]

Umm more people are going to die unless we manage to reach herd immunity, and trying to be nice about things obviously is not working - if it would have worked it would have worked a while ago. Unfortunately there are too many antivaxxers, and politely asking them hasn't worked, so "totalitarian", to use your word (as if that necessarily made it wrong), measures are necessary at this point.

As a matter of fact, COVID-19 mortality is pretty low on the general population, as most people suffer the disease with only mild symptoms. By enforcing vaccination, you'll get more virus strains through mutations and the "plandemics" will last longer.

1-2% death toll is not "pretty low" whatsoever. (Just for the record, the US has now matched the death toll from the Spanish Flu.) And this is ignoring "long COVID", the symptoms that may last for months and often be debilitating for people long after they have cleared the virus from their systems. Something like 1/4 of people who contract COVID have lasting sequelae. And this is ignoring the sheer overload the health care systems have been facing with massive numbers of people needing to be hospitalized. (There have been people dying of other diseases because they have been turned away from every single hospital they tried to go to to only be turned away for lack of beds.) And enforcing vaccination is exactly what we need, to stop the virus once and for all before it can sufficiently mutate; people not getting vaccinated is exactly allowing the virus to mutate, such that it will eventually get around the vaccines. "Natural herd immunity" means 1-2% of the population dying, and 25% of the population having lasting sequelae.

Anyways, your use of the word "plandemic" along makes it clear that you are just yet another conspiracy theorist. To be honest, I'd call you, like all your antivaxxer brethren, yet another enemy of society, of all those who actually want all this to end.

[Nortaneous]

For whatever reason, people started promoting ivermectin as a treatment for COVID. In response, everyone started hearing about how people shouldn't take ivermectin because it's a "horse dewormer", for reasons that include "the Responsible Authorities [in the typical DC progressives sense] said so".

What is this nefarious lie supposed to be? That people aren't taking horse dewormer? But they are.

People are taking veterinary formulations of a compound used in humans, as they have since forever. This is neither new nor relevant. If ivermectin is ineffective against COVID-19, ivermectin is ineffective against COVID-19; if it's not, it's not. If the doses necessary to demonstrate in vitro antiviral effects are toxic, the doses necessary to demonstrate in vitro antiviral effects are toxic.

If the anti-ivermectin messaging were entirely about this distinction, that would at least be an excuse. It wouldn't be a great one - people take veterinary formulations all the time, since they're often affordable when human formulations aren't - but there's some philosophical distinction between "don't take horse paste" and "ivermectin is horse paste".

Ivermectin is ineffective against COVID-19. The doses necessary to demonstrate in vitro antiviral effects are toxic. To make a case against treating COVID with ivermectin, you don't have to say anything false, you don't have to use repeated association to lead your audience to believe anything false, you don't have to strongly imply anything false, and you don't have to take any other action that, in both common and technical English, falls under the category of lying.

Umm, sorry, but the problem is that people are taking horse dewormer.

No, the problem is that people are taking toxic doses of a thing that doesn't work. The other problem is that people trust untrustworthy authorities because there are no trustworthy ones.

This is an interesting argument, but I’m not sure it’s necessary to be quite this cynical. I personally suspect the root cause of this is basically a game of Telephone: maybe the reasonable people in the Department of Health (or whatever you Americans call it) started out by saying ‘people are overdosing on ivermectin packaged for horses’, but that was restated as ‘people are using dewormer intended for horses’ and then ‘people are eating horse dewormer’, and before you know it you have one more thing for both sides to get upset about. Thus is partisanship maintained in the world.

That's still an extremely bad situation. How did so many people in the chain of transmission not look it up? And FDA's official messaging didn't help - a lie by association is still a lie. (Not that anyone should trust FDA anyway - they'll probably tell you not to do ketamine.)

[Travis B.]

[snip]

You're splitting hairs. The reason why people are overdosing is that they are taking veterinary formulations of ivermectin, i.e. horse dewormer, because they involve substantially higher doses than human formulations of ivermectin.