One of my go-to sites for pandemic information is Kevin Roche's healthy-skeptic site. He sticks to the data and evidence and avoids the hysterics and polemics found in most media reporting. In an op-ed published by the Star Tribune he writes:
Our current problem is not that large numbers of people aren't vaccinated, but that notwithstanding extremely high levels of vaccination, we see ongoing significant numbers of cases, hospitalizations and deaths and renewed epidemic waves in different regions.
Governments emphasize the unvaccinated as the source of transmission, and we frequently hear that it is now an "epidemic of the unvaccinated." This is not true and we are actually headed toward an epidemic, if it even remains an epidemic, of the vaccinated.
He concludes:
In light of the reality that vaccines are not performing as we were told they would, an exit plan that ends our coronavirus obsession must primarily be attitudinal in nature. The true state of the epidemic and the damage being done by our misguided efforts to suppress a virus that cannot be suppressed must be acknowledged. We have seen several European countries take the more enlightened approach that all epidemic restrictions must end and the total well-being of all citizens must be the primary concern, not a monomaniacal focus on preventing COVID-19 cases, which cannot be accomplished in any event
He has a follow up on his blog in which he further writes along the same lines:
True leadership right now would be to boldly tell the public that the vaccines can help most people avoid serious illness, that they won’t do much for the frail elderly, that thank God CV-19 isn’t much of a threat to children so we don’t need to force them to be vaccinated, that CV-19 is largely substitutive for influenza, and we simply can’t go on doing the kind of damage to our society that current and past suppression attempts have done. Don’t hold your breath waiting for that kind of leadership, unless you live in Florida.
I'm skeptical of skeptics who ignore salient facts like this: most deaths and healthcare-system stress (e.g. lack of intensive-care beds) due to CoViD-19 in any region or country you care to name that has ready access to the Pfizer, Moderna, and J&J CoViD-19 vaccines are due to unvaccinated people. That said, various indoor sites (e.g. schools, offices) will be able to wind down mask mandates and the like when vaccination for CoViD-19 is as ubiquitous as, say, vaccination for DTaP.
ReplyDeleteRead the first sentence of the last paragraph I quoted -- "True leadership right now would be to boldly tell the public that the vaccines can help most people avoid serious illness." IOW, the vaccinated won't end up in the hospital (that is where you go when you have serious illness, right?). The author is in agreement with the "salient fact" you think should make one skeptical of his argument, so I don't see the point you are trying to make.
DeleteThe problem is that people hear what they want to and panic over it. "can help most people avoid serious illness" turns into "not all people are protected" turns into "OMG! What if I or someone I love is one of those unlucky people" turns into "we have to keep everything shut down so that I or someone I love won't catch this thing!"
DeleteMedia is a part of it too. People die from the flu every year, some of them are vaccinated as well but we never shut down schools or shopping malls because someone in them sneezed or had a fever. There was a level of risk tolerance and, frankly, shomer psa'im HaShem. Now we've got a large number of people who have decided that the only acceptable approach is ZERO risk tolerance and who want everyone to remain masked and isolated until CoVID magically goes away.
> Read the first sentence of the last paragraph I quoted <
DeleteI read it, thank you, and it's essentially a contradiction of the [first sentence of the] first paragraph you quoted.
Remember that the point of vaccines, masks and other precautions is to slow the spread of the virus so the hospitals don't get overrun and we don't get scenes like Italy's back at the beginning with bodies piled up in the streets.
ReplyDeleteSo yes, even with vaccines we will continue to have spread but it will spread at a slow pace until everyone is either vaccinated, infected/recovered or both.
In addition, the skeptic has to acknowledge vaccines aren't 100% so yes, many vaccinated people will get CoVID but they will mostly recover.
The exit strategy is to get to a point where, despite CoVID floating around, hospitals maintain reasonable volumes.
The problem is that too many people have decide that they're going to wait until CoVID is gone (won't happen) and too many politicians have encouraged them to think that's a possibility.
> The exit strategy is to get to a point where, despite CoVID floating around, hospitals maintain reasonable volumes.
DeleteThe problem is that too many people have decide that they're going to wait until CoVID is gone (won't happen) and too many politicians have encouraged them to think that's a possibility. <
Hospitals are doing just fine, thank you, in areas where most residents are vaccinated. The problem is that there are a lot of areas where most residents are not vaccinated.