BF2S Forums Pandemic thread

Covid is real, vaccines are tested.

Dilbert_X wrote:

Sure, but no-one can say these vaccines - new and untested vaccine technology for a novel virus for which there has never been a vaccine - are wholly without risk. That would be a world-first.
And I'm sure the Russian and Chinese vaccines are flaky as fuck.

We're exchanging one set of somewhat known risks for another set of unknown risks.

amazing. 'without risk'.

we do understand the risks of the vaccines, by administering millions of them across the widest genetic test pool pretty much ever utilised for a vaccine.

is there still a risk of 'unforeseen' consequences? well, in about the same way as there's a risk of unforeseen consequences of established science contradicting itself in any discipline in the future. we have oodles of established data about the rate of gravity on Earth, which could change tomorrow -- it's vastly unlikely but still a possibility. so i suppose you're technically right. that's the thing with inductive reasoning and the scientific method: there's always the logical possibility of contradictory data.

the idea that we will suddenly wake up in 2035 and discover we've all been injected with a biological 'doomsday' device because of mRNA's overlooked lethality, er, when it's merely a protein that instructs our immune system to produce an antibody ... well, let's just say i'm hedging my bets with the world virology community who have had their eyes trained on this topic for the last 15 years. what's your qualification for all this hedging and doubt again? oh, right, yeah, generalised mistrust. great stuff.

as an engineer talking about the 'risks' associated with the vaccines, you must surely know that the 'risks' associated with catching the disease are 100x worse in almost every single category ("vaccines can cause heart inflammation!" yes, as can covid, and does so in 10x more cases). you presumably also know the 'risks' in dicking around with target pistols at shooting ranges; of getting behind the wheel to drive a car; of going out in rain and thunderstorms; etc, etc, etc. even with regards to biology and medicine, you KNOW THE RISKS when you consume alcohol; when you take an aspirin; when you fail to work-out and get cardio exercise every week; you know the risks when you accept life-saving cancer treatments; you know the risks when you accept interventionist surgeries, etc. so why are you insisting the whole world adopts an absolutely margin-free, zero-risk strategy towards vaccination?

what are the 'risks' of covid escaping from quarantine/lockdown measures? what kept happening continuously, in places like new zealand, china and australia with the (much less transmissible) delta variant? was it not the case that the small risk of covid escape kept leading to 'exceptions' and leaks and then undoing weeks/months of work, costing billions to the economy and immeasurable human misery? but hmm, yeah, let's substitute your preferred type of 'risk' for those other scary-sounding 'risks'.

they are the best tools we have. it is really as simple as that. imperfect? perhaps. much like your proposed imperfect solutions.

the reason this last, most severe and most overwhelming wave of covid has not had catastrophic results, runaway deaths, exponential fatality, etc, is because of vaccines. it's that simple. you keep talking vaguely about 'lots of deaths' with omicron. really? figures needed. deaths in the unvaccinated are less than a fraction of 1 percent.

countries like korea, which have always exercised a maximum of caution and been applauded as a case-study by the world epidemiological community, have read the data on omicron and continued to relax their restrictions despite having their highest ever caseload by an order of magnitude. for the history of this pandemic it caused national shock and panic if their case load went above 1000+ a day. now they're at 100,000 a day and continuing to reopen apace. why would a government that has been a paragon of probity adopt this path now? maybe ... maybe dilbert doesn't know best?

Last edited by uziq (2022-02-21 04:25:14)

Everything has a risk, to say these vaccines are risk-free is asinine.

you keep talking vaguely about 'lots of deaths' with omicron. really? figures needed. deaths in the unvaccinated are less than a fraction of 1 percent

With millions of people being infected that fraction of 1% is non-trivial.

Just think, any day now we'll exceed the six million people who died in WW2.

I keep forgetting, people besides jews died in WW2.

Maybe we should have WW2 memorials and museums to go alongside the holocaust ones.

yes it does. the people dying of omicron, as with all previous variants, are disproportionately stacked towards the unvaccinated.

please stop distorting a very clear picture: the greatest bulwark against serious illness and death is VACCINATION.

your entire argument makes zero fucking sense.

you are essentially saying that we need perfect information or beyond-all-reasonable-doubt to proceed with vaccines.

but when vaccines were racing to be developed, thousands of people were dying every day. every delay and wait meant, in a direct way, tens of thousands more avoidable deaths. waiting for perfect information would have increased the death toll of this pandemic by an order of magnitude.

then, a year after being delivered from a possibly exponential and endless cycle of death, you start saying 'hmm, the vaccines aren't good, we need more data' ... 'just think, so many millions have died of covid ...'. are you fucking dense? vaccines have precisely been such a success story because they delivered us from a situation of mass death that was only set to accelerate and increase. like, what are you EVEN saying?

Last edited by uziq (2022-02-21 05:43:45)

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1495 … 66822?s=21

A flurry of new studies suggests three — or even two — Covid vaccine doses can provide long-term protection from serious illness and death.

I feel like the U.S. shouldn't have any Holocausts memorials. That whole thing had nothing to do with us.

There is a local memorial to the Katyn massacre that people are trying to get relocated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katy%C5%84_Memorial_(Jersey_City)

I think it should be moved. There is no Polish community in Jersey City anymore. I believe they were on their last legs when this thing even went up in '91. The massacre had nothing to do with us. Katyn has little connection to the 65% of the city that is Hispanic, Black, or Azn. It is not much different than a confederate statue. Symbol of the old power structure desperate to be remembered. 

"The earth belongs always to the living generation." - Thomas Jefferson

I would be strongly against them putting up a statue to George Floyd or MLK in its place.

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

SuperJail Warden wrote:

That whole thing had nothing to do with us.

Dubious. The US gov't turned away Jewish refugees, and Hitler drew inspiration from American racism and works such as The International Jew.

mac wrote:

"The earth belongs always to the living generation." - Thomas Jefferson

Imagine quoting something written by someone long dead to back up your spiel about how we shouldn't remember dead people.

So the Holocausts is America's fault now?

America is going to be minority-majority within our lifetime no matter what white people do. It might be for the best if we downplay the racist parts of our history. The Chinese are the real racist anyway.

Just another thing to stick in Dilbert's craw:

Names of Japanese submariners who died off Australian shores in WWII battle etched into history on Darwin beach
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-18/ … /100843464

SuperJail Warden wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Just another thing to stick in Dilbert's craw:

Names of Japanese submariners who died off Australian shores in WWII battle etched into history on Darwin beach
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-18/ … /100843464

At least the battle was in Australia. It is not like they put the memorial in Spain which is the equivalent of the Katyn statue in New Jersey.

I could see splitting that attitude down into parts of a country, cities, or even parts of town. Maybe for someone to whom New Jersey is their whole world with no self awareness of that, it would be easy to overlook the commonality that all these deaths and events for which monuments have been erected and histories recorded have all taken place among humans on Earth.

Sounds like something that would make people feel uncomfortable about American history. Cancel that and go shoot off some American fireworks.